On May 22, 1761, the first life insurance policy in the U.S. was issued, in Philadelphia.
In 1813 composer Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, Germany.
In 1868 the Reno gang made off with $96,000 in cash, gold and bonds in the Great Train Robbery near Seymour, Ind.
In 1939 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini signed a “Pact of Steel” committing Germany and Italy to a military alliance.
In 1947 the Truman Doctrine to contain communism went into effect as Congress appropriated military and economic aid for Greece and Turkey.
In 1969 Apollo 10’s lunar module flew to within 9 miles of the moon’s surface in a dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing.
In 1972 the island nation of Ceylon became the republic of Sri Lanka.
In 1992, after nearly 30 years, Johnny Carson stepped down as host of NBC’s “Tonight” show.
In 2001 Ford Motor Co. said it would spend more than $2 billion to replace up to 13 million Firestone tires on its vehicles because of safety concerns.
In 2002 a jury in Birmingham, Ala., convicted former Ku Klux Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry of murder in a 1963 church bombing that killed four black girls. Also, the remains of Chandra Levy, the federal intern who had disappeared a year earlier, were found in a Washington park.
In 2003 the UN Security Council gave the U.S. and Britain a mandate to rule Iraq, ending 13 years of economic sanctions.
