This Day…

1861 – Victoria Earle Matthews, American author, essayist, journalist, settlement worker and activist; founder of the White Rose Mission, a settlement house for young black women (d. 1907)

1930 – Amy Johnson becomes the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia when she lands in Darwin, Northern Territory.

1934 – The American outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana.

1930 – Lorraine Hansberry, American playwright and director, best known work is the play A Raisin in the Sun, first black woman to have one of her plays performed on Broadway (d. 1965)

May 10, 1872 – Victoria Woodhull is nominated as the first woman candidate for U.S. president for the Equal Rights Party

1875 – Harriet Quimby, American pilot and screenwriter, first woman granted a U.S. pilot’s license, first woman to fly across the English Channel (d. 1912)

1869 – The Golden Spike is driven at Promontory Point, Utah signifying the completion of the transcontinental railroad even though there are no bridges spanning the Missouri River.

1885 – During an attempted arrest bootlegger Ned Christie killed U. S. Marshal Dan Maples near Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

1851 – San Francisco’s fifth fire since the discovery of gold destroys 70 percent of the city.

1852 – Martha “Calamity” Jane Canary is born in Princeton, Missouri.