Day in History Archive May 18

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Note: These historical tidbits have been collected from various sources, mostly on the Internet. As detailed in this article, there is a lot of wrong information that is repeated hundreds of times because most websites do not validate with authoritative sources. On RF Cafe, events with hyperlinks have been verified. All will eventually be either verified or removed.
Please submit significant historical events and dates for inclusion in these lists. I will be glad to include your name and birthday. Please do not submit your death date ;-)
 

May 18

1812: The U.K.'s first automated telephone exchange opened for business at Epsom. 1850: Oliver Heaviside, developer of the Heaviside step function, was born. 1897: Dow Chemical was incorporated.  1917: The U.S. Congress passed the Selective Service Act, calling up soldiers to fight World War I. 1950: The U.S. and Great Britain greed to the terms of NATO. 1933: The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was formed as "a corporation clothed with the power of government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise," to perform research on civil engineering challenges. 1953: The first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound, Jacqueline Cochran, piloted an F-86 Sabrejet over California at an average speed of 652.337 miles-per-hour. 1969: Apollo 10 was launched. 1974: India became the 6th nation to explode an atomic bomb. 1980: Mount St. Helens blew its top. 1991: Helen Sharman became first Briton in space. 2004: Arnold Beckman, founder of Beckman Instruments, died - at 104 years old!