1541 - South of present-day Memphis, Tennessee, Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River, one of the first European explorers to ever do so. After building flatboats, de Soto and his 400 ragged troops crossed the great river under the cover of night, in order to avoid the armed Native Americans who patrolled the river daily in war canoes. From there the conquistadors headed into present-day Arkansas, continuing their fruitless two-year-old search for gold and silver in the American wilderness.  In late May 1539, de Soto landed on the west coast of Florida with 600 troops, servants, and staff, 200 horses, and a pack of bloodhounds. From there, the army set about subduing the natives, seizing any valuables they stumbled upon, and preparing the region for eventual Spanish colonization. Traveling through Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, across the Appalachians, and back to Alabama, de Soto failed to find the gold and silver he desired, but he did seize a valuable collection of pearls at Cofitachequi, in present-day Georgia.  For the most part, the Indian warriors they met were intimidated by the Spanish horsemen and kept their distance. In October 1540, however, the tables were turned when a confederation of Indians attacked the Spaniards at the fortified Indian town of Mabila, near present-day Mobile, Alabama. All the Indians were killed along with 20 of de Soto's men. Several hundred Spaniards were wounded. In addition, the Indian conscripts they had come to depend on to bear their supplies fled with the baggage. De Soto could have marched south to reconvene with his ships along the Gulf Coast, but instead he ordered his expedition northwest in search of America's elusive riches. In May 1541, the army reached and crossed the Mississippi River. From there, they traveled through present-day Arkansas and Louisiana, still with few material gains to show for their efforts. Turning back to the Mississippi, de Soto died of a fever on its banks on May 21, 1542. In order that Indians would not learn of his death, and thus disprove de Soto's claims of divinity, his men buried his body in the Mississippi River. The Spaniards, now under the command of Luis de Moscoso, traveled west again, crossing into north Texas before returning to the Mississippi. With nearly half of the original expedition dead, the Spaniards built rafts and traveled down the river to the sea, and then made their way down the Texas coast to New Spain, finally reaching Veracruz, Mexico, in late 1543.
    1639 - William Coddington founded Newport, RI.
    1783 - The first salute fired by Great Britain in honor of an officer of the United States was fired when General George Washington and Governor George Clinton arrived at the British ship Ceres, commanded by Sir Guy Carleton, in New York Harbor to arrange for the British evacuation. When they departed, 178 guns were fired in honor of Washington's rank. New York was evacuated by the British on November 25, 1783.
    1784 - A fatal hailstorm hit Winnsborough, South Carolina. An account was found in the South Carolina Gazette: "hailstones or rather pieces of ice measured about 9 inches in circumference: it killed several people, plus a great number of sheep, lambs, geese, and the feathered inhabitants of the woods without number". Piles of hail were reportedly still in existence 46 days later.
    1792 - British Captain George Vancouver sights and names Mount Rainier, WA in honor of his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier.
http://www.oregonpioneers.com/vancver.htm
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Rainier/Locale/framework.html
    1792 – The US established the military draft.
    1816 - The American Bible Society was organized in the Dutch Reformed Church on Garden Street in NY City. The non-profit society was instituted to promote wider circulation of the Scriptures by publishing Bibles without notes or comments.
    1829 - Birthday of Louis Moreau Gottschalk at New Orleans, LA.  American pianist of international fame who toured the US during the Civil War. Gottschalk composed for the piano combining American and Creole folk themes and rhythms in his work. He died Dec. 18, 1869, at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
http://www.louismoreaugottschalk.com/
http://www.viridianaproductions.com/ameori.htm
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=407
    1835 - Augusta Jane Evans Wilson’s birthday in Columbus, GA.  Novelist whose work is critically described today as sentimental and overblown, woman-stuff, but it sold very well in the mid-19th century. She wrote nine novels, all of which involved Southern life. The unstated fact is that more than just women read her works. A Civil War report states that a Union general ordered all copies of her book, “Macaria”, in the possession of his troops were to be burned and the soldiers forbidden to read it. Heady actions for a book that only women read! “Macaria” was written in support of the Confederate position.  She died in Mobile, Al in 1909.
http://search.eb.com/women/articles/Wilson_Augusta_Jane_Evans.html
http://www.lib.usm.edu/~archives/m152.htm
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/WW/fwi49.html
    1847 - Robert Thompson of Scotland patented the rubber tyre.
    1858 – John Brown held an anti-slavery convention.  In January 1858, Brown set off to visit Frederick Douglass in Rochester, NY. There he discussed his plans with Douglass, and wrote a Provisional Constitution that would create a government for a new state in the region of his invasion. Brown then traveled to Peterboro, NY and Boston to discuss matters with the Secret Six. In letters to them, he indicated that, along with recruits, he would go into the South equipped with weapons to do "Kansas work", a reference to his heavy involvement in “Bleeding Kansas” in 1856.  Brown and twelve of his followers, including his son Owen, traveled to Chatham, Ontario, where he convened a Constitutional Convention with the help of Dr. Martin Delaney. One-third of Chatham's 6,000 residents were fugitive slaves, and it was here that Brown was introduced to Harriet Tubman. The convention assembled 34 blacks and 12 whites to adopt Brown's Provisional Constitution. According to Delaney, during the convention, Brown illuminated his plans to make Kansas rather than Canada the end of the Underground Railroad.
    1861 – Richmond was named the capital of the Confederacy.       
    1862 - In a major engagement in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of the Civil War, General Stonewall Jackson's rebel forces repulsed an attack by Union forces at McDowell, VA.
    1846 - Zachary Taylor victory at Palo Alto protects the new state of Texas as five days later the U.S. declares war against Mexico. On May 8, near Palo Alto, and the next day at Resaca de la Palma, Taylor led his 200 soldiers to victories against much larger Mexican forces. Poor training and inferior armaments undermined the Mexican army's troop advantage. Mexican gunpowder, for example, was of such poor quality that artillery barrages often sent cannonballs bouncing lazily across the battlefield, and the American soldiers merely had to step out of the way to avoid them. Following his victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, Taylor crossed the Rio Grande and took the war into Mexican territory. During the next 10 months, he won four battles and gained control over the three northeastern Mexican states. The following year, the focus of the war shifted elsewhere, and Taylor's role diminished. Other generals continued the fight, which finally ended with General Winfield Scott's occupation of Mexico City in September of 1847. Zachary Taylor emerged from the war a national hero. Americans admiringly referred to him as "Old Rough and Ready" and erroneously believed his military victories suggested he would be a good political leader. Elected president in 1848, he proved to be an unskilled politician who tended to see complex problems in overly simplistic ways. In July 1850, Taylor returned from a public ceremony and complained that he felt ill. Suffering from a recurring attack of cholera, he died several days later.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/may08.html
    1884 - Harry S. Truman's birthday is a holiday in Missouri. He was born in Lamar, MO. He was the 33rd president of the United States, succeeded to that office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt April 12, 1945. He was the last of nine presidents who did not attend college. Affectionately, he was nicknamed "Give 'em Hell Harry" by admirers.  Under Truman, the Allies successfully concluded World War II.   During World War I, he served in combat as an artillery officer. Truman was first elected to public office as a county official and became a US Senator in 1935. He gained national prominence as head of the Truman Committee, formed in March 1941, which exposed waste, fraud, and corruption in wartime contracts.  During World War II, while Nazi Germany surrendered a few weeks after Truman assumed the Presidency, the war with Japan was expected to last another year or more. Truman approved the use of atomic weapons, intending to force Japan’s surrender and spare American lives in a planned invasion.  His presidency was a turning point in foreign affairs, as his government supported a foreign policy in conjunction with European allies. Following the war, Truman assisted in the founding of the UN, issued the Truman Doctrine to contain communism, and passed the $13 billion Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, including the Axis Powers, whereas the wartime ally Soviet Union became the peacetime enemy, and the Cold War began. He oversaw the Berlin Airlift of 1948 and the creation of NATO in 1949. When communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, he immediately sent in U.S. troops and gained UN approval for the Korean War. After initial success, the UN forces were thrown back by Chinese intervention and the conflict was stalemated through the final years of Truman's presidency.  He died in 1972.  http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html
    1886 - Dr. John S. Pemberton, a pharmacist, first sold his secret elixir, Coca Cola, receiving $2300. It was originally used for medicinal purposes. The patent had a very slight ingredient called Cocaine in it. The new makers decided to eliminate it, as it could not be tasted. Nevertheless, the drink was to become a ”staple” of world sodas.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/may08.html
    1877 - At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opened.
    1879 - George Selden filed for the first patent for a gasoline-driven automobile.  The witness Selden chose was a local bank-teller, George Eastman, later to become famous for the Kodak empire.   His application included not only the engine but its use in a 4 wheeled car. He filed a series of amendments to his application which stretched out the legal process resulting in a delay of 16 years before the patent was granted on November 5, 1895.  Shortly thereafter the fledgling American auto industry began its first efforts and George Selden, despite never having gone into production with a working model of an automobile, had a credible claim to have patented an automobile in 1895.  In 1899, he sold his patent rights to William C. Whitney for a royalty of $15 per car with a minimum annual payment of $5,000. Whitney and Selden then worked together to collect royalties from other budding automobile manufacturers. He was initially successful, negotiating a 0.75% royalty on all cars sold. He began his own car company in Rochester under the name Selden Motor Vehicle Company.  However, Henry Ford and four other car makers resolved to contest the patent infringement suit filed by Selden. The legal fight lasted eight years, was heavily publicized, and ended in a victory for Selden. In his decision, the judge wrote that the patent covered any automobile propelled by an engine powered by gasoline vapor. Posting a bond of $350,000, Ford appealed, and on January 10, 1911, won his case based on an argument that the engine used in automobiles was not based on George Brayton's engine, the Brayton engine which Selden had improved, but on the Otto engine.  This stunning defeat, with only one year left to run on the patent, destroyed Selden's income stream. Selden suffered a stroke in late 1921 and died on January 17, 1922. It is estimated he received several hundred thousand dollars in royalties.
    1893 - Birthday of Francis Desales Ouimet at Brookline, MA. American amateur golfer who is credited with establishing the popularity of golf in the US. His golfing career began as a caddy. In 1912, at age 20, he generated national enthusiasm for the game when he became the first American and first amateur to win the US Open Golf Championship. He won the US Amateur Championships in 1914 and 1931, and was a member of the US Walker Cup team from its first tournament in 1922 until 1949, serving as the non-playing captain for six of those years. In 1951, he became the first American to be elected Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland. Ouimet died at Newton, MA on Sept.2, 1967.
    1893 – Birthday of Baseball Hall of Fame centerfielder Edd Roush in Oakland City, IN.  Roush was elected to the Hall in 1962.  Although he played for several teams in his 18 year career, his best were with the Cincinnati Reds and was with them when they beat the Black Sox in the 1919 Series.  His career batting average is .323 and never struck out more than 25 times is a season. He died in 1988.
    1895 – Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was born in El Paso, IL.  For 20 years as Father, later Monsignor, Sheen hosted the night-time radio program “The Catholic Hour” (1930–1950) before moving to television and presenting “Life is Worth Living”. (1951–1957). Sheen's final presenting role was on the syndicated “The Fulton Sheen Program” (1961–1968). For this work, Sheen twice won an Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality, the only personality appearing on the DuMont Television Network ever to win a major Emmy award.  Bishop Sheen died in 1979.
    1905 - Birthday of trumpeter player Loring “Red” Nichols in Orem, UT.
http://www.redhotjazz.com/redn.html
http://www.music.duke.edu/jazz_archive/artists/nichols.ernest.red
/01/back.html
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0052809
    1907 - Blood flowed on the streets of San Francisco as a result of the attempt of the United Rail Roads Company to operate its cars. Along Truck Street where the first six cars were sent, men and boys lined the sidewalks hurling bricks and clubs at the cars.
    1910 - Birthday of Mary Lou Williams in Atlanta.  Arranger, composer, and pianist, she is known as the "Queen of Jazz." A child prodigy, she toured while still in elementary school. Her piano playing was outstanding. She wrote a number of well-known jazz tunes and is considered a main contributor to the development of bebop. She arranged and created music for most of the big bands from Duke Ellington to the Dorsey’s. She converted to Catholicism after an emotional crisis while she was touring in France and went into a retreat. She composed several masses and religious music but she returned to the jazz/swing stage. Mary Lou Williams was artist in residence at Duke University where she died in 1981.
http://www.duke.edu/~lmr/
http://www.eyeneer.com/Jazz/Williams/
http://kennedy-center.org/programs/jazz/womeninjazz/1stlady.html
http://www.duke.edu/~lmr/
http://www.eyeneer.com/Jazz/Williams/
    1911 - The birthday of perhaps one of greatest blues guitarists, Robert Johnson,at Hazelhurst,MS.  He was murdered at age 27, Aug16, 1938, at Greenwood, MS (poisonedby a jealous husband, they sing). In his short life, Johnson was a master blues guitarist, a singer and songwriter of great influence. He developed a unique guitar style of such skill that it was said he acquired his ability by selling his soul to the Devil—the film Crossroads is based very loosely on this myth. Johnson's only two recording sessions captured for us the classics “Sweet Home Chicago,” “Cross Road Blues,” “Me and the Devil Blues” and others. Johnson was inducted posthumously into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
http://www.blueflamecafe.com/index.html
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MUSIC/rjhome.html
    1912 - Film and television production/distribution studio Paramount Pictures was founded
    1915 – The first filly to win the Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs, Louisville, KY, was “Regret”, Harry Payne Whitney's chestnut filly. She ran the mile and a quarter in 2 minutes, 5.4 seconds to win the 41st Kentucky Derby. There were 16 starters.
    1919 - Edward George Honey first proposed the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate The Armistice of World War I, which later results in the creation of Remembrance Day.   It is now Veterans’ Day in the US.
    1924 - Arthur Honegger's "Pacifica 231" premieres.
http://arthur-honegger.com/anglais/index.htm
    1926 - Founding of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters by A. Philip Randolph and Milton P. Webster.
    1926 - Birthday of Don Rickles in Queens, NY.  Comedian, actor, one of my favorites, still performing today.
http://www.delafont.com/comedians/Don-Rickles.htm
    1926 – The first flight over the North Pole was accomplished by Floyd Bennett and Richard Byrd.
    1927 - Attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, French war heroes Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli disappear after taking off aboard “The White Bird” biplane.
    1928 – Ted Sorenson was born in Lincoln, NE.  Among President Kennedy’s best and brightest, Sorenson was Kennedy’s special counsel, adviser, and legendary speechwriter. President Kennedy once called him his "intellectual blood bank”.  He died in 2010.
    1931 - Birthday of Stan Beckman, landscape artist.
www.stanbeckman.com
    1937 – Mike Cuellar was born in Cuba.  Over 15 seasons with several clubs, his best years were with the Baltimore Orioles during their great seasons from the late 1960s-early 1970s.  Cuellar won 20 or more games four times and shared the 1969 Cy Young Award with Denny McLain, becoming the first Latin-American to win a Cy Young award.  Cuellar died in 2010.
    1939 - Clay Puett installed a two-stall working model of his new electric starting gate for horse races at Hollywood Park, Inglewood, CA. The first full-size gate was used at Bay Meadows Race Track, San Mateo, CA, on October 7, 1939. The gates were equipped with a bomb-release type of lock operated by solenoids. The front doors when closed formed a V and opened outwards by means of springs.
    1940 - Singer Rick Nelson was born Eric Hilliard Nelson in Teaneck, New Jersey. His parents, Ozzie and Harriet, had a popular radio show, and Ricky joined the cast at the age of eight. The show moved to TV in the 1950's, and as a result of its popularity, Ricky Nelson gained a recording contract. "A Teenager's Romance" and "I'm Walkin" was a double-sided hit for him in 1957. Nelson had more than 35 records on the Billboard Hot 100 chart until 1963. Among them - "Stood Up," "Poor Little Fool" and "Travellin' Man", the latter believed to be the first record accompanied by video, a forerunner of today’s DVD’s. In the late '60s, he became Rick instead of Ricky, and turned to a more country-oriented style. His autobiographical song "Garden Party" was a top-ten record in 1972. On New Year's Eve, 1985, Nelson, his fiancée and five members of his Stone Canyon Band were killed in a plane crash in northeastern Texas.
http://www.ricknelson.com/
    1940 - Author Peter Benchley (“Jaws”) was born in NYC.
    1941 – Gene Krupa with Anita O'Day record "Let Me Off Uptown" (Okey).  “Say, Roy, Have You Ever Been Uptown?”
http://www.anitaoday.com/
http://www.drummerman.net/
    1942 - The Battle of the Coral Sea began, which greatly impeded Japanese expansion and introduced a new form of naval warfare. None of the surface vessels exchanged fire---the entire battle was waged by aircraft. The victory gave people at home much optimism and renewed faith as the US lost their first aircraft carrier, destroyer and tanker. The Lexington aircraft carrier was commanded by Rear Admiral Frederick Carl Sherman, which took two bombs and two aircraft torpedoes. Some 150 men were killed. The Japanese lost seven warships, including a carrier, and the loss changed their war plans, as outlined in "Victory at Sea."
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/coralsea/coralsea.htm
http://history.acusd.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/coral.html
http://users.pandora.be/dave.depickere/Text/coral.html
    1943 - Birthday of Toni Tennille, singer, who, with husband Daryl Dragon made up The Captain and Tennille, was born Catherine Antoinette Tennille in Montgomery, AL.  They have five albums certified gold or platinum and scored numerous hits on the US singles charts, the most enduring of which included "Love will Keep Us Together", "Do That to Me One More Time", and "Muskrat Love". They hosted their own television variety series on ABC in 1976–77.  One of the longer-enduring marriages in show business, they divorced in 2014.
http://www.tonitennille.net/
    1945 - Stalin refused to recognize the document of unconditional surrender signed at Reims the previous day, so a second signing was held at Berlin. The event was turned into an elaborate formal ceremony by the Soviets who had lost some 10 million lives during the war. The surrender documents set one minute past midnight, which was 9:01pm EST in the U.S on May 9, and although it was first officially declared V.E. Day (Victory in Europe), it later became to be observed on May 8 as it was actually celebrated in the United States.
    1946 - Glenn Gould first appeared as a pianist with orchestra. He played the first movement of Beethoven's "Concerto Number Four" with the Toronto Conservatory of Music Orchestra. Gould was only 13 years old at the time.
    1947 - A movement among St. Louis Cardinal players to protest their first game against Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers was aborted by a talk from St. Louis owner Sam Breadon.
    1949 - No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: "Riders in the Sky," Vaughn Monroe.
    1952 - Top Hits
Blue Tango - The Leroy Anderson Orchestra
Blacksmith Blues - Ella Mae Morse
Anytime - Eddie Fisher
Easy on the Eyes - Eddy Arnold
    1954 - World-record holder William Parry O'Brien of the US became the first shot-putter to clear 60 feet with a throw of 60 feet, 65 ¼ inches, at a meet in Los Angeles. O'Brien won gold medals at the 1952 and 1956 Olympics and a silver medal at the 1960 games.
    1955 – “Flounder” was born in Norfolk, VA.  Actor Stephen Furst played the role in “Animal House”.
    1958 - Ernest Green becomes the first Black person to graduate from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.  President Eisenhower ordered the National Guard out of Central HS.
    1958 – Vice President Nixon was shoved, stoned, booed and spat upon by protesters in Peru.
    1959 - Birthday of Ronald Mandel “Ronnie” Lott, Hall of Fame football player, born Albuquerque, NM.  He spent most of his career with, and is best known for, the Team of the 80s, the five-time Super Bowl Champion San Francisco Forty-Niners.  A first-round pick in the 1981 NFL Draft, Lott was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2000 with teammate Joe Montana in 2000, and is widely considered one of the best and fiercest-hitting defensive backs in NFL history. The Niners retired his #42 in 2003.
    1960 - Top Hits
“Stuck on You” - Elvis Presley
“Sink the Bismarck” - Johnny Horton
“Sixteen Reasons” - Connie Stevens
“He'll Have to Go” - Jim Reeves
    1961 – The Metropolitans change their name, to play in the Polo Grounds the following year, to the Mets.
    1961 – The first practical sea water conversion plant went online at Freeport, Texas.  Someone please inform California!!
    1962 – “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” opens at the Alvin Theater in New York starring Zero Mostel. The hit lasts for 964 performances.
http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Lobby/4320/
    1963 – Setting off a multi-generational craze, Ian Fleming’s "Dr No" premiered in the US.
    1966 - Frank Robinson of the Orioles became the only player ever to hit a home run out of Baltimore's Memorial Stadium. His long drive over the left-field wall, off Luis Tiant of the Cleveland Indians, traveled an estimated 451 feet.
http://www.primenet.com/~jpmill/bball/robf.htm
    1966 - The St. Louis Cardinals played their last game in old Busch Stadium, formerly known as Sportsman's Park, losing to the San Francisco Giants, 10-5. They opened new Busch Memorial Stadium on May 12.
    1968 - Top Hits
“Honey”” - Bobby Goldsboro
“Tighten Up” - Archie Bell & The Drells
“Young Girl” - The Union Gap
The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde - Merle Haggard
    1968 - Jim “Catfish” Hunter of the Oakland Athletics pitched a perfect game, defeating the Minnesota Twins, 4-0. This was the first regular-season perfect game in the American League since Charlie Robertson turned the trick in 1922.
http://www.hertfordbaptist.org/hunter.html
    1969 - No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In," The 5th Dimension.
    1970 - The Beatles 13th album, “Let It Be”, was released in the United Kingdom on this date. The album zoomed to number one on the record charts. It was the last album the Beatles made together.
    1970 - The New York Knicks won their first NBA title, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers, 113-99, in Game 7 of the finals. The Knicks were led by injured center Willis Reed, who limped onto the court to score the game's first two baskets, and guard Walt Frazier, who scored 36 points.
    1970 - *KEITH, MIGUEL, Medal of Honor
Rank and organization: Lance Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps, Combined Action platoon 1-3-2, 111 Marine Amphibious Force. place and date: Quang Ngai province, Republic of Vietnam, 8 May 1970. Entered service at: Omaha, Nebr. Born: 2 June 1951, San Antonio, Tex. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a machine gunner with Combined Action platoon 1-3-2. During the early morning L/Cpl. Keith was seriously wounded when his platoon was subjected to a heavy ground attack by a greatly outnumbering enemy force. Despite his painful wounds, he ran across the fire-swept terrain to check the security of vital defensive positions and then, while completely exposed to view, proceeded to deliver a hail of devastating machine gun fire against the enemy. Determined to stop 5 of the enemy soldiers approaching the command post, he rushed forward, firing as he advanced. He succeeded in disposing of 3 of the attackers and in dispersing the remaining 2. At this point, a grenade detonated near L/Cpl. Keith, knocking him to the ground and inflicting further severe wounds. Fighting pain and weakness from loss of blood, he again braved the concentrated hostile fire to charge an estimated 25 enemy soldiers who were massing to attack. The vigor of his assault and his well-placed fire eliminated 4 of the enemy soldiers while the remainder fled for cover. During this valiant effort, he was mortally wounded by an enemy soldier. By his courageous and inspiring performance in the face of almost overwhelming odds, L/Cpl. Keith contributed in large measure to the success of his platoon in routing a numerically superior enemy force, and upheld the finest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the U.S. Naval Service.
    1970 - Construction workers broke up an anti-war rally on Wall Street.
    1972 - Keyboards player and singer Billy Preston became the first rock performer to headline at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
    1972 - President Nixon announced his order to place mines in major North Vietnamese ports in order to stem the flow of weapons and other goods to that nation.
    1973 – Hall of Famer Ernie Banks filled in for Cubs manager Whitey Lockman who was ejected during the game, and technically became baseball's first African-American manager.  Frank Robinson became the first African-American hired for that purpose when he took over the 1975 Cleveland Indians.
    1973 – Native Americans surrendered after holding of Wounded Knee, SD for 10 weeks.
    1976 - Top Hits
“Welcome Back” - John Sebastian
“Right Back Where We Started From” - Maxine Nightingale
“Boogie Fever” - Sylvers
“My Eyes Can Only See as Far as You” - Charley Pride
    1976 - The rollercoaster Great American Revolution, the first steel coaster with a vertical loop, opened at Magic Mountain north of LA.
    1976 - On stage during Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue in Houston, Willie Nelson joins Bob for a stirring rendition of the country standard "Will The Circle Be Unbroken," dedicated (as is the concert itself) to freeing wrongfully convicted ex-boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter from his murder sentence.
    1977 - No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: "When I Need You," Leo Sayer.
    1979 - Radio Shack releases TRSDOS 2.3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-DOS
    1980 - The World Health Organization confirmed the eradication of smallpox.
    1981 - Thunderstorms moved through Tarrant and Dallas Counties in Texas. It would become what one insurance expert called "The Worst Hailstorm In American History". 100 plus mph straight line thunderstorm winds caused damage in Western Tarrant County. 2 homes were destroyed and many more were damaged. Baseball and softball size hail damaged roofs. Insurance estimates indicated the hail and wind damage in Tarrant and Dallas Counties would exceed 179 million dollars and uninsured losses would exceed 200 million dollars. These figures made it the worst severe thunderstorm in American weather history until 1990.
    1982 - An all-woman jury took a scant 5.5 hours to give Al Davis a green light to move the Raiders to Los Angeles against the wishes of the National Football League and unhappy Oakland.
    1982 - A group of seasoned L.A. studio musicians calling themselves Toto, enter the Billboard Pop chart with "Roseanna". The record will climb from #81 all the way to the top and be named Record of the Year at the 1983 Grammy Awards.
    1984 - Top Hits
“Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” - Phil Collins
“Hello” - Lionel Richie
“Hold Me Now” - The Thompson Twins
“I Guess It Never Hurts to Hurt Sometimes” - The Oak Ridge Boys
    1984 - USSR announced it will not participate in Los Angeles Summer Olympics after the US withdrew from the 1980 Olympics in Moscow in protest over Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.
    1985 - Larry Bird scored a career-high 43 points to lead the Boston Celtics to a 130-123 win over the Detroit Pistons.
    1987 - Twenty-eight cities in the northwestern U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date. The record high of 95 degrees at Redding, CA was their fifth in a row, and the record high of 102 degrees at Hanover, WA was just one degree shy of their record for May.
    1987 - Gary Hart quit the Democratic presidential race when his affair with model Donna Rice was uncovered. He was predicted to
win and his dropping out changed the direction of American history.
    1988 - A major tornado outbreak occurred over the central U.S. 57 tornadoes touched down with the majority of them in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin. The 22 tornadoes in Iowa was the most in one day for the state. There were over 200 reports of damaging winds and large hail. One of the tornadoes in Iowa was on the ground for 67 miles from Bloomfield to Conesville.
    1988 - No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: "Anything for You," Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine. The song is the group's first No. 1 hit.
    1988 - Top Hits
“Anything For You” - Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine
“Shattered Dreams” - Johnny Hates Jazz
“Wishing Well” - Terence Trent D'Arby
“One More Try” - George Michael
“Pink Cadillac” - Natalie Cole
    1988 - A fire at Illinois Bell’s Hinsdale Central Office triggered an extended network outage once considered the "worst telecommunications disaster in US telephone industry history".
    1989 - An early version of Prodigy's commercial online service, the company's "videotex" service began experiencing intermittent outages, as the company began rolling the service out nationally. Prodigy had introduced its services in limited markets in October 1988. About 55,000 subscribers had joined the service, a joint venture of Sears and IBM.
    1992 - A vigorous upper level low pressure system stalled out over the Carolinas for the past 3 days unloaded tremendous amounts of snow over the western North Carolina Mountains above 4000 feet. Mt. Pisgah (elevation 5721 feet) recorded an incredible 60 inches over the 3 day period, tying the all-time single storm snowfall record for the state. Mt. Mitchell (elevation 6684 feet) was buried under 30 inches of very wet snow. On the previous day, the Greenville-Spartanburg Weather Service Office in Greer, South Carolina had snow mixed with rain, making this the latest date and the first time in May that snow had fallen at this location.
    1993 - Aerosmith's "Get a Grip" enters The Billboard 200 top pop album chart at No. 1, becoming the group's highest-debuting album and highest-charting album ever. The group's previous highpoint was "Rocks," which peaked at No. 3 in 1976.
    1993 - Top Hits
“Freak Me” - Silk
“That’s The Way Love Goes” - Janet Jackson
“Informer” - Snow
“Love Is”  (From "Beverly Hills, 90210") - Vanessa Williams/Brian McKnight
    1994 – President Clinton announced that the US will no longer repatriate boat people.
    1995 - Thunderstorms with torrential rains struck the New Orleans, Louisiana area. Audubon Park recorded 8.5 inches of rain in only 2 hours. Several locations had over 14 inches total ending early on the 9th. 5 people were killed in the flooding and damage exceeded one billion dollars.
    1997 - Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams formally presented Capt. Betty P. Kelepecz with a commander's badge, making her the highest-ranking female officer LAPD history. Kelepecz, who earned a law degree and became an attorney while rising through the department's ranks, is noted as an effective leader and administrator. Just before Kelepecz's promotion, an internal report confirmed former Det. Mark Fuhrman's allegations that a group of male officers in the West Los Angeles police station repeatedly harassed female colleagues.  "We didn't see it as harassment back then, we saw it as playing along, doing what you needed to do to survive," Capt. Kelepecz said. "Some male officers would say to me, 'I don't think you belong on the job."  She said that the attitudes of some of her male colleagues toward women during the early part of her career would not be tolerated in today's LAPD. She recalls enduring inappropriate and demeaning comments and even outright hostility as a young officer. At the time of Kelepecz's promotion, LAPD was 17.3% female.
http://www.lapdonline.org/c_o_s/kelepecz_b_bio.htm
http://www.nawlee.com/bpkelepecz.html
    1998 - Cardinal Mark McGwire reaches the 400th career home run mark. Big Red's historic milestone comes in 4,727 at-bats (127 less at-bats than Babe Ruth) which is the least plate appearances ever needed to reach the mark.
    1998 - Top Hits
“Too Close” - Next
“My Al” - Mariah Carey
“You’re Still The One” - Shania Twain
“Everybody” [Backstreet’s Back] - Backstreet Boys
“Truly Madly Deeply” - Savage Garden
    2006 - Apple Computer won a long, long legal battle over rights to sell music over the internet without violating the trademark of the Beatles' Apple label.
    2008 - Earth Wind and Fire vocalists Maurice White and Philip Bailey, along with Steve Winwood, are all granted honorary doctorates in music from Boston's famous Berklee College of Music.
    2010 - The last piece of Yankee Stadium falls in The Bronx, marking the end of the two year demolition process.  The new Yankee Stadium opened across River Ave in 2009.

NBA Champions
    1970 - New York Knicks