FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2010

Today is Friday, May 21, the 141st day of 2010. There are 224 days left in the year.

1819 _ First bicycles (swift walkers) in U.S. introduced in NYC

1840 _ New Zealand became a British colony

1871 _ French regular troops attack Commune of Paris; 17,000 die

1892 _ Ruggiero Leoncavallo's opera ``I Pagliacci" premieres in Milan

1904 _ Federation Internationale de Football Association (Soccer) forms in Paris France

1925 _ Roald Amundsun leaves Spitsbergen with two seaplanes to North Pole

1927 _ Lindbergh lands in Paris France, after first solo air crossing of Atlantic

1945 _ Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart wed

1968 _ U.S. nuclear-powered sub (Scorpion), with 99 men, reported missing and is later found at the bottom of the ocean off Azores

1979 _ Elton John becomes first Western rocker to perform live in the USSR