Today is
May 11.
Today
Minnesota celebrates becoming the 32nd state, don'tcha know.
And, risking a reeeally bad typo, today is Nisga'a Day, celebrating the
Nisga'a Final Agreement. So...Whir my Nisga'as at? I want all my Nisga'as to put ya hands in da ayuh, and wave 'em like ya just don't cayuh!
Events
868 – A copy of the Diamond Sutra is printed in China, making it the oldest known dated printed book.
1502 – Christopher Columbus departs Cádiz on his fourth and final voyage to the Americas.
1647 – Peter Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of New Netherland, the Dutch colonial settlement in present-day New York City. Stuyvesant is one of the namesakes of the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, aka Bed-Stuy, or sometimes Stuyford (combination(s) of Village of Bedford, and Stuyvesant Heights).
1792 – Captain Robert Gray becomes the first documented white person to sail into the Columbia River.
1846 – President James K. Polk asked for a Declaration of War against Mexico, starting the Mexican–American War. It is approved on May 13.
1858 – Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. State.
1889 – An attack upon a U.S. Army paymaster and escort results in the theft of over $28,000 (<--~$694,000 in 2017 dollars) and the award of two Medals of Honor.
1910 – An act of the U.S. Congress establishes Glacier National Park in Montana.
1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.
1945 – World War II: Off the coast of Okinawa, the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill
is hit by two kamikazes, within 30 seconds, killing 346 of its crew. Although badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the U.S. under its own power.
1970 – The Lubbock tornado, a F5 tornado, hits Lubbock, Texas, killing 26 and causing $250 million (<--$1,569,606,958 in 2017 dollars) in damage.
1974 - Led Zeppelin attended an Elvis Presley show at the Los Angeles Forum in California. After a shaky start to the show, Elvis stopped the band and jokingly said: ‘Wait a minute, if we can start together fellas, because we’ve got Led Zeppelin out there, lets try to look like we know what we're doing.’ All four members of Zeppelin met with Elvis after the show, spending over 2 hours backstage. Elvis asked for all the group’s autographs for his daughter Lisa Marie.
1981 - Jamaican singer-songwriter Bob Marley died of lung cancer and a brain tumor aged 36.
1985 – Bradford City stadium fire: Fifty-six spectators die and more than 200 are injured in a flash fire at Valley Parade football ground during a match against Lincoln City in Bradford, England.
1996 – After the aircraft's departure from Miami, a fire started by improperly handled chemical oxygen generators in the cargo hold of Atlanta-bound ValuJet Flight 592 causes the Douglas DC-9 to crash in the Florida Everglades killing all 110 on board.
1996 – The 1996 Mount Everest disaster: on a single day eight people die during summit attempts on Mount Everest.
1997 – Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer,
defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.
2011 - One of the rarest rock t-shirts in the world sold for $10,000 (£6096.00), the largest sum ever paid for a vintage t-shirt. The record-setting sale of a 1979 Led Zeppelin t-shirt on eBay was sold by Kyle Ermatinger of Stormcrow Vintage. The recent completion of the transaction placed the purchase as the world's rarest and most expensive vintage t-shirt.
1720 – Hieronymus Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen, Baron Munchausen, 1799 – John Lowell, Jr. (founded Lowell Institute), 1811 –
Chang and Eng Bunker, 1852 – Charles W. Fairbanks (26th VPOTUS), 1875 –
Harriet Quimby, 1888 – Irving Berlin, 1894 – Martha Graham, 1904 – Salvador Dalí
1911 – Phil Silvers, 1912 – Foster Brooks
, 1918 – Richard Feynman, 1920 – Denver Pyle ('Uncle Jesse' on
The Dukes of Hazzard), 1927 – Mort Sahl, 1932 – Valentino Garavani (founded Valentino SpA), 1933 – Louis Farrakhan, 1941 – Eric Burdon (The Animals), 1946 – Robert Jarvik (developed the artificial heart), 1947 – Butch Trucks
(Allman Bros), 1952 – Frances Fisher, 1959 – Martha Quinn (one of the original MTV Veejays), 1963 – Natasha Richardson, 1964 – Tim Blake Nelson ('Delmar' in
O, Brother Where Art Thou), 1982 – Cory Monteith, 1989 – Cam Newton
1871 – John Herschel, 1889 – John Cadbury (yeah,
that Cadbury
), 1891 – Edmond Becquerel, 1979 – Lester Flatt
(Flatt & Scruggs), 1981 – Bob Marley, 1985 – Chester Gould (created Dick Tracy), 2001 – Douglas Adams, 2002 – Joseph 'Joe Bananas' Bonanno (boss of the Bonanno crime family), 2003 – Noel Redding
(Jimi Hendrix Experience), 2006 – Floyd Patterson
