Today is Monday, May 9, the 129th day of 2022. There are 236 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 9, 1994, South Africa’s newly elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the country’s first Black president.
On this date:
In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson, acting on a joint congressional resolution, signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
In 1951, the U.S. conducted its first thermonuclear experiment as part of Operation Greenhouse by detonating a 225-kiloton device on Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific nicknamed “George.”
In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee opened public hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. (The committee ended up adopting three articles of impeachment against the president, who resigned before the full House took up any of them.)
In 1980, 35 people were killed when a freighter rammed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida, causing a 1,400-foot section of the southbound span to collapse.
In 2019, Pope Francis issued a groundbreaking new church law requiring all Catholic priests and nuns to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities.
In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration approved a coronavirus antigen test that could quickly detect virus proteins from swabs that were swiped inside the naval cavity. Rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Little Richard, known for his piercing wail, pounding piano and towering pompadour, died in Tennessee at the age of 87 after battling bone cancer; he had helped shatter the color line on the music charts while introducing Black R&B to white America.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor and politician Glenda Jackson is 86. Producer-director James L. Brooks is 85. Musician Sonny Curtis (Buddy Holly and the Crickets) is 85. Singer Tommy Roe is 80. Singer-musician Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield and Poco) is 78. Actor Candice Bergen is 76. Singer Billy Joel is 73. Rock singer-musician Tom Petersson (Cheap Trick) is 72. Actor Rachel Boston is 40.
