May 4, 1776
Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.
1814
Napolιon Bonaparte arrives at the island of Elba, to begin his exile.
1904
Charles Stewart Rolls and
Frederick Henry Royce meet in Manchester, England.
1932
Al Capone begins serving an 11-year prison sentence for tax evasion.
1953
Ernest Hemingway's
"The Old Man And The Sea" wins the Pulitzer Prize.
1959
The
1st Annual Grammy Awards are held.
1961
American civil rights movement: The
"Freedom Riders" begin a bus trip through the South.
1970
Four dead in O-hi-o: The
Ohio Nat'l Guard opens fire on students protesting the war in Vietnam, killing four and wounding nine.
1979
Margaret Thatcher,
"The Iron Lady", becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1988
Tons of stored Space Shuttle fuel detonate in a gigantic
explosion during a fire at the Pacific Engineering and Production Company of Nevada, near Henderson, Nevada.
Video
2007
Greensburg, Kansas is almost completely destroyed by a 1.7 mi wide EF5 tornado. 95% of the city is leveled. The tornado was part of the
May 2007 tornado outbreak.
Births
1796 Horace Mann; 1916
Richard Proenneke; 1919 Dory Funk; 1923 Ed Cassidy; 1928 Thomas Kinsella, Hosni Mubarak; 1929 Audrey Hepburn; 1939 Paul Gleason; 1940 Robin Cook; 1941 George Will; 1942 Nickolas Ashford; 1953 Pia Zadora; 1959 Randy Travis, Bob Tway; 1972 Mike Dirnt; 1978 Erin Andrews; 1989 Rory McIlroy
Deaths
1975 Moe Howard; 1980 Josip Broz Tito; 1987 Paul Butterfield; 2009 Dom DeLuise; 2012 Adam Yauch