Today’s Highlights

On May 20, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which was intended to encourage settlements west of the Mississippi River by making federal land available for private ownership and farming. About 10% of the land area of the United States (270 million acres, or 1.1 million square km) would be privatized by 1934.

On this date

1932: Amelia Earhart departed from Newfoundland in an attempt to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. (Because of weather and equipment problems, Earhart landed the following day in Northern Ireland instead of her intended destination, France.)

1956: The United States exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

1961: A white mob attacked a busload of Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Alabama, prompting the federal government to send in U.S. marshals to restore order.

2015: Four of the world’s biggest banks — JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup’s banking unit Citicorp, Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland — agreed to pay more than $5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to rigging the currency markets.

Today’s birthdays

Singer-actor Cher is 79. Actor-comedian Dave Thomas is 76. Sen. Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, is 74. Musician Jane Wiedlin (The Go-Go’s) is 67. Actor Bronson Pinchot is 66. TV personality Ted Allen is 60. Actor Mindy Cohn is 59. Actor Timothy Olyphant is 57. Former racing driver Tony Stewart is 54.