Today is Wednesday, May 11, the 132nd day of 2016. There are 234 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 11, 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.
On this date:
In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor of New Netherland.
In 1816, the American Bible Society was founded in New York.
In 1858, Minnesota became the 32nd state of the Union.
In 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded during a banquet at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles.
In 1935, the Rural Electrification Administration was created as one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs.
In 1945, the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill was attacked and severely damaged by two kamikaze aircraft off Okinawa; according to the U.S. Navy’s website, 346 men were killed, 43 were left missing, and 264 were wounded.
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 1985, 56 people died when a flash fire swept a jam-packed soccer stadium in Bradford, England.
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.
Ten years ago: Lawmakers demanded answers after a USA Today report that the National Security Agency was secretly collecting records of millions of ordinary Americans’ phone calls; President George W. Bush sought to assure Americans their civil liberties were being “fiercely protected.” A priest was
convicted in Toledo, Ohio, of murdering a nun; the Rev. Gerald Robinson was immediately sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the 1980 death of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl. (Robinson died in a prison hospice in 2014 at age 76.) Former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson died in New Paltz, New York, at age 71.
Five years ago: Former hedge fund titan Raj Rajaratnam (rahj rah-juh-RUHT’-nuhm) 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.) Two earthquakes struck southern Spain in quick succession, killing at least nine people, injuring dozens and causing major damage to buildings.
One year ago: Joyce Hardin Garrard, the Alabama woman convicted of running her 9-year-old granddaughter, Savannah Hardin, to death as punishment for lying about candy, was sentenced by a judge in Gadsden to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The NFL came down hard on its biggest star and its championship team, suspending Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady for the first four games of the season, fining the New England Patriots $1 million and taking away two draft picks as punishment for deflating footballs used in the AFC title game.
Today’s Birthdays: Comedian Mort Sahl is 89. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is 83. Jazz keyboardist Carla Bley is 80. Rock singer Eric Burdon (The Animals; War) is 75. Actress Shohreh Aghdashloo (SHOH’-reh ahg-DAHSH’-loo) is 64. Actress Frances Fisher is 64. Actor Boyd Gaines is 63. Country musician Mark Herndon (Alabama) is 61. Actress Martha Quinn is 57. Country singer-musician Tim Raybon (The Raybon Brothers) is 53. Actor Tim Blake Nelson is 52.
Actor Jeffrey Donovan is 48. Country musician Keith West (Heartland) is 48. Actor Nicky Katt is 46. Actor Coby Bell is 41. Cellist Perttu Kivilaakso (PER’-tuh KEE’-wee-lahk-soh) is 38. Actor-singer Jonathan Jackson is 34. Rapper Ace Hood is 28. Musician Howard Lawrence (Disclosure) is 22.
Thought for Today: “Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it.” — Irving Berlin, American songwriter (born this date in 1888, died 1989).
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