May 6
1840 - A tornado that touched down in eastern Louisiana and crossed the Mississippi River into Natchez, Mississippi, killed 317 people - most of them on boats in the river.
1856 - Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was born in Freiberg, Moravia (present-day Pribor, Czech Republic).
1861 - Arkansas seceded from the Union.
1882 - Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act over the veto of President Chester A. Arthur, which barred Chinese immigrants from the United States for 10 years.
1889 - The Universal Exposition opened in Paris, marking the completion and dedication of the Eiffel Tower.
1910 - Britain's King Edward VII died and was succeeded by George V.
1935 - The Works Progress Administration began operating under an executive order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1937 - The German airship Hindenburg blew up and burst into flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 of the 97 people on board.
1941 - Dictator Joseph Stalin became the premier of Russia.
1941 - Comedian Bob Hope did his first USO show before an audience of servicemen as he broadcast his radio program from March Field in Riverside, California.
1942 - Some 15,000 Americans and Filipinos on Corregidor surrendered to the Japanese during World War II.
1960 - Britain's Princess Margaret married Anthony Armstrong Jones, a commoner, at Westminster Abbey. (They divorced in 1978.)
1994 - An underground tunnel beneath the English Channel, named the "Chunnel" and linking England and France, officially opened.
1994 - Former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones filed suit against President Bill Clinton, alleging he had sexually harassed her in 1991. (Jones reached a settlement with Clinton in November 1998.)
1999 - Scotland elected its first separate parliament in three centuries.
2001 - Pope John Paul II, during a trip to Syria, became the first pope to enter a mosque.
2002 - Right-wing Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was shot and killed in Hilversum, Netherlands.
2002 - "Spider-Man" became the first movie to make more than $100 million in its opening weekend.
2004 - The final episode of the sitcom "Friends" aired on NBC.
2004 - President George W. Bush apologized for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, calling it “a stain on our country’s honor”; he rejected calls for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation.
2006 - Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, died in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, at age 99.
2007 - Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president of France.
2010 - A computerized sell order triggered a "flash crash" on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a loss of nearly 1,000 points in less than 30 minutes.
2013 - Kidnap-rape victims Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who went missing separately about a decade earlier while in their teens or early 20s, were rescued from a house just south of downtown Cleveland. (Their captor, Ariel Castro, hanged himself in prison in September 2013 at the beginning of a life sentence plus 1,000 years.)
2021 - Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a 48-page elections bill that Republicans said would guard against fraud and vote harvesting; Democrats and voting rights advocates said it was an attempt to make it harder for some people to vote.
Birthdays
20 - Emily Alyn Lind (actress)
25 - Sofia Jamora (model)
27 - Tiera Skovbye (actress)
28 - Noah Galvin (actor)
29 - Naomi Scott (actress/singer)
32 - Jose Altuve (baseball player)
34 - Dakota Kai (professional wrestler)
35 - Meek Mill (rapper)
37 - Chris Paul (basketball player)
39 - Adrianne Palicki (actress)
40 - Tiffany Coyne (actress/model)
43 - Stacey Oristano (actress)
57 - Leslie Hope (actress)
61 - Clay O'Brien (actor)
61 - George Clooney (actor)
62 - Julianne Phillips (actress)
62 - Roma Downey (actress)
67 - Tom Bergeron (actor)
70 - Gregg Henry (actor)
74 - Richard Cox (actor)
75 - Ben Masters (actor)
75 - Alan Dale (actor)
77 - Bob Seger (singer)
91 - Willie Mays (baseball player)
====================================
Today in Sports History - May 6
1915 - Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox hit the first of his 714 major league home runs in a 4-3 loss to the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds.
1954 - British athlete Roger Bannister, running at a track meet in Oxford, England, became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes (3:59.4)
1946 - The New York Yankees became the first major league baseball team to travel by plane.
1973 - The New England Whalers defeated the Winnipeg Jets to win the first WHA (World Hockey Association) championship.
1997 - The NHL's Hartford Whalers became the Carolina Hurricanes.
1998 - Kerry Wood of the Chicago Cubs strikes out 20 batters in a game against the Houston Astros to tie the major league record held by Roger Clemens. He threw a one-hitter in the game, which was just his fifth career start.
2016 - Major League Baseball and the player's union announced the Pirates-Marlins series in Puerto Rico would be moved to Marlins Park in Florida due to concerns about the Zika virus.
2019 - Pablo Sandoval becomes just the second MLB player since 1900 to throw a scoreless outing, hit a home run and steal a base in the same game in the San Francisco Giants' 12-4 loss to the Cincinnati Reds. (Christy Mathewson also accomplished the feat in 1905.)
2021 - The Los Angeles Angels cut 41-year-old superstar Albert Pujols. (Pujols would finish the season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, before returning to the St. Louis Cardinals in 2022.)
1840 - A tornado that touched down in eastern Louisiana and crossed the Mississippi River into Natchez, Mississippi, killed 317 people - most of them on boats in the river.
1856 - Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was born in Freiberg, Moravia (present-day Pribor, Czech Republic).
1861 - Arkansas seceded from the Union.
1882 - Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act over the veto of President Chester A. Arthur, which barred Chinese immigrants from the United States for 10 years.
1889 - The Universal Exposition opened in Paris, marking the completion and dedication of the Eiffel Tower.
1910 - Britain's King Edward VII died and was succeeded by George V.
1935 - The Works Progress Administration began operating under an executive order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1937 - The German airship Hindenburg blew up and burst into flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 of the 97 people on board.
1941 - Dictator Joseph Stalin became the premier of Russia.
1941 - Comedian Bob Hope did his first USO show before an audience of servicemen as he broadcast his radio program from March Field in Riverside, California.
1942 - Some 15,000 Americans and Filipinos on Corregidor surrendered to the Japanese during World War II.
1960 - Britain's Princess Margaret married Anthony Armstrong Jones, a commoner, at Westminster Abbey. (They divorced in 1978.)
1994 - An underground tunnel beneath the English Channel, named the "Chunnel" and linking England and France, officially opened.
1994 - Former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones filed suit against President Bill Clinton, alleging he had sexually harassed her in 1991. (Jones reached a settlement with Clinton in November 1998.)
1999 - Scotland elected its first separate parliament in three centuries.
2001 - Pope John Paul II, during a trip to Syria, became the first pope to enter a mosque.
2002 - Right-wing Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was shot and killed in Hilversum, Netherlands.
2002 - "Spider-Man" became the first movie to make more than $100 million in its opening weekend.
2004 - The final episode of the sitcom "Friends" aired on NBC.
2004 - President George W. Bush apologized for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, calling it “a stain on our country’s honor”; he rejected calls for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation.
2006 - Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, died in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, at age 99.
2007 - Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president of France.
2010 - A computerized sell order triggered a "flash crash" on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a loss of nearly 1,000 points in less than 30 minutes.
2013 - Kidnap-rape victims Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who went missing separately about a decade earlier while in their teens or early 20s, were rescued from a house just south of downtown Cleveland. (Their captor, Ariel Castro, hanged himself in prison in September 2013 at the beginning of a life sentence plus 1,000 years.)
2021 - Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a 48-page elections bill that Republicans said would guard against fraud and vote harvesting; Democrats and voting rights advocates said it was an attempt to make it harder for some people to vote.
Birthdays
20 - Emily Alyn Lind (actress)
25 - Sofia Jamora (model)
27 - Tiera Skovbye (actress)
28 - Noah Galvin (actor)
29 - Naomi Scott (actress/singer)
32 - Jose Altuve (baseball player)
34 - Dakota Kai (professional wrestler)
35 - Meek Mill (rapper)
37 - Chris Paul (basketball player)
39 - Adrianne Palicki (actress)
40 - Tiffany Coyne (actress/model)
43 - Stacey Oristano (actress)
57 - Leslie Hope (actress)
61 - Clay O'Brien (actor)
61 - George Clooney (actor)
62 - Julianne Phillips (actress)
62 - Roma Downey (actress)
67 - Tom Bergeron (actor)
70 - Gregg Henry (actor)
74 - Richard Cox (actor)
75 - Ben Masters (actor)
75 - Alan Dale (actor)
77 - Bob Seger (singer)
91 - Willie Mays (baseball player)
====================================
Today in Sports History - May 6
1915 - Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox hit the first of his 714 major league home runs in a 4-3 loss to the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds.
1954 - British athlete Roger Bannister, running at a track meet in Oxford, England, became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes (3:59.4)
1946 - The New York Yankees became the first major league baseball team to travel by plane.
1973 - The New England Whalers defeated the Winnipeg Jets to win the first WHA (World Hockey Association) championship.
1997 - The NHL's Hartford Whalers became the Carolina Hurricanes.
1998 - Kerry Wood of the Chicago Cubs strikes out 20 batters in a game against the Houston Astros to tie the major league record held by Roger Clemens. He threw a one-hitter in the game, which was just his fifth career start.
2016 - Major League Baseball and the player's union announced the Pirates-Marlins series in Puerto Rico would be moved to Marlins Park in Florida due to concerns about the Zika virus.
2019 - Pablo Sandoval becomes just the second MLB player since 1900 to throw a scoreless outing, hit a home run and steal a base in the same game in the San Francisco Giants' 12-4 loss to the Cincinnati Reds. (Christy Mathewson also accomplished the feat in 1905.)
2021 - The Los Angeles Angels cut 41-year-old superstar Albert Pujols. (Pujols would finish the season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, before returning to the St. Louis Cardinals in 2022.)
