Today in History: May 28, Jackson signs Indian Removal Act

Today is Wednesday, May 28, the 148th day of 2025. There are 217 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On May 28, 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which forced nearly 50,000 Native Americans to relocate to designated territories west of the Mississippi River.

Also on this date:

In 1863, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, made up of free Black men, left Boston to fight for the Union in the Civil War.

In 1892, the Sierra Club was founded in San Francisco by naturalist John Muir.

In 1918, American troops fought their first major battle during World War I as they launched an offensive against the German-held French village of Cantigny; the Americans succeeded in capturing the village.

In 1959, the U.S. Army launched Able, a rhesus monkey, and Baker, a squirrel monkey, aboard a Jupiter missile for a suborbital flight which both primates survived.

In 1972, burglars working on behalf of the Nixon White House broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., installing surveillance devices on telephones and taking photos of DNC documents.

In 1977, 165 people were killed when fire raced through the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky.

In 1987, to the embarrassment of Soviet officials, Mathias Rust, a teenage West German amateur pilot, landed a private plane near Moscow's Red Square without authorization. (Rust was held by the Soviets until he was pardoned and freed the following year.)

In 2013, calling it perhaps the biggest money-laundering scheme in U.S. history, federal prosecutors charged seven people with running what amounted to an online, underworld bank, saying that Liberty Reserve handled $6 billion for drug dealers, child pornographers, identity thieves and other criminals around the globe.

Today's Birthdays: Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is 81. Singer Gladys Knight is 81. Musician Billy Vera is 81. Musician John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival) is 80. Country singer-songwriter Phil Vassar is 63. Singer-actor Kylie Minogue is 57. Actor Justin Kirk is 56. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is 54. TV personality Elisabeth Hasselbeck is 48. Actor Jake Johnson is 47. Singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat is 40. Actor Carey Mulligan is 40.