This day in history

[May 18, 2010]  (AP)  Today is Tuesday, May 18, the 138th day of 2010. There are 227 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

On May 18, 1980, the Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington state exploded, leaving 57 people dead or missing.

On this date:

In 1860, the Republican Party convention in Chicago nominated Abraham Lincoln for president.

In 1896, the Supreme Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson, endorsed "separate but equal" racial segregation, a concept that was renounced 58 years later with the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision.

In 1910, Halley's Comet passed by earth, brushing it with its tail.

In 1920, Pope John Paul II was born Karol Wojtyla (voy-TEE'-wah) in Wadowice (vah-duh-VEET'-seh), Poland.

In 1926, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished while visiting a beach in Venice, Calif.; she reappeared more than a month later, claiming to have been kidnapped.

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.

In 1944, during World War II, Allied forces finally occupied Monte Cassino in Italy after a four-month struggle that claimed some 20,000 lives.

In 1953, Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier as she piloted a Canadair F-86 Sabre jet over Rogers Dry Lake, Calif.

In 1969, astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Thomas P. Stafford and John W. Young blasted off aboard Apollo 10 on a mission to orbit the moon.

In 1980, in the South Korean city of Kwangju, townspeople and students began a nine-day uprising that was finally put down by troops.

Ten years ago: Sante Kimes and Kenneth Kimes, mother-and-son grifters, were convicted in New York of murdering Irene Silverman in a plot to steal her elegant townhouse mansion. (The body of the 82-year-old millionaire widow has never been found. Sante Kimes was sentenced to 120 years in prison without parole and her son received a 125-year sentence.)

Five years ago: President George W. Bush offered his unqualified support for Egypt's political reform process as he received Prime Minister Ahmed Nazief (AHKH'-med ah-ZEEF') at the White House.

One year ago: President Barack Obama told Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu during a White House meeting he needed to stop Jewish settlements and should grasp a "historic opportunity" to make peace with the Palestinians. Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi went on trial, charged with violating conditions of her yearslong detention by sheltering an American man, John Yettaw, who'd swum to her lakeside home. (Suu Kyi was convicted and sentenced to three years of hard labor; the sentence was later commuted to 18 months of house arrest. Yettaw was sentenced to seven years in prison but released on humanitarian grounds.) Spacewalking astronauts completed repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Today's birthdays: Actor Bill Macy is 88. Hall-of-Fame sportscaster Jack Whitaker is 86. Actor Robert Morse is 79. Actor and television executive Dwayne Hickman is 76. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Brooks Robinson is 73. Bluegrass singer-musician Rodney Dillard (The Dillards) is 68. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Reggie Jackson is 64. Actress Candice Azzara is 63. Country singer Joe Bonsall (The Oak Ridge Boys) is 62. Rock musician Rick Wakeman (Yes) is 61. Actor James Stephens is 59. Country singer George Strait is 58. Rhythm-and-blues singer Butch Tavares (Tavares) is 57. Actor Chow Yun-Fat is 55. Rock singer-musician Page Hamilton is 50. Contemporary Christian musician Barry Graul (MercyMe) is 49. Singer-actress Martika is 41. Comedian-writer Tina Fey is 40. Rapper Special Ed is 36. Rock singer Jack Johnson is 35. Rhythm-and-blues singer Darryl Allen (Mista) is 30. Actor Matt Long is 30. Christian-rock musician Kevin Huguley (Rush of Fools) is 28. Actor Spencer Breslin is 18.

Thought for today: "People find life entirely too time-consuming." -- Stanislaw J. Lec, Polish writer (1909-1966)

[Associated Press]

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