TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS TUESDAY, MAY 3, the 123rd day of 2022. There are 242 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1979, Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher was chosen to become Britain’s first female prime minister as the Tories ousted the incumbent Labour government in parliamentary elections. In 1802, Washington, D.C., was incorporated as a city. In 1937, Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel “Gone with the Wind.” In 1947, Japan’s postwar constitution took effect. In 1948, the Supreme Court, in Shelley v. Kraemer, ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to Blacks or members of other racial groups were legally unenforceable. In 1960, the Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones musical “The Fantasticks” began a nearly 42-year run at New York’s Sullivan Street Playhouse. In 2006, a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, 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.” In 2011, Chicago’s Derrick Rose, at age 22, became the NBA’s youngest MVP. In 2015, two gunmen were shot and killed by a police officer in Garland, Texas, after they opened fire outside a purposely provocative contest for cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. In 2016, in a stunning triumph for a political outsider, Donald Trump all but clinched the Republican presidential nomination with a resounding victory in Indiana that knocked rival Ted Cruz out of the race. TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Singer Frankie Valli is 88. Singer Christopher Cross is 71. Rock musician David Ball (Soft Cell) is 63. Country singer Shane Minor and actor Amy Ryan are 54. Actor Bobby Cannavale is 52. Music and film producer-actor Damon Dash, country musician John Driskell Hopkins (Zac Brown Band) and country-rock musician John Neff are 51. Actors Marsha Stephanie-Blake, Christina Hendricks and Dule Hill, and TV personality Willie Geist (TV: “Today”) are 47. Country singer Eric Church is 45. Actor Tanya Wright is 44. Dancer Cheryl Burke is 38. Soul singer Michael Kiwanuka is 35.