Ronald Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev meet at Moscow summit

Today is Wednesday, May 29, the 150th day of the year 2024. There are 216 days left in the year.

Today’s story highlight:

On May 29, 1988, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev opened their historic summit in Moscow.

To this date :

In 1765, Patrick Henry denounced the Stamp Act before the Virginia House of Burgesses.

In 1790, Rhode Island became the 13th original colony to ratify the United States Constitution.

In 1848, Wisconsin became the 30th state in the Union.

In 1914, the Canadian liner RMS Empress of Ireland sank in the St. Lawrence River in eastern Quebec after colliding with the Norwegian freighter SS Storstad; of the 1,477 people on board the Empress of Ireland, 1,012 died. (The Storstad suffered only minor damage.)

In 1953, Mount Everest was conquered. Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tensing Norgay of Nepal became the first climbers to reach the summit.

In 1977, Janet Guthrie became the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500, finishing in 29th place (the winner was AJ Foyt).

In 1985, 39 people were killed at the European Cup final in Brussels, Belgium, when riots broke out and a wall separating British and Italian soccer fans collapsed.

In 2009, a Los Angeles judge sentenced music producer Phil Spector to 19 years to life in prison for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. (Spector remained in prison until his death in January 2021.)

In 2012, Doc Watson, the Grammy Award-winning folk musician whose lightning-fast style of flatpicking influenced guitarists around the world, died in North Carolina at the age of 89.

In 2014, Starbucks closed thousands of stores for part of the day to conduct training sessions for employees on unconscious bias, in response to the arrest of two black men at one of its Philadelphia stores for sitting in Starbucks without ordering anything.

In 2015, the Obama administration officially removed Cuba from the U.S. terrorism blacklist.

In 2017, Manuel Noriega, a former US ally who was ousted as Panama’s dictator by a US invasion in 1989, died at the age of 83.

In 2018, ABC canceled the reboot of “Roseanne,” after star Roseanne Barr’s tweet referred to former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett as a product of the Muslim Brotherhood and “Planet of the Apes.” .

In 2019, in his first public remarks on the Russia investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller said charging President Donald Trump with a crime was “not an option” because of federal rules, but he stressed that the investigation did not exonerate the president.

In 2020, fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for the death of George Floyd. (He would be convicted in April 2021 on these charges as well as unintentional second-degree murder.)

In 2021, actor Gavin MacLeod, best known for his roles on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Love Boat,” died at age 90, and Grammy-winning singer BJ Thomas, who reached charts with songs including “Hooked on a Feeling” and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”, has died at age 78.

In 2022, President Joe Biden sought to comfort a city grieving after the killings of 19 elementary school students and two teachers at the hands of a lone gunman in Uvalde, Texas. Facing chants of “do something” as he left a church service to meet privately with families, Biden responded: “We will.”

Today’s birthdays: Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent is 86 years old. Actor Anthony Geary is 77 years old. Actor Cotter Smith is 75 years old. Singer Rebbie (Ree-Bee) Jackson is 74 years old. Film composer Danny Elfman is 71 years old. Singer LaToya Jackson is 68 years old. Actor Ted Levine is 67 years old. Actor Annette Bening is 66 years old. Actor Rupert Everett is 65 years old. Actor Adrian Paul is 65 years old. Singer Melissa Etheridge is 63 years old. Actress Lisa Whelchel is 61 years old. Actor Tracey Bregman is 61 years old. Rock musician Noel Gallagher is 57 years old. Actor Anthony Azizi is 55. Rock musician Chan Kinchla (Blues Traveler) is 55. Actor Laverne Cox is 52 years old. Cartoonist Aaron McGruder (“The Boondocks”) is 50 years old. Singer Melanie Brown (Spice Girls) is 49 years old. Latin singer Fonseca is 45 years old. Actor Justin Chon (TV: “Deception”; “Dr. Ken”) is 43 years old. NBA player Carmelo Anthony is 40 years old. Actor Blake Foster is 39 years old. Actor Riley Keough is 35 years old. Actor Brandon Mychal Smith is 35 years old. Actor Kristen Alderson is 33 years old. Actor Lorelei Linklater is 31 years old.