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Important events in history include the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln (1863), the signing of the Jay Treaty between the US and Great Britain (1794), the first summit meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev (1985), the sinking of HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran (1941), the Apollo 12 mission landing on the moon (1969), Pennzoil winning a lawsuit against Texaco (1985), the announcement of the Sixth Loan War (1944), the first British National Lottery draw (1994), Bonnie and Clyde’s first robbery (1930), and Milli Vanilli losing their Grammy Award due to lip-synching (1990).
The Gettysburg Address was delivered. (1863) United States President Abraham Lincoln delivered the two-minute inspirational speech, beginning with the now-famous words “Four score and seven years ago…” at the dedication ceremony of the National Soldiers’ Cemetery.
The Jay Treaty was signed by the United States and Great Britain. (1794) Treaty settled the unresolved issues of the American Revolutionary War, creating a peace settlement between the United States and Great Britain. The treaty allowed free trade between the countries for a period of 10 years, but failed in 1803. The Treaty of Ghent took its place in 1815, which ended the War of 1812.
The first summit meeting between US President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev took place. (1985) The meeting produced no tangible results, but it did establish a bond between the two leaders that would lead to subsequent arms control agreements.
The Royal Australian Navy suffered its greatest loss of life in its history when the naval vessels HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran were both sunk in a WWII battle. (1941) On the German HSK Kormoran, 77 sailors were killed, but all 645 crew on the Australian HMAS Sydney were lost, as were the ship itself. The war disaster was also the largest Allied loss of a warship with all of her crew dying during World War II. The two shipwrecks were not finally located until 2008.
NASA’s Apollo 12 mission landed the third and fourth man on the moon. (1969) Alan Bean and Pete Conrad were the third and fourth astronauts to walk on the Moon.
US oil company Pennzoil won the largest civil lawsuit in US history at the time, winning a lawsuit against US oil company Texaco. (1985) The court ruled in Pennzoil’s favor when the company sued its competitor Texaco for attempting to illegally buy Getty Oil Company after Pennzoil already had a binding contract to do so. The court awarded Pennzoil in damages in excess of $10 billion United States Dollars (USD).
Sixth Loan War Announced. (6) In order to raise more funds for the war effort, US President Franklin Roosevelt approved the sale of war bonds totaling $1.944 billion. In all, World War II cost the United States about $14 trillion dollars, when adjusted for inflation.
The first British National Lottery draw was held. (1994) Early lottery ticket buyers had a 1 in 14 million chance of hitting the jackpot. Legal lotteries in the United States date back to 1934, when the state lottery of Puerto Rico was established; Next up was New Hampshire, which started its lottery in 1964.
Bonnie and Clyde pull off their first robbery. (1930) The couple’s robbery and killing spree lasted for four years, until they were killed by policemen in Louisiana on May 23, 1934.
Pop band Milli Vanilli lost the Grammy Award. (1990) The musical duo, Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan, had won the Best New Artist Grammy earlier that year. As it turned out, however, Pilatus and Morvan were lip-synching: the vocals recorded on the winning album weren’t actually theirs, and during stage performances they would lip-sync to the recorded music. They were first arrested during a live broadcast on MTV, during which the record skipped and repeated a chorus of a song over and over; the pair tried to fake their way through, but ended up running off stage.
