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• On this date:
• In 1792, Kentucky became the 15th state of the union.
• In 1796, Tennessee became the 16th state.
• In 1812, President James Madison, in a message to Congress, recounted what he called Britain's "series of acts hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral nation"; Congress ended up declaring war.
• In 1813, the mortally wounded commander of the USS Chesapeake, Capt. James Lawrence, gave the order, "Don't give up the ship" during a losing battle with the British frigate HMS Shannon in the War of 1812.
• In 1862, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War.
• In 1868, James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States, died near Lancaster, Pa., at age 77.
• In 1933, financier J.P. Morgan Jr., waiting to resume testifying before the Senate Banking Committee on the 1929 stock market crash, was startled as a publicist for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus placed a female dwarf named Lya Graf on his lap. (As photographers snapped pictures, the bemused banker told Graf, "I have a grandson bigger than you." Graf replied, "But I'm older.")
• In 1942, Mexican President Manuel Avila Camacho issued a decree stating that a state of war had existed with Germany, Italy and Japan as of May 22.
• In 1958, Charles de Gaulle became premier of France, marking the beginning of the end of the Fourth Republic.
• In 1967, the Beatles album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was released.
• In 1979, the state of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, which lasted only six months, came into existence.
• In 1997, Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, was severly burned in a fire set by her 12-year-old grandson in her Yonkers, N.Y., apartment (she died three weeks later). The Chicago Tribune published a pretend commencement speech by columnist Mary Schmich which urged graduates to, among other things, "wear sunscreen" (the essay ended up being misattributed online to author Kurt Vonnegut).
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• Ten years ago: President George W. Bush told West Point graduates the United States would strike pre-emptively against suspected terrorists if necessary to deter attacks on Americans, saying "the war on terror will not be won on the defensive."
• Five years ago: The FDA warned consumers to avoid using toothpaste made in China because it might contain a poisonous chemical used in antifreeze. Kidnapped

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