Today is May 4.
May the Fourth be with you.
Today is
Anti-Bullying Day, as well as
Bird Day,
International Firefighters' Day, and
World Give Day.
Events
1776 – Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.
1859 – The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge,
linking Devon and Cornwall in England.
1886 – Haymarket affair: A bomb is thrown at policemen trying to break up a labor rally in Chicago, United States, killing eight and wounding 60. The police fire into the crowd.
1904 – The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal.
1932 – In Atlanta, mobster Al Capone
begins serving an eleven-year prison sentence for tax evasion.
1946 – In San Francisco Bay, U.S. Marines from the nearby Treasure Island Naval Base stop a two-day riot at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary;
5 people are killed in the riot.
1953 – Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
1959 – The 1st Annual Grammy Awards are held.
1970 -
♪ ♫Four dead in O-HI-O♪ ♫
1972 – The Don't Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to "Greenpeace Foundation".
1979 – Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1988 – The PEPCON disaster
rocks Henderson, Nevada, as tons of Space Shuttle fuel detonate during a fire.
1989 - Stevie Ray Vaughan set out on what would be his last ever tour at the Orpheum Theater, Vancouver, British Columbia.
2007 – Greensburg, Kansas is almost completely destroyed by a 1.7 mi wide EF5 tornado.
It was the first-ever tornado to be rated as such with the new Enhanced Fujita scale.
1796 – Horace Mann, 1916 – Richard Proenneke (
Alone In The Wilderness), 1919 – Dory Funk, 1928 – Thomas Kinsella, 1928 – Hosni Mubarak, 1929 – Audrey Hepburn, 1937 – Dick Dale
, 1940 – Robin Cook, 1941 – George Will, 1942 – Nick Ashford♪ ♫(Ashford & Simpson), 1951 – Jackie Jackson, 1959 – Randy Travis, 1959 – Bob Tway, 1979 – Lance Bass
1975 – Moe Howard, 1984 – Diana Dors, 1987 – Paul Butterfield, 2009 – Dom DeLuise, 2012 – Adam Yauch ('MCA' from The Beastie Boys)