Today is Thursday, May 11, the 131st day of 2023. There are 234 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 11, 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.
On this date:
In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant (STY’-veh-sunt) arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor of New Netherland.
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 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 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 2020, Twitter announced that it would add a warning label to tweets containing disputed or misleading information about the coronavirus.
Ten years ago: Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (nah-WAHZ’ shah-REEF’) declared victory following a historic election marred by violence. A pair of car bomb attacks in Turkey killed 52 people near the Syrian border. A strong 6.2 magnitude earthquake jolted the Arabian Sea port town of Jask in the south of Iran, injuring at least 15 people.
Five years ago: President Donald Trump unveiled his long-promised plan to bring down drug prices; the plan mostly spared the pharmaceutical industry and didn’t include his campaign pledge to use the Medicare program’s buying power to directly negotiate lower prices for seniors. R&B singer R. Kelly went ahead with a concert in Greensboro, North Carolina, despite calls for a boycott stemming from longstanding allegations of sexual misconduct.
One year ago: The Senate fell far short in a rushed effort toward enshrining Roe v. Wade abortion access as federal law, blocked by a Republican filibuster. The move came after a draft report from the Supreme Court overturning the 50-year-old ruling. (The 6-3 decision would be issued essentially as drafted the following month.) Veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed while covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank. Christie’s auction house said “The Rock,” an egg-sized white diamond billed as the largest of its kind to go up for auction, sold for more than 21.6 million Swiss francs ($21.75 million),
Today’s Birthdays: Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is 90. Jazz keyboardist Carla Bley is 87. Rock singer Eric Burdon (The Animals; War) is 82. Actor Pam Ferris is 75. Former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly is 73. Actor Shohreh Aghdashloo (SHOH’-reh ahg-DAHSH’-loo) is 71. Actor Frances Fisher is 71. Sports columnist Mike Lupica is 71. Actor Boyd Gaines is 70. Actor and former MTV VJ Martha Quinn is 64. Actor Tim Blake Nelson is 59. Actor Jeffrey Donovan is 55. Actor Nicky Katt is 53. Actor Coby Bell is 48. Cellist Perttu Kivilaakso (PER’-tuh KEE’-wee-lahk-soh) is 45. Actor Austin O’Brien is 42. Actor-singer Jonathan Jackson is 41. Rapper Ace Hood is 35. Latin singer Prince Royce is 34. Actor Annabelle Attanasio (TV: “Bull”) is 30. Musician Howard Lawrence (Disclosure) is 29.
