📜 This Day in History

May 31

• 455Petronius Maximus, the ruler of the Western Roman Empire, was stoned to death by a mob as he fled Rome before Vandal forces arrived and sacked the city.
• 1293Majapahit forces under Raden Wijaya won a major victory in the Mongol invasion of Java, now considered to be the founding date of the Indonesian city of Surabaya.
• 1862American Civil War: Confederate troops under Joseph E. Johnston and G. W. Smith engaged Union forces under George B. McClellan at the Battle of Seven Pines outside Richmond, Virginia.
• 1935A magnitude-7.7 earthquake struck Balochistan in British India, now part of Pakistan, killing between 30,000 and 60,000 people
• 2009American physician George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions, was shot and killed by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist.
• 2019A shooting at a municipal building in Virginia Beach, United States, left 13 people dead, including the gunman, and injured four others.

Born on this day

• 1819Walt Whitman, American poet, essayist, and journalist (died 1892)
• 1857Pope Pius XI (died 1939)
• 1930Clint Eastwood, American actor, director, musician, and producer
• 1948Svetlana Alexievich, Belarusian journalist and author, Nobel Prize laureate