Today in History
~ May 7
Events
1355 - 1,200 Jews of Toledo Spain killed by Count Henry of Trastamara
1416 - Monk Nicolaas Serrurier arrested for heresy at Tournay
1660 - Isaack B Fubine of Savoy, in The Hague, patents macaroni
1663 - Theatre Royal in Drury Lane London opens
1700 - William Penn began monthly meetings for Blacks advocating emancipation
1727 - Jews are expelled from Ukraine by Empress Catherine I of Russia
1763 - Pontiac's Rebellion began when a confederacy of Native-American warriors under Ottawa chief Pontiac attacked the British force at Detroit
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1765 - Adm Nelson's flagship HMS Victory runs aground
1769 - Revolution was in the air on this day in 1769, as George Washington launched a legislative salvo at Great Britain's fiscal and judicial attempts to maintain its control over the American colonies. With his sights set on the British policy of "taxation without representation,"
1789 - The first inaugural ball was held in New York in honor of President and Mrs. George Washington.
1792 - Capt Robert Gray discovers Gray's Harbor (Washington)
1800 - Indiana Territory organized
1824 - Beethoven's Ninth Symphony performed for the first time in Vienna, Austria.
1840 - Tornado strikes Natchez Miss, kills 317
1847 - The American Medical Association was founded in Philadelphia.
1862 - Battle of West Point, VA (Eltham's Landing, Barnhamsville)
1864 - Battle of Wilderness ends (total losses: USA-17,666; CSA-7,500)
1864 - Sherman begins his Atlanta campaign
1866 - German premier Otto von Bismarck seriously wounded in assassination attempt
1873 - US marines attack Panama
1875 - German SS Schiller sinks near Scilly Islands, 312 killed
1888 - Edouard Lalo's opera "Le roi d'Ys," premieres in Paris
1888 - George Eastman patents Kodak box camera
1896 - The Arch Fiend, Dr. H. H. Holmes, one of America's first well-known serial killers, is hanged. [H]
1912 - Columbia University approves plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories. The award is established by Joseph Pulitzer
1913 - British House of Commons rejects woman's right to vote
1914 - Woodrow Wilson's daughter Eleanor marries in White House
1915 - A German submarine sank the British liner Lusitania off the coast of Ireland, killing nearly 1,200 people, including 124
Americans; an act that contributed to the entry of the United States into World War I.
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1928 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Thornton Wilder for (Bridge of San Luis Rey)
1934 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Sidney Kingsley (Men in White)
1934 - World's largest pearl (6.4 kg) found at Palawan, Philippines
1939 - Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
1940 - Winston Churchill becomes PM of Britain
1941 - British House of Commons votes for Churchill (477-3)
1941 - Glenn Miller and His Orchestra recorded "Chattanooga Choo Choo" for RCA Victor.
1942 - Battle of Coral Sea ends stopping Japanese expansion
1942 - Nazi decree orders all Jewish pregnant women of Kovno Ghetto executed
1944 - German assault on Tito's hideout in Drvar Bosnia
1945 - Formal German surrender
1945 - Mauthausen Concentration Camp liberated
1945 - Pulitzer prize awarded to John Hersey (Bell for Adano)
1945 - SS open fire on crowd in Amsterdam, killing 22
1945 - World War II ends in Europe. In Reims, France, at 2:41 a.m. local time, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of all German forces on all fronts
from Gen. Alfred Jodl.
1947 - "Kraft Television Theater" premieres on NBC
1947 - General MacArthur approves Japanese constitution
1951 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Conrad Richter (The Town)
1953 - "Can Can" opens at Shubert Theater NYC for 892 performances
1954 - US, Great-Britain & France reject Russian membership in NATO
1954 - The 55-day Battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam ended with Vietnamese insurgents overrunning French forces.
1955 - West Europe Union established
1960 - Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced that American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, shot down over the Soviet Union on May 1, had confessed he was on a spying
mission for the CIA.
1962 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Theodore H White (Making of President)
1963 - The United States launched the Telstar II communications satellite (apogee 6,700 miles).
1967 - Don (The Snake) Prudhomme, became the first dragster to run the quarter mile in less than seven seconds when he reached 226 mph
1970 - "Long & Winding Road" becomes Beatles' last American release
1975 - President Ford formally declared an end to the "Vietnam era." In Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, the Viet Cong celebrated its takeover.
1980 - Josip Tito, Yugoslav president, buried
1983 - August Hoffman performs record 29,051 consecutive sit-ups
1984 - $180m out-of-court settlement reached in Agent Orange suit
1985 - 10 years after the Vietnam War ended, New York City honored Vietnam veterans with a huge ticker tape parade.
1987 - Rep. Stewart McKinney, R-Conn., died of AIDS at age 56, the first member of Congress identified as a victim of the disease.
1989 - Panamanian voters reject dictator Manuel Noriega's bid for reelection
1991 - Doctors said that President Bush's bout with an irregular heartbeat was caused by a mildly overactive thyroid gland, a condition they said was easily treatable.
1992 - The space shuttle Endeavour blasted off on its maiden voyage.
1992 - A 203-year-old proposed constitutional amendment barring Congress from giving itself a midterm pay raise received enough votes for ratification as Michigan became the 38th state to approve it..
1993 - A Florida teenager was identified as the sixth patient infected with the AIDS virus by Dr. David Acer, a dentist who had died in 1990.
1994 - Norway's most famous painting, "The Scream" by Edvard Munch, was recovered almost three months after it was stolen from an Oslo museum.
1996 - The first international war crimes proceeding since Nuremberg opened at The Hague, with a Serbian police officer, Dusan Tadic, facing trial on murder-torture charges. (A year later, Tadic was convicted of brutalizing prisoners, but was acquitted of more serious crimes, including murder.)
1997 - The Army accused its top enlisted man, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Gene McKinney, of sexual misconduct. (At his court-martial, McKinney was acquitted of sexual misconduct, but found guilty of obstruction of justice.)
1997 - Chrysler Corp. and United Auto Workers agreed to a new contract, ending a damaging 28-day engine-plant strike.
1998 - iMac unveiled
1998, Daimler-Benz AG and the Chrysler Corporation announced plans to merge.
1999 - NATO jets struck the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three people and injuring 20; President Clinton called the attack a "tragic mistake."
2000 - A second fire was set to contain an earlier blaze that was begun to clear brush on the Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico; the second fire blew out of control, destroying more than 200 homes and damaging part of the Los Alamos National Laboratory before it was controlled.
2000 - President Vladimir Putin took the oath of office in Russia's first democratic transfer of
power in the nation's 1,000-year history.
2001 - "Great Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs, who had eluded capture for decades following his prison escape in 1965, returned to Britain, where he was arrested and jailed to complete the 28 remaining years of his sentence.
2001 - California electricity grid operators ordered statewide rolling power blackouts.
Birthdays
Today
1530 - Louis I Conde, French prince/leader of Hugenots
1700 - Gerard van Swieten, Dutch botanist
1769 - Giuseppe Farinelli, composer/singer`
1803 - Johan Peter Cronhamm, composer
1812 - Robert Browning (poet: Pauline, Men and Women, The Ring and the Book, Pippa Passes: God's in His Heaven - All's Right with the World; married to poet, Elizabeth Barrett)
1826 - Varina Howell Davis, 1st lady (Confederacy), died in 1905
1833 - Johannes Brahms (composer: Requiem, Symphony #1 in C Minor, Symphony #4 in E Minor)
, enjoyed a good lullaby.
1840 - Peter I. Tchaikovsky (composer: Marche Slave, 1812 Overture, Swan Lake, Nutcracker Suite, Romeo and Juliet)
1885 - Gabby (George) Hayes (actor: sidekick of both Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers, appeared in over 100 films; vaudevillian, silent movie villain)
1892 - Archibald MacLeish (Pulitzer Prize-winning poet: Conquistador [1933], Collected Poems, 1917-1952 [1953]; U.S. Librarian of Congress)
1892 - Josip Broz Tito, WW II partisan, leader of Yugoslavia (1943-80)
1901 - Gary (Frank) Cooper (Academy Award-winning actor: Sergeant York [1941], High Noon [1952]; Beau Geste, The Virginian, The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell, The Wreck of the Mary
Deare) [H]
1909 - Edwin Land, founded instant photography (Polaroid)
1922 - Darren McGavin (actor: The Night Stalker, Airport '77, Billy Madison, Child in the Night, The Man with the Golden Arm, The Martian Chronicles, The Natural, Perfect Harmony, Dead Heat)
1923 - Anne Baxter (actress: The Ten Commandments, Walk on the Wild Side, All About Eve, Cimarron, East of Eden, Homecoming)
1924 - Gale Robbins (actress, singer: The Barkley's of Broadway, The Fuller Brush Girl, Three Little Words, The Belle of New York)
1927 - Jim Lowe (singer: Green Door, Talkin' to the Blues; DJ: WNEW)
1929 - Dick Williams (baseball: infielder-outfielder, played for 5 different teams in 13 seasons; managed Boston Red Sox, Oakland Athletics [winning 2 World Series], California Angels, Montreal Expos, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners)
1930 - Babe (Vito) Parilli (football: New York Jets QB: Super Bowl III)
1930 - Totie Fields (Sophie Feldman) (comedienne)
1931 - Gene [Rodman] Wolfe, US, sci-fi author (Soldier of Arete)
1931 - Teresa Brewer (Breuer) (singer: Music, Music, Music, Ricochet, Let Me Go Lover, A Sweet Old Fashioned Girl, 'Til I Waltz Again with You; actress: Those Red heads from Seattle)
1933 - Johnny Unitas (Pro Football Hall of Famer: Baltimore Colts, San Diego Chargers QB; holds consecutive records for game touchdown passes [47] from 1956-60)
1935 - Pat Collins (Allan) (performer)
1936 - Bobby Green (football)
1939 - Jimmy Ruffin (singer: What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, Hold on to My Love, There Will Never be Another You)
1942 - Lorrie Collins (country artist)
1946 - Marv Hubbard (football)
1947 - Dave Hampton (football)
1949 - Kathy Ahern (golfer: LPGA Champion [1972])
1950 - Janis Ian (Fink) (Grammy Award-winning songwriter, singer: At Seventeen [1975]; Society's Child)
1953 - Terry Richardson (hockey)
Famous
deaths
1617 - David Fabricius, German astronomer, dies at 53
1667 - Johann Jakob Froberger, German organist/singer/composer, dies at 50
1793 - Pietro Nardini, composer, dies at 71
1800 - Niccolo Piccinni, Italian composer (Roland), dies at 72
1825 - Antonio Salieri, Italian composer, dies in Vienna at 74
1884 - Judah P Benjamin, confederate minister of War, dies at 72
1896 - Dr. H. H. Holmes, The Arch Fiend, one of America's first well-known serial killers, is hanged.
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1915 - Alfred G Vanderbilt, US millionaire, dies aboard Lusitania
1915 - Alfred Scott Witherbee Jr, US Lusitania officer, dies
1915 - Charles Frohman, dies aboard Lusitania
1915 - Elbert Hubbard. Americasn platitudinist, author, educator
1929 - Albert Anselmi, US gangster, murdered by Al Capone
1929 - John Scalise, US gangster, murdered by Al Capone
1929 - Joseph "Top Toad" Giunta, US gangster, murdered by Al Capone
1942 - Felix Paul von Weingartner, Austria conductor/composer, dies
1968 - Lurleen Burns, wife of George Wallace/gov of Alabama, dies at 41
1970 - Carlos Estrada, composer, dies at 60
1989 - Guy Williams, actor (Zorro, Lost in Space), dies in Argentina at 65
2000 - Actor-producer-author Douglas Fairbanks Jr. died in New York at age 90.
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