GOOD MORNING – TODAY IS THURSDAY, May 15, the 135th day of 2014 with 229 to follow. Sunrise in the Boston area is @ 5:25 and sunset is @ 7:58. The moon is waning. The morning stars are stars are Neptune, Uranus & Venus. The evening stars are Mercury, Mars, Saturn & Jupiter.
ON THIS DAY IN: 1602 – Cape Cod was discovered by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold.
1756 – The Seven Years War, a global conflict known in America as the French and Indian War, officially began when England declared war on France.
1862 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture was created by an act of Congress.
1911 – The Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil Company, ruling it was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
1918 – U.S. airmail service began between Washington, Philadelphia, and New York.
1924 – The U.S. Congress instituted immigration quotas.
1930 – Ellen Church, the first airline stewardess, went on duty aboard a United Airlines flight between San Francisco and Cheyenne, Wyoming.
1940 – Nylon stockings went on the sale in the U.S.
1941 – The first Allied jet, a Gloster-Whittle E 28/39, was tested.
1942 – The United States began gasoline rationing.
1948 – Hours after declaring its independence, the new state of Israel was attacked by Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.
1963 – Gordon Cooper completed 22 orbits of the earth and spent 34 hours in space aboard Faith 7, part of the Mercury program.
1969 – Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas resigned amid a controversy over his past legal fees.
1972 – George C. Wallace was shot and left paralyzed in Maryland while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination.
1988 – The Soviet Union began withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan.