Thursday, May 1, 2014

On This Day in History - May 1 President Eisenhower Proclaims Law Day

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

An interesting bit of history from over eighty years ago, that comes as we in the New York area are watching the new Freedom Tower being constructed as the centerpiece of the new World Trade Center in New York City. A little bit of history hear about the earliest days of the Empire State Building, which held the title of "World's Tallest Building" for several decades,  before the cut throat global competition rendered that virtually meaningless, as now, buildings hold that status for years, rather than decades. Plus, the Empire State Building has style. It's attractive, and historical - which is more than I can say for many of the newer buildings out there these days.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/empire-state-building-dedicated

Empire State Building dedicated

On this day in 1931, President Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New York City's Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White House that turns on the building's lights. Hoover's gesture, of course, was symbolic; while the president remained in Washington, D.C., someone else flicked the switches in New York.

The idea for the Empire State Building is said to have been born of a competition between Walter Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation and John Jakob Raskob of General Motors, to see who could erect the taller building. Chrysler had already begun work on the famous Chrysler Building, the gleaming 1,046-foot skyscraper in midtown Manhattan. Not to be bested, Raskob assembled a group of well-known investors, including former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith. The group chose the architecture firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates to design the building. The Art-Deco plans, said to have been based in large part on the look of a pencil, were also builder-friendly: The entire building went up in just over a year, under budget (at $40 million) and well ahead of schedule. During certain periods of building, the frame grew an astonishing four-and-a-half stories a week.

At the time of its completion, the Empire State Building, at 102 stories and 1,250 feet high (1,454 feet to the top of the lightning rod), was the world's tallest skyscraper. The Depression-era construction employed as many as 3,400 workers on any single day, most of whom received an excellent pay rate, especially given the economic conditions of the time. The new building imbued New York City with a deep sense of pride, desperately needed in the depths of the Great Depression, when many city residents were unemployed and prospects looked bleak. The grip of the Depression on New York's economy was still evident a year later, however, when only 25 percent of the Empire State's offices had been rented.

In 1972, the Empire State Building lost its title as world's tallest building to New York's World Trade Center, which itself was the tallest skyscraper for but a year. Today the honor belongs to Dubai’s Burj Khalifa tower, which soars 2,717 feet into the sky.




















May 1, 1958: President Eisenhower proclaims Law Day

On this day in 1958, President Eisenhower proclaims Law Day to honor the role of law in the creation of the United States of America. Three years later, Congress followed suit by passing a joint resolution establishing May 1 as Law Day.  

The idea of a Law Day had first been proposed by the American Bar Association in 1957. The desire to suppress the celebration of May 1, or May Day, as International Workers' Day aided in Law Day's creation. May Day had communist overtones in the minds of many Americans, because of its celebration of working people as a governing class in the Soviet Union and elsewhere.  

The American Bar Association defines Law Day as: "A national day set aside to celebrate the rule of law. Law Day underscores how law and the legal process have contributed to the freedoms that all Americans share." The language of the statute ordaining May 1 calls it "a special day of celebration by the American people in appreciation of their liberties and? rededication to the ideals of equality and justice under law."  

On a day that, in many parts of the world, inspires devotion to the rights of the working classes to participate in government, Law Day asks Americans to focus upon every American's rights as laid out in the fundamental documents of American democracy: the Declaration of Independence and the federal Constitution. The declaration insists that Americans "find these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," and guarantees the rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The Bill of Rights amended to the Constitution codifies the rights of free speech, free press and fair trial.  

Law Day celebrates the legal construct for the determination of rights that the revolutionary leaders of the 1770s, hoping to prevent the sort of class warfare that went on to rack Europe from 1789 to 1917, were so eager to create.
















May 1, 1786: Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro premieres in Vienna

By 1786, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was probably the most experienced and accomplished 30-year-old musician the world has ever seen, with dozens of now-canonical symphonies, concertos, sonatas, chamber works and masses already behind him. He also had 18 operas to his name, but none of those that would become his most famous. Over the final five years of his life (he died in 1791), Mozart would compose four operas that are among the most important and popular in the standard repertoire. This remarkably productive period of creative, critical and popular success for Mozart began with Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), which received its world premiere in Vienna, Austria, on May 1, 1786.  

Figaro was the first collaboration between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, and for their source material they chose a controversial play by the French writer Beaumarchais: La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro, the second part of a trilogy that began with Le Barbier de Séville (later the basis for the Rossini opera). Figaro the play was censored in Beaumarchais's native France over concern about its "subversive" plotline, which depicts the efforts of a Spanish nobleman, Count Almaviva, to seduce Suzanne, a beautiful young servant of his wife, only to be thwarted and humiliated by his wife, the Countess Rosina, working in concert with the Count's servant, Figaro, who is also Suzanne's fiancée. To the French nobility of the time, Figaro was seen as condoning class conflict, but Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte managed to allay any concerns on the part of their patron, the Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II, by transforming the story into a light comedy. (Mozart's successful pitch for Figaro is imagined in a comic scene in the film Amadeus (1984), in which the Emperor begins by saying to Mozart, "Figaro is a bad play. It stirs up hatred between the classes... My own dear sister Antoinette writes me that she is beginning to be frightened of her own people.")  

The combination of da Ponte's libretto and Mozart's score made Le nozze di Figaro an instant success and led to two further triumphant collaborations on Don Giovanni and Cosî fan tutte. There were five encores during the premiere performance of Figaro on this day in 1786, and seven during its second performance one week later, prompting the emperor himself to impose a ban on encores during future performances, in order "to prevent the excessive duration of operas, without however prejudicing the fame often sought by opera singers from the repetition of vocal pieces." 














May 1, 1923: Joseph Heller is born

Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22, is born this day in 1923 near Coney Island in Brooklyn. His father, a Russian immigrant who drove a bakery delivery truck, died when Heller was five. Heller attended Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn and worked as a filing clerk and blacksmith's assistant before enlisting in the Army. He trained as a bombardier and flew 60 combat missions near the end of World War II. While in the military, he ran across an apparent paradox in Army regulations. A pilot could be grounded if found insane, but if the pilot requested to be grounded because of insanity, the Army considered him perfectly sane for wanting to avoid danger-and wouldn't ground him. This paradox defined his first novel, the satirical masterpiece Catch-22 (1961).  

After the war, Heller attended college on the GI Bill, earning a master's degree from Columbia and studying at Oxford for a year on a Fulbright scholarship. During the next decade, he taught English at Penn State, wrote advertising copy for Time and Look magazines, and later worked as a promotions manager at McCall's. He wrote Catch 22 in his spare time, over the course of eight years. The book wasn't an overnight success, but it became increasingly popular as the anti-war protest movements of the 1960s caught fire. Catch-22 became known as the first great protest novel after World War II.  

Heller's subsequent six novels, including Something Happened (1974), Good as Gold (1979), God Knows (1984), and Closing Time (1994), never achieved the popularity of Catch 22. Meanwhile, in 1982, Heller's marriage ended, and he was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a potentially fatal muscular disease. He spent a year in the hospital and recuperating at home. At the end of the year, he married his nurse.  

Joseph Heller died of a heart attack in December 1999. His last novel, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man was published posthumously in 2000.  














May 1, 1941: Citizen Kane released

Months before its release, Orson Welles’ landmark film Citizen Kane began generating such controversy that Radio City Music Hall eventually refused to show it. Instead, Citizen Kane, now revered as one of the greatest movies in history, made its debut at the smaller RKO Palace Theater on this day in 1941.  

By the time he began working on Citizen Kane, the 24-year-old Welles had already made a name for himself as Hollywood’s enfant terrible. He first found success on Broadway and on the radio; his October 1938 broadcast version of the science-fiction classic The War of the Worlds was so realistic that many listeners actually believed Martians had invaded New Jersey. Having signed a lucrative contract with RKO studios, Welles was struggling to find a subject for his first feature film when his friend, the writer Herman Mankiewicz, suggested that he base it on the life of the publishing baron William Randolph Hearst. Hearst presided over the country’s leading newspaper empire, ruling it from San Simeon, a sprawling estate perched atop a hill along California’s central coastline.  

A preview of Citizen Kane in early February 1941 had drawn almost universally favorable reviews from critics. However, one viewer, the leading Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, was incensed by the film and Welles’ portrayal of its protagonist, Charles Foster Kane. She took her concerns to Hearst himself, who soon began waging a full-scale campaign against Welles and his film, barring the Hearst newspapers from running ads for it and enlisting the support of Hollywood bigwigs such as Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was said Hearst was particularly angry over the movie’s depiction of a character based on his companion, Marion Davies, a former showgirl whom he had helped become a popular Hollywood actress. For his part, Welles threatened to sue Hearst for trying to suppress the film and also to sue RKO if the company did not release the film.  

When Citizen Kane finally opened in May 1941, it was a failure at the box office. Although reviews were favorable, and it was nominated for nine Academy Awards, Welles was booed at that year’s Oscar ceremony, and RKO quietly archived the film. It was only years later, when it was re-released, that Citizen Kane began to garner well-deserved accolades for its pioneering camera and sound work, as well as its complex blend of drama, black comedy, history, biography and even fake-newsreel or “mockumentary” footage that has informed hundreds of films produced since then. It consistently ranks at the top of film critics’ lists, most notably grabbing the No. 1 spot on the American Film Institute’s poll of America’s 100 Greatest Films.  

After Citizen Kane, Welles’ diverse works consisted of everything from Shakespearean adaptations to documentaries. Some of his most acclaimed films included The Stranger (1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1948) and Chimes at Midnight (1966). In his later years, he narrated documentaries and appeared in commercials, and he left behind several unfinished films when he died at the age of 70 on October 10, 1985.


Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:

305 - Diocletian and Maximian retire from the office of Roman Emperor.

408 - Theodosius II succeeded to the throne of Constantinople.

1006 - Supernova observed by Chinese and Egyptians in constellation Lupus

1048 - Bishop Bernold flees St Pieterskerk for Utrecht Neth

1308 - King Albert was murdered by his nephew John, because he refused his share of the Habsburg lands.

1328 - Wars of Scottish Independence end: Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton - the Kingdom of England recognises the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state.

1394 - Ekiho, exorcised the Zen temple and it's surroundings from an old badger

1486 - Christopher Columbus convinced Queen Isabella to fund an expedition to the West Indies.
1523 - Danish king Christian III arrives in Veere

1528 - Pánfilo the Narváez begins exploration to with 350 men to Florida

1544 - Turkish troops occupy Hungary

1551 - Council of Trente resumes

1598 - Jacob van Necks merchant fleet departs for Java

1625 - Portuguese and Spanish expedition recaptures Salvador (Bahia)

1625 - Prince Frederik Henry appointed viceroy of Holland

1682 - Louis XIV and his court inaugurates Paris Observatory

1703 - Battle at Rultusk: Swedish army beats Russians

1704 - Boston Newsletter publishes first newspaper ad

1707 - England, Wales and Scotland form United Kingdom of Great Britain

1711 - Arch duke Karel of Austria/Hungarian rebellion sign Peace of Szatmar

1715 - Prussia declares war on Sweden

1725 - Spain andAustria sign trade treaty

1751 - First American cricket match is played

1753 - Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

1756 - France and Austria sign alliance

1757 - Austria and France divide Prussia

1759 - British fleet occupies Guadeloupe, West-Indies, on France

1776 - Adam Weishaupt founds secret society of Illuminati

1777 - RB Sheridans "School for Scandal," premieres in London

1778 - American Revolution: The Battle of Crooked Billet begins in Hatboro, Pennsylvania

1781 - Emperor Jozef II decrees protection of population

1785 - Kamehameha, the king of Hawaiʻi defeats Kalanikupule and establishes the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi

1786 - Mozart's opera "Marriage of Figaro" premieres in Wien (Vienna)

1805 - The state of Virginia passed a law requiring all freed slaves to leave the state, or risk either imprisonment or deportation.

1822 - John Phillips becomes first mayor of Boston

1834 - Belgian parliament accept railway laws

1840 - First adhesive postage stamps ("Penny Blacks" from England) issued

1841 - First emigrant wagon train leaves Independence, Missouri for Calif

1844 - Whig convention nominates Henry Clay as presidential candidate

1846 - Ida Pfeiffer (48) begins trip around world

1848 - The Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta is founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.

1850 - John Geary becomes first San Francisco  mayor

1851 - Great Exhibition opens in Chrystal Palace London

1852 - The Philippine peso is introduced into circulation.

1853 - Argentina adopts it's constitution

1854 - Amsterdam begins transferring drinking water out of the dunes

1857 - William Walker, conqueror of Nicaragua, surrenders to US Navy

1861 - Lee orders Confederate troops under T J Jackson to Harper's Ferry

1862 - Union captain David Farragut conquers New Orleans

1863 - Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia. General Robert E. Lee's forces began fighting with Union troops under General Joseph Hooker. Confederate General Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded by his own soldiers in this battle. 29,000 injured or died during this batle. (May 1-4)

1863 - Battle of Port Gibson, Mississippi

1863 - Confederate "National Flag" replaces "Stars and Bars"

1863 - Confederate congress passed resolution to kill black soldiers

1864 - -8] Battle at Alexandria, Louisiana (Red River Campaign)

1864 - Atlanta campaign, Georgia begins

1864 - Wilderness campaign

1866 - American Equal Rights Association forms

1867 - Howard University chartered

1867 - Reconstruction in the South began with black voter registration.

1869 - Folies Bergere opens in Paris

1873 - First US postal card issued

1873 - Emperor Franz Jozef opens fifth World's Exposition in Vienna

1875 - 238 members of "Whiskey Ring" accused of anti-US activities

1875 - Alexandra Palace reopens after the 1873 fire burnt it down.

1877 - U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew all Federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.

1883 - "Buffalo Bill" Cody put on his first Wild West Show

1883 - Amsterdam World's Fair opens

1883 - Baseball returns to Philadelphia, first National League game since 1876

1883 - NY Athletic Club hires Bob Rogers as first American pro sports trainer

1884 - The construction of the first American 10-story building began in Chicago, Illinois.

1884 - Moses Walker became 1st black player in major league

1884 - Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States.

1885 - Maria "Goeie Mie" Swanenburg sentence to life for killing 27 in Netherlands

1886 - US general strike for 8 hour day, begins

1889 - Secnd International Congress calls for first International Workers Day 1st May 1890 to mark protests in Chicago in 1886

1889 - Bayer introduces aspirin in powder form (Germany)

1889 - Asa Candler published a full-page advertisement in The Atlanta Journal, proclaiming his wholesale and retail drug business as "sole proprietors of Coca-Cola ... Delicious. Refreshing. Exhilarating. Invigorating." Mr. Candler did not actually achieve sole ownership until 1891 at a cost of $2,300.

1891 - Cy Young pitches 1st game played in Cleveland's League Park Cleveland Spiders 12, Cincinnati Redlegs 3

1892 - US Quarantine Station opens on Angel Island, San Francisco Bay

1893 - World Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago

1898 - George Dewey commands, "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley" as US route Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in the Philippines.

1900 - Premature blast collapses mine tunnel killing 200 at Scofield, Utah

1900 - Roermond soccer team forms in Roermond

1901 - Herb McFarland hit first grand slam in American League

1901 - Pan-American Exposition opens in Buffalo

1905 - In New York, radium was tested as a cure for cancer.

1906 - Phillie's John Lush no-hits Bkln Dodgers, 6-0

1907 - Belgium government of De Trooz forms

1907 - Indian Mine Laws passes (concessions from Neth-Indies)

1908 - World's most intense shower (2.47" in 3 minutes) at Portobelo Panama

1909 - Netherlands begins unity with Belgium

1912 - Amsterdam-North soccer team DWV forms

1912 - Beverly Hills Hotel opens

1913 - Longacre Theater opens at 220 W 48th St NYC

1914 - China's 1st president Yuan Shikai wins dictatorial qualification

1915 - British Lusitania leaves NY, for Liverpool

1915 - German submarine sinks US ship Gulflight

1919 - Mount Kelud (Indonesia) erupts, boiling crater lake which broke through crater wall killing 5,000 people in 104 small villages

1920 - Babe Ruth's first Yankee HR and 50th of career, out of Polo Grounds

1920 - Belgian-Luxembourg toll tunnel opens

1920 - Brooklyn Dodgers tie Boston Braves, 1-1, in 26 innings

1921 - Drusian sultan Pasja al-Atrasj elected governor of Suwayda

1922 - Charlie Robertson of Chicago pitches a perfect no-hit, no-run game

1924 - Admiral Paul Koundouriotis becomes president of Greece

1925 - Cyprus becomes a British Crown Colony

1926 - British coal-miners go on strike

1926 - Satchel Paige makes pitching debut in Negro Southern League

1927 - Adolf Hitler held his first Nazi meeting in Berlin.

1927 - First British airliner to serve cooked meals (Imperial Airways)

1927 - Netherlands beats Belgium 3-2 in soccer match in Amsterdam

1927 - Panningen soccer team forms in Panningen

1928 - 6 children die and 10 injured by hailstones in Klausenburg, Romania

1928 - Drunken fascist Erich Wichman attacks VARA-radio transmitter

1928 - Lei Day begun (a Hawaiian celebration)

1928 - Pitcairn Airlines (later Eastern) begins service

1928 - Rotterdam soccer team Black White '28 forms

1929 - Brooklyn's Johnny Finn sets 100 yard sack race in 14.4 seconds

1929 - Farm workers strike begins in East-Groningen

1929 - Police kill 19 Mayday demonstrators in Berlin

1930 - Bradman scores 236 Aust v Worcs, his first f-class innings in Eng

1931 - Empire State Building opens in New York City, at 102 floors, and is the tallest building in the world (ovetaking the Chryser Building)

1931 - Norway claims Peter I Island

1931 - Singer Kate Smith begins her long-running radio program on CBS

1932 - First Suriname union congress at Paramaribo

1934 - Austria signs pact with Vatican

1934 - Philippine legislature accepts US proposal for independence

1934 - Water state kingdom dismisses NSB-leader Anton Mussert

1935 - Boulder Dam completed

1935 - Canada's 1st silver dollar is circulated

1936 - Emperor Haile Selassie leaves Ethiopia as Italian invades

1936 - FBI's J Edgar Hoover arrests Alvin Karpis

1937 - American President Franklin Roosevelt signed an act of neutrality, keeping the United States out of World War II.

1939 - U.S. commercial television made its official debut at the New York World’s Fair.The signal was transmitted from the Empire State Building.

1939 - Batman comics hit street

1939 - Pulitzer Prize awarded to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Yearling)

1940 - 140 Palestinian Jews die as German planes bomb their ship

1940 - The 1940 Olympics are cancelled

1941 - "Citizen Kane," directed and starring Orson Welles, premieres in New York

1941 - General Mills introduces Cheerios

1941 - German assault on Tobruk

1942 - Radio Orange calls to defy order to wear "Jewish star"

1943 - First edition of illegal "The Free Artist" appears in Amsterdam

1943 - 69th Kentucky Derby: Johnny Longden aboard Count Fleet wins in 2:04

1943 - Food rationing begins in US

1943 - German Wehrmacht deployed in order to break Dutch strikes

1943 - German plane sinks boat loaded with Palestinian Jews bound for Malta

1943 - Rauter signs unofficial death sentence

1944 - Messerschmitt Me 262 Sturmvogel, first jet bomber, makes 1st flight

1944 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Martin Flavin (Journey in the dark)

1944 - Surprise attack on Weteringschans Amsterdam, fails

1945 - 900 occupiers of Demmin Vorpommeren, commit suicide

1945 - Martin Bormann, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, escaped from the Fuehrerbunker as the Red Army advanced on Berlin.

1945 - Admiral Karl Doenitz succeeded Hitler as leader of the Third Reich. This was one day after Hitler committed suicide. 

1945 - Australian and Dutch troops lands on Tarakan

1945 - General Belgian Labor Union (ABVV) party forms

1945 - Radio Budapest, Hungary re-enters shortwave broadcasting after WW II

1945 - Seys-Inquart flees to Flensburg

1945 - Soviet army reach Rostock

1946 - Fieldmarshal Montgomery appointed British supreme commander

1946 - Mrs Emma Clarissa Clement named "American Mother of Year"

1946 - Start of 3 year Pilbara strike of Indigenous Australians.

1946 - The Paris Peace Conference concludes that the islands of the Dodecanese should be returned to Greece by Italy.

1947 - Cleveland Indians abandon League Park to play all games at Municipal Stad

1947 - Lt General Hoyt S Vandenberg, USA, ends term as second head of CIA

1947 - Radar for commmercial and  private planes first demonstrated

1947 - Rear Admiral Roscoe H Hillenkoetter, USN, becomes 3th director of CIA

1948 - 74th Kentucky Derby: Eddie Arcaro aboard Citation wins in 2:05.4

1948 - The People's Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) was proclaimed.

1948 - Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Auspicia quaedam

1948 - Glenn Taylor, Idaho Senator, arrested in Birmingham Alabama for trying to enter a meeting through a door marked "for Negroes"

1949 - Gerard Kuiper discovers Nereid, (2nd satellite of Neptune)

1950 -  Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry called Annie Allen.

1950 - Mayor of Brussels reluctantly bans May Day parade

1950 - New marriage laws enforced in People's Republic China

1950 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Rodgers and Hammerstein (South Pacific)

1950 - WJIM (now WLNS) TV channel 6 in Lansing, MI (CBS) begins broadcasting

1951 - 600,000 march for peace and freedom in Germany

1951 - Dutch Reformed Church introduces new church choir

1951 - Mickey Mantle's hits his first HR

1951 - Minnie Minoso becomes the 1st black to play for the White Sox

1952 - Marines take part in an atomic explosion training in Nevada

1952 - Mr Potato Head, introduced

1952 - TWA introduces tourist class

1954 - 80th Kentucky Derby: Raymond York aboard Determine wins in 2:03

1954 - Bishops publish Mandement (member socialist org forbidden)

1954 - HSA-UWC Forms (Unification Church) (Moonies)

1954 - WAPA TV channel 4 in San Juan, PR (NBC/SFN) begins broadcasting

1956 - A doctor in Japan reports an "epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system", marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.

1957 - Flevo Boys soccer team forms in Emmeloord

1957 - Larry King's first radio broadcast

1957 - US give Poland credit of $95 million

1957 - Vanguard TV-1 booster test reaches 195 km

1958 - James Van Allen reported that two radiation belts encircled Earth.

1958 - Ambonese rebellion bombed Ambon/conquer Morotai

1958 - Arturo Frondizi sworn in as president of Argentina

1959 - Floyd Patterson KOs Brian London in 11 for heavyweight boxing title

1959 - West Germany introduces 5 day work

1960 - India's Bombay state split into Gujarat and Maharashtra states

1960 - Pancho Gonzalez retires from tennis

1960 - Francis Gary Powers' U-2 spy plane was shot down over Sverdlovsk, in the Soviet Union. Powers was taken prisoner.

1961 - First US airplane hijacked to Cuba

1961 - Fidel Castro announces there will be no more elections in Cuba

1961 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)

1961 - Tanganyika granted full internal self-government by Britain

1962 - 1st French underground nuclear experiment in the Sahara

1962 - Bo Belinsky pitches a no-hitter, in his 4th start

1962 - France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria

1962 - JFK authorizes Area Redevelopment Act (ARA)

1963 - First American (James Whittaker) conquers Mount Everest

1963 - Indonesia takes control of Irian Jaya (west New Guinea) from Neth

1964 - First BASIC program runs on a computer (Dartmouth)

1965 - 91st Kentucky Derby: Bill Shoemaker on Lucky Debonair wins in 2:01.2

1965 - Stanley Cup: Montreal Canadiens beat Chicago Blackhawks, 4 games to 3

1965 - USSR launches Luna 5; later impacts on Moon

1965 - Battle of Dong-Yin, a naval conflict between ROC and PRC, takes place.

1966 - Last British concert by Beatles (Empire Pool in Wembley)

1966 - Radio RSA, South Africa begins shortwave transmitting

1966 - US troops shooting targets in Cambodia

1967 - Anastasio Somoza Debayle becomes president of Nicaragua

1967 - Jelle Zijlstra becomes president of Netherlands Bank

1967 - Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu wed in Las Vegas

1967 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Bernard Malamud (Fixer)

1968 - "Ben Franklin in Paris" closes at Lunt Fontanne NYC after 215 perfs

1968 - In the second day of battle, U.S. Marines, with the support of naval fire, continue their attack on a North Vietnamese Division at Dai Do.

1969 - 43 Unification church couples wed in NYC

1969 - Leonard Tose bought the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles for $16,155,000.

1969 - Pirate Radio Station 259 (England/France) begins transmitting

1970 - Students at Kent State University riot in downtown Kent, Ohio, in protest of the American invasion of Cambodia.

1971 - 97th Kentucky Derby: Gustavo Avila on Canonero II wins in 2:03.2

1971 - The National Railroad Passenger Corp. (Amtrak) went into service. It was established by the U.S. Congress to run the nation's intercity railroads.

1971 - Rolling Stones release "Brown Sugar"

1972 - "Different Times" opens at ANTA Theater NYC for 24 performances

1972 - North Vietnamese troops occupy Quang Tri Activities Committee

1972 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Wallace Stegner (Angle of Repose)

1972 - Radio's Mutual Black Network premieres

1977 - Chantal Langlace runs female world record marathon (2:35:15.4)

1977 - Empress Lilly dedicated

1977 - 36 people are killed in Taksim Square, Istanbul, during the Labour Day celebrations.

1978 - First black mayor of New Orleans (Ernest Morial) inaugurated

1978 - MVV soccer team forms in Maastricht

1978 - Naomi Uemura became first to reach North Pole overland alone

1979 - Elton John becomes first pop star to perform in Israel

1979 - Home rule introduced to Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland)

1979 - Marshall Islands (in Pacific) become self-governing

1981 - The Japanese government announced that it would limit passenger car exports to the United States over the next three years.

1981 - Billie Jean King admits to a lesbian affair with Marilyn Barnett

1981 - Harrison Williams (Sen-D-NJ) convicted on FBI Abscam charges

1982 - 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville Tennessee opens

1984 - Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1984 - Mick Fleetwood (of Fleetwood Mac) files for bankruptcy

1985 - "Communist" bomb attack kills 2 firemen in Brussels

1985 - American president Reagan ends embargo against Nicaragua

1986 - The Tass News Agency reported the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.

1986 - Will Stegers expedition reaches North Pole

1986 - Bill Elliott set a stock car speed record with his Ford Thunderbird in Talladega, AL. Elliott reached a speed of 212.229 mph.

1987 - Pope John Paul II beatifies Edith Stein, a Jewish born nun

1988 - IRA attack in Roermond, kills 3

1989 - US Supreme Court rules employees have legal burden to prove non- discriminatory reasons for not hiring or promoting

1989 - Disney-MGM Studios opened.  Disney movies, music and books

1991 - Angola's civil war ends

1991 - Skin-Spit-Skin featuring lesbian, homosexual and hetrosexual nude couples caressing, is seen by 5,000 in NYC

1992 - On the third day of the Los Angeles riots resulting from the Rodney King beating trial. King appeared in public to appeal for calm, he asked, "Can we all get along?"

1992 - Eric Houston kills 4 in a California HS where he failed history 4 yrs prior

1992 - LA Dodgers postpone 3 games due to racial riots due to Rodney King

1992 - NY Rangers wins their first ever 7th game of a playoff (vs NJ Devils)

1993 - Bomb attack on Sri Lankan president (26 die)

1994 - Tornado and hail storms hit Jiangxi China, 95 killed

1994 - Charles Kuralt, retires as CBS newsman (On the Road)

1995 - Croatian forces launch Operation Flash during the Croatian War of Independence.

1997 - Toni Blair elected Prime Minister of UK

1997 - Tasmania becomes the last state in Australia to decriminalize homosexuality.

1998 - Arrow Air was fined $5 million for using spare parts that lacked federal approval in the U.S.

1999 - On Mount Everest, a group of U.S. mountain climbers discovered the body of George Mallory. Mallory had died in June of 1924 while trying to become the first person to reach the summit of Everest. At the time of the discovery it was unclear whether or not Mallory had actually reached the summit.

2000 - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declares the existence of "a state of rebellion", hours after thousands of supporters of her arrested predecessor, Joseph Estrada, storm towards the presidential palace at the height of the EDSA III rebellion.

2000 - ABC aired the first celebrity "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

2001 - Chandra Levy was last seen in Washington, DC. Her remains were found in Rock Creek Park on May 22, 2002. California Congressman Gary Condit was questioned in the case due to his relationship with Levy.

2003 - Invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech, U.S. President George W. Bush declares that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" on board the USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast of California.

2004 - Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin.

2006 - The Puerto Rican government closes the Department of Education and 42 other government agencies due to significant shortages in cash flow.

2007 - The Los Angeles May Day mêlée occurs, in which the Los Angeles Police Department's response to a May Day pro-immigration rally become a matter of controversy.

2008 - The London Agreement on translation of European patents, concluded in 2000, enters into force in 14 of the 34 Contracting States to the European Patent Convention.

2009 - Same-sex marriage is legalized in Sweden.

2010 - Car bomb fails to go off in Times Square, New York City

2011 - American President Barack Obama announced that U.S. soldiers had killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

2011 - Pope John Paul II is beatified by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.

2012 - China and Russia sign $15 billion dollar trade deal

2012 - Guggenheim Partners make the largest ever purchase of a sports franchise after buying the Los Angeles Dodgers for $2.1 billion



http://www.historyorb.com/events/april/30

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/may01.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/empire-state-building-dedicated

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory

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