6th May: Today In History

Today is Saturday, May 6th, the 126th day of 2017. There are 239 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History;

Events:

1937:  The hydrogen-filled German airship Hindenburg burned and crashed in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 35 of the 97 people on board and a Navy crewman on the ground.

1889:  The Paris Exposition formally opened, featuring the just-completed Eiffel Tower.

1910:  Britain’s Edwardian era ended with the death of King Edward VII; he was succeeded by George V.

1935:  The Works Progress Administration began operating under an executive order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1941:  Josef Stalin assumed the Soviet premiership, replacing Vyacheslav M. Molotov. Comedian Bob Hope did his first USO show before an audience of servicemen as he broadcast his radio program from March Field in Riverside, California.

1942:  During World War II, some 15,000 American and Filipino troops on Corregidor surrendered to Japanese forces.

1954:  Medical student Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford, England, in 3:59.4.

1957:  Eugene O’Neill’s play “Long Day’s Journey into Night” won the Pulitzer Prize for drama; John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” won the Pulitzer for biography or autobiography.

1960:  Britain’s Princess Margaret married Antony Armstrong-Jones, a commoner, at Westminster Abbey. (They divorced in 1978.)

1974:  West German Chancellor Willy Brandt resigned after one of his aides was exposed as an East German spy.

1987:  Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart held a news conference in Hanover, New Hampshire, in which he denied ever having an affair with Miami model Donna Rice, but declined to say whether he’d ever committed adultery. CIA Director William J. Casey died at age 74, leaving questions unanswered about his knowledge of the Iran-Contra affair.

1992:  Former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev delivered a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where Winston Churchill had spoken of the “Iron Curtain”; Gorbachev said the world was still divided, between North and South, rich and poor. Actress Marlene Dietrich died at her Paris home at age 90.

2002:  Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn (pihm fohr-TOWN’) was shot and killed in Hilversum, Netherlands. (Volkert van der Graaf was later convicted of killing Fortuyn and was sentenced to 18 years in prison — he was released in May 2014.)

Birthdays:

Baseball Hall-of-Famer Willie Mays is 86.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., is 83.

Rock singer Bob Seger is 72.

Singer Jimmie Dale Gilmore is 72.

Gospel singer-comedian Lulu Roman is 71.

Actor Alan Dale is 70.

Actor Ben Masters is 70.

Actor Richard Cox is 69.

Actor Gregg Henry is 65.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is 64.

Quotes Of The Day:

Spread love and care. Be the light, not the dark. Darkness happens, but light takes a sparks or the sun.

The most beautiful thing is to see a person you love smiling. And even more beautiful is knowing that you are the reason behind it.