May 15 · This Day in America
The Court orders the most powerful company on Earth dissolved into pieces. Standard Oil controlled the light in American lamps and the grease in American machines, and its owner was the richest man alive. The ruling says something the country keeps having to relearn: that in a republic, no private power gets to be a king. It is messy, it is imperfect, and the argument over how big is too big has never ended. But on this day the answer was: not that big.
Source: www.oyez.org
Also on this day · 1930
Ellen Church, a nurse and pilot who couldn't get hired to fly, talked an airline into a different idea: put trained nurses in the cabin. On this day she works the first flight, San Francisco toward Chicago, twelve passengers, thirteen stops. A job that didn't exist that morning would define air travel for a century.
Source: www.smithsonianmag.com