Thursday May 8, 2014

KALW | By Ichabod Cranium

Published May 8, 2014 at 5:36 AM PDT

Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation For Those Who Lost Their Lives During the WW II
World Red Cross Day
Anniversary - V-E Day
Liberation Day-Czech Republic
Liberation Day-Slovakia
Victory Day-France
Yom Ha'Zikkaron (Remembrance Day)-Israel
Parent’s Day-South Korea
Red Cross Day-Australia

On This Day In …
1792 --- Congress passes the second portion of the Militia Act, requiring that every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years be enrolled in the militia.

1886 --- Dr. John S Pemberton first sold his secret elixir. It was originally used for medicinal purposes. So Dr. Pemberton went to the right place to sell his new product: Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta,

GA. Three years later, Dr. Pemberton figured that his secret formula had been enough of a success for him to sell out. He did just that, for $2,300. Even in 1889 dollars, $2,300 was a mere drop in the bucket for what the still very classified, secret formula would be worth. That formula is now used in a product that sells about 350 million cans and bottles a day in nearly 200 countries.

1899 --- The Countess Cathleen by William Butler Yeats opens at the Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin, the theater's inaugural performance.

1914 --- U.S. Congress passed law designating 2nd Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

1915 --- H.P. Whitney's Regret captured the Kentucky Derby. The horse was the first filly to win the Run for the Roses in Louisville, KY.
1933 --- Gandhi began a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.
1943 --- The Germans suppressed a revolt by Polish Jews and destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto.
1944 --- The first "eye bank" was established, in New York City.

1945 --- Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine. The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark--the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany.
1956 --- Alfred E. Newman appeared on the cover of "Mad Magazine" for the first time.
1961 --- The New York Metropolitan Baseball Club Inc. selected the Mets as the name for their National League baseball franchise that would begin play at the Polo Grounds in 1962.

1962 -- Zero Mostel starred in one of his most famous roles, in the Broadway production ofA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The comedy opened at the Alvin Theatre in New York City. Audiences laughed through the entertaining show for a total of 964 performances.
1968 --- Catfish Hunter was pitching for Oakland in an American League baseball game against Minnesota. By the end of the game, with a score of 4-0, Catfish made history. Hepitched what turned out to be the ninth perfect game in major-league baseball history.
1970 --- The album "Let It Be" by the Beatles was released.
1970 --- President Nixon, at a news conference, defends the U.S. troop movement into Cambodia, saying the operation would provide six to eight months of time for training South Vietnamese forces and thus would shorten the war for Americans. Nixon reaffirmed his promise to withdraw 150,000 American soldiers by the following spring.

1973 --- On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, armed members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) surrender to federal authorities, ending their 71-day siege of Wounded Knee, site of the infamous massacre of 300 Sioux by the U.S. 7th Cavalry in 1890. AIM was founded in 1968 by Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and other Native-American leaders as a political and civil rights organization. From November 1969 to June 1971, AIM members occupied Alcatraz Island off San Francisco, saying they had rights to it under a treaty provision granting them unused federal land. In November 1972, AIM members briefly occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., to protest programs controlling reservation development. Their actions were acclaimed by many Native Americans, but on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Oglala Sioux Tribal President Dick Wilson had banned all AIM activities. AIM considered his government corrupt and dictatorial, and planned the occupation of Wounded Knee as a means of forcing a federal investigation of his administration. By taking Wounded Knee, The AIM leaders also hoped to force an investigation of other reservations, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and broken Indian treaties. In addition to its historical significance, Wounded Knee was one of the poorest communities in the United States and shared with the other Pine Ridge settlements some of the country's lowest rates of life expectancy.

1978 --- David Berkowitz pleaded guilty in Brooklyn to the "Son of Sam" killings.
1980 --- The World Health Organization declared that smallpox had been eradicated worldwide.

1981 --- Fernando Valenzuela, the sensational crowd-pleasing pitcher of the Los Angeles Dodgers, won his fifth shutout of the young baseball season. Fernando went on to win eight games without a loss and posted an amazing ERA of just 0.50.

1986 --- Reporters were told that 84,000 people had been evacuated from areas near the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Soviet Ukraine.

1987 --- Gary Hart, dogged by questions about his personal life, withdrew from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
1988 --- Stella Nickell is convicted on two counts of murder by a Seattle, Washington, jury. She was the first person to be found guilty of violating the Federal Anti-Tampering Act after putting cyanide in Excedrin capsules in an effort to kill her husband.

1990 --- Tom Waits won $2.5 million when a Los Angeles court ruled that Frito-Lay unlawfully used a Waits sound alike in its Doritos ads.

1998 --- A pipe burst leaving a million residents without water in Malaysia's capital area. This added to four days of shortages that 2 million already faced.

2000 --- The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved legislation banning discrimination based on Height or Weight.

2010 --- 88-year-old actress Betty White, known for her former roles on “The Golden Girls” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” becomes

the oldest person to host the long-running, late-night TV sketch comedy show “Saturday Night Live” (SNL). White’s hosting gig came about, in part, after hundreds of thousands of her fans signed onto a Facebook campaign rallying for it.

KALW NEWSLETTERS