Today is Sunday, May 6, the 126th day of 2018. There are 239 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 6, 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.
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 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 1968, French student protesters and police clashed outside the Sorbonne in Paris, resulting in hundreds of arrests and injuries.
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 winner of a competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
In 1992, former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev delivered a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where Winston Churchill had spoken of the “Iron Curtain”; Gorbachev said the world was still divided, between North and South, rich and poor. Actress Marlene Dietrich died at her Paris home at age 90.
Ten years ago: 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. Kobe Bryant won his first MVP award after leading the Los Angeles Lakers to the best record in the Western Conference.
Five years ago: Kidnap-rape victims Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who went missing separately about a decade earlier while in their teens or early 20s, were rescued from a house just south of downtown Cleveland. (Their captor, Ariel Castro, hanged himself in prison in September 2013 at the beginning of a life sentence plus 1,000 years.) Grammy-winning singer Lauryn Hill was sentenced by a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, to three months in prison for failing to pay about $1 million in taxes over the previous decade. Italian statesman Giulio Andreotti, 94, died in Rome.
One year ago: A Nigerian military official said 83 Chibok (chih-BAWK’) schoolgirls had been released more than three years after they were abducted from their boarding school by Boko Haram (BOH’-koh hah-RAHM’) extremists. Women banged on pans and some stripped off their white shirts as they protested Venezuela’s socialist government in an event the opposition billed as a “women’s march against repression.” Always Dreaming won the Kentucky Derby, pulling away in the slop, to win by 2 3/4 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 84. Rock singer Bob Seger is 73. Singer Jimmie Dale Gilmore is 73. Gospel singer-comedian Lulu Roman is 72. Actor Alan Dale is 71. Actor Ben Masters is 71. Actor Richard Cox is 70. Actor Gregg Henry is 66. 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 (GA’-bah-ray SIH’-duh-bay) is 35. Actress-comedian Sasheer Zamata is 32. Rapper Meek Mill is 31. Actress-singer Naomi Scott is 25. Actor Noah Galvin is 24.
Thought for Today: “The people no longer believe in principles, but will probably periodically believe in saviours.” — Jacob Christoph Burckhardt, Swiss historian (1818-1897).
