Senator McCarthy first made a name for himself in 1950 when he charged that over 200 “known communists” were in the Department of State. During the next few years, he alleged that communists were in nearly every branch of the U.S. government. His reckless accusations helped to create what came to be known as the Red Scare, a time when Americans feared that communists were infiltrating all aspects of American government and life. Despite the fact that McCarthy never managed to unearth a single communist, his ability to whip up public hysteria and smear opponents as communist sympathizers made him front-page news for several years. By 1954, however, his power was slipping. His earlier charges had been leveled at the Democratic administration of President Harry S. Truman, and Republicans had embraced McCarthy as a useful weapon. When Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower stepped into the presidency in 1953, however, McCarthy’s wild accusations became a nuisance and source of embarrassment to the Republican Party.

Sensing that his base of power was eroding, in 1954 McCarthy embarked on a spectacularly unsuccessful effort to recapture public support by opening investigations into alleged communist infiltration of the U.S. Army. By early June 1954, the McCarthy-Army hearings had been going on for nearly a month. This was the first opportunity for the American public to get a firsthand view of McCarthy, as the hearings were televised. His bullying style and hysterical behavior quickly turned off the audience. In a desperate attempt to regain momentum, McCarthy charged that communists had also infiltrated the CIA and atomic weapons industry. No one took the charges seriously, and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, his brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles, and President Eisenhower brusquely dismissed McCarthy’s accusations as reckless and without basis.

Just a few weeks later, McCarthy was thoroughly disgraced when the lawyer for the U.S. Army, Joseph Welch, gave him a devastatingly effective tongue-lashing, which ended with Welch asking the senator whether he had any sense of “decency” at all. The McCarthy-Army hearings collapsed soon thereafter, and the U.S. Senate voted to censure McCarthy. He died, still holding office, in 1957.

On this day, the Confederates abandon the city of Corinth. After the epic struggle at Shiloh in April 1862, the Confederate army, under the command of P.T. Beauregard, concentrated at Corinth, while the Union army, under Henry Halleck, began a slow advance from the Shiloh battlefield toward the rail center at Corinth. Halleck had no intention of taking on Beauregard’s army directly; he was more concerned with controlling the railroad junction.

Beauregard was in a difficult position. Halleck, the commander of Union forces in the West, had at his disposal Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee, Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio, and John Pope’s Army of the Mississippi. With these forces, he had a more than two-to-one advantage over Beauregard.

Nearly a week before the evacuation, Beauregard assessed his situation with his lieutenants. Although he considered the city to be vital to the Confederacy, he also worried that his entire command could be captured or cut to pieces if a retreat was delayed. So he crafted a clever withdrawal from Corinth: His troops deployed a number of logs painted black (”Quaker guns”) along his front lines to fool the Yankees into thinking they were facing substantial artillery. Meanwhile, he had his troops cook extra rations and cheer the arrival of empty boxcars to lead the Union troops to believe the Confederates were preparing for battle and receiving reinforcements.

On the night of May 29, Beauregard began slipping his forces out of Corinth. On May 30, the remainder of the army left the city and burned any remaining supplies. Halleck’s men entered a deserted Corinth later that day. Although an important city had been forfeited to the Union army, Beauregard’s army remained intact and, with it, Confederate hopes in the West.

Following approval of statehood by the terriroy’s citizens, Wiconsin enters the Union as the 30th state.  In 1634, French explorer Jean Nicolet landed at Green Bay, becoming the first European to visit the lake-heavy northern region that would later become Wisconsin. In 1763, at the conclusion of the French and Indian Wars, the region, a major center of the American fur trade, passed into British control. Two decades later, at the end of the American Revolution, the region came under U.S. rule and was governed as part of the Northwest Territory. However, British fur traders continued to dominate Wisconsin from across the Canadian border, and it was not until the end of the War of 1812 that the region fell firmly under American control.

In the first decades of the 19th century, settlers began arriving via the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes to exploit Wisconsin’s agricultural potential, and in 1832 the Black Hawk War ended Native American resistance to white settlement. In 1836, after several decades of governance as part of other territories, Wisconsin was made a separate entity, with Madison, located midway between Milwaukee and the western centers of population, marked as the territorial capital. By 1840, population in Wisconsin had risen above 130,000, but the people voted against statehood four times, fearing the higher taxes that would come with a stronger central government. Finally, in 1848, Wisconsin citizens, envious of the prosperity that federal programs brought to neighboring Midwestern states, voted to approve statehood. Wisconsin entered the Union the next May.

On May 28, 1918, the Battle of Cantigny began during World War I as American troops captured the French town from the Germans; the Americans were able to resist German counterattacks in the days that followed.

On this day…

In 1863, the first black regiment from the North left Boston to fight in the Civil War.

In 1937, President Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington signaling that vehicular traffic could begin crossing the just-opened Golden Gate Bridge in California.

In 1937, Neville Chamberlain became prime minister of Britain.

Ten years ago: Pakistan matched India with five nuclear test blasts of its own, raising fears of a nuclear arms race. Comic actor Phil Hartman of “Saturday Night Live” and “NewsRadio” fame was shot to death at his home in Encino, Calif., by his wife, Brynn, who then killed herself. California astronomer Susan Terebey announced she had photographed what may be a planet some 450 light years from Earth.

Five years ago: President Bush signed a 10-year, $350 billion package of tax cuts, saying they already were “adding fuel to an economic recovery.” Amnesty International released a report saying the U.S.-led war on terror had made the world a more dangerous and repressive place, a finding dismissed by Washington as “without merit.” Actress Martha Scott died in Southern California at age 90.

One year ago: The United States and Iran broke a 27-year diplomatic freeze with a four-hour meeting in Baghdad about Iraqi security. President Bush, during a Memorial Day visit to Arlington National Cemetery, honored U.S. troops who had fought and died for freedom and expressed his steely resolve to succeed in the war in Iraq. Miss Japan Rita Mori was crowned Miss Universe 2007 at the pageant in Mexico City.