Today in history—May 21

1676: John III Sobieski is elected King of Poland.  His defeat of the last great Muslim invasion of Europe at Vienna in 1683 will make him the only real person to have a constellation named in his honor, Scutum, or Sobieski’s Shield.

1688: Alexander Pope, the first English poet to make a decent living from sales of his own writings, is born at London.  About this time of year law professors learn the truth of his maxim, “A little learning is a dang’rous thing.”

1832: The first Democratic National Convention opens in Baltimore.  It will, not surprisingly, renominate Andrew Jackson, but it dumps Vice President John C. Calhoun in favor of Martin Van Buren.

1856: Pro-slavery government forces led by the U.S. Marshal sack Lawrence, Kansas, burn the Free State Hotel, and throw the town’s newspaper presses into the river.

1881: Clara Barton founds the American Red Cross.  John D. Rockefeller pays for its headquarters building in Washington, D.C.

1886: Hiram Walker’s agent refuses to turn over the cow Rose 2d to banker T.C. Sherwood, which will lead to a subsequent lawsuit and Sherwood v. Walker.

1894: Queen Victoria opens the Manchester Ship Canal, which allows ocean-going vessels to reach Manchester from the Irish Sea.  It’s the brainchild of boiler manufacturer Daniel Adamson, whose goal is to reverse the city’s decline.

1898: Financier Armand Hammer is born in New York City.  His father names him for the symbol of the Socialist Labor Party (of which he is an officer), not the baking soda.

1917: Actor Raymond “Perry Mason” Burr is born at New Westminster, British Columbia.

1941: The Seas Shipping Co.’s freighter Robin Moor, en route from New York to Cape Town, becomes the first American merchant ship to be sunk by a U-boat in World War II.