^{Project Mercury astronauts: Front row, left to right: Walter H. Schirra, Jr.; Donald K. Slayton; John H. Glenn, Jr.; Scott Carpenter. Back row, left to right: Alan B. Shepard, Jr.; Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom; L. Gordon Cooper}

Today in History

• Henry V becomes king of England (1413)
• Sir Walter Raleigh’s Roanoke Expedition departs England (1585)
• Robert Cavelier de La Salle claims the mouth of the Mississippi for France, naming the new territory Louisiana (1682)
• British master mariner Robert Jenkins has his ear sliced off by a Spanish captain who boarded his ship, leading to the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739-1748) between Great Britain and Spain (1731)
• The oldest known audible recording of a human voice is made (1860)
• American Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia (1865)
• The US Senate, by a one-vote margin, ratifies a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska (1867)
• Contralto Marian Anderson sings at the Lincoln Memorial, after being denied the right to sing at DAR Constitution Hall (1939)
• Vidkun Quisling seizes power Norway in a Nazi-backed coup d’état (1940)
• US forces on the Bataan Peninsula surrender to the Japanese (1942)
• The Journey of Reconciliation, the first interracial freedom ride (in violation of Jim Crow laws) through the upper American South, begins (1947)
• The Suez Canal reopens following the Suez Crisis (1957)
• The “Mercury Seven” astronauts are announced by NASA (1959)
• The Astrodome opens (1965)
• Georgia declares independence from the Soviet Union (1991)
• Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega is convicted of drug and racketeering charges in a US court and sentenced to 30 years in prison (1992)
• Baghdad falls to US forces (2003)
• Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla Parker Bowles, marry (2005)

Birthdays

• تیمور‎ (Timur, or Tamerlane), conqueror (1336)
• Isambard Kingdom Brunel, engineer and builder (1806)
• Charles Baudelaire, poet (1821)
• Eadweard Muybridge, motion picture photographer (1830)
• Erich Ludendorff, German general (1865)
• Charles Proteus Steinmetz, mathematician and electrical engineer (1865)
• Frank King, creator of Gasoline Alley (1883)
• Sol Hurok, impressario (1888)
• Victor Gollancz, publisher (1893)
• Curly Lambeau, Green Bay Packer (1898)
• Paul Robeson, singer, actor, activist (1898)
• Ward Bond, actor (1903)
• Sharkey Bonano, bandleader and trumpet player (1904)
• J. William Fulbright, politician (1905)
• Antal Doráti, conductor and composer (1906)
• Abe Ribicoff, politician (1910)
• Frankie Thomas, played Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (1921)
• Virginia Gibson, dancer, singer, actress (1925)
• Hugh Hefner, playboy (1926)
• Tom Lehrer, satirist (1928)
• Nathaniel Branden, objectivist (1930)
• Jim Fowler, host of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom (1932)
• Carl Perkins, singer-songwriter (1932)
• Jean-Paul Belmondo, actor (1933)
• Fern Michaels, author (1933)
• Avery Schreiber, comedian (1936)
• Valerie Solanas, author (1936)
• Marty Krofft, puppeteer (1937)
• Виктор Черномырдин (Vicktor Chernomyrdin), Russian prime minister (1938)
• Michael Learned, actress (1939)
• Brandon deWilde, actor (1942)
• Margo Smith, country musician (1943)
• Hal Ketchum, country musician (1953)
• Dennis Quaid, actor (1954)
• Joe Scarborough, talk show host (1963)
• Mark Pellegrino, actor (1965)
• Paulina Porizkova, supermodel (1965)
• Jeff Zucker, broadcast executive (1965)
• Cynthia Nixon, actress (1966)
• Jenna Jameson, porn star (1974)
• Keshia Knight Pulliam, actress (1979)
• Eric Harris, Columbine High School murderer (1981)
• Kristen Stewart, actress (1990)

Deaths

• 神武天皇  (Jimmu), first emperor of Japan (585 — traditional)
• Edward IV, English monarch (1483)
• Lorenzo de’ Medici, Florentine ruler (1492)
• François Rabelais, monk and satirist (1553)
• Sir Francis Bacon, polymath (1626)
• Zip the Pinhead, freak show performer (1926)
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian (1945)
• William Canaris, German admiral (1945)
• Hans Oster, German general (1945)
• Eddie Cochems, football player and coach, “father of the forward pass” (1953)
• Frank Lloyd Wright, architect (1959)
• Phil Ochs, singer-songwriter (1976)
• آية الله العظمى السيد محمد باقر الصدر (Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr), cleric executed by Saddam Hussein (1980)
• Brook Benton, singer-songwriter (1988)
• Dave Prater, half of Sam & Dave (1988)
• Richard Condon, author (1996)
• Helene Hanff, wrote 84, Charing Cross Road (1997)
• Willie Stargell, baseball player (2001)
• Andrea Dworkin, activist and author (2005)
• Sidney Lumet, filmmaker (2001)

Holidays and Celebrations