TODAY IN HISTORY: MAY 21

May 21 1881: American Red Cross founded
In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons found the American National Red Cross, an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters in congruence with the International Red Cross.

Barton, born in Massachusetts in 1821, worked with the sick and wounded during the American Civil War and became known as the “Angel of the Battlefield” for her tireless dedication. In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln commissioned her to search for lost prisoners of war, and with the extensive records she had compiled during the war she succeeded in identifying thousands of the Union dead at the Andersonville prisoner-of-war camp.

She was in Europe in 1870 when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and she went behind the German lines to work for the International Red Cross. In 1873, she returned to the United States, and four years later she organized an American branch of the International Red Cross. The American Red Cross received its first U.S. federal charter in 1900. Barton headed the organization into her 80s and died in 1912.

May 1901: Connecticut enact first speed-limit law
On this day in 1901, Connecticut became the first state to pass a law regulating motor vehicles, limiting their speed to 12 mph in cities and 15 mph on country roads.

Speed limits had been set earlier in the United States for non-motorized vehicles: In 1652, the colony of New Amsterdam (now New York) issued a decree stating that “[N]o wagons, carts or sleighs shall be run, rode or driven at a gallop” at the risk of incurring a fine starting at “two pounds Flemish,” or about $150 in today’s currency. In 1899, the New York City cabdriver Jacob German was arrested for driving his electric taxi at 12 mph. The path to Connecticut’s 1901 speed limit legislation began when Representative Robert Woodruff submitted a bill to the State General Assembly proposing a motor-vehicles speed limit of 8 mph within city limits and 12 mph outside. The law passed in May 1901 specified higher speed limits but required drivers to slow down upon approaching or passing horse-drawn vehicles, and come to a complete stop if necessary to avoid scaring the animals.

On the heels of this landmark legislation, New York City introduced the world’s first comprehensive traffic code in 1903. Adoption of speed regulations and other traffic codes was a slow and uneven process across the nation, however. As late as 1930, a dozen states had no speed limit, while 28 states did not even require a driver’s license to operate a motor vehicle. Rising fuel prices contributed to the lowering of speed limits in several states in the early 1970s, and in January 1974 President Richard Nixon signed a national speed limit of 55 mph into law. These measures led to a welcome reduction in the nation’s traffic fatality rate, which dropped from 4.28 per million miles of travel in 1972 to 3.33 in 1974 and a low of 2.73 in 1983.

Concerns about fuel availability and cost later subsided, and in 1987 Congress allowed states to increase speed limits on rural interstates to 65 mph. The National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 repealed the maximum speed limit. This returned control of setting speed limits to the states, many of which soon raised the limits to 70 mph and higher on a portion of their roads, including rural and urban interstates and limited access roads.

May 21 1910
Louis Both was to be the Union of South Africa's first prime minister.

May 21 1936
London hosted an international conference on the protection of African elephants and rhinoceroses.

May 21 1951
USSR announced that it will sell arms to Egypt.

May 21 1958
General Hernri Lorillot was sent by the French premier, Pierre Pfimlim, to negotiate with General Raoul Salan, the Commander-in-Chief of the French army in Algiers.

May 21 1960: Huge earthquake hit Chile
On this day in 1960, the first tremor of a series hit Valdivia, Chile. By the time they end, the quakes and their aftereffects killed 5,000 people and leave another 2 million homeless. Registering a magnitude of 7.6, the first earthquake was powerful and killed several people. It turned out to be only a foreshock, however, to one of the most powerful tremors ever recorded.

At 3:11 p.m. the following afternoon, an 8.5-magnitude quake rocked southern Chile. The epicenter of this tremendous shaking was just off the coast under the Pacific Ocean. There, the Nazca oceanic plate plunged 50 feet down under the South American plate. The earthquake caused huge landslides of debris down the mountains of the region, as well as a series of tsunamis in the coastal region of Chile. At 4:20 p.m., a 26-foot wave hit the shore, taking most structures and buildings with it when it receded. But the worst was still to come. Minutes later, a slower 35-foot wave rolled in; it is estimated that this wave killed more than 1,000 people, including those who had thought they had moved safely to high ground.

Given the tremendous force of the quake, the death toll could have been far higher. A foreshock 30 minutes prior to the large tremor had forced many people outside, where they were less vulnerable to structural collapses. In addition, the people of the area knew to expect a tsunami and most evacuated the coast immediately.

After leaving Chile, the tsunami traveled hundreds of miles west toward Hawaii, the Philippines and Japan, where hundreds also died. In fact, the waves set off by this earthquake bounced back and forth across the Pacific Ocean for a week. Aftershocks were recorded for a full 30 days after the main tremor.

May 21 1967
United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria) ordered the mobilisation of 100,000 reservists.

May 21 1978
French and Belgian paratroopers who were flown into Kolwezi, Zaire's main copper producing town, to rescue the 3,000 white residents have discovered over 150 bodies lying in the town's main streets. Most have been badly mutilated. Communist-backed Katangese gendarmes, who had invaded the region earlier this month are blamed. Zairian troops, who had been sent in a week ago, appear to have joined with the Katangese gendarmes, getting high on drugs and going on the murder spree.

Source: history.com, africanhistory.about.com