TODAY IN HISTORY

On May 1, 1707,

a union between England and Scotland was formed, and it was named Britain.

In 1786

Mozart’s opera “The Marriage of Figaro” premiered in Vienna.

In 1893

President Grover Cleveland opened the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago’s Jackson Park.

In 1898

Commodore George Dewey gave the command, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley,” as an American naval force destroyed a Spanish fleet in Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.

In 1924

novelist and screenwriter Terry Southern was born in Alvarado, Texas.

In 1931

the Empire State Building was dedicated in New York City. Also in 1931 the Baha’i House of Worship was opened in Wilmette.

In 1941

the Orson Welles motion picture “Citizen Kane” opened in New York.

In 1945

Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels killed himself as Russian troops stormed Berlin; he was 47.

In 1948

North Korea was proclaimed the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea.

In 1950

Chicago poet Gwendolyn Brooks became the first black to win a Pulitzer Prize, honoring her book “Annie Allen.”

In 1951

Minnie Minoso makes his White Sox debut, becoming the first black player to play for the South Siders.

In 1967

entertainer Elvis Presley married Priscilla Beaulieu in Las Vegas. (They divorced in October 1973.)

Also in 1967 Anastasio Somoza Debayle became president of Nicaragua.

In 1971

Amtrak, the national passenger rail service, began operation.

In 1978

Ernest Morial was inaugurated as the first black mayor of New Orleans.

In 1981

Sen. Harrison Williams Jr., D-N.J., was convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges stemming from the FBI’s Abscam investigation.

In 1987

Pope John Paul II beatified Edith Stein, a Jewish-born Carmelite nun who was killed in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.

In 1992,

on the third day of the Los Angeles riots, Rodney King publicly appealed for calm, asking, “Can we all get along?”

In 1997

Britons went to the polls in a national election that gave the Labor Party a resounding victory over the ruling Conservatives. Also

in 1997 John and Patsy Ramsey, the parents of slain child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, publicly declared their innocence, and asked for the public’s help in finding the killer of their 6-year-old daughter.

In 1999

Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic agreed to hand over three captured U.S. soldiers to the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Also in 1999 the National Rifle Association, despite protests, held its annual meeting in Denver 11 days after the Columbine shootings.

In 2003

President George W. Bush, speaking from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast of San Diego, declared major combat in Iraq over.