May 21st

David Cook won the seventh season of 'American Idol.'.

Stanislav Petrov awarded World Citizen Award for averting a potential nuclear war in 1983 after correctly guessing Russian early warning system at fault.

Christine Todd Whitman announced her resignation as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Susan Lucci, star of the ABC soap opera 'All My Children,' won her first Daytime Emmy Award for best actress in the 19th straight year she was nominated.

A 15-year-old student open fired inside Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore., killing two students and wounding 23, one day after killing his parents.

Rajiv Gandhi, former Indian prime minister, was assassinated by a suicide bomber.

In Hong Kong, approximately one million people took to the streets to show their support for students protesting for democratic reforms in China’s Tiananmen Square.

'The Empire Strikes Back', the second movie in the 'Star Wars' series, was released.

Former San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting deaths of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.

The musical "Gypsy" starring Ethel Merman opened on Broadway.

The United States exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb, over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

The 9th Street Show opens in New York. The ground-breaking art exhibition showing works by artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning is considered the birth hour of the artistic avant-garde referred to as the New York School.

Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean (from Newfoundland to Ireland).

Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly across the Atlantic (from New York to Paris) in his monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis.

Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb, two students at the University of Chicago, killed a 14-year-old boy in a "thrill killing.".

Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) forms in Paris.

The opera "I Pagliacci" by Ruggiero Leoncavallo was first performed, in Milan, Italy.

Clara Barton founded what became the American Red Cross.

French regular troops attack Commune of Paris, 17,000 die.

New Zealand was declared a British colony.

The first Democratic National Convention got under way, in Baltimore.

Mount Unzen on Japan's Shimabara Peninsula, erupts creating a tsunami, killing about 15,000; Japan's deadliest volcanic eruption.

Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto died while searching for gold on the banks of the Mississippi River.