May 18
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May 18 |
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Today is:
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Born on this Day
1616: The composer Johann Jakob Frohberger
1850: Oliver Heaviside, physicist who predicted the
existance of the ionosphere, used to reflect radio waves.
1858: Ruggero Leoncavallo was born.
1883: German architect Walter Gropius, founder of the
Bauhaus
1897: Film director Frank Capra in Palermo, Sicily. He was
the first to win three Best Director Oscars. Capra said his favorite of the films he made
was, "It's a Wonderful Life."
19??: Michael Tait (dc Talk)
1912: Singer Perry Como
1912: Movie director Richard Brooks
1920: Pope John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyla
1922: Actor Bill Macy
1924: Sportscaster Jack Whitaker
1930: Actor Pernell Roberts
1931: Actor Robert Morse
1934: Actor and television executive Dwayne Hickman
1937: Baseball Hall-of-Famer Brooks Robinson
1942: Bluegrass singer-musician Rodney Dillard (The
Dillards)
1946: Baseball Hall-of-Famer Reggie Jackson
1946: Actress Candice Azzara ("Caroline in the
City")
1948: Country singer Joe Bonsall (The Oak Ridge Boys)
1949: Rock musician Rick Wakeman (Yes)
1949: Actress Candice Azzara ("Caroline in the
City")
1951: Actor James Stephens
1952: Country singer George Strait
1953: Rhythm-and-blues singer Butch Tavares (Tavares)
1960: Rock singer-musician Page Hamilton (Helmet)
1974: Rapper Special Ed
1980: Rhythm-and-blues singer Darryl Allen (Mista)
1992: Actor Spencer Breslin ("Soul Man")
0562: Death of Pope St. John I, in prison
0872: Coronation of Louis II as Holy Roman Emperor
1152: Marriage of Henry II, King of England, to Eleanor of
Aquitane
1268: Fall of Antioch to Baibars, Sultan of Egypt
1291: Fall of Acre to the Mameluks; Death of William de
Beaujeu, 21st Master of the Templars
1302: Matins of Bruges
1306: Pope Clement V excommunicates Robert I, "the
Bruce," King of Scots
1313: Robert I, "the Bruce," lands on the Isle
of Man
1410: Death of King Rupert of Germany
1514: Marriage of Francis I, King of France, to Claude
1587: Death of St. Felix of Cantalice
1593: Christopher Marlowe summoned on charges of atheism
1631: 1st accredited colonial election in America - John
Winthrop is chosen Governor of Massachusetts
1642: The Canadian city of Montreal was founded.
1643: Anne, Queen of France, granted absolute powers as
Regent
1643: English Royal Warrant authorizes medals of King
Charles I
1652: Rhode Island prohibits holding blacks or whites in
slavery for more than 10 years - 1st American law regulating slavery
1798: The first Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Stoddert,
was appointed.
1804: The French Senate proclaimed Napoleon Bonaparte
emperor.
1860: Abraham Lincoln was nominated for president by the
Republican Party at its convention in Chicago.
1896: The Supreme Court endorsed the concept of
"separate but equal" racial segregation with its "Plessy versus
Ferguson" decision.
1897: A public reading of Bram Stoker's new novel,
"Dracula, or, The Un-dead," was staged at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in London, an
event that roughly coincided with the book's publication.
1909: Isaac Albeniz died in the French Pyrenees, he was
48. Just a few days before Albeniz had been awarded the Legion of Honor. Albeniz composed
four books of piano music called "Iberia."
1910: Halley's Comet, as seen from Earth, moved across the
sun.
1911: Gustav Mahler died like Beethoven, in Vienna and in
the middle of a thunderstorm. Mahler was 50; he had suffered from heart disease. His last
word: "Mozart."
1914: The "Mariner" became the first steamboat
with cargo to pass through the Panama Canal.
1926: Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished while
visiting a beach in Venice, California; she reappeared a month later, claiming to have
been kidnapped.
1933: The Tennessee Valley Authority was created. It's
purpose was to control Tennessee River floods, institute a reforestation program on lands
in the valley and provide rural electrification. The TVA serves seven states.
1934: Congress approved the so-called "Lindbergh
Act," which called for the death penalty in cases of interstate kidnapping.
1944: During World War II, Allied forces finally occupied
Monte Cassino in Italy after a four-month struggle that claimed about 20,000 lives.
1951: The United Nations moved out of its temporary
headquarters in Lake Success, New York, for its permanent home in Manhattan.
1953: Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break
the sound barrier as she piloted a North American F-86 Canadair over Rogers Dry Lake :
California.
1968: Tiny Tim's "Tiptoe through the Tulips" was
released. An eventual top twenty hit, "Tiptoe" was a remake of a number one hit
for Nick Lucas in 1929.
1969: Astronauts Eugene A. Cernan : Thomas P. Stafford and
John W. Young blasted off aboard "Apollo Ten."
1980: The 9,677-foot Mt. St. Helens volcano in Washington
state, quiet for 93 years, exploded. The volcanic blast was five hundred times more
powerful than the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima. Steam and ash erupted more than
eleven miles into the sky and darkened skies in a 160-mile radius. Forest fires erupted
around the volcano and burned out of control. The eruption, and those that followed, left
some sixty-seven dead. The blast took 1,300 feet off the top of the mountain and left 57
people dead or missing.
1980: In the South Korean city of Kwangju, townspeople and
students began a nine-day uprising that was finally put down by troops.
1983" The U.S. Senate approved, 76-18, a major
revision of the nation's immigration laws that would give millions of illegal aliens
already in the United States the opportunity to gain legal status under an amnesty
program.
1983: Owen Bieber was elected president of the United Auto
Workers union, succeeding Douglas A. Fraser.
1984: A small growth was discovered in President Reagan's
colon, but a White House spokesman said an examination showed the polyp was benign, and it
was not removed.
1985: Florida Gov. Bob Graham declared a state of
emergency in the wake of devastating brushfires.
1985: "Tank's Prospect" won the Preakness
Stakes.
1986: Dr. Robert Gale, a bone-marrow specialist who went
to the Soviet Union following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, told reporters in Los
Angeles that as many as 100,000 Soviets would suffer long-term radiation effects.
1987: Senator Paul Simon of Illinois entered the
Democratic presidential race.
1988: A cheering crowd in the Soviet town of Termez
greeted the first Soviet soldiers to cross the border in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
1989: Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev concluded his
historic visit to China, which officially marked the end of a 30-year Sino-Soviet rift.
1990: East and West Germany signed a treaty for economic,
monetary and social union. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said the pact marked the
"birth of a free and unified Germany."
1990: In the face of heated student protests, the trustees
of all-women Mills College in Oakland, California, voted to rescind their earlier decision
to admit men.
1991: Helen Sharman became the first Briton to rocket into
space as she flew aboard a Soviet "Soyuz" spacecraft.
1991: Hansel won the 116th running of the Preakness
Stakes.
1992: The Supreme Court ruled that states may not force
mentally unstable criminal defendants to take anti-psychotic drugs while on trial unless a
good reason is shown to require the medication.
1993: In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Muslim and Croat leaders
agreed to try to impose a U.N.-backed peace plan in areas where they had been fighting
(the Serbs had rejected the proposal).
1993: Voters in Denmark ratified the European Community's
treaty on closer economic and political union.
1994: Israel's three decades of occupation in the Gaza
Strip ended as Israeli troops completed their withdrawal and Palestinian authorities took
over.
1995: Triumphant Republicans pushed a historic budget
through the House that they said would bring an unprecedented $1.4 trillion in savings
from federal budgets over the next seven years.
1995: Ballet dancer Alexander Godunov was found dead at
age 45.
1995: Actress Elizabeth Montgomery died in Los Angeles.
1996: President Clinton: seeking to deflect Republican
criticism that he was weak on welfare reform, endorsed Wisconsin's welfare-to-work plan in
his Saturday radio address. "Louis Quatorze" won the Preakness.
1996: Louis Quatorze won the Preakness.
1997: President Clinton announced creation of a research
center at the National Institutes of Health devoted to the goal of developing an AIDS
vaccines within the next decade.
1997: The 50th Cannes Film Festival awarded Golden Palms
to Japanese director Shohei Imamura for "The Eel" and Iranian filmmaker Abbas
Kiarostami for "The Taste of Cherry."
1998: The government filed a sweeping antitrust case
against Microsoft Corporation.
1998: The Supreme Court, in a sweeping endorsement of
broadcasters' free-speech rights and journalistic discretion, ruled that even public
stations owned and run by states need not invite marginal candidates to political debates
they sponsor.
1999: Georgette Smith, a Florida woman left paralyzed from
the neck down after being shot by her elderly mother, won the right to be taken off life
support. (Smith died the next day, shortly after being taken off a ventilator; her mother,
Shirley Egan, was later acquitted of attempted murder.)
1999: Two Serb soldiers held as prisoners of war by the
U.S. military were turned over to Yugoslav authorities.
2000: Sante Kimes and Kenneth Kimes, mother-and-son grifters, were convicted in New York of murdering Irene Silverman in a plot to steal her elegant townhouse mansion. (The body of the 82-year-old millionaire widow has never been found.)
2000: A pier supporting a new open-air bar collapsed and plunged into the Delaware River
in Pennsylvania. Three people died, and 37 people - including eight rescue workers who were hurt while trying to pull victims from the debris-strewn water - were taken to hospitals.
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