Today In History

Today is Friday, May 12, the 132nd day of 2017. There are 233 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

› 1967: “Are You Experienced,” the groundbreaking debut album of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was released in Britain by Track Records (a version with a somewhat different playlist went on sale in the United States the following August on the Reprise label).

ON THIS DATE

› 1780: During the Revolutionary War, the besieged city of Charleston, South Carolina, surrendered to British forces.

› 1949: The Soviet Union lifted the Berlin Blockade, which the Western powers had succeeded in circumventing with their Berlin Airlift.

› 1963: Betty Miller became the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean as she landed her Piper Apache in Brisbane, Australia, having left Oakland, California, on April 30, making three stopovers along the way.

› 1982: In Fatima, Portugal, security guards overpowered a Spanish priest armed with a bayonet who attacked Pope John Paul II. (In 2008, the pope’s longtime private secretary revealed that the pontiff was slightly wounded in the assault.)

› 1997: Australian Susie Maroney became the first woman to swim from Cuba to Florida, covering the 118-mile distance in 24 1/2 hours.

› 2002: Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba, becoming the first U.S. president in or out of office to visit since the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Critic John Simon is 92. Composer Burt Bacharach is 89. Country singer Billy Swan is 75. Actress Linda Dano is 74. Actress Lindsay Crouse is

69. Blues singer-musician Guy Davis is 65. Country singer Kix Brooks is 62. Actress Kim Greist is

59. Rock musician Eric Singer (KISS) is 59. Actor Ving Rhames is 58. Rock musician Billy Duffy is

56. Actor Emilio Estevez is 55. Actress Kim Fields is 48. Actress Samantha Mathis is 47. Actor Christian Campbell is 45. Actress Rhea Seehorn is 45. Actor Mackenzie Astin is 44. Country musician Matt Mangano (The Zac Brown Band) is

41. Actor Rami Malek is

36. Actress-singer Clare Bowen is 33. Actress Emily VanCamp is 31. Actor Malcolm David Kelley is 25. Actor Sullivan Sweeten is 22.