TODAY IN HISTORY

 

National Guard kills four students in Kent State shootings

On May 4, 1970, in Kent, Ohio, 28 National Guardsmen fire their weapons at a group of anti-war demonstrators on the Kent State University campus, killing four students, wounding eight, and permanently paralyzing another. The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the conflict in Vietnam, and further galvanized the anti-war movement. 

Two days earlier, on May 2, National Guard troops were called to Kent to suppress students rioting in protest of the Vietnam War and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. The next day, scattered protests were dispersed by tear gas, and on May 4 class resumed at Kent State University. By noon that day, despite a ban on rallies, some 2,000 people had assembled on the campus. National Guard troops arrived and ordered the crowd to disperse, fired tear gas, and advanced against the students with bayonets fixed on their rifles. Some of the protesters, refusing to yield, responded by throwing rocks and verbally taunting the troops.

Minutes later, without firing a warning shot, the Guardsmen discharged more than 60 rounds toward a group of demonstrators in a nearby parking lot, killing four and wounding nine. The closest casualty was 20 yards away, and the farthest was almost 250 yards away. After a period of disbelief, shock, and attempts at first aid, angry students gathered on a nearby slope and were again ordered to move by the Guardsmen. Faculty members were able to convince the group to disperse, and further bloodshed was prevented.

The shootings led to protests on college campuses across the country. Photographs of the massacre became enduring images of the anti-war movement. In 1974, at the end of a criminal investigation, a federal court dropped all charges levied against eight Ohio National Guardsmen for their role in the Kent State students’ deaths. 

WOMEN’S HISTORY

1979

Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain’s first female Prime Minister

Margaret Thatcher, leader of the Conservative Party, becomes Britain’s first female prime minister on May 4, 1979. The Oxford-educated chemist and lawyer took office the day after the Conservatives won a 44-seat majority in general parliamentary elections. 

SPORTS

1966

Willie Mays breaks National League home run record

On May 4, 1966, San Francisco Giants outfielder Willie Mays hits his 512th career home run to break Mel Ott’s National League record for home runs. Mays would finish his career with 660 home runs, good for third on the all-time list at the time of his retirement. 

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

1961

The first Freedom Ride departs from Washington, D.C.

On May 4, 1961, a group of thirteen young people departs Washington, D.C.’s Greyhound Bus terminal, bound for the South. Their journey is peaceful at first, but the riders will meet with shocking violence on their way to New Orleans, eventually being forced to evacuate from  Jackson, Mississippi but earning a place in history as the first Freedom Riders.

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1994

A lawmaker introduces the pun "May the Fourth be with you" on the floor of U.K. Parliament

On May 4, 1994, in a groan-inducing moment on the floor of U.K. Parliament, a lawmaker uses a pun that will spawn its own holiday far, far away from the halls of government. “May the 4th is an appropriate date for a defense debate. My researcher, who is a bit of a wit, said that  it should be called ‘National Star Wars Day,’” said Harry Cohen, then a Member of Parliament from Leyton, an area of East London. “He was talking about the film Star Wars rather than President Reagan's defense fantasy, and he added, ‘May the fourth be with you.’ That is a very bad joke; he deserves the sack for making it, but he is a good researcher.”

LANDMARKS

1905

The U.S. officially begins construction on the Panama Canal

A ceremony on May 4, 1905 marks the official beginning of the second attempt to build the Panama Canal. This second attempt to bridge the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans will succeed, dramatically altering world trade as well as the physical and geopolitical landscape of Central America. For decades before it was attempted, merchants and engineers fixated on the idea of creating a passage through Central America for ocean-going vessels, sparing them thousands of nautical miles and the dangerous trip around Cape Horn. A French company was the first to attempt building such a canal, but the results were disastrous: roughly 20,000 workers perished due to accidents and tropical diseases, and the company collapsed without coming close to completing the canal. 

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1956

Gene Vincent records “Be-Bop-A-Lula”

When a music critic wants to indicate that a song lacks lyrical sophistication, he or she will often refer to its lyrics as being of the “moon in June” sort. It’s a label left over from the Tin Pan Alley era, when even great composers like Irving Berlin churned out a hundred uninspired Moon/June tunes for every highly original classic like “Blues Skies” or “Puttin’ On The Ritz.” If rock and roll has an equivalent in the area of clichéd lyrics, it is probably “Baby” and “Maybe”—a rhyming pair made most famous in the smoldering early-rock classic “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” which was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, by the rockabilly legend Gene Vincent on May 4, 1956.

CRIME

1886

The Haymarket Square Riot

At Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, a bomb is thrown at a squad of policemen attempting to break up what had begun as a peaceful labor rally. The police responded with wild gunfire, killing several people in the crowd and injuring dozens more. The demonstration, which drew some 1,500 Chicago workers, was organized by German-born labor radicals in protest of the killing of a striker by the Chicago police the day before. Midway into the rally, which had thinned out because of rain, a force of nearly 200 policemen arrived to disperse the workers. As the police advanced toward the 300 remaining protesters, an individual who was never positively identified threw a bomb at them. After the explosion and subsequent police gunfire, more than a dozen people lay dead or dying, and close to 100 were injured.

MIDDLE EAST

1994

Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat sign accord for Palestinian self-rule

On May 4, 1994, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat reach an agreement in Cairo on the first stage of Palestinian self-rule. The agreement was made in accordance with the Oslo Accords, signed in Washington, D.C. on September 13, 1993. 

U.S. PRESIDENTS

1865

President Lincoln is buried in Springfield, Illinois

On May 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln is laid to rest in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. His funeral train had traveled through 180 cities and seven states before reaching Springfield. At each stop, mourners paid their respects to Lincoln, who had been assassinated on April 14. Lincoln’s son Willie, who died at age 11 from typhoid fever in 1862 and had originally been buried in Washington, D.C. while Lincoln was serving as president, was interred next to his father in the family plot that same day.

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1948

Norman Mailer's first novel, “The Naked and the Dead,” is published

Twenty-five-year-old Norman Mailer’s first novel, The Naked and the Dead, is published on May 4, 1948. The book is critically acclaimed and widely considered one of the best novels to come out of World War II. Mailer was born in New Jersey in 1923 and raised in Brooklyn.

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1929

Legendary actress Audrey Hepburn is born

On May 4, 1929, Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston—who will one day be better known to legions of film fans as Audrey Hepburn—is born near Brussels, Belgium. The daughter of an English banker and a Dutch baroness, Hepburn was attending school in London when World War II erupted in Europe. During the war, the Nazis occupied Holland, where the young Audrey and her mother were staying, and the family suffered many hardships. Hepburn continued to pursue her ballet studies, and at war’s end, she returned to London, where she modeled and began acting in small parts on stage and screen. In 1951, Hepburn was “discovered” by the French writer Colette while in Monaco shooting a film. Colette insisted Hepburn be cast in the title role of the Broadway version of her novel Gigi, and the young actress made her Broadway debut that same year.

AFRICA

2002

Nigerian aircraft crashes in crowded city

On May 4, 2002, an EAS Airline plane crashes into the town of Kano, Nigeria, killing 149 people. The Nigerian BAC 1-11-500 aircraft exploded in a densely populated section of the northern Nigerian city. The Executive Airline Services twin-engine plane took off from Kano at about 1:30 p.m. with 77 people on board headed for Lagos. Witnesses on the ground saw that the plane immediately showed signs of distress before plunging toward the ground. It then ripped through a working-class neighborhood, shearing off the roofs of dozens of homes and a couple of mosques. About three full blocks of structures were destroyed.

CRIME

1990

Electric chair malfunctions in Florida, leading states to change execution methods

Jesse Tafero is executed in Florida after his electric chair malfunctions three times, causing flames to leap from his head. Tafero’s death led to a new debate on humane methods of execution. Several states ceased use of the electric chair and adopted lethal injection as their means of capital punishment.

AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1776

Rhode Island becomes first colony to declare independence from England

On May 4, 1776, Rhode Island, the colony founded by the most radical religious dissenters from the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony, becomes the first North American colony to renounce its allegiance to King George III. Ironically, Rhode Island would be the last state to ratify the new American Constitution more than 14 years later on May 29, 1790.

WORLD WAR I

1916

Germany agrees to limit its submarine warfare

On May 4, 1916, Germany responds to a demand by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson by agreeing to limit its submarine warfare in order to avert a diplomatic break with the United States. Unrestricted submarine warfare was first introduced in World War I in early 1915, when Germany declared the area around the British Isles a war zone, in which all merchant ships, including those from neutral countries, would be attacked by the German navy. A string of German attacks on merchant ships—culminating in the sinking of the British passenger ship Lusitania on May 7, 1915—led President Wilson to put pressure on the Germans to curb their navy. Fearful of antagonizing the Americans, the German government agreed to put restrictions on the submarine policy going forward, incurring the anger and frustration of many naval leaders, including the naval commander in chief, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, who resigned in March 1916.

WORLD WAR II

1945

As the Nazi threat dies, the Red Army rises

On May 4, 1945, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov informs U.S. Secretary of State Stettinius that the Red Army has arrested 16 Polish peace negotiators who had met with a Soviet army colonel near Warsaw back in March. When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill learns of the Soviet double-cross, he reacts in alarm, stating, “There is no doubt that the publication in detail of this event…would produce a primary change in the entire structure of world forces.”