In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Annie Allen, a collection of poems that follows an African American’s freedom from slavery.

During this week in 1957, Irish American John Fitzgerald Kennedy of Massachu-setts was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Pro-files in Courage, a book dealing with the

African American agricultural scientist George Washington Carver, through the experiements with various plants, espec-ially the peanut, re-vitalized the future

of Southern agricul-ture.

In Mexico and the Southwest United States, millions of people celebrate Cin-co de Mayo. The celebration commem-orates the victory of the Mexican army

over the French in Pueblo, Mexico, in 1862.

Hernando De Soto and a company of Spanish explorers sailed into the Mississippi River in 1541 near what is today Memphis, Tennessee.

In 1845, news of the death of Cherokee leader Sequoyah was publish in “The Cherokee Phoenix,” using the Cherokee alphabet which Sequoyah had created.

The musical, “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” which celebrated the music

of Fats Waller, opened on Broadway in 1978. Written and directed

by Richard Maltby, Jr., it won the Tony Award

for best musical of 1978.

In 1781, Bernado de Galvez, Spanish

governor of Louisiana, led an

attack from Pensacola Bay that resulted in the British giving up

the region.

When millionaire John D. Rockefeller donated $100 million to the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913, it was believed to be the largest single act of philanthropy in history.

In 1893, the US Supreme Court declared the

Geary Exclusion Act, an anti-

Chinese immigration law, unconstitutional.

Charles, and John. In 1919, the Ringling Brothers bought and merged with Barnum and Bailey Circus. With the purchase, the circus officially

became Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Junko Tabei, a 35-year-old woman

from Japan , became the first woman to reach the 29,028 foot summit of

Mount Everest on this day in 1975.

The Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the landmark “Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas” case in 1954. In its unanimous ruling, the court declared that segregated education was illegal. School systems were instructed to move with “all deliberate speed” to integrate the schools.

The “Alien Land Act” passed in the California Legislature and became law in 1913. The law affected not only Japanese but also Koreans living in the United States.

According to the law, a person ineligible for U.S.

citizenship was forbidden to purchase land that was to be used for agricultural

purposes.

When Charles Lind-berg landed on a Paris airfield, he achieved international fame as the first person to fly solo across the Atlan-tic Ocean. His spe-cially built plane, “The

Spirit of St. Louis,” carried Lindberg 3600 miles in 33 ½ hours. A hero’s welcome greeted him when he returned to the U.S.

The Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo was ratified by the Mexican Congress in 1848. The treaty permitted the US to acquire the land that today makes up about

half of Colorado,along with the states of Arizona, California, Utah, and New Mexico. The treaty also established a clear border for the south of Texas.

Samuel Morse transmitted the first telegraph. Morse was very interested in the possibilities of the telegraph instrument and invented an alphabet or code for use in transmitting messages via the telegraph machine commonly known since then as the Morse Code. A member of the American Hall of Fame, a statue of Morse stands in Central Park, New York City.

On this day in 1925, the Supreme Court ruled

against Toyota Hidemitsu, declaring that, although he served in the military of the United States, he

was not eligible to become a US citizen. The court based its ruling on the fact that Hidemitsu was neither White nor

Black.

President Coolidge signed the Immigration Bill into law on this day in 1924. Upon the signing of the bill, Japanese immigrants became aliens ineligible for U.S. citizenship. Chinese Immigrants had been excluded from citizenship under earlier legislation.