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Wednesday, May 6, 1998

  • Today's Events
  • On Horizon
  • On This Day
  • Newslink
  • Notable
  • Almanac archive
  • "It is fitting that a piece of the Berlin Wall is in this building. America's resolve and American ideals, so clearly articulated by Ronald Reagan, helped to bring that wall down."

    -- President Clinton, at the dedication of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday





    Today's events


  • the Children and the Media conference will be held in Los Angeles to examine the media's portrayals of race and class and their impact on children.

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    On the horizon


  • On Thursday, May 7, Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan delivers keynote address at Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's 34th annual conference.

  • On Friday, May 8, the Dalai Lama is scheduled to visit Brandeis University as part of his five-state tour of the United States.

  • On Saturday, May 9, Vice President Gore delivers the commencement address at South Carolina State University.

  • On Sunday, May 10, national elections will be held in Hungary.

  • On Monday, May, 11, presidential elections will be held in the Philippines.

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    On this day


  • In 1527, Rome was sacked when troops under Charles, Duke of Bourbon, pillaged the city and killed some 4,000 inhabitants.

  • In 1626, a Dutch settler, Peter Minuit, bought what is now Manhattan Island from the Indians for a handful of trinkets worth no more than 25 dollars.

  • In 1757, Frederick II of Prussia attacked Austrian troops defending Prague in the Seven Years' War. The attack succeeded and Prague fell with 10,000 Austrian casualties.

  • In 1758, Maximilien-Francois-Marie-Isidore de Robespierre, one of the principal figures of the French revolution, born.

  • In 1840, the first adhesive postage stamps, the Penny Black and the Twopenny Blue, went on sale in Britain.

  • In 1856, Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist and founder of psychoanalysis, born.

  • In 1856, Robert Edwin Peary, U.S. Arctic explorer, born. He led the first expedition to reach the North Pole in 1909.

  • In 1861, Arkansas voted to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy.

  • In 1863, in the American Civil War, the battle of Chancellorville ended when the Confederates under General Lee heavily defeated Federal troops under Hooker.

  • In 1864, the Civil War battle of the Wilderness in Virginia ended; General Lee's Confederate forces defeated a superior Federal force led by General Grant.

  • In 1882, British statesman Lord Cavendish was murdered by Irish nationalists soon after arriving in Dublin as chief secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

  • In 1895, Rudolph Valentino, Italian-born U.S. film star and idol of the silent cinema, born. His films included "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," "The Sheik" and "Blood and Sand."

  • In 1910, Edward VII, king of Great Britain and Ireland from January 1901, died. His son acceeded to the throne as George V.

  • In 1915, Orson Welles, U.S. actor, director, producer and writer, born. His film "Citizen Kane" is regarded as one of the most influential films in history.

  • In 1919, Lyman Frank Baum, U.S. author of children's stories about the imaginary land of Oz, died. The film version of his "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" became a cinema classic.

  • In 1919, the Paris Peace Conference disposed of Germany's colonies; German East Africa was assigned as a League of Nations mandate to Britain and France, German South-West Africa as a mandate to South Africa.

  • In 1932, President Paul Doumer was assassinated by a Russian emigre in Paris.

  • In 1937, the German airship Hindenburg hit the landing mast on arrival at Lakehurst, N.J., and burst into flames, killing 36 people.

  • In 1941, Russian dictator Josef Stalin appointed himself chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (head of the government).

  • In 1942, the island fortress of Corregidor in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese.

  • In 1945, the U.S. Third Army captured Pilsen in Czechoslovakia; General Johannes Blaskowitz surrendered the German armies in The Netherlands.

  • In 1954, British athlete Roger Bannister became the first athlete to run a mile in under four minutes, recording a time of 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.

  • In 1960, the sister of Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret, married Anthony Armstrong-Jones in Westminster Abbey.

  • In 1968 - The worst street fighting in Paris since the liberation shook the left bank as students and police fought for control of the fashionable Boulevard St. Germain. The University of the Sorbonne was closed.

  • In 1974, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt resigned after an aide was arrested on charges of spying for East Germany.

  • In 1976, an earthquake struck the town of Udine in northern Italy, killing 973 people and leaving over 100,000 homeless.

  • In 1979, in Austria's general election, Dr. Bruno Kreisky's Socialist Democratic Party was returned to power for a fourth consecutive term.

  • In 1981, the U.S. expelled all Libyan diplomats, citing was it said was the Libyan government's support for international terrorism.

  • In 1983, in Germany, alleged diaries supposedly written by dictator Adolf Hitler and published by Stern Magazine and the Sunday Times were declared fakes.

  • In 1990, Soviet authorities agreed to open for just one day eight crossing points along a 400-km (260-mile) stretch of the River Prut, which had marked the division of Moldavia between Romania and the Soviet Union since 1945.

  • In 1990, former president P.W. Botha quit South Africa's ruling National Party as a protest against the apartheid reform program of his successor F.W. de Klerk.

  • In 1992, Marlene Dietrich, film's legendary femme fatale, died. The German-born actress shot to fame as cabaret singer Lola-Lola in "The Blue Angel" and then took Hollywood by storm with such classics as "The Scarlet Empress" and "The Devil is a Woman."

  • In 1994, Nelson Mandela and his ANC named their team for a post-apartheid government of national unity.

  • In 1994, Britain and France were joined for the first time since the Ice Age by an undersea tunnel hailed as one of the great engineering feats of the 20th century.

  • In 1996, Guatemala's leftist guerrillas signed a key accord in talks with the government of President Alvaro Arzu aimed at ending 35 years of civil war.

  • In 1996, the body of former CIA Director William Colby was found at a river's edge nine days after he apparently drowned while canoeing in southern Maryland.

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    Newslink


    Baseball is a kid's game. And kids have connected with a good idea for a baseball Web site. Read Baseball: the game and beyond


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    Notable


  • Muslims commemorate death of Muhammad's grandson and the Battle of Karbala.

  • It is Martyrs Day in Lebanon and Syria.

  • It is the halfway point of spring.

  • It is National Tourist Appreciation Day.

  • It is National Anxiety Disorders Screening Day.

  • British Prime Minister Tony Blair is 45.

  • Actor George Clooney is 37.

  • Baseball great Willie Mays is 67.

  • Rock singer Bob Seger is 53.

  • U.S. Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama is 64.

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    Sources: Associated Press,
    Chase's Calendar of Events 1998, J.P. Morgan

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