07-05-2025
Today in History: May 7, RMS Lusitania torpedoed, sunk by German submarine
In 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the British liner RMS Lusitania off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, out of the nearly 2,000 on board.
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In 1945, Nazi Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims, France, ending its role in World War II.
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In 1954, the 55-day Battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam ended with Vietnamese insurgents overrunning French forces; it would be the last major battle of the First Indochina War.
In 1958, it was revealed that the last cotton textiles mill in Berkshire County was being closed. Owned by the Berkshire-Hathaway Company, it had operated for about 150 years and employed about 1,000 workers at the time of closing.
In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford formally declared an end to the 'Vietnam era.' In Ho Chi Minh City — formerly Saigon — the Viet Cong celebrated its takeover.
In 1977, Seattle Slew won the Kentucky Derby, the first of his Triple Crown victories.
In 1984, Monsanto and six other chemical companies agreed to pay a $180 million settlement to Vietnam veterans who were exposed to the chemical herbicide Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
In 2020, Georgia authorities arrested a white father and son and charged them with murder in the February shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man they had pursued in a truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood near the port city of Brunswick. (The two men and a third white man would be convicted of murder in state court and hate crimes in federal court.)
