On This Day in:

1096 – Peter the Hermit and his army reached Hungary. They passed through without incident.

1450 – Jack Cade's Rebellion-Kentishmen revolted against King Henry VI.

1541 – Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River. He called it Rio de Espiritu Santo.

1794 – Antoine Lavoisier was executed by guillotine. He was the French chemist that discovered oxygen.

1794 – The United States Post Office was established.

1846 – The first major battle of the Mexican War was fought. The battle occurred in Palo Alto, TX.

1847 – The rubber tire was patented by Robert W. Thompson, leading to a boom in bicycle sales.

1879 – George Selden applied for the first automobile patent.

1884 – Harry S. Truman, 33rd president of the United States was born in Hannibal, Missouri.

1886 – Pharmacist Dr. John Styth Pemberton invented what would later be called 'Coca-Cola.'

1914 – The U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution that designated the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

1915 – H.P. Whitney's Regret became the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby.

1919 – The U.S. Navy's first transatlantic flight took off with three Curtiss NC flying boats.

1921 – Sweden abolished capital punishment.

1933 – Gandhi began a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.

1939 – Clay Puett's electric starting gate was used for the first time.

1943 – The Germans suppressed a revolt by Polish Jews and destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto.

1945 – U.S. President Harry Truman announced that World War II had ended in Europe.

1954 – Parry O'Brien became the first to toss a shot put over 60 feet. O'Brien achieved a distance of 60 feet 5 1/4 inches.

1956 – Alfred E. Neuman appeared on the cover of 'Mad Magazine' for the first time.

1958 – U.S. President Eisenhower ordered the National Guard out of Little Rock as Ernest Green became the first black to graduate from an Arkansas public school.

1959 – Mike and Marian Ilitch founded 'Little Caesars Pizza Treat'.

1960 – Diplomatic relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union resumed.

1961 – New Yorkers selected a new name for their new National League baseball franchise. They chose the Metropolitans, which was ultimately shortened to Mets.

1970 – Construction workers broke up an anti-war protest on New York City's Wall Street.

1973 – Militant American Indians who had held the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks surrendered.

1984 – The Soviet Union announced that they would not participate in the 1984 Summer Olympics Games in Los Angeles.

1984 – Joanie (Erin Moran) and Chachi (Scott Baio) got married on ABC-TV's 'Happy Days.'

1985 – 'New Coke' was released to the public on the 99th anniversary of Coca-Cola.

1986 – Reporters were told that 84,000 people had been evacuated from areas near the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Soviet Ukraine.

1997 – Larry King received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1998 – A pipe burst leaving a million residents without water in Malaysia's capital area. This added to four days of shortages that

2 million already faced.

1999 – The first female cadet graduated from The Citadel military college.