Today in History, 5/6

1527: Spanish and German forces sack Rome. This is usually considered to be the official end of the Renaissance. 147 Swiss Guards died in the fighting in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape.
1536: King Henry VIII orders English Bibles to be placed in every church.
1682: Louis XIV moves his palace to Versailles.1758: Maximilien Robespierre is born. He was one of the leaders of the French Revolution and was instrumental in the Reign of Terror. He would have his own appointment with Madame Guillotine 1794.1856: Sigmund Freud is born. While his theories on psychology have fallen out of fashion these days, his interpretations of dreams still make for a fun parlor game.1861: Arkansas secedes from the Union.
1877: Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to US troops in Nebraska.1868: Tsar Nicholas II of Russia is born.1882: Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act, which bars Chinese immigrants from entering the US for ten years.
1889: The Eiffel Tower is opened to the public.
1895: Rudolph Valentino is born.1904: Raymond Bailey is born. He played the banker Milburn Drysdale on The Beverly Hillbillies.1915: Orson Welles is born. Citizen Kane makes all the list, but I like Touch of Evil better. Here's that super-long tracking shot from the beginning. Bear in mind that this was before the days of Steadicam.

1931: Willie Mays is born.1935: Executive Order 7034 establishes the Works Progress Administration.1937: While attempting to dock at Lakehurst, NJ the zeppelin Hindenberg explodes and burns in under a minute. 36 people are killed.

1940: John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath.1941: At California's March Field, Bob Hope performs his first USO show. Here he is in Guam in 1957:

1942: The last American forces in the Philippines surrender at Corregidor.1945: Axis Sally broadcasts her last propaganda message to Allied troops.1954: Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run a mile in under four minutes - a feat previously considered physically impossible.1961: George Clooney is born. Here he is when he was on the last season of The Facts of Life.

1981: A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Ying Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries. I wonder what the other designs looked like.1983: The Hitler Diaries are revealed as a hoax.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.