Today in HistoryToday is Friday, May 25, the 145th day of 2007. There are 220 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE

In 1787, the Constitutional Convention of Britain’s North American colonies was convened in Philadelphia after enough delegates had shown up for a quorum.

In 1810, Argentina began its revolt against Spanish rule.

In 1895, playwright Oscar Wilde was convicted of a morals charge in London; he was sentenced to two years in prison.

In 1915, the second Battle of Ypres ended with around 105,000 casualties. The Germans used poison gas for the first time.

In 1951, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, British foreign office officials, disappeared from London. They later surfaced in Moscow, revealing themselves as Soviet spies.

In 1961, US president Kennedy, addressing Congress, called on the nation to work towards putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

In 1968, the Gateway Arch, part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, was dedicated.

In 1991, some 15,000 Falashas, or Ethiopian Jews, were airlifted from Addis Ababa to Israel as rebel forces approached the Ethiopian capital.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and poet (1803-1882).