Today is Saturday, May 2, the 123rd day of 2020. There are 243 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 2, 1994, Nelson Mandela claimed victory in the wake of South Africa’s first democratic elections; President F.W. de Klerk acknowledged defeat.
On this date:
In 1863, during the Civil War, Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson was accidentally wounded by his own men at Chancellorsville, Virginia; he died eight days later.
In 1908, the original version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” with music by Albert Von Tilzer and lyrics by Jack Norworth, was published by Von Tilzer’s York Music Co.
In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Buck v. Bell, upheld 8-1 a Virginia law allowing the forced sterilization of people to promote the “health of the patient and the welfare of society.”
In 1972, a fire at the Sunshine silver mine in Kellogg, Idaho, claimed the lives of 91 workers who succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning. Longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover died in Washington at age 77.
In 2005, Pfc. Lynndie England, the young woman pictured in some of the most notorious Abu Ghraib photos, pleaded guilty at Fort Hood, Texas, to mistreating prisoners. (However, a judge later threw out the plea agreement; England was later convicted in a court-martial and received a three-year sentence, of which she served half.)
In 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed by elite American forces at his Pakistan compound, then quickly buried at sea after a decade on the run.
Today’s Birthdays: Singer Engelbert Humperdinck is 84. Former International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge is 78. Actress-activist Bianca Jagger is 75. Country singer R.C. Bannon is 75. Actor David Suchet is 74. Singer-songwriter Larry Gatlin is 72. Rock singer Lou Gramm (Foreigner) is 70. Actress Christine Baranski is 68. Singer Angela Bofill is 66. Fashion designer Donatella Versace is 65. Actor Brian Tochi is 61. Movie director Stephen Daldry is 60. Actress Elizabeth Berridge is 58. Country singer Ty Herndon is 58.
Thought for Today: “What experience and history teach is this: that people and governments have never learned anything from history.” — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher (1770-1831).
