On This Day, May 15: Abe Fortas resigns from Supreme Court

On this date in history:

In 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey vs. United States, ordered the dissolution of the company after determining it to be a monopoly.

In 1918, the first regular U.S. airmail service was established between Washington and New York City.

In 1930, Ellen Church became the first airline stewardess, flying on a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Cheyenne, Wyo.

In 1941, the Gloster-Whittle E 28/39 aircraft flew over Cranwell, England, in the first successful test of an Allied aircraft using jet propulsion.

In 1948, troops from Egypt, Trans-Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq invaded Israel starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

In 1958, Gen. Charles De Gaulle announced "I hold myself ready to take over the powers of the Republic." Thus, the 67-year-old World War II hero stepped back into the political picture in a crisis that brought France to the brink of civil war.

UPI File Photo

In 1963, U.S. astronaut Gordon Cooper was launched into space atop an Atlas rocket in the final Mercury flight. He completed 22 orbits.

In 1969, Justice Abe Fortas, under fire for a money deal with jailed financier Louis Wolfson, resigned from the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1972, Alabama Gov. George Wallace and three others were injured by a gunman at a presidential campaign rally in Laurel, Md. Wallace was partially paralyzed but active in Southern politics until his death in 1998.

In 1988, Soviet forces began their withdrawal from Afghanistan in compliance with the Geneva accords.

In 1991, Edith Cresson, a Socialist and former trade minister, became the first female prime minister of France.

In 2006, the U.S. State Department said it would restore diplomatic relations with Libya for the first time since 1980 and remove the country from its terrorism sponsors list.

In 2009, two of the "Big 3" U.S. automakers, bankrupt Chrysler and almost-bankrupt General Motors, sent notices terminating relationships with nearly 2,000 car dealers.

File Photo by Brian Kersey/UPI

In 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave British oil giant BP the go-ahead to use chemicals in an effort to break up a massive offshore crude oil leak spewing an estimated 70,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico.

In 2013, Steven Miller resigned as acting commissioner of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service amid a controversy over its alleged targeting of the Tea Party and other conservative groups.

In 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the Kerch Strait Bridge, a large connection between Russia's Krasnodar region and Crimea, which Moscow annexed four years prior. Its construction was controversial because the United States and most Western states did not recognize Crimea as Russian territory.