Wednesday, May 6, 1998
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
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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