May 4 1626 -
Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on what is now Manhattan island, where a little settlement had been established on the southern tip by the Dutch East India Company, called New Amsterdam. While the Indians been pissed off even since then, there are some in Congress that think the 24 dollars could have been better spent.
May 4 1854 -
Joseph Tussaud returns to London with the well-used blade of the guillotine he purchased from Clement Sanson, the last in a line of Sansons who held the office of Executioner of Paris for over 150 years. The blade is now part of Tussaud's Wax Museum collection.
May 4, 1954 -
An Old Man goes fishing. It was a good day to fish. He catches a fish. It was a big fish. It was a good day for the fish to die. Sharks, big sharks eat the big fish before the old man gets back to shore. The Old Man goes home to his shack and falls asleep. It was a deep sleep. He dreams about lions in Africa. They are big lions. Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize. So class, either Santiago is a defeated hero or an undefeated hero. Throw in references to Jesus Christ, Joe DiMaggio, the sin of pride and greed and "A man can be destroyed but not defeated" and you have your Master's Thesis.
May 4 1970 -
28 Ohio National Guardsmen kill four students and wound nine others at Kent State University. The Guardsmen had read them the riot act, but the students refused to disperse. So they shot them.
May 4 1991 -
Bing Crosby's son Dennis Crosby puts a shotgun to his head, ending his life in a boarding house in California. A younger brother, Lindsay, had also killed himself with a shotgun two years earlier. Bing must have been a lovely person.
May 4 1999 -
At the Sigma Chi fraternity at the University of Wisconsin, Chad Alvarez nukes a fraternal brother's Quaker parrot, Iago, in the house microwave. The animal explodes. For this he is sentenced to ten days in jail, and fined $1000. Alvarez is the son of the university's football coach. The birdy went boom.
May 4 1999 -
A newly-delivered baby falls through a train toilet as it is born near the city of Guangzhou, China. After the fall, a second train speeds over the newborn. Although the baby survives unharmed, radio announcers are later reprimanded for laughing hysterically as they report the story. That's right, it was a bouncing baby boy.
May 4 2000 -
The "I Love You" computer worm rampages through Internet email systems, inflicting damages somewhere in the $2-to-$15 billion range. The worm spreads by exploiting design flaws in the Microsoft Outlook mail client and also the gullibility of your typical computer user. A variety of Filipino suspects is ultimately narrowed down to an AMA Computer College student from Manila.
May 4 2001 -
After dinner at Vitello's in Studio City, film and television actor Robert Blake remembers that he left something at the restaurant. When he returns to the car, he discovers his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley Paulakis Gawron Moon Besly Brooksher Webber Telufson Wolfe Ray Blake (yes, she was married to nine other men before Blake) , slumped over in the passenger seat. She had been shot in the head by person or persons unknown. Bakley later dies of her injury. One year later, Blake is charged with the murder. To the astonishment of some, he is later acquitted of the charges. It was actually suggested during the trial, by the defense, that a list of people with possible motives to kill Bonnie Lee would be longer than the Los Angeles Phone Directory.
And so it goes
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