THE MAY 4 SHOOTINGS AT KENT STATE UNIVERSITY: THE SEARCH FOR HISTORICAL ACCURACY BY JERRY M. LEWIS and THOMAS R. HENSLEY INTRODUCTION On May 4, l970 members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine Kent State students. The impact of the shootings was dramatic. The event triggered a nationwide student strike that forced hundreds of colleges and universities to close. H. R. Haldeman, a top aide to President Richard Nixon, suggests the shootings had a direct impact on national politics. In The Ends of Power, Haldeman (1978) states that the shootings at Kent State began the slide into Watergate, eventually…

May 4, 1886: What begins as a peaceful labor protest in Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, turns into a riot, leaving more than 100 wounded and 8 police officers dead. After Chicago authorities arrested and detained nearly every anarchist and socialist in town, eight men, who were either speakers in or organizers of the protest, were charged with murder. The day before the riot, a couple of people were killed and others were wounded in an unprovoked attack by police officers firing into a crowd of striking workers at the nearby McCormick Reaper Works. Despite tension the following day, the crowd at Haymarket Square was listening quietly to speakers advocating…

American Revolution May 4, 1776: Rhode Island declares independence On this day in 1776, Rhode Island, the colony founded by the most radical religious dissenters from the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony, becomes the first North American colony to renounce its allegiance to King George III. Ironically, Rhode Island would be the last state to ratify the new American Constitution more than 14 years later on May 29, 1790. Rhode Island served as a mercantile center of the transatlantic slave trade in the 18th century. West Indian molasses became rum in Rhode Island distilleries, which was then traded on the West African coast for slaves. After taking their human cargo…

Published on History Today (http://www.historytoday.com)   Home > Treasures from the London Library: Training for martyrdom Treasures from the London Library: Training for martyrdom Dunia Garcia-Ontiveros Dunia Garcia-Ontiveros explores the work and influence of William Allen, who fought to restore Roman Catholicism to England during the reign of Elizabeth I. In 1558, Mary Tudor’s brief Catholic reign came to an end. Just as English Protestants who had fled to Lutheran and Calvinist havens on the continent began to return home, in Oxford and Cambridge, Catholic scholars who refused to conform to the new Elizabethan order packed their bags and planned their escape to France and the Spanish-ruled Low Countries. Some travelled…

Part of the wreckage of a U.S. military helicopter that crashed outside the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed. (European Pressphoto Agency / May 3, 2011)  By Ken Dilanian and Brian Bennett, Los Angeles TimesMay 3, 2011, 5:27 p.m. Reporting from Washington— U.S. commandos who attacked Osama bin Laden‘s compound were operating under rules of engagement that all but assured the Al Qaeda leader would be killed, officials have acknowledged, backing away from an initial account that Bin Laden was armed and used a woman as a shield. After saying Monday that the American operatives who raided the Pakistani compound had orders to capture Bin Laden if he gave himself up, U.S. officials Tuesday added an…