1929

The first Academy Awards were presented. “Wings” won the award for Outstanding Picture, while Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor were named Best Actor and Best Actress.

1943

The nearly monthlong Warsaw Ghetto Uprising came to an end as German forces crushed the Jewish resistance and blew up the city’s Great Synagogue.

1960

The first working laser was demonstrated at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu by physicist Theodore Maiman.

1966

The Chinese Communist Party issued the May 16 Notification, a document that criticized “counterrevolutionary revisionists” within the party and marked the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.

1991

Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress, speaking to a joint meeting of both chambers during her state visit to the United States.

2022

The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 reached 1 million.

Birthdays

Actor Danny Trejo is 82. Actor Pierce Brosnan is 73. Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Olga Korbut is 71. Baseball Hall of Famer Jack Morris is 71. Actor Debra Winger is 71. Olympic marathon gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson is 69. Rock musician Krist Novoselic (Nirvana) is 61. Singer Janet Jackson is 60.