May 6
It’s Beverage Day and National Teachers Day and National Tourist Appreciation Day and National Nurses Day and No Diet Day and National Crepe Suzette Day
ON THIS DAY…
1527 Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance
1536 King Henry VIII orders translated Bible be placed in every church
1626 Dutch settler Peter Minuit allegedly purchases what is now New York’s Manhattan Island from Native Americans for goods worth $24
1682 Louis XIV of France moves his court to Versailles
1835 James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald
1840 The adhesive postage stamp was first sold in Great Britain; the “penny black” and “twopenny blue” stamps showed the profile of Queen Victoria
1851 A US patent was issued to Linus Yale, Jr. for his invention of his “Self-Detaching and Attaching Key-Lock”
1851 A US patent was issued to John Gorrie for his invention of an “Ice-making machine”; this was the first US patent issued for a mechanical refrigerator
1857 The British East India Company disbands the 34th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry whose Sepoy Mangal Pandey had earlier revolted against the British and is considered to be the First Martyr in the War of India’s Independence
1861 Arkansas secedes from the Union
1863 The Battle of Chancellorsville ends, with a defeat of the Army of the Potomac under General Joseph Hooker by Confederate troops under Stonewall Jackson
1877 Realizing that his people were weakened by cold and hunger, Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to US troops in Nebraska
1882 The US Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act; the act barred Chinese immigrants from the US for 10 years
1889 The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris
1910 George V becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, Edward VII
1915 In New York City, a left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox named Babe Ruth hits his first home run in major league baseball; he later becomes an outfielder
1916 The first US radio telephone ship-to-shore conversation was made
1935 Presidential Executive Order 7034 creates the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as part of the New Deal
1937 The German dirigible Hindenburg, the largest airship ever built, bursts into flames upon landing in New Jersey; 36 passengers and crew are killed
1940 John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath
1941 At California’s March Field Bob Hope performs his first USO show
1942 During World War II, the Japanese seized control of the Philippines; about 15,000 Americans and Filipinos on Corregidor surrendered to the Japanese
1945 Axis Sally made her final propaganda broadcast to Allied troops
1953 A heart-lung machine designed by Dr. John Heysham Gibbon was used to successfully complete the first open-heart surgery, on patient Cecelia Bavolek, demonstrating that an artificial device can temporarily mimic the functions of the heart. Improved versions allow surgeons today to perform bypass surgery and heart transplants
1954 Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes
1957 Senator John F. Kennedy was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his book Profiles in Courage
1957 Technically, the final episode of I Love Lucy aired on CBS, but the Ricardo and Mertz adventures continued until 1960 in The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, an occasional series of specials
1960 Britain’s Princess Margaret married Anthony Armstrong Jones; they divorce in 1978
1960 President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960
1962 St. Martín de Porres becomes canonized by Pope John XXIII
1962 The first US nuclear warhead fired from a Polaris submarine was launched
1966 Myra Hindley and Ian Brady are sentenced to life imprisonment for the Moors Murders in England
1981 A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Ying Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries
1983 The Hitler diaries were revealed as a hoax when experts examined the books and concluded that they were fake
1984 The last episode of The Jefferson’s aired on CBS
1989 The body of television actor Guy Williams is found in his apartment in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He apparently died of a heart attack a week earlier; he is best-remembered for his lead TV roles in Lost in Space and Disney’s Zorro
1994 Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand inaugurate the opening of the Channel Tunnel (The Chunnel); a tunnel under the English Channel linking England and France for the first time since the end of the Great Ice Age
1994 Pearl Jam filed a complaint with the US Justice Department against Ticketmaster; the charge was the company had a monopoly on the concert ticket business
1994 Former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones filed suit against President Clinton; the case alleged that he had sexually harassed her in 1991
1997 Four health-care companies agreed to a settlement of $600 million to hemophiliacs who had contracted AIDS from tainted blood between 1978-1985
1997 The Bank of England is given independence from political control, the most radical shake-up in the bank’s 300-year history
1998 The body of former CIA director William Colby was found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he’d disappeared
1999 A parole board in New York voted to release Amy Fisher; she had been in jail for 7 years for shooting her lover’s wife, Mary Jo Buttafuoco, in the face
2001 During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque
2001 Billie Piper weds Chris Evans; they would divorce in 2007
2002 The World Wrestling Federation announces that they have changed their name to World Wrestling Entertainment after losing a court battle with the World Wildlife Fund
2004 The final episode of Friendsairs on NBC
BORN:
1742 Jean Senebier, naturalist and botanist who demonstrated that green plants consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen under the influence of light
1758 Maximilien Robespierre, one of the best-known leaders of the French Revolution whose supporters called “The Incorruptible”; he was an influential member of the Committee of Public Safety and was instrumental in the period of the Revolution commonly known as the Reign of Terror
1806 Chapin Aaron Harris, dentist who was one of the founders of dentistry as a profession
1856 Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis (Interpretation of Dreams, The New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis)
1856 Robert Peary, polar explorer who made the first successful expedition to the North Pole
1868 Tsar Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, King of Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland; he is currently regarded as Saint Nicholas The Passion Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church
1872 Willem de Sitter, mathematician, astronomer, and cosmologist who developed theoretical models of the universe based on Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity
1879 Bedrich Hrozný, archaeologist and linguist who, working with cuneiform tablets from Hattusas, deciphered the Hittite language
1895 Rudolph Valentino, dancer, silent film actor, icon (The Son of the Sheik, The Eagle, Blood and Sand, Camille, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse)
1904 Raymond Bailey, actor (The Beverly Hillbillies, Herbie Rides Again, The Absent Minded Professor, King Creole)
1913 Stewart Granger, actor (King Solomon’s Mines, Scaramouche, The Prisoner of Zenda, Beau Brummell, Sodom and Gomorrah)
1915 Orson Welles, actor, director and Academy Award-winning writer (Citizen Kane, Jane Eyre, The Third Man, The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice, Touch of Evil, Compulsion, A Man for All Seasons)
1915 Theodore H. White, journalist, historian, and novelist (America in Search of Itself: The Making of the President 19561980, Fire in the Ashes, Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon)
1931 Willie Mays, member of the Baseball Hall of Fame who ended his career with 660 career home runs; many consider him to be the greatest all-around player of all-time
1953 Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1997-2007), Member of Parliament (1983-2007)
1955 Tom Bergeron, television presenter (Dancing with the Stars, America’s Funniest Home Videos)
1960 John Flansburgh, Grammy Award-winning songwriter-musician (They Might Be Giants)
1961 George Clooney, director, producer and Academy Award-winning actor (Syriana, Good Night, and Good Luck, E/R, The Facts of Life, From Dusk Till Dawn, Batman & Robin)
1963 Roma Downey, actress (Touched by an Angel, A Woman Named Jackie, Hercules and the Amazon Women)
DIED:
1862 Henry David Thoreau, author, philosopher, tax-resister, poet and naturalist, whose classic Walden; or, Life in the Woods has become a classic on the ecological relationship of man in an industrial society, dies at 45
1919 L. Frank Baum, author, actor, and independent filmmaker best known as the creator of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, dies at 62
1963 Theodore Von Karman, aeronautical engineer who designed the Bell X-1 airplane that was the first to fly faster than the speed of sound, dies at 81
1990 Charles Farrell, actor (My Little Margie, Seventh Heaven, Body and Soul, Tess of the Storm Country, The Deadly Game), dies at 88
1991 Wilfrid Hyde-White, actor (Tarzan and the Lost Safari, My Fair Lady, Ten Little Indians, The Magic Christian, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century), dies at 87
1992 Marlene Dietrich, actress (Witness for the Prosecution, Destry Rides Again, Morocco, The Blue Angel), dies at 90
2005 Joe Grant, writer-animator (Dumbo, Pocahontas, Mulan, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Lion King), dies at 96