| 1246 | Henry Raspe is elected anti-king by the Rhenish prelates in France. | |
| 1455 | King Henry VI is taken prisoner by the Yorkists at the Battle of St. Albans, during the War of the Roses. | |
| 1804 | The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially begins as the Corps of Discovery departs from St. Charles, Missouri. | |
| 1856 | U.S. Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane for Sumner’s earlier condemnation of slavery, which included an insult to Brooks’ cousin, Senator Andrew Butler. | |
| 1863 | Union General Ulysses S. Grant‘s second attack on Vicksburg fails and a siege begins. | |
| 1868 | The “Great Train Robbery” takes place as seven members of the Reno Gang make off with $98,000 in cash from a train’s safe in Indiana. | |
| 1872 | The Amnesty Act restores civil rights to Southerners. | |
| 1882 | The United States formally recognizes Korea. | |
| 1908 | The Wright brothers register their flying machine for a U.S. patent. | |
| 1939 | Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini sign a “Pact of Steel” forming the Axis powers. | |
| 1947 | The Truman Doctrine brings aid to Turkey and Greece. | |
| 1967 | The children’s program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood premiers. | |
| 1972 | Ceylon becomes the Republic of Sri Lanka as its constitution is ratified. | |
| 1985 | Baseball player Pete Rose passes Hank Aaron as National League run scoring leader with 2,108. | |
| 1990 | In the Middle East, North and South Yemen merge to become a single state. | |
| 1992 | Johnny Carson’s final appearance on The Tonight Show on NBC, after 30 years as the program’s host. | |
| 2004 | An EF4 tornado with a record-setting width of 2.5 miles wipes out Hallam, Nebraska, killing 1 person. | |
| 2004 | Farenheit 9-11, directed by Michael Moore, becomes the first documentary ever to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. | |
| 2010 | Following a 200-year search for the tomb of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus his remains are reburied in Frombork Cathedral | |
| 2011 | An EF5 tornado kills at least 158 people in Joplin, Missouri, the largest death toll from a tornado since record-keeping began in 1950. | |
| 2015 | The Republic of Ireland, long known as a conservative, predominantly catholic country, becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum |
About two years ago, Aponte contacted him out of the blue through Facebook.
"Every once in a while I get nostalgic and I want to know what happened," Aponte said. "So I did what everyone does: I Googled my name."
Her research turned up an article that identified Getz, and through some "Facebook stalking," she found him.
The two get together regularly, sometimes meeting for lunch. They talk about Getz's kids, his dog, how Aponte is doing in school.
Now, with a degree in accounting and a job at Walston & Ignagni in South Windsor, the conversations have turned to her plans for the future.
"To see the outcome, to see how successful she's been, makes my heart beat faster," Getz said.
Atlas Obscura is highlighting trees all this week in what they call, appropriately, Tree Week.
Among posts about living trees and historical trees, they also pay
tribute to trees in fiction. It’s only natural, as literature has been
dependent on trees for a thousand years. They bypassed the most obvious
choices (The Giving Tree) and introduce us to some literary trees you
might not have thought of, like the Tree of Heaven from the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.The so-called Tree of Heaven grows outside the window of Francie Nolan, a second-generation Irish-American girl coming of age in Brooklyn at the turn of the century. Just as Francie and her family struggle against the odds to make a life for themselves, the tree too manages to prosper without water, light, or care. Francie grows from a girl to young woman under the harsh conditions of tenement life, enduring poverty, assault, loneliness, and betrayal. Through it all, she maintains a deep and abiding inner strength. Like Francie, the tree that grows out of the cement in Brooklyn is tough, tenacious, and blossoming against all odds. It’s the kind of tree you root for.Read about six other literary trees at Atlas Obscura.
The company 3-D printed a test batch of 500 holders in April, according to AdvertisingAge, and it plans to scale up production to meet its current output of 400,000 cans of beer a month. While the edible holders are more expensive to make, Saltwater Brewery wants set an example for other beer producers and encourage them to adopt the idea. They say if their edible holders become commonplace, they could potentially be as cheap as the regular plastic rings.
| 996 | Sixteen year old Otto III is crowned the Roman Emperor. | |
| 1471 | King Henry VI is killed in the Tower of London. Edward IV takes the throne. | |
| 1506 | Christopher Columbus dies. | |
| 1536 | The Reformation is officially adopted in Geneva, Switzerland. | |
| 1620 | Present-day Martha’s Vineyard is first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold. | |
| 1790 | Paris is divided into 48 zones. | |
| 1832 | The Democratic party holds its first national convention. | |
| 1856 | Lawrence, Kansas is captured and sacked by pro-slavery forces. | |
| 1863 | The siege of the Confederate Port Hudson, Louisiana, begins. | |
| 1881 | The American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton. | |
| 1927 | Charles Lindbergh lands in Paris completing the first solo air crossing of the Atlantic. | |
| 1940 | British forces attack German General Erwin Rommel‘s 7th Panzer Division at Arras, slowing his blitzkrieg of France. | |
| 1941 | The first U.S. ship, the S.S. Robin Moor, is sunk by a U-boat. | |
| 1951 | The U.S. Eighth Army counterattacks to drive the Communist Chinese and North Koreans out of South Korea. | |
| 1961 | Governor John Patterson declares martial law in Montgomery, Alabama. | |
| 1970 | The U.S. National Guard mobilizes to quell disturbances at Ohio State University. | |
| 1991 | In Madras, India, a suicide bomber kills the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi. |
Google has patented a new “sticky” technology to protect pedestrians if,
or when, they get struck by the company’s self-driving cars.
The patent, which was granted on 17 May, is for a sticky adhesive layer
on the front end of a vehicle, which would aim to reduce the damage caused when a pedestrian hit by a car is flung into other vehicles or scenery.
“As such,” it continues, “both the vehicle and pedestrian may come to a
more gradual stop than if the pedestrian bounces off the vehicle.”
The patent describes itself as specifically aimed at self-driving cars
but notes that it can be used on any vehicle.
Car companies have already taken steps to protect pedestrians from
impact. Citroen and Jaguar use a device that raises the car’s bonnet
6.5cm on impact to provide a cushion for impact between the crumpling
surface and the solid engine block beneath. 
Others, such as Land Rover and Volvo, have developed outside airbags
that deploy on impact to protect a pedestrian from injury.
However, the patent observes, “existing technology found in production
vehicles does little to mitigate the secondary impact a pedestrian may
experience”.
It is not known whether Google has active plans to install the new
technology on their self-driving cars in the future. A spokesperson said: “We hold patents on a variety of ideas. Some of those ideas later mature into real products and services, some don’t.”
A man was pulled from Lady Bird Lake in Austin Texas, early on Wednesday morning after he reportedly attempted to walk on water.
A 29-year-old man claims he was playing a game of hide-and-seek when he
climbed the roof of Carroll Redemption Center in downtown Carroll, Iowa,
and shimmied 20 feet down its chimney, where he got stuck.
At 10:50am on Wednesday, when firefighters broke a hole through the
chimney and pulled Jordan Kajewski out, the man was naked and covered in
soot.
It’s unclear when or why he disrobed. His clothes were with him inside
the chimney.
Kajewski, who recently moved to Carroll, was arrested for trespassing.
Nine hours earlier, Brad Sapp, an owner of the business was working late
sorting aluminum cans when he heard someone whisper: “Get out of here.”
It spooked him, but when he told his wife Carrie, she mocked him for
being scared of ghosts.
Eight hours later, she was working near the chimney when the man yelled
for help. He asked her not to call the police.
Paramedics evaluated the man before he was taken to jail.
Kajewski had asked Brad Sapp for a job three times in recent weeks, Sapp
said, and on the last denial Kajewski grew upset and shouted: “Just
give me some hours.”
Sapp assumes the man wanted a few hours of work so he could figure out a
way to break into the place.
“Why would I steal cans?” Kajewski had told Carrie Sapp. “I make $800 a
week.”
It’s unclear whether Kajewski won the game of hide and seek.
He is currently in the Carroll County Jail.
A 43-year-old man from Cleveland, Ohio, asked to use his 72-year-old
neighbor's phone, then stripped naked, sat on her couch and stole two
of her walking canes, according to court records.
Breiholz was convicted of criminal sexual conduct in 2007. He was
sentenced three years in prison, but as a felon, he can't have a gun.
"It's not illegal to possess squirrels," said Kersten.
Police say that Breiholz likes to go through garbage and one day he found the baby squirrels.
![Conservative activist James O'Keefe in December 2014 interview with Fox News. [YouTube]](http://2d0yaz2jiom3c6vy7e7e5svk.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Conservative-activist-James-OKeefe-in-December-2014-interview-with-Fox-News.-YouTube-478x257.jpg)
