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Post by dex on Feb 8, 2018 14:52:21 GMT -5
TODAY IN HISTORY
The Associated Press
Today is Feb. 8, the 39th day of 2018. There are 326 days left in the year.
On this date
In 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England after she was implicated in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. In 1862, the Civil War Battle of Roanoke Island, North Carolina, ended in victory for Union forces led by Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside. In 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated. In 1922, President Warren G. Harding had a radio installed in the White House. In 1942, during World War II, Japanese forces began invading Singapore, which fell a week later. In 1952, Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed her accession to the British throne following the death of her father, King George VI. In 1968, three college students were killed in a confrontation between demonstrators and highway patrolmen at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg in the wake of protests over a whites-only bowling alley. Also, the science-fiction film “Planet of the Apes,” starring Charlton Heston, had its world premiere in New York (it went into general release the following April.) In 1978, the deliberations of the Senate were broadcast on radio for the first time as members opened debate on the Panama Canal treaties. In 1992, the XVI Olympic Winter Games opened in Albertville, France. In 1993, General Motors sued NBC, alleging that “Dateline NBC” had rigged two car-truck crashes to show that 1973-to-87 GM pickups were prone to fires in side impact crashes. (NBC settled the lawsuit the following day and apologized for its “unscientific demonstration.”)
Today’s birthdays
Composer-conductor John Williams is 86. Newscaster Ted Koppel is 78. Actor Nick Nolte is 77. Comedian Robert Klein is 76. Actress Brooke Adams is 69. Actress Mary Steenburgen is 65. Author John Grisham is 63. Retired NBA All-Star and College Basketball Hall of Famer Marques Johnson is 62. Rock singer Vince Neil (Motley Crue) is 57. Rock singer-musician Sammy Llanas (The BoDeans) is 57. Movie producer Toby Emmerich is 55. Actress Missy Yager is 50. Actress Mary McCormack is 49. Basketball Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning is 48. Dance musician Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (Daft Punk) is 44. Actor Seth Green is 44. Actor Josh Morrow is 44. Rock musician Phoenix (Linkin Park) is 41. Actress-comedian Cecily Strong is 34. Hip-hop artist Anderson.Paak is 32. Actor Ryan Pinkston is 30. Professional surfer Bethany Hamilton is 28. Actress Karle Warren is 26.
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Post by dex on Feb 12, 2018 8:52:38 GMT -5
TODAY IN HISTORY
By The Associated Press
Today is Feb. 12, the 43rd day of 2018. There are 322 days left in the year.
On this date
In 1554, Lady Jane Grey, who had claimed the throne of England for nine days, and her husband, Guildford Dudley, were beheaded after being condemned for high treason. In 1809, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was born in a log cabin in Hardin (now LaRue) County, Kentucky. In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded. In 1914, groundbreaking took place for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (A year later on this date, the cornerstone was laid.) In 1924, George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" premiered in New York. In 1940, the radio play "The Adventures of Superman" debuted with Bud Collyer as the Man of Steel. In 1959, the redesigned Lincoln penny — with an image of the Lincoln Memorial replacing two ears of wheat on the reverse side — went into circulation. In 1973, Operation Homecoming began as the first release of American prisoners of war from the Vietnam conflict took place. In 1980, the FBI announced that about $5,800 of the $200,000 ransom paid to hijacker "D.B. Cooper" before he parachuted from a Northwest Orient jetliner in 1971 had been found by an 8-year-old boy on a riverbank of the Columbia River in Washington state. In 1993, in a crime that shocked and outraged Britons, two 10-year-old boys lured 2-year-old James Bulger from his mother at a shopping mall near Liverpool, England, then beat him to death. In 1999, the Senate voted to acquit President Bill Clinton of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Today's birthdays
Movie director Franco Zeffirelli is
95. Movie director Costa-Gavras is 85. Basketball Hall of Famer Bill Russell is 84. Actor Joe Don Baker is 82. Author Judy Blume is 80. Actress Maud Adams is 73. Actor Michael Ironside is 68. Rock singer Michael McDonald is
66. Actress Joanna Kerns is 65. Actor-talk show host Arsenio Hall is 62. Actor John Michael Higgins is 55. Actor Josh Brolin is 50. Singer Chynna Phillips is 50. Actor Jesse Spencer is 39. Actress Christina Ricci is 38.
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Post by dex on Feb 20, 2018 10:26:30 GMT -5
TODAY IN HISTORY
The Associated Press
Today is Feb. 20, the 51st day of 2018. There are 314 days left in the year.
On this date
In 1792, President George Washington signed an act creating the United States Post Office Department. In 1862, William Wallace Lincoln, the 11-year-old son of President Abraham Lincoln and first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, died at the White House, apparently of typhoid fever. In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an immigration act which excluded “idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons” from being admitted to the United States. In 1942, Lt. Edward “Butch” O’Hare became the U.S. Navy’s first flying ace of World War II by shooting down five Japanese bombers while defending the aircraft carrier USS Lexington in the South Pacific. In 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard Project Mercury’s Friendship 7 spacecraft, which circled the globe three times in a flight lasting 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds before splashing down safely in the Atlantic Ocean 800 miles southeast of Bermuda. In 1971, the National Emergency Warning Center in Colorado erroneously ordered U.S. radio and TV stations off the air; some stations heeded the alert, which was not lifted for about 40 minutes. In 1987, a bomb left by Una-bomber Ted Kaczynski exploded behind a computer store in Salt Lake City, seriously injuring store owner Gary Wright. In 1998, Tara Lipinski of the U.S. won the ladies’ figure skating gold medal at the Nagano Olympics while fellow American Michelle Kwan won the silver. In 2003, a fire sparked by pyrotechnics broke out during a concert by the group Great White at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island, killing 100 people and injuring about 200 others.
Today’s birthdays
Socialite Gloria Vanderbilt is 94. Actor Sidney Poitier is 91. Racing Hall of Famer Bobby Unser is 84. Racing Hall of Famer Roger Penske is 81. Singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie is 77. Hockey Hall of Famer Phil Esposito is 76. Movie director Mike Leigh is 75. Actress Brenda Blethyn is 72. Actress Sandy Duncan is 72. Actor Peter Strauss is 71. Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst is 64. Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley is 55. Model Cindy Crawford is 52. Actress Lili Taylor is 51. Singer Brian Littrell is 43. Comedian Trevor Noah is 34. Actor Miles Teller is 31. Singer Rihanna is 30
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Post by dex on Mar 23, 2018 14:29:11 GMT -5
TODAY IN HISTORY
The Associated Press
Today is March 23, the 82nd day of 2018. There are 283 days left in the year.
On this date March 23, 2018
In 1775, Patrick Henry delivered an address to the Virginia Provincial Convention in which he is said to have declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” In 1792, Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 in G Major (known as the “Surprise” symphony because of an unexpected crashing chord in the second movement) had its first public performance in London. In 1806, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, having reached the Pacific coast, began their journey back east. In 1914, the first installment of “The Perils of Pauline,” the silent film serial starring Pearl White, premiered in the greater New York City area. In 1933, the German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers. In 1942, the first Japanese-Americans evacuated by the U.S. Army during World War II arrived at the internment camp in Manzanar, California. In 1956, Pakistan became an Islamic republic. In 1965, America’s first two-person space mission took place as Gemini 3 blasted off with astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom and John W. Young aboard for a nearly 5-hour flight. In 1973, before sentencing a group of Watergate break-in defendants, Chief U.S. District Judge John J. Sirica read aloud a letter he’d received from James W. McCord Jr. which said there was “political pressure” to “plead guilty and remain silent.” In 1983, President Ronald Reagan first proposed developing technology to intercept incoming enemy missiles — an idea that came to be known as the Strategic Defense Initiative. In 1998, “Titanic” tied an Academy Awards record by winning 11 Oscars, including best picture, director (James Cameron) and song (“My Heart Will Go On”). In 2003, during the Iraq War, a U.S. Army maintenance convoy was ambushed in Nasiriyah; 11 soldiers were killed, including Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa; six were captured, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was rescued on April 1, 2003.
Today’s brthdays
Movie director Mark Rydell is 89. International Motorsports Hall of Famer Craig Breedlove is 81. Singer-producer Ric Ocasek is
69. Singer Chaka Khan is 65. Actress Amanda Plummer is 61. Actress Catherine Keener is 59. Actress Hope Davis is 54. Rock musician John Humphrey (The Nixons) is 48. Bandleader Reggie Watts (TV: “The Late Late Show With James Corden”) is 46. Actress Michelle Monaghan is
42. Actress Keri Russell is 42. Gossip columnist-blogger Perez Hilton is 40. Actress Nicholle Tom is 40. Actor Nicolas Wright is 36.
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Post by dex on Apr 13, 2018 15:44:19 GMT -5
amp.dailycaller.com/2018/04/13/ted-williams-shot-down-korea/?__twitter_impression=trueBaseball Star Ted Williams Was Shot Down By North Koreans 65 Years Ago Today April 13th, 2018 BOSTON, MA - CIRCA 1945: (UNDATED FILE PHOTO) Baseball legend Ted Williams (1918 - 2002) of the Boston Red Sox holds a baseball bat as he kneels on a baseball field circa 1955. Williams, 83-years-old, was pronounced dead July 5, 2002 at Citrus County Memorial Hospital in Florida. Williams died of an apparent heart attack. (Photo by Getty Images) Regardless of their education level, it seems like most current professional athletes have an opinion on politics and American society. Colin Kaepernick started a national anthem protest. LeBron James called President Trump a “bum.” And JJ Watt is one of the most vocal supporter of the troops. Though varied, opinions are ever-present in professional sports. But there used to be a time when professional sports and American policy were even more tightly linked. One of those times was during the Korean war. Exactly 65 years ago, former Boston Red Sox player and Marine Corps pilot Ted Williams was deployed in Korea, participating in a massive raid against a base just outside of Pyongyang, North Korea. Williams’ plane was shot and and severely compromised, and he was forced to make an emergency crash landing. Williams survived and was awarded the Air Medal. He soon returned home from the war and resumed his spot on the Red Sox roster. Williams went on to maintain a .407 batting average for 37 games, which is considered to be one of the most elite batting averages in history. To this day, Williams is remembered as one of the most honorable Americans to have played professional sports. Follow Jena on Twitter.
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Post by dex on Apr 23, 2018 7:26:12 GMT -5
TODAY IN HISTORY
The Associated Press
Today is April 23, the 113th day of 2018. There are 252 days left in the year.
On this date
In 1616 (Old Style calendar), English poet and dramatist William Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-Avon on what has traditionally been regarded as the 52nd anniversary of his birth in 1564.
In 1898, Spain declared war on the United States, which responded in kind two days later.
In 1943, U.S. Navy Lt. (jg) John F. Kennedy assumed command of PT-109, a motor torpedo boat, in the Solomon Islands during World War II. (On Aug. 2, 1943, PT-109 was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, killing two crew members; Kennedy and 10 others survived.)
In 1954, Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves hit the first of his 755 major-league home runs in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. (The Braves won, 7-5.)
In 1968, student protesters began occupying buildings on the campus of Columbia University in New York; police put down the protests a week later.
In 1969, Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for assassinating New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. (The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.)
In 1971, hundreds of Vietnam War veterans opposed to the conflict protested by tossing their medals and ribbons over a wire fence in front of the U.S. Capitol.
In 1988, Greek cycling champion Kanellos Kanellopoulos pedaled the human-powered aircraft Daedalus over the Aegean Sea for nearly four hours.
In 1998, James Earl Ray, who confessed to assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and then insisted he’d been framed, died at a Nashville hospital at age 70.
In 2005, the recently created video-sharing website YouTube uploaded its first clip, “Me at the Zoo,” which showed YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim standing in front of an elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo.
Today’s birthdays
Actor David Birney is 79.
Actor Lee Majors is 79.
Hockey Hall of Famer Tony Esposito is 75.
Actress Blair Brown is 71.
Actress Joyce DeWitt is 69.
Filmmaker-author Michael Moore is 64.
Actress Judy Davis is 63.
Actress Valerie Bertinelli is 58.
Actor-comedian-talk show host George Lopez is
57.
U.S. Olympic gold medal skier Donna Weinbrecht is
53.
Actress Melina Kanakaredes is 51.
Actor Barry Watson is 44.
Professional wrestler/ actor John Cena is 41.
Actor-writer-comedian John Oliver is 41.
Actor Kal Penn is 41.
MLB All-Star Andruw Jones is 41.
Tennis player Nicole Vaidisova is 29.
Actor Dev Patel is 28.
Model Gigi Hadid is 23.
U.S. Olympic gold medal snowboarder Chloe Kim is
18.
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Post by dex on Apr 23, 2018 7:42:26 GMT -5
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Post by dex on Apr 24, 2018 8:46:46 GMT -5
TODAY IN HISTORY
The Associated Press
Today is April 24, the 114th day of 2018. There are 251 days left in the year.
On this date
In 1792, Capt. Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle began composing “War Song for the Rhine Army,” later known as “La Marseillaise,” the national anthem of France. In 1800, Congress approved a bill establishing the Library of Congress. In 1877, federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North’s post-Civil War rule in the South. In 1915, in what’s considered the start of the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Empire began rounding up Armenian political and cultural leaders in Constantinople. In 1916, some 1,600 Irish nationalists launched the Easter Rising by seizing several key sites in Dublin. (The rising was put down by British forces five days later.) In 1932, in the Free State of Prussia, the Nazi Party gained a plurality of seats in parliamentary elections. In 1947, novelist Willa Cather died in New York at age 73. In 1953, British statesman Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. In 1962, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieved the first satellite relay of a television signal, using NASA’s Echo 1 balloon satellite to bounce a video image from Camp Parks, California, to Westford, Massachusetts. In 1967, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when his Soyuz 1 spacecraft smashed into the Earth after his parachutes failed to deploy properly during re-entry; he was the first human spaceflight fatality. In 1970, the People’s Republic of China launched its first satellite, which kept transmitting a song, “The East Is Red.” In 1980, the United States launched an unsuccessful attempt to free the American hostages in Iran, a mission that resulted in the deaths of eight U.S. servicemen. In 1990, the space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope.
Today’s birthdays
Movie director-producer Richard Donner is 88. Actress Shirley MacLaine is 84. Actress-singer-director Barbra Streisand is 76. Country singer Richard Sterban (The Oak Ridge Boys) is 75. Rock musician Doug Clifford (Creedence Clearwater Revival) is 73. Actor-playwright Eric Bogosian is 65. Actor-comedian Cedric the Entertainer is 54. Actor Djimon Hounsou is 54. Actress Melinda Clarke is 49. Actor Rory McCann is 49. Actor-producer Thad Luckinbill is 43. Actor Eric Balfour is 41. Singer Kelly Clarkson is 36. Actor Jack Quaid is 26. Actor Doc Shaw is 26. Golfer Lydia Ko is 21.
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Post by dex on Apr 25, 2018 8:13:40 GMT -5
Today is April 25, the 115th day of 2018. There are 250 days left in the year.
On this date
In 404 B.C., the Peloponnesian War ended as Athens surrendered to Sparta. In 1507, a world map produced by German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller contained the first recorded use of the term “America,” in honor of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci. In 1792, French highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier became the first person to be executed by the guillotine. In 1898, the United States Congress declared war on Spain; the 10-week conflict resulted in an American victory. In 1915, during World War I, Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Empire out of the war. In 1945, during World War II, U.S. and Soviet forces linked up on the Elbe River, a meeting that dramatized the collapse of Nazi Germany’s defenses. In 1959, the St. Lawrence Seaway opened to shipping. In 1964, vandals sawed off the head of the “Little Mermaid” statue in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 1974, the “Carnation Revolution” took place in Portugal as a bloodless military coup toppled the Estado Novo regime. In 1983, 10-year-old Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine, received a reply from Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov to a letter she’d written expressing her concerns about nuclear war; Andropov gave assurances that the Soviet Union did not want war, and invited Samantha to visit his country, a trip she made in July. In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed in orbit from the space shuttle Discovery. (It was later discovered that the telescope’s primary mirror was flawed, requiring the installation of corrective components to achieve optimal focus.) In 1993, hundreds of thousands of gay rights activists and their supporters marched in Washington, D.C., demanding equal rights and freedom from discrimination. In 2002, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes of the Grammy-winning trio TLC died in an SUV crash in Honduras; she was 30.
Today’s birthdays
Actor Al Pacino is 78. Ballroom dance judge Len Goodman (TV: “Dancing with the Stars”) is 74. Singer Bjorn Ulvaeus (ABBA) is 73. Actress Talia Shire is 73. Rock musician Steve Ferrone (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) is 68. Actor Hank Azaria is 54. TV personality Jane Clayson is 51. Actress Renee Zellweger is 49. Actress Gina Torres is 49. Actor Jason Lee is 48. Actor Jason Wiles is 48. Actress Melonie Diaz is 34. Actress Sara Paxton is 30. Actress Allisyn Ashley Arm is 22.
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Post by dex on Apr 26, 2018 14:31:50 GMT -5
TODAY IN HISTORY
The Associated Press
Today is April 26, the 116th day of 2018. There are 249 days left in the year.
On this date
In 1564, William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
In 1607, English colonists went ashore at present-day Cape Henry, Virginia, on an expedition to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.
In 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, 16-year-old Sybil Ludington, the daughter of a militia commander in Dutchess County, New York, rode her horse into the night to alert her father's men of the approach of British regular troops.
In 1865, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was surrounded by federal troops near Port Royal, Virginia, and killed.
In 1913, Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old worker at a Georgia pencil factory, was strangled; Leo Frank, the factory superintendent, was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. (Frank's death sentence was commuted, but he was lynched by an anti-Semitic mob in 1915.)
In 1937, German and Italian warplanes raided the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War; estimates of the number of people killed vary from the hundreds to the thousands.
In 1952, the destroyer-minesweeper USS Hobson sank in the central Atlantic after colliding with the aircraft carrier USS Wasp with the loss of 176 crew members.
In 1968, the United States exploded beneath the Nevada desert a 1.3 megaton nuclear device called "Boxcar."
In 1977, the legendary nightclub Studio 54 had its opening night in New York.
In 1986, an explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine caused radioactive fallout to begin spewing into the atmosphere. (Dozens of people were killed in the immediate aftermath of the disaster while the long-term death toll from radiation poisoning is believed to number in the thousands.)
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Post by dex on Apr 27, 2018 15:19:24 GMT -5
TODAY IN HISTORY
The Associated Press
Today is April 27, the 117th day of 2018. There are 248 days left in the year.
On this date
In 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed by natives in the Philippines. In 1777, the only land battle in Connecticut during the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Ridgefield, resulted in a limited British victory. In 1822, the 18th president of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. In 1865, the steamer Sultana, carrying freed Union prisoners of war, exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee death toll estimates vary from 1,500 to 2,000. In 1925, the song “Yes, Sir! That’s My Baby” by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn was published by Irving Berlin, Inc. of New York. In 1938, King Zog I of the Albanians married Countess Geraldine Apponyi de Nagy-Apponyi. In 1941, German forces occu pied Athens during World War II. In 1950, Britain formally recognized the state of Israel. In 1967, Canada’s International and Universal Exhibition, also known as “Expo 67,” began a six-month run as it was officially opened in Montreal by Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. In 1968, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president, less than a month after President Lyndon B. Johnson said he would not run for reelection In 1978, 51 construction workers plunged to their deaths when a scaffold inside a cooling tower at the Pleasants Power Station site in West Virginia fell 168 feet to the ground. In 1982, the trial of John W. Hinckley Jr., who shot four people, including President Ronald Reagan, began in Washington. (The trial ended with Hinckley’s acquittal by reason of insanity.) In 1992, the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed in Belgrade by the republic of Serbia and its lone ally, Montenegro. In 2017, David Dao, the airline passenger who was violently dragged off a flight after refusing to give up his seat, settled with United for an undisclosed sum; cellphone video of the April 9 confrontation aboard a jetliner at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport had sparked widespread public outrage over the way Dao was treated.
Today’s birthdays
Actress Anouk Aimee is 86. Former NFL coach Chuck Knox is 86. Rock musician Jim Keltner is 76. Rock singer Kate Pierson (The B-52’s) is 70. Rhythm-and-blues singer Herbie Murrell (The Stylistics) is 69. Rock musician Ace Frehley is 67. Pop singer Sheena Easton is 59. Singer Mica Paris is 49. Actor David Lascher is 46. Actress Maura West is 46. Actress Sally Hawkins is 42. Actress Ari Graynor is 35. Pop singer Nick Noonan (Karmin) is 32. Actor William Moseley is 31. Actress Emily Rios is 29. Singer Allison Iraheta is 26.
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Post by dex on May 6, 2018 9:16:58 GMT -5
TODAY IN HISTORY
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Today is Sunday, May 6, the 126th day of 2018. There are 239 days left in the year.
On this date
In 1527, unpaid troops loyal to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V attacked Rome, forcing Pope Clement VII to flee to safety; some scholars mark the ensuing sack of the city as the end of the Renaissance in Italy.
In 1757, during the Seven Years’ War, Prussian troops under King Frederick II forced Austrian soldiers to retreat in the Battle of Prague. (Prussia then lay siege to Prague, but ultimately failed to take the city.)
In 1889, the Paris Exposition formally opened, featuring the just-completed Eiffel Tower.
In 1910, Britain’s Edwardian era ended with the death of King Edward VII; he was succeeded by George V.
In 1935, the Works Progress Administration began operating under an executive order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
In 1937, the hydrogen-filled German airship Hindenburg caught fire and crashed while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey; 35 of the 97 people on board were killed, along with a crewman on the ground.
In 1941, Josef Stalin assumed the Soviet premiership, replacing Vyacheslav M. Molotov. Comedian Bob Hope did his first USO show before an audience of servicemen as he broadcast his radio program from March Field in Riverside, California.
In 1942, during World War II, some 15,000 American and Filipino troops on Corregidor surrendered to Japanese forces.
In 1954, medical student Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford, England, in 3:59.4.
In 1974, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt resigned after one of his aides was exposed as an East German spy.
In 1981, Yale architecture student Maya Lin was named the winner of a competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
In 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama swept to a convincing victory in the North Carolina Democratic primary while Hillary Rodham Clinton eked out a win in Indiana. A Georgia man who killed his live-in girlfriend was executed; he was the first inmate put to death since the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal injections.
In 2017, a Nigerian military official said 83 Chibok schoolgirls had been released, more than three years after they were abducted from their boarding school by Boko Haram extremists. Always Dreaming won the Kentucky Derby, pulling away in the slop to win by 2¾ lengths over long shot Lookin At Lee, with another long shot, Battle of Midway, five lengths back.
Today’s Birthdays
Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays is 87.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., is 74
Rock singer Bob Seger is 73.
Gospel singer-comedian Lulu Roman is 72.
Actor Alan Dale is 71.
Actor Ben Masters is 71.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is 65.
TV personality Tom Bergeron is 63.
Actress Roma Downey is 58.
Rock singer John Flansburgh (They Might Be Giants) is 58.
Actress Julianne Phillips is 58. Actor-director George Clooney is 57. Actor Clay O’Brien is 57. Rock singer-musician Tony Scalzo (Fastball) is 54. Actress Leslie Hope is 53. Actress Geneva Carr (TV: “Bull”) is 52. Rock musician Mark Bryan (Hootie and the Blowfish) is 51. Rock musician Chris Shiflett (Foo Fighters) is 47. Actress Stacey Oristano is 39. Model/TV personality Tiffany Coyne is 36. Actress Adrianne Palicki is 35. Actress Gabourey Sidibe is 35. Actress-comedian Sasheer Zamata is 32. Rapper Meek Mill is 31. Actress-singer Naomi Scott is 25. Actor Noah Galvin is 24.
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Post by dex on May 8, 2018 8:30:44 GMT -5
TODAY IN HISTORY
The Associated Press
Today is May 8, the 128th day of 2018. There are 237 days left in the year.
On this date
In 1429, the Siege of Orleans during the Hundred Years’ War ended as English troops withdrew after being defeated by French forces under Joan of Arc. In 1541, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River. In 1660, the British Parliament moved to restore the monarchy by declaring that Charles II had been the country’s lawful king since the execution of his father, Charles I, in 1649. In 1794, Antoine Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, was executed on the guillotine during France’s Reign of Terror. In 1884, the 33rd president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, was born in Lamar, Missouri. In 1921, Sweden’s Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty. In 1945, President Harry S. Truman announced on radio that Nazi Germany’s forces had surrendered, and that “the flags of freedom fly all over Europe.” In 1958, Vice President Richard Nixon was shoved, stoned, booed and spat upon by anti-American protesters in Lima, Peru. In 1962, the musical comedy “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” opened on Broadway. In 1973, militant American Indians who had held the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks surrendered. In 1978, David R. Berkowitz pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn courtroom to murder, attempted murder and assault in connection with the “Son of Sam” shootings that claimed six lives and terrified New Yorkers. (Berkowitz was sentenced to six consecutive life prison terms.) In 1984, the Soviet Union announced it would boycott the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. In 1996, South Africa took another step from apartheid to democracy by adopting a constitution that guaranteed equal rights for blacks and whites.
Today’s birthdays
Naturalist Sir David Attenborough is 92. Singer Toni Tennille is 78. Actor James Mitchum is 77. Jazz musician Keith Jarrett is 73. Actor Mark Blankfield is 70. Singer Philip Bailey (Earth, Wind and Fire) is 67. Rock musician Chris Frantz (Talking Heads) is 67. Rockabilly singer Billy Burnette is 65. Rock musician Alex Van Halen is 65. Actor David Keith is 64. Actress Melissa Gilbert is 54. Rock musician Dave Rowntree (Blur) is 54. Singer Enrique Iglesias is 43. Actor Domhnall Gleeson is 35. Neo-soul drummer Patrick Meese (Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats) is 35. Actress Julia Whelan is 34. Actress Nora Anezeder is 29.
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Post by wtm97 on May 8, 2018 19:09:10 GMT -5
May 6 entry...
1937 Hindenburg disaster in Lakehurst, NJ. My mother was there visiting her friend whose husband was the head of the landing/docking crew.
He was directly underneath the drigible when it exploded!!!
Amazingly, he was not injured...
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Post by dex on May 9, 2018 10:12:13 GMT -5
www.independentri.com/southcountylifemagazine/inside_the_magazine/retro/article_d1ab95c9-5c36-5995-9697-30feaeee13f9.html Washington Academy: Rhode Island’s original technical college By G.T. Cranston | South County Life May 1, 2018 Updated May 3, 2018 0 180501scl Washington Academy Washington Academy. From the collection of Tim Cranston Well, I’ve got to say, the so-called STEAM disciplines – science, technology, engineering, arts and math – sure are getting a whole lot of buzz these days. Although everyone has probably read about STEAM and even uttered the acronym, I wonder if anyone has an inkling of when and where this type of education began. Interestingly enough, an examination of the facts surrounding career-based training like this all led to little Wickford Village. Those facts take us back to 1800, to a time when folks began to realize that we, the people, have an obligation to provide a modicum of education to all of the young citizens of our country. Prior to this, only the wealthiest could afford an education for their children; America, by and large, was a nation of illiterates, and this would not do in the rapidly changing world of the 19th century. Slowly, this mindset of education for the masses began to take hold. Village by village, district by district, state by state, a change occurred. Those one-room schoolhouses we all remember reading about and hold so close as a part of our national heritage began to appear across the landscape. As the drive toward free public education for all began to pick up steam, a problem arose. There were not enough qualified folks to teach in these “one-roomers,” and even more importantly, there was scarcely any place where such people could be trained. It is at this important juncture that we turn our attention to the Washington Academy, the original school that sat upon the present-day site of the former Wickford Elementary School. Unfortunately, the sign at this circa-1800 Phillips Street school site is incorrect – this is not the site of the first public school. On the contrary, this is the site of something even more remarkable. It is the site of one of our nation’s earliest teacher colleges. That was the charge of this institution, to educate the educators, to train the future teachers of 19th-century America. Additionally, programs to train young men in the burgeoning technically advancing fields of celestial navigation and land surveying were developed and implemented. These were two of the most desirable careers available at the time; they were both challenging and exciting. As a matter of fact, these were, at the time, two of the riskiest and most rewarding careers out there. Navigating the seven seas was fraught with danger and excitement, and no job at the turn of that century, believe it or not, was more dangerous than surveying. Believe me, it wasn’t long before the Native Americans realized that “those men with their sticks and chains” coming to divvy up the western U.S. into manageable tracts meant that settlers were on their way. Killing the surveyors, whenever they could, meant prolonging the advent of the inevitable settler push west. Type “A” individuals like George Washington chose to be trained in this adventurous and risky field. And that is just what happened in Wickford. Year after year, decade after decade, the Washington Academy churned out a class of exceptional educators who, in turn, spread out across New England and staffed those countless one-room schoolhouses that helped bring America into its golden age. They educated navigators who guided America’s maritime fleets, and surveyors who measured the width and breadth of our new nation. In order to get Washington Academy built, the folks in Wickford held a lottery, a common fundraising strategy of the time. The money raised was supplemented by a generous donation from Samuel Elam, a man of education and wealth who lived primarily in Newport but summered outside of Wickford on the still extant Tailor Northup Estate, located off what we now know as Hamilton Allenton Road. The academy was constructed on land donated specifically for the cause of public education by John and Hannah Franklin. The building constructed on this land, seen in the accompanying photo, was grand by anyone’s estimation and worthy of the honorable task it was meant to carry out. As a way of thanking those involved in this noble achievement, the townsfolk in Wickford later renamed a number of nearby streets. This is how the adjacent Elam, Franklin and Spink streets got their names. By the time the 1840s rolled around, Washington Academy had become, in a way, a victim of its own success. The concept of public education had spread to such a degree that state-sponsored teaching colleges such as the Rhode Island Normal School (the predecessor to Rhode Island College) were instituted, and fewer and fewer aspiring teachers were attending the academy. It closed around 1847, but not before it helped jump-start our nation toward the Industrial Revolution and into the future.  ▶The author is the North Kingstown town historian.
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