TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SATURDAY, MAY 9, the 130th day of 2020. There are 236 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1945, with World War II in Europe at an end, Soviet forces liberated Czechoslovakia from Nazi occupation. U.S. officials announced that a midnight entertainment curfew was being lifted immediately.
In 1712, the Carolina Colony was officially divided into two entities: North Carolina and South Carolina.
In 1864, Union Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick was killed by a Confederate sniper during the Civil War Battle of Spotsylvania in Virginia.
In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson, acting on a joint congressional resolution, signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
In 1961, in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton N. Minow decried the majority of television programming as a “vast wasteland.”
In 1962, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology succeeded in reflecting a laser beam off the surface of the moon.
In 1970, President Richard Nixon made a surprise and impromptu pre-dawn visit to the Lincoln Memorial, where he chatted with a group of protesters who’d been resting on the Memorial steps after protests against the Vietnam War and the Kent State shootings.
In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee opened public hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. (The committee ended up adopting three articles of impeachment against the president, who resigned before the full House took up any of them.)
In 1980, 35 people were killed when a freighter rammed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida, causing a 1,400-foot section of the southbound span to collapse.
In 1994, South Africa’s newly elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the country’s first black president.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actor-writer Alan Bennett is 86. Actress-turnedpolitician Glenda Jackson is 84. Actress Candice Bergen and pop singer Clint Holmes are 74. Actor Anthony Higgins is 73. Singer Billy Joel and blues singermusician Bob Margolin are 71. Rock singer-musician Tom Petersson (Cheap Trick) is 70. Actress Alley Mills is 69. Actress Amy Hill is 67. Actress Wendy Crewson is 64. Actor John Corbett is 59. Singer Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode) is 58. Actress Sonja Sohn is 56. Rapper Ghostface Killah is 50. Country musician Mike Myerson (Heartland) is 49. Actor Chris Diamantopoulos and rhythmand-blues singer Tamia are 45. Rock musician Dan Regan (Reel Big Fish) is 43. Actor Daniel Franzese is 42. Rock singers Pierre Bouvier (Simple Plan) and Andre W.K., and actress Rosario Dawson are 41. Actress Rachel Boston is 38. Actress Grace Gummer is 34.