American chronicles

225 YEARS AGO, MAY 20,1774, the second and third of the four punitive acts by the British Crown (called the Intolerable Acts) were enacted, in response to the previous December's "Boston Tea Party." The second intolerable act, the Massachusetts Government Act, replaced Massachusetts' elected council with an appointed council. It also banned town meetings (without permission from the governor) and gave the royal governor sole power to select judges. The third act, the Administration of Justice Act, allowed British agents accused of capital crimes in Massachusetts to be tried elsewhere, even in Britain.

150 YEARS AGO, MAY 8-10, 1849, there was a tragic not ii New York City, sparked by the remnant of bad feelings between Britain and America. On May 8, British actor William Charles Macready played Macbeth at the Astor Place Opera House in New York City, but he was interrupted by followers of the American actor Edwin Forrest. The next day, Macready scorned these "vulgar Americans." When he performed again, on the lOth, crowds began to riot, throwing stones and brickbats through the windows of the opera house. Troops were called out and ordered to fire into the crowd, resulting in 22 dead and 56 injured.

125 YEARS AGO, MAY 14-15, 1874, Harvard and McGill played the first intercollegiate football game, in Cambridge, Mass. (The 1869 game between Rutgers and Princeton was more like soccer.). First, on May 14, the two schools played by Harvard's U.S. rules, and Harvard won, 3 to 0. Then, on May 15, they played under McGill's Canadian rules, which ended in a scoreless tie. Liking McGill's rules (which were more like American football than British soccer), Harvard adopted McGill's rules in the fall.

75 YEARS AGO, MAY 15, 1924, the great age of immigration, which began in 1890, started to wind down, as Congress declared that the annual number of immigrants would henceforth be limited to 2% of the 1890 U.S. Census, or about 150,000 immigrants per year. In the same month, the terrible murder of a 13year-old boy, Bobby Franks, led to the arrest, trial and conviction of Nathan Leopold, Jr., and Richard Loeb.

50 YEARS AGO, MAY 31, 1949, the perjury trial of Alger Hiss opened in New York City. (This trial resulted in a deadlock, and the second trial started later that year.) Hiss had been indicted the previous December on two perjury counts relating to his testimony to a federal grand jury regarding the revelations of Whitaker Chambers that he knew Hiss as a Communist operative in the State Department in the late 1930s.

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. May 7, 1999
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