9th May: Today In History

Today is Tuesday, May 9th, the 129th day of 2017. There are 236 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

Events:

1754:  A political cartoon in Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette depicted a snake cut into eight pieces, each section representing a part of the American colonies; the caption read, “JOIN, or DIE.”

1814:  The Jane Austen novel “Mansfield Park” was first published in London.

In 1864, Union Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick was killed by a Confederate sniper during the Civil War Battle of Spotsylvania in Virginia.

1914:  President Woodrow Wilson, acting on a joint congressional resolution, signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

1926:  Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett supposedly became the first men to fly over the North Pole. (However, U.S. scholars announced in 1996 that their examination of Byrd’s flight diary suggested he had turned back 150 miles short of his goal.)

1936:  Italy annexed Ethiopia.

1945:  With World War II in Europe at an end, Soviet forces liberated Czechoslovakia from Nazi occupation. U.S. officials announced that a midnight entertainment curfew was being lifted immediately.

1951:  The U.S. conducted its first thermonuclear experiment as part of Operation Greenhouse by detonating a 225-kiloton device on Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific nicknamed “George.”

1961:  In a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton N. Minow decried the majority of television programming as a “vast wasteland.”

1974:  The House Judiciary Committee opened public hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. (The committee ended up adopting three articles of impeachment against the president, who resigned before the full House took up any of them.)

1980:  35 people were killed when a freighter rammed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida, causing a 1,400-foot section of the southbound span to collapse.

1987:  183 people were killed when a New York-bound Polish jetliner crashed while attempting an emergency return to Warsaw.

1994:  South Africa’s newly elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the country’s first black president.

Birthdays:

Actor-writer Alan Bennett is 83.

Rock musician Nokie Edwards (The Ventures) is 82.

Actor Albert Finney is 81.

Actress-turned-politician Glenda Jackson is 81.

Producer-director James L. Brooks is 80.

Musician Sonny Curtis (Buddy Holly and the Crickets) is 80.

Singer Tommy Roe is 75.

Singer-musician Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield and Poco) is 73.

Actress Candice Bergen is 71.

Pop singer Clint Holmes is 71. 

Quotes Of The Day: 

Make yourself a priority. At the end of the day, you’re your longest commitment.

When you wake up each day, you should be filled with excitement because you know the day is going to be full of great things.