TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SATURDAY, MAY 7, the 127th day of 2022. There are 238 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1945, Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims, France, ending its role in World War II.
In 1889, the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore opened its doors.
In 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the British liner RMS Lusitania off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, out of the nearly 2,000 on board.
In 1928, the minimum voting age for British women was lowered from 30 to 21 — the same age as men.
In 1939, Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
In 1941, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra recorded “Chattanooga Choo Choo” for RCA Victor.
In 1954, the 55-day Battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam ended with Vietnamese insurgents overrunning French forces.
In 1975, President Gerald R. Ford formally declared an end to the “Vietnam era.” In Ho Chi Minh City — formerly Saigon — the Viet Cong celebrated its takeover.
In 1977, Seattle Slew won the Kentucky Derby, the first of his Triple Crown victories. In 2010, a BP-chartered vessel lowered a 100-ton concrete-and-steel vault onto the ruptured Deepwater Horizon well in an unprecedented, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to stop most of the gushing crude fouling the sea.
In 2019, two students opened fire inside a charter school in a Denver suburb not far from Columbine High School, killing a fellow student, 18-yearold Kendrick Castillo, who authorities said had charged at the shooters to protect classmates.
In 2020, Georgia authorities arrested a white father and son, and charged them with murder in the February shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man they had pursued in a truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood near the port city of Brunswick. (The two men and a third white man would be convicted of murder in state court, and hate crimes in federal court.)
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: R&B singer Thelma Houston is 79. Actor Robin Strasser is 77. Singer-songwriter Bill Danoff and rock musician Bill Kreutzmann (Grateful Dead) are 76. Rock musician Prairie Prince is 72. Movie writer-director Amy Heckerling is 70. Actor Michael E. Knight is 63. Rock musician Phil Campbell (Motorhead) is 61. Rock singer-musician Chris O’Connor (Primitive Radio Gods) is 57. Actor Traci Lords is 54. Actor Morocco Omari is 52. Singer Eagle-Eye Cherry is 51. Rock musician Matt Helders (Arctic Monkeys) is 36. Actor-comedian Aidy Bryant is 35. Actor Taylor Abrahamse is 31. Actor Dylan Gelula is 28.