On May 31, 1913, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for the popular election of U.S. senators, took effect.
In 1916, during World War I, British and German fleets fought in the Battle of Jutland off Denmark.
In 1961 South Africa became an independent republic outside the British Commonwealth.
In 1962 World War II Gestapo official Adolf Eichmann was hanged by Israel for his role in the Holocaust.
In 1970 an earthquake in Peru killed more than 66,000 people.
In 1977 the trans-Alaska oil pipeline was completed after three years of work.
In 1991 leaders of Angola’s two warring factions signed a peace treaty, ending a 16-year-old civil war.
In 1994 Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), maintaining his innocence, was indicted on 17 felony counts alleging he had plundered nearly $700,000 from the government.
In 2001 veteran FBI agent Robert Hanssen pleaded not guilty to charges of spying for Moscow. (He later changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.)
In 2002 the World Cup soccer tournament opened in Asia for the first time with a match held in South Korea, which co-hosted the event with Japan.
In 2003 Olympic Centennial Park bombing suspect Eric Robert Rudolph was arrested outside a Murphy, N.C., grocery store.
In 2005, breaking a silence of 30 years, former FBI official W. Mark Felt stepped forward as “Deep Throat,” the secret Washington Post source that helped bring down President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
