On May 30, 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake as a heretic in Rouen, France.
In 1640 painter Peter Paul Rubens died in Antwerp at 62.
In 1744 poet Alexander Pope died at 56 in England.
In 1909 clarinetist Benny Goodman was born in Chicago.
In 1901 actress and author Cornelia Otis Skinner was born in Chicago.
In 1922 the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in Washington.
In 1935 Babe Ruth played his final major league game, in a Boston Braves uniform.
In 1937 police fired on steelworkers demonstrating near the Republic Steel plant in South Chicago; 10 people died.
In 1943 American forces regained the Aleutian island of Attu from Japanese troops.
In 1960 author Boris Pasternak, 70, died outside Moscow.
In 1975 distance runner Steve Prefontaine, 24, died in Eugene, Ore.
In 1989 Rep. Claude Pepper (D-Fla.), a champion of the nation’s elderly, died at 88 in Washington.
In 1991 the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors can be sued for legal advice to police that leads to rights violations.
In 1994 Mormon Church president Ezra Taft Benson died in Salt Lake City at 94.
In 1997 child molester Jesse Timmendequas was convicted in Trenton, N.J., of raping and strangling Megan Kanka, 7, in 1994; the murder inspired the “Megan’s Law” movement.
In 2006 a Maryland jury convicted John Allen Muhammad of six sniper killings.
