The way it was: Today in history - May 26

Throwback Thursday: A look back at events in history on May 26, including the Chrysler Building unveiled and Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson marry.

The sharp, glistening spire of the Chrysler Building stands revealed as the world's tallest building sheds its scaffolding, May 26, 1930.

By CBSNews.com Senior Photo Editor Radhika Chalasani

Trotsky assassination attempt

Policemen who were assigned to guard the suburban Mexico City home of Leon Trotsky explain how they were bound and menaced with shot guns by men who attempted to assassinate the exiled Russian communist leader, May 26, 1940.

Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) was president of the St Petersburg Soviet in 1905, played a major role in the October Revolution and was commissar for war during the civil war (1917-1922). The founder of the Red Army was assassinated by Stalin's agent Ramon Mercader, August 20, 1940.

Condemned to death

During the March 1946 trial of Doctor Marcel Little laddie (upright), former mayor and general adviser of Villeneuve-on-Yonne, who promised people threatened with arrest passage to South America during the Occupation, before assassinating them. Twenty seven corpses could be identified. He was condemned to death with the sentence carried out on May 26, 1946. In the foreground, is his lawyer, Me Rene Floriot.

Defense attorney Rene Floriot (R) and his client French serial killer Dr. Marcel Little laddie (C) during trial in March 1946 in the Paris Courthouse. Little laddie (1897-1946), was convicted of murder after the discovery of the remains of twenty-six people in his home in Paris. He claimed to be a member of the French resistance offering to help his victims leave the country. Instead he killed them and stole to their belongings. He later admitted to up to sixty-three murders. Little laddie was executed by guillotine May 26, 1946.

First Beijing to Lhasa flight

Tibetans gather to welcome the first trial Beijing-Lhasa flight on May 26, 1956 in the airdrome near Lhasa, during the Preparatory Committee for the Founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Space suits at Comisky Park

Four midgets wearing space suits landed by helicopter on the baseball diamond at Chicago's Comisky Park on May 26, 1959.

They advanced on the White Sox dugout with ray guns before the start of the game with the Cleveland Indians. The stunt was put on by Indians' owner Bill Veeck who once used a midget in the lineup when he was running the St. Louis Browns baseball team. One of the men in space suits was three-foot, seven-inch Eddie Gaedel who pinch-hit for St. Louis in 1951.

SALT agreement

President Nixon and Soviet Communist Party leader Leonid Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitations (SALT) agreement in Vladmir Hall of the Kremlin in Moscow, May 26, 1972. Nixon and Brezhnev signed both the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and the Interim SALT agreement. The SALT talks took two and a half years.

For the first time during the Cold War, the two countries agreed to limit their nuclear missiles. A second round of negotiations, SALT II, began in late 1972.

World Trade Center "the human fly"

A man, identified by friends as 28-year--old toy designer George Willig from Queens, climbs the 110 story high South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City on May 26, 1977. During his feat he only paused for a drink of water and to sign autographs for two police officers who dangled on a nearby window-washing scaffold, according to the New York Daily News who labeled him "the human fly." The climb took 3.5 hours.

Willig and his four friends were arrested for criminal trespass, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct, after receiving applause from the crowd below. Willig went on to work as a stuntman on "The Six Million Dollar Man" and other shows.

Carter signs nuclear treaty

Mexican Foreign Secretary Santiago Roel-Garcia, left foreground, watches as President Jimmy Carter signs the Additional Protocol I to Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America, in regard to a nuclear weapon-free zone, during a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden in Washington, D.C. on May 26, 1977. Others from left, background, are, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Former Wisconsin Governor Patrick Lucey. Mrs. Carter, partly hidden, Arthur Rovine, State Department Assistant Legal Officer, Sevilla Sacasa, dean of the Diplomatic Carps., Sen. Hubert Humphrey, D-Minn., and Mexican Ambassador Hugo B. Margain.

The first New Jersey casino

New Jersey's Gov. Brendan Byrne cuts a ribbon opening the east coast's first gambling casino in Atlantic City, May 26, 1978. He is surrounded by legislators that voted for the gambling legislation.

Vaclav Havel

Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel speaking at his home in Hragecek, when he was the spokesperson for the Czechoslovakian dissident group Charter 77, on May 26, 1978.

Havel's home was a meeting place for outlawed Czechoslovakian intellectuals and artists.

Margaret Thatcher's breathalyzer

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher puffs on a portable breathalyzer while visiting a factory in Barry, South Wales on May 26, 1987.

The start of the Rwandan civil war

Rwanda Patriotic Front (R.P.F.) rebels inspect the wreckage of the plane in which Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprian Ntayamira were killed along with 10 others, May 26, 1994. The plane crashed April 6, 1994. The two presidents were returning from a meeting to discuss ways to end ethnic violence between Hutus and Tutsis in their countries when their plane was shot down.

Their assassination was an immediate catalyst for the ensuing bloodshed in the Rwandan Genocide, which resulted in an estimated 800,000 deaths and more than a million refugees.

Ellis Island

The Supreme Court ruled May 26, 1998, that Ellis Island is mostly in New Jersey, ordering New York to share bragging rights to the nation's gateway for millions of immigrants. New York can lay claim to only part of the island's 27.5 acres, said the justices in a 6-3 ruling.

Monica Lewinsky

Former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky leaves her family home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, May 26, 1998.

Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr requested handwriting and voice samples as well as fingerprints from Lewinsky.

President Bill Clinton admitted to having what he termed an "inappropriate relationship" with Lewinsky after an initial denial. The scandal and Starr's investigation led to Clinton's impeachment.

Paper bags and baseball

Texas Rangers' outfielder Larry Parrish, center, and pitcher Doc Medich sit in the Rangers' dugout with paper bags over their heads before a game with the Baltimore Orioles in Arlington, Tex., May 26, 1982. With the duo is manager Don Zimmer. Several Rangers' fans wore bags in protest of the Rangers worst start ever.

Terry Nichols convicted

Convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, is led into the Pittsburg County Courthouse in McAlester, Okla., May 26, 2004, to wait for deliberations by the jury in the state's murder case against him.

Nichols, serving a federal life sentence for the deaths of eight federal law enforcement officials who died in the bombing, was convicted in 2004 of 161 state charges of first degree murder. He was sentenced to 161 consecutive life terms without parole.

Gay marriage battle

Supporters of same-sex marriage block Van Ness Avenue following the California Supreme Court's ruling to uphold Proposition 8 in San Francisco, May 26, 2009.

The California State Supreme Court voted 6-1 to uphold proposition 8, which makes it illegal for same-sex couples to marry in the state of California. More than 18,000 same-sex couples that wed before prop 8 was voted in will still be legally married.

Presley and Jackson marry

Pop star Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis Presley's daughter, married May 26, 1994 in La Romana, Dominican Republic.