ACCORDS REACHED IN BIRMINGHAM
The business & civic leaders of Birmingham, Alabama have agreed today to a compromise with the leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
The city has been troubled over the past week with civil rights demonstrations & over reaction to them by local law enforcement officials.
The accords have been negotiated by Robert Kennedy's Assistant Attorney General, Burke Marshall.
By the agreement, the city of Birmingham will desegregate stores & public facilities & will release all those civil rights protesters who were put in jail.
In return, the SCLC will cancel future civil rights demonstrations & boycotts planned for Birmingham.*
*This good day for the city quickly turned sour when bombs exploded near Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s motel & at his brother's home. These events were followed by city wide riots.
Alabama Theater
Downtown Birmingham, Alabama
Photo by Melinda Shelton (2010)
May 10, 1961
JFK WELCOMES FOREIGN STUDENTS
President & Mrs. Kennedy welcomed a thousand foreign students to the White House today.
JFK & the 1st Lady hosted the event on the South Lawn.
The President told the foreign students:
"All of our strengths & weaknesses are on display...& I hope you will....realize that (our) diversity...is not a source of weakness but a source of strength."
JFK Welcomes Guests
JFK Library Photo
May 10, 1940
CHURCHILL BECOMES PM AS NAZIS INVADE HOLLAND & BELGIUM
Neville Chamberlain resigned as Prime Minister of Britain today & Parliament has selected Winston Churchill to take his place.
As Churchill assumed the position, word came that Hitler's Germany has invaded both Holland & Belgium.
German Troops In Rotterdam
May 1940
Deutsches Bundes Archiv
May 10, 1877
PRESIDENT HAYES LIKES NEW TELEPHONE
President Rutherford B. Hayes has had a telephone installed at the White House.
The President, who said he likes the new device, will have to walk to the Telegraph Room, where it has been set up, to use it.
He will also not have a great many choices of people to talk with on the instrument because it is only connected with the Treasury Department.
Mr. Hayes should have no trouble remembering his own telephone number, #1.
1877 Telephone
May 10, 1869
TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD OPENED IN UTAH
California Governor Leland Stanford struck a "golden spike" with a hammer today at Promontory Point, Utah, officially completing America's 1st transcontinental railroad.
For the 1st time, the Atlantic & Pacific Oceans are linked by rail.
Two locomotives faced each other on the last track. One from the Central Pacific RR Company which built eastward from California & the other from the Union Pacific RR Company which built westward from Nebraska.
The transcontinental railroad will make it possible to travel from coast to coast in a matter of days instead of months.
"The Last Spike"
Painting by Thomas Hill (1881)
May 10, 1863
STONEWALL JACKSON IS DEAD
Confederate General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson died on this Sunday near Chancellorsville, Virginia.
The cause of death was given as pneumonia but this was a complication of being shot in the left arm by one of his own men as he returned from a scouting patrol on the evening of the 1st day of the recent Battle of Chancellorsville.
Before his death, Robert E. Lee received word of Jackson's arm being amputated in an attempt to save his life. General Lee said: "Jackson has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right arm."
General Jackson earned his nickname for his famous stand at the 1st Battle of Manassas or Bull Run in July 1861.
His loss is likely to prove costly to Southern fortunes in the days ahead.
His loss is likely to prove costly to Southern fortunes in the days ahead.
Stonewall Jackson
Painting by David Bendann
