On This Day
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From: Reference.com On This Day
To: Cynthia Groopman
Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2009 3:00 AM
Subject: Saturday May 9, 2009: Reference.com On This Day
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On This Day:
Saturday May 9, 2009
This is the 129th day of the year, with 236 days remaining in 2009.
Fact of the Day: V-E Day
V-E Day stands for Victory in Europe Day, commemorating the unconditional
surrender of Germany to Allied forces on May 8, 1945. Adolf Hitler declared
that Germany had proved unworthy of him and committed suicide in his Berlin
bunker on April 30, 1945. Hitler's successor, Admiral Karl Dönitz, started
negotiations with the Western powers, hoping to save as many troops and
refugees as possible from Soviet reprisals. But the U.S.S.R. refused to
recognize the surrender ceremony at U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower's
headquarters on May 7 (the hostilities set to end at one minute past midnight
May 9, 1945 - or 9:01pm Eastern on May 8 in the U.S.). A separate German
surrender to the USSR was signed and a separate Soviet V-E Day held, in Berlin
on May 8 to end the war once and for all.
Holidays
Feast day of St. Beatus of Lungern, St. Gerontius of Cervia, St. Beatus
of Vendôme, and St. Pachomius.
Russia, Poland: Victory Day.
Channel Islands: Liberation Day.
Uzbekistan: Day of Memory and Honor.
Events
1502 - Christopher Columbus left Spain on his fourth and final trip to
the Western Hemisphere.
1754 - The first cartoon was published, in Benjamin Franklin's
"Pennsylvania Gazette."
1813 - General William Henry Harrison turned back a siege of Fort Meigs
by Shawnee military leader Tecumseh and British general Henry A. Proctor.
1913 - The 17th amendment to the Constitution of the United States of
America, providing for the election of U.S. senators by popular vote rather
than selection by state legislatures, was ratified.
1914 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation for the
celebration of Mother's Day.
1926 - Polar explorer Richard E. Byrd and co-pilot Floyd Bennett
announced that they were the first to fly over the North Pole; this claim has
been debated, however.
1955 - West Germany was admitted as a member of NATO.
1960 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a birth-control
pill.
1961 - Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow
condemned television programming as a "vast wasteland" in a speech to the
National Association of Broadcasters.
1988 - The new Australian Parliament House opens in Canberra.
1994 - South Africa's newly-elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be
the country's first black president.
2005 - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is selected as the successor of Pope
John Paul II.
2006 - Estonia ratifies the European Constitution.
Births
1800 - John Brown, American abolitionist.
1845 - Carl Gustav Laval, Swedish scientist, engineer, inventor.
1873 - Howard Carter, British Egyptologist, archaeologist who discovered
tomb of Tutankhamen.
1882 - Henry J. Kaiser, American industrialist, shipbuilder, auto
manufacturer.
1940 - James L. Brooks, American producer, writer, and film director.
1946 - Candice Bergen, American actress.
1949 - Billy Joel, American singer, pianist, and songwriter.
1977 - Dan Regan, trombone player for the Southern California-based ska
punk band Reel Big Fish.
Deaths
1903 - Paul Gauguin (born Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin) was a leading
Post-Impressionist artist.
1914 - C. W. Post, an American breakfast cereal and foods manufacturer,
and a pioneer in the prepared-food industry.
1978 - Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, found shot in the back of a car
after being kidnapped two months earlier.
2004 - Akhmad Kadyrov, President of the Chechen Republic.
2004 - Alan King (born Irwin Alan Kniberg), American comic.
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