On May 21, 1542 Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto died while searching for gold along the Mississippi River.
In 1688 poet Alexander Pope was born in London.
In 1832 the first Democratic National Convention got under way, in Baltimore.
In 1881 Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.
In 1924 14-year-old Bobby Franks was murdered in a “thrill killing” committed by Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb, two students at the University of Chicago.
In 1927 Charles Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis near Paris, completing the first solo airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1968 the nuclear-powered U.S. submarine Scorpion, with 99 men aboard, disappeared. (It later was found on the ocean floor 400 miles southwest of the Azores.)
In 1991 former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber.
In 1998 Indonesia President Suharto resigned after 32 years in power. Also, Frank and Shirley Capaci of Streamwood, Ill., announced they had a winning Powerball ticket worth $195 million.
In 2000 romance novelist Barbara Cartland died at 98 near Hatfield, England.
In 2004 the UN Security Council approved a peacekeeping force of 5,600 troops for Burundi.
