Social Studies Textbook Adoption Information

This Month in History*

May 1, 1926 -  Ford factory workers get 40-hour work week

May 5, 185 -  Decoration Day was first observed in the U.S., with the tradition of decorating soldiers' graves from the Civil War with flowers. The observance date was later moved to May 30th and included American graves from World War I and World War II, and became better known as Memorial Day. In 1971, Congress moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May, thus creating a three-day holiday weekend.

May 5, 1961 -  Alan Shepard became the first American in space.

May 6, 1937 -  The German airship Hindenburg burst into flames at 7:20 p.m. as it neared the mooring mast at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

May 7, 1945 -  General Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender of all German fighting forces thus ending World War II in Europe.

May 14, 1607 -  The first permanent English settlement in America was established at Jamestown, Virginia, by a group of royally chartered Virginia Company settlers from Plymouth, England.

May 17, 1792 - Two dozen merchants and brokers established the New York Stock Exchange. In good weather they operated under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street. In bad weather they moved inside to a coffeehouse to conduct business.

May 20, 1862 - President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act opening millions of acres of government owned land in the West to "homesteaders" who could acquire up to 160 acres by living on the land and cultivating it for five years, paying just $1.25 per acre.

May 24, 1844 -  Telegraph inventor Samuel Morse sent the first official telegraph message, "What hath God wrought?" from the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., to Baltimore.

May 29, 1787 -  At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia the Virginia Plan was 
proposed calling for a new government consisting of a legislature with two houses, an executive chosen by the legislature and a judicial branch.