Today in HistoryToday is Tuesday, May 22, the 142nd day of 2007. There are 223 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1939, the foreign ministers of Germany and Italy, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Galeazzo Ciano, signed a “Pact of Steel” committing the two countries to a military alliance.

In 1943, the Third Communist International, known as the Comintern, was dissolved by the Soviet Union in a gesture to the West.

In 1972, the island nation of Ceylon became the republic of Sri Lanka.

In 1979, Canadians voted in parliamentary elections that put the Progressive Conservatives in power, ending the 11-year tenure of prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

In 1990, formerly Marxist South Yemen and conservative North Yemen merged into one state.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“Always do your best. You can’t do more and you mustn’t do less.” — Laurence Olivier, British actor (1907-1989).