May 7
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May 7
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Today is:
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Born on this Day
1574: Pope Innocent X
1812: English poet Robert Browning in London.
1833: Composer Johannes Brahms, regarded as one of the greatest
composers of the 19th century music, was born in Hamburg, Germany. He wrote four
symphonies and two piano concerti which have become standards in the classical repertoire.
1840: Composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in the Ural region of
Russia. At 37, Tchaikovsky married. It may have been the dumbest thing he ever did. His
bride knew Tchaikovsky was gay but thought she could change him. Wealthy Nadia von Meck
supported Tchaikovsky for 13 years. His works included the ballet scores for ``The
Nutcracker,'' ``Swan Lake'' and ``Sleeping Beauty.''
1892: Yugoslav leader Josef Broz Tito. He was the Yugoslav partisan
leader and president of post-war Yugoslavia from 1945 until 1980
1901: Actor Gary Cooper (Frank James Cooper) was born in Helena,
Montana. His films included "Sergeant York," for which he won his first Academy
Award, 'High Noon' and 'The Plainsman'.
1909: Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid instant camera
1919: Eva Peron, first lady of Argentina during the populist government
of Juan Peron. She died of cancer aged 33.
1922: Actor Darren McGavin (some sources list May 5)
1931: Singer Teresa Brewer
1933: Football Hall-of-Famer Johnny Unitas
1939: Singer Jimmy Ruffin
1939: Singer Johnny Maestro
1942: Country singer Lorrie Collins
1943: Rock musician (Brian Poole & The Tremeloes) Ricky West
1945: Actress Robin Strasser
1946: Singer-songwriter Bill Danoff
1950: TV commentator Tim Russert
1951: Actor Robert Hegyes
1951: Singer Janis Ian (Fink)
1954: Movie writer-director Amy Heckerling ("Clueless")
1959: Actor Michael E. Knight ("All My Children")
1962: Rock musician Phil Campbell (Motorhead)
1965: Rock singer-musician Chris O'Connor (Primitive Radio Gods)
1968: Actress Traci Lords
0558: Collapse of the dome of Hagia Sophia
0685: Death of Marwan, Caliph
0721: Death of St. John of Beverly
0877: Charles the Bald institutes a tax to pay the Danes
to leave Seine area
0973: Death of Otto I "the Great," Holy Roman
Emperor
1406: Henry IV, King of England, directs John Colepepper
to arrest one Thomas Northfield, Dominican, on charges of Witchcraft
1429: English siege of OrlÇans broken by Joan of Arc
1525: Thomas Munzer, leader of the German Peasant's
Revolt, beheaded
1577: Queen Elizabeth forbids Puritan meetings in England
1603: Arrival of King James VI of Scotland and I of
England in London
1634: 1st American treason trial begins, against governor
of Virginia
1634: Convicted of libeling Queen of Charles I, William
Prynne loses both ears
1641: The House of Lords gives reluctant consent to the
Bill of Attainder against Strafford 1641
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 inaugural ball was held in New York in
honor of President and Mrs. George Washington.
1824: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was premiered in Vienna.
The composer had accepted a commission for the work from the London Symphony, but reneged
on the contractual promise to let it be played in London first.
1825: Italian composer Antonio Salieri died in Vienna,
Austria.
1832: Otto of Bavaria was chosen king of Greece by the
great powers at the conference of London.
1847: The American Medical Association was founded in
Philadelphia.
1848: In Warsaw, Polish workers surrendered after Prussian
troops put down a rebellion.
1863: In the American Civil War the battle of Vicksburg
began when Sherman reinforced Grant and split the Confederate armies under Pemberton in
two. The battle and siege lasted until July 4.
1912: Columbia University approved final plans for
awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories. The award was established by Joseph
Pulitzer.
1915: 1,198 people, including 63 children, died when a
German torpedo sank the British liner Lusitania off the Irish coast. 114 of the victims
were American. The incident contributed to the U.S. entry into World War I.
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.
1937: In the United States, the first coast to coast radio
broadcast took place when Herbert Morrison described the explosion on the airship
Hindenburg which took place the day before.
1939: Germany and Italy announced a military and political
alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
1941: Glenn Miller and His Orchestra recorded
"Chattanooga Choo Choo" for RCA Victor.
1945: Gen. Dwight Eisenhower accepted the unconditional
surrender of Nazi Germany from General Alfred Jodl.
1945: The 1944 Pulitzer Prizes were awarded; winners
included John Hersey for his novel "A Bell for Adano," Mary Chase for her play
"Harvey," and Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal for his picture of the
Iwo Jima flag-raising.
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: The 55-day Battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam ended
with Vietnamese insurgents overrunning French forces.
1960: Leonid Brezhnev replaced Marshal Kliment Voroshilov
as president of the Supreme Soviet.
1960: Leonid Brezhnev announced that Francis Gary Powers,
pilot of the U-2 plane shot down on May 1, had confessed to being on an intelligence
mission for the CIA.
1963: The United States launched the "Telstar
II" communications satellite.
1973: Benjamin Britten had open heart surgery.
1975: President Ford formally declared an end to the
"Vietnam era." In Ho Chi Minh City -- formerly Saigon -- the Viet Cong staged a
rally to celebrate their takeover.
1980: Paul Geidel, convicted of second-degree murder in
1911, was released from prison in Beacon, New York, after serving 68 years and 245 days --
the longest-ever time served.
1984: A $180 million out-of-court settlement was announced
in the "Agent Orange" class-action suit brought by Vietnam veterans who charged
they had suffered injury from exposure to the defoliant.
1985: 10 years after the Vietnam War ended, New York City
honored Vietnam veterans with a huge ticker tape parade.
1985: Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth announced
plans to institute mandatory drug testing for all baseball personnel except major-league
players.
1985: The Edmonton Oilers set a National Hockey League
record for playoff wins - 12. Edmonton won its second Stanley Cup with a 7-3 win over the
Chicago Black Hawks.
1986: The Senate Finance Committee approved a plan to make
the most sweeping changes in the U.S. income tax laws in more than 40 years. (A compromise
version was signed by President Reagan the following October.)
1987: Shelly Long made her last appearance on the TV show
"Cheers." Long, who played cocktail server, Diane Chambers, to often hilarious
results, left the hit comedy to pursue a movie career.
1987: Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart, dogged
by reports about his relationship with Miami model Donna Rice, put his campaign on hold
and flew home to Denver to be with his family.
1987: Rep. Stewart McKinney, R-Conn., died of AIDS at age
56, the first member of Congress identified as a victim of the disease.
1988: "Winning Colors" won the 114th running of
the Kentucky Derby, becoming the third filly to win the event.
1989: Both sides claimed victory in Panama's national
elections, with the opposition also charging a pattern of fraud.
1990: Latvia elected Ivars Godmanis as prime minister;
Moscow sought more information about the republic's attempt to leave the Soviet Union.
1990: The White House put aside President Bush's pledge of
no new taxes, saying talks to strike a budget deal with Congress would have "no
preconditions."
1991: Doctors said that President Bush's recent bout with
an irregular heartbeat was caused by a mildly overactive thyroid gland, a condition they
said was easily treatable.
1992: President Bush visited riot-scarred Los Angeles.
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: President Clinton proposed dramatic changes in
political campaign financing.
1993: In South Africa, representatives of 23 political
parties signed a declaration of intent to hold multiracial elections within a year.
1994: Norway's most famous painting, "The
Scream" by Edvard Munch, was recovered almost three months after it was stolen from
an Oslo museum. It was found undamaged in a hotel in south Norway.
1994: Japan's Justice Minister Shigeto Nagano resigned
after his attempts to whitewash past Japanese military aggression provoked a diplomatic
row in Asia.
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.
1995: Jacques Chirac, the conservative mayor of Paris, won
France's presidency in his third attempt defeating Lionel Jospin in a runoff to end 14
years of Socialist rule.
1995: Leaders of 54 nations that fought on both sides in
World War II signed olive leaves in London in a ceremony of reconciliation.
1996: The first international war crimes proceeding since
Nuremberg opened at The Hague in the Netherlands, with a Serbian police officer, Dusan
Tadic, facing trial on murder-torture charges. (A year later on this date, Tadic was convicted of brutalizing prisoners, but was acquitted of more serious crimes, including murder.)
1997: The Army accused its top enlisted man, Sergeant
Major 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 Corporation and United Auto Workers agreed
to a new contract, ending a damaging 28-day engine-plant strike.
1997: A U.S. government study criticised Switzerland for
dealing in Nazi gold during World War II.
1998: The parent company of Mercedes-Benz agreed to buy
Chrysler Corporation for more than $37 billion.
1998: Londoners voted overwhelmingly to elect their own
mayor for the first time in history. (The mayoral election will take place in May 2000.)
1999: NATO jets struck the Chinese embassy in Belgrade,
killing three people and injuring 20; President Clinton called the attack a "tragic
mistake."
1999: A jury in Pontiac, Mich., ordered "The Jenny Jones Show" to pay $25 million to the family of Scott Amedure, a gay man who was shot to death after revealing a crush on Jonathan Schmitz, a fellow guest on the talk show.
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: Actor-producer-author Douglas Fairbanks Junior died in New York at age 90.
2000: President Vladimir Putin took the oath of office in Russia's first democratic transfer of power.
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