Today in
History ~ May 6
Events
1527 - Spanish & German Imperial troops sack Rome killing
some 4,000 people and looting works of art and literature ; ending Renaissance
1536 - King Henry VIII orders bible placed in every church
1626 - Manhattan Island bought for $24 in cloth and buttons [H]
1642 - Ville Marie (Montreal) forms
1648 - Battle at Zolty Wody-Bohdan -- Chmielricki's Cossacks beat John II Casimir
1733 - 1st international boxing match: Bob Whittaker beats Tito di Carni
1753 - French King Louis XV observes transit of Mercury at Mendon Castle
1757 - Battle at Prague: Frederik II of Prussia beats emperor's army
1794 - Haiti, under Toussaint L'Ouverture, revolts against France. This split the French French Revolutionaries, who were in the midst of The Terror. Toussaint became a hero to certain factions and a villain to others.
1833 - John Deere makes 1st steel plow
1835 - 1st edition of NY Herald (price 1 cent)
1851 - Linus Yale patents Yale lock
1851 - Patent granted to Dr. John Gorrie for a "refrigeration (ice-making) machine"
1853 - 1st major US rail disaster kills 46 (Norwalk, Connecticut)
1860 - The Olympic Club, 1st athletic club in US, founded.
1861 - Arkansas & Tennessee becomes 9th & 10th state to secede from US
1861 - Jefferson Davis approves a bill declaring War between US & Confederacy
1864 - Battle of Wilderness -- Gen James Longstreet seriously injured by his own troops. Unlike Stonewall Jackson, who also suffered from friendly fire, Longstreet recovered, although his hearing was lost, and endeavored to reconcile South with North (along with his West Point
roommate, U.S. Grant), and was one of the last of Lee's top generals to die in 1903. His brilliance as a commander and tactician have only recently become widely accepted.
1864 - General Sherman begins advance on Atlanta
1882 - Chinese Exclusion Act: US Congress ceases Chinese immigration
1889 - Universal Exposition opens in Paris, Eiffel Tower completed
1902 - British SS Camorta sinks off Rangoon; 739 die
1902 - Start of Sherlock Holmes "Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place"
1902 - Zulu assault at Holkrantz South-Africa
1910 - King George V ascends to British throne
1914 - British House of Lords rejects women suffrage
1915 - German U-20 sinks Centurion SE of Ireland
1915 - Red Sox Babe Ruth pitching debut & 1st HR, loses to Yanks 4-3 in 15 innings
1919 - Paris Peace Conference disposes of German colonies; Ger E Africa is assigned to Britain & France, German SW Africa to South Africa
1929 - NY to SF footrace begins
1935 - America Goes Back to Work , the Works Progress Administration (WPA), threw open its doors and began the monumental task of sending scores of unemployed Americans back to work.
1935 - British King George & Queen Mary celebrates silver jubilee
1937 - The hydrogen-filled German dirigible Hindenburg burned and crashed in
Lakehurst, N.J., killing 35 of the 97 people on board and a Navy crewman on the
ground. [H]
1938 - Dutch writer Maurits Dekker sentenced to 50 days for "offending a friendly head of state" (Hitler)
1939 - 1st performance of Honegger/Claudel's "Jeanne d'Arc at the Stake"
1940 - Pulitzer prize awarded to John Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath)
1941 - Joseph Stalin became premier of Russia
1942 - During World War II, some 15,000 Americans and Filipinos on Corregidor
surrendered to the Japanese.
1943 - British 1st army opens assault on Tunis
1946 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Arthur M Schlesinger ("Age of Jackson")
1950 - Liz Taylor's 1st marriage (Conrad Hilton Jr)
1954 - British athlete Roger Bannister became the first athlete to run a mile in under four minutes, recording a time of 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.
1955 - West Germany joins NATO
1957 - Last broadcast of "I Love Lucy" on CBS-TV
1957 - Pulitzer prize awarded to John F Kennedy (Profiles in Courage)
1959 - Iceland gunboats shoot at British fishing ships
1960 - English prince Margaret marries Antony Armstrong-Jones (Lord Snowdon)
1960 - Trotsky's murderer Jacques Mornard (RamĒn Mercader), freed in Mexico
1962 - In the first test of its kind, the submerged submarine USS Ethan Allen
fired a Polaris missile armed with a nuclear warhead that detonated above the
Pacific Ocean.
1962 - Pathet Lao breaks cease fire/conquerors Nam Tha Laos
1963 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Barbara Tuchman (Guns of August)
1964 - Joe Orton's "Entertaining Mr Sloan," premieres in London
1967 - 400 students seize administration building at Cheyney State College
1968 - Battle between students & troops in Paris, 1000 injured
1968 - Spain closes border to Gibraltar except to Spaniards
1970 - Yuchiro Miura of Japan skies down Mt Everest
1974 - Bundy victim Roberta Parks disappears from OSU, Corvallis, Ore
1974 - W German chancellor W Brandt resigns
1975 - President Ford broadcast an appeal to Americans to welcome the thousands
of Vietnamese refugees pouring into the United States.
1975 - Bundy victim Lynette Culver disappears from Pocatello, Idaho
1978 - South Africa military goes into Angola
1981 - US expels Libyan diplomats
1987 - Gary Hart denies affair with model Donna Rice
1987 - Mario Andretti sets one-lap speed record at Indy at 218.204 MPH
1987 - PTL's Jim Bakker & Rich Dortch dismissed from Assemblies of God
1990 - Former president PW Botha quits South Africa's ruling National Party
1991 - NASCAR racer Harry Gant broke his own record to become the oldest man to win a NASCAR race when he won the Winston 500 at the Alabama Superspeedway in Talladega. At age fifty-one,
1992 - Former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev delivered a speech at
Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., where Winston Churchill had spoken of the
"Iron Curtain." Gorbachev said the world was still divided, between
North and South, rich and poor.
1993 - Two postal workers, both apparently bitter over their treatment at work,
allegedly shot co-workers in separate incidents in post offices in Michigan and
California, leaving at least three dead and three wounded.
1993 - A book on the famed father of Mickey Mouse said Walt Disney was a secret
FBI spy for more than 25
years, keeping tabs on those in Hollywood suspected of political subversion.
1994 - Chunnel linking England & France officially opens
1994 - Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait sets fire to the couch on Tonight Show
1994 - House passes the assault weapons ban
1994 - Nelson Mandela & his ANC finally confirmed winners in South Africa
1994 - Paula Jones accused President Clinton with making an unwanted sexual
advance during a meeting in a hotel room in 1991, when he was governor of
Arkansas. It was believed to be the first lawsuit of its kind against a sitting
president.
1994 - The U.N. Security Council voted to impose a tougher trade embargo on
Haiti if the nation's military
rulers did not step down within two weeks.
1996 - The body of former CIA director William E. Colby was found washed up on a
riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he'd disappeared.
1997 - President Clinton wrapped up his visit to Mexico as he and Mexican
President Ernesto Zedillo pledged closer cooperation on immigration and drug
smuggling.
1997 - Army Staff Sgt. Delmar G. Simpson was sentenced to 25 years in
prison and dishonorably discharged for raping six
trainees at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.
1997 - World chess champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue computer played
to a draw in game three of their six-game match.
2001 - Pope John Paul II, during his visit to Syria, became the first pope
to enter a mosque (the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus) as he called for brotherhood
between Christians and Muslims.
2001 - American businessman Dennis Tito ended the world's first paid space
vacation as he returned to Earth aboard a Russian capsule.
Birthdays
Today
0973 - Henry II, German king/emperor (1002/14-24)
1581 - Frans Francken, the Younger, painter
1606 - Lorenzo Lippi, [Perlone Zipoli], poet/painter
1758 - Maximilien Robespierre, Arras Fr, French revolutionary/attorney
1806 - Chapin Aaron Harris, US, found America Society of Dental Surgeons
1814 - Wilhelm Ernst, violinist/composer
1849 - Wyatt Eaton, artist
1856 - Robert E. Peary (explorer: discoverer of the North Pole, Greenland, and the Melville meteorite)
1856 - Sigmund Freud, Austria, cigar smoker, father of psychoanalysis
1861 - Rabindranath Tagore (Nobel prize-winner: literature [1913]; Hindu poet, mystic, musical composer)
1883 - Jose Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher/author [
1895 - Rudolph Valentino, Castellaneta Italy, actor
1898 - Daniel Gerber, Freemont Mi, beloved by babies at mealtime
1902 - Harry Golden, Jewish humorist/writer (2 Cents Plain, Only in America)
1902 - Max Ophuls, Saarland, dir/writer (Letters From an Unknown Woman)
1905 - Toots (Bernard) Shor (restaurateur, barkeep)
1907 - Weeb (Wilbur) Ewbank (football: NY Jets head coach)
1913 - Carmen Cavallaro (pianist: Chopin's Polonaise; films: The Eddy Duchin Story, Hollywood Canteen, Out of this World, Diamond Horseshoe)
1913 - Stewart Granger, [James Stewart], London, actor (Prisoner of Zenda, Scaramouche)
1915 - Orson Welles (actor: War of the Worlds, Citizen Kane, The Mercury Radio Theatre of the Air, The Long Hot Summer, A Man for All Seasons, MacBeth, Moby Dick, Casino Royale, Catch-22)
1915 - Theodore H White, historian/writer (Making of President)
1921 - Fred Randall (jazz musician)
1921 - Ross Hunter (Martin Fuss) (producer)
1922 - Pat Harder (football: shared NFL individual game record: points after touchdowns [9]: Chicago Cardinals [1948])
1923 - Elizabeth Sellars (actress: A Voyage Round My Father, The Chalk Garden, Three Cases of Murder, Never Let Go, Desiree)
1923 - Harry Watson (hockey)
1926 - Marguerite Piazza, New Orleans LA, operatic soprano (Young Broadway)
1931 - Willie Mays (Baseball Hall of Famer: The Say Hey! Kid: SF Giants OF: Baseball Writer's Award [1954 & 1965])
1940 - Bill Hands (baseball)
1941 - Ghena Dimitrova, soprano (Nabucco)
1945 - Bob Seger (musician, singer: Night Moves, Travelin' Man, Ramblin' Gamblin' Man, Against the Wind, Fire Lake )
1946 - Grier Jones (golfer)
1949 - Dennis Havig (football)
1951 - Davey Johnstone (musician: guitar, in trio backing Elton John: Rocket Man, Honky Cat, Crocodile Rock, Daniel, Bennie and the Jets, Island Girl, The Bitch is Back, Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me, Someone Saved My Life Tonight)
1952 - Fred McNeil (football: Minnesota Vikings linebacker: Super Bowl IX, XI)
1961 - George Clooney, Lexington KY, actor (Dr Douglas Ross-ER, Batman)
Famous
deaths
0523 - Thrasamunde, king of Vandalen
0988 - Dirk II, West Frisian count of Holland
1124 - Balak, Emir of Aleppo, murdered
1638 - Cornelius Jansen, theologian (Jansenism), dies
1642 - Frans Francken, the Younger, Flemish painter, dies on 61st birthday
1667 - Johann Jacob Froberger, German singer/organist/composer, dies at 50
1794 - Jean-Jacques Beauvarget-Charpentier, composer, dies at 59
1814 - George Joseph Vogler, composer, dies at 64
1836 - Christian Ignatius Latrobe, composer, dies at 78
1862 - Henry David Thoreau, US writer/pacifist (Walden Pond), dies at 44
1910 - Edward VII, King of England (1901-10), dies at 68
1919 - Frank Lyman Baum, author (Wizard of Oz), dies at 62
1949 - P-M-B Maurice Maeterlinck, Belg philosopher (Nobel 1911), dies at 86
1950 - Agnes Smedley, writer, dies
1952 - Maria Montessori, Italian physician/educationist, dies at 81
1975 - Jozsef Mindszenty, [Joseph Prehm], Hungarian cardinal, dies at 83
1987 - Former CIA Director William J Casey, a key figure in the Iran-Contra
scandal, died of pneumonia after surgery for a brain tumor. He was 74.
1991 - Wilfrid Hyde-White, Brit actor (Peyton Place/140+ films), dies at 87
1992 - Legendary actress Marlene Dietrich died at her Paris home at age 90.
If
you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please
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