http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/may4.html
---------------------------------------------------
"Do you know what day it is?" I answered that it was the fourth of
May.
She shook her head as she said again: "Oh, yes! I know that, I know
that! but do you know what day it is?" On my saying that I did not
understand, she went on: "It is the eve of St George's Day.
Do you know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight,
all the evil things in the world will have full sway?..."
.
Bram Stoker; Dracula, 1897; May 6 is the Eastern Orthodox
St George's Day, so May 4 is actually the eve of the eve of that day
---------------------------------------------------
Festival of Tarentia, for the goddess Bona Dea, ancient Rome (May 3 -
4)
.
Veneration of the Thorn
.
Today is the day of venerating the hawthorn tree, sacred to the Good
Goddess (see Bona Dea). It is also called the may tree and white
thorn.
These are holy bushes and trees, associated with sacred wells and
shrines and on such days will have ribbons tied to them.
.
In his well-documented study, 'Historic Thorn Trees in the British
Isles', Mr. Vaughan Cornish writes of the sacred hawthorns growing
over wells in Goidelic provinces - at Tin'ahely in County Wicklow:
.
'Devotees attended on the 4th of May, rounds were duly made around
the well, and shreds torn off their garments and hung on the thorn.'
He adds: 'This is St. Monica's Day ...' Plainly, since St. Monica's
Day,
New Style, corresponds with May 15th, Old Style, this was a ceremony
in honour of the Hawthorn month, which had just begun.
-- Robert Graves; The White Goddess, p. 175
---------------------------------------------------
Well, Jim, I haven't read any of your books but I'll have to
someday because they must be good considering how well they sell.
- Nora Joyce, to her novelist husband, on May 4, 1940
---------------------------------------------------
May 4 is the 124th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar
(125th in leap years), with 241 days remaining.
.
Feast day of St Antony Page
Feast day of St Augustine Webster
Feast day of St Carthusian Martyrs
Feast day of St Conleth
Feast day of St Cyriacus
.
Feast day of St Florian
Florian stopped a town from burning by throwing a just one bucket of
water on the blaze. Patronage includes against battles, against fire,
Austria, barrel-makers, brewers, chimney sweeps, coopers, drowning,
fire prevention, firefighters, floods, harvests, Poland, soap-boilers.
.
Born at Ems; died 304. Florian was an officer (princeps officiorum) in
the Roman army, who held a high administrative post in Noricum (now in
Austria). He had secretly been converted to Christianity. When the
governor of Lorch, Aquilinus, on instructions from Diocletian ordered
his soldiers to hunt down Christians, Florian decided he no longer
wished to conceal his faith. He gave himself up at Lorch to the
governor's soldiers.
.
After professing his faith, he was scourged twice, then his skin was
slowly peeled from his body. Finally, instead of being executed by the
sword and thus given a soldier's death, Saint Florian was thrown into
the River Ems (Anisus), near Lorch, with a stone around his neck.
.
His body was recovered and buried by a devout woman. It was removed to
the Augustinian Abbey of Saint Florian, near Linz. It is held that his
relics were later translated to Rome, and Pope Lucius III, in 1138,
gave
some of the saint's relics to King Casimir of Poland and to the bishop
of Cracow. Many miracles are attributed to him, including the
extinguishing of a huge fire with a pitcher of water.
.
Saint Florian is portrayed in art as a young man, sometimes
in armor, sometimes unarmed, pouring water from a tub
on a burning church. At times the picture may show him:
(1) with a palm in his hand and a burning torch under his feet;
(2) as a bearded warrior with a lance and tub;
(3) as a warrior leaning on a millstone, pouring water on a fire;
(4) as a boy with a millstone;
(5) setting out on a journey with a hat and staff;
(6) beaten;
(7) being thrown into the river with a millstone around his neck;
(8) lying dead on a millstone guarded by an eagle; or
(9) with a sword.
.
Feast day of St George Haydock
Feast day of St Godehard (Godard, Gothard), bishop
The St Gothard Tunnel, opened in Switzerland on September 5, 1980 as
the world's longest highway tunnel, at 16.32 km (10.14 mi) stretching
from Goschenen to Airolo, takes its name from the this saint, in whose
honour the neighbouring hospice for travellers and its chapel were
dedicated. The girdle made for him by the Empress Saint Cunegund
is venerated there as a relic.
.
Feast day of St Gregory Celli of Verucchio
Feast day of St Hilsindis
.
Feast day of St John Houghton
Born in Essex, England, in 1487; died at Tyburn on May 4, 1535.
Saint John served as a parish priest for four years after his
graduation
from Cambridge. Then he joined the Carthusians, where he was named
prior
of Beauvale Charterhouse in Northampton and, just a few months later,
prior of London Charterhouse. In 1534, he and his procurator, Blessed
Humphrey Middlemore, were arrested for refusing to accept the Act of
Succession, which proclaimed the legitimacy of Anne Boleyn's children
by Henry VIII. They were soon released when the accepted the act
with the proviso "as far as the law of God allows."
.
The following year Father Houghton was again arrested when he, Saint
Robert Lawrence, and Saint Augustine Webster went to Thomas Cromwell
to
seek an exemption from taking the oath required in the Act of
Supremacy.
He, as the first of hundreds to refuse to apostatize in favor of the
crowned heads of England, gave a magnificent example to his monks and
the whole of Britain of fidelity to the Catholic faith.
.
As the sentence of drawing and quartering was read to Father Houghton,
he said, "And what wilt thou do with my heart, O Christ?" The three
were dragged through the streets of London, treated savagely, and then
hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. After his death, John
Houghton's
body was chopped into pieces and hung in various parts of London.
.
John Houghton is depicted as a Carthusian with a rope
around his neck, holding up his heart.
.
Feast day of St John Payne
Feast day of St Judas Cyriacus
.
Former feast day of St Monica of Hippo
She was the mother of St Augustine of Hippo and known as a woman of
piety. She is now commemorated on August 27. Her parents brought her
up as Christian and married her to an older, pagan man named
Patricius.
He was a man with a great deal of energy, but also a man given to
violent tempers & adultery. Augustine reports that Patricius beat
Monica. She is the patron saint of wives, mothers, & abuse victims.
.
Feast day of St Nepotian
Feast day of St Paulinus of Sinigaglia
Feast day of St Pelagia of Tarsus
Died c. 300; feast day formerly October 8. During the persecutions of
the Emperor Diocletian, Pelagia, the daughter of pagan parents in
Tarsus, Cilicia, is said to have caught the eye of Diocletian's son.
She, however, had no desire to marry. On the pretext of visiting her
old nurse, she sought help and counsel from a Christian bishop.
Under his inspiration, Saint Pelagia became a Christian herself, and
the bishop baptized her. At this point not only did the emperor's son
turn against Pelagia; so did her own mother. Both reported her to the
emperor, no doubt hoping that her faith would weaken under the threat
of torture. Diocletian himself is said to have personally interviewed
her--the legend alleges that he was as attracted to her beauty as
was his son--but completely failed to change Pelagia's mind.
.
A singular torture was now prepared for the beautiful girl.
A hollow bull was made out of bronze. Pelagia was put inside it
and roasted to death. The bishop is said to have buried her relics
.
Another version of the story has Diocletian's son committing suicide
after Pelagia's rejection. When she repulsed Diocletian's advances, he
decided to kill her. Today's saint is only one of several Pelagias and
Marinas (the stories get very mixed up and the two names are the same
in
Greek and Latin). The idea that these, perhaps, fictitious stories are
a
christianized version of those of Aphrodite or Venus has been examined
and firmly rejected by the eminent hagiographer Hippolyte Delehaye.
.
Feast day of St Richard Reynolds
.
Feast day of St Robert Lawrence
Feast day of St Sacerdos
Feast day of St Venerius of Milan
.
Dodenherdenking (Remembrance of the dead or Memorial Day)
Two minutes of silence are observed at 8 pm to remember those who
suffered in World War II. Since the end of the war, the Dutch have
honoured the victims of war without large military parades.
.
Rhode Island Independence Day, Rhode Island, USA
.
Kent Students: Memorial Day, USA
.
Frustrating the Fairies: Irish day for confusing the fairies
so that they could not create any havoc.
--------------------------------------------
. Born May 4th
.
1008 King Henry I of France (d. 1060)
.
1655 Bartolommeo Cristofori, Italian inventor of the piano
.
1733 Jean-Charles de Borda, French mathematician, physicist,
political scientist, and sailor (d. 1799)
.
1772 Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus, publisher (d. 1823)
.
1796 Horace Mann, American public school system innovator
.
1825 Thomas Huxley (d. 1895), English scientist, supporter and
populariser of Charles Darwin's theories. His investigations in
comparative anatomy, palaeontology and evolution exerted a great
influence on 19th-century biology. He was the grandfather
of biologist Julian Huxley and writer Aldous Huxley.
.
At the famous Oxford University Meeting of 1860, Huxley defended
Darwin's theory of Natural Selection against Samuel Wilberforce,
the Bishop of Oxford. Wilberforce used essentially the same
arguments that he had used in his anonymous review of Darwin's
epochal On the Origin of Species for the previous July's
The Quarterly Review.
Then he smugly asked, was it through Huxley's grandfather
or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey?
.
'Huxley instantly grasped the tactical advantage which the descent
to personalities gave him. He turned to Sir Benjamin Brodie, who was
sitting beside him, and emphatically striking his hand upon his knee,
exclaimed, 'The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands.' The bearing
of the exclamation did not dawn upon Sir Benjamin until after Huxley
had completed his 'forcible and eloquent' answer to the scientific
part
of the Bishop's argument, and proceeded to make his famous retort.
.
"On this (continues the writer in Macmillan's Magazine) Mr. Huxley
slowly and deliberately arose. A slight tall figure, stern and pale,
very quiet and very grave, he stood before us and spoke those
tremendous
words-words which no one seems sure of now, nor, I think, could
remember
just after they were spoken, for their meaning took away ou breath,
though it left. us in no doubt as to what it was. He was not ashamed
to
have a monkey for his ancestor; but he would be ashamed to be
connected
with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth. No one doubted
his meaning, and the effect was tremendous. One lady fainted and
had to be carried out.'
.
Oxford University Museum of Natural History Great Debate
.
1826 Frederic Edwin Church, painter
.
1827 John Hanning Speke (d. 1864), English explorer who was
the first European to see Lake Victoria. Later he identified
it as the long-sought-for source of the Nile.
.
1852 Alice Liddell, English girl for whom Lewis Carroll
wrote his Alice books
.
1873 Joe De Grasse, film director (d. 1940)
.
1889 Francis Cardinal Spellman, religious leader (d. 1967)
.
1928 Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt
.
1929 Audrey Hepburn (d. 1993), English-born actress
.
1941 George Will, writer
.
1942 Tammy Wynette, US country musician (d. 1998)
.
1943 Michael Palin, CBE, British comedian (Monty Python),
graduate of Oxford with a degree in History
.
John Cleese on Michael Palin:
.
<<He must be the worst man in the world to take on a commando raid.
You
might as well take a large radiogram with the volume turned up. On and
on, hour after hour, tiring the sun with talking and sending him down
the sky. Michael chats, quips, fantasises, reminisces, commiserates,
encourages, plans, discusses, and elaborates. Then, some nights, when
everyone else has gone to bed, he goes home and writes up a diary.
. Asked about his controversial portrayal of the Roman procurator,
Pontius PILAte, PALIn, typically relaxed & friendly, but with his eyes
twinkling with effervescent irony, says 'Hell it's funny you should
ask
me that because when I was up at Brasenose, well actually it happened
before that in fact, It was at school at Shrewsbury in Shropshire,
there's a Norman Church there called St. Chad's ... Chad's dated from
Norman times but in 1788 the tower fell down so it was rebuilt but the
real Norman church is St. Mary's, anyway there was a fellow there
called
Paul Scott. I was reminded of him because I was reading the Raj
Quartet
last night, actually I finished it this morning, it is absolutely
marvellous, bit like Hardy in a way, there's one scene where the
British Commissioner is questioning an Indian spy,
well he doesn't know he's a spy, and the point is ...'>>
.
1954 Pia Zadora, actress
----------------------------------------------------
"In peace I will sleep with Him and take my rest."
Last words of St Monica, who died on May 4, 387
.
1471 Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Tewkesbury : Edward IV of
England defeated a Lancastrian Army & killed Edward, Prince of Wales.
.
1493 Pope Alexander VI divided the New World between Spain &
Portugal .
.
1626 Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrived in New Netherland
(i.e., Manhattan Island) aboard the See Meeuw to become director.
.
1776 Rhode Island became the first American colony
to renounce allegiance to George III.
.
1799 The Tipu of Mysore, Indian Muslim military leader, fought to
the death when the British overwhelmed his capital at Seringapatam.
.
1814 Napoleon I of France arrived at Portoferraio
on the island of Elba to begin his exile.
.
1839 Sir Samuel Cunard founded the Cunard shipping line.
.
1842 Moreton Bay, Australia was declared a free settlement.
.
Founded on September 2, 1824 by John OXLEY, Moreton Bay had a
reputation
as one of the cruellest penal settlements in the British Empire,
inspiring an unknown balladeer to compose the folk song, 'Moreton
Bay'.
On September 10, 1825 the settlement, in what was then known as New
South Wales, was formally called Brisbane. On June 6, 1859 Queensland,
formerly known generally as the Moreton Bay District, was granted
separation from New South Wales, Australia, as a new state, with
Brisbane as its capital city.
.
I've been a prisoner at Port Macquarie
At Norfolk Island and Emu Plains
At Castle Hill and at cursed Toongabbie
At all these settlements I've been *IN CHAINS*
But of all places of condemnation
And penal stations in New South Wales
To Moreton Bay I have found no equal
Excessive tyranny each day prevails ...
From ' Moreton Bay', traditional Australian folksong.
.
1851 California's first known gang, the Sydney Ducks (from Sydney,
Australia), were blamed by some San Franciscans for a fire in their
town which followed an earthquake on May 1. Both events occurred
during the California Gold Rush (1848 - 1858).
.
It might well have been arson by an Australian: San Francisco had
already been devastated by fire on December 24, 1849, and in 1850
on May 4, June 14, and September 17 - and it was alleged a man
recognized as a Sydney-Towner was seen running from a paintshop on the
southern side of Portsmouth Square, just before building burst into
flames. Hordes of Australians started looting once the fire took hold.
.
"Several looters were shot by enraged citizens, and at least one
innocent man was killed a sailor who was fired upon as he picked up a
burning brand with which to light his pipe. As on the previous
occasions
when San Francisco was well-nigh destroyed by fire, the incendiaries
had chosen a night on which the wind blew from the east and the north.
The flames were thus carried away from Sydney-Town, and that vicious
quarter was almost the only section of the city left intact by the
conflagration. Three-fourths of San Francisco lay in ruins when
the fire finally burned itself out ..."
.
In San Francisco's gold rush days on the 'Barbary Coast', some of the
Australian gold diggers (mostly ex-convicts) had formed tribes or
gangs
with names such as the 'Sydney Ducks' and 'Sydney Coves'. There were
so many of them that the district in which they congregated, along
the waterfront at Broadway and Pacific Street, and on the slopes of
Telegraph Hill, had come to be known as Sydney-Town, on Sydney Cove.
In June, a Vigilance Committee of 400 influential men was established.
Many Aussies left the district after the June 10, 1851 lynching of
John
Jenkins, and the lynching of two Sydney Ducks named Samuel Whittaker
and
Robert McKenzie on August 24, and the vice and crime of the district
petered out, but there was a Sydney-Town of sorts for half a century.
.
"A fifth Great Fire almost destroyed San Francisco. The entire
business
district was destroyed as the fire jumped from street to street. In
less
than 10 hours, 18 blocks, with 2000 buildings, had burned. Fire loss
was
estimated $12,000,000. Fire destroyed all but the buried hulk of the
ship 'Niantic.' There was suspicion that the fire was set by the
Hounds
and Sydney Ducks. Loot from the fire was found in Sydney Town. The
fire
started at 11 p.m. on May 3 in a paint and upholstery store on the
south
side of Portsmouth Square and burned for 10 hours. James Welch of the
Monumental Engine Co. was killed along with four others when they were
trapped in an iron-shuttered building during the fire. The flames were
so bright they were seen in Monterey." Source
.
"These colonial criminals lived in ramshackle tenements and some used
their ill-gotten gains to open pubs, giving them home themed names
such
as 'The Magpie' and 'Jolly Swagman'. The taverns doubled as brothels,
gaming halls and opium dens where the currency was gold dust. Pubs and
opium dens were always busy due to the miserable lives men were forced
to live, a successful prospector could make $8 a day but profiteering
was astronomical, eggs were sold for $3 each, an apple $1 and a pair
of
new boots could cost as much as $100. However most prospectors weren't
successful, most saw their dreams go up in smoke. One in five died as
a
result of disease, accidents working their claim, malnutrition,
homicide
or suicide so alcohol, drugs and sex were popular distractions. Two of
the more infamous pubs were 'The Boar's Head' and 'Goat & Compass',
the
first run by former NSW convict George Haggerty who attracted crowds
by
getting one of his prostitutes to have sex with a boar on stage. The
second, owned by another Sydney ex-con, paid down and out Aussie
prospector 'Dirty' Tom McAlear to eat and drink excrement to entertain
crowds. McAlear made a living eating anything people gave him for 10c,
when he was arrested in 1852 for bizarre public behavior he told
police
he had been continually drunk for seven years and hadn't bathed in
that
period of time either.
.
"The Australian pubs were frequented by the worse element of San
Francisco, robbery, murder and assault were regular occurrences
outside
when prospectors lost or won gold gambling. The streets and alleyways
along the waterfront at Broadway & Pacific Streets were lined with
beggars, prostitutes and criminals waiting for a victim. 'It was
dangerous in the highest degree for a single person to venture within
its bounds. Even the police hardly dared enter there; and if they
attempted to apprehend some known individuals, it was always in a
numerous, strongly-armed company. The lawless inhabitants of the place
united to save their luckless brothers and generally managed to drive
the assailant away' Arson, burglary, vicious rape and assaults were
all hallmarks of the Sydney Ducks, whenever an atrocious crime was
committed locals would say, 'the Sydney Ducks are cackling in the
pond'.
.
"Not before or since had the Americans seen a criminal element
so vicious or all powerful as the Sydney Ducks, the blood stained
streets of Prohibition era Chicago tame by comparison to
the terror these Australians unleashed on San Francisco."
.
1855 The first women's hospital opened, New York, USA.
.
1863 Battle of Taranaki between white settlers & Maoris, New Zealand.
.
1863 American Civil War: Battle of Chancellorsville.
.
1886 The Haymarket Square Bombing
.
A bomb killed seven Chicago, Illinois, USA, police officers as they
attacked demonstrators at a labor rally protesting police brutality
the
previous day at McCormick Reaper Works. Policeman Mathias J Degan was
killed almost instantly and seven other policemen later succumbed to
injuries; four others besides were killed. Earlier in the day there
had been anarchists addressing the crowd, so the crime was slated
home to proponents of the political ideology of anarchy, despite
the fact that no evidence for such a link could be demonstrated.
.
A frame-up ensued and all the men targeted by the police were found
guilty: August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fisher, Louis Lingg and
George Engel were given the death penalty; Oscar Neebe, Samuel Fielden
and Michael Schwab were sentenced to life imprisonment. On November
10,
1887, Lingg committed suicide by exploding a dynamite cap in his
mouth.
The following day Parsons, Spies, Fisher and Engel were executed.
.
Eventually those convicted of the crimes were pardoned by the State of
Illinois after a worldwide protest at a frame-up. Unfortunately, this
did not occur in the lifetime of all the victims of the police
revenge.
On June 26, 1893, Neebe, Fielden, and Schwab, Haymarket anarchists not
already hanged by the State of Illinois the previous day, were
pardoned
by Illinois governor, John Peter Altgeld. The show trial and
convictions
were a travesty, but conservative reaction to Altgeld's action
effectively ended his political career. The Haymarket case gained
worldwide attention for the labor movement, and sparked off the
tradition of May Day labor rallies in many cities around the world.
.
In 1889, a 9-foot tall bronze statue of a Chicago policeman was
erected
near the site of the riot, becoming a subject of debate and derision.
After being moved from its original location, it was blown up at
least twice by the Weather Underground before being moved
to the lobby of police headquarters.
.
1887 Sydney, Australia: WHT McNamara and six others met as a socialist
group and began taking members. They held debates on Sundays and out
of these, and open-air meetings, grew the foundation of the Australian
Socialist League (launched on August 26 at 533 George St, Sydney),
with McNamara, George Black and Thomas Walker as leaders.
.
1887 The first modern communitarian experiment in Washington state:
The Puget Sound Cooperative Colony was founded at Port Angeles.
.
1891 Reichenbach Falls, Switzerland: Sherlock Holmes, locked in a
titanic hand-to-hand struggle with his archenemy Professor James
Moriarty ("the Napoleon of crime"), fell to his presumed death,
as did the villain.
.
It is, indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the melting
snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up
like the smoke from a burning house. The shaft into which the river
hurls itself is an immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock,
and narrowing into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth,
which brims over and shoots the stream onward over its jagged LIP.
- Arthur Conan Doyle; The Adventure of the Final Problem, 1891;
.
However, Holmes's creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, received so many
letters
demanding that he bring Holmes back, and such criticism from his
publishers, that he was convinced to resurrect his famous character.
The Adventure of the Empty House had Conan Doyle explaining that only
Moriarty fell over the cliff, but Holmes had allowed the world to
believe that he too had perished while he dodged the retribution
of Moriarty's underlings. Holmes hid out in England for two years,
unbeknown to the public, although known to criminals and the police.
.
In his memoirs Conan Doyle quotes a reader, who judged the later
stories inferior to the earlier ones, to the effect that when
Holmes went over the Reichenbach Falls, he may not have been
killed, but he was never quite the same man after.
.
Conan Doyle himself is inconsistent on Watson's familiarity with
Moriarty. In The Final Problem, Watson tells Holmes he has never
heard of Moriarty. But in The Valley of Fear, set earlier on,
Watson already knows of him as "the famous scientific criminal".
.
1895 Australian boxer Young Griffo (1871 - 1927) starred in Young
Griffo
vs. Battling Charles Barnett (filmed on the roof of Madison Square
Garden, on this day), the first motion picture to be screened before
a paying audience, on May 20, 1895 at 153 Broadway in New York City.
.
1904 Charles Rolls and Henry Royce signed a provisional
agreement to collaborate in the manufacture of automobiles.
.
1910 The Royal Canadian Navy was created.
.
1912 Italy occupied the island of Rhodes.
.
1919 May Fourth Movement: Student demonstrations took place
in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, protesting the Treaty
of Versailles, which had transferred Chinese territory to Japan.
.
1921 The libertarian & utopian 'Home Colony' in Washington State, ends
.
1926 British workers began the first-ever general strike.
.
1930 Mahatma Gandhi arrested by armed policemen and imprisoned in
Yeravada jail without trial.
.
1932 In Atlanta, Georgia, mobster Al Capone began
to serve an 11-year sentence for tax evasion.
.
1942 World War II: Battle of the Coral Sea - The battle began with the
launch of attack aircraft from American and Japanese aircraft
carriers.
.
1945 World War II: Liberation of the concentration
camp *NEUENgamme* near Hamburg by the British army.
.
1945 World War II: Surrender of the North Germany army
to Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
.
1946 In San Francisco Bay, US Marines from the Treasure Island
Marine Barracks stopped a two-day riot at Alcatraz federal prison.
Five people were killed in the riot.
.
1948 Norman Mailer's first novel, The Naked and the Dead, was
published.
.
1959 The first Grammy Awards were announced.
.
1961 American civil rights movement: 'Freedom Ride' (biracial) bus
trips
began throughout the American South, organised by James Farmer and the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to desegregate bus terminals. Many
northern civil rights activists joined their southern compatriots in
demonstrations for integration of public places, challenging
non-compliance of 1957 and 1960 civil rights legislation.
.
1969 USA: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was cancelled after the
brothers failed to submit an episode before its broadcast date.
.
1970 Vietnam War: Kent State shootings - The Ohio National Guard, sent
to Kent State University after the ROTC building was burnt down,
opened
fire on students protesting the United States' invasion of Cambodia.
Four students were killed and 9 wounded.
.
1970 Journalist Seymour Hirsch won the Pulitzer Prize
for his story on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
.
1975 Death of Moe Howard, comedian ('Three Stooges')
.
1979 Margaret Thatcher became the first female
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
.
1980 Death of Josip Broz Tito, president of Yugoslavia (b. 1892).
.
1983 USA President Reagan announced support for
the Nicaraguan Contras in their struggle against the Sandinistas.
.
1989 Thirty thousand students marched for democracy to Tienanmen
Square,
Beijing. The action led to the Tienanmen Square Massacre of June 4.
.
1989 Iran-Contra Affair: Former White House aide Oliver North
convicted of three crimes and acquitted of nine other charges.
The convictions, however, were later overturned on appeal.
.
1994 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin & PLO leader Yasser Arafat
signed a peace accord regarding Palestinian autonomy
granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
.
1998 A federal judge in Sacramento, California gave 'Unabomber'
Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski
accepted a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty.
.
1983 Space Shuttle Challenger made its maiden voyage into space.
.
2005 Death of David Hackworth (b. 1930), US Army officer and military
journalist who moved to Australia and wrote extensively against war.
-----------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer