Today is Tuesday, May 4, the 124th day of 2021. There are 241 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 4, 1961, the first group of “Freedom Riders” left Washington, D.C. to challenge racial segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals.
On this date:
In 1626, Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on present-day Manhattan Island.
In 1932, mobster Al Capone, convicted of income-tax evasion, entered the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. (Capone was later transferred to Alcatraz Island.)
In 1942, the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval clash fought entirely with carrier aircraft, began in the Pacific during World War II. (The outcome was considered a tactical victory for Japan, but ultimately a strategic one for the Allies.)
In 1945, during World War II, German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany agreed to surrender.
In 1959, the first Grammy Awards ceremony was held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Domenico Modugno won Record of the Year and Song of the Year for “Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)”; Henry Mancini won Album of the Year for “The Music from Peter Gunn.”
In 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire during an anti-war protest at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.
In 1998, Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was given four life sentences plus 30 years by a federal judge in Sacramento, California, under a plea agreement that spared him the death penalty.
In 2010, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen was charged with terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in the botched Times Square bombing. (Faisal Shahzad later pleaded guilty to plotting to set off the propane-and-gasoline bomb in an SUV and was sentenced to life in prison.)
Today’s Birthdays: Katherine Jackson, matriarch of the Jackson musical family, is 91. Pulitzer Prize-winning political commentator George Will is 80. Country singer Stella Parton is 72. Singer Jackie Jackson (The Jacksons) is 70. Singer-actor Pia Zadora is 69. Rhythm-and-blues singer Oleta Adams is 68. Country singer Randy Travis is 62. Sports reporter Erin Andrews is 43. Singer Lance Bass (‘N Sync) is 42.
