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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 1, 2005 5:33:04 GMT -5
1707 - Scotland and England were joined together under the name of Great Britain.
1751 - America’s first cricket tournament was held in New York City. Cricket is a popular European sport, played by teams of 11 players who use bats, balls and wickets.
1808 - After only a few days in power, Ferdinand relinquished the Spanish throne in favor of Napoleon of France.
1851 - Queen Victoria opened the first Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London.
1876 - The Royal Titles Bill was passed by the British Parliament, entitling Queen Victoria to call herself Empress of India.
1883 - Buffalo Bill (William F. Cody) staged his first Wild West Show.
1883 - America’s first professional sports trainer, Bob Rogers, was hired by the New York Athletic Club.
1884 - The first skyscraper in America was under construction. It was a 10-story building located on the corner of LaSalle and Adams in Chicago, Illinois.
1886 - A national coalition of labor groups started a strike in favor of the eight-hour work day. In Chicago on May 4, 1886, workers and police clashed, in what became known as the "Haymarket riot." May 1st is celebrated in most countries in the world as the International Workers' Day. As a result of the Haymarket riot, several protesters and police officers died.
1898 - In the Battle of Manila Bay in the Spanish-American War, U.S. forces destroyed the Spanish fleet and blockaded the bay for three months before capturing Manila itself.
1915 - The liner Lusitania left New York on the same day the German Embassy took out advertisements warning anyone traveling on ships carrying a British flag that they did so at their own risk. It was sunk six days later.
1920 - The longest baseball game (by innings) was played. The Boston Braves and the Brooklyn Dodgers played an incredible 26 innings - with the same pitchers. Leon Cadore of Brooklyn and Boston’s Joe Oeschger went the distance and saw the game end in a 1-1 tie.
1922 - Charlie Robertson of Chicago pitched a perfect no-hit, no-run game as the Chicago White Sox shut out the Detroit Tigers 3-0. Hard to believe, but this was the last perfect game in an American League regular season for 46 years.
1925 - Cyprus officially became a British colony. It had been leased to Britain by Turkey in 1878 and was annexed to the British Empire in 1914.
1931 - The Empire State Building officially opened in New York City. Until 1972 it was the tallest building in the world at 102 stories high. The construction of the building was completed in 14 months. Due to economic depression, which began in 1929, the cost of the building totaled less than $25 million, half the original estimate.
1931 - Singer Kate Smith began her long and illustrious radio career on CBS this, her birthday. The 22-year-old Smith started out with no sponsors and a paycheck of just $10 a week for the nationally broadcast daily program. However, within 30 days, her salary increased to a more respectable $1,500 a week.
1937 - Spanish painter Pablo Picasso produced the first sketch of his masterpiece "Guernica," five days after the Basque town had been bombed by the Germans.
1939 - The two-part Sy Oliver arrangement of "Lonesome Road" was recorded by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Listening carefully, one might note that the lead trombone is not that of Tommy Dorsey, but of Dave Jacobs, instead.
1945 - Hamburg radio officially announced that Hitler had died in Berlin; Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels committed suicide in his Berlin bunker; German headquarters in Italy formally agreed to an unconditional surrender.
1950 - Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, and Joshua Logan won the Pulitzer Prize for their musical South Pacific.
1955 - Jockey Willie Shoemaker rode the legendary Swaps to a win in the Kentucky Derby in Louisville. The Run for the Roses was worth $108,400. (Swap’s colt, Chateaugay, would win the 1963 Derby with the exact same time as his daddy’s, 2 minutes, 1-4/5 seconds.) This was Shoemaker’s first Derby win. He would win again in 1959 aboard Tommy Lee and in 1965 on Lucky Debonair.
1960 - The Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 plane piloted by Gary Powers. He was jailed for spying before being exchanged in an East-West spy swap in February 1962.
1961 - Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared the country a socialist nation and abolished elections.
1963 - Sir Winston Churchill announced his retirement from the House of Commons.
1967 - Elvis Presley married his longtime, 17-year-old girlfriend, Priscilla Beaulieu, in Las Vegas. The newlywed couple flew to Palm Springs for their honeymoon. Announcement of the wedding broke the hearts of millions of female fans across the world. Exactly nine months later, their first and only child, Lisa Marie, was born.
1969 - Leonard Tose, a trucking executive from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, opened his wallet and pulled out $16,155,000 to buy himself the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League. It was the largest price paid to that date for a pro football franchise. It would be over a decade [1981] before the Eagles would make it to the Super Bowl (XV: Oakland Raiders 27, Eagles 10).
1970 - Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin combined for the first time on Elton’s first American album simply titled, "Elton John". The LP contained Elton’s first hit, "Your Song", which made it to the top ten on the music charts in December.
1971 - The train company Amtrak began to operate and offer passenger service throughout the United States. The US Congress had passed the Passenger Service Act the previous year, which allowed for the creation of Amtrak, a privately run company that runs with the aid of government subsidies.
1971 - Brown Sugar, recorded by The Rolling Stones, debuted on Billboard's pop charts on this date. The song was on the charts for 12 weeks and was in the Number 1 position for 2 weeks.
1978 - Naomi Uemura, a Japanese explorer, became the first man to reach the North Pole alone.
1982 - "I Love Rock ’N Roll" by Joan Jett and The Blackhearts appeared at the top of the pop music charts for the seventh, and final, week. The rocker stayed on the charts for 16 weeks. Jett, from Philadelphia, played guitar and formed the all-female rock band, The Runaways in the mid-’70s. The Blackhearts were founded in 1980. Jett starred in the film, "Light of Day", playing the role of leader of a rock band called The Barbusters. The movie also starred Michael J. Fox and Michael McKean. The title song, "Light of Day" was written by Jett and Bruce Springsteen. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts had nine hits on the charts into 1990, but "I Love Rock ’N Roll" was the group’s only million-plus selling record.
1982 - In Poland, 50,000 supporters of "Solidarity" demonstrated in Warsaw against military rule.
1986 - Race car driver Bill Elliott set a stock car speed record with his Ford Thunderbird in Talladega, Alabama. Elliott zipped around the track at 212.229 mph.
1990 - In Beverly Hills, California, an angry judge ordered actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, age 72, to perform 60 extra hours of community service, saying that fund-raising at her mansion was not the way to serve her sentence for slapping a motorcycle policeman. Judge Charles Rubin told Gabor that she would be jailed if she violated her probation again, and that her community service duties would include handling phones and serving food at shelters. Gabor, sentenced originally to 120 hours of community service, spent only 34 1/2 hours at the shelter, with the remaining hours at her Bel-Air home, allegedly planning a shelter fund-raiser.
1990 - Chinese troops began withdrawing from the Tibetan capital of Lhasa as martial law was lifted.
1991 - Col. Elias Ramaema was sworn in as the military ruler of Lesotho.
1992 - Turkmenistan announced it would switch to a Latin-based Turkish alphabet from the Cyrillic script.
1993 - President Ali Abdullah Saleh's ruling party won the most seats in united Yemen's first general elections.
1993 - Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa died of injuries sustained in a bomb blast during a May Day procession.
1994 - Ayrton Senna, three times world F-1 auto racing champion, died after a high-speed crash in the San Marino Grand Prix.
1995 - Croatia recaptured the rebel Serb enclave of Western Slavonia it lost in 1991.
1996 - Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps announced she was resigning over the government's failure to abolish a controversial sales tax.
1997 - Tony Blair's Labor Party won a landslide victory in Britain's general election.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 2, 2005 5:56:37 GMT -5
1519 - Leonardo da Vinci died near Amboise, France. An Italian painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer, his genius epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.
1670 - The Hudson's Bay Company was chartered by the English crown and given a monopoly of the trade into Hudson Bay, Canada.
1813 - During the Leipzig campaign of the Napoleonic Wars, the French won the Battle of Lutzen.
1853 - Franconi’s Hippodrome opened at Broadway and 23rd Street in New York City. The 4,000-seat facility opened in grand style for a hippodrome (an arena for a circus or games) with a chariot-and-ostrich race.
1863 - During the American Civil War, the Battle of Chancellorsville started. It was during this battle that Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was accidentally shot by his own men, dying shortly afterwards.
1885 - A new magazine for homemakers went on sale - and it remains very popular today. The magazine is "Good Housekeeping".
1885 - The Congo Free State was established by King Leopold II of Belgium. Considered the king's personal territory, it occupied most of the Congo River basin. In 1908 the Congo Free State was abolished and became the Belgian Congo, a colony controlled by the Belgian parliament. In 1966, the country was named Zaire, but was renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997.
1887 - Hannibal W. Goodwin of Newark, New Jersey applied for a patent for celluloid photographic film - the stuff from which movies are shown.
1932 - NBC radio introduced an entertainert. The comic genius started working for a salary of $1,400 a week at NBC. His name: Jack Benny.
1933 - Adolf Hitler continued his crackdown in Germany, banning trade unions.
1936 - Abyssinian Emperor Haile Selassie and his family fled Addis Ababa, three days before its capture by the Italians.
1938 - Pioneer jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald recorded one of her biggest hits, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," which was a swing version of a popular nursery rhyme. That song ignited a musical career that spanned six decades. Fitzgerald's mastery of scat singing became her trademark, and her improvisations and interpretations of famous songs are legendary. She became affectionately known as "The First Lady of Song".
1939 - Lou Gehrig established a new major-league baseball record as he played in his 2,130th game. ‘The Iron Horse’ had played in every Yankee game since June 1, 1925. It would take 57 years until Cal Ripken, Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles would shatter that long-standing record in the summer of 1995.
1941 - The Federal Communications Commission agreed to let regular scheduling of TV broadcasts by commercial TV stations begin on July 1, 1941. It was the start of what would become network television.
1945 - Berlin surrendered to the 1st White Russian and 1st Ukrainian armies; hostilities in Italy ceased as the surrender terms took effect; Hamburg opened negotiations for the surrender of the city.
1946 - The film-noir drama, The Postman Always Rings Twice, opened in American theaters. Starring Lana Turner and John Garfield, the film deviated somewhat from James M. Cain's original novel, primarily for censorship reasons. However, Turner and Garfield turned in steamy performances as the doomed lovers who kill off Turner's husband.
1951 - The Council of Europe admitted Germany as a full member.
1951 - The Shah of Persia signed decrees approving the nationalization of its oil industry.
1952 - The first scheduled jet airliner passenger service began with a BOAC Comet, which flew from London to Johannesburg carrying 36 passengers.
1953 - In Jordan, King Hussein formally acceded to the throne after his father, King Talal, was deposed. In Iraq, King Feisal II assumed power.
1953 - Dark Star defeated the heavily favored Native Dancer to win the Kentucky Derby. A $2 wager to win on this dark horse would have put some change in your pocket. Dark Star was a 25-1 long shot.
1954 - Stan ‘The Man’ Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals smacked five home runs in a twin bill against the New York Giants - establishing a major-league record.
1960 - Harry Belafonte presented his second Carnegie Hall concert in New York City.
1964 - Northern Dancer, with jockey Bill Hartack, won the Kentucky Derby. Hartack had been on quite a win streak, completing four major victories in six months. The racing legend was atop Iron Liege, Venetian Way, Decidedly and Northern Dancer (not all at the same time). Hartack then rode Northern Dancer to a win in the Preakness Stakes in Maryland. Interesting aside: In 1964 another jockey had ridden Northern Dancer three times then suddenly switched to Hill Rose for the Run for the Roses in Louisville. He was Willie Shoemaker.
1965 - The first communications satellite for relaying television pictures went into operation; the "Early Bird" transmitted to 24 countries.
1965 - Ed Sullivan had said he would not have this British rock group on his CBS-TV Sunday night show again. However, Ed softened up - and allowed Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones to make a second appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show".
1967 - The Bertrand Russell International War Crimes Tribunal began in Stockholm, later to find the United States guilty of aggression in Vietnam.
1968 - Neil Simon's classic comedy The Odd Couple, about two diverse, divorced men trying to live together under the same roof, hit the big screen. Starring Walter Matthau as Oscar Madison and Jack Lemmon as Felix Unger, the film was a box office smash. Matthau and Lemmon were both nominated for Golden Globe awards. The film inspired a successful TV sitcom a few years later.
1969 - The British passenger liner Queen Elizabeth 2 left on her maiden voyage to New York.
1974 - Filming got underway for the motion picture, "Jaws", in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. What was to be a 58-day shooting schedule for the film inspired by the Peter Benchley novel soon gave way to 120 days. Costs soared from what was to be a $3.5 million project to $8 million. The director, Steven Spielberg, was able to explain away the rise in costs and the picture did very well at the box office and, later, on video cassette.
1981 - Scottish singer, Sheena Easton, made it to the top spot on the pop music charts for her first - and only - time. "Morning Train (Nine to Five)" knocked "Kiss on My List" by Daryl Hall and John Oates out of the top of the music charts. "Morning Train" pulled into the top spot for a two-week stay. Easton had been an actress, appearing as a singer in the 1980 BBC TV documentary "The Big Time"; and this time she made it to the big time, winning the 1981 Best New Artist Grammy Award. On U.S. TV, she is remembered as Sonny Crockett’s wife in five episodes of "Miami Vice" in the 1980s and for singing the title song in the James Bond flick, "For Your Eyes Only". Easton scored 14 hits on the charts between 1981 and 1991. Seven of those hits made it to the top ten. "The Lover in Me" in 1988 was the closest she ever came to having another number one hit - it stopped climbing at number two.
1982 - In the Falklands War, a British submarine sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano with the loss of more than 350 lives.
1985 - The General Motors X-Cars rolled off the assembly line in Detroit, Michigan for the final time. The cars were a dismal failure, despite being a hit in the beginning. The X-Cars were subject to massive recalls which cost G.M. many millions of dollars.
1986 - The photo essay, "A Day in the Life of America", began as two hundred photojournalists covered the USA to take 350,000 pictures. For publication of the beautiful coffee table book, only 350 pictures were selected. Several spin-off books such as "A Day in the Life of Hawaii", etc. have joined it on coffee tables throughout the world.
1990 - In the Soviet city of Andizhan, hundreds of soccer fans rioted after a match was canceled in eastern Usbekitan, setting fire to buildings, homes and stores before order was restored. At least thirty-four people were injured. The match was called off when the visiting squad defaulted.
1992 - The Yugoslav Army seized Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic after fierce fighting in Sarajevo.
1994 - Pres. F.W. de Klerk conceded victory to Nelson Mandela in the country's historic first all-race elections.
1995 - Serb missiles exploded in the heart of Zagreb, killing six people.
1997 - Austin Powers: International Spy of Mystery, starring Mike Myers as a hip 1960's British spy who was cryogenically frozen and then thawed in the 1990's, opened in U.S. theaters. Myers also wrote the screenplay. The film did surprisingly well at the box office, and spawned a sequel.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 3, 2005 5:44:39 GMT -5
1494 - Christopher Columbus first sighted the island later to be named Jamaica.
1500 - The Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral landed in Brazil and claimed it for his country. The land had been visited by Spanish navigator Vicente Yanes Pinzon in January but the discovery was not followed up.
1616 - The Second Civil War in France ended with the signing of the Treaty of Loudun, granting an amnesty to the rebellious Prince of Conde.
1660 - John II Casimir of Poland abandoned his claim to Sweden and signed the Treaty of Oliva, ending the Polish-Swedish War of Succession.
1747 - In the War of Austrian Succession, the British roundly defeated the French at the first Battle of Cape Finisterre.
1765 - The first US medical college opened in Philadelphia. Founded by John Morgan, the School of Medicine belonged to the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania). "The theory and practice of physick" and "anatomical lectures" were among the first subjects taught.
1791 - King Stanislaw Augustus signed a liberal bill of rights reforming gentry-ruled Poland and setting up a constitutional monarchy. It was only the second written constitution in the world after that of the United States.
1810 - Lord Byron swam the Hellespont. It took just an hour and 10 minutes to do it. The Hellespont is now know as the Dardanelles. It is a 40 mi. (64 km) long, 1-5 mi. (1.6-8 km) wide strait between European and Asian Turkey, connecting the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara.
1841 - New Zealand was formally proclaimed a British colony.
1845 - Macon B. Allen became the first African American lawyer to be admitted to the bar in Massachusetts. One year prior, he had been admitted to the bar in Maine, which made him the first licensed African American attorney to practice in the United States.
1895 - The territories owned by the British South Africa Company south of the Zambezi were given the name of Rhodesia.
1927 - Francis E.J. Wilde of Meadowmere Park, New York patented the electric sign flasher.
1933 - The United States Mint was under the direction of a woman for the first time. Mrs. Nellie Ross assumed command.
1938 - Viewers of W2XBS-TV (now WCBS-TV) watched the first book review show.
1939 - "Beer Barrel Polka", one of the standards of American music, was recorded by The Andrews Sisters for Decca Records. Patti, Maxine and LaVerne turned this song into a giant hit.
1939 - Maxim Litvinov was removed as Soviet foreign minister and replaced by Vyacheslav Molotov.
1941 - Jockey, Eddie Arcaro rode Whirl-A-Way to the winner’s circle in the Kentucky Derby. He was on his way to winning racing’s Triple Crown (the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky, the Preakness in Baltimore, Maryland and the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in New York).
1944 - Dr. Robert Woodward and Dr. William Doering produced the first synthetic quinine at Harvard University. Quinine - like in quinine water.
1945 - The British 14th Army captured Rangoon in Burma; German Admiral Doenitz sent envoys to Lunenburg Heath to discuss possible surrender with Field Marshal Montgomery; U.S. forces meet up with the Russians in the Wismar area; Innsbruck was captured; Trieste was entered by New Zealand troops.
1951 - In Britain, King George VI and Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth inaugurated the Festival of Britain on London's South Bank.
1952 - The first airplane landed at the geographic location of the North Pole.
1956 - "Most Happy Fella", a musical by Frank Loesser, opened at the Imperial Theatre in New York City. The show, an adaptation of "They Knew What They Wanted" by Sidney Howard, ran for 676 performances on Broadway. Critics called the show “a masterpiece” - thanks to the outstanding performances of Robert Weede and Jo Sullivan. One must not forget Loesser’s music, which included such classics as "Standing on the Corner", "I Like Everybody", "Joey, Joey, Joey", "Big Acquaintance" and "Don’t Cry".
1957 - Brooklyn Dodgers’ owner, Walter O’Malley, agreed to move the team from Flatbush to sunny Los Angeles. Initially, only exhibition games were held at the L.A. Coliseum. O’Malley said that a new stadium would have to be constructed before the Dodgers would even consider a move to Southern California. He was right, so Dodger Stadium (in Chavez Ravine) was constructed with private investor money.
1960 - The play, "The Fantasticks" opened at the Sullivan Playhouse in New York City. It would later become the longest-running, off-Broadway play. "Soon It’s Gonna Rain" was one of the big hit tunes from the production. The show was the equivalent of London’s long-running play "The Mousetrap". Unfortunately, though the British were familiar with "The Mousetrap" and might have known of the similarities between the two plays, when "The Fantasticks" opened in London, it failed miserably - and closed after only 44 performances.
1965 - Cambodia broke off diplomatic relations with the United States after a weekly magazine carried an article felt to be derogatory to the royal family.
1968 - French students and police clashed violently in Paris, the start of a month of disturbances and strikes that threatened the rule of General Charles De Gaulle.
1971 - National Public Radio (NPR), the most well-known US non-commercial radio network, began broadcasting. NPR is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, corporate underwriting, and contributions by listeners. NPR has affiliate radio stations in all 50 states of the United States.
1971 - In East Germany, Walter Ulbricht retired as First Secretary of the Communist Party and was succeeded by Erich Honecker.
1986 - Horse racing legend Bill Shoemaker became the oldest jockey to win the the Kentucky Derby. ‘The Shoe’ was atop Ferdinand for the win. Shoemaker was 54 years old. It had been 32 years since Shoemaker’s first Derby victory back in 1955.
1986 - Actor Robert Alda, father of actor Alan Alda, died of a stroke at age 72 in Los Angeles, California. Alda's acting credits included Rhapsody in Blue, Cinderella Jones, Cloak and Dagger, The Man I Love, Tarzan and the Slave Girl, Imitation of Life, and the TV series Secret File, U.S.A.. He was also cast in the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives as Dr. Stuart Whyland.
1993 - Authorities said they had identified the body of David Koresh from remains found in the siege at Waco in February.
1995 - The controversial film Panther, which depicted the Black Panther Party of the 1960's, opened across the nation. Directed by Mario Van Peebles and co-produced with Mario's father, writer Melvin Van Peebles, the film was intended to inform a new generation about a group of black activists they felt made a difference. Detractors called the film "a pack of lies".
1996 - In Pamela Anderson Lee's film debut as a sexy action hero/bounty hunter/nightclub owner, Barb Wire was released to U.S. theaters. Critics hated it.
1996 - Delegates from 55 countries agreed at a U.N. conference in Geneva on new rules for landmine use, but rejected an all-out ban.
1996 - Liu Gang, one of the most prominent pro-democracy leaders to flee China, was granted permission to stay in the U.S.
1998 - It was reported that on this date, Titanic's box office take had climbed to $565,736,531.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 4, 2005 6:57:56 GMT -5
1471 - The Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury in the Wars of the Roses.
1493 - Pope Alexander VI, a Spaniard, decreed that all new lands discovered west of the Azores were Spanish.
1626 - Governor Peter Minuit bought a 20,000-acre island, all of what is now Manhattan Island. The price? $24 worth of cloth and brass buttons.
1776 - Rhode Island abandoned allegiance to Great Britain.
1780 - The first Derby horse race was run at Epsom in England over a distance of one and a half miles.
1839 - The Cunard shipping line was founded by Samuel Cunard of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
1864 - The Wade-Davis Reconstruction bill passed the House.
1886 - Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter received a US patent for the graphophone. This invention replaced Thomas Edison's phonograph, and featured wax-coated cylinders. These were considered an improvement over the phonograph's tinfoil cylinders, which had been delicate and difficult to remove.
1886 - Labor unrest in Chicago led to the Haymarket Square riot.
1899 - Manuel rushed to the finish line ahead of four others to win the Kentucky Derby.
1905 - Belmont Park race track opened on Long Island, New York. Race King and Sysonby finished in a dead heat in the day’s feature race.
1919 - Students demonstrated in China against the Versailles Peace Conference decision to hand Germany's possessions in Shantung Province to Japan. Known as the May Fourth Movement, it led to the birth of the Chinese Communist Party.
1920 - The Symphony Society of New York presented a concert at the Paris Opera House. It was the first American orchestra to make a European tour.
1925 - The Terris-Dundee boxing match was the final event held at the old Madison Square Garden in New York City. Five different sites have been named Madison Square Garden over the years.
1926 - The first General Strike in British history began. It was called by the Trades Union Congress and troops were called in to man essential services.
1932 - Public Enemy Number One, Al Capone, was jailed - in the Atlanta Penitentiary - for tax evasion.
1938 - Dr. Douglas Hyde became the first president of Ireland under its new constitution.
1942 - The battle of the Coral Sea started in World War II, when naval and air battles began off the Solomon Islands.
1945 - Field Marshal Montgomery announced that all enemy forces in the Netherlands, Northwest Germany and Denmark had surrendered unconditionally; The U.S. 7th Army captured Hitler's country retreat of Berchtesgaden.
1945 - June Christy sang with the Stan Kenton band on one of the most famous of all big band hits, "Tampico". The tune was waxed as Capitol record number 202.
1950 - In London, jockey Gordon Richards rode the 4,000th winner of his career, more than any jockey in horseracing history.
1954 - The first intercollegiate court tennis match in the United States was held - at the Racquet and Tennis Club in New York City. Princeton and Yale were on opposite sides of the net.
1956 - Gene Vincent and his group, The Blue Caps, recorded "Be-Bop-A Lula" for Capitol Records in Los Angeles. Interesting note: Vincent had written the tune only three days before he auditioned in a record company talent search that won him first place. The record was rush-released just two days later and became a rock and roll classic. Vincent recorded two other charted songs in 1957 and 1958: "Lotta Lovin’" and "Dance to the Bop".
1957 - This was a tough day at the Kentucky Derby for Willie Shoemaker. He misjudged the finish line while aboard Gallant Man. In the winner’s circle at Churchill Downs was, instead, Iron Liege, ridden by jockey Bill Hartack. Gallant Man and Shoemaker did win the Belmont Stakes a few weeks later.
1963 - Andy Williams's album, Days of Wine and Roses, hit the Number 1 spot on the LP pop chart, and stayed there for 16 weeks.
1964 - The Pulitzer Prize jury failed, for the first time, to award winners in the areas of fiction, drama and music.
1964 - The soap opera Another World debuted on NBC.
1970 - National Guard troops killed 4 students during an anti-Vietnam War demonstration at Kent State University in Ohio. The four students killed were Allison Krause, Sandra Lee Scheuer, Jeffrey Glenn Miller and William K. Schroeder.
1977 - Former President Richard M. Nixon spoke with interviewer David Frost in the first of four television interviews. Nixon had been in seclusion for the two previous months.
1979 - Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first woman prime minister with a majority of 43 seats in the House of Commons.
1983 - Japanese playwright Shuji Terayama died at age 47 in Tokyo.
1985 - Spend A Buck posted the third fastest winning time in the Kentucky Derby, by running the 1-1/4 mile track at Churchill Downs in 2 minutes and 1/8 second. Only Secretariat (1973) and Northern Dancer (1964) had been faster.
1985 - The famed Apollo Theatre, once the showcase for the nation’s top black performers, reopened after a renovation that cost $10.4 million. The landmark building on West 125th Street in New York was the first place The Beatles wanted to see on their initial visit to the United States. Ed Sullivan used to frequent the Apollo in search of new talent for his CBS show.
1987 - For the first time, live models were used for Playtex bra ads. This time, models didn’t have to be mannequins or women wearing the undergarments over dresses. The use of live models wearing bras crossed a previously taboo advertising line.
1989 - The space shuttle Atlantis was launched. Its main objective was to deploy the spacecraft Magellan, making this the first time that a craft was launched from a space shuttle. Magellan's mission was to map the surface of Venus.
1989 - Col. Oliver North was found guilty in the investigations into the Iran-Contra affair.
1990 - Angela Bowie, former wife of pop singer David Bowie, announced on The Joan Rivers Show that she had caught Bowie in bed with men several times, and that one of those times included Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger. David Bowie had told interviewers in the past that he was bisexual. Jagger had never made any such statement.
1992 - About 70,000 Thais protested against the appointment of Suchinda Kraprayoon, an unelected general, as prime minister.
1993 - The United States handed over command of multinational forces in Somalia to the United Nations.
1994 - Israel and the PLO signed a historic agreement giving Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip their first measure of freedom since the 1967 Middle East war.
1996 - A 13-year era of Socialist rule ended in Spain when conservative leader Jose Maria Aznar was appointed prime minister.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 5, 2005 5:23:56 GMT -5
1646 - Following his defeat at the battle of Naseby in the English Civil War, Charles I surrendered to a Scottish army at Newark.
1760 - Earl Ferrers, the last British peer to be executed, was hanged in London for murdering his steward.
1809 - Mary Kies,of South Killingly, Connecticut, was the first woman to be issued a U.S. patent. She was granted a patent for the rights to a technique for weaving straw with silk and thread.
1847 - The American Medical Association was organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1860 - Giuseppe Garibaldi and his "Thousand Redshirts" sailed from Genoa to conquer Sicily and Naples.
1862 - Mexican troops defeated the French army, despite being outnumbered and having fewer weapons. The military confrontation became known as "the Battle of Puebla" after the Mexican state where it took place. This date became a holiday that is greatly celebrated by the Mexican and Mexican American communities - Cino de Mayo.
1862 - The Confederates, with 32,000 men under Longstreet, succeeded in blocking 40,000 Federal troops at the battle of Williamsburg, (American Civil War).
1864 - The battle of the Wilderness started in the American Civil War. Gen. Robert Lee had just over 60,000 men against Grant's 100,000 men but the Confederates heavily defeated the Federal troops who lost over 17,000 men.
1867 - In the Mexican-French Wars, the French with 7,000 men under Comte de Lorencez were defeated by the Mexicans at the battle of Puebla.
1891 - Carnegie Hall opened to the public in New York City, beginning a five-day music festival in the city.
1893 - The worst economic crisis in U.S. history (to that time) happened. Stock prices plummeted, major railroads went into receivership, 15,000 businesses went bankrupt and 15 to 20 percent of the work force was unemployed. Within seven months, over 600 banks had closed.
1900 - "The Billboard", a magazine for the music and entertainment industries, began weekly publication after six years as a monthly. The name was later shortened to "Billboard".
1901 - The first Catholic mass for night workers was held at the Church of St. Andrew in New York City.
1904 - Cy Young of the Boston Americans pitched the first perfect major league game in the history of professional baseball. No man reached first base.
1908 - A U.S. Circuit Court judge placed moving pictures under copyright laws with royalties to be paid.
1926 - Author Sinclair Lewis rejected the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Arrowsmith, telling the selection committee in a letter, "All prizes, like all titles, are dangerous".
1930 - Mahatma Gandhi was arrested by the British in India after his campaign of disobedience.
1930 - Amy Johnson began the first solo flight by a woman between England and Australia.
1935 - The radio program, "Rhythm at Eight", made its debut. The star of the show was 24-year-old Ethel Merman. Though Merman would become a legend years later, she didn’t fare so well on radio. Her show was taken off the air after 13 weeks and Miss Merman returned to her first love, Broadway.
1936 - Edward Ravenscroft of Glencoe, Illinois was sitting at his kitchen table, admiring the piece of mail he had just received from the U.S. Patent Office. It was a patent for the screw-on bottle cap with the pour lip.
1936 - Italian troops under Field Marshal Badoglio took Addis Ababa in Ethiopia (Abyssinia). On the same date in 1941, Emperor Haile Selassie reentered the capital after the country had been liberated.
1942 - A combined British military and naval force landed on Madagascar and by the afternoon the town of Diego Suarez was captured.
1945 - In Austria, French politicians Reynaud and Daladier and former Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg, imprisoned by the Nazis, were released; Russian forces captured the town of Peenemunde where V1 and V2 rockets were launched; U.S. forces liberated Austria's Mauthausen concentration camp; poet Ezra Pound was arrested in Italy for treason.
1945 - The Netherlands was liberated from Nazi Germany.
1950 - The coronation of King Phumiphon of Siam took place and he assumed the title of Rama IX.
1955 - The Federal Republic of Germany became a sovereign state after the Allied High Commission dissolved itself.
1955 - The musical, "Damn Yankees" opened in New York City for a successful run of 1,019 performances. The show, at the 42nd Street Theatre mixed both baseball and ballet. It is an adaptation of the book, "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant". Gwen Verdon starred in the role of Lola. Whatever Lola wants Lola gets including the Tony for Best Actress in a musical for her performance.
1961 - Alan Shepard became the first US astronaut and the second human to reach outer space. The first person to reach outer space was the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Shepard's return to Earth was viewed on live television by millions of people around the globe.
1962 - Soldier Boy, by The Shirelles, zoomed to the Number 1 spot on Billboard's record charts, and stayed there for 3 weeks.
1965 - A cease-fire was signed between rebels and the military junta in the Dominican Republic civil war.
1966 - Willie Mays hit home run number 512 of his career. The San Francisco Giants’ superstar broke Mel Ott’s record and became the greatest home run hitter in the National League to that time.
1967 - The first all-British satellite Ariel III was launched in California.
1973 - 56,800 fans paid $309,000 to see Led Zeppelin at Tampa Stadium. This was the largest, paid crowd ever assembled in the U.S. to see a single musical act. The concert topped The Beatles 55,000-person audience at Shea Stadium in New York ($301,000).
1978 - Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds smacked his 3,000th major-league hit. Not many years later, ‘Charlie Hustle’ would break Ty Cobb’s career record of 4,191 hits.
1979 - Terrorists in El Salvador stormed the French, Venezuelan and Costa Rican embassies demanding the release of political prisoners.
1980 - In London, troops of the SAS stormed the Iranian Embassy, killing four of the five gunmen who took over the building and seized hostages.
1981 - Bobby Sands became the first of the 10 IRA hunger strikers to die in the Maze prison, Northern Ireland.
1983 - The West German magazine Stern began publishing the "Hitler Diaries," later proved to be a hoax.
1985 - The first husband and wife team to win a major marathon, Ken and Lisa Maratin, won over $50,000 for their first-place finishes in the Pittsburgh Marathon. Interesting also, because they had never run in the same race before.
1990 - Former child actor Todd Bridges, age 24, known for his nine-year role on the popular TV sitcom, Diff'rent Strokes, was arrested with a friend in North Hollywood on suspicion of possessing cocaine for sale. Police found 48 grams of the drug in Bridges's car. Bridges also faced assault charges in connection with the shooting of a convicted drug dealer in Los Angeles, and was acquitted the previous year of attempted murder and attempted involuntary manslaughter stemming from the shooting of a man he accused of stealing his BMW. A few years later, Bridges was interviewed by Robin Leach. Bridges blamed his quick-rise to fame and fortune as a child, followed by an equally-quick descent after the series was cancelled, as the root of his many problems.
1993 - Irving Howe, writer and intellectual who wrote "World of Our Fathers," died.
1994 - Singapore carried out a controversial caning sentence imposed for vandalism on U.S. teen-ager Michael Fay.
1996 - Israel and the PLO opened the last chapter of negotiations towards a permanent peace settlement over the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem.
1996 - King Juan Carlos swore in conservative leader Jose Maria Aznar as Spanish prime minister, opening a new era in Spanish politics after 13 years of Socialist rule.
Who was born on this date?
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 6, 2005 5:24:14 GMT -5
1527 - What became known as the "sack of Rome" began. For eight days, the armies of Emperor Charles V pillaged and destroyed thousands of churches, palaces, and historic sites. The sack of Rome, in which thousands were killed, ended the city's preeminence as a Renaissance center.
1626 - A Dutch settler, Peter Minuit, bought what is now Manhattan Island from the Indians for a handful of trinkets worth no more than 25 dollars.
1757 - Frederick II of Prussia attacked Austrian troops defending Prague in the Seven Years' War. The attack succeeded and Prague fell with 10,000 Austrian casualties.
1816 - The American Bible Association was organized on this date in New York (1816.
1835 - James Gordon Bennett published the "New York Herald" for the first time.
1840 - The first adhesive postage stamps, the Penny Black and the Twopenny Blue, went on sale in Britain.
1851 - Inventor John Gorrie was granted a US patent for an ice-making machine. Gorrie's invention was the first US patent for mechanical refrigeration. His machine was initially designed for treating yellow fever. Gorrie is considered the father of refrigeration and air-conditioning.
1851 - Linus Yale of Newport, New York became well known for his patent of the clock-type lock.
1861 - Arkansas voted to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy.
1862 - Essayist and poet Henry David Thoreau died at age 45, in Concord, Massachusetts. He battled tuberculosis for several years (1862.
1863 - In the American Civil War, the battle of Chancellorville ended when the Confederates under General Lee heavily defeated Federal troops under Hooker.
1864 - The Civil War battle of the Wilderness in Virginia ended; General Lee's Confederate forces defeated a superior Federal force led by General Grant.
1882 - British statesman Lord Cavendish was murdered by Irish nationalists soon after arriving in Dublin as chief secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
1889 - The Universal Exposition opened in Paris, France, marking the dedication of the recently constructed Eiffel Tower. The exposition also was known for the display of the first automobile in Paris; a German Mercedes-Benz.
1915 - Babe Ruth hit his first major-league home run. He was playing for the Boston Red Sox at the time. ‘The Sultan of Swat’ went on to smash 714 home runs before he retired, as a New York Yankee, in 1935.
1919 - The Paris Peace Conference disposed of Germany's colonies; German East Africa was assigned as a League of Nations mandate to Britain and France, German South-West Africa as a mandate to South Africa.
1932 - President Paul Doumer was assassinated by a Russian emigre in Paris.
1937 - Thirty-six people were killed when the hydrogen-filled German zeppelin Hindenburg was destroyed by fire at a tower mooring while docking in Lakehurst, New Jersey. A horrified crowd, gathered to greet the zeppelin's arrival, witnessed the explosion. The filmed footage of the disaster was shown in thousands of movie theaters for many months.
1941 - Joseph Stalin became the premier of Russia.
1942 - The island fortress of Corregidor in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese.
1945 - The U.S. Third Army captured Pilsen in Czechoslovakia; General Johannes Blaskowitz surrendered the German armies in The Netherlands.
1946 - The New York Yankees announced that they were to be the first major league baseball team to travel by airplane during the entire 1946 season.
1954 - Roger Bannister was the first to break the 4-minute mile while at Oxford University in England. His 4-lap time was 3:59.4. Bannister was a 25-year-old medical student at the time at St. Mary's Hospital.
1957 - Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy of Massachusetts was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his book "Profiles in Courage".
1959 - The Pablo Picasso painting of a Dutch girl was sold for $154,000 in London. It was the highest price paid to that time for a painting by a living artist.
1960 - The sister of Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret, married Anthony Armstrong-Jones in Westminster Abbey.
1968 - The worst street fighting in Paris since the liberation shook the left bank as students and police fought for control of the fashionable Boulevard St. Germain. The University of the Sorbonne was closed.
1971 - Ike and Tina Turner's single recording Proud Mary was certified gold.
1974 - West German Chancellor Willy Brandt resigned after an aide was arrested on charges of spying for East Germany.
1976 - An earthquake struck the town of Udine in northern Italy, killing 973 people and leaving over 100,000 homeless.
1979 - In Austria's general election, Dr. Bruno Kreisky's Socialist Democratic Party was returned to power for a fourth consecutive term.
1980 - NBC came to terms with its superstar, Johnny Carson. Johnny signed a new three-year contract for approximately $5-million a year. Carson also reduced his "Tonight Show" to one hour from ninety minutes and cut his work week to four nights. Plus, he got billing in the show’s title, as it became "The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson".
1981 - The U.S. expelled all Libyan diplomats, citing was it said was the Libyan government's support for international terrorism.
1982 - Gaylord Perry of the Seattle Mariners became the 15th pitcher in the major leagues to win 300 career victories. Perry, known for his spitball as well as a variety of other pitches, led the Mariners past the New York Yankees 7-3.
1983 - In Germany, alleged diaries supposedly written by dictator Adolf Hitler and published by Stern Magazine and the Sunday Times were declared fakes.
1986 - Comedienne, JoanRivers, put her foot in her mouth by announcing to the world that she was leaving "The Tonight Show" as permanent guest host to begin her own late-night gabfest on the new FOX TV Network.
1989 - The decomposing body of television actor Guy Williams was found in his apartment in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He apparently died of a heart attack a week earlier, and police discovered his body after neighbors complained about the strong odor of decay coming from the apartment. Williams would be best-remembered for his lead TV roles in Zorro and Lost in Space.
1989 - Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo, the 26-year-old ringleader of a drug-smuggling cult that killed at least fifteen people, was slain in a gun battle with Mexico City police. Constanzo's girlfriend, Sara Aldrete, a 24-year-old former Texas college student who witnesses claimed was the "witch" of the cult, was arrested. Constanzo and Aldrete were sought in an international manhunt and were suspected to have directed human sacrifices, mutilations, and the boiling of brains and other human organs in rituals designed to bring occult protection for their drug-smuggling ring. According to reports, Aldrete lured new members into the cult and forced them to watch a videotape of The Believers. The 1987 horror film was about palo mayombe, a religion which allegedly uses human bones, and starred Martin Sheen as a police psychologist investigating a series of gruesome slayings. In addition to Aldrete, four other suspected cult members were in taken into police custody.
1990 - Soviet authorities agreed to open for just one day eight crossing points along a 400-km (260-mile) stretch of the River Prut, which had marked the division of Moldavia between Romania and the Soviet Union since 1945.
1990 - Former president P.W. Botha quit South Africa's ruling National Party as a protest against the apartheid reform program of his successor F.W. de Klerk.
1994 - Nelson Mandela and his ANC named their team for a post-apartheid government of national unity.
1994 - Britain and France were joined for the first time since the Ice Age by an undersea tunnel hailed as one of the great engineering feats of the 20th century.
1996 - Guatemala's leftist guerrillas signed a key accord in talks with the government of President Alvaro Arzu aimed at ending 35 years of civil war.
1996 - The body of former CIA Director William Colby was found at a river's edge nine days after he apparently drowned while canoeing in southern Maryland.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 7, 2005 6:05:38 GMT -5
1189 - The first Presidential Inaugural Ball was held in New York City. Each The Kaiser Fiedrich Barbarossa granted customs and commercial rights to the German town of Hamburg. One of the first members of the Hanseatic League, Hamburg soon became the main port between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Hamburg is today one of Europe's most industrial and ecologically aware cities.
1429 - Joan of Arc led French forces in lifting of siege of Orleans.
1663 - In London, the first Theatre Royal in Drury Lane was opened under a charter granted by King Charles II.
1765 - HMS Victory, the British battleship and flagship of Lord Nelson, was launched at Chatham, Kent.
1789 - The first Presidential Inaugural Ball was held in New York City. Each lady in attendance received, as a gift, a portrait of George Washington.
1824 - Composer Ludwig van Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" was presented for the first time in public.
1832 - Otto of Bavaria was chosen king of Greece by the great powers at the conference of London.
1898 - The first Intercollegiate Trapshooting Association meet was held in New Haven, Coonecticut. Clay pigeons were used for the competition.
1912 - Columbia University approved final plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories. The award was established by Joseph Pulitzer.
1912 - The first airplane equipped with a machine gun flew over College Park, Maryland.
1915 - On its return trip from New York to Liverpool, England, the British ocean liner, "Lusitania", was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland. The "Lusitania" was carrying a cargo of ammunition from the U.S. to Great Britain. This was Germany’s reason for the attack even though the ship was carrying over 2,000 civilian men, women and children. 1,198 lives were lost.
1918 - Romania signed the Treaty of Bucharest with Germany and Austria-Hungary; the treaty was nullified in November when the Central Powers collapsed.
1928 - The age at which women could vote in Britain was lowered from 30 to 21.
1943 - Allied forces liberated Tunis and Bizerte.
1944 - A Russian assault opened on Sevastopol in Crimea.
1945 - The instruments of the surrender of German forces in World War II were signed by General Jodl, the German chief of staff, at General Eisenhower's headquarters in Rheims.
1945 - Baseball owner Branch Rickey announced the organization of the United States Negro Baseball League, consisting of six teams.
1951 - Russia was admitted to participate in the 1952 Olympic Games - by the International Olympic Committee.
1954 - Viet Minh's troops defeated the French army in the Dien Bien Phu Battle, and forced the French government to abandon its attempts to regain control of Indochina. This battle is considered one of the greatest victories won by a former colony over a colonial power. The Viet Minh was the main Vietnamese organization to oppose the French occupation.
1958 -Pianist Van Cliburn signed an artist’s contract with RCA Victor Records.
1959 - It was one of the most touching and memorable nights in all of baseball. 93,103 fans packed the LA Coliseum for an exhibition game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees. Sandy Koufax pitched for the Dodgers that night and lost to the Yankees, 6-2. It was Roy Campanella Night. The star catcher for the Dodgers, paralyzed in an automobile accident, was honored for his contributions to the team for many years. ‘Campie’ continued to serve in various capacities with the Dodger organization for many years.
1960 - Kliment Voroshilov was replaced as president of the Soviet Union by Leonid Brezhnev.
1966 - The Mamas and The Papas made the climb to the top of the "Billboard" pop music chart with "Monday, Monday". For three weeks "Monday, Monday" stayed at the top of the pop music world. The tune was the second hit by the group - just two months after their first, "California Dreamin’". These two songs would be the only number one hits for the group, though they made it to number two with "Dedicated to the One I Love".
1980 - Paul Geidel, convicted of second-degree murder in 1911, was released from prison Beacon, New York, after serving 68 years and 245 days -- the longest-ever time served.
1985 - The Edmonton Oilers set a National Hockey League record for playoff wins (12). Edmonton won its second Stanley Cup that year with a 7-3 win over the Chicago Black Hawks.
1987 - Shelly Long made her last appearance as a regular on the popular TV show, "Cheers". Long, who played cocktail server, Diane Chambers, to often hilarious results, left the hit comedy to pursue a movie career.
1988 - Rival Shiite Muslim militias fought street battles for control of south Beirut's slums.
1989 - Officials at a Baton Rouge, Louisiana concert arena got a court order to seize Hank Williams, Jr.'s private jet to cover the expenses of a disastrous, profanity-filled appearance by the 39-year-old country music star. According to reports, Williams failed to finish a single song, cutting each off with mumbled swearing. After only 20 minutes of performing, Williams threw his fiddle into the air and stumbled off the stage. Fans were told they could get their money back at the box office, but the box office didn't have enough cash on hand. Later, Williams apologized for the fiasco, and promised to pay for all ticket refunds. He claimed he was "slipped a mickey" before the concert.
1990 - Latvia elected Ivars Godmanis as prime minister as Moscow sought more information about the republic's bid to leave the Soviet Union.
1993 - The latest updating of Shakespeare delighted critics, with Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing. With roles filled by Branagh (who also directed and wrote the screenplay), Emma Thompson, Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, and Michael Keaton, the lush comedy, filmed in sunny Italy, was masterfully brought to the screen.
1994 - South Africa's democratic era started in earnest as new ANC-dominated provincial legislatures met and blacks took political power for the first time in more than three centuries.
1994 - Japan's Justice Minister Shigeto Nagano resigned after his attempts to whitewash past Japanese military aggression provoked a diplomatic dispute in Asia.
1994 - The stolen masterpiece "The Scream" by Edvard Munch was found undamaged in a hotel in south Norway.
1995 - Jacques Chirac won the French presidential election, beating Socialist opponent Lionel Jospin by a clear margin and ending a 14-year Socialist grip on the presidency.
1996 - A Bosnian Serb defendant faced the first war crimes trial by the U.N. criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Dusan Tadic became the first person to face an international war crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 8, 2005 6:34:30 GMT -5
1429 - The siege of Orleans ended when French troops stormed the English forts in the Hundred Years War.
1541 - Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto encountered the Mississippi River, which he called Rio de Espiritu Santo (River of the Saint Spirit). "Mississippi" is a Native American Ojibwa word that means "big river." The Spanish explorer died on the shores of the Mississippi the following year. In his exploration of what is today the United States, Hernando de Soto sought gold and silver.
1559 - In England, the Act of Supremacy was passed by which the new Queen Elizabeth I became "Supreme Governor" of the Church of England; the Act of Uniformity was passed and a Common Prayer book was introduced.
1792 - President George Washington signed an act that authorized the mint of the first US copper coins. Individuals involved in using coins other than the legal cents and half-cents would be penalized with a $10 fine. These coins were the predecessors of today's pennies.
1794 - French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was decapitated in Paris for his former role as tax collector. Lavoisier, who is generally regarded as the "founder of modern chemistry," demonstrated the role of oxygen in chemical processes and made key observations about respiration.
1811 - The British under the Duke of Wellington defeated the French in Portugal.
1846 - General Zachary Taylor and his American troops heavily defeated Mexican forces under General Arista at the Battle of Palo Alto.
1847 - Robert W. Thomson of England patented the rubber tire.
1849 - Pearl of Bermuda, beat the U.S. yacht, Brenda, in the first recognized international yacht race.
1852 - The Treaty of London was signed by Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden, guaranteeing the integrity of Denmark.
1879 - George Selden of Rochester, New York, applied for the first automobile patent.
1886 - Dr. John S. Pemberton first sold his secret elixir at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia. It was originally used for medicinal purposes. Three years later, Dr. Pemberton figured that his secret formula had been enough of a success for him to sell out, for $2,300. Today, that same formula is still used in a product that sells about 350 million cans and bottles a day in nearly nearly 200 countries. It’s “the real thing.” It’s Coca-Cola.
1902 - Mount Pelee on Martinique erupted and destroyed the town of St Pierre; over 30,000 people died.
1915 - Regret captured the Kentucky Derby. The horse was the first filly to win the Run for the Roses in Louisville, Kentucky.
1921 - Sweden abolished capital punishment.
1929 - Norway annexed Jan Mayen island.
1939 - Clay Puett invented a device that is still a common sight at thoroughbred race tracks around the world. The electric starting gate was used for the first time to start races at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, California. The push of a button from a judges’ stand at trackside automatically opened the gates. It was set on wheels so that it could be pulled off the race course quickly. A bell sounds... and “They’re off!”
1941 - Anita O’Day recorded "Let Me Off Uptown" on Okeh Records with Gene Krupa and his band.
1942 - The Battle of the Coral Sea began and introduced a new form of naval warfare. U.S. and Japanese forces clashed in the Coral Sea but opposing ships never faced each other directly. They never even saw each other. The entire battle was waged by aircraft. The U.S. lost one carrier, a destroyer and a tanker. Japan lost seven warships, including a carrier. The net result of the battle was that Japanese expansion in the Pacific was impeded. This was the first serious setback for Japan since its entry into World War II (December 7, 1941).
1944 - A Czech-Soviet agreement was signed dealing with possible entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia.
1945 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill broadcast to the nation as part of V-E (Victory in Europe) Day celebrations; President Truman broadcast to the American people.
1945 - King Leopold of Belgium was freed by the U.S. 7th Army.
1945 - German forces surrendered to Soviets.
1959 - The final broadcast of "One Man’s Family" was heard on NBC radio after being on the air 27 years. The show had completed 3,256 episodes since its beginning back in 1932.
1961 - "Shore Patrol Revisited" became one of the most memorable episodes of the CBS-TV series, "Hennessey". The program marked the first time that Jackie Cooper and Mickey Rooney appeared together professionally since they had been teenagers - some 25 years earlier.
1961 - New Yorkers selected a new name for the National League baseball franchise that would begin play at the Polo Grounds in 1962. The name originally selected, the Metropolitans, was quickly changed to a more catchy one: the Mets.
1962 - Zero Mostel starred in one of his most famous roles, in the Broadway production of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum". The comedy opened at the Alvin Theatre in New York City. Audiences laughed through the entertaining show for a total of 964 performances.
1965 - College sophomore Randy Matson broke his own pending world record in the shot put by breaking the 70-foot barrier. Matson put that shot 70-feet, 7 inches at a meet in College Station, Texas.
1970 - It was the Los Angeles Lakers vs. the New York Knicks in the 1970 Championship Series. After splitting the first four games, the Knicks were certain to take Game 5 when center Willis Reed left the game with a hip injury. The Knicks did take Game 5, but lost Game 6 to Wilt Chamberlain and the Lakers. With Reed barely able to walk, there seemed little hope that the veteran center would be able to play in Game 7, let alone try to match up with the incomparable Chamberlain. Without Reed, the Knicks' quest for the championship title appeared futile. Just a few minutes before the opening tip in Game 7 at Madison Square Garden, Dr. James Parkes injected Reed with a shot of Carbocaine, a stronger and longer lasting version of Novacain, and then Reed made his way to the floor, dragging his leg, but trying not to limp. Reed scored the game's first two baskets, inspiring his Knicks teammates to a 113-99 victory and their first NBA title. It was one of the most dramatic moments in NBA history.
1973 - The siege of Wounded Knee in South Dakota ended peacefully as militant Indians who occupied a tiny prairie settlement for almost 10 weeks began to file out and surrender to the authorities.
1975 -U.S. President Gerald Ford reaffirmed American military support of South Korea after the fall of South Vietnam to Communists.
1977 - In Amsterdam, the trial began of Peter Menten, a Dutch art dealer and Nazi collaborator accused of murdering Polish Jews in order to obtain their art collections.
1981 - Fernando Valenzuela, the sensational crowd-pleasing pitcher of the Los Angeles Dodgers, won his fifth shutout of the young baseball season. Fernando went on to win eight games without a loss and posted an amazing ERA of just 0.50!
1984 - Joanie (Erin Moran) and Chachi (Scott Baio) got married on "Happy Days"! The comedy series, starring Henry Winkler, Tom Bosley and Marion Ross (Ron Howard and Anson Williams had already left the show) was winding down in its final season on ABC-TV. In the same episode, Fonzie (brilliantly portrayed by Winkler), filed papers to adopt a son.
1984 - The Thames Barrier in London, constructed to stem the flow of the tidal river and prevent flooding, was officially opened.
1984 - The Soviet Union announced it would boycott the Los Angeles Olympic Games.
1985 - The first cans of New Coke rolled out of bottling and canning plants on this, the 99th anniversary of Coca-Cola. The 7.4 billion dollar company realized it had made an incredible goof when it discovered that Coke drinkers preferred ‘The Real Thing’, the original Coca-Cola.
1985 - Larry Bird scored a career-high 43 points to lead the Boston Celtics to a 130-123 win over the Detroit Pistons.
1988 - Science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein died in his home in Carmel, California, at age 81.
1989 - In London, a judge fined three national newspapers $250,000 for publishing excerpts of Spycatcher, a banned book by former security agent Peter Wright, that detailed British intelligence operations.
1989 - Janos Kadar, the architect of modern Hungary, was dropped from from his ceremonial post of Communist Party president and from his post on the policy-making Central Committee of the party.
1990 - The Estonian parliament voted to change the country's name to Republic of Estonia from the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic.
1993 - The Bosnian government and rebel Serbs agreed to a nationwide cease-fire.
1995 - Actor Gary Busey was released from an L.A. hospital after an apparent drug overdose. His publicist said the actor would immediately enter a rehabilitation facility. The district attorney's office had not yet determined if drug charges would be brought against Busey.
1995 - Germans and leaders of the main wartime Allies who defeated them 50 years ago gathered side by side in Berlin to honor the dead of World War II.
1996 - South Africa's Constitutional Assembly adopted the country's permanent post-apartheid constitution.
1996 - Former Nazi SS captain Erich Priebke went on trial in Rome. He was charged with involvement in the killing of 335 men and boys in Italy's worst World War II atrocity.
1997 - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi flew to impoverished Niger in apparent defiance of a U.N. ban on flights from Libya.
1998 - Geraldo Rivera's last talk show episode aired on television. Rivera was leaving to join an evening TV news show, hoping to "restore credibility" to his reporting style.
1999 - Dana Plato, 34, former child actress who played Kimberly on the hit sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes" died of an accidental drug overdose, one day after telling Howard Stern's radio show she was clean and sober.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 9, 2005 6:44:36 GMT -5
1386 - England and Portugal signed the Treaty of Windsor, pledging permanent alliance and friendship.
1502 - Christopher Columbus set out from Cadiz, Spain, on his fourth and last voyage.
1671 - Thomas Blood, Irish adventurer better known as Captain Blood, stole the crown jewels from the Tower of London.
1754 - The first published political cartoons in the American colonies appeared in The Pennsylvania Gazette, a newspaper founded by Benjamin Franklin. Many of the early cartoons did not have the element of satire so common in today's political cartoons.
1785 - British inventor Joseph Bramah patented the beer-pump handle.
1825 - The first gaslit theatre in America opened. It was the Chatham Theatre in New York City.
1846 - Zachary Taylor with 1,700 U.S. troops beat back 5,700 Mexicans under Arista at the battle of Resaca de la Palma and went on to recover Fort Texas in the U.S.-Mexican Wars.
1901 - Australia opened its first parliament in Melbourne.
1915 - In World War I, the battle of Artois began. When the battle ended on May 27, 216,000 men had been killed or wounded.
1926 - Americans Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett became the first to fly over the North Pole.
1927 - The new city of Canberra replaced Melbourne as Australia's capital.
1930 - For the first time, a starting gate was used to start a Triple Crown race. The gate was rolled into place at the Preakness at the Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. Gallant Fox, the winner, had no problem with the new contraption. Prior to that time, this horse race began from a standing start at the start/finish line with the drop of a flag.
1936 - The first sheet of postage stamps of more than one variety went on sale - in New York City.
1936 - Italy formally annexed Abyssinia, now Ethiopia.
1937 - Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy started their own radio show on NBC - only months after they had debuted on Rudy Vallee’s radio program. W.C. Fields, Don Ameche and Dorothy Lamour were a few of the stars that helped Bergen and the little blockhead, McCarthy, jump to the top of radio’s hit parade.
1939 - Ray Eberle recorded "Stairway to the Stars" with the Glenn Miller Orchestra for Bluebird Records.
1940 - Actress Vivien Leigh made her American theatre debut with Laurence Olivier in "Romeo and Juliet" in New York City.
1945 - The unconditional surrender of Germany to the Allied forces began, which virtually ended World War II. The surrender document was signed the day before, in what became known as the Victory in Europe (V-E) Day. A separate German surrender to the USSR was signed near Berlin, Germany, and also came into effect on May 9th.
1945 - The ban on horse racing and the nationwide midnight curfew in the United States during World War II were immediately lifted, as the Germans had surrendered the previous day.
1946 - King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy abdicated and the monarchy was replaced by a republic.
1950 - French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed the creation of a supranational European federation to strengthen the European economies. "The Schuman Declaration," as it became known, would eventually lead to the creation of the European Economic Community, now the European Union.
1958 - Richard Burton made his network television debut in "The Dupont Show of the Month" presentation of "Wuthering Heights" on CBS-TV.
1960 - The United States became the first country to legalize the birth control pill.
1961 - In a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton Minow condemned TV programming as "a vast wasteland."
1961 - Jim Gentile of the Baltimore Orioles set a major-league baseball record by hitting grand slam home runs in two consecutive innings. The Orioles were playing the Minnesota Twins.
1962 - The Beatles inked their first recording contract. George Martin was hired to be the group’s producer and the band would record for EMI Parlophone.
1963 - A state of emergency was declared in British Guiana following a three-week general strike.
1964 - "Hello Dolly!" became the nation’s top pop record. The milestone put Louis Armstrong on the "Billboard" music chart in the top spot for the first time in his 41-year music career. Later, ‘Satchmo’ was cast in the movie version of "Hello Dolly!".
1965 - Vladimir Horowitz played his first public concert in 12 years at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The audience applauded the piano virtuoso with a standing ovation that lasted for 30 minutes.
1965 - Lunar 5, an unmanned Soviet spacecraft, was launched toward the moon from a rocket already in Earth's orbit. It later crashed on the moon rather than making the projected soft landing.
1967 - Muhammad Ali, formerly Cassius Clay, was indicted on this date by a Federal grand jury for refusing to be inducted into the Army. The World Boxing Association took away his title as World Heavyweight Champion, and all published records of his title were deleted.
1967 - Dr. Zakir Hussain was elected president of India.
1976 - Ulrike Meinhof, a leader of the West German Baader-Meinhof terrorist group, hanged herself in prison.
1978 - The body of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro was found in the trunk of a car; he had been kidnapped and murdered by the Red Brigades.
1979 - 18 people were killed when troops opened fire on terrorists occupying San Salvador cathedral in El Salvador.
1980 - Pope John Paul II and the Archbishop of Canterbury met for the first time in Ghana.
1984 - Detroit beat Kansas City, 3-1, to tie the record for the best start of any major-league baseball team. The Tigers went 25-4 in their first 29 games - a record matched only by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1955.
1984 - It took the Chicago White Sox 25 innings, eight hours, six minutes - and two days - to finally defeat the Milwaukee Brewers, 7-6. It was the longest game (in elapsed time) in major-league history. Tom Seaver pitched one inning of relief in the suspended game to notch the win. The game tied the record for the longest game played to a decision.
1987 - 183 people were killed when a New York-bound Polish jetliner crashed while attempting an emergency return to Warsaw.
1988 - The office of fashion designer Calvin Klein announced that Klein was undergoing treatment for drug and alcohol abuse.
1991 - William Kennedy Smith, nephew of Edward Kennedy, was charged with rape.
1993 - Paraguay held its first presidential and parliamentary elections for nearly 50 years.
1995 - World leaders marked the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe with three days of emotional Victory Day celebrations and ringing calls for global reconciliation.
1996 - The National Party, which inflicted apartheid on South Africa and later helped break the hated system, decided to quit Nelson Mandela's 2-year-old government of national unity, effective June 30.
1996 - President Yoweri Museveni won a landslide victory in Uganda's first presidential election in 16 years.
1999 - "The Mummy" took advantage of a pre-"Star Wars" box office drought to wrap up the year's biggest opening weekend with $44.6 million. The cat-burglar caper "Entrapment" slipped to second with $12.2 million and the cyberspace adventure, "The Matrix", placed third with $6 million, estimates showed.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 10, 2005 10:30:35 GMT -5
1307 - Robert the Bruce, Scottish king, heavily defeated an English attacking force of cavalry under Aylmer de Valence at the battle of Louden Hill in Ayrshire.
1655 - Jamaica was taken by the British after being in Spanish hands for 161 years.
1773 - The British parliament authorized the East India Company to export half a million pounds of tea to the American colonies without imposing upon the company the usual duties and tariffs. This measure, which allowed the company to undersell other tea available in the colonies, saved the East India Company from bankruptcy.
1796 - Napoleon Bonaparte's Army of Italy defeated the Austrians under Baron Beaulieu in the Battle of Lodi, southeast of Milan. More than 2,000 Austrians were killed or wounded.
1849 - 22 people were killed when anti-British sentiments flared into a riot outside the Astor Place Opera House in New York.
1857 - The Sepoy Mutiny against British rule in India broke out.
1865 - Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, was captured by Union forces.
1869 - The first transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Point, Utah. Officials from the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines celebrated by driving a golden spike into the last rail. The four to six months that generally took pioneers to traverse the United Stated was now reduced to six days. The event is one of the most significant in US transportation history.
1871 - France and Germany signed a peace treaty in Frankfurt by which France ceded Alsace-Lorraine.
1872 - The first woman nominated to be President of the United States was Victoria Claflin Woodhull. She was chosen for the ballot by the National Woman Suffrage Association in New York City. Ms. Woodhull was not elected.
1876 - Richard Wagner’s "Centennial Inaugural March" was heard for the first time at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He received a paycheck of $5,000.
1881 - King Carol I, Romania's first king, was crowned.
1898 - A vending machine law was enacted in Omaha, Nebraska. It would cost $5,000 for a permit.
1905 - Three horses made up the field of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Agile was the winner.
1913 - Donerail won the Kentucky Derby, making a very, very few in attendance very, very happy. Donerail was a 91-to-1 long shot!
1927 - The Hotel Statler in Boston, Massachusetts. became the first hotel to install radio headsets in each of its 1,300 rooms.
1930 - The Adler Planetarium opened to the public in Chicago, Illinois.
1933 - Nazis, nationalist students and professors in black robes gathered on a square in central Berlin to burn books by Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Bertolt Brecht, Albert Einstein and other authors condemned by Adolf Hitler's followers as decadent or "un-German."
1940 - Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra recorded the classic, "Perfidia", for Decca Records. The song would later be a hit for The Ventures (1960).
1940 - Winston Churchill took over as British prime minister following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain.
1940 - Germany invaded Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium.
1941 - Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, flew from Augsburg and parachuted into Eaglesham near Glasgow, Scotland, in an apparent attempt to negotiate a peace deal. He was arrested and imprisoned for the rest of the war.
1945 - Russian troops occupied Prague; the Allies captured Rangoon from the Japanese.
1951 - Frank Sinatra teamed with Axel Stordahl’s orchestra and Mitch Miller on Columbia Records. It was a session that Francis Albert Sinatra would like to forget. He sang with Dagmar, "It’s a Long Way (From Your House to My House)", and the equally forgettable, "Mama Will Bark". Yes, friends, "Mama Will Bark", by Frank Sinatra with vocal impressions of a dog by Donald Bain! This sure wasn’t a session like the ones that produced "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning", "That’s Life", "My Way" or hundreds of other great tunes from Ol’ Blue Eyes.
1960 - The U.S. nuclear-powered submarine Triton completed its 84-day submerged voyage around the world.
1963 - Pope John XXIII received the Balzan Peace Prize, the first peace prize ever awarded to a pope.
1963 - The Rolling Stones produced their very first recordings. The session included "Come On" and "I Wanna Be Loved". The Stones would make it to the American pop music charts in August, 1964.
1967 - Nurse, journalist and writer Betty Mae Jumper became the first woman chair in the Seminole Council in Florida, and the first woman to assume the position of "Chief" of a federally-recognized tribe. In 1995 she was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame of Florida.
1967 - Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were arrested for drugs in Chichester, England, and sent to jail at West Sussex Quarter Session.
1969 - The National and American Football Leagues announced plans to merge for the 1970-71 season. Two conferences of 13 teams each were formed.
1970 - The Boston Bruins won their first Stanley Cup since the beginning of World War II by defeating St. Louis. The Bruins would repeat the feat and take home Lord Stanley’s Cup again in 1972.
1972 - The Irish Republic voted in a referendum by 83 percent to join the European Economic Community.
1974 - "Just Don’t Want to Be Lonely" earned a gold record for the group, The Main Ingredient. The trio began as the Poets in 1964. Cuba Gooding is heard singing lead. (Gooding’s son, Cuba Jr., starred in the 1991 film "Boyz N The Hood".) The Main Ingredient’s biggest hit, "Everybody Plays the Fool" made it to number three on the pop charts (1972).
1977 - Film actress Joan Crawford died of a heart attack in her New York City apartment after several years of illness. She had refused treatment because of her faith in Christian Science. The Academy Award-winning actress's list of films included Grand Hotel, Rain, Mildred Pierce, The Women, Humoresque, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Crawford was reported to be 69 years old, and her career spanned five decades. She was on the Top Ten Box Office list five times during the 1930s.
1981 - In West Germany, the Social Democrats lost elections in West Berlin for the first time since World War II.
1981 - In the second round of the French presidential election, Francois Mitterrand defeated President Valery Giscard D'Estaing.
1982 - Elliott Gould made his dramatic television debut after 30 movies in 17 years. He starred in "The Rules of Marriage" which aired on CBS-TV. Elizabeth Montgomery, formerly of "Bewitched", co-starred with Gould in the film about marriage and divorce.
1985 - Gordon Johncock announced that he was retiring from auto racing. Johncock, a 30-year veteran and twice an Indianapolis 500 winner, said that racing was “not fun anymore.” In his career, Johncock won 254 championship races.
1986 - Navy Lt. Commander Donnie Cochran became the first black pilot to fly with the celebrated, Blue Angels precision, aerial demonstration team.
1994 - Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa's first black president.
1995 - Britain lifted a 23-year ban on ministerial talks with Sinn Fein, political wing of the Irish Republican Army.
1996 - Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao resigned after his Congress Party was mauled in general elections.
1999 - Shel Silverstein, author of such acclaimed children's books as A Light in the Attic, The Giving Tree, and Where the Sidewalk Ends, was found dead at his home. He was 66. Two cleaning women discovered Silverstein in his bedroom early that morning. The cause of death was not immediately known, but was later determined to be heart attack. Silverstein, whose output included plays, songs, and adult humor, was best known as an author of sophisticated, at times macabre, children's books. His reputation was not confined to the U.S. To many children around the world, he was perhaps the best-loved author of juvenile literature after the incomparable Dr. Seuss.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 11, 2005 7:14:36 GMT -5
330 - Constantinople was dedicated as the new capital of the Roman Empire. It was named after the Emperor Constantine and built over the ancient city of Byzantium.
868 - The first dated printed book was produced in China. Printed by Wang Chieh, the "Diamond Sutra", as the book was called, was a Buddhist text made up of six sheets pasted together and made into a roll.
1647 - Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor.
1745 - The Battle of Fontenoy took place in Belgium, where French forces defeated the British and their allies during the War of the Austrian Succession.
1812 - British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated by a bankrupt broker, John Bellingham, as he entered the House of Commons.
1816 - The American Bible Society was formed in New York City.
1832 - The first national political platform was hammered out in Washington, DC.
1858 - Minnesota became the 32nd state of the Union.
1862 - The Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia was destroyed by Confederate forces to prevent its capture by Union troops. The Virginia was built from the salvaged hull of the USS Merrimack. Two months prior to its destruction, the Virginia fought several Union ships in what became known as "The Battle of Hampton Roads."
1867 - The independence and neutrality of the duchy of Luxembourg was guaranteed by the European powers under the Treaty of London.
1900 - In an effort to regain the heavyweight boxing title, James J. Corbett, known as Gentleman Jim, was knocked out cold by James J. Jeffries - in the 23rd round.
1910 - Glacier National Park in Montana was created by an act of Congress. With over one million acres, the park is home to many animals, including wolves, grizzly bears, and mountain lions, and over 1400 plant species.
1927 - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded. The first Oscars were for films produced in the first year of the Academy: 1927-28. (For the first 6 years, the awards were for films produced during the fiscal year, not the calendar year.) Among the first winners were Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor for acting, and Wings for best picture.
1928 - WGY-TV in Schenectady, New York began the first schedule of regular TV programs. WGY offered programming to the upstate New York audience three times a week using the electronic scanning method.
1931 - The failure of Credit-Anstalt, Austria's largest bank, marked the beginning of the financial collapse of Central Europe.
1943 - U.S. amphibious forces landed on Attu in the Aleutians, the first American territory to be recaptured by the U.S. from the Japanese.
1944 - Allied forces launched a major offensive in central Italy.
1946 - Jack Barry, a familiar face on TV game shows, hosted "Juvenile Jury" on WOR Radio in New York City. The show was such a hit after five weeks on the air that it debuted on the Mutual Broadcasting System coast to coast. Maybe Barry became a bit too familiar in 1959. It was "Twenty One", the enormously popular show that Barry hosted, that led to the Quiz Show Scandal that rocked television and the U.S. Congress.
1946 - The first packages from the relief agency CARE arrived in Europe.
1947 - B.F. Goodrich, from Akron, Ohio, announced the development of the tubeless tire.
1949 - Siam changed its name to Thailand.
1949 - Israel was admitted to the United Nations as the world body's 59th member.
1956 - Former heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano went into public relations - for the Raynham Dog Racing Track in Massachusetts.
1957 - Monte Irvin retired from baseball at the age of 39, due to a back injury.
1959 - Twenty-three-year-old Carol Burnett made her musical comedy debut in Once Upon a Mattress at the Phoenix Theatre in New York City. Only eight years later, the talented comedienne would star in her own Emmy-winning TV musical variety program.
1965 - Liza Minnelli opened in "Flora the Red Menace". The musical ran for only 87 performances at the Alvin Theatre.
1960 - The world's longest ocean liner (to date), the S.S. France, was launched.
1967 - Britain, Denmark and Ireland formally applied to join the European Economic Community.
1968 - The French government bowed to Paris student demands, premier Georges Pompidou announcing concessions in an effort to end more than a week of the worst street fighting since World War II.
1970 - The Chairmen of the Board received a gold record for the hit "Give Me Just a Little More Time". The Detroit group recorded three other songs in 1970, with moderate success.
1972 - The San Francisco Giants announced that they were trading Willie Mays to the New York Mets.
1973 - Charges against Daniel Ellsberg for his role in the "Pentagon Papers' case were dismissed.
1981 - Heavyweight boxing challenger Gerry Cooney, left former champ Ken Norton on the ropes and unconscious after 54 seconds of the first round at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
1981 - Reggae star Bob Marley died at age 36 in Miami, Florida, succumbing to a brain tumor that had abruptly ended his brilliant career the previous year.
1984 - The Detroit Tigers defeated the California Angels 8-2 and set a major-league record for victories at the beginning of a baseball season. The Tigers, under Sparky Anderson, won 26 of their first 30 games.
1985 - Scott Brayton turned in the fastest lap ever at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Brayton was traveling at 214.199 MPH in the third lap of qualifying. Duane ‘Pancho’ Carter grabbed the pole position for that years Indianapolis 500. Carter entered the history books with a speed of 212.583 MPH for four qualifying laps around the 2.5 mile track at Indy.
1985 - 56 people died and more than 200 were injured when fire engulfed the main stand at Bradford City's football ground in northern England.
1987 - The Indian government imposed direct rule on Punjab because of the terror campaign being waged by Sikh extremists.
1997 - U.S. box office receipts to date for the film Jerry McGuire, starring Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding, Jr., had climbed to $150,850,000; The English Patient had brought in $76,259,531. Top box office producer on this date, however, was George Lucas's re-released science fiction classic, Return of the Jedi, which had a reported accumulated U.S. box office gross of $308,453,687; trailing behind it was the re-released The Empire Strikes Back, with an accumulated gross of $290,158,751.
1994 - Deir Al-Balah became the first Gaza town to come under Palestinian self-rule.
1994 - South African President Nelson Mandela named his main black political rival, Zulu chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, and his estranged wife Winnie, to his new government of national unity.
1996 - A ValuJet Airlines DC-9 jet with 110 people on board crashed in the swampy Everglades near Miami International Airport. There were no survivors.
1997 - IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue made chess history by defeating Gary Kasparov, the first time a reigning world champion had been bested in a match by a machine.
1999 - After two years of work, Columbia Records released Latin heartthrob Ricky Martin's fifth album, a self-titled cross-over to English. This album was a calculated decision, and the album's first hit, "Livin' La Vida Loca" shot to the top of the charts. Martin's third and fourth solo efforts went gold. His fourth album "Vuelve" had sold more than 6 million copies worldwide.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 12, 2005 5:28:12 GMT -5
1780 - During the American Revolution, Charles Town (later Charleston), South Carolina, fell to the British after a two-month siege.
1809 - Sir Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) defeated the French at Oporto, forcing them to retreat from Portugal.
1831 - The first indicted bank robber in the U.S., Edward Smith, was sentenced to five years hard labor on the rock pile at Sing Sing Prison.
1847 - As you jog around the block today, think of Mormon pioneer William Clayton. It was that he got tired of counting the revolutions of a rag tied to a spoke of a wagon wheel to figure out how many miles he had traveled. So, while he was crossing the plains in his covered wagon, he invented the odometer.
1864 - Gens. Grant and Lee engaged at the Battle of Spotsylvania in Virginia during the U.S. Civil War.
1870 - The Dominion of Canada purchased Manitoba from the Hudson's Bay Company and made it a province.
1888 - Charles Sherrill of the Yale track team became the first runner to use the crouching start for a fast break in a foot race.
1888 - Britain established protectorates over North Borneo and Brunei.
1890 - Louisiana's legislature enacted a statute that forbade prize fighting throughout the state. The law, however, did not apply to "exhibitions and glove contests between human beings, which may take place within the rooms of regularly chartered athletic clubs".
1917 - The first imported horse to win the Kentucky Derby was the English-bred colt, Omar Khayyam. He won $49,070 - the top prize.
1926 - Norwegian Roald Amundsen, Italian Umberto Nobile and American Lincoln Ellsworth crossed the North Pole in an airship.
1926 - Marshal Jozef Pilsudski led a successful military coup against the Polish government.
1932 - The body of the kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Lindberg was found in a wooded area of Hopewell, New Jersey.
1937 - King George VI of England was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London. The BBC televised the coronation procession, its first live outside broadcast.
1943 - In World War II, all organized Axis resistance in Tunisia ended and the German commander in North Africa, General von Arnim, surrendered.
1948 - The state of Israel and its provisional government was established. Palestinian Jews celebrated their independence from British mandatory rule.
1949 - The Russian blockade of Berlin officially ended after 11 months with a food convoy driving into the city.
1950 - The American Bowling Congress abolished its white males-only membership restriction after 34 years.
1953 - The Boston Red Sox dropped Dom DiMaggio, Joe’s brother. As a result, Dom announced that he was retiring from baseball.
1955 - Sam Jones of the Chicago Cubs pitched a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates, winning 4-0. Jones became the first black pitcher to throw a major-league no-hitter.
1955 - Gisele MacKenzie played a singer on the NBC-TV program, "Justice". She introduced her soon-to-be hit song, "Hard to Get". The song went to number four on the "Billboard" pop music chart by September.
1955 - Passengers crowded in to ride the last run of the Third Avenue elevated, "The El", in New York City. The way-above-ground train trip down memory lane went from Chinatown to the Bronx.
1957 - A.J. Foyt earned his first auto racing victory in Kansas City, Missouri. He went on to become a four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 - in 1961, 1964, 1967 and 1977.
1962 - France and independent French-speaking West African states initialed an agreement setting up a West African Monetary Union.
1963 - Singer Bob Dylan walked out of dress rehearsals for The Ed Sullivan Show when CBS censors told him couldn't perform his Talking John Birch Society Blues, saying that it could be considered libelous. Dylan later refused to appear on the show.
1965 - West Germany and Israel exchanged letters establishing diplomatic relations.
1970 - Ernie Banks, of the Chicago Cubs, smacked home run number 500. He would get 12 more before his great career as first baseman (and shortstop) with the Cubbies came to a close in 1971.
1970 - The Senate voted unanimously to confirm Harry A. Blackmun as a Supreme Court justice.
1971 - The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger married Bianca Perez Morena de Macias. Mick couldn’t remember her whole name very well, so she became known as Bianca the world over.
1975 - President Gerald Ford ordered the U.S. aircraft carrier Coral Sea into the Gulf of Thailand after the Cambodian navy seized the American merchant ship Mayaguez.
1976 - Sixteen-year-old, racing-jockey Steve Cauthen rode in his first race. He finished far back in the pack at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. However, Cauthen got his first winner just five days later.
1977 - The Eagles earned a gold record for the hit, "Hotel California". The award was the second of three gold record singles for the group. The other million sellers were "New Kid in Town" and "Heartache Tonight". Two number one songs by The Eagles - "Best of My Love" and "One of These Nights" - didn’t quite make the million-seller mark.
1978 - The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that it would alternate men’s and women’s names in the naming of hurricanes. It was seen as an attempt at fair play. Hurricanes had been named for women for years, until NOAA succumbed to pressure from women’s groups who were demanding that Atlantic storms be given unisex names. “It’s not fair that women should get all the attention for causing damage and destruction,” one women’s activist claimed. David, Allen, Hugo and Andrew agreed.
1985 - Lionel Richie received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Tuskegee Institute in Alabama - his alma mater. Richie had put 14 hits on the pop charts in the 1980s, including one platinum smash, with Diana Ross, "Endless Love" and four gold records ("Truly", "All Night Long", "Hello" and "Say You, Say Me"). All but one song ("Se La") of the 14 charted made it to the top ten.
1987 - In Washington, actor-director Woody Allen and others testified in Congress against film colorization. Ted Turner, multi-millionaire businessman, was transforming black-and-white films he had purchased to colorize. Many people regarded his alterations of original films as criminal acts.
1989 - Retired British pilot Jack Mann was kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists in Beirut. He was the oldest of the Westerners held hostage in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war.
1990 - Three car bombs in Colombia killed 27 people as the country's drug barons appeared to switch to indiscriminate attacks in their war against the government.
1991 - The moderate Nepali Congress won Nepal's first multiparty elections in 32 years.
1992 - European Community peace monitors pulled out of Sarajevo, angry at harassment and attacks by combatants in Bosnia's worsening ethnic conflict.
1992 - Actor Robert Reed died at age 59 in Los Angeles after a six-month battle with cancer, complicated by the AIDS virus. He would be best-remembered for his role as Mike Brady, the TV-sitcom father on The Brady Bunch.
1993 - Franco Nobili, the head of Italy's biggest state firm IRI, was arrested in Rome after a 15-month corruption probe.
1994 - A token force of Palestinian police crossed the Jordan River in preparation for the end of 27 years of Israeli military rule in a West Bank enclave around Jericho.
1994 - The U.S. Senate voted to order President Clinton to seek international agreement on ending the U.N.-mandated arms embargo against the Bosnian Muslims.
1997 - India and Pakistan agreed to release each other's imprisoned nationals and to set up a telephone hot line to ease tensions.
1997 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov signed a peace accord promising to end 400 years of intermittent conflict.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 13, 2005 4:56:07 GMT -5
68 - Ascension Day -- which commemorates Christ's ascension into heaven -- was first observed.
1568 - Mary, Queen of Scots was defeated by the English at the battle of Langside in Glasgow.
1607 - Captain John Smith and a party of soldiers landed in Virginia, named the spot Jamestown and established the first permanent British settlement in the New World.
1619 - Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, statesman and founding father of the Netherlands, was executed by Prince Maurice of Nassau on a charge of subverting religion.
1787 - The first fleet of ships carrying convicts to the new penal colony of Australia left England. They arrived the following January.
1821 - Samuel Rust of New York City patented the first, practical printing press built in the U.S.
1830 - The Republic of Ecuador was founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president.
1846 - The U.S. Congress formally declared war on Mexico over California, although fighting had begun days earlier.
1854 - The first big American billiards match was held at Malcolm Hall in Syracuse, New York. Joseph White and George Smith participated in the event for a $200 prize. White pocketed the award as winner of the match.
1873 - Ludwig M. Wolf of Avon, Connecticut patented the sewing machine lampholder. Up to that time, those who could afford it had hired pygmies from their local Lampholders-R-Us company to hold their sewing machine lamps. Those who could not afford that service had to sew with one hand while holding the lamp with the other. Certainly not convenient.
1888 - Ernest L. Thayer’s "Casey at the Bat" was recited by actor, DeWolf Hopper, during the second act of the musical comedy, "Prince Methusalem", at Wallack’s Theatre in New York City. The recitation began a long association between Hopper and the famous poem. The actor once commented that he had recited the poem some 15,000 times. A happy day in Mudville for DeWolf Hopper!
1888 - Brazil's parliament agreed to abolish slavery.
1911 - The New York Giants set a major-league baseball mark. Ten runners crossed home plate before the first out of the game (against St. Louis) was recorded.
1917 - Three peasant children near Fatima, Portugal, reported seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary.
1918 - The first airmail postage stamps were issued in six, 16 and 24-cent denominations.
1924 - Actress Marlene Dietrich and Rudolf Sieber were married. The marriage lasted for more than 50 years.
1927 - "Black Friday" occurred in Germany, signaling the collapse of its economic structure.
1938 - Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded the New Orleans’ jazz standard, "When the Saints Go Marching In", on Decca Records.
1940 - Chosen to head Britain's wartime coalition, Winston Churchill told parliament he could offer "nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat."
1941 - Martin Bormann became deputy leader of German's Nazi party following Rudolf Hess's mysterious flight to Scotland.
1943 - The Italian commander-in-chief in Tunisia surrendered a day after his German counterpart, with the Allies holding some 250,000 prisoners of war.
1949 - The first gas turbine to pump natural gas was installed in Wilmar, Arizona.
1949 - The first British-produced jet bomber, the Canberra, made its maiden test flight.
1954 - "The Pajama Game" made its debut on Broadway in New York City at the St. James Theatre. Harold Prince produced "The Pajama Game", his first Broadway endeavor. The show ran for 1,063 performances. John Raitt and Janis Paige starred in the leading roles. Carol Haney came to national fame for her rendition of the song, "Steam Heat". The movie version also starred Raitt - along with Doris Day.
1955 - Elvis Presley's performance at Jacksonville, Florida, on this date was the first Presley show which resulted in a frenzied riot. Young women and teenagers went wild over the pelvic-thrusting Presley, and this sparked a concerted effort on the part of conservatives and religious groups to ban Presley from appearing in their towns.
1958 - Vice President Richard Nixon's limousine was battered by rocks thrown by anti-U.S. demonstrators in Caracas, Venezuela.
1958 - French nationalists in Algeria rebelled against their government's policy of doing a deal with Algerian rebels, seizing government buildings and taking over several towns.
1961 - Actor Gary Cooper died of cancer on this date in Hollywood at the age of 60. He was one of the few stars to make the transition to talkies easily, and was considered the epitome of "the strong silent type." He would be remembered for his many movie roles, including his Academy Award-winning performances in Sergeant York and High Noon, as well as A Farewell to Arms, Beau Geste, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Meet John Doe, Pride of the Yankees, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Friendly Persuasion.
1965 - Israel and West Germany agreed to establish diplomatic relations. Several Arab nations broke ties with West Germany.
1967 - Mickey Mantle joined six other baseball legends as he hit home run number 500 - in Yankee Stadium. He connected off of the ‘Junk Man’, Stu Miller.
1968 - Talks between North Vietnamese and American negotiators, aimed at ending the Vietnam War, opened in Paris.
1971 - Aretha Franklin, the ‘Queen of Soul’, received a gold record for her version of "Bridge over Troubled Water", originally a Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel tune.
1972 - Actor Dan Blocker, known for his gentle portrayal of Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza, died in Inglewood, California of a blood clot in his lung. Blocker was 43 years old.
1973 - Tennis star Bobby Riggs defeated Margaret Court in a televised tennis match that was seen worldwide. The outrageous tennis hustler, however, didn’t fare so well against women’s tennis champion, Billy Jean King, in a much-hyped match at the Houston Astrodome. He lost, but helped bring women’s tennis to the forefront as a competitive sport with a growing legion of fans.
1981 - Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded as he drove through a crowd of 20,000 in St Peter's Square in Rome. The gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca, was arrested.
1982 - The Chicago Cubs became the first major-league baseball team to win 8,000 games. The Cubs beat the Houston Astros 5-0. Win number 8,000 came after playing 15,337 games in over 107 years.
1982 - In Compton, California, Penthouse magazine and its publisher won a victory when they were cleared of libeling Rancho La Costa Resort in an article linking the resort with organized crime.
1984 - "The Fantasticks", playing at the Sullivan Theatre in Greenwich Village in New York City, became the longest-running musical in theatre history with performance number 10,000 on this night. "The Fantasticks" opened on May 3, 1960.
1985 - A confrontation between Philadelphia authorities and the radical group MOVE ended as police dropped explosives onto the group's headquarters in West Philadelphia, killing 11 people in a resulting fire.
1985 - Tony Perez became the oldest major-league baseball player to hit a grand slam home run. Perez hit the grand slam for the Cincinnati Reds - helping the Reds to a 7-3 win over the Houston Astros. Perez was just a month shy of his 43rd birthday when he connected for the big dinger.
1985 - ‘The Boss’, Bruce Springsteen, married actress/model Julianne Phillips in ceremonies in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The couple went their separate ways in 1989. Springsteen’s hit, "I’m on Fire" was in the top ten when the couple tied the wedding knot. Springsteen remarried in June of 1991, this time to a member of his E Street Band -- Patti Scialfa. Despite his popularity, Springsteen has never had a number one song. His closest to the top of the pop music charts was a four-week stay at number two with "Dancing in the Dark" (June/July, 1984). Springsteen has had 11 hits in the top ten.
1990 - Rebels seized the state radio station on the Indian Ocean island republic of Madagascar, but the government quickly regained control after the coup attempt failed to secure mass support.
1992 - Three astronauts simultaneously walked in space for the first time. The trio retrieved and repaired the Intelsat-6 satellite from the U.S. shuttle Endeavour in a walk lasting 8 hours, 29 minutes.
1993 - The Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars"), the futuristic defense program initiated by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, was downgraded by the Pentagon.
1993 - Ezer Weizman was sworn in as Israel's seventh president. His uncle, Chaim Weizmann, was the first president at Israel's founding in 1948.
1994 - Palestinian police took over control of Jericho from Israeli soldiers.
1994 - Foreign ministers from the West and Russia agreed on a new joint strategy to relaunch Bosnian peace negotiations.
1996 - Thousands of Liberian war refugees, many ill after a week at sea, were refused admission to the Ghanaian port of Takoradi.
1996 - More than 600 people were killed by a tornado in the northern Bangladesh district of Tangail.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 14, 2005 5:31:16 GMT -5
649 - Theodore I ended his reign as Catholic Pope.
1264 - The Baron's War was fought in England.
1607 - The first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States got started at Jamestown, Virginia.
1796 - The first smallpox inoculation was administered by Edward Jenner.
1804 - Lewis & Clark set out from St. Louis for the Pacific Coast.
1811 - Paraguay gained independence from Spain.
1862 - Adolphe Nicole of Switzerland patented the chronograph - a timepiece that allows for split-second timing of sporting events.
1874 - McGill University and Harvard met at Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the first college football game to charge admission. To make it worthwhile for ticket buyers, this was also the first time that a goalpost was used at both ends of the playing field.
1878 - The trademarked name Vaseline (for a brand of petroleum jelly) was registered by Robert A. Chesebrough. You have probably heard of his company, Chesebrough-Pond’s, USA, Co.
1897 - A statue of George Washington was unveiled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To commemorate the occasion, John Philip Sousa’s march, "The Stars and Stripes Forever" was performed. It was the first public performance for Sousa’s march and the President of the U.S., William McKinley was in the audience.
1904 - The third modern Olympiad, the first ever held in the U.S., opened in St. Louis. With few contestants from other countries, the United States won 21 events.
1913 - John D. Rockefeller made the largest gift of money to that date by establishing the Rockefeller Foundation - for $100,000,000. The foundation promotes “the well-being of mankind throughout the world.”
1937 - Duke Ellington and his band recorded the classic, "Caravan", for Brunswick Records.
1940 - The Netherlands surrendered to Germany.
1942 - The famed actor, John Barrymore, was rehearsing a sketch with Rudy Vallee for a scene that refers to the actor’s possible death from excessive drinking. Two weeks later, to the day, John Barrymore died from complications brought about by excess imbibing.
1942 - Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait" was first performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
1945 - "The Sparrow and the Hawk", a serial for kids, was first broadcast over CBS radio.
1945 - "Tennessee Jud" made his debut on ABC radio. Johnny Thomas played the part of Tennessee Jud Sloan.
1948 - Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion establishes the State of Israel.
1955 - The Warsaw Pact was formed.
1957 - The musical, "New Girl in Town", opened at the 46th Street Theatre in New York City. Thelma Ritter and Gwen Verdon starred in the Broadway adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s "Anna Christie". "New Girl in Town" had a run of 431 performances.
1960 - Bally Ache, the winner of the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, Maryland,was sold for $1,250,000.
1962 - Princess Sophia of Greece wedded Don Juan Carlos of Spain.
1969 - Jacqueline Susann’s second novel, "The Love Machine", was published by Simon and Schuster. It went on to become a huge seller, and further established Susann as a writer of intense, erotic novels, several of which were turned into successful movies for TV.
1971 - The Honey Cone received a gold record for the single, "Want Ads". The female soul trio was formed in Los Angeles in 1969 and scored two million-sellers, "Want Ads" and "Stick Up". The trio had a total of four songs on the charts that were moderate hits. Only "Want Ads", however, made it to the number one position.
1973 - The first Space Station, Skylab, was launched.
1976 - Keith Relf, the former vocalist for The Yardbirds who founded Renaissance, was found dead in his bathtub, the result of an electric shock from a guitar.
1985 - The third most widely-used form of contraception in the U.S. celebrated its 25th birthday. The Pill is now the leading form of contraception and continues to be the focus of controversy.
1985 - The first McDonald’s restaurant - in Des Plaines, Illinois - became the first museum of the fast-food business.
1988 - Anything for You, by Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine, jumped to the Number 1 spot on Billboard's record charts on this date, and stayed there for one week.
1990 - The Dow Jones industrial average hit a record 2,821.53 points.
1994 - The West Bank town of Jericho saw its first full day of Palestinian self-rule.
1999 - In Los Angeles, sound technican Martin Bolger filed a lawsuit against actor Eddie Murphy, claiming his hearing was impaired after a "reckless" Murphy unexpectedly fired a round of blanks during the production of the film Bowfinger. The lawsuit stated that on July 23, 1998, Murphy and Bolger repeatedly rehearsed a scene in which Murphy was to fire only three shots. But in an "unprovoked act of physical aggression," Bolger claimed, Murphy intentionally and unexpectedly fired additional shots. Bolger, who had removed his protective earphones, claimed he suffered "acoustic trauma" and needed help to continue his work. Murphy, added Bolger, should have heeded the warnings given by firearms specialists that unrehearsed shots could lead to physical pain and deafness.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on May 16, 2005 9:49:36 GMT -5
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