Today in history

On May 3, 1802, Washington was incorporated as a city.

In 1916 Irish nationalist Padraic Pearse and two others were executed by the British for their roles in the Easter Rising.

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 minorities are legally unenforceable.

In 1971 anti-war protesters began four days of demonstrations in Washington aimed at shutting down the nation’s capital.

In 1978 “Sun Day” fell on a Wednesday as thousands of people extolling the virtues of solar energy held events across the country.

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 muchanticipated rematch with IBM’s Deep Blue computer. (However, Kasparov ended up losing the six-game match.)

In 2001 the United States lost its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since it was formed in 1947.

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 2005 the first democratically elected government in Iraq’s history was sworn in.

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.”