Advertisement

On This Day: Battle of Verdun passes 100-day mark

On May 31, 1916, the Battle of Verdun passed the 100-day mark. It would continue for another 200 days, amassing a casualty list of an estimated 800,000 soldiers dead, injured or missing.

By UPI staff
French troops man a captured German Maxim MG 08 machine gun mounted on a sledge at Fort Douaumont, Verdun, ca. 1916. File Photo courtesy Imperial War Museums
1 of 3 | French troops man a captured German Maxim MG 08 machine gun mounted on a sledge at Fort Douaumont, Verdun, ca. 1916. File Photo courtesy Imperial War Museums

On this date in history:

In 1790, President George Washington signed a bill creating the first U.S. copyright law.

Advertisement

In 1889, a flood in Johnstown, Pa., left more than 2,200 people dead.

In 1902, Britain and South Africa signed a peace treaty ending the Boer War.

In 1916, the Battle of Verdun passed the 100-day mark. It would continue for another 200 days, amassing a casualty list of an estimated 800,000 soldiers dead, injured or missing.

In 1940, a thick fog hanging over the English Channel prevented the German Luftwaffe from flying missions against evacuating Allied troops from Dunkirk.

In 1985, seven federally insured banks in Arkansas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Oregon were closed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. It was a single-day record for closings since the FDIC was founded in 1934.

In 1996, Israeli voters elected opposition Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister.

In 2003, Eric Robert Rudolph, the long-sought fugitive in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing and attacks on abortion clinics and a gay nightclub, was arrested while rummaging through a dumpster in North Carolina. Rudolph, whose bombings killed two people and injured many others, was sentenced to four life terms in prison.

Advertisement

In 2005, Mark Felt admitted that, while No. 2 man in the FBI, he was "Deep Throat," the shadowy contact whose help to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the 1972 Watergate break-in led to U.S. President Richard Nixon's resignation.

File Photo by Alexis C. Glenn/UPI

In 2012, John Edwards of North Carolina, former U.S. senator and presidential candidate, was acquitted on a charge of taking illegal campaign contributions, and a judge declared a mistrial on five other charges against him.

In 2013, actress Jean Stapleton, known to millions of viewers as Edith Bunker in the hit 1970s sitcom All in the Family, died at age 90 in New York City.

In 2014, U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 28, captured in Afghanistan nearly five years earlier, was released by the Taliban in exchange for five detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. In March 2015, the Army announced that Bergdahl had been charged with desertion.

Advertisement

In 2017, CNN fired comedian Kathy Griffin from her longtime co-hosting gig in the network's New Year's Eve coverage after she taking part in a photo shoot in which she holds up a bloody, decapitated head resembling President Donald Trump.

File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI

Latest Headlines