Today in History - May 3
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495 May 3,
Pope Gelasius asserted that his authority was superior to Emperor
Anastasius.
(PTA, 1980, p.98)(HN, 5/3/98)
1010 May 3, Ansfried (~69), 9th
bishop of Utrecht (995-1010), saint, died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1294 May 3, Jan I, duke of
Brabant (Belgium-Netherlands), Limburg, poet, died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1455 May 3, Jews fled Spain.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1469
May 3, Nicolo Machiavelli (d.1527), political advisor and author,
was born. He was a historian and author of "The Prince." He saw in
Cesare Borgia, the bastard son of Pope Alexander VI, the prospect of
an Italy free of foreign control. "Men are more apt to be mistaken
in their generalizations than in their particular observations."
(V.D.-H.K.p.109)(AP, 11/15/98)(HN, 5/3/99)
1493 May 3-1493 May 4, Pope
Alexander VI issued 3 papal bulls that divided the discoveries of
Columbus between Spain and Portugal. By the Bulls of May 3 and 4 he
drew an imaginary line one hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde
Islands. The May 4 Bull, “Inter Caetera,” was amended in Sep.
granting Spain the right to hold lands to the “western regions and
to India.” The Patronata Real granted the Spanish throne the
privilege and duty of overseeing propagation of Christianity among
Spain’s subjects in the New World.
(DAH, 1946,
p.2)(www.kwabs.com/bull_of_1493.html)(SFC, 3/5/11, p.E3)
1568 May 3, French forces in
Florida slaughtered hundreds of Spanish.
(HN, 5/3/98)
1621 May 3, Francis Bacon was
accused of bribery.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1624 May 3, Spanish silver
fleet sailed to Panama.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1654 May 3, A
bridge in Rowley, Mass., was permitted to charge a toll for animals,
while people crossed for free.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1662 May 3, John Winthrop the
Younger, the son of the first governor of Massachusetts was honored
by being made a fellow of the Royal Society, England's new
scientific society. Winthrop gained a new charter from the king,
uniting the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven.
(HN, 5/3/99)
1715 May 3, Edmund Halley
observed a total eclipse phenomenon: "Baily's Beads."
(MC, 5/3/02)
1791 May 3, Poland adopted a
new Constitution. It was designed to redress long-standing political
defects of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and its traditional
system of "Golden Liberty." The constitution put Lithuania under
Polish domination. It is generally regarded as Europe's first and
the world's second modern codified national constitution, following
the 1788 ratification of the US Constitution.
(SFC, 4/25/09,
p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_May_3,_1791)(Voruta
#27-28, 7/1996, p.13)
1802 May 3,
Washington, D.C., was incorporated as a city, with the mayor
appointed by the president and the council elected by property
owners.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1808 May 3, Spanish executions
took place and were later commemorated in Goya’s painting
"Executions of 3rd of May."
(MC, 5/3/02)
1810 May 3, Lord Byron swam the
Hellespont.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1821 May 3,
The Richmond [Virginia] Light Artillery was organized.
(RC handout, 5/27/96)
1830 May 3, The 1st regular
steam train passenger service started.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1844 May 3, Richard D'Oyly
Carte, opera impresario (Gilbert & Sullivan operas, Ivanhoe),
was born in England.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1849 May 3, Jacob Riis
(d.1914), American reporter and reformer (How the Other Half Lives),
was born in Denmark.
(HN,
5/3/01)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAriis.htm)
1854 May 3, William Beale (70),
composer, died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1855 May 3, Macon B. Allen
became the first African American to be admitted to the Bar in
Massachusetts.
(HN, 5/3/99)
1856 May 3, Adolphe Charles
Adam (52), French composer, critic (Giselle), died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1859 May 3, France
declared war on Austria.
(HN, 5/3/98)
1861 May 3, Lincoln asked for
42,000 Army Volunteers and another 18,000 seamen.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1861 May 3, Gen. Winfield Scott
presented his Anaconda Plan to Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan.
(www.civilwarhome.com/scottmcclellananaconda.htm)(ON, 12/05, p.12)
1863 May 3, Stonewall Jackson’s
arm was amputated and buried. Jackson told his medical director, Dr.
Hunter McGuire, "If the enemy does come, I am not afraid of them; I
have always been kind to their wounded, and I am sure they will be
kind to me." His words followed an order from Robert E. Lee to move
Jackson to Guiney's Station, fearing that nearby Federal troops
might capture him. Following perhaps his greatest performance,
leading a brilliant flanking maneuver against Union Major General
Joseph Hooker at Chancellorsville, he was mistakenly shot by his own
troops while scouting ahead of their lines after dark. Jackson
sustained severe wounds to the left arm and minor wounds to the
right hand that later led to his death.
(HT, 3/97, p.52)(HNQ, 3/11/02)
1863 May 3, In Virginia the
Battle of Chancellorsville raged for a second day, as Confederate
General Robert E. Lee parried Union General Joseph T. Hooker's
thrusts. [see May 1-2]
(HN, 5/3/00)
1863 May 3-1863 May 4, The
Battle of Salem Church took place in Spotsylvania County, Virginia,
as part of the Chancellorsville campaign.
(AH, 12/02,
p.34)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Salem_Church)
1865 May 3,
President Lincoln's funeral train arrived in Springfield, Illinois.
(HN, 5/3/98)
1866 May 3, The first submarine
in the Americas, a 39-foot vessel designed in the 1860s by German
immigrant Karl Flach, sank in the Bay of Valparaiso off the coast of
Chile. The crew, two Chileans, two Frenchmen and seven Germans,
including Flach and his 15-year-old son, all died. In 2007 a search
team found the vessel.
(Reuters, 5/3/07)
1873 May 3, Nikolay N.
Tcherepnin, composer of ballets, songs, was born in St. Petersburg.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1886 May 3, Police arrived
outside the McCormick Harvester Works in Chicago, where 1,400 IWPA
workers were on strike. They opened-fire on the crowd while
anarchist August Spies was making a speech, killing four of the
workers.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAspies.htm)
1898 May 3, Golda Mier
(d.1978), 4th Prime Minister of Israel (1969-1974) and the first
woman PM, was born in Kiev, Ukraine. "Whether women are better than
men, I cannot say -- but I can say they are certainly no worse."
(AP, 5/11/97)(HN, 5/3/02)(MC, 5/3/02)
1902 May 3, Walter Slezak,
actor (Bedtime for Bonzo, Inspector General), was born in Vienna.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1903 May 3, Bing Crosby
(d.1977), singer and actor, was born in Tacoma, Wa. The family soon
moved to Spokane where he grew up.
(HN, 5/3/98)(SSFC, 1/21/01, BR p.10)
1907 May 3, Show business
columnist Earl Wilson was born in Rockford, Ohio.
(AP, 5/3/07)
1910 May 3, Alceo Galliera,
composer, conductor, was born.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1912 May 3, May Sarton, poet
and writer, was born.
(HN, 5/3/01)
1913 May 3, William Inge,
American playwright (Picnic, Bus Stop), was born.
(HN, 5/3/01)
1916 May 3,
Irish nationalist Padraic Pearse and two others were executed by the
British for their roles in the Easter Rising.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1919 May 3, Betty Compden,
lyricist, was born.
(HN, 5/3/01)
1919 May 3, Pete Seeger,
American folksinger and songwriter, was born in NYC. Seeger helped
to lay the foundation for American protest music, singing out about
the plight of everyday working folks and urging listeners to
political and social activism.
(www.rutherford.org/oldspeak/Articles/Art/oldspeak-Seeger.html)
1920 May 3, John Lewis, jazz
pianist, was born.
(HN, 5/3/01)
1920 May 3, "Sugar" Ray
Robinson (Walker Smith Jr.), American middleweight boxer, was
born. He won the world title for a record five times.
(HN, 5/3/99)
1921 May 3,
West Virginia imposed the first state sales tax.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1923 May 3,
The 1st non-stop flight across the US was made. Army lieutenants
Kelly and Macready flew from New York to San Diego.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(HN, 4/6/98)
1926 May 3, A Pulitzer prize
was awarded to Sinclair Lewis (Arrowsmith).
(MC, 5/3/02)
1926 May 3, U.S. marines
landed in Nicaragua and remained until 1933.
(HN, 5/3/98)
1926 May 3, There was a British
general strike and 3 million workers supported the miners. The
strike lasted 9 days.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_United_Kingdom_general_strike)
1926 May 3, Napoleon V
Bonaparte (63), French pretender to the throne, died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1928 May 3, James Brown, "The
Godfather of Soul," was born in Augusta, Georgia. The singer is best
remembered for the song "I Feel Good." [see May 3, 1933]
(HN, 5/3/99)(MC, 5/3/02)
1929 May 3, Prussia banned
anti-fascists.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1931 May 3, Frank Hoyt Losey
(59), composer, died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1933 May 3, James Brown,
American singer and songwriter, was born. [see May 3, 1928]
(HN, 5/3/01)
1933 May 3,
Nellie T. Ross became the first female director of the U.S. Mint.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1933 May 3, A white buffalo
calf was born in western Montana. He was later named “Big Medicine”
and lived until Aug 25, 1959. His hide was molded to a mannequin and
that went on display at the Montana Historical Society on Jul 13,
1961.
(Helena Museum flyer, 9/11/97)
1936 May 3, Joe DiMaggio made
his major-league debut as NY Yankee and got 3 hits.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1936 May 3, The Popular Front
in France achieved a majority of the seats in the Chamber of
Deputies, which led to the formation of the first Popular Front
ministry under Leon Blum.
(www.indiana.edu/~league/1936.htm)
1937 May 3,
Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel, "Gone with the
Wind."
(AP, 5/3/97)
1938 May 3, The concentration
camp at Flossenburg opened.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1938 May 3, Vatican recognized
Franco's Catholic and fascist Spain.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1941 May 3, There was a German
air raid on Liverpool.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1942 May 3, Executive Order
9066, signed by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, was issued by Lt.
Gen’l. John DeWitt from his headquarters in the SF Presidio. It
called for the evacuation of Japanese-Americans from Los Angeles
effective May 9. Some 110,000-112,000 Japanese-Americans were
settled in 10 relocation camps, the first of which was in Manzanar
in Owens Valley, Ca. In the Bay Area most Japanese-Americans were
sent to the Tanforan racetrack where they were put up in stables and
later relocated to Topaz, Utah. Soon after, the War Relocation
Authority hired Dorothea Lange, a photographer already well-known
for her striking Depression-era photos of migrant workers, to
document the internment process. Lange's poignant photos reflected
her disagreement with government policy and brought her into
conflict with her employers.
(SFC, 10/30/96, p.C2)(SFEC, 4/13/97, Z1 p.6)(SFC,
11/19/96, p.A17)(HNPD, 4/24/99)
1942 May 3, The Luftwaffe
bombed Exeter.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1942 May 3, Nazis executed 72
in reprisal in Sachsenhausen, Netherlands. Johan H. Westerveld,
lt.-Col, leader Order Service, was among the executed.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1944 May 3, "Meet Me in St
Louis" opened on Broadway.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1944 May 3,
Wartime rationing of most grades of meats ended in the United
States.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1945 May 3, The US Submarine
Lagarto (SS-371) sank in the Gulf of Thailand following depth
charges from the Japanese mine-layer Hatsutaka. 85 sailors died. In
2005 the wreck of the Lagarto was found. The USS Hawksbill sank the
Hatsutaka on May 15.
(SSFC, 6/18/06,
p.A5)(www.thaiwreckdiver.com/lagarto.htm)
1945 May 3, Allies arrested
German nuclear physicist Werner Heisenberg.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1945 May 3, A British air force
squadron bombed two ships, the Cap Arcona and the Thielbeck and sank
them. The pilots knew nothing about the ships' human cargo. SS
guards had marched prisoners from Neuengamme to Lubeck on the Baltic
coast, as British troops approached, and put some 8,000 inmates onto
two ships, the Cap Arcona and the Thielbeck.
(AP,
10/2/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Cap_Arcona_%281927%29)
1945 May 3,
Allied forces captured Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.
(AP, 5/3/07)
1945 May 3, Ireland’s PM Eamon
de Valera conveyed official condolences to diplomat Eduard Hempel.
Pres. Douglas Hyde also visited German diplomat Eduard Hempel, a day
after Ireland received reports of Hitler's death. Documents
confirming Hyde’s visit were made public in 2005.
(AP, 12/30/05)
1945 May 3, Japanese forces on
Okinawa launched their only major counter-offensive, but failed to
break the American lines.
(AP, 5/3/05)
1946 May 3, The International
Military Tribunal for the Far East convened in Tokyo for Japanese
War Crimes. 28 defendants were tried. Radhabinod Pal, the judge from
India, was the only judge with an international law background and
the only judge to find all the defendants innocent on all counts.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A15)(MC, 5/3/02)
1947 May 3, Japan's postwar
constitution took effect. It included the creation of the House of
Councilors.
(http://history.hanover.edu/texts/1947con.html)(AP, 5/3/07)
1948 May 3, Pulitzer Prizes
were awarded to playwright Tennessee Williams for "A Streetcar Named
Desire" and to novelist James Michener for "Tales of the South
Pacific."
(AP, 5/3/98)
1948 May 3,
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of
real estate to blacks and other minorities were legally
unenforceable.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1951 May 3, The Festival of
Britain, a national exhibition, officially opened.
(SFEC, 4/23/00,
p.T4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_of_Britain)
1952 May 3, The first airplane
landed at geographic North Pole. It was a ski-modified U.S. Air
Force C-47, piloted by Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict
(d.1974) of California and Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher of
Oklahoma. In 2002 Charles B. Compton authored "Born to Fly: Some
Life Sketches of Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict."
(Polar Times, Fall, 97)(CBC)
1954 May 3, Pulitzer prize was
awarded to Charles A. Lindbergh and John Patrick.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1957 May 3, A low flying Navy
bomber, while practicing evasion maneuvers, sheared two high-voltage
lines in the East Bay of San Francisco causing a power outage in SF
and the Peninsula.
(SFC, 5/4/09, p.B2)
1958 May 3, Ismael Valenzuela
(1935-2009) rode Tim Tam to victory in the Kentucky Derby.
(SFC, 9/4/09,
p.D6)(www.kentuckyderby.com/2009/history/statistics/1951-1975)
1960 May 3, The musical “The
Fantasticks” opened at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich
Village. It featured the song “Try to Remember” by Tom Jones &
Harvey Schmidt and was 1st produced at Barnard College in 1959. Lore
Noto (d.2002), former actor and agent, produced the show, which
became the world’s longest-running musical. It closed Jan 13, 2002
after 17,162 shows.
(SFC, 7/20/02, p.A20)
1960 May 3, Austria became a
founding member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), along
with Britain, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. The
agreement took effect in 1994.
(Econ, 11/24/07, SR
p.7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Association)
1962 May 3, William A, Eddy
(b.1896), former US minister to Saudi Arabia (1944-1946), died. In
2008 Thomas W. Lippman authored “Arabian Knight: Colonel Bill Eddy,
USMC, and the Rise of American Power in the Middle East.”
(Econ, 11/8/08, p.102)
1963 May 3,
In Birmingham, Alabama, police Commissioner Bull Connor unleashed
dogs and high-powered fire hoses on boycott-bound school children.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, p.T5)
1968 May 3, A Black Student
Sit-In at the Bursar's Office began. It lasted for 38 hours, after
the Northwestern University refused to accede to the demands of For
Members Only, the black undergraduate student group.
(www.library.northwestern.edu/archives/onthisday/2009/05/)
1968 May 3, After three days of
battle, the US Marines retook Dai Do complex in Vietnam, only to
find the North Vietnamese had evacuated the area.
(HN, 5/3/99)
1971 May 3, The National Public
Radio “All Things Considered” program premiered on 112 NPR stations.
NPR, the US national, non-commercial radio network, was founded in
1970 and hit the airwaves in April, 1971.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Public_Radio)(SFC, 12/30/99,
p.E3)
1971 May 3, John Toland
(1912-2004), American author and historian, won a Pulitzer
prize for “Rising Sun” (1970) which chronicles Imperial Japan
from its Manchurian involvement following World War I to the end of
World War II.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Toland_(author))
1971 May 3, James Earl Ray
(1928-1998), Martin Luther King's assassin (1968), was caught in a
jail break attempt in Tennessee.
(HN,
5/3/98)(www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915028,00.html)
1971 May 3,
Anti-war protesters calling themselves the Mayday Tribe began four
days of demonstrations in Washington aimed at shutting down the
nation's capital. 13,000 anti-war protesters were arrested in 3
days.
(AP, 5/3/97)(MC, 5/3/02)
1973 May 3, Chicago's Sears
Tower, the world's tallest building (443 m), topped out. Sears soon
moved its headquarters to the Sears Tower. The building was designed
by Bruce Graham (d.2010 at 84) of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. In
2009 the name of the structure was changed to Willis Tower as Willis
Group Holdings, a London-based insurance broker, consolidated its
area offices in the building.
(WSJ, 11/18/04, p.B1)(SFC, 3/9/10,
p.C4)(http://tinyurl.com/dhd3y6)
1975 May 3,
Gov. Jerry Brown of California began a round of private meetings to
resolve the issues between the UFW, agribusiness, and the Teamsters
Union.
(SFEM, 4/13/97, p.22)
1978 May 3,
"Sun Day" fell on a Thursday as thousands of people extolling the
virtues of solar energy held events across the country.
(AP, 5/3/01)
1979 May 3,
Britain held general elections. Conservative Party leader Margaret
Thatcher was chosen to become Britain's first female prime minister
as the Tories ousted the incumbent Labor government in parliamentary
elections. In 2008 Claire Berlinski authored “There Is No
Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters.”
(AP, 5/3/97)(HN, 5/3/98)(WSJ, 11/18/08, p.A19)
1979 May 3, In the Philippines
a UN Conference on Trade and Development opened as thousands of
squatters around Manila were forcibly moved out of sight.
(SFC, 11/18/96,
p.A12)(www.lawphil.net/executive/execord/eo1978/eo_497_1978.html)
1982 May 3, Sinbad the Sailor,
the star horse of Ronald Reagan’s “Death Valley Days” TV series,
died when he was struck by lightning at Kanab, Utah.
(SSFC, 5/3/09, p.C12)
1986 May 3,
In NASA's first post-Challenger launch, an unmanned Delta rocket
lost power in its main engine shortly after liftoff, forcing safety
officers to destroy it by remote control.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1986 May 3,
In Sri Lanka Tamil Tigers bombed an Airlanka plane at Colombo
airport and killed 16 people.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1987 May 3,
The Miami Herald, in its Sunday edition, said its reporters had
observed a young woman spending "Friday night and most of Saturday"
at a Washington, D.C., townhouse belonging to Democratic
presidential candidate Gary Hart. The woman was later identified as
Donna Rice; the scandal torpedoed Hart's presidential bid.
(SFEC, 12/19/99, p.C12)(AP, 5/3/07)
1988 May 3, The White House
acknowledged that first lady Nancy Reagan had used astrological
advice to help schedule her husband's activities. The unflattering
revelations surfaced in a yet-to-be published memoir by former chief
of staff Donald Regan.
(AP, 5/3/98)
1988 May 3, Milton A. Caniff
(b.1907), US cartoonist (Terry & the Pirates), died.
(www.comic-art.com/bios-1/caniff01.htm)
1989 May 3, PLO leader Yasser
Arafat, ending a two-day visit to France, said the PLO charter
calling for the destruction of Israel had been "superseded" by a
declaration urging peaceful coexistence of the Jewish state and a
Palestinian state.
(AP, 5/3/99)
1989 May 3,
An Israeli soldier, Ilan Saadon, disappeared while hitchhiking north
of the Gaza Strip. He was said to have been kidnapped by Hamas
militants. In 1996 his bones were unearthed south of Tel Aviv.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.C1)
1989 May 3, Christine Jorgensen
(b.1926), Denmark-born 1st transsexual (1952), died in California.
Her book “Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography” was
published in 1967, and its film adaptation was released in 1970 as
The Christine Jorgensen Story.
(www.glbtq.com/arts/jorgensen_c.html)
1990 May 3, The US federal
government approved the use of the drug AZT to treat children
infected with the AIDS virus.
(AP, 5/3/00)
1991 May 3, The US government
reported the nation’s civilian unemployment rate fell in April to
6.6%.
(AP, 5/3/01)
1991 May 3, Exxon Corporation
and the state of Alaska withdrew from a one billion-dollar
settlement of the “Exxon Valdez” oil spill (another settlement was
reached later).
(AP, 5/3/01)
1991 May 3,
J.P. Morgan and Walt Disney companies were added to the Dow Jones.
Caterpillar was also added to replace Navistar.
(WSJ, 6/3/96, p.C1)
1991 May 3, Jerzy Kosinski
(57), author (Being There), was found dead in his New York City
apartment.
(AP, 5/3/01)
1991 May 3, Carol Lutz (24) was
locked in the trunk of her car near Cleveland, Ohio, and burned to
death. In 2009 Daniel Wilson (39) was executed for her killing.
(SFC, 6/4/09,
p.A4)(http://zenas.org/bacheca/index.php?carol+lutz)
1992 May 3,
In Los Angeles, soldiers continued to patrol streets and guard
fire-gutted and ransacked stores in the wake of rioting that erupted
following the Rodney King-taped beating acquittals.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1992 May 3,
Hollywood song-and-dance-man-turned-politician George Murphy died at
age 89.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1992 May 3, In Bosnia armed men
cruised into Doboj and began a process of ethnic cleansing that
pushed 62,000 non-Serbs from their homes in the surrounding area.
(WSJ, 11/3/97, p.A22)
1992 May 3, Yugoslav Army
seized Bosnian Pres. Alija Izetbegovic on his return from peace
talks in Lisbon. He was released the next day.
(www.nytimes.com/specials/bosnia/context/apchrono.html)
1993 May 3, "Kiss of the Spider
Woman" opened at Broadhurst in NYC for 906 performances. John Kander
composed the music and Fred Ebb (d.2004) wrote the lyrics.
(www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/albm57.html)(SFC, 9/13/04, p.B4)
1993 May 3, American sailor
Terry M. Helvey confessed to stomping to death Allen Schindler, a
homosexual shipmate, but told his court-martial in Japan that he was
drunk and did not plan the killing. Helvey was later sentenced to
life in prison.
(AP, 5/3/98)
1994 May 3, President Clinton
presided over a televised forum from Atlanta, during which he denied
suggestions he'd vacillated on foreign policy, but said global
problems were more difficult than he'd imagined.
(AP, 5/3/99)
1995 May 3, The US government
reported that its Index of Leading Economic Indicators dropped half
a percentage point in March 1995, its biggest tumble in two years.
(AP, 5/3/00)
1996 May 3,
Gregory Clepper was charged with killing 12 women on the South side
of Chicago in a string of slayings that began in 1991.
(SFC, 5/3/96, A-10)
1996 May 3, Jack Weston (71),
actor (Ishtar, Rad, Cuba), died of lymphoma.
(http://entertainment.msn.com/celebs/celeb.aspx?c=223731)
1996 May 3, A weak compromise
treaty was passed in Geneva that aimed to phase out non-detectable
plastic mines, and introduced rules to limit the lifespan of
anti-personnel mines planted outside marked fields to 3 months. The
new treaty will go into effect once it is signed by 20 countries and
revised an outdated 1980 weapons protocol signed by 57 nations. It
has few enforcement provisions. The international conference in
Geneva ended 30 months of arduous negotiations over whether to ban
land mines with a weak compromise treaty giving countries nine years
to switch to detectable, self-destructive devices.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-1)(AP, 5/3/97)
1996 May 3,
Chandraswami, aka Nemi Chand Jain, faith healer and psychic admired
by Elizabeth Taylor, was held by police in New Delhi on charges of
swindling $100,000 from a London businessman.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 3, A
preliminary UN report says that Israel fired knowingly on a southern
Lebanon UN compound on April 18 after pro-Iranian guerrillas sought
refuge in the area.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)
1996 May 3,
In Burundi a handwritten account reached the capital that described
the massacre of 375 people at the Kivyuka village market by
government soldiers angry over recent rebel attacks on local power
line towers. An army spokesman denied the charges.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-8)
1996 May 3, A
6.4 earthquake struck Inner Mongolia in northern China. At least 14
people were killed and 266 injured.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-8)
1996 May 3, A Sudanese airliner
on a domestic flight crashed in bad weather and killed all 50 [53]
onboard. It was an Antonov 24 airplane and had tried to land outside
of Khartoum in an area cleared for a new airport because sand
covered the runways at Khartoum.
(SFC, 5/4/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-14)
1997 May 3, World chess
champion Garry Kasparov won the first game of his rematch with IBM's
Deep Blue computer. However, he lost the six-game match.
(AP, 5/3/98)
1997 May 3, Silver Charm won
the 123rd Kentucky Derby.
(AP, 5/3/98)
1997 May 3, A group of Texas
separatists ended a weeklong standoff with authorities; however, two
armed followers fled into the woods. One was killed, the other
eventually captured.
(AP, 5/3/98)
1998 May 3, It was reported
that the drugs angiostatin and endostatin eradicated cancer in mice
and that human trials could begin within a year. The drugs were
discovered by Harvard scientist Judah Folkman. Their operation was
explained in 1999 by researchers at Duke.
(BS, 5/3/98, p.3A)(WSJ, 3/16/99, p.B1,6)
1998 May 3, The Columbia Space
Shuttle landed at Cape Canaveral after a 16-day mission. The mission
studied the effects of space travel on neurological development in
nearly 2000 animals.
(USAT, 5/4/98, p.3A)(AP, 5/3/99)
1998 May 3, "The Sevres Road,"
by landscape painter Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, was stolen from
the Louvre.
(AP, 5/3/99)
1998 May 3, European leaders
meeting in Brussels, Belgium, agreed on Wim Duisenberg of the
Netherlands as the chief of the new European Central Bank (ECB), but
with the proviso that he step down in 2002 to make way for Frenchman
Jean-Claude Trichet.
(BS, 5/3/98, p.21A)(AP, 5/3/99)
1998 May 3, In Serbia fighting
began in the Kosovo village of Ponosevac and 10 ethnic Albanians
were reported killed by Serbian police.
(WSJ, 5/5/98, p.A1)
1999 May 3, In Baltimore the
Cuban baseball team beat the Baltimore Orioles 12-6. 7 members
missed the departure the next day and one coach, Rigoberto
Betancourt Herrera, was reported to have defected, as the others
over slept. The 6 stragglers departed May 5.
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A1,6)(SFC, 5/6/99, p.A7)
1999 May 3, It was reported
that Take Control, a new butter-margarine substitute from Lipton,
was deemed safe by the FDA. The produce was made to help promote
healthy cholesterol levels.
(SFC, 5/3/99, p.A6)
1999 May 3, Bill Gates pledged
$25 million over 5 years to help develop a vaccine against AIDS.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A3)
1999 May 3, Pres. Clinton said
that he would support a bombing pause if he was convinced that the
Yugoslav crackdown on Kosovo guerrillas and civilians was ending and
that Serbian forces were being withdrawn.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A1)
1999 May 3, Japanese Prime
Minister Keizo Obuchi met with President Clinton at the White House
during the first official U.S. visit by a Japanese premier in 12
years.
(AP, 5/3/00)
1999 May 3, Howard Simpson, US
author and career foreign service officer, died. He served in
Vietnam and his books included the novel "Someone Else's War." He
also wrote a series of detective stories based on the character
Inspector Bastide: "The Jumpmaster," and "Junior Year Abroad."
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.C4)
1999 May 3, US jets attacked
Iraqi air defense sites. Iraqi news reported 2 civilians killed and
12 injured north of Mosul.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A14)
1999 May 3, The Justice and
Treasury departments agreed to unfreeze the assets of Saleh Idris,
the owner of the Sudanese factory that was bombed by US cruise
missiles Aug. 20, 1998.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A14)
1999 May 3, A jury in Orange
County declared that Charles Ng should die by lethal injection for
the murder of 6 men, 3 women, and 2 baby boys during the 1980s.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A1)
1999 May 3, The Dow Jones
industrial average closed above 11,000, just 24 trading days after
passing 10,000.
(AP, 5/3/00)
1999 May 3, Some 76 tornadoes
hit Oklahoma and Kansas and at least 40 people were killed. As many
as 1,500 homes were destroyed. 38 people were killed in Oklahoma and
5 in Kansas. Damages in Oklahoma were later estimated at over $225
million.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A1)(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A1)(WSJ,
5/6/99, p.A1)(MC, 5/3/02)
1999 May 3, British PM Tony
Blair visited the Stankovec I refugee camp in Macedonia and pledged
to double Britain's aid from $32 million to $64 million.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.D1)
1999 May 3, EU scientists said
that the hormone, 17 beta-oestradiol, used by American cattle
farmers is carcinogenic. The EU 10 year ban on the use of hormones
in beef would likely be maintained.
(WSJ, 5/4/99, p.A14)
1999 May 3, In Indonesia the
cabinet approved an autonomy package for East Timor to be voted on
in August.
(WSJ, 5/4/99, p.A1)
1999 May 3, In Indonesia
soldiers opened fire on villagers in Pulo Rungkom, Sumatra, and
killed at least 19 people. They were there to obtain the release of
a soldier abducted over the weekend. Over 30 people were killed and
thousands fled the town following the massacre.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A14)(WSJ, 5/6/99, p.A1)
1999 May 3, NATO jets hit a bus
in Kosovo and killed about 20 people.
(WSJ, 5/4/99, p.A1)
1999 May 3, In Nepal elections
for the parliament began.
(WSJ, 5/4/99, p.A1)
1999 May 3, In Turkey Pres.
Demirel appointed Bulent Ecevit as prime minister and asked him to
form a new government. At the same time legislator Merve Kavakci
incited a turmoil by wearing a forbidden scarf.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A14)
2000 May 3, Gen. Wesley Clark
left his post as NATO’s supreme allied commander. He was replaced by
Gen. Joseph Ralston.
(SFC, 5/3/00, p.A11)
2000 May 3, The US FDA approved
the first device to aid women with sexual dysfunction.
(SFC, 5/4/00, p.A3)
2000 May 3, Cardinal John
O’Connor (80), the archbishop of New York, died.
(SFC, 5/4/00, p.A3)(AP, 5/3/01)
2000 May 3, The Euro fell below
90 cents to the dollar for the first time.
(WSJ, 5/4/00, p.A18)
2000 May 3, In Chechnya Russian
troops ambushed a rebel band and killed at least 18 men.
(WSJ, 5/5/00, p.A1)
2000 May 3, In Iran 2 more
Iranian Jews admitted, while on trial, that they had spied for
Israel.
(SFC, 5/4/00, p.A16)
2000 May 3, In Japan a teenager
(17) hijacked a bus and killed a woman before being overcome after a
15-hour, 190-mile chase on Sanyo Expressway.
(SFC, 5/4/00, p.A17)
2000 May 3, In Mexico police
arrested Ismael Higuera Guerrero, a senior member of the Arellano
Felix drug gang, along with his son (15) and 8 others near Ensenada.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A15)
2000 May 3, The trial of two
alleged Libyan intelligence agents accused of blowing Pan Am Flight
103 out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 opened in the
Netherlands. In January 2001, one of the defendants, Abdel Basset
Ali al-Megrahi, was convicted of murder; the other defendant, Lamen
Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.
(AP, 5/3/01)
2000 May 3, In the southern
Philippines 2 hostages died as the military clashed with rebels
under Commander Robot (Ghalib Andang) at Talipao. On Basilan Island
15 hostages, 9 children and 6 teachers, were rescued and 4 were
killed when government troops engaged the rebels. At Zamboanga,
Mindanao, the MILF took some 100 hostages and at least 4 people were
killed.
(SFC, 5/3/00, p.A12)(SFC, 5/4/00, p.A16)(SFC,
5/5/00, p.A14)
2000 May 3, Rebels of the
Revolutionary United Front killed 7 UN Kenyan peacekeepers. The
number was later reduced to 4 presumed dead.
(SFC, 5/4/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/5/00, p.A1)
2001 May 3, An estimated 36.4
million people tuned in to watch Tennessee nurse Tina Wesson win as
the winner of “Survivor 2,” following a 42 day stint in the
"Survivor: The Australian Outback" on CBS.
(SFC, 5/4/01, p.C1)(AP, 5/3/02)
2001 May 3, Pres. Bush met with
Pres. Fox of Mexico and discussed temporary visas for Mexican
workers and plans for long-range energy development.
(SFC, 5/4/01, p.D3)
2001 May 3, US federal agents
broke up a smuggling ring that brought hundreds of Ukrainians into
the US through Mexico.
(WSJ, 5/4/01, p.A1)
2001 May 3, The United States
lost its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time
since the commission was formed in 1947.
(AP, 5/3/02)
2001 May 3, In Algiers
thousands of protesters demonstrated against what they called a
government crackdown on ethnic Berbers.
(SFC, 5/4/01, p.A14)
2001 May 3, In Macedonia troops
backed by helicopter gunships began a fresh offensive against ethnic
Albanian rebels after 2 soldiers were killed and one kidnapped in an
ambush.
(SFC, 5/4/01, p.A13)
2001 May 3, In Serbia Slobodan
Milosevic was issued an arrest warrant from the UN war crimes
tribunal in his jail cell.
(SFC, 5/4/01, p.D3)
2001 May 3, It was reported
that 20 people in Turkey had starved themselves to death in the past
5 weeks in protest of the prison system. Some 200-400 inmates still
engaged in the “death fast.”
(SFC, 5/3/01, p.B2)
2002 May 3, The US Labor Dept.
reported the April jobless rate at 6%, up .3%.
(SFC, 5/4/02, p.A1)
2002 May 3, The Roman Catholic
Archdiocese of Boston backed out of a settlement agreement with 86
people who had accused defrocked priest John Geoghan of child
molestation, saying the deal was becoming too expensive. The
archdiocese later agreed to a $10 settlement.
(AP, 5/3/03)
2002 May 3, In rural Iowa and
Illinois and 6 people were injured when 6 of 8 pipe bombs were
detonated in what was called a case of domestic terrorism. Suspect
Luke Helder was later found incompetent to stand trial.
(SFC, 5/4/02, p.A3)(AP, 5/3/03)
2002 May 3, In Bakersville,
North Carolina, 8 inmates died inside the Mitchell County jail after
a fire broke out.
(SSFC, 5/5/02, p.A8)(AP, 5/3/03)
2002 May 3, Flash flooding in
Appalachia killed 4 people. Virginia, W. Va. and Kentucky were hit
at their intersection.
(SFC, 5/4/02, p.A3)
2002 May 3, In Bangladesh a
ferry on the Meghna River capsized with some 400 passengers
traveling from Dhaka to southern Patuakhali. Early reports had only
100 survivors. The ferry was raised and the death toll increased to
370.
(SFC, 5/4/02, p.A9)(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A10)(SSFC,
5/19/02, p.C15)
2002 May 3, In Colombia 2 days
of fighting left as many as 60 people dead in the region around
Bojaya after FARC fired mortars into a Bojaya church. The death toll
was soon raised to 119 including 40 children.
(SFC, 5/4/02, p.A11)(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A11)(SFC,
5/8/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/13/02, p.A6)
2002 May 3, In India an air
force jet crashed into an office building in the Adda neighborhood
of Jullundur in Punjab state. At least 8 people were killed. 2
pilots escaped from the MiG-21.
(SFC, 5/3/02, p.A10)
2002 May 3, In western Nepal
security forces killed at least 90 Maoist guerrillas.
(SFC, 5/4/02, p.A9)
2002 May 3, In Somalia Pres.
Mohammed Ibrahim Egal (73) died. VP Dahir Riyale Kahin became acting
president.
(SFC, 5/4/02, p.A21)
2003 May 3, In the Kentucky
Derby Jose Santos rode Funny Cide to victory.
(WSJ, 5/13/03, p.A1)
2003 May 3, President Bush told
a news conference in Crawford, Texas, it was a matter of when — not
if — weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq.
(AP, 5/3/04)
2003 May 3, The New Hampshire
granite symbol called the "Old Man of the Mountain," 1,200 feet
above I-93 (65 miles north of Concord), collapsed overnight into
rubble.
(SSFC, 5/4/03, p.A4)
2003 May 3, Suzy Parker (69),
model and actress, died in Montecito, Calif.
(AP, 5/3/04)
2003 May 3, The US picked a new
head of Iraq's Health Ministry on Saturday, a Baath Party member,
whose appointment was so critical that US officials designated the
announcement "Public Notice No. 1."
(AP, 5/4/03)
2003 May 3, In Baghdad, Iraq,
schools re-opened for the 1st time since the start of war.
(SSFC, 5/4/03, p.A11)
2003 May 3, In Cotonou, Benin,
16 people died in a late night concert stampede at the gates of the
nation's Friendship Stadium.
(AP, 5/5/03)
2003 May 3, It was reported
that British researchers had shown that fish feel pain.
(SFC, 5/3/03, p.B8)
2003 May 3, An apartment
building collapsed in Cairo, killing 7 people with at least 5 more
reported missing in the rubble.
(AP, 5/4/03)
2003 May 3, The Ethiopian
drought was reported to be the worst in 2 decades with millions of
people forced to stand in line each day for food.
(SFC, 5/3/03, p.B8)
2003 May 3, It was reported
that half of Germany's bee colonies failed to survive the winter due
to a mite that began spreading from Southeast Asia about 90 years
ago.
(SFC, 5/3/03, p.B8)
2003 May 3, In far eastern
Russia a transport helicopter crashed as it returned from dropping
water on a forest fire, killing all 12 people on board.
(AP, 5/3/03)
2003 May 3, Pope John Paul II
began a whirlwind visit to Madrid, Spain. He urged hundreds of
thousands of young people outside Madrid to be "artisans of peace."
(AP, 5/3/04)
2004 May 3, The US military
said it had reprimanded seven officers in the abuse of inmates at
Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, the first known punishments
in the case; two of the officers were relieved of their duties.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2004 May 3, Marvin Runyon (79),
former postmaster general, died in Nashville, Tenn.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2004 May 3, A NYC court found
financier Frank Quattrone (48) guilty on 3 counts of obstruction of
justice and witness tampering. On Aug 22, 2006, a NY judge approved
a settlement that would allow him to avoid another trial and return
to the securities industry.
(SFC, 5/4/04, p.A1)(Econ, 8/26/06, p.56)
2004 May 3, The fast-spreading
"Sasser" computer worm has infected hundreds of thousands of PCs
globally and the number could soon rise sharply. When a machine is
infected, error messages may appear and the computer may reboot
repeatedly.
(Reuters, 5/3/04)
2004 May 3, A group of British
scientists announced early work on a new procedure that makes teeth
grow from stem cells implanted in the gum.
(AFP, 5/3/04)
2004 May 3, In Bangladesh at
least 5 women were crushed to death and dozens were injured when a
false fire alarm caused about 4,000 workers to rush for the exits of
a garment factory.
(AP, 5/3/04)
2004 May 3, Bulgaria sent 24 of
its soldiers home after they complained about being unprepared for
duty in Iraq.
(AP, 5/3/04)
2004 May 3, Militiamen pounded
a U.S. base in the most intense attacks yet on U.S. troops in the
Shiite city of Najaf. US troops killed 20 Shiite militiamen in
Najaf. Insurgents opened fire in the Baghdad, killing one American
soldier and wounding two others.
(AP, 5/3/04)(WSJ, 5/4/04, p.A1)
2004 May 3, California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger paid a hastily arranged visit to King Abdullah
II of Jordan following criticism from Arab-Americans that his
Mideast trip excluded a meeting with Arabs.
(AP, 5/3/04)
2004 May 3, A car packed with
explosives went off as a bus carried Chinese engineers to a port
project in remote southwestern Pakistan, killing 3 of them and
injuring 11 other people.
(AP, 5/3/04)
2005 May 3, The US Federal
Reserve hiked the fed funds target rate by a quarter-point to an
even 3%, marking a cumulative increase of two full percentage points
in the past 10 months. That increase was matched by a quarter-point
increase in commercial banks' prime lending rate, the benchmark rate
for millions of consumer and business loans, which moved up to 6
percent, the highest that rate has been since the fall of 2001.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 3-2005 May 4, American
troops and Afghan police killed 64 rebels and captured six during a
battle in the mountains of southern Afghanistan. 9 Afghan troops and
one policeman were also killed in the clashes in the southern
provinces of Zabul and Kandahar.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 3, The WHO said
Indonesia has detected its first case of polio in a decade,
prompting the government to launch a massive vaccination campaign
that is expected to inoculate more than 5 million children.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, Iran told a United
Nations nonproliferation conference it would press on with its
uranium-enrichment technology.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2005 May 3, Shiite Arab leader
Ibrahim al-Jaafari was sworn in as prime minister as Iraq's first
democratically elected government took office.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, Two American
soldiers died in roadside bomb attacks by insurgents in Baghdad.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 3, Insurgents attacked
coalition forces in Ramadi, setting off a battle that killed 12
militants, an Iraqi soldier and two Iraqi civilians.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, Israeli officials
said Hamas must disarm before participating in Palestinian
parliament elections this summer, in a new twist to their standoff
with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas over his refusal to use force
against militants.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, In
Indian-controlled Kashmir suspected rebels killed six people in
attacks, while at least six militants died in an overnight gunbattle
with soldiers.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, Kuwait’s Parliament
created a constitutional roadblock that effectively kept women out
of this year’s race for municipal council seats.
(SFC, 5/4/05, p.A3)
2005 May 3, ChevronTexaco's
Nigerian subsidiary said it would overhaul its aid projects in the
country's oil-rich south after finding much of the tens of millions
of dollars spent yearly was fueling violence and wasted by
corruption.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 3, In Pakistan a
parliamentary committee issued 32 recommendations on how the
government should address grievances in Baluchistan.
(Econ, 5/7/05, p.37)
2005 May 3, On World Press
Freedom Day Pakistan police beat journalists with sticks and
detained at least 30 of them for staging a rally in the capital,
Islamabad.
(Reuters, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, In Lahore,
Pakistan, gas cylinders exploded in the basement of an apartment
building as residents slept, causing the three-story structure to
collapse. At least 25 people were killed and 20 injured.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2005 May 3, An explosion
erupted as Somalia's provisional prime minister was starting a
speech, killing at least seven people and causing an undetermined
number of injuries at a government rally in Mogadishu's soccer
stadium.
(AP, 5/3/05)
2006 May 3 In their second
meeting at the White House, President Bush and German Chancellor
Angela Merkel vowed to keep pressing Iran on its nuclear program as
other allies took the issue to the United Nations.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 3, The Bush
administration released a 234-page report on avian flu saying a
global bird flu epidemic could disable the US economy. It called for
stockpiling antiviral medication and new vaccine development.
(SFC, 5/4/06, p.A11)
2006 May 3, A federal jury in
Alexandria, Va., rejected the death penalty for al-Qaida conspirator
Zacarias Moussaoui, deciding he should spend life in prison for his
role in 9/11; as he was led from the courtroom, Moussaoui taunted,
"America, you lost. ... I won."
(AP, 5/3/07)
2006 May 3, Vernon Jackson
(53), owner of iGate, pleaded guilty in Alexandria, Virginia, to
bribing Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., with more than $400,000 to
promote the Kentucky’s firm’s high tech business in Africa between
2001 and 2005.
(SFC, 5/4/06, p.A3)
2006 May 3, The US Postal
Service said it wants to raise the price of a first-class stamp by 3
cents to 42 cents, and proposed a "forever" stamp that people could
use as hedge against future rate increases.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, US federal agents
conducted raids in California targeting a SF-based cocaine and
methamphetamine trafficking operation. 19 indictments were unsealed.
(SFC, 5/4/06, p.B2)
2006 May 3, Sotheby’s auction
house sold “Dora Maar au Chat,” a painting by Pablo Picasso, for a
$95.2 million, the 2nd highest amount for a painting at auction.
(SFC, 5/5/06, p.A7)
2006 May 3, A burglary at a VA
data analyst's home in Aspen Hill, Md., included loss of a laptop
with personal data for 26.5 million veterans and military personnel.
The burglary was disclosed May 22 and the VA first said the data was
for 50,000 veterans and military personnel. On June 29 federal
officials reported that the laptop was recovered.
(AP, 6/9/06)(SFC, 6/30/06, p.A1)
2006 May 3, In western
Afghanistan suspected Taliban gunmen killed a judge.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, An Armenian Airbus
A-320 crashed in stormy weather off Russia's Black Sea coast while
readying to land at the Sochi resort, killing all 113 people on
board, most of them Armenians.
(AP, 5/3/06)(WSJ, 5/3/06, p.A1)
2006 May 3, Australia raised
its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point to 5.75%. This sent
its currency to a seven-month peak against the US dollar.
(www.indiainfoline.com/news/news.asp?dat=77648)
2006 May 3, Bolivia's decision
to nationalize its natural gas industry drew challenges from Brazil
as top officials pledged to defend current gas contracts and suspend
investment in the Bolivian industry.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, A decade-old ban on
British beef, triggered by the mad cow crisis in the mid-1990s, was
officially lifted, allowing cattle farmers to resume exports.
(AFP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, Britain and France
introduced a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Iran
abandon its uranium enrichment program, possibly setting the stage
for sanctions if Tehran does not comply.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, Chadians voted for
president despite no real alternatives to incumbent Idriss Deby, who
rebuffed calls to delay the election in this emerging African oil
exporter in favor of peace talks with rebels.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, China's
state-approved Catholic church installed a bishop without Vatican
approval, the second this week.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, Owners of a coal
mine in China's central Henan province falsely claimed that five
workers were killed and seven injured in a blast, when 66 miners
were underground. An investigation by the county government later
revealed that 10 workers were killed and 18 were injured in the
accident which occurred in Yegou village.
(AP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 3, The European
Commission fined 7 companies a total of $489.8 (388.1 euros) for
running a cartel in bleaching chemicals.
(WSJ, 5/4/06, p.A2)
2006 May 3, In New Delhi Muslim
separatists met India's prime minister for fresh peace talks on the
future of Kashmir. Hours before the talks were due to begin, four
rebels and three security men died in gunbattles in Kashmir.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, India and Pakistan
agreed to launch a truck service and a second passenger bus route
this summer linking the parts of Kashmir held by each country.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, The guardian of
Budhia Singh, a five-year-old Indian boy who runs 50 kilometers (31
miles) a day, denied media accusations he was flogging him for
personal gain. When Budhia’s father died two years ago, his mother,
a dish washer in Bhubaneswar, was unable to provide for her four
children and sold Budhia to a man for 800 rupees (20 dollars).
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, In northern India,
a driver apparently lost control of his speeding bus, veering off a
bridge into a dry river bed near Rampur, a town in Uttar Pradesh
state. 21 people were killed and 26 were injured.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, Indonesian police
detained the heads of the state electricity company Perusahaan
Listrik Negara (PLN) and a state fertilizer firm as suspects in
corruption cases.
(AFP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 3, Sunni insurgents
boldly attacked fellow Sunni Arabs, the latest in a growing campaign
against those who cooperate with the US-backed Iraqi government. A
suicide bomber cloaked in explosives killed two policemen and 13
police recruits gathered in Fallujah. Three more of the new Iraqi
soldiers were found dead in Khaldiyah. The bodies of 20 Iraqi men
were found in several areas of the capital, apparent victims of
death squads that kidnap civilians of rival Muslim sects, torture
them, and dump their bodies. In Wasit province southeast of Baghdad,
masked gunmen broke into the home of a Shiite family, killing the
husband, two of his sons and his sister.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, Mexican President
Vicente Fox refused to sign a drug decriminalization bill, hours
after US officials warned the plan could encourage "drug tourism."
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, In Mexico one
person was killed as machete-wielding protesters near Mexico City
clashed with police, blocking highways, throwing molotov cocktails
and briefly seizing six officers. The residents attacked police
after several of their companions were arrested in the nearby town
of Texcoco.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 3, Nepal's Cabinet
declared a cease-fire with communist rebels and will no longer
designate them as a terrorist group. Nepal's rebel chief ruled out
disarming his forces and launched a scathing attack on the nation's
new political leadership, according to the Maoists' website.
(AP, 5/3/06)(AFP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, In Pakistan gunmen
attacked a police post in a remote northwestern tribal region near
the Afghan border, killing three policemen.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 3, Peru confirmed that
ex-President Garcia placed 2nd in the April 9 voting and will face
nationalist Ollanta Humala in a June 4 runoff.
(WSJ, 5/4/06, p.A1)
2006 May 3, The European Union
suspended aid and trade talks with Serbia after Belgrade failed to
deliver fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic to the U.N. war crimes tribunal.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, The Alexandros T, a
bulk carrier, sank off the South African coast with 33 crewmen. The
sip sank in heavy seas on its way from Brazil to China. Five managed
to reach life rafts in time and one was rescued with a life vest.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2007 May 3, A US House panel
called on the VA chief to explain why top officials got hefty
bonuses even as veteran’s care deteriorated.
(WSJ, 5/4/07, p.A1)
2007 May 3, A US federal judge
barred planting of alfalfa engineered by Monsanto to resist Roundup,
a popular weed killer made by Monsanto, pending further study.
(WSJ, 5/4/07, p.A1)
2007 May 3, The Florida
Legislature gave its final approval to moving the state's 2008
primary from early March to Jan. 29.
(AP, 5/3/08)
2007 May 3, Ignacio De La
Fuente Jr. (32), the son of Oakland, Ca., City Council President
Ignacio De La Fuente, pleaded guilty to 5 felony sex charges
committed between 2003 and 2005. Three of his 4 victims were
prostitutes.
(SFC, 5/4/07, p.B5)
2007 May 3, James H. Simons,
mathematician and philanthropist, announced a $10 million donation
to Berkeley’s Mathematical Sciences Research Institute from the
Simons Foundation. Simons is president of Renaissance Technologies
Corp., a private investment firm dedicated to the use of
mathematical methods.
(SSFC, 5/6/07, p.B7)
2007 May 3, In Alabama Jamison
Stone (11) killed a wild pig weighing 1,051 pounds with a .50
caliber revolver. The pig measured 9 feet, 4 inches from snout to
tail. The animal's former owner later said the not-so-wild pig,
named Fred, had been raised on an Alabama farm and was sold to the
Lost Creek Plantation just four days before it was shot there in a
150-acre fenced area.
(SFC, 5/25/07, p.A3)(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 May 3, Dr. Leonard D. Eron
(87), psychologist, died in Illinois. His research led him to warn
society that children who watch violent TV shows tend to show
aggressive and destructive behavior later in life. He determined
that aggression is learned behavior.
(SFC, 5/21/07, p.B4)
2007 May 3, Wally Schirra, one
of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, died in La Jolla, Ca. From
1962 to 1968 he logged over 295 hours in space .
(SFC, 5/4/07, p.B9)
2007 May 3, A remote-control
bomb hit an Afghan army bus in Kabul, killing the driver and
wounding 29 people, including 22 soldiers.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, African neighbors
Sudan and Chad signed a Saudi-brokered reconciliation deal in Saudi
Arabia, requiring both sides to cooperate with the United Nations to
stabilize Darfur and the adjacent region in Chad.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Australia signed
the first in a series of contracts that will see its air force buy
24 Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter-bombers from the US Navy.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Voters handed PM
Tony Blair's Labour Party a string of embarrassing defeats in local
elections.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 3, Madeleine McCann
(3), a British girl, was kidnapped from her bed in a Portuguese
beach resort while her parents dined nearby.
(Reuters, 5/5/07)
2007 May 3, Seven of Canada's
biggest investment dealers said they plan to launch a new
Alternative Trading System in 2008 to boost the efficiency of equity
trading and make Canada more globally competitive. The Royal
Canadian Mint unveiled a monster gold coin with a face value of C$1
million (455,000 pounds) that it says is the world's biggest, purest
and highest denomination coin.
(Reuters, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Forces loyal to the
outgoing president of the Comoros island of Anjouan took control of
a building housing federal offices in what one African Union
official called a coup.
(AFP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 3, A pair of heavily
armed Cuban soldiers seized a city bus, killed an army officer and
triggered a gun battle in a foiled bid to hijack a charter flight
bound for the United States.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 3, Ecuador's new
leftist government set up a truth commission to investigate alleged
human rights abuses committed over the last 27 years, particularly
during the right-wing administration of former President Leon Febres
Cordero.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 3, In Egypt a
conference of nearly 50 nations opened at Sharm el-Sheik to rally
international support, particularly from Arab nations, for an
ambitious plan to stabilize Iraq. US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice met Syria's foreign minister in the first high-level talks
between the two countries in years. Hours after the chief military
spokesman in Iraq said Syria had moved to reduce "the flow of
foreign fighters" across its border.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, In France Claude
Mandil, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told a news
conference that there is no reason why Iran should not have nuclear
energy.
(Reuters, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, US-led forces
conducting a crackdown on al-Qaida in Iraq killed Muharib
Abdul-Latif al-Jubouri, described as al-Qaida's information
minister. He was responsible for the high-profile kidnappings of
several Westerners. Gunmen stormed the offices of an independent
radio station in a predominantly Sunni area of Baghdad, killing two
employees and wounding five before bombing the building and knocking
the station off the air. Police in Fallujah found nine
bullet-riddled bodies, four members of a Sunni tribe that recently
joined an alliance against al-Qaida in Iraq and five found near the
tax office. Gunmen stormed a market in Baqouba killing a
plainclothes policeman after a militant read a death sentence issued
by al-Qaida and two Shiite men. They then killed a policeman after
he arrived at the scene to investigate.
(AP, 5/3/07)(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 3, In Israel the
campaign to oust PM Ehud Olmert shifted to the streets, with a mass
rally in Tel Aviv expected to draw tens of thousands of people
calling for the embattled leader to step down.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, In Nigeria at least
21 workers, most of them foreigners, were kidnapped in separate
attacks in the oil-rice delta region. 8 foreigners and a Nigerian
were later freed.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, The Ulster
Volunteer Force, an outlawed Northern Ireland group that for decades
attacked the province's Catholic minority, renounced violence and
pledged to disarm.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Philippine
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced that US-based Texas
Instruments Inc., the world's biggest maker of mobile phone chips,
will build a $1 billion plant in the Philippines, choosing the
country over China despite concerns about power costs.
(Reuters, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Russia lashed out
at the EU and NATO for supporting Estonia in its row with Moscow
over the relocation of a Soviet war monument.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Scotland held
parliamentary elections. Labor was knocked out of the top spot for
the 1st time in 50 years by the Scottish National Party. The SNP
supported a future referendum on independence.
(AFP, 5/3/07)(Econ, 5/12/07, p.61)
2007 May 3, Turkish lawmakers
moved up elections to July 22, after the Islamic-rooted ruling party
and its secular opposition agreed that an early ballot was the only
way out of their standoff over political Islam.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 3, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez warned he will nationalize the country's banks
and largest steel producer in an apparent bid to strong-arm the
businesses to contribute more to local industry.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2008 May 3, Big Brown pulled
won the Kentucky Derby 4 3/4 lengths ahead of the filly Eight
Belles, who was euthanized by injection on the track with 2 broken
ankles.
(AP, 5/4/08)
2008 May 3, In Berkeley, Ca.,
student Christopher Wooton (21) was stabbed to death during an off
campus scuffle. In 2010 former student Andrew Hoeft-Edenfield (22)
was convicted of 2nd degree murder and faced 16 years to life in
prison. In 2010 Andrew Hoeft-Edenfield was sentenced to 16 years to
life in prison.
(SFC, 5/14/10, p.C4)(SFC, 6/11/10, p.C5)
2008 May 3, In Philadelphia
police officer Liczbinski was shot with an assault rifle after a
robbery. One suspect was fatally shot by police soon after, another
was arrested the next day and a third was captured May 7.
(AP, 5/8/08)
2008 May 3, The Asian
Development Bank, announced emergency funding to help poor countries
struggling with rice prices that have nearly tripled in four months.
The Manila-based organization made the announcement while meeting in
Spain.
(AP, 5/4/08)
2008 May 3, An embassy
representative said 11 US diplomats have left Belarus after a row
with the tightly controlled former Soviet state over human rights
and sanctions.
(AP, 5/3/08)
2008 May 3, Early results
showed Boris Johnson defeating Ken Livingstone as mayor of London.
Voters also picked opposition candidates in more than 300 municipal
council races, prompting PM Brown to humbly pledge to heed the
scathing verdict.
(AP, 5/3/08)
2008 May 3, Thousands of
marijuana enthusiasts marched in downtown Toronto, many openly
smoking the drug as part of a globally coordinated rally meant to
celebrate cannabis culture and push for the drug's legalization.
(AP, 5/3/08)
2008 May 3, In Guinea prison
authorities said more than 30 prisoners escaped from a jail by using
spoons to scoop a hole in the baked earth wall of their prison
building which had been softened by rain.
(Reuters, 5/3/08)
2008 May 3, The US military
fired missiles at a target about 50 yards away from the general
hospital in Baghdad's Sadr City district, wounding more than 20
people and destroying ambulances. US soldiers killed four militants
elsewhere in Baghdad. A US soldier died of wounds sustained in a
roadside bomb that struck the soldier's vehicle during a combat
patrol in eastern Baghdad a day earlier.
(AP, 5/3/08)
2008 May 3, Insurgents attacked
an army convoy in northern Mali, violating a cease-fire and sparking
a fire fight that left five people dead.
(AP, 5/3/08)
2008 May 3, A tropical cyclone
slammed into Myanmar's main city of Yangon, ripping off roofs,
felling trees and raising fears of major casualties. Later counts
guessed that some 138,000 died or went missing due to the cyclone.
Foreign countries mobilized to rush in aid after the country's
deadliest storm on record. In 2010 Emma Larkin authored “Everything
Is Broken: A Tale of Catastrophe in Burma.”
(AP, 5/4/08)(AP, 5/6/08)(Econ, 5/1/10, p.86)
2008 May 3, Rebels in Nigeria's
oil-rich Niger Delta blew up three oil wells operated by Royal Dutch
Shell, their fifth attack in recent weeks against the petroleum
industry.
(AP, 5/3/08)
2008 May 3, In southern
Pakistan thousands of Islamists rallied to condemn an anti-Koran
film by a Dutch lawmaker and cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in
Danish newspapers.
(AFP, 5/3/08)
2008 May 3, In Sri Lanka heavy
fighting between government troops and Tamil separatists left 35
rebels and eight soldiers dead.
(AP, 5/4/08)
2008 May 3, In Yemen 3 soldiers
and four rebels died in the overnight skirmishes that took place in
the remote mountain province of Saada, near the Saudi Arabian
border.
(AP, 5/3/08)
2009 May 3, In California
Briant Rodriguez (3) was kidnapped by 2 gunmen who broke into his
family’s home in San Bernadino.
(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518779,00.html)(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A7)
2009 May 3, In Florida Troy
Ryan Bellar (34) shot and killed his wife, Wendy Bellar (31) and
their 5-month-old and 8-year-old sons before killing himself outside
their home in Lakeland. His 13-year-old son, Nathan, escaped.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 3, The weekly Onion
newspaper said it will close its print editions in San Francisco and
Los Angeles. The free weekly began its San Francisco edition in
2005. Print editions will continue in Milwaukee, Madison,
Minneapolis, Denver and Boulder.
(SFC, 5/6/09, p.C1)
2009 May 3, Swine flu extended
its reach through Europe and Latin America, with at least five
countries reporting new cases. Health experts were investigating a
case of the virus jumping from a person to pigs, trying to determine
if the disease was reaching a new stage.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, Three Afghan men
were shot in Kabul by US defense contractors working for Paravant, a
subsidiary of Blackwater Worldwide. 2 of the Afghan’s died. In 2010
Justin Cannon (27) and Christopher Drotleff (29) were indicted on
charges that included 2nd degree murder. On March 11, 2011, Cannon
and Drotleff were convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
(SFC, 1/8/10, p.A8)(SFC, 3/12/11, p.A9)
2009 May 3, China tightened
visa rules for citizens from the US, which has reported the second
highest number of swine flu cases in the world.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 3, Egyptian police
fired tear gas and clashed with irate pig farmers, leaving 12 people
injured as owners resisted the government's attempt to slaughter all
the nation's pigs to guard against swine flu.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, A French naval
vessel intercepted 11 suspected pirates traveling off the Somali
coast in two assault vessels and a so-called "mothership" loaded
with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, Italian media
reported that PM Silvio Berlusconi's wife wants a divorce, just days
after she publicly criticized his party's selection of young women
to run in European elections.
(Reuters, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, Mexican police
found 11 bodies dumped around a southern Guerrero state, including
seven wrapped in plastic bags and thrown off a bridge. The bodies of
five men and two women were found in a river between the Pacific
resort town of Acapulco and the city of Cuernavaca. The other four
bodies were found in a 600-yard ravine in the town of Pilcaya.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 3, In Mexico at least
four gunmen confronted journalist Carlos Ortega (52) when he got out
of his car in front of his home in the small town of Santa Maria del
Oro. Ortega was shot in the head after struggling with the
attackers. Ortega recently argued with the town's mayor, Martin
Silvestre Herrera, over an article on sanitation at a local
slaughterhouse, and then wrote a column saying he would hold the
mayor responsible if anything happened to him.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 3, Nepal's PM Pushpa
Kamal Dahal, former Maoist rebel leader, fired army chief Rookmangud
Katawal after accusing him of defying government orders, prompting a
key party to quit the coalition government and plunging the
Himalayan country into a political crisis that could endanger its
peace process. Dahal’s firing of the army chief was rejected by
President Ram Baran Yadav, who officially leads the army.
(AP, 5/3/09)(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 3, In Niger Tuareg
rebels fighting the government released their last hostage. Mamane
Louali, who was captured in June 2007, was released at the airport
in Agadez, a town in the country's far north and one of the
traditional bases of the nomadic Tuaregs.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, In Pakistan the
bullet-ridden body of Fazal Haq (28), kidnapped two months ago, was
found dumped by the side of a road in Naurak village, 15 km (nine
miles) east of Miranshah, the main town in the semi-autonomous North
Waziristan tribal region. He had been accused of spying for the
United States. Militants beheaded 2 government officials in Swat, in
revenge for the killing of two Taliban commanders in dir and Buner.
(AFP, 5/3/09)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.45)
2009 May 3, Panama held
elections. Ricardo Martinelli (57), a conservative supermarket
magnate, was favored to win the presidential elections. Martinelli
won the election in a landslide, promising to guide the country
through the world economic crisis and an ambitious expansion of the
Panama Canal.
(AP, 5/3/09)(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 3, In the southern
Philippines 7 people were killed and 1,000 forced to flee their
homes as fresh fighting broke out when MILF separatist guerrillas
attacked civilians. The 12,000-member MILF has been waging a
decades-old insurgency to set up a Muslim state in the southern
Philippines, where Christian settlers now outnumber the original
inhabitants.
(AFP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 3, A gas explosion
tore through a Siberian apartment block and sparked a fire that
engulfed the building, killing eight people, including two children.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, In northwest Spain
one member of the country’s second-place junior female volleyball
team died and 12 others were injured, two seriously, in a bus crash.
The Emeve de Lugo team had just arrived in Santiago de Compostela
from the Canary Islands when their bus overturned.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 3, In Thailand an
American identified as Jill St. Onge (27) a bartender and artist
from Seattle, died while staying at a popular destination for budget
travelers. Norwegian Julie Michelle Bergheim (22) died the next day.
Both died after suddenly falling ill within hours of each other at
the Laleena guesthouse on Koh Phi Phi in southern Thailand.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 3, Sixteen Venezuelan
soldiers and a civilian were killed when a military helicopter
crashed near the Colombian border. A brigadier general was among
those killed.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2010 May 3, Faisal Shahzad
(30), a US citizen who had recently returned from a five-month trip
to his native Pakistan, was arrested at a New York airport on
charges that on May 1 he drove a bomb-laden SUV meant to cause a
fireball in Times Square.
(AP, 5/4/10)(SFC, 6/22/10, p.A6)
2010 May 3, The US renewed
sanctions against Damascus, saying Syria has made some progress
containing terror networks that use the country to infiltrate Iraq
but that Damascus continues to support terrorists and pursue weapons
of mass destruction.
(AP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 3, Some 20 students at
UC Berkeley began a hunger strike demanding that the school denounce
Arizona’s new immigration law, drop charges against protesters from
anti-fee hike occupation, rehire laid-off janitors and declare
Berkeley a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants.
(SFC, 5/7/10, p.C2)
2010 May 3, Karl Kasten
(b.1916), painter, printmaker and UC Berkeley professor, died.
(SFC, 6/3/10,
p.C5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Kasten)
2010 May 3, Nick Rogers (30),
former NFL player and Georgia Tech star, died in a one-car accident.
He was killed about 1:30 a.m. when his car hit a utility pole in
College Park, near Atlanta, Georgia.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, Rabbi David Forman,
founder of Rabbis for Human Rights, a prominent group defending
Palestinians, died in Dallas, Texas. Forman founded Rabbis for Human
Rights in 1988 and led it until 1992. He served as its chairman
again from 2002-2003.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, Prosecutors said
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has agreed to pay $27.6 million to settle
allegations that it improperly handled and dumped hazardous waste at
stores across California in a case that led to changes in the
retailer's practices nationwide.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, George Huguely
(22), a men's lacrosse player at the University of Virginia, was
arrested hours after the body of Yeardley Love (22), a female
lacrosse player, was found in her apartment. He has been charged
with murder.
(AP, 5/4/10)(SFC, 5/4/10, p.A4)
2010 May 3, In southern
Afghanistan two NATO service members died, one from a roadside bomb,
the other in a vehicle accident. A joint operation between Afghan
and NATO forces killed five militants in central Afghanistan.
Several militants also were arrested in the operation in Gezeb
district of Daykundi province. In eastern Afghanistan a suicide
bomber killed one civilian outside the Camp Chapman CIA base.
(AP, 5/4/10)(SFC, 5/4/10, p.A2)
2010 May 3, In Argentina a
judge widened the case against former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla
(1976-1981) to include an additional 49 cases of kidnapping, torture
and murder. These include victims whose bodies have been identified
by forensic experts.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Energy giant BP
vowed to pay "all necessary and appropriate clean-up costs" from the
US oil pollution disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil has been
spewing into the Gulf of Mexico since a deepwater oil rig operated
by BP exploded and sank on April 20 killing 11 men.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, In Burundi
attackers chopped off the limbs of a 5-year-old albino boy and
pulled out his mother's eye, killing them over the belief that their
body parts would bring wealth and success. Ten assailants armed with
guns and grenades killed Desire Vyegura (5) and his mother, Susann
Vyegura. Thoma Vyegura, who was not albino, was also killed while
trying to protect his daughter and grandson.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 3, In Egypt police
used batons and splintered wooden sticks to beat several protesters
from a crowd of about 400 people, mostly from opposition groups and
social movements, that turned out near the government headquarters
in downtown Cairo.
(Reuters, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Egypt's oil
ministry said it has signed a memorandum of understanding in Beijing
with two Chinese companies to build a $2 billion refinery that would
be its largest such plant.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, The leaders of
Israel and Egypt met to discuss the renewal of the Middle East peace
process ahead of US-backed indirect negotiations between the
Palestinians and the Jewish state.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel said her country will provide euro22.4 billion ($29.6
billion) to help bailout Greece over a three-year period, part of a
wider plan aimed at keeping Greece afloat and protecting their
shared euro currency.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, In Grenada Steve
Gorrie (36) walked into a precinct station with two severed human
heads in a bucket and presented his haul to horrified police. Police
later found two hacked-up, headless bodies in a rural field,
including the owner of a local tavern.
(AP, 5/4/10)(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 3, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seized center stage at the opening of a
monthlong debate at the United Nations on how to stop the spread of
nuclear weapons. But behind the scenes, UN Security Council powers
were discussing ways to punish Iran for defying their demands that
it curb nuclear activities that could be used to make bombs.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, Kuwait said that
several suspects are being questioned in connection with a busted
spy cell which a local newspaper said had been working for Iran.
(AFP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Kyrgyzstan's
interim government offered cash rewards for information leading to
the arrest of fugitive relatives and colleagues of deposed President
Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Rewards from $20,000 to $100,000 were offered to
those who can help find them, colossal bounties in a country where
the average salary is $130 per month. Bakiyev’s brother Zhanybek was
wanted for ordering police to open fire on protestors.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, North Korean leader
Kim Jong Il arrived on a luxury 17-car train in China, in what would
be his first journey abroad in years as his regime faces a worsening
economy and speculation it may have torpedoed a South Korean
warship.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, In India Mohammed
Ajmal Amir Kasab (22), a Pakistani national, was found guilty for
his role in the 60-hour siege (Nov 26-28, 2008) that left 166 people
dead. He was convicted on most of the 86 charges against him and
faced the death penalty. The next day Judge M.L. Tahaliyani imposed
the death penalty against Kasab on four counts of murder, waging war
against India, conspiracy and terrorism offences.
(AFP, 5/3/10)(AFP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 3, In Iraq two
American soldiers died from injuries sustained in separate incidents
unrelated to combat. Sardasht Othman (23), a Kurdish journalist, was
kidnapped in front of the campus of University of Salahuddin in the
regional capital of Irbil. His handcuffed and bullet-riddled body
was found four days later outside the Kurdish region in Mosul.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, A team of Israeli,
Jordanian and Palestinian environmental scientists said large
stretches of the biblical Jordan River could dry up by 2011. In
1847, a US Naval officer visiting the area reported on the
"deafening roar of the tumultuous waters."
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, In Mexico gunmen
drove up to a soccer field and shot five men to death as they played
early Monday near the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Mohamed Abed
Al-Jabri (b.1935), Moroccan Islamic philosopher, critic and
political ideologue for a socialist opposition party, died in
Casablanca.
(AFP, 5/5/10)(http://tinyurl.com/2ahph72)
2010 May 3, Nigeria's private
pay TV station NN24 began a 24-hour news coverage service in a first
for the west African country. Nigerian police freed a Ghanaian woman
after a shootout with her kidnappers in the restive oil city of Port
Harcourt. The kidnappers seized another woman, Rita Oparaocha, an
employee of the state ministry of works and housing after snatching
her car.
(AFP, 5/3/10)(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, In Pakistan
suspected US missiles killed four alleged militants in a tribal
region near the Afghan border, while a top US general arrived to
discuss the countries' efforts in the war against Islamist
extremists.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Paraguay’s Pres.
Fernando Lugo and Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula Da Silva met
under a heavy police presence in a rough outpost called Pedro Juan
Caballero on the Paraguayan side and Ponta Pora in Brazil in a joint
effort to fight to drug-trafficking. Lugo's ministers were
frustrated by the Paraguayan Senate's vote last week to delay until
2013 a personal income tax that would generate nearly $37 million a
year that Lugo desperately needs to fund troops and provisions of
martial law he has declared across five states in pursuit of the
guerrillas.
(AP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 3, In Saudi Arabia 2
people died in the flooding caused by violent thunderstorms which
paralyzed Riyadh this week.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 3, In Senegal
lawmakers from 27 African countries gathered in Dakar for a two-day
conference to push for a UN ban on female genital mutilation as a
breach of human rights. Senegal hoped to eradicate the practice
completely by 2015.
(AFP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, In South Africa
police officers found Emmanuel "Lolly" Jackson's body, a flamboyant
strip club owner, shot several times in a house near Johannesburg
after receiving a call from a man who said he wanted to surrender.
The caller, known as George Smith or George Louca, fled to his
native Cyprus. In Sep, 2011, the charred body of Jackson's lawyer
was found in the burned remains of his car near Johannesburg. Days
later, Jackson's former business partner, Mark Andrews, was found
dead on an isolated stretch of highway near Johannesburg. Local
media have linked other deaths since 2009 to Jackson.
(AP, 5/4/10)(AP, 10/2/11)
2010 May 3, Sri Lanka's court
of appeal suspended a court martial probing ex-army chief and
defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka who is charged with
engaging in politics while in uniform.
(AFP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Darfur's most
powerful rebel group said it was suspending peace talks with Sudan's
government, accusing Khartoum of attacking villages and military
positions in breach of a ceasefire. In South Sudan a renegade army
general said he had taken command of a body of soldiers and demanded
the removal of the man who beat him in recent elections. South
Sudan's army accused George Athor of masterminding an attack on one
of its bases on April 30 and plotting further assaults after he lost
in the race to become governor of the oil-producing south's Jonglei
state last week.
(AP, 5/3/10)(Reuters, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Thailand's PM
Abhisit Vejjajiva promised to produce a political roadmap that would
end a stand-off with "Red Shirt" protesters after the country's
deadliest civil violence in almost two decades.
(AFP, 5/3/10)
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