May 16

And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long.

Psalm 35:28

is:

REACT CB-Radio Month - Encourages the proper use of (emergency only) CB Channel 9. Sponsor: REACT Inc. Revise Your Work Schedule Month - Encourages the exploration of non- traditional work schedules that might better suit working individuals. Sponsor: Center for Worktime. Social Science Books Month Read a book on politics, law, sociology, history, anthropology, psychology, or other social science. Sponsor: Book Marketing Update. Touring Theatre Month - Praises theatre companies bringing plays to the people. Formerly sponsored by Richard Falk, who died in 1994. Women's Health Care Month

Today is: Nickel's Birthday - The U.S. nickel was first coined in 1866. Academy Awards Birthday - The first Oscars were presented at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in 1919. Wings won for best movies. Janet Gaynor won for best actress; Emil Jannings won for best actor. Don't Light My Fire Day On this date in 1988, cigarettes were declared to be addictive. Sponsor: The Life of the Party. Saint Brendan the Navigator Feast Day - This Irish monk is considered a patron saint of sailors. He is rumored to have traveled to North America long before Columbus or Lief Erickson. Saint John of Nepomuk Feast Day - Patron saint of discretion, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia, bridges, running water, and silence. Table Knife Birthday : In 1639, French Cardinal Richelieu invented the table knife by ordering that any knives at his table be rounded off at the tip.

Born on this Day

• 1867: William Seward, secretary of state whose purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million was called "Seward's Folly"
  

• 1824: Banker Levi Morton, U.S. vice president under Benjamin Harrison
  

• 1831: David Hughes, inventor of the microphone
  

• 19??: Scott Wenzel (Whitecross)
  

• 19??: Jerry McPherson
  

• 1905: Actor Henry Fonda in Grand Island, Nebraska. Fonda won an Oscar for best actor in "On Golden Pond." In 1940, he was nominated for his performance in "Grapes of Wrath.""
  

• 1912: Author Studs Terkel
  

• 1913: Band leader Woody Herman
  

• 1917: Actor George Gaynes
  

• 1919: Entertainer Liberace
  

• 1921: Actor Harry Carey Junior
  

• 1930: Jazz singer Betty Carter
  

• 1944: Jazz musician Billy Cobham
  

• 1953: Actor Pierce Brosnan
  

• 1955: Actress Debra Winger
  

• 1955: Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut
  

• 1959: Actress Mare Winningham
  

• 1961: Tennis star Yannick Noah
  

• 1966: Singer Janet Jackson
  

• 1968: Rhythm-and-blues singer Ralph Tresvant (New Edition)
  

• 1969: Actress Tracey Gold
  

• 1970: Tennis player Gabriela Sabatini
  

• 1971: Country singer Rick Trevino
  

• 1971: Actor David Boreanaz ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer")
  

• 1971: Musician Simon Katz (Jamiroquai)
  

• 1973: Actress Tori Spelling 

Events in History on this day
  

• 0578: Death of St. Brendan the Voyager
  

• 1160 Death of St. Ubaldo
  

• 1164: Death of HÇloise, at about 63
  

• 1265: Death of St. Simon Stock
  

• 1291: Moslems take the Maudite Tower of Acre
  

• 1527: The Medici government in Florence is overthrown; the Republic is re-established
  

• 1532: Thomas More resigns as Lord Chancellor of England
  

• 1605: Death of Pope Paul V
  

• 1620: Death of William Adams, "Anjin-sama", the first Englishman in Japan
  

• 1661: Delivery of the lead ballast for Charles II's yacht, the first built in England in the 'modern' fashion
  

• 1763: The English lexicographer, author and wit Samuel Johnson first met his future biographer, James Boswell.
  

• 1770: Marie Antoinette, age 14, married the future King Louis the 16th of France, who was 15.
  

• 1792: Venice, already a cultural center in the 18th century, opened a new opera house. The first performance at the "Teatro La Fenice" was an opera by Paisiello.
  

• 1804: The French Senate declared Napoleon Bonaparte emperor.
  

• 1849: Richard Wagner was in some serious trouble, when a warrant was issued for his arrest. The authorities in Dresden had gotten wind of the fact that Wagner, then running the local opera house, was hanging out with revolutionaries. Wagner fled.
  

• 1866: Congress authorized minting of the 5-cent piece. On its face was a shield, while on the reverse was the number 5. (the silver half-dime was used up to this point).
  

• 1868: The US Senate failed by one vote to convict President Andrew Johnson as it took its first ballot on one of eleven articles of impeachment against him.
  

• 1871: U.S. Marines landed in Korea in an unsuccessful attempt to open the country to foreign trade.
  

• 1881: The first electric tram went into public service in German, near Berlin.
  

• 1888: Emile Berliner gave the first demonstration of flat disc recording and reproduction before the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
  

• 1903: George Wyman of San Francisco became the first person to cross the United States in a motorized vehicle -- a 1.5 horsepower motorcycle (most lawn mowers have more power than that.)
  

• 1910: the U.S. Bureau of Mines was authorized by Congress.
  

• 1920: Joan of Arc was canonized in Rome.
  

• 1929: The first Academy Awards were presented during a banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The movie "Wings" won "best production" while Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor were named best actor and best actress.
  

• 1946: The musical "Annie Get Your Gun" opened on Broadway.
  

• 1948: The body of CBS News correspondent George Polk was found in Solonika Bay in Greece, a week after he'd disappeared.
  

• 1955: American author and critic James Agee died in New York.
  

• 1960: A Big Four summit conference in Paris collapsed on its opening day as the Soviet Union leveled spy charges against the United States in the wake of the U-2 incident.
  

• 1963: U.S. astronaut Gordon Cooper in his Mercury-Atlas craft splashed down near Midway in the Pacific after orbiting the Earth 22 times in a mission lasting just over 34 hours.
  

• 1965: The musical play "The Roar of the Greasepaint -- the Smell of the Crowd," by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, opened on Broadway.
  

• 1969: The unmanned Soviet spacecraft Venus-5 landed on the surface of Venus.
  

• 1971: First Class Mail raised from 6 cents to 8 cents.
  

• 1974: Helmut Schmidt was sworn in as the new chancellor of West Germany, after the resignation of Willy Brandt.
  

• 1975: Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
  

• 1977: Five people were killed when a New York Airways helicopter, idling atop the Pan Am Building in midtown Manhattan, toppled over, sending a huge rotor blade flying.
  

• 1980: "Keep Music Live!" With that slogan, musicians boycotted the British Broadcast Corporation. The BBC scaled back plans to disband several regional orchestras after two months of broadcasting only records. Europe still has a lot of state-sponsored radio orchestras.
  

• 1983: The Lebanese Parliament and the Israeli Knesset voted to approve a U.S.-sponsored accord calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops, including Israeli forces, from Lebanon. (Agreement signed the next day.)
  

• 1984: The U.S. House of representatives approved a compromise allowing production of only 15 of the 40 MX missiles which President Reagan had called for -- and only if the Soviet Union failed to return to arms talks by the following April.
  

• 1985: The president of El Salvador, Jose Napoleon Duarte, visited President Reagan at the White House to talk about attempts to negotiate peace with leftist rebels.
  

• 1985: Michael Jordan was named Rookie of the Year in the National Basketball Association. Jordan, of the Chicago Bulls, had been chosen as the number three draft pick.
  

• 1986: The Labor Department reported that the Producer Price Index fell six-tenths of 1 percent in April 1986, to its lowest level in nearly two-and-a-half years.
  

• 1987: Kentucky Derby winner "Alysheba" captured the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore. (However, Alysheba fell short in the Belmont Stakes, failing to become the first Triple Crown champion since "Affirmed.")
  

• 1988: Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a report declaring nicotine was addictive in ways similar to heroin and cocaine. The Supreme Court ruled that police can search discarded garbage without a search warrant.
  

• 1988: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled police can search discarded garbage without a search warrant.
  

• 1989: During his visit to Beijing, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev met with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, formally ending a 30-year rift between the two Communist powers.
  

• 1990: Death claimed entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. in Los Angeles at age 64
  

• 1990: Muppets creator Jim Henson died  at the age of 53.
  

• 1990: Hungarian prime minister-designate Jozsef Antall named a center-right coalition cabinet after 40 years of Communist rule.
  

• 1991: Secretary of State James A. Baker III wrapped up his latest Mideast visit in Israel without an agreement for Arab-Israeli peace talks.
  

• 1991: Queen Elizabeth the Second became the first British monarch to address the United States Congress.
  

• 1992: The space shuttle "Endeavour" completed its maiden voyage with a safe landing in the California desert. Actress Marlene Dietrich, who had died in Paris at age 90, was buried in Berlin. America3 ("America Cubed"), skippered by Bill Koch, won the 28th defense of the America's Cup.
  

• 1992: "America3" ("America Cubed"), skippered by Bill Koch, won the 28th defense of the America's Cup.
  

• 1993: A two-day Bosnian Serb referendum on a UN-backed peace plan ended, with voters rejecting the proposai by a wide margin.
  

• 1994: Israel began its final withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, shutting down the prison and military headquarters where Israeli soldiers had been in charge since the 1967 Middle East War.
  

• 1995: The Clinton administration threatened punitive tariffs that would double the prices for Japan's most popular luxury cars.
  

• 1995: Japanese police arrested doomsday cult leader Shoko Asahara, holding him in connection with the nerve-gas attack on Tokyo's subways two months earlier.
  

• 1996: Admiral Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, the nation's top Navy officer, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after some of his military awards were called into question.
  

• 1997: President Clinton publicly apologized for the notorious Tuskegee experiment, in which government scientists deliberately allowed black men to weaken and die of treatable syphilis. The space shuttle "Atlantis" docked with Russia's "Mir" station. In Zaire, President Mobutu Sese Seko ended 32 years of autocratic rule, giving control of the country to rebel forces.
  

• 1998: "Silver Charm" won the Preakness, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. (However, Silver Charm subsequently lost the Belmont Stakes to "Touch Gold.") 
  

• 1999: The Justice Department said preliminary figures from the FBI indicated a decline in serious crime in 1998 for the seventh consecutive year.
  

• 2000: The Federal Reserve raised its federal funds rate by one-half point, the biggest increase in five years. 
  

• 2000: The New York Democratic Party, meeting in Albany, tragically nominated first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton for the US Senate. 
  

• 2000: A large study in Finland found evidence that people who ate fish less than once a week ran a 31% higher chance of mild to severe depression than people who ate it more often. According to  psychiatrist Dr. Antti Tanskanen of the University of Kuopio in Finland, it is possibly because fish contains omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, or PUFA.
  

• 2000: Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas resigned from United Press International, a day after the wire service was sold to the parent firm of The Washington Times. 
  
     
  

Today's Daily Miscellany

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