Today in History
Today is Tuesday, May 11, the 131st day of 2021. There are 234 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 11, 1935, the Rural Electrification Administration was created as one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs.
On this date:
In 1858, Minnesota became the 32nd state of the Union.
In 1943, during World War II, U.S. forces landed on the Aleutian island of Attu, which was held by the Japanese; the Americans took the island 19 days later.
In 1946, the first CARE packages, sent by a consortium of American charities to provide relief to the hungry of postwar Europe, arrived at Le Havre, France.
In 1947, the B.F. Goodrich Company of Akron, Ohio, announced the development of a tubeless tire.
In 1953, a tornado devastated Waco, Texas, claiming 114 lives.
In 1960, Israeli agents captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In 1973, the espionage trial of Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo in the “Pentagon Papers” case came to an end as Judge William M. Byrne dismissed all charges, citing government misconduct.
In 1981, legendary reggae artist Bob Marley died in a Miami hospital at age 36.
In 1996, an Atlanta-bound ValuJet DC-9 caught fire shortly after takeoff from Miami and crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 people on board.
In 1997, IBM’s “Deep Blue” computer demolished an overwhelmed Garry Kasparov, winning the six-game chess re-match between man and machine in New York.
In 1998, India set off three underground atomic blasts, its first nuclear tests in 24 years. A French mint produced the first coins of Europe’s single currency, the euro.
In 2010, Conservative leader David Cameron, at age 43, became Britain’s youngest prime minister in almost 200 years after Gordon Brown stepped down and ended 13 years of Labour government.
Ten years ago: Former hedge fund titan Raj Rajaratnam was convicted by a federal jury in New York in an insider-trading case of five counts of conspiracy and nine of securities fraud. (Rajaratnam was sentenced to 11 years in prison.)
Five years ago: A white former South Carolina police officer already facing a state murder charge in the shooting death of Black motorist Walter Scott was indicted on federal charges including depriving the victim of his civil rights. (Michael Slager pleaded guilty to violating Scott’s civil rights and was sentenced to 20 years in prison; prosecutors agreed to drop the state murder charge.) CBS News veteran Morley Safer, a “60 Minutes” correspondent for all but two of the newsmagazine’s 48-year history, announced his retirement (Safer died eight days later at age 84).
One year ago: After two cases of COVID-19 were confirmed among staffers, a memo to White House staff directed “everyone who enters the West Wing to wear a mask or facial covering”; a maskless President Donald Trump addressed a Rose Garden audience filled with mask-wearing administration officials. Twitter announced that it would add a warning label to tweets containing disputed or misleading information about the coronavirus. Georgia’s attorney general appointed a Black district attorney from the Atlanta area to take over the case of a white father and son charged with killing a Black man, Ahmaud Arbery, near the Georgia port city of Brunswick. Jerry Stiller, best known for his role as George Costanza’s father in “Seinfeld” and earlier as part of a comedy duo with wife Anne Meara, died at 92.
Today’s Birthdays: Comedian Mort Sahl is 94. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is 88. Jazz keyboardist Carla Bley is 85. Rock singer Eric Burdon (The Animals; War) is 80. Actor Pam Ferris is 73. Former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly is 71. Actor Shohreh Aghdashloo (SHOH’-reh ahg-DAHSH’-loo) is 69. Actor Frances Fisher is 69. Sports columnist Mike Lupica is 69. Actor Boyd Gaines is 68. Actor Martha Quinn is 62. Actor Tim Blake Nelson is 57. Actor Jeffrey Donovan is 53. Actor Nicky Katt is 51. Actor Coby Bell is 46. Cellist Perttu Kivilaakso (PER’-tuh KEE’-wee-lahk-soh) is 43. Actor Austin O’Brien is 40. Actor-singer Jonathan Jackson is 39. Rapper Ace Hood is 33. Latin singer Prince Royce is 32. Actor Annabelle Attanasio (TV: “Bull”) is 28. Musician Howard Lawrence (Disclosure) is 27.
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