Also on this day
Lead Story
1950
On this day in 1950, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1911-1986) publishes Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. With this book, Hubbard introduced a branch of self-help psychology called Dianetics, which quickly caught fire and, over time, morphed into a belief system boasting millions of subscribers: Scientology.
Hubbard was already a prolific...
American Revolution
1791
On this day in 1791, Francis Hopkinson, signer of the Declaration of Independence and the first American secular composer, dies suddenly of a seizure in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Hopkinson was born to an elite family in Philadelphia and graduated from the College of Philadelphia in 1757; he became an attorney four years...
Automotive
2008
On this day in 2008, “Speed Racer,” the big-budget live-action film version of the 1960s Japanese comic book and television series “MachGoGoGo,” makes its debut in U.S. movie theaters.
Warner Brothers, the studio behind “Speed Racer,” brought on Larry and Andy Wachowski, the brothers who created the blockbuster science-fiction hit...
Civil War
1864
On this day, Union troops secure a crucial pass during the Atlanta campaign. In the spring and summer of 1864, Union General William T. Sherman and Confederate General Joseph Johnston conducted a slow and methodical campaign to seize control of Atlanta. Pushing southeast from Chattanooga, Tennessee, toward Atlanta, Sherman continually...
Cold War
1955
Ten years after the Nazis were defeated in World War II, West Germany formally joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense group aimed at containing Soviet expansion in Europe. This action marked the final step of West Germany’s integration into the Western European defense system.
Germany had been...
Crime
1997
The body of William Reese, 45, a cemetery caretaker, is found in rural Pennsville, New Jersey, on May 9, 1997. He had been shot in the head with a Golden Saber .38-caliber bullet. Police soon determined that the killer was Andrew Cunanan, a 27-year-old man already wanted for three murders....
Disaster
2001
On this day in 2001, during a soccer match at Accra Stadium in Ghana, an encounter between police and rowdy fans results in a stampede that kills 126 people. This tragedy was the worst-ever sports-related disaster in Africa’s history to that time.
The Accra Hearts of Oak, playing at home,...
General Interest
1671
In London, Thomas Blood, an Irish adventurer better known as “Captain Blood,” is captured attempting to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.Blood, a Parliamentarian during the English Civil War, was deprived of his estate in Ireland with the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. In 1663,...
1926
According to their claims, polar explorer Richard E. Byrd and co-pilot Floyd Bennett fly over the North Pole on this day in the Josephine Ford, a triple-engine Fokker monoplane. It would have been the first time an aircraft flew over the top of the world. The pair had taken off...
1978
On May 9, 1978, the body of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro is found, riddled by bullets, in the back of a car in the center of historic Rome. He was kidnapped by Red Brigade terrorists on March 16 after a bloody shoot-out near his suburban home. The Italian...
1997
Twenty-two years and 10 days after the fall of Saigon, former Florida Representative Douglas “Pete” Peterson becomes the first ambassador to Vietnam since Graham Martin was airlifted out of the country by helicopter in late April 1975. Peterson himself served as a U.S. Air Force captain during the Vietnam War...
Hollywood
1971
On this day in 1971, the last original episode of the sitcom The Honeymooners, starring Jackie Gleason as Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden, airs.
Although a perennial rerun favorite in syndication, The Honeymooners actually aired only 39 episodes in its familiar sitcom format, running for just one season in 1955-56. The...
Literary
1860
James Barrie, creator of Peter Pan, is born in Scotland on this day.
Barrie attended the University of Edinburgh and worked as a reporter for the Nottingham Journal for two years after college. He moved to London in 1885 and became a freelance writer. His first collection of sketches, Auld Licht...
Music
1964
Following the ascension of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” to #1 in early February, the Beatles held the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for three and a half solid months—longer than any popular artist before or since. Over the course of those months, the Fab Four earned three...
Old West
1887
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show opens in London, giving Queen Victoria and her subjects their first look at real cowboys and Indians.
A well-known scout for the army and a buffalo hunter for the railroads (which earned him his nickname), Cody had gained national prominence 15 years earlier thanks to a...
Presidential
1914
On this day in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson issues a presidential proclamation that officially establishes the first national Mother’s Day holiday to celebrate America’s mothers.
The idea for a “Mother’s Day” is credited by some to Julia Ward Howe (1872) and by others to Anna Jarvis (1907), who both suggested a...
Sports
1973
On May 9, 1973, Johnny Bench, All-Star catcher for the Cincinnati Reds, hits three home runs in one game off All-Star pitcher Steve Carlton of the Philadelphia Phillies. As Bench had homered in his previous at-bat the game before as well, this gave him four home runs in four consecutive...
Vietnam War
1969
William Beecher, military correspondent for the New York Times, publishes a front page dispatch from Washington, “Raids in Cambodia by U.S. Unprotested,” which accurately described the first of the secret B-52 bombing raids in Cambodia. Within hours, Henry Kissinger, presidential assistant for national security affairs, contacted J. Edgar Hoover, the...
1970
Between 75,000 and 100,000 young people, mostly from college campuses, demonstrate peacefully in Washington, D.C., at the rear of a barricaded White House. They demanded the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations. Afterwards, a few hundred militants spread through surrounding streets, causing limited damage....
1974
The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opens impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon, voting to impeach him on three counts on July 30.
The impeachment was the result of the scandal involving the bungled burglary of the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C.,...
World War I
1915
On this day in 1915, Anglo-French forces fighting in World War I launch their first combined attempt to break through the heavily fortified German trench lines on the Western Front in France.
At Vimy Ridge, a strategically important crest of land on the Aisne River, in northwestern France, French troops launched...
World War II
1945
On this day in 1945, Herman Goering, commander in chief of the Luftwaffe, president of the Reichstag, head of the Gestapo, prime minister of Prussia, and Hitler’s designated successor is taken prisoner by the U.S. Seventh Army in Bavaria.
Goering was an early member of the Nazi Party and was wounded...