Saturday, May 7

This Day In History

• 1789   The first inaugural ball was held in New York in honor of President and Mrs. George Washington.
• 1812   Poet Robert Browning was born in London.
• 1825   Italian composer Antonio Salieri died in Vienna, Austria
• 1833   Composer Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany.
• 1840   Composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in the Ural region of Russia.
• 1847   The American Medical Association was founded in Philadelphia.
• 1915   Nearly 1,200 people died when a German torpedo sank the British liner Lusitania off the Irish coast.
• 1939   Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
• 1954   The Battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam ended after 55 days with Vietnamese insurgents overrunning French forces.
• 1960   Leonid Brezhnev replaced Marshal Kliment Voroshilov as president of the Supreme Soviet.
• 1984   A $180 million out-of-court settlement was announced in the Agent Orange class-action suit brought by Vietnam veterans who charged they had suffered injury from exposure to the defoliant.
• 1992   A 203-year-old proposed constitutional amendment barring Congress from giving itself a midterm pay raise was ratified when Michigan became the 38th state to approve it.
• 1998   The parent company of Mercedes-Benz agreed to buy Chrysler Corp. for more than $37 billion.
• 1999   NATO jets struck the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three people and injuring 20; President Clinton called the attack a ''tragic mistake.''
• 1999   A jury in Pontiac, Mich., ordered ''The Jenny Jones Show'' to pay $25 million to the family of a gay man who was shot to death after revealing a crush on a male guest on the talk show. (The award was overturned on appeal.)
• 2000   President Vladimir Putin took the oath of office in Russia's first democratic transfer of power.
• 2001   Ronnie Biggs, the ''Great Train Robber,'' who had eluded capture for decades following his prison escape in 1965, returned to Britain, where he was arrested and jailed to complete the 28 remaining years of his sentence.
• 2002   Authorities arrested college student Luke J. Helder in a series of rural mailbox bombings that left six people wounded in Illinois and Iowa.

Happy Birthday To

• 1812   Robert Browning (poet)
• 1833   Johannes Brahms (composer)
• 1901   Gary (Frank James) Cooper
• 1919   Eva (Evita) Peron
• 1933   Johnny Unitas (Pro Football Hall of Famer)