May 10: What Happened on This Day in History (Elementary Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1773 - The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.
2. 1775 - American Revolutionary War: Representatives from the Thirteen Colonies begin the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
3. 1869 - The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah (not Promontory Point, Utah) with the golden spike.
4. 1893 - The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Nix v. Hedden that a tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit, under the Tariff Act of 1883.
5. 2013 - The Freedom Tower becomes the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.
6. Famous Birthdays: Jean-Marie Leclair (French violinist and composer), Augustin-Jean Fresnel (French physicist and engineer), William Henry Barlow (English engineer), John Wilkes Booth (American actor, assassin of Abraham Lincoln), George E. Smith (American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: May 9

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: May 11

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.