Today in history

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Today in history

By Correspondent

Today in history
YEAR DAYEVENT
1471May 4The Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians in the Battle of Tewkesbury between the English House of Lancaster and House of York. King Edward IV routed the forces of ex-queen Margaret. The Lancastrian forces were led by Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset. Edward, the 17-year-old prince of Wales, was killed at the battle of Tewkesbury.
1493May 4Pope Alexander VI issued 3 papal bulls that divided the discoveries of Columbus between Spain and Portugal. By the Bulls of May 3 and 4 he drew an imaginary line one hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. The May 4 Bull, “Inter Caetera,” was amended in Sep. granting Spain the right to hold lands to the “western regions and to India.”
1604May 4Claudio Merulo (71), Italian organist, composer, died.
1631May 4Mary I Henriette Stuart, daughter of Charles I (later queen of England), was born.
1715May 4A French manufacturer debuted the first folding umbrella.
1728May 4Georg F. Handel’s opera “Tolomeo, re di Egitto,” premiered in London.
1752May 4Pieter Snyers (71), Flemish painter, engraver, died.
1776May 4Rhode Island declared its freedom from England, two months before the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
1780May 4American Academy of Arts & Science was founded.
1783May 4In India Tipu Sultan was enthroned as the ruler of Mysore after the death of Haider Ali in a simple ceremony at Bednur.
1795May 4Thousands of rioters entered jails in Lyons, France, and massacred 99 Jacobin prisoners.
1796May 4Horace Mann, “the father of American Public Education” educator and author, was born.
1814May 4Napoleon Bonaparte disembarked at Portoferraio on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.
1820May 4Joseph Whitaker, bookseller and publisher, was born. He founded Whitaker’s Almanac.
1826May 4Frederick Church, US romantic landscape painter (Hudson River School), was born.
1827May 4John Hanning Speke, English explorer, was born. He discovered Lake Victoria and the source of the Nile.
1846May 4Michigan ended its death penalty.
1851May 4The 1840-ship General Harrison burned to the water line. It was salvaged for parts, buried and not seen again until 2001 when construction at Battery and Clay revealed its remains. The whaling ship Niantic, already converted to a waterfront hotel, burned and sank into the bay. In 1977 new construction uncovered the Niantic’s burned remains.
1855May 4Camille Pleyel (66), Austrian piano builder, composer, died.
1858May 4In the Mexican War of Reform liberals established their capital at Vera Cruz.
1862May 4Battle at Williamsburg, Virginia.
1863May 4Battle of Chancellorsville ended when the Union Army retreated.
1864May 4Ulysses S. Grant crossed Rapidan and began his duel with Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army.
1865May 4Battle of Mobile, AL.
1874May 4Frank Conrad, electrical engineer and broadcasting pioneer, was born.
1881May 4Aleksandr F. Kerenski, Russian premier (1917) Predecessor to Bolshevist coup), was born.
1884May 4Agnes Fay Morgan, American nutritionist and biochemist, was born.
1886May 4At Haymarket Square in Chicago, a labor demonstration for an 8-hour workday turned into a riot when a bomb exploded. Seven policemen were killed and some 60 others injured. Only one policeman was killed in the strike. 3 labor leaders were executed Nov 10, 1887, for the bombing. The Haymarket affair is generally considered to have been an important influence on the origin of international May Day observances for workers.
1891May 4Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective, “died” at Reichenbach Falls.
1904May 4The United States took over construction of the Panama Canal.
1910May 4Tel Aviv was founded.
1911May 4In San Francisco Police chief Seymour instructed Capt. Thomas Duke of Central Station to notify the proprietors of brothels that $2 per day would be the maximum they would be allowed to charge the 100 prostitutes at 633 Jackson and 719 Commercial Street. Current charges for the women were $5 per day.
1912May 4More than ten thousand women and about a thousand men marched down Fifth Avenue in NYC to support woman’s suffrage.
1916May 4Responding to a demand from Pres. Wilson, Germany agreed to limit its submarine warfare, averting a diplomatic break with Washington. However, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare the following year.
1919May 4Some 3,000 young scholars from 13 colleges and universities rallied at Tiananmen Square to protest the loss of Shandong province to the Japanese under the Versailles Treaty at the Paris Peace Conference. German concessions in China were bequeathed to Japan. Among the protestors were people who helped form the Communist Party.
1923May 4In Vienna, Austria, bloody street battles took place between Nazis, socialists and police.
1924May 4The summer Olympics opened in Paris. The French rugby team beat the Rumanians 61-3.
1927May 4The first balloon flight over 40,000 feet was made.
1928May 4Maynard Ferguson, jazz trumpeter (Roulette), was born in Verdun, Quebec.
1928May 4Hennie Youngman, comedian, married Sadie Cohen. They met in a Kresge’s 5 & 10 cent store in Brooklyn where they both worked. He later made famous the line: “Take my wife… Please!
1929May 4Audrey Hepburn (Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Rusten), Belgian-born actress, was born. She won an Oscar for her role Roman Holiday and later became a Special Ambassador for UNICEF.
1930May 4Roberta Peters, operatic soprano (NY Met), was born in NYC.
1932May 4Mobster Al Capone, convicted of income-tax evasion, entered the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. Capone was later transferred to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.
1933May 4Pulitzer prize was awarded to Archibald Macleish (Conquistador).
1936May 4El Cordobes (Manuel Benitez), Spanish matador, was born.
1938May 4Douglas Hyde, a protestant, became the 1st president of Eire.
1939May 4Amos Oz, Israeli novelist (The Black Box, The Third State), was born.
1942May 4The U.S. began food rationing
1945May 4John F. Kennedy, correspondent for the Hearst Newspapers, filed a dispatch on the founding of the UN in San Francisco in which he said: Any organization drawn up here will be merely a skeleton. Its powers will be limited”¦ The hope is however, that this skeleton will put on flesh as time goes by.
1946May 4A two-day riot at Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay ended after five people were killed.
1948May 4The Hague Court of Justice convicted Hans Rauter (SS) of war crimes.
1949May 4Graham Swift, British novelist (The Sweet Shop Owner, Out of this World), was born.
1953May 4Pulitzer prize was awarded to E. Hemingway (Old Man & The Sea).
1955May 4Georges Enescu (73), Romanian-French violist, composer (Oedipe), died.
1957May 4The Anne Frank Foundation formed in Amsterdam.
1959May 4Randy Travis, country singer (Diggin’ Up Bones), was born in Marshville, NC.
1961May 4A group of 13 CORE civil rights activists, dubbed “Freedom Riders” left Washington, D.C., for New Orleans to challenge racial segregation on buses and in bus terminals.
1965May 4Willie Mays hit his 512th HR and broke Mel Ott’s 511 NL record.
1968May 4Ismael Valenzuela (1935-2009) rode Forward Pass to victory in the Kentucky Derby.
1969May 4F. Osbert S. Sitwell (b.1892), English poet (Who Killed Cock Robin?), died at castle Montegufoni near Florence, Italy.
1970May 4A dispatch filed from Saigon described looting by US soldiers at the Cambodian town of Snuol. The mention of looting was removed by an editor in New York before the story was transmitted to newspapers in the United States. An AP story was killed by Wes Gallagher (d.1997 at 86), general manager of the new service.
1972May 4The remains of the ship Gjoe, a converted herring boat used by Roald Amundsen to cross the Northwest Passage (1903-1905), departed San Francisco for Oslo, Norway. A commemorative sculpture was left next to the Beach Chalet at Ocean Beach.
1973May 4The 1st TV network female nudity appeared in Bruce Jay Smith’s Steambath (PBS) with Valerie Perrine.
1976May 4Australian PM Malcolm Fraser announced that “Waltzing Matilda” would serve as his country’s national anthem at the upcoming Olympic Games.
1977May 4A large tornado swept through Pleasant Hill, Mo., hitting the city’s high school and grade school. Only minor injuries occurred due to superb tornado warnings and drills.
1978May 4The Hispanic ethnic group was created when the US Office of Management and Budget published the following regulation in the Federal Register: “Directive 15: Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting” that defined a Hispanic to be “a person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish culture ”¦ In 1981 a US federal law stated that Spaniards are part of the Hispanic group.
1979May 4Margaret Thatcher (b.1925), leader of the Conservative Party, was sworn in as Britain’s first female prime minister. She continued in office for 3 terms until 1990.
1980May 4Marshal Josip Broz Tito (b.1892), Communist dictator of Yugoslavia (1943-1980), died three days before his 88th birthday. He was a Croat and tried to spread the Serbs out over the six Yugoslav republics so that they would not dominate the country. His policy was considered a major cause of the Bosnian war in the ’90s.
1982May 4The British destroyer HMS Sheffield was hit by Exocet rocket off the Falkland Islands. 20 men died and a further 24 were injured in the sinking of the Sheffield, the first British warship to be lost in 37 years.
1987May 4Pope John Paul II ended his five-day visit to West Germany with a call for religious freedom in the Soviet bloc and praise for those who had opposed the “mass hysteria and propaganda” of the Nazi era.
1988May 4As a year-long amnesty program for certain illegal aliens in the United States came to a close, thousands of applicants lined up nationwide on the last day.
1989May 4Fired White House aide Oliver North was convicted of shredding documents and two other crimes and acquitted of nine other charges stemming from the Iran-Contra affair. The 3 convictions were later overturned on appeal.
1990May 4The South African government and the African National Congress concluded historic talks in Cape Town with a joint statement agreeing on a “common commitment toward the resolution of the existing climate of violence.”
1991May 4“Strike the Gold” won the 117th Kentucky Derby.
1992May 4Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton toured riot-ravaged Los Angeles streets, blaming the destruction on what he called 12 years of Republican neglect.
1993May 4The United States handed over control of the relief effort in Somalia to the United Nations.
1994May 4India made its 4th developmental launch of ASLV. The 113 kg Stretched Rohini Satellite Series (SROSS-C2) was launched by fourth developmental flight of ASLV-D4 from Sriharikota.
1995May 4India launched the fourth ASLV-D4 from Sriharikota, successfully placing the SROSS-C2 satellite in orbit.
1996May 4Grindstone won the Kentucky Derby, giving trainer D. Wayne Lukas a sixth straight victory in a Triple Crown race. Grindstone was injured ahead of the Preakness and retired.
1997May 4IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, evening their six-game series at one game apiece.
1998May 4The FDA approved the first commercial surgical glue, Tisseel, made by Baxter Labs.
1999May 4Pres. Clinton authorized a Congressional Gold Medal for Rosa Parks.
2000May 4The e-mail virus “ILOVEYOU” bug hit millions of computers around the world. It was considered the most virulent, most damaging ($2.6 bil), most costly and most rapidly spread virus to date.  In Manila Onel de Guzman, a former computing student, was later released with all charges dismissed due to lack of evidence.
2001May 4US experts, following 3 days of inspections, said the US spy plane on China’s Hainan Island could be repaired and flown home.
2002May 4War Emblem, a 20-1 shot, scored a down-to-the-wire, four-length victory over Proud Citizen in the Kentucky Derby.
2003May 4New lab studies reported that the SARS virus can survive outside an infected body for hours to days.
2004May 4The US Army disclosed that the deaths of 10 prisoners and abuse of 10 more in Iraq and Afghanistan were under criminal investigation, as US commanders in Baghdad announced interrogation changes.
2005May 4Constantin Brancusi’s “Bird in Space” shattered the record for a sculpture at auction when it soared to an astonishing $27,450,000 at Christie’s sale of Impressionist and modern art.
2006May 4A US federal court ruled that over 9,500 victims of human rights abuses under Ferdinand Marcos (1917-1989) were entitled to $35 million in a US account, which he established in 1972. Damages awarded in 1995 reached nearly $2 million.
2007May 4US federal officials placed a hold on 20 million chickens raised for market in several states because their feed was mixed with pet food containing an industrial chemical.
2008May 4Democrat Barack Obama beat rival Hillary Clinton by just 7 votes in Guam’s nominating contest after record numbers of residents voted in the tiny US territory’s primary.
2009May 4President Barack Obama proposed changing provisions in the tax code that he says encourage US companies to move jobs overseas, as part of a broader package aimed at saving $210 billion over 10 years.
2010May 4Ohio voters passed ballot proposal Issue 1. It allowed the state to issue $700 million of bonds to finance research and development for the so-called “Third Frontier” program, which was launched in 2002
2011May 4President Barack Obama declared parts of Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee as disaster areas due to flooding, freeing up federal aid to help those affected.
2012May 4The United States said that China had indicated it would let blind activist Chen Guangcheng and his family leave the country soon, raising hopes of a resolution to a damaging diplomatic crisis.
2013May 4In the SF Bay Area a stretch limo caught fire on the San Mateo Bridge. The driver and 4 women in a bridal party escaped, but 5 others, including the bride, died in the fire.
2014May 4Chinese Premier Li Keqiang set off for a four-country tour of Africa (Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola and Kenya), acknowledging “growing pains” in China-Africa relations amid labor conflicts and other problems stemming from Chinese investment.
 Source: Timelines of History 

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