This Day in History for Friday, May 9, 2008
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Images by member aussie_gypsy
Fact of the Day: Fact of the Day: ATM
Chemical Bank in New York City placed its first machine in operation at Rockville Center, Long Island, in January 1969.
Events
Events: 1502: Christopher Columbus left Spain on his fourth and final trip to the Western Hemisphere.
Events: 1754: The first cartoon was published, in Benjamin Franklin's 'Pennsylvania Gazette.'
Events: 1813: General William Henry Harrison turned back a siege of Fort Meigs by Shawnee military leader Tecumseh and British general Henry A. Proctor.
Events: 1913: The 17th amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, providing for the election of U.S. senators by popular vote rather than selection by state legislatures, was ratified.
Events: 1914: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation for the celebration of Mother's Day.
Events: 1926: Polar explorer Richard E. Byrd and co-pilot Floyd Bennett announced that they were the first to fly over the North Pole; this claim has been debated, however.
Events: 1960: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a birth-control pill.
Events: 1961: Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow condemned television programming as a 'vast wasteland' in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters.
Events: 1994: South Africa's newly-elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the country's first black president.
Events: 2005: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is selected as the successor of Pope John Paul II.
Holidays
-- Feast day of St. Beatus of Lungern, St. Gerontius of Cervia, St. Beatus of Vendôme, and St. Pachomius.
-- Channel Islands: Liberation Day.
-- Uzbekistan: Day of Memory and Honor.
Births
-- John Brown, American abolitionist.
-- Carl Gustav Laval, Swedish scientist, engineer, inventor.
-- Howard Carter, British Egyptologist, archaeologist who discovered tomb of Tutankhamen.
-- Henry J. Kaiser, American industrialist, shipbuilder, auto manufacturer.
-- James L. Brooks, American producer, writer, and film director.
-- Candice Bergen, American actress.
-- Billy Joel, American singer, pianist, and songwriter.
-- Dan Regan, trombone player for the Southern California-based ska punk band Reel Big Fish.
Deaths
-- Paul Gauguin (born Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin) was a leading Post-Impressionist artist.
-- Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, found shot in the back of a car after being kidnapped two months earlier.
-- Alan King, American comic.