TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MAY 9
1502 Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his final trip to the New World.
1671 Thomas “Captain” Blood stole the crown jewels from the Tower of London.
1754 The first newspaper cartoon in America showed a divided snake “Join or die” in “The Pennsylvania Gazette.”
1785 Joseph Bramah patented the beer-pump handle.
1864 Union General John Sedgwick is shot and killed by a Confederate sharpshooter during fighting at Spotsylvania. His last words are: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist–”
1865 President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation declaring the end of the American Civil War
1925 Rum runners were chased today by the Coast Guard and were forced to dump 100 cases of Liquor in the Delaware River as part of the Rum War between smugglers and Coast Guard
1926 Explorers Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make the first flight over the North Pole.
1941 The German submarine U-110 is captured at sea along with its Enigma machine by the Royal Navy.
1956 A British naval diver ( Commander Lionel “Buster” Crabb ) goes missing and is later found dead during a Goodwill Visit by a Soviet cruiser carrying Soviet leaders Nikita Khruschev and Marshal Nikolai Bulganin.
1960 US becomes the first country to legalize the birth control pill
1962 A laser beam is successfully bounced off the moon for the first time.
1974 The House Judiciary Committee begins formal hearings on Nixon impeachment.
1978 The bullet-riddled body of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro was found in an automobile in the center of Rome. The Red Brigades had abducted him.
1979 Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is executed
An Islamic revolutionary tribunal had convicted him of “contacts with Israel and Zionism” and “friendship with the enemies of God”. His execution triggered a Jewish mass exodus from Iran.
1980 A Liberian freighter hit the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida. 35 motorists were killed and a 1,400-foot section of the bridge collapsed.
1994 The first cases of the Ebola Virus in the latest outbreak in Gabon, are identified which cause the death of 9 of those infected with the virus
1996 In video testimony to a courtroom in Little Rock, AR, U.S. President Clinton insisted that he had nothing to do with a $300,000 loan in the criminal case against his former Whitewater partners.
1997 Pete Peterson becomes the first U.S. ambassador to visit Vietnam after the end of the war
Peterson, a Vietnam veteran, devoted himself to promoting reconciliation between the two countries.
2001 During a soccer match at Accra Stadium in Ghana, following problems with local soccer fans and police a stampede by fans causes the deaths of 126 supporters.
2002 In Bethlehem, West Bank, a deal was reached that would end the 38-day standoff at the Church of the Nativity. Thirteen suspected militants were to be deported to several different countries. The standoff had begun on April 2, 2002.
2004 Chechnya’s Moscow-backed leader, Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed in a bombing. Six others were killed and another 60 wounded.
2007 Six foreign men were arrested for planning an attack on the Fort Dix army base in New Jersey. The FBI infiltrated the group after being alerted of suspicious video footage by a video store.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
