This Day in History for May 18

1980 - the Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington state exploded, leaving 57 people dead or missing.

On this date:
1642 - the Canadian city of Montreal was founded.

1804 - the French Senate proclaimed Napoleon Bonaparte emperor.

1896 - the Supreme Court endorsed "separate but equal" racial segregation with its "Plessy versus Ferguson" decision, a ruling that was overturned 58 years later.

1897 - a public reading of Bram Stoker's new novel, "Dracula, or, The Un-dead," was staged in London.

1926 - evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished while visiting a beach in Venice, California; she reappeared a month later, claiming to have been kidnapped.

1933 - the Tennessee Valley Authority was created.

1951 - the United Nations moved out of its temporary headquarters in Lake Success, New York, for its permanent home in Manhattan.

1953 - Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier as she piloted a North American F-86 Canadair over Rogers Dry Lake, California.

1969 - astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Thomas P. Stafford and John W. Young blasted off aboard "Apollo Ten."

1980 - in the South Korean city of Kwangju, townspeople and students began a nine-day uprising that was finally put down by troops.