May 3
It’s National Raspberry Popover Day and National Day of Prayer and Lumpy Rug Day and World Press Freedom Day
ON THIS DAY…
1375 BC The oldest recorded eclipse occurred, according to one plausible interpretation of a date inscribed on a clay tablet retrieved from the ancient city of Ugarit, Syria (as it is now)
1494 Christopher Columbus first sights the island later to be named Jamaica
1802 Washington, DC, was incorporated as a city
1841 New Zealand is formally proclaimed a British colony
1867 The Hudson’s Bay Company gives up all claims to Vancouver Island
1921 West Virginia imposed the first state sales tax
1926 The El Capitan Theatre, “Hollywood’s First Home of Spoken Drama,” opens on Hollywood Blvd.
1933 Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first woman to head the US Mint
1933 M directed by Fritz Lang is released in the US; 3 years after its initial release in Germany
1934 Famous Funnies, the first comic book to go on sale in the US, hits newsstands
1937 Margaret Mitchell is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Gone With the Wind
1939 “Beer Barrel Polka” was recorded by The Andrews Sisters
1944 Wartime rationing of most grades of meats ended in the US
1946 The International Military Tribunal for the Far East begins in Tokyo against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity
1947 Japan introduces a new constitution, in which women vote for the first time
1948 The US Supreme Court ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities were legally unenforceable
1951 London’s Royal Festival Hall opens
1951 Milton Berle signed a 30-year exclusive television contract with NBC
1951 The United States Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees begin their closed door hearings into the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur by President Harry S. Truman
1956 The judo World Championships are first held
1957 Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, NY to Los Angeles, CA
1960 The Anne Frank House opened in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
1968 The Democratic Republic of Viet Nam announces details for official peace talks with the United States in Paris
1968 Dr. Denton Cooley of the Texas Heart Institute performed the first successful heart transplant in the United States on Everett Thomas, whose heart was damaged from rheumatic heart disease
1971 “All Things Considered”, National Public Radio’s flagship news program, broadcasts for the first time
1979 Margaret Thatcher leads the Conservative Party to victory in Britain’s general elections
1986 Dollywood (Dolly Parton’s theme park) opened in Pigeon Forge, TN
1991 The last episode of Dallas airs
1996 Delegates from 55 countries agree at a UN conference in Geneva on new rules for land mine use, but reject an all-out ban
1998 A body unearthed on a Berlin building site over 20 years ago is finally confirmed by DNA tests as that of Martin Bormann, Adolf Hitlers infamous right-hand man
2000 The sport of Geocaching begins with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS are posted on Usenet
2001 The US loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947
2003 Funny Cide becomes the first New York-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby
2003 New Hampshire’s famous Old Man of the Mountain collapses
BORN:
1469 Niccolò Machiavelli, author and statesman (The Prince)
1844 Richard DOyly Carte, operatic impresario, he founded the Savoy Theatre in London, home of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas
1844 Wilbur Olin Atwater, scientist who developed agricultural chemistry
1860 Vito Volterra, mathematician who made important contributions to calculus, and mathematical theories in astronomy, elasticity and biometrics
1860 John Scott Haldane, physiologist and philosopher of science whose extensive work on human respiration included the effects of pulmonary diseases and the physiology of the blood
1861 Emmett Dalton, train robber and member of the Dalton Gang; he was the youngest of the Dalton brothers
1898 Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister, and a founder, of the State of Israel
1928 James Brown aka “The Godfather of Soul” aka “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business” aka “Mr. Dynamite” aka “Soul Brother Number One”; a founding inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and one of the most influential popular musicians of the 20th century
1947 Doug Henning, magician, illusionist and escape artist who is credited with reviving the magic show as a form of mass entertainment in North America, beginning in the 1970s
1958 Bill Sienkiewicz, visual artist best known for his comic books (Elektra: Assassin, Moon Knight, Sandman: Endless Nights)
1959 Ben Elton, writer-actor-producer-director (The Young Ones, Blackadder, Stark, The Thin Blue Line, Maybe Baby)
1965 Rob Brydon, actor-comedian-writer-producer (QI, Gavin & Stacey, Oliver Twist, Annually Retentive, Supernova, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, 24 Hour Party People)
DIED:
1991 Jerzy Kosi?ski, novelist (Being There, The Painted Bird), commits suicide at 57
1992 George Murphy, dancer, actor, President of the Screen Actors Guild (1944-46), Senator from California (1965-1971) (Broadway Melody of 1938, Little Miss Broadway, For Me and My Gal, Bataan), dies at 89
1996 Jack Weston, actor (Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Wait Until Dark, The Thomas Crown Affair, Dirty Dancing), dies at 71
2004 Anthony Ainley, actor (Doctor Who, Inspector Clouseau, Blood on Satan’s Claw, Elizabeth R, The Pallisers, Lillie), dies at 71