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Friday, May 15, 2015

Happy Birthday, L. Frank Baum!
  • Sunrise: 6:00am
  • Sunset: 8:13pm
  • Moonrise: 4:28am (waning)
  • Moonset: 5:42pm

Special Celebrations today include:

  • Independence Day - Paraguay
  • International Day of Families
  • Mother's Day - Samoa
  • Peace Officer Memorial Day -US
  • San Isidro - Spain
  • San Isidro Labrador - Peru
  • Teacher's Day - South Korea
  • International Conscientious Objector Day
  • Hyperemisis Gravidarum Awareness Day
  • International Day of Families
  • National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day
  • International MPS Awareness Day
  • National Tuberous Sclerosis Day
  • Nylon Stockings Day
  • Straw Hat Day
  • Endangered Species Day
  • International Virtual Assistants Day
  • O. Henry Pun-off Day
  • NASCAR Day
  • National Bike to Work Day
  • National Defense Transportation Day
  • National Pizza Party Day

On this day in...

1602 - Cape Cod was discovered by Bartholomew Gosnold.

1614 - An aristocratic uprising in France ended with the treaty of St.Menehould.

1618 - Johannes Kepler discovered his harmonics law.

1702 - The War of Spanish Succession began.

1768 - Under the Treaty of Versailles, France purchased Corsica from Genoa.

1795 - Napoleon entered the Lombardian capital of Milan.

1849 - Neapolitan troops entered Palermo, and were in possession of Sicily.

1856 - Lyman Frank Baum, author of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," was born.

1862 - The U.S. Congress created the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

1911 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil Company, ruling it was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

1916 - U.S. Marines landed in Santo Domingo to quell civil disorder.

1918 - Regular airmail service between New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, began under the direction of the Post Office Department, which later became the U.S. Postal Service.

1926 - Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth were forced down in Alaska after a four-day flight over an icecap. Ice had begun to form on the dirigible Norge.

1926 - The New York Rangers were officially granted a franchise in the NHL. The NHL also announced that Chicago and Detroit would be joining the league in November.

1930 - Ellen Church became the first female flight attendant.

1940 - Nylon stockings went on sale for the first time in the U.S.

1941 - Joe DiMaggio began his historic major league baseball hitting streak of 56 games.

1942 - Gasoline rationing began in the U.S. The limit was 3 gallons a week for nonessential vehicles.

1948 - Israel was attacked by Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon only hours after declaring its independence.

1951 - AT&T became the first corporation to have one million stockholders.

1957 - Britain dropped its first hydrogen bomb on Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean.

1958 - Sputnik III, the first space laboratory, was launched in the Soviet Union.

1963 - The last Project Mercury space flight was launched.

1964 - The Smothers Brothers, Dick and Tom, gave their first concert in Carnegie Hall in New York City.

1970 - U.S. President Nixon appointed America's first two female generals.

1970 - Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, two black students at Jackson State University in Mississippi, were killed when police opened fire during student protests.

1972 - Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, MD while campaigning for the U.S. presidency. Wallace was paralyzed by the shot.

1975 - The merchant ship U.S. Mayaguez was recaptured from Cambodia's Khmer Rouge.

1980 - The first transcontinental balloon crossing of the United States took place.

1983 - In Boston,MA, the Madison Hotel was destroyed by implosion.

1988 - The Soviet Union began their withdrawal of its 115,000 troops from Afghanistan. Soviet forces had been there for more than eight years.

1990 - Vincent Van Gogh's "Portrait of Doctor Gachet" was sold for $82.5 million. The sale set a new world record.

1997 - The Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off on a mission to deliver urgently needed repair equipment and a fresh American astronaut to Russia's orbiting Mir station.

1999 - The Russian parliament was unable a attain enough votes to impeach President Boris Yeltsin.

2014 - The National September 11 Memorial Museum was dedicated in New York City

Birthday celebrants today include (or included)...

  • Lyman Frank Baum 1856
  • Pierre Curie 1859
  • Katherine Anne Porter 1890
  • Joseph Cotten 1905
  • James Mason 1909
  • Constance Cummings 1910
  • Max Frisch 1911
  • Eddy Arnold 1918
  • Ellis Larkins 1923
  • Richard Avedon 1923
  • Peter Shaffer 1926
  • Jasper Johns 1930
  • Wavy Gravy (Hugh Nanton Romney) 1936
  • Paul Zindel 1936
  • Anna Maria Alberghetti 1936
  • Trini Lopez 1937
  • Madeleine Albright 1937
  • Lenny Welch 1938
  • Paul Rudd 1940
  • Lainie Kazan 1940
  • K.T. Oslin 1942
  • Graeham Goble 1947
  • Brian Eno 1948
  • Chazz Palminteri 1951
  • Pat Hickey 1953
  • George Brett 1953
  • Mike Oldfield 1953
  • Lee Horsley 1955
  • John Smoltz 1967
  • Emmitt Smith 1969
  • Prince Be 1970
  • David Charvet 1972
  • Ahmet Rodan Zappa 1974
David Latulippe is host of On the Arts, KALW's weekly radio magazine of the performing arts, as well as for Explorations in Music, and the Berkeley Symphony broadcasts. He has also hosted and produced the radio series From the Conservatory, Music from Mills, and Music at Menlo, and is principal guest host for Revolutions Per Minute.