TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Wednesday, May 4, the 125th day of 2016. There are 241 days left in the year.

On this date

1776 — Rhode Island declared its freedom from England, two months before the Declaration of Independence was adopted. 1886 — At Haymarket Square in Chicago, a labor demonstration for an 8-hour work day turned into a deadly riot when a bomb exploded. 1904 — The United States took over construction of the Panama Canal from the French. 1932 — Mobster Al Capone, convicted of income-tax evasion, entered the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. (Capone was later transferred to Alcatraz Island.) 1959 — The first Grammy Awards ceremony was held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. 1961 — The first group of “Freedom Riders” left Washington, D.C., to challenge racial segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals. 1970 — Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire during an anti-war protest at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others. 2001 — Bonny Lee Bakley, wife of actor Robert Blake, was shot to death as she sat in a car near a restaurant in Los Angeles. (Blake, accused of Bakley’s murder, was acquitted in a criminal trial but found liable by a civil jury and ordered to pay damages.)

Today’s Birthdays

The former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, is 88. Opera singer Roberta Peters is 86. Katherine Jackson, matriarch of the Jackson musical family, is 86. Rock musician Dick Dale is 79. Actor-turned-clergyman Hilly Hicks is 66. Singer-actress Pia Zadora is 64. Violinist Soozie Tyrell (Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band) is 59. Country singer Randy Travis is 57. Actor Will Arnett is 46. Rock musician Mike Dirnt (Green Day) is 44. Sports reporter Erin Andrews is 38. Singer Lance Bass (‘N Sync) is 37. Rapper/singer Jidenna is 31. Actor Alexander Gould is 22. Country singer RaeLynn is 22. Actress Amara Miller is 16.

Thought for today ‘Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.’ Reinhold Niebuhr American theologian (1892-1971)