The Almanac, Celebrity Birthdays, Today in History, May 31 Today is Friday, May 31, the 151st day of 2013 with 214 to follow. They include Genghis Khan, leader of the Mongol Empire, in 1162; poet Walt Whitman and surgeon William Mayo, founder of the Mayo Clinic, both in 1819; radio humorist Fred Allen in 1894; clergyman-author Norman Vincent Peale in 1898; actor Don Ameche in 1908; British actor Denholm Elliott in 1922; Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1923; actor/director Clint Eastwood in 1930 (age 83); folk singer Peter Yarrow in 1938 (age 75); country singer Johnny Paycheck, also in 1938; British human rights activist Terry Waite in 1939 (age 74); actor Sharon Gless and football Hall of Fame member Joe Namath, both in 1943 (age 70); British rock musician John Bonham in 1948; actors Tom Berenger in 1949 (age 64), Gregory Harrison in 1950 (age 63), Kyle Secor in 1957 (age 56); Lea Thompson in 1961 (age 52) and Colin Farrell in 1976 (age 37); actor/writer Chris Elliot in 1960 (age 53); and actor/model Brooke Shields in 1965 (age 48). In 1790, U.S. President George Washington signed the bill creating the first U.S. copyright law. In 1889, a flood in Johnstown, Pa., left more than 2,200 people dead. In 1902, Britain and South Africa signed a peace treaty ending the Boer War. In 1927, the final Ford Model T was built. More than 15 million of the vehicles were produced. In 1962, Israel hanged Adolf Eichmann for his part in the killing of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany in World War II. In 1973, the U.S. Senate voted to cut off funds for U.S. bombing of Cambodia. In 1985, seven federally insured banks in Arkansas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Oregon were closed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. It was a single-day record for closings since the FDIC was founded in 1934. In 1994, U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., was indicted on felony charges, including embezzlement. In 2003, Eric Robert Rudolph, the long-sought fugitive in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing and attacks on abortion clinics and a gay nightclub, in which two people died, was arrested while rummaging through a Dumpster in North Carolina. In 2005, Mark Felt admitted that, while No. 2 man in the FB, he was "Deep Throat," the shadowy contact whose help to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the 1972 Watergate break-in led to U.S. President Richard Nixon's resignation. In 2008, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois moved closer to capturing the Democratic presidential nomination. At the end of May, the last full month on the party's primary calendar. Obama led Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York by more than 150 delegates. In 2009, Dr. George Tiller, 67, who ran an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kan., was killed while ushering at a church service. Scott Roeder, a fervent abortion rights opponent, was charged with first-degree murder. In 2010, Israeli navy commandos attacked a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for Gaza. Nine Turkish activists on the Mavi Marmara were killed. In 2011, the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent. In 2012, John Edwards of North Carolina, former U.S. senator and presidential candidate, was acquitted on a charge of taking illegal campaign contributions, and a judge declared a mistrial on five other charges against him. A thought for the day: Leo Tolstoy said, "It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness."