May 14
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May 14
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Today is: Star Wars Day - Celebrate the birthday of George Lucas, who brought us the Star Wars trilogy (now the
prequel), by working to establish a true human presence in space. Lucas was born in 1944 in Modesto, California, a town he immortalized in American Grafiti
Sponsor: The Life of the Party. |
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Born on this Day
1316: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, born. King of Bohemia
from 1346 to 1378, he became emperor in 1355.
1553: Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
1686: The German physicist whose temperature scale bears
his name, Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit.
1727: English painter Thomas Gainsborough was born in
Sudbury, Suffolk, England. One of his best known paintings is "The Blue Boy".
1885: Otto Klemperer, German musical director and
conductor, in Breslau. In his early career he championed modern works.
1925: Opera singer Patrice Munsel
1928: Billy Martin, local boy who made good in baseball.
1943: Rock singer-musician (Cream) Jack Bruce
1944: Movie producer ("Star Wars") George Lucas
1944: Actress Francesca Annis
1944: Singer Troy Shondell
1945: Rock musician (The Young Rascals) Gener Cornish
1948: Actress Meg Foster
1951: Actress Season Hubley
1952: Rock artist (Talking Heads) David Byrne
1952: Movie director ("Back to the Future")
Robert Zemeckis
1961: Actor Tim Roth.
1962: Rock singer (The Cult) Ian Astbury
1962: Rock musician (Poison) C.C. DeVille
1966: Rock musician (Alice in Chains) Mike Inez
1969: Singer (New Kids on the Block) Danny Wood
1971: Rapper (Lost Boyz) Freaky Tah
1973: Singer Shanice
1973: Singer Natalie Appleton (All Saints)
0637: Death of St. Carthage
0964: Death of Pope John XII, unshriven, in the arms of
his mistress
1004: Coronation of Henry II as Holy Roman Emperor
1080: Massacre of Bishop Walcher of Lorraine and his
retinue
1264: English barons under Simon de Montfort heavily
defeated forces under Henry III at the battle of Lewes.
1295: Death of (St.) Gil of Santarem
1494: Columbus discovers Jamaica
1509: The French defeated the Venetians at the battle of
Agnadello in Italy in the War of the League of Cambrai.
1587: James VI, King of Scots, invites his nobles to a
banquet at Holyrood, to try to persuade them to keep the King's Peace with each other
1608: Death of Charles "the Great," King of
Lorraine
1610: Assassination of Henry IV, King of France and
Navarre
1610: Henry IV of France, the first Bourbon king, was
assassinated by religious fanatic Francois Ravaillac in Paris.
1634: 1st property tax general law in America signed by
Mass. governor
1638: Imprisonment of the Abbe of St. Cyran, by Richelieu
1643: Death of Louis XIII, King of France. Louis XIV
ascends the French throne at age 4, reigns until 1715
1787: Delegates began gathering in Philadelphia for a
convention to draw up the U.S. Constitution.
1796: English physician Edward Jenner performed the first
successful vaccination, inoculating an eight-year-old boy against smallpox and laying the
foundation for modern immunology.
1804: The Lewis and Clark expedition to explore the
Louisiana Purchase left St. Louis. The expedition started up the Missouri in a 55 foot
covered keelboat and two small craft.
1811: Paraguay proclaimed independence from Spain.
1847: HMS Driver arrived back at Spithead, southern
England, after the first circumnavigation of the world by a steamship.
1853: Gail Borden applies for patent for making condensed
milk.
1862: Adolphe Nicole of Switzerland patented the
chronograph -- a timepiece that would allow for split-second timing of sporting events.
1878: The trademark name of Vaseline - for a brand of
petroleum jelly - was registered by Robert A. Chesebrough - of Chesebrough-Pond's, USA,
Co.
1897: As a statue of George Washington was unveiled in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, John Philip Sousa's march, "The Stars and Stripes
Forever," was performed for the first time. President McKinley attended the ceremony.
1900: The second Modern Olympic Games opened in Paris,
with women allowed to take part for the first time.
1904: The Olympic Games were held in the United States, at
St. Louis, Missouri.
1912: August Strindberg, influential Swedish playwright,
died. Best known for "Miss Julie" and "The Father."
1913: John D. Rockefeller established the Rockefeller
Foundation with a gift of $100,000,000 - the largest gift of money to that time. The
foundation promotes "the well-being of mankind throughout the world.""
1919: Henry John Heinz, U.S. food manufacturer, died; his
food company became famous for its slogan "57 varieties."
1921: Florence Allen became the first U.S. woman judge to
sentence a man to death. Frank Motto was convicted of murder and executed on Aug. 20.
1936: Edmund Allenby, British military commander, died; he
directed the Palestine campaign in World War I.
1940: German bombers destroyed two thirds of the Dutch
city of Rotterdam, killing almost 1,000 people and making at least 80,000 homeless.
1942: The Women's Auxiliary Army Corps was established.
During World War II, women became eligible to enlist for non-combat duties in the WAAC by
an act of Congress.
1942: Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait" was
first performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andre Kostelanetz, who
had commissioned the work.
1948: The state of Israel was proclaimed at 4 p.m., eight
hours before the British mandate in Palestine was to end.
1955: The Warsaw Pact was signed by the Soviet Union,
Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania.
1955: Representatives from eight Communist bloc countries,
including the Soviet Union, signed the Warsaw Pact in Poland. The Warsaw Pact was inspired
by Nikita Khrushchev to strengthen the Soviet hold over it Eastern European allies.
1962: Princess Sophia of Greece married Don Juan Carlos of
Spain.
1963: Kuwait became the 111th member of the United
Nations.
1964: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev joined United Arab
Republic President Gamel Abdel Nasser in setting off charges, diverting the Nile River
from the site of the Aswan High Dam project.
1965: Queen Elizabeth unveiled a memorial to the late U.S
president John Kennedy on a field at Runnymede, the site west of London where the Magna
Carta was signed in 1215.
1968: Czechoslovakia's communist government announced
widespread liberalizing reforms under leader Alexander Dubcek.
1973: America's Skylab I space laboratory was launched
into earth orbit by the last Saturn Five booster rocket.
1974: Dr. Donald Coggan was named Archbishop of
Canterbury, succeeding Archbishop Michael Ramsey.
1975: U.S. forces raided the Cambodian island of Koh Tang
and recaptured the American merchant ship "Mayaguez." All 40 crew members were
released safely by Cambodia, but some 40 U.S. servicemen were killed in the military
operation.
1980: President Jimmy Carter inaugurated the Department of
Health and Human Services, the successor to the Department of Health, Education and
Welfare.
1983: Lebanese President Amin Gemayel's Cabinet voted
unanimously to approve a U.S.-sponsored troop withdrawal agreement with Israel, despite
Syrian rejection of the pact.
1984: The chairman of the Soviet Union's Olympic Committee
told a Moscow news conference his country's decision to withdraw from the summer games in
Los Angeles was "irrevocable."
1985: Secretary of State George P. Shultz raised human
rights and arms control issues during a six-hour meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister
Andrei Gromyko at the Soviet Embassy in Vienna.
1985: The first McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines,
Illinois, became the first museum of the fast-food business.
1986: Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said in a
televised address that casualties from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster had risen to nine
dead and 299 hospitalized, but said, "The worst is behind us.""
1987: Lt. Col. Sitiveni Rabuka seized power in a bloodless
military coup in Fiji.
1987: Actress Rita Hayworth died in New York at age 68.
1987: The Commerce Department reported that the U.S. trade
deficit had narrowed in March to $13.6 billion.
1988: Iraqi jets bombed the Seawise Giant -- the world's
biggest ship -- and three other tankers at the Larak oil terminal in Iran on the Strait of
Hormuz.
1988: Twenty-seven people, most of them teen-agers, were
killed when their church bus collided with a pickup truck going the wrong way on a highway
near Carrollton, Kentucky. (The driver of the truck, Larry Mahoney, was convicted of
manslaughter and sentenced to 16 years' imprisonment.)
1989: Peronist leader Carlos Menem swept to power in
Argentina, beating ruling Radical Party candidate Eduardo Angeloz.
1989: Tens of thousands demonstrated for democratic
reforms in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on the eve of a visit to the country by Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
1990: In separate decrees, Soviet President Mikhail S.
Gorbachev declared that the republics of Estonia and Latvia had no legal basis for moving
toward independence.
1990: The Dow Jones industrial average hit a record
2,281.53 points.
1991: Jiang Qing, widow of Chinese Communist Party
chairman Mao Zedong and leader of the 'Gang of Four', committed suicide.
1991: In South Africa, Winnie Mandela was sentenced to six
years' imprisonment for complicity in the kidnapping and beating of four youths, one of
whom died. She was freed pending appeal.
1991: President Bush announced his selection of Robert M.
Gates to head the Central Intelligence Agency.
1991: Britain's Queen Elizabeth II arrived in Washington
to begin a two-week visit to the United States.
1991: 42 people were killed in a train collision in
western Japan.
1992: Former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev
appealed to the U.S. Congress, to pass a bill aiding the people of the former Soviet
Union.
1992: Former football player Lyle Alzado died in Portland,
Oregon, at age 43.
1993: American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst
Jr., 85, died after a heart attack. He was editor-in-chief of Hearst Newspapers and
chairman of the executive committee of the Hearst Corporation.
1993: President Clinton told a news conference his threat
of military force to halt the war in the former Yugoslavia was "still on the
table" despite opposition from European allies.
1994: Noisy parades and celebrations enveloped the
700-strong Palestinian police force as it patrolled Jericho on the first full day of
Palestinian self-rule after nearly three decades of Israeli occupation.
1995: The Dalai Lama proclaimed six-year-old Gedhun
Choekyi Nyima as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, Tibet's second most senior
spiritual leader.
1995: Myrlie Evers-Williams was sworn in to head the
NAACP, pledging to lead the civil rights group away from its recent troubles and restore
it as a political and social force.
1996: A jury in Pontiac, Michigan, acquitted Dr. Jack
Kevorkian of assisted-suicide charges, his third legal victory in two years.
1997: Laurie Lee, who immortalized a sensual and earthy
way of English country living in his classic novel "Cider with Rosie," died.
1997: Jurors at the Timothy McVeigh trial in Denver saw
chilling black-and-white surveillance pictures of a Ryder truck moving toward the Oklahoma
City federal building minutes before a bomb blew the place apart.
1998: Singer-actor Frank Sinatra died at a Los Angeles
hospital at age 82.
1998: The hit sitcom "Seinfeld" aired its final
episode after nine years on NBC, and I've never seen a single episode.
1998: The Associated Press commemorated its 150th
anniversary.
1999: His previous calls rebuffed, President Clinton
finally got through to Chinese President Jiang Zemin; Clinton expressed hope the two
countries could repair the damage to their relations since the U.S. bombing of the Chinese
Embassy in Belgrade.
2000: Tens of thousands of mothers rallied in Washington to demand strict control of handguns.
2000: Former Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi died in Tokyo at age 62.
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