National Public Radio was broadcast for the first time today in 1971.
Today is Friday, May 3, 2019, the 123th day of the year, 242 days remaining and a mere 557 days until the next presidential election.
- Sunrise: 6:12am
- Sunset: 8:02pm ...giving us 13 hours and 48 minutes of daylight. 4% of the waning moon visible, setting at 6:57pm.
Tides at the Golden Gate
- High: 11:57am/11:38pm
- Low: 5:27am/5:15pm
Special celebrations & commemorations today…
- Constitution Day - Poland
- Fiesta de las Cruces - Peru, Mexico, Venezuela
- Kempo Kinenbi / Constitution Memorial Day - Japan
- National Day - Poland
- World Press Freedom Day
- Labour Day (Queensland) - Australia
- May Day (Northern Territory) - Australia
- Garden Meditation Day
- International Space Day
- Lumpy Rug Day
- National Textiles Day
- National Two Different Colored Shoes Day
- Paranormal Day
- Public Radio Day
- SAN Architect Day
- School Lunch Hero Day
- Tuba Day
- National Raspberry Popover Day
- National Chocolate Custard Day
On this day in…
1568 - French forces inFlorida slaughtered hundreds of Spanish.
1802 - Washington,DC, was incorporated as a city.
1855 - Macon B. Allen became the first African American to be admitted to the Bar inMassachusetts.
1859 - France declared war on Austria.
1888 - Thomas Edison organized the Edison Phonograph Works.
1916 - Irish nationalist Padraic Pearse and two others were executed by the British for their roles in the Easter Rising.
1921 -West Virginia imposed the first state sales tax.
1926 - The revival of Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" opened in New York.
1926 -U.S. Marines landed in Nicaragua and stayed until 1933.
1926 - In Britain, trade unions began a general strike.
1927 - Francis E.J. Wilde of Meadowmere Park,NY, patented the electric sign flasher.
1933 - TheU.S. Mint was under the direction of a woman for the first time when Nellie Ross took the position.
1937 - Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for "Gone With The Wind."
1944 - Wartime rationing of most grades of meats ended in theU.S.
1944 - Dr. Robert Woodward and Dr. William Doering produced the first synthetic quinine at Harvard University.
1945 - Indian forces captured Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.
1948 - TheU.S. Supreme Court ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities were legally unenforceable.
1952 - The first airplane landed at the geographic North Pole.
1966 - The game "Twister" was featured on the "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson.
1968 - After three days of battle, theU.S. Marines retook Dai Do complex in Vietnam. They found that the North Vietnamese had evacuated the area.
1971 - Anti-war protesters began four days of demonstrations in Washington,DC.
1971 - National Public Radio broadcast for the first time.
1971 - James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King's assassin, was caught in a jailbreak attempt.
1986 - In NASA's first post-Challenger launch, an unmanned Delta rocket lost power in its main engine shortly after liftoff. Safety officers destroyed it by remote control.
1988 - The White House acknowledged that first lady Nancy Reagan had used astrological advice to help schedule her husband's activities.
1992 - Five days of rioting and looting ended in Los Angeles,CA. The riots, that killed 53 people, began after the acquittal of police officers in the beating of Rodney King.
1997 - The "Republic of Texas" surrendered to authorities ending an armed standoff where two people were held hostage. The group asserts the independence ofTexas from theU.S.
1998 - "The Sevres Road," by 18-century landscape painter Camille Corot, stolen from the Louvre in France.
1999 - Mark Manes, at age 22, was arrested for supplying a gun to Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold, who later killed 13 people at Columbine High School inColorado.
1999 - Hasbro released the first collection of toys for the Star Wars movie "Episode I: The Phantom Menace."
2006 - In Alexandria, VA, Al-Quaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was given a sentence of life in prison for his role in the terrorist attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
Today’s birthday celebrants include (or included)...
- Niccolo Machiavelli 1469 - Italian philosopher/writer
- Golda Meir 1898 - Fourth Prime Minister of the State of Israel
- Bing Crosby 1903 - Singer, according to Bing Crosby his birthday is May 2nd, his birthday is actually May 3
- Virgil Fox 1912 - Organist
- Pete Seeger 1919 - Folk singer
- Betty Comden 1919
- Sugar Ray Robinson (Walker Smith Jr.) 1921 - Boxer
- Joe Ames 1924 - Musician (The Ames Brothers)
- James Brown (James Joseph Brown, Jr.) 1928 - Singer
- Frankie Valli 1934 - Musician (The Four Seasons)
- Rudolf "Rudy" Jacobs 1938 - Chemist, received Nobel Prize in 1992
- Pete Staples 1944 - Musician (The Troggs)
- Doug Henning 1947 - Magician, illusionist, escape artist
- Mary Hopkin 1950 - Folk singer
- Christopher Cross (Christopher Charles Geppert) 1951 - Singer, songwriter
- Bruce Hall 1953 - Musician (REO Speedwagon)
- Cactus Moser 1957 - Musician (Highway 101)
- David Ball 1959 - Musician (Soft Cell)
- Bobby Cannavale 1970 - Actor
- Dule' Hill 1975 - Actor ("The West Wing")
- Farrah Destiny Franklin 1981 - Singer (Destiny's Child)
- Joseph Addai 1983 - Football player
