Friday, May 6

This Day In History

• 1861   Arkansas seceded from the Union.
• 1882   Over President Chester A. Arthur's veto, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from the United States for 10 years.
• 1889   The Paris Exposition formally opened, featuring the just-completed Eiffel Tower.
• 1895   Silent-screen star Rudolph Valentino was born in Castellaneta, Italy.
• 1910   Britain's King Edward VII died.
• 1935   The Works Progress Administration began operations.
• 1941   Josef Stalin assumed the Soviet premiership, replacing Vyacheslav M. Molotov.
• 1942   Some 15,000 Americans and Filipinos on Corregidor surrendered to the Japanese during World War II.
• 1954   Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford, England, finishing in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.
• 1960   Britain's Princess Margaret married Anthony Armstrong Jones, a commoner, at Westminster Abbey.
• 1987   CIA Director William J. Casey died at age 74.
• 1992   Actress Marlene Dietrich died at age 90.
• 1994   Former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones filed suit against President Clinton, alleging he'd sexually harassed her in 1991.
• 1994   Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterrand formally opened the Channel Tunnel between their countries.
• 1996   The body of former CIA director William E. Colby was found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he'd disappeared.
• 1997   Hemophiliacs who contracted AIDS between 1978 and 1985 from tainted blood products accepted a $600 million settlement from four health-care companies.
• 2001   John Paul II, during a trip to Syria, became the first pope to enter a mosque.
• 2002   Right-wing Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was shot and killed in Hilversum, Netherlands.
• 2002   Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was freed after 19 months of house arrest.

Happy Birthday To

• 1758   Maximilian Robespierre (French revolutionary; executed [guillotine] July 28, 1794)
• 1856   Sigmund Freud (psychiatrist, originated psychoanalysis; died Sep 23, 1939)
• 1856   Robert E. Peary (explorer: discoverer of the North Pole, Greenland, and the Melville meteorite; died Jan 20, 1920)
• 1895   Rudolph Valentino (Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina) (actor: The Big Little Person, The Delicious Little Devil, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Blood and Sand, Sheik; died Aug 23, 1926)
• 1903   (Bernard) Toots Shor (restaurateur, barkeep; died Jan 23, 1977)
• 1961   George (Timothy) Clooney (actor: E/R)