Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include German educator Friedrich Froebel, who established the concept of the kindergarten, in 1782; English novelist Charlotte Bronte in 1816; James Starley, English inventor of the geared bicycle, in 1830; naturalist and author John Muir in 1838; German sociologist Max Weber in 1864; actor Anthony Quinn in 1915; Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in 1926 (age 82); comedian, actress and director Elaine May in 1932 (age 76); actor/director Charles Grodin in 1935 (age 73); rock singer Iggy Pop in 1947 (age 61); actress/singer Patti LuPone in 1949 (age 59); actor Tony Danza in 1951 (age 57); and actress Andie MacDowell in 1958 (age 50).
In 1836, with the battle cry, "Remember the Alamo!" Texas forces under Sam Houston defeated the army of Mexican Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna at San Jacinto, Texas, opening the door to Texas independence.
In 1918, the notorious German World War I flying ace, Manfred von Richthofen, known as "The Red Baron," was killed by Allied fire over Vaux-sur-Somme, France.
In 1954, U.S. Air Force planes began flying French troops to Indochina to reinforce Dien Bien Phu. The city later fell to communist Viet Minh forces.
In 1967, a Greek army coup in Athens sent King Constantine into exile in Italy.
In 1975, Nguyen Van Thieu resigned as president of South Vietnam after denouncing the United States as untrustworthy. His replacement, Tran Van Huong, prepared for peace talks with North Vietnam as communist forces advanced on Saigon.
In 1987, the bombing of a bus terminal in Colombo, Sri Lanka, killed 127 people and wounded 288.
In 1992, killer Robert Alton Harris became the first person executed in California's gas chamber in 25 years.
Also in 1992, gas explosions ripped through the historic center of Guadalajara, Mexico, killing more than 200 people and injuring hundreds more.
In 1993, the 11-day siege at a prison near Lucasville, Ohio, ended. Ten people died.
In 1995, Timothy McVeigh, 27, arrested 90 minutes after the Oklahoma City federal building explosion because he was driving without license plates, was charged in the bombing.
In 1996, the Olive Tree coalition, including many former communists, won more than one-third of all the seats in the lower house of the Italian parliament.
In 2003, Iraq's interim leader, retired U.S. Gen. Jay Garner, arrived in Baghdad amid international debate over how long U.S.-led forces should remain in Iraq.
Also in 2003, China announced an additional four deaths and 109 cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome, indicating SARS was continuing to spread in the country where 86 deaths and close to 2,000 cases already had been reported.
In 2004, a series of coordinated car bombings at police buildings in Basra, Iraq, killed more than 50 people, including about 20 school children.
In 2005, the U.S. Senate approved the nomination of John Negroponte to be the nation's first national intelligence director.
Also in 2005, insurgents shot down a civilian helicopter north of Baghdad, killing all 11 aboard including six U.S. contractors.
And, Brazil granted asylum to former Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez after he was ousted from office.
In 2006, U.S. oil prices hit a record high, topping $75 a barrel, and the cost of regular gasoline at the pump soared to more than $3 gallon in some parts of the nation.
Also in 2006, King Gyanendra, Nepal's embattled monarch, agreed to restore a democratic government to his country.
In 2007, an aircraft of the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels precision flight team crashed during an air show in Beaufort, S.C., killing the pilot and injuring eight people on the ground.
The moon is waning. The morning stars are Venus, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. The evening stars are Mercury, Mars and Saturn.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include Spanish Queen Isabella I, who funded the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the New World, in 1451; English novelist Henry Fielding in 1707; German philosopher Immanuel Kant in 1724; Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, leader of Russia's 1917 Communist revolution, in 1870; pioneer nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in 1904; actor Eddie Albert in 1906; violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin in 1916; jazz bass player Charles Mingus in 1922; actress Charlotte Rae in 1926 (age 82); TV producer Aaron Spelling in 1923; singer Glen Campbell in 1936 (age 72); actor Jack Nicholson in 1937 (age 71); filmmaker John Waters in 1946 (age 62); rock guitarist and singer Peter Frampton in 1950 (age 58); actor Ryan Stiles in 1959 (age 49); comedian/TV host Byron Allen in 1961 (age 47); and actor Chris Makepeace in 1964 (age 44).
In 1500, Brazil was discovered by Pedro Alvarez Cabral.
In 1509, Henry VIII became king of England.
In 1889, some 20,000 homesteaders massed along the border of the Oklahoma Territory, awaiting the signal to start the Oklahoma land rush.
In 1914, Babe Ruth made his professional baseball debut, as a pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles.
In 1915, during World War I, German forces became the first to use poison gas on the Western Front.
In 1972, Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charles Duke walked and rode on the surface of the moon for 7 hours, 23 minutes.
In 1985, Jose Sarney was sworn in as Brazil's first civilian president in 21 years.
In 1990, Muslim extremists in Lebanon freed a U.S. hostage for the first time in more than three years, releasing college professor Robert Polhill after 39 months in captivity.
In 1991, at least 70 people were killed and 500 more injured when an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale struck Costa Rica.
In 1993, Gov. Guy Hunt, Alabama's first Republican governor since the Reconstruction, was removed from office after being convicted of felony ethics violations.
In 1994, Richard Nixon, the 37th U.S. president and the only U.S. president to resign his office, died four days after suffering a stroke. He was 81.
In 1997, a 126-day standoff at the Japanese Embassy in Lima ended when Peruvian commandos stormed the building and freed 72 hostages held by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. All 14 rebels were killed.
In 2000, in a predawn raid, armed U.S. immigration agents broke into the Miami house where Elian Gonzalez had been staying and took charge of the 6-year-old Cuban refugee, flying him to Washington to be reunited with his Cuban father.
In 2003, hundreds of thousands of Shiites journeyed to Karbala for annual religious observances banned under Saddam Hussein and many called on Americans to go home.
In 2004, former NFL star Pat Tillman, who turned down a lucrative contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the U.S. Army Rangers, was killed in Afghanistan. The U.S. military said later he was a victim of friendly fire.
In 2005, Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man charged in the United States in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
In 2006, Iraq's parliament ratified the selection of Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister, ending a four-month political deadlock.
Also in 2006, incumbent Mayor Ray Nagin was the top vote getter in a field of 21 as New Orleans voters held their first post-Katrina election. He later won a runoff with Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu.
In 2007, gunmen in the Iraqi city of Mosul killed 23 followers of Yazidi, a religious minority, after they were pulled from their bus. Individuals of other faiths were unharmed.
Also in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy and Sergolene Royal finished 1-2 in the French presidential election and headed for a May 6 runoff. Sarkozy won the runoff.
The moon is waning. The morning stars are Venus, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. The evening stars are Mercury, Mars and Saturn.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include English playwright William Shakespeare in 1564; James Buchanan, 15th president of the United States, in 1791; Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev in 1891; novelist Vladimir Nabokov in 1899; actress/diplomat Shirley Temple Black in 1928 (age 80); singer Roy Orbison in 1936; actors Lee Majors and David Birney, both in 1939 (age 69), Herve Villechaize in 1943; and actresses Sandra Dee in 1942, Joyce DeWitt in 1949 (age 59), Jan Hooks ("Saturday Night Live") in 1957 (age 51), Valerie Bertinelli in 1960 (age 48) and Melina Kanakaredes in 1967 (age 41).
In 1635, the first public school in America, the Boston Latin School, opened.
In 1898, the first movie theater opened at Koster and Bials Music Hall in New York City.
In 1898, the U.S. government asked for 125,000 volunteers to fight against Spain in Cuba.
In 1965, more than 200 U.S. planes struck North Vietnam in one of the heaviest raids of the Vietnam War
In 1985, former U.S. Sen. Sam Ervin died at age 88. The North Carolina Democrat directed the Senate Watergate investigation that led to U.S. President Richard Nixon's resignation.
In 1987, an apartment building under construction in Bridgeport, Conn., collapsed, killing 28 construction workers.
In 1990, the West German government bowed to East German demands and agreed to a 1-1 exchange rate between East and West marks, clearing the path to a planned currency union.
In 1991, Virgilio Pablo Paz Romero was arrested for the 1976 car-bomb killing of Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier in Washington.
In 1992, former Washington Mayor Marion Barry was released from prison after serving a six-month term for cocaine possession.
Also in 1992, McDonald's opened its first restaurant in Beijing.
In 1993, United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez died at age 66 of apparent natural causes.
In 2002, Pope John Paul II met at the Vatican with U.S. cardinals to discuss the sexual abuse scandal that had rocked the Roman Catholic clergy. He expressed an apology to victims of abuse, saying what had happened to them was a crime and "an appalling act in the eyes of God."
In 2003, after a 10-day stalemate, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat reached agreement on a new Cabinet with his choice for prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas.
In 2004, U.S. Marines killed about 30 insurgents in a two-day firefight that began on this date outside Fallujah, Iraq.
In 2005, public health officials in Vietnam said they feared the South Asian outbreak of bird flu was likely to spawn a pandemic.
In 2006, Hungary's Socialist-Liberal coalition recaptured government control by a comfortable majority in parliamentary elections.
Also in 2006, the Roman Catholic Church and the Chinese Communist Party reportedly were moving slowly toward normal relations for the first time.
In 2007, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who faced down army tanks during the fall of the Soviet Union, died of cardiac arrest at the age of 76.
Also in 2007, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he was ordering a halt to construction of a wall separating a Sunni neighborhood from other parts of Baghdad.
The moon is waning. The morning stars are Venus, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. The evening stars are Mercury, Mars and Saturn.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include English novelist Anthony Trollope in 1815; artist Willem de Kooning in 1904; U.S. poet laureate Robert Penn Warren in 1905; actresses Shirley MacLaine in 1934 (age 74) and Jill Ireland in 1936; singer, actress and director Barbra Streisand in 1942 (age 66); Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley in 1942 (age 66); and actors Eric Bogosian in 1953 (age 55) and Michael O'Keefe in 1955 (age 53).
In 1704, the Boston News Letter became the first American newspaper to be published on a regular basis.
In 1800, the U.S. Congress established the Library of Congress.
In 1877, U.S. troops moved out of New Orleans, ending the North's military occupation of the South following the Civil War.
In 1981, IBM introduced its first personal computer.
In 1986, the Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Warfield Simpson, for whom England's King Edward VIII gave up his throne, died in Paris at age 89.
In 1987, genetically altered bacteria, designed to prevent frost damage, were sprayed on a California strawberry field in the first test of such biotechnology in nature.
In 1991, the first U.N. peacekeeping forces were deployed along the Kuwait-Iraq border.
Also in 1991, Freddie Stowers, a World War I corporal, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor to become the first African-American to receive the highest medal for valor in combat.
In 1993, an IRA bomb blast rocked London's financial district, injuring at least 35 people.
In 1995, the "UNAbomber" struck with a mail bomb that killed Gilbert Murray, president of the California Forestry Association, in Sacramento.
In 1996, the Palestinian National Council voted to drop its official commitment to the destruction of Israel.
In 1997, with ratification by the U.S. Senate, the United States became the 75th country to approve the Chemical Weapons Convention.
In 1998, after threats from Russian President Boris Yeltsin and two negative votes, the Russian parliament approved Yeltsin's nomination of Sergei Kiriyenko as the nation's premier.
In 2003, North Korea announced it had nuclear weapons and had begun making bomb-grade plutonium.
In 2004, Greek Cypriot voters overwhelmingly rejected a U.N. plan for the reunification of the divided Mediterranean island.
In 2005, Benedict XVI was installed in Rome as the 265th Roman Catholic pope, promising to continue the policies of John Paul II.
In 2006, three coordinated bomb blasts shattered part of the popular Egyptian resort town of Dahab, killing a reported 30 people and injuring more than 115 others.
Also in 2006, police in Kansas and Alaska report breaking up two plots by middle school and high school students for school massacres hours before they were to begin.
In 2007, Toyota overtook General Motors as No. 1 in global vehicle sales from January to March largely because of increased demand for fuel-efficient cars.
Also in 2007, Mexico City lawmakers voted to legalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a landmark decision in the largely Roman Catholic country.
The moon is waning. The morning stars are Venus, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. The evening stars are Mercury, Mars and Saturn.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include Oliver Cromwell, lord protector of England, in 1599; Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the radio telegraph, in 1874; U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan in 1906; pioneer broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow in 1908; singer Ella Fitzgerald in 1917; former Harlem Globetrotters basketball player George "Meadowlark" Lemon III in 1932 (age 76); and actors Al Pacino in 1940 (age 68), Talia Shire in 1946 (age 62), Hank Azaria in 1964 (age 44) and Renee Zellweger in 1969 (age 39).
In 1507, German geographer and mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller published a book in which he named the newly discovered continent of the New World "America" after the man he mistakenly thought had discovered it, Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci.
In 1859, ground was broken for the Suez Canal at Port Said, Egypt.
In 1862, Union forces captured New Orleans during the Civil War.
In 1898, the U.S. Congress formally declared war on Spain in the battle over Cuba.
In 1901, New York became the first state to require license plates on automobiles.
In 1945, delegates of 46 countries gathered in San Francisco to organize a permanent United Nations.
In 1967, the first law legalizing abortion in the United States was signed into law by Colorado Gov. John Arthur Love.
In 1982, Israel turned over the final third of the occupied Sinai Peninsula to Egypt under the Camp David peace agreement.
In 1990, space shuttle Discovery astronauts released the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. The telescope was determined to be flawed, prompting another space mission to repair it.
Also in 1990, Violeta Chamorro assumed the Nicaraguan presidency, ending more than a decade of leftist Sandinista rule.
In 1991, the United States announced its first financial aid to Hanoi since the 1960s: $1 million to make artificial limbs for Vietnamese disabled during the war.
In 1993, an estimated 300,000 people took part in a gay rights march on the National Mall in Washington.
In 1994, the Japanese Diet elected Tsutomu Hata as prime minister.
In 1995, regular season play by major league baseball teams got under way, the first official action since the longest strike in sports history began in August 1994.
In 2000, Vermont approved a measure legalizing "civil unions" among same sex couples becoming the first state in the nation to give homosexual couples the same legal status as heterosexual married couples.
In 2001, the Japanese Diet elected Junichiro Koizumi, a former Health and Welfare minister, as the country's prime minister.
In 2002, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia presented U.S. President George Bush with an Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal and reportedly warned that the United States must do more to stop Israeli incursions in Palestinian territory.
In 2003, Chinese health officials closed a second hospital and ordered about 4,000 people in Beijing to stay home as the number of cases and deaths from severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, continued to surge in the country.
Also in 2003, Farouk Hijazi, the former director of external operations for Iraqi intelligence and a former ambassador to Tunisia and Turkey, was arrested as a suspect in an alleged 1993 Kuwait plot to assassinate former U.S. President George H.W. Bush in Kuwait.
In 2004, hundreds of victims in the North Korea train explosion were reported being treated in an ill-equipped hospital lacking beds and medical equipment. At least 161 people were reported killed and about 1,300 others were wounded.
In 2005, U.S. President George Bush and Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia met with skyrocketing oil prices topping the agenda.
Also in 2005, the crash of a Japanese commuter train near Osaka killed more than 70 people and injured more than 300 others.
In 2006, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was greeted in Athens by masked rioters throwing gasoline bombs and stones to protest her arrival.
In 2007, the Dow Jones industrial average closed at more than 13,000 for the first time.
Also in 2007, astronomers in Chile discovered a planet they described as the "most Earth-like planet outside our solar system." Researchers said that Gliese 581 C, located 20.5 light-years from Earth, had temperatures similar to Earth's and could have water.
The moon is waning. The morning stars are Venus, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. The evening stars are Mercury, Mars and Saturn.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include naturalist John James Audubon in 1785; landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted in 1822; author Anita Loos in 1893; Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, in 1894; inventor Charles Richter, responsible for the Richter scale of earthquake measurement, in 1900; novelist Bernard Malamud in 1914; architect I.M. Pei in 1917 (age 91); actress/comedian Carol Burnett in 1933 (age 75); influential pop guitarist Duane Eddy in 1938 (age 70); pop singer Bobby Rydell in 1942 (age 66); and actors Giancarlo Esposito in 1958 (age 50) and Kevin James in 1965 (age 43).
In 1607, the first British colonists to establish a permanent settlement in America landed at Cape Henry, Va.
In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, German-made planes destroyed the Basque town of Guernica, Spain.
In 1986, a fire at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear reactor north of Kiev resulted in the world's worst nuclear disaster.
In 1992, powerful aftershocks rattled Northern California following a 6.9 earthquake that injured at least 65 people.
In 1993, a domestic Indian airliner slammed into a parked truck during takeoff and crashed near Aurangabad, killing at least 55 of the 118 people aboard.
Also in 1993, gunmen seized the Costa Rica Supreme Court, holding 17 judges and five other people hostage. The assailants freed their hostages three days later and were captured en route to the airport.
And, the U.S. Holocaust Museum opened in Washington.
In 1994, South Africans began going to the polls in the country's first election that was open to all. Four days of voting would elect Nelson Mandela president.
In 1996, an auction of the belongings of Jackie Onassis yielded $34 million, about seven times what Sotheby's auction house had estimated.
In 2002, a German youth who had been expelled from the Gutenberg school in Erfurt, Germany, returned to the school and shot 16 people to death.
In 2003, U.S. officials said a large munitions dump at a coalition-controlled Iraqi army base exploded, sending an errant missile into a neighborhood and killing at least six Iraqi civilians and injuring many more.
In 2005, the last of the Syrian troops left Lebanon, ending a 29-year military presence.
In 2006, solemn commemorative events in Ukraine and Russia marked the 20th anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. The United Nations said about 9,000 people died from the accident but environmental groups claim the real toll is at least 10 times higher.
Also in 2006, U.S. President George Bush appointed Fox News commentator Tony Snow as his press secretary, replacing Scott McClellan.
In 2007, the U.S. Senate gave final approval to a $124 billion supplemental spending bill that imposed a timetable for withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. U.S. President George Bush vowed to veto the measure.
Also in 2007, New Hampshire lawmakers approved a measure legalizing civil unions between gay and lesbian couples.
The moon is waning. The morning stars are Venus, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. The evening stars are Mercury, Mars and Saturn.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include English historian Edward Gibbon in 1737; Samuel F.B. Morse, American artist and inventor of magnetic telegraphy, in 1791; Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War general and 18th president of the United States, in 1822; Wallace Carothers, inventor of nylon, in 1896; English poet C. Day Lewis in 1904; actor Jack Klugman in 1922 (age 86); Coretta Scott King, wife of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., in 1927; radio/TV host Casey Kasem in 1932 (age 76), actress Sandy Dennis in 1937; and pop singer Sheena Easton in 1959 (age 49).
In 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed by natives of the Philippine islands as he attempted to be the first to circumnavigate the world. His co-leader, Juan Sebastian de Elcano, completed the voyage in 1522.
In 1850, the American-owned steamship "The Atlantic" began regular trans-Atlantic passenger service. It was the first U.S. vessel to challenge what had been a British monopoly.
In 1865, the steamship Sultana, heavily overloaded with an estimated 2,300 passengers, most of them Union soldiers en route home, exploded on the Mississippi River just north of Memphis. The death toll in the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history was set at 1,450.
In 1937, the first Social Security payment was made in the United States.
In 1984, an 11-day siege ended at Libya's London embassy that began with the shooting of a policewoman. Britain broke diplomatic relations with Libya over the incident.
In 1987, U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese barred Austrian President Kurt Waldheim from the United States, citing the alleged role of the former U.N. secretary-general in Nazi war crimes.
In 1991, an estimated 70 tornadoes hit Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa, killing 23 people and leaving thousands homeless.
Also in 1991, the first group of Kurdish refugees to return to Iraq arrived by U.S. military helicopter at a safe haven near the Turkish border.
In 1993, Kuwait said it had foiled an Iraqi plot to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush during his visit earlier in the month.
Also in 1993, the final vote tallies showed Russia's Boris Yeltsin winning a solid victory in a referendum on his presidency and economic reforms.
In 1994, fighting flared anew in Rwanda only one day after separate cease-fires by rival tribes took effect.
Also in 1994, Virginia executed a condemned killer in the first case in which DNA testing was used to obtain a conviction.
In 2000, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced he had prostate cancer but said he hoped to continue is campaign for the U.S. Senate. He later dropped out of the race.
In 2003, Taiwan said it would bar visitors from China, Hong Kong, Canada and Singapore to prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome, widely known as SARS.
In 2004, U.S. congressional Democrats rolled out a plan for winning the war on terror, calling for an intelligence czar and a "Marshall Plan" for the Middle East.
Also in 2004, U.S. military units moved into positions once held by Spanish troops outside the holy city of Najaf, sparking fighting that killed some 40 insurgents.
In 2005, the U.S. State Department said the number of major international terrorist incidents more than tripled to 655 the previous year.
In 2006, a seven-month U.S. Senate committee inquiry said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was "in shambles" and should be replaced with a new agency.
Also in 2006, a senior Israeli intelligence official said Iran has purchased missiles from North Korea with a 1,200-mile range, capable of reaching Europe.
In 2007, Saudi Arabia announced the arrest of 172 terrorist suspects in a series of raids after uncovering a plot for suicide air attacks on oil and military installations.
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