Wednesday, May 4

This Day In History

• 1626   Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on what is now Manhattan island.
• 1776   Rhode Island declared its freedom from England, two months before the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
• 1886   At Haymarket Square in Chicago, a labor demonstration for an eight-hour workday turned into a riot when a bomb exploded.
• 1916   Responding to a demand from President Woodrow Wilson, Germany agreed to limit its submarine warfare, averting a diplomatic break with Washington.
• 1927   The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded.
• 1932   Mobster Al Capone, convicted of income-tax evasion, entered the federal penitentiary in Atlanta.
• 1942   The Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval clash fought entirely with carrier aircraft, began during World War II.
• 1945   German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany agreed to surrender during World War II.
• 1946   A two-day riot at Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay ended after five people were killed.
• 1961   A group of Freedom Riders left Washington, D.C., for New Orleans to challenge racial segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals.
• 1980   Yugoslavian dictator Josip Broz Tito died at age 87.
• 1989   Fired White House aide Oliver North was convicted of shredding documents and two other charges stemming from the Iran-Contra affair. (The convictions were overturned on appeal.)
• 1994   Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed an accord on Palestinian autonomy that granted self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
• 1998   Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was given four life sentences plus 30 years by a federal judge in Sacramento, Calif., under a plea agreement that spared him the death penalty.
• 2001   Bonny Lee Bakley, wife of actor Robert Blake, was shot to death in Los Angeles. (Blake was later charged with murder).

Happy Birthday To

• 1889   Cardinal (Francis) Joseph Spellman (Roman Catholic clergy leader; died Dec 2, 1967)
• 1909   Howard Da Silva (Silverblatt) (actor: The Lost Weekend, The Great Gatsby, Mommie Dearest, Abe Lincoln in Illinois; died Feb 16, 1986)
• 1941   George F. Will (Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist)
• 1954   Pia Zadora (Schipani) (actress)