Today in history
On May 3,1469, statesman and political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy.
In 1802 Washington was incorporated as a city.
In 1912 poet, novelist and essayist May Sarton was born in Wondelgem, Belgium.
In 1919 folk singer Pete Seeger was born in New York.
In 1921 Sugar Ray Robinson, who became the welterweight and middleweight boxing champion, was born in Detroit. Also in 1921, West Virginia imposed the first state sales tax.
In 1933 Nellie Taylor Ross was sworn as the U.S. Mint’s first female director.
In 1937 novelist Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for “Gone With the Wind.”
In 1944 U. S. wartime rationing of most grades of meats ended.
In 1945 during World War II, Japanese forces on Okinawa launched their only major counteroffensive, but failed to break the American lines. Also in 1945, Indian forces captured Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.
In 1948 the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to minority group members are legally unenforceable.
In 1971 anti- war protesters began four days of demonstrations in Washington aimed at shutting down the nation’s capital.
In 1979 Margaret Thatcher and Britain’s Conservative Party won a general election, making Thatcher her nation’s first female prime minister.
In 1986 in NASA’s first post-Challenger launch, an unmanned Delta rocket lost power in its main engine shortly after liftoff, forcing safety officers to destroy it by remote control.
In 1988 the White House acknowledged first lady Nancy Reagan had used astrological advice to help schedule her husband’s activities.
In 1997 world chess champion Garry Kasparov won the first game of his much-anticipated rematch with IBM’s Deep Blue computer. (However, Kasparov ended up losing the six-game match.)
In 2000 the trial of two alleged Libyan intelligence agents accused of blowing Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 opened in the Netherlands. (One of the defendants, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, was convicted of murder; the other defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.)
In 2001 the United States lost its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.
In 2002 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston backed out of a settlement agreement with 86 people who had accused defrocked priest John Geoghan of child molestation, saying the deal was becoming too expensive. (The archdiocese later agreed to a $10 million settlement.)
In 2003 New Hampshire awoke to find its granite symbol of independence and stubbornness, the Old Man of the Mountain, had collapsed into rubble.
In 2006 a federal jury in Alexandria, Va., rejected the death penalty for al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, deciding he should spend life in prison for his role in 9/11; as he was led from the courtroom, Moussaoui taunted, “America, you lost. ... I won.” Also in 2006, Earl Woods, father of golfer Tiger Woods, died in Cypress, Calif., at age 74.
In 2008 Big Brown won the Kentucky Derby by 4 3/4 lengths. (Filly Eight Belles finished second and then broke both front ankles; she was euthanized on the track.)