May 9
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May 9
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Today is:
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Born on this Day
1740: Giovanni Paisiello was born in Taranto. In his lifetime his
operas, more than a hundred of them, were acclaimed the most. But Paisiello also composed
a lot of symphonies, quartets and some keyboard concertos.
1800: Abolitionist John Brown in Torrington, Connecticut. Brown was
convicted by the Commonwealth of Virginia of treason, murder and inciting slaves to
rebellion; he was hanged on December 2, 1859.
1882: Henry J. Kaiser, built Liberty Ships, Jeeps
1873: Howard Carter, the Egyptologist who discovered the tomb of
Tutankhamen
1914: Country singer Hank Snow
1918: CBS News correspondent Mike Wallace
1933: Singer Lloyd Price
1934: Actor-writer Alan Bennett
1936: Actor Albert Finney
1936: Actress-turned-politician Glenda Jackson
1937: Musician Sonny Curtis (Buddy Holly and the Crickets)
1939: Musician Nokie Edwards (The Ventures)
1940: Producer-director James L. Brooks ("As Good As It Gets")
1941: Musician Pete Birrell (Freddie and the Dreamers)
1942: Singer Tommy Roe
1944: Singer-musician Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield and Poco)
1945: Musician-producer Steve Katz (Blood, Sweat and Tears)
1946: Actress Candice Bergen
1946: Singer Clint Holmes
1947: Actor Anthony Higgins
1949: Singer-songwriter Billy Joel
1950: Rock singer-musician Tom Petersson (Cheap Trick)
1951: Actress Alley Mills ("The Wonder Years")
1960: Baseball player Tony Gwynne
1962: Singer Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode)
1975: Singer Tamia
1977: Rock musician Dan Regan (Reel Big Fish)
1980: Actress Rosario Dawson
0389: Death of St. Gregory of Nazianzus
0480: Julius Nepos, last legitimate Western Roman Emperor,
dies
1204: Election of Baldwin I as Emperor of Rumania
1247: Death of Richard de Bures, 17th Master of the
Templars
1271: Prince Edward and the English arrive at Acre (8th
Crusade)
1386: Treaty of Windsor
1432: Charges of Witchcraft dismissed against Margery
Jourdemain, John Virley, and John Ashwell, in England
1476: Charles, Duke of Burgundy, reviews his troops near
Lausanne, Switz.
1492: Death of Lorenzo de Medici "The
Magnificent"
1502: Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain on his
fourth and final voyage to the New World.
1607: 1st Episcopal celebration of the Eucharist in
America, Jamestown
1641: Execution of the Earl of Strafford
1671: Thomas Blood, the Irish adventurer better known as
Captain Blood, stole the crown jewels from the Tower of London.
1754: The first American newspaper cartoon was published.
The illustration in Benjamin Franklin's "Pennsylvania Gazette" showed a snake
cut into sections, each part representing an American colony; the caption read, "Join
or die."
1785: British inventor Joseph Bramah patented the
beer-pump handle.
1793: European explorer Alexander Mackenzie began a
journey from Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca, eventually reaching the Pacific Ocean via
the Bella Coola River, the first to use a route north of Mexico.
1825: The first gas-lit theater in America opened. It was
the Chatham Theatre in New York City.
1868: A little town in Northwestern Nevada was named Reno
after General Jesse Lee Reno, a Union officer of the Civil War. The town was first settled
by the Washoe Indians who used the area for festivals and ceremonies.
1907: Igor Stravinsky's youthful Symphony in E-flat was
performed privately. The concert was arranged by Stravinsky's teacher Rimsky-Korsakov. No
composer ever tended his own P-R as much as Stravinsky and he did a good job of
downplaying anyone else's influence on his music.
1913: The 17th Amendment to the Constitution, providing
for the election of senators by popular vote rather than selection by state legislatures,
was ratified.
1926: Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett became the
first men to make an airplane flight over the North Pole.
1927: Canberra replaced Melbourne as the capital of
Australia.
1930: A starting gate was used for the first time in a
Triple Crown race. The gate was rolled into place at the Preakness at the Pimlico Race
Course in Baltimore, Maryland. Gallant Fox won the race.
1936: The first sheet of postage stamps of more than one
variety went on sale in New York City.
1936: Italy annexed Ethiopia as Benito Mussolini
celebrated in Rome.
1940: Vivien Leigh made her American stage debut, starring
with Laurence Olivier in "Romeo and Juliet.""
1944: Jimmie Davis, who wrote the song "You Are My
Sunshine," became the Governor of Louisiana.
1945: US officials announced that the midnight
entertainment curfew was being lifted immediately.
1949: Prince Louis II of Monaco died shortly after
delegating his powers to Prince Rainier, who began his reign on April 11, 1950.
1960: The United States became the first country to use
the birth control pill legally.
1961: In a speech to the National Association of
Broadcasters, Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow condemned
television programming as a "vast wasteland."
1974: The House Judiciary Committee opened its hearing on
the possible impeachment of President Nixon
1976: Ulrike Meinhof, a leader of the Baader-Meinhof
terrorist group, hanged herself in prison.
1978: The bullet-riddled body of former Italian prime
minister Aldo Moro, who'd been abducted by the Red Brigades, was found in an automobile in
the center of Rome.
1979: Eighteen people were killed when troops opened fire
on terrorist occupying San Salvador cathedral in El Salvador.
1980: A Liberian freighter rammed a bridge in Florida's
Tampa Bay, collapsing part of the span and dropping 35 people to their deaths. A new $240
million Sunshine Skybridge opened seven years later, on April 30, 1987.
1980: Pope John Paul II and the Archbishop of Canterbury
met for the first time in Ghana.
1983: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called a
general election for June 9, eleven months earlier than she was required to, and the
result was a larger majority in Parliament for the Conservatives.
1984: In a nationally broadcast address, President Reagan
appealed to the public and Congress to support his policies in Central America.
1985: Capping a 10-day European tour with a speech before
Portugal's assembly in Lisbon, President Reagan lashed out at the leaders of the Soviet
Union and Nicaragua.
1986: The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency,
Hans Blix, said he'd been told by Soviet officials that they were working to encase the
damaged Chernobyl nuclear reactor in concrete.
1987: All 183 people aboard a Polish jetliner were killed
when the plane, bound for New York, crashed and burned in Warsaw after the pilot made an
emergency return.
1988: Education Secretary William J. Bennett announced he
would leave his position in mid-September.
1989: President Bush complained that Panama's elections
were marred by "massive irregularities," and he called for worldwide pressure on
General Manuel Antonio Noriega to step down as military leader.
1990: President Bush and congressional leaders announced
plans for emergency budget talks, with tax increases and spending cuts on the negotiating
table.
1990: The Soviet Union held its Victory Day parade in
Moscow's Red Square, celebrating the defeat of the Nazis during World War II.
1991: President Bush met at the White House with U.N.
Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, who relayed Iraq's rejection of a U.S.-backed
proposal for a U.N. civilian force in northern Iraq.
1991: William Kennedy Smith was charged with rape, nearly six weeks after Patricia Bowman accused him of attacking her at the Kennedy family estate in West Palm Beach, Florida (he was acquitted at trial).
1992: President Bush, back in Washington after a visit to
riot-torn Los Angeles, promised in a radio speech that he would work with the
Democrat-controlled Congress on proposals to help American cities.
1992: A methane gas explosion roared through the Westray
coal mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, killing 26 miners. The bodies of 11 men were
recovered. Further recovery was called off due to the danger of a cave-in.
1993: The White House said President Clinton had directed
Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher to contact US allies to discuss how they could
ensure Serbia's promise to cut supplies to the Bosnian Serbs.
1994: South Africa's newly elected parliament chose Nelson
Mandela to be the country's first black president. Madnela promised a South Africa for
"all its people, black and white."
1995: President Clinton arrived in Moscow for a summit
with Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
1995: The city of Kinshasa, Zaire, was placed under
quarantine after an outbreak of the Ebola virus.
1995: The United States returned 13 Cuban boat people to
their homeland, the first refugees to be sent back under a new policy bitterly protested
by Cuban-Americans.
1996: The National Party, which inflicted apartheid on
South Africa then helped break the hated system, decided to quit Nelson Mandela's
two-year-old government of national unity, effective June 30.
1996: In dramatic video testimony to a hushed courtroom in
Little Rock, Arkansas, President Clinton insisted he had nothing to do with a $300,000
loan at the heart of the criminal case against his former Whitewater partners.
1997: During a visit to a rain forest in Costa Rica,
President Clinton urged nations not to sacrifice their environment in pursuit of economic
gain.
1998: Indonesian President Suharto left his troubled
country for a summit in Egypt with a warning his army would quell violence over his
32-year rule and the worsening economy.
1999: A chartered bus carrying members of a casino club on
a Mother's Day gambling excursion flipped off a highway in New Orleans, killing 22 people.
1999: Furious Chinese demonstrators hurled rocks and
debris into the U.S. Embassy in a second day of protests against NATO's bombing of the
Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.
2000: Failed Republican presidential candidate John McCain decided to endorse former rival George W. Bush at their Tuesday summit, despite misgivings about the Texan's agenda.
2000: Former Governor Edwin Edwards, who was known for nod-and-a-wink politics but always evaded prosecutors, was convicted for the first time, on charges he extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from businessmen applying for riverboat casino licenses. The former four-term Democratic governor was found guilty along with his son Stephen of fraud and racketeering. (Edwards was sentenced
to ten years in prison and fined a quarter of a million dollars.)
2000: A draft statement prepared by a U.N. conference on nuclear disarmament singled out Israel for being the only country in the Middle East that hasn't signed onto the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
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