Historical Political Events for May 29
1453 CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE. The heavily fortified Byzantine capital, long coveted by the Ottomans, fell to Mehmed's troops after a siege lasting 54 days. Constantine, the last Byzantine emperor, died in the fighting, and his seat of power became the new Ottoman capital, now called Istanbul. By order of the sultan, high government officials founded hundreds of schools, mosques, water fountains, and other public facilities endowed with substantial private property to pay for their long-term upkeep. The city soon emerged as the largest and most glamorous urban center in the Middle East. Its population reached some 400,000 before the 19th century, about 45 percent of it Christians and Jews. (The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth Edition, Peter N. Stearns, General Editor)
1790 Rhode Island ratifies the Constitution, becoming the 13th state of the Union. They had held out for an amendment securing religious freedom.
1848 Wisconsin becomes the 30th US state.
1874 Switzerland adopts a new constitution which strengthened the federal government by providing for a better-organized federal militia and introduced a system of referendum and initiative, giving the Swiss people the right to vote on legislation. It also established civil marriage, provided compulsory free education for both girls and boys with freedom of religion.
1917 John F. Kennedy, 35th president, born this date.
1932 The Bonus March on Washington by World War I veterans demanding Congress pay their bonus in full happened on this day.
1940 The Dunkirk evacuation, code-named Operation Dynamo by the British, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk, France, between 27 May and the early hours of 3 June 1940, when British, French and Belgian troops were cut off by the German army during the Battle of Dunkirk in the Second World War.
1968 The Truth In Lending Act (Consumer Credit Protection Act) was signed.
1990 Boris N. Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian republic in the third round of balloting by the Russian parliament.
2001 The US Supreme Court refuses to hear the case of Elkhart v. Books (00-1407) thus letting stand the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that the display of the Ten Commandments on an Elkhart, Indiana, city monument is in violation of the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution providing for the separation of church and state.
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.