Today in history:
On May 1, 2011, President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden during a U.S. commando operation, which took place in Abbottabad, Pakistan in the early morning hours of May 2 local time.
Also on this date:
In 1866, three days of race-related rioting erupted in Memphis, Tennessee, as white mobs targeted Black people, 46 of whom were killed, along with two white people.
In 1931, the Empire State Building was dedicated in New York City; it would be the world’s tallest building for four decades.
In 1960, the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane over Sverdlovsk and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers.
In 1963, Jim Whittaker, joined by Sherpa mountaineer Nawang Gombu, became the first American to summit Mount Everest.
In 1964, the computer programming language BASIC (Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was first run by its inventors, Dartmouth College professors John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz.
In 1971, the national passenger rail service Amtrak went into operation.
In 2003, President George W. Bush, in a speech delivered from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln which bore a banner reading “Mission Accomplished,” stated, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” (The last U.S. combat troops would not withdraw from Iraq until December 2011.)
In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI beatified Pope John Paul II, moving his predecessor a step closer to sainthood in a Vatican Mass attended by some 1.5 million pilgrims.
In 2015, six Baltimore police officers were charged with felonies ranging from assault to murder in connection with the death of Freddie Gray, a Black man who’d suffered a spinal injury while riding in a police van. (None of the officers would ultimately be convicted.)
In 2020, U.S. regulators allowed emergency use of remdesivir, the first drug that appeared to help some COVID-19 patients recover faster.
