On this day American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh completed the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to Paris. He had obtained financial backing from a group of St. Louis, Missouri, businessmen to compete for the $25,000 prize offered for the feat. In the monoplane Spirit of St. Louis, he made the flight in 331/2 hours, and overnight, literally, Lindbergh became a folk hero on both sides of the Atlantic.
| 1972: | | | Michelangelo's Pietà, depicting the Virgin Mary supporting the body of the dead Christ, was attacked and badly damaged in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. |
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| 1932: | | | American aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to pilot an airplane solo across the Atlantic Ocean. |
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| 1871: | | The Commune of Paris revolted against the French national government under Adolphe Thiers, beginning a period of violence known as “Bloody Week.” |
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| 1856: | | During the small civil war known as Bleeding Kansas—a dispute over control of the new territory of Kansas under the doctrine of popular sovereignty—the town of Lawrence was sacked by a proslavery mob intent on destroying the “hotbed of abolitionism.” |
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| 1542: | | Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto, the first European to discover the Mississippi River, died and is buried in the river in Louisiana. |
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