TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Saturday, May 7, the 127th day of 2022. Today’s highlight in history
On May 7, 1945, Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims, France, ending its role in World War II.
On this date
In 1889, the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore opened.
In 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the British liner Lusitania off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, out of the nearly 2,000 on board.
In 1928, the minimum voting age for British women was lowered from 30 to 21 — the same age as men.
In 1939, Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
In 1954, the 55-day Battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam ended with Vietnamese insurgents overrunning French forces.
In 1963, the United States launched the Telstar 2 communications satellite.
In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford formally declared an end to the “Vietnam era.” In Ho Chi Minh City — formerly Saigon — the Viet Cong celebrated its takeover.
In 1977, Seattle Slew won the Kentucky Derby, the first of his Triple Crown victories.
In 2010, a BP-chartered vessel lowered a 100-ton concrete-and-steel vault onto the ruptured Deepwater Horizon well in an unprecedented, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to stop most of the gushing crude fouling the sea.
In 2019, two students opened fire inside a charter school in a Denver suburb not far from Columbine High School, killing a fellow student, 18year-old Kendrick Castillo, who authorities said had charged at the shooters to protect classmates. (Both attackers would be sentenced to life in prison; one who was 16 at the time of the shooting could be eligible for parole after about 20 years.)
In 2020, Georgia authorities arrested a White father and son and charged them with murder in the February shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man they had pursued in a truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood near the port city of Brunswick. (The two men and a third White man would be convicted of murder in state court, and hate crimes in federal court.)
Ten years ago: took the oath of office as Russia’s president for the next six years in a brief but regal Kremlin ceremony.
One year ago: A federal grand jury indicted the four former Minneapolis police officers involved in George Floyd’s arrest and death, accusing them of willfully violating the constitutional rights of the Black man as he was restrained face-down on the pavement, gasping for air. (Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of murder in state court, pleaded guilty in the federal case; the three others were convicted in February 2022 and also await sentencing.) State officials announced that California’s population had declined in 2020 for the first time since they began measuring it. Tawny Kitaen, who appeared in rock music videos during the heyday of MTV and starred opposite Tom Hanks in the 1984 comedy “Bachelor Party,” died in Newport Beach home at 59.
Today’s birthdays
Singer Thelma Houston is 79. Actor Robin Strasser is 77. Singer-songwriter Bill Danoff is 76. Musician Bill Kreutzmann (Grateful Dead) is 76. Director Amy Heckerling is 70. Actor Traci Lords is 54. Actor Morocco Omari is 52. Actor Breckin Meyer is 48. Actorcomedian Aidy Bryant is 35.