Today is Thursday, May 10, the 131st day of 2012. 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
1908 ― First Mother's Day observed (Philadelphia)
1959 ― Soviet forces arrive in Afghanistan
1972 ― Overloaded South Korean bus plunges into reservoir, killing 77
1981 ― Francois Mitterrand defeats Valery Giscard d'Estaing for president of France
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