May 24, 1844: Samuel Morse opens a telegraph line connecting Washington D.C. and Baltimore. 

Samuel Morse developed the electric telegraph and his eponymous code in 1836; by 1843, the U.S. government had appropriated to him $30,000 for the construction of an experimental 61 km telegraph line that would run from Washington D.C. to Baltimore - this line was completed in early 1844. It officially opened on May 24, 1844, when Morse sent the words “What hath God wrought” (a biblical quote from the Book of Numbers) from the Capitol to Baltimore. By 1861, telegraph lines spanned the continent, connecting the East and West coasts and rendering most other forms of communication obsolete.

Morse’s 1844 telegraph transmitted messages at a speed of thirty characters per minute, a speed that is simulated above. As telegraphs became more advanced (and operators more skilled), much higher transmission speeds were made possible as well.

May 21, 1927: Charles Lindbergh lands in Paris.

Eighty-five years ago to this day, thousands of spectators watched the aviator land his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, at Le Bourget Field  after completing a thirty-three hour transatlantic flight. Lindbergh had barely slept in over three days, but he found himself suddenly swamped by admirers who lifted him up over their heads and cheered their new (exhausted) American hero, who escaped the crowd only with the help of a group of French officials.

President Gaston Doumergue later personally bestowed upon Lindbergh the Légion d’honneur.

Footage found here.

May 18, 1955: Operation Passage to Freedom ends.

Between 1954 and 1955, following the end of the First Indochina War, the United States Navy and French military launched a massive evacuation of up to a million Vietnamese civilians and soldiers from North to South Vietnam. May 18 marked the end of the 300-day-long period during which residents of either zone could relocate freely in either direction.

Prior to the evacuation, estimates made by the South Vietnamese and French governments had predicted that between 10,000 and 50,000 refugees would evacuate south, and arrangements to accommodate this number were made. Ultimately, between 600,000 and 1 million left for the south, and hundreds of thousands of Catholics, who feared persecution under the communist regime, made up a large amount of these refugees. Less than one-tenth that number moved from the south to the north, and many were Việt Minh fighters.

(pictured: Major General Edward Lansdale, a military advisor who played a large role in the U.S.’s propaganda efforts during Operation Passage to Freedom.)

The effort was a humanitarian one, but it also proved useful as a tool of propaganda against communist North Vietnam. The United States actively attempted to convince residents in the north to migrate south (in order to vilify the North) through sometimes less-than-legitimate means - fake communist leaflets, false rumors of a looming Chinese invasion, the promise of an atomic attack by the United States against the North. The United States also granted payment to refugees who moved. The Việt Minh, in return,launched their own less-successful propaganda campaign to deter refugees from leaving North Vietnam. 

May 6, 1882: The Chinese Exclusion Act is signed into law.

In 1880, the Burlingame Treaty (which had established formal friendly relations between the United States and China) was amended in order to suspend Chinese immigration. Growing anti-Chinese sentiment, mostly resulting from low wages and unemployment, finally led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act. It excluded “skilled and unskilled laborers employed in mining” from entering the country for a ten-year period, and it also prohibited Chinese immigrants from attaining citizenship. The act was controversial, even at the time. Many businesspeople opposed it, resenting the restrictions on their supply of cheap labor; in contrast, most labor unions supported it, with the notable exception being the IWW. And, of course, many Americans supported it for simple race-related reasons.

For years, the Chinese-American population remained stagnant, unassimilated, and largely male. The 1943 Magnuson Act finally repealed the Exclusion Act, and it also allowed for the naturalization of some Chinese-Americans already living in the country; at the same time, it restricted the national quota of Chinese immigrants to the negligible amount of 105 per year. Not until 1965 was the outdated national-origins quota system abolished altogether. 

May 4, 1863: The Battle of Chancellorsville ends.

When Union Major General “Fighting” Joe Hooker’s 130,000-strong forces clashed with Robert E. Lee’s significantly smaller army in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, the hero of the Confederacy emerged victorious - to the shock of the North. Joseph Hooker, once considered a top-notch administrator, motivator of troops, and overall a vast improvement over some of his predecessors, had apparently “lost his nerve” a day into the battle on May 1; despite his enormous numerical advantage, he failed to take the offensive against Lee’s forces, which subsequently divided and flanked the Union army. Fighting on May 3, divided between Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and Salem Church, resulted in the bloodiest day of fighting of the Civil War, after Antietam.

When Abraham Lincoln learned of the defeat, he reportedly exclaimed “My God! My God! What will the country say?” Lincoln’s only consolation was that General “Stonewall” Jackson, one of the Confederacy’s most beloved commanders, had been wounded by his own men near the end of the battle. Jackson died a week later, a disastrous blow to the Confederacy’s war effort and morale, to which General Lee responded: “I have lost my right arm”.  

April 30, 1975: Saigon falls to North Vietnamese forces.

The Vietnam War outlasted John F. Kennedy, ruined Lyndon B. Johnson, and was ended (as far as American combat troops were concerned) by Richard Nixon in 1973. The last offensive of the war, however, lasted between December of 1974 and April 30, 1975, ending with the fall (or liberation) of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces. Saigon was thereafter officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City, and today, April 30 is celebrated in Vietnam as Liberation Day.

One of the most famous events that took place during the fall of Saigon was Operation Frequent Wind, a large-scale effort by the United States to evacuate Americans and Vietnamese out of the city. The Defense Attaché Office compound and the U.S. Embassy in Saigon were intended to be the main evacuation points of the operation (the latter less so), but the Embassy soon became the main focus as it was overwhelmed by desperate Vietnamese evacuees - some of whom had scaled barbed wire-covered walls in order to reach the helicopters. 

When the operation ended, hundreds of people were left behind, but some 7,000 were successfully evacuated by helicopter, including thousands of Vietnamese (many were granted entry into the United States). Although the efforts were considered fairly successful, President Ford later wrote in a letter regarding the events:

I pray that no future American President is ever faced with the grim options that confronted me as the military situation on the ground deteriorated… 

We did the best we could. History will judge whether we could have done better… A quarter century later, I still grieve over those we were unable to rescue.

An excellent collection of pictures from Operation Frequent Wind can be found here.