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Highlights for May 25
Under invitation by leaders of the English Commonwealth, Charles II, the exiled king of England, lands at Dover, England, to assume the throne and end 11 years of military rule.
Prince of Wales at the time of the English Civil War, Charles fled to France after Oliver Cromwell's Parliamentarians defeated King Charles I's Royalists in 1646. In 1649, Charles vainly attempted to save his father's life by presenting Parliament a signed blank sheet of paper, thereby granting whatever terms were required. However, Oliver Cromwell was determined to execute Charles I, and on January 30, 1649, the king was beheaded in London.
After his father's death, Charles was proclaimed king of England by the Scots and by supporters in parts of Ireland and England, and he traveled to Scotland to raise an army. In 1651, Charles invaded England but was defeated by Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester. Charles escaped to France and later lived in exile in Germany and then in the Spanish Netherlands. After Cromwell's death in 1658, the English republican experiment faltered. Cromwell's son Richard proved an ineffectual leader, and the public resented the strict Puritanism of England's military rulers.
In 1660, in what is known as the English Restoration, General George Monck met with Charles and arranged to restore him in exchange for a promise of amnesty and religious toleration for his former enemies. On May 25, 1660, Charles landed at Dover and four days later entered London in triumph. It was his 30th birthday, and London rejoiced at his arrival. In the first year of the Restoration, Oliver Cromwell was posthumously convicted of treason and his body disinterred from its tomb in Westminster Abbey and hanged from the gallows at Tyburn.
1787 -CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION BEGINS:
Four years after the United States won its independence from England, 55 state delegates, including George Washington, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin, convene in Philadelphia to compose a new U.S. Constitution.
The Articles of Confederation, ratified several months before the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, provided for a loose confederation of U.S. states, which were sovereign in most of their affairs. On paper, Congress--the central authority--had the power to govern foreign affairs, conduct war, and regulate currency, but in practice these powers were sharply limited because Congress was given no authority to enforce its requests to the states for money or troops. By 1786, it was apparent that the Union would soon break up if the Articles of Confederation were not amended or replaced. Five states met in Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss the issue, and all the states were invited to send delegates to a new constitutional convention to be held in Philadelphia.
On May 25, 1787, delegates representing every state except Rhode Island convened at Philadelphia's Pennsylvania State House for the Constitutional Convention. The building, which is now known as Independence Hall, had earlier seen the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Articles of Confederation. The assembly immediately discarded the idea of amending the Articles of Confederation and set about drawing up a new scheme of government. Revolutionary War hero George Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was elected convention president.
During three months of debate, the delegates devised a brilliant federal system characterized by an intricate system of checks and balances. The convention was divided over the issue of state representation in Congress, as more populated states sought proportional legislation, and smaller states wanted equal representation. The problem was resolved by the Connecticut Compromise, which proposed a bicameral legislature with proportional representation in the lower house (House of Representatives) and equal representation of the states in the upper house (Senate).
On September 17, 1787, the Constitution of the United States of America was signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the convention. As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states.
Beginning on December 7, five states--Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut--ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document, as it failed to reserve undelegated powers to the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. In February 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789.
On September 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution--the Bill of Rights--and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of these amendments were ratified in 1791. In November 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Rhode Island, which opposed federal control of currency and was critical of compromise on the issue of slavery, resisted ratifying the Constitution until the U.S. government threatened to sever commercial relations with the state. On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island voted by two votes to ratify the document, and the last of the original 13 colonies joined the United States. Today the U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in operation in the world
1992 Jay Leno's first Tonight Show
On this day in 1992, Jay Leno makes his first appearance as host of the The Tonight Show. Leno replaced Johnny Carson, who had hosted the show for nearly 30 years.
The Tonight Show first appeared as a local program on NBC's New York station, hosted by Steve Allen, who stayed on as host when the show moved to the network in 1954. Allen's hosting style was informal: He started each show at the piano, playing and talking. Later in the show, he chatted with guests at his desk, but unlike later versions of Tonight, conversation wasn't the focus of the show; the emphasis was on Allen's ad-libbed comedy, ranging from skits to man-on-the-street interviews. In 1956, Allen cut back to three nights a week, and Ernie Kovacs filled in on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Allen left the show in 1957, and the network changed the format, renaming the program Tonight! America After Dark, making it more similar to NBC's Today Show, with an increased emphasis on news. However, the new format failed to catch on with audiences, and after six months the program returned to the comedy-talk format, reinstated the name The Tonight Show, and installed comedian Jack Paar as host.
Paar's humor was gentler than Allen's and he emphasized celebrity interviews, often delving into controversial political subjects that led him to emotional outbursts. He supported Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba and broadcast from the Berlin Wall several times. When NBC censors edited his jokes one too many times in February 1960, Paar walked off the set and didn't return for several weeks. He left the show for good in 1962. NBC hired Johnny Carson as a replacement, but Carson had to finish up a contract with ABC, so a series of guest hosts, including Soupy Sales, Jerry Lewis, and Groucho Marx, filled in from April to September 1962.
Carson's calm, controlled demeanor contrasted with Paar's emotional style. Carson started each show with a monologue and continued with sketches in which he played recurring characters like magician "Carnac the Magnificent," "Carswell" the fortuneteller, and "Faharishi" the yogi. In 1965, Carson insisted on delivering his monologue at 11:30 instead of 11:15, the show's official starting time, because many stations ran news until 11:30 and didn't join The Tonight Show until the half hour. In 1967, Carson walked out over contract differences, returning several weeks later when the network allegedly offered him a contract worth more than $1 million a year-an exorbitant salary at that time. In 1971, Carson stopped working on Mondays; the program featured guest hosts instead. In March 1978, he received a contract reportedly worth $3 million. Frequent guest hosts included Joan Rivers, who became "permanent guest host" from 1983 to 1986, and Jay Leno, who became "permanent guest host" in 1987. David Letterman also served as a guest host more than 50 times.
When Carson announced his retirement in 1992, Jay Leno succeeded him as host, much to the outrage of David Letterman, host of Late Night, which ran after Tonight. The following year, Letterman accepted CBS's $42 million offer for his own show and launched the Late Show in 1993, running against Leno's time slot. Letterman beat Leno every week for the show's first year.
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-Mail me.
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