TUESDAY, MAY 10, 2011

Today is Tuesday, May 10, the 130th day of 2011. There are 235 days left in the year.

1497 ― Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci leaves for first voyage to New World

1752 ― Benjamin Franklins first tests the lightning rod

1906 ― Russia's Duma (Parliament) meets for first time

1924 ― J. Edgar Hoover appointed head of the FBI

1940 ― Winston Churchill succeeds Neville Chamberlain as British P.M.

1963 ― Decca signs the Rolling Stones on advice of Beatle George Harrison

1972 ― Overloaded South Korean bus plunges into reservoir, killing 77

1983 ― Lee Chin-yong performs 170 continuous chin-ups in Seoul

1994 ― Nelson Mandela sworn in as South Africa's first black president

1994 ― Silvio Berlusconi forms Italian government with five neo-fascists