1568 – French forces in Florida slaughtered hundreds of Spanish.

1802 – Washington, DC, was incorporated as a city.

1855 – Macon B. Allen became the first African American to be admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts.

1859 – France declared war on Austria.

1888 – Thomas Edison organized the Edison Phonograph Works.

1916 – Irish nationalist Padraic Pearse and two others were executed by the British for their roles in the Easter Rising.

1921 – West Virginia imposed the first state sales tax.

1926 – The revival of Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” opened in New York.

1926 – U.S. Marines landed in Nicaragua and stayed until 1933.

1926 – In Britain, trade unions began a general strike.

1927 – Francis E.J. Wilde of Meadowmere Park, NY, patented the electric sign flasher.

1933 – The U.S. Mint was under the direction of a woman for the first time when Nellie Ross took the position.

1937 – Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for “Gone With The Wind.”

1944 – Wartime rationing of most grades of meats ended in the U.S.

1944 – Dr. Robert Woodward and Dr. William Doering produced the first synthetic quinine at Harvard University.

1945 – Indian forces captured Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.

1948 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities were legally unenforceable.

1952 – The first airplane landed at the geographic North Pole.

1966 – The game “Twister” was featured on the “Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson.

1968 – After three days of battle, the U.S. Marines retook Dai Do complex in Vietnam. They found that the North Vietnamese had evacuated the area.

1971 – Anti-war protesters began four days of demonstrations in Washington, DC.

1971 – National Public Radio broadcast for the first time.

1971 – James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King’s assassin, was caught in a jailbreak attempt.

1986 – In NASA’s first post-Challenger launch, an unmanned Delta rocket lost power in its main engine shortly after liftoff. Safety officers destroyed it by remote control.

1988 – The White House acknowledged that first lady Nancy Reagan had used astrological advice to help schedule her husband’s activities.

1992 – Five days of rioting and looting ended in Los Angeles, CA. The riots, that killed 53 people, began after the acquittal of police officers in the beating of Rodney King.

1997 – The “Republic of Texas” surrendered to authorities ending an armed standoff where two people were held hostage. The group asserts the independence of Texas from the U.S.

1998 – “The Sevres Road,” by 18-century landscape painter Camille Corot, stolen from the Louvre in France.

1999 – Mark Manes, at age 22, was arrested for supplying a gun to Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold, who later killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado.

1999 – Hasbro released the first collection of toys for the Star Wars movie “Episode I: The Phantom Menace.”
Today in Star Wars History

1999 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 11,000 for the first time.

2000 – The trial of two Libyans accused of killing 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 (over Lockerbie) opened.

2006 – In Alexandria, VA, Al-Quaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was given a sentence of life in prison for his role in the terrorist attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001.

The 1992 Los Angeles riots, sometimes called the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County in April and May 1992. 

Unrest began in South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after a trial jury acquitted four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for usage of excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King, which had been videotaped and widely viewed in TV broadcasts. The rioting took place in several areas in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, as thousands of people rioted over six days after the verdict’s announcement.

Widespread looting, assault, and arson occurred during the riots, which local police forces had difficulty controlling due to lack of personnel and resources. The situation in the Los Angeles area was only resolved after the California National Guard, the United States military, and several federal law enforcement agencies were deployed to assist in ending the violence and unrest.

By the time the riots ended, 63 people had been killed, 2,383 had been injured, more than 12,000 had been arrested, and estimates of property damage were over $1 billion, much of which disproportionately affected Koreatown, where the bulk of rioting occurred. LAPD Chief of Police Daryl Gates, who had already announced his resignation by the time of the riots, was attributed with much of the blame for failure to de-escalate the situation and overall mismanagement.

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Even though the Greater Chaco Canyon region is one of the most important archeological sites in the U.S. and is home to many Indigenous communities, 91% of the area has been leased for oil and gas activities, and over 40,000 oil and gas wells have already been drilled around Chaco Canyon. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is accepting public comments on drilling in Chaco Canyon until Friday, May 6. We need to put pressure on the BLM to protect this World Heritage site! I didn’t see your name on the list yet, Submit your comment to BLM demanding a long-term plan to end drilling in the Greater Chaco region! The Biden administration announced an executive order to protect more than 350,000 acres of land from oil and gas drilling over the next 20 years near the Chaco Culture National Historical Park. While this proposal would be progress toward protecting communities and addressing the climate crisis, a more comprehensive plan is necessary to end drilling in the Greater Chaco region. SUBMIT A COMMENT We know the only way toward a clean, renewable energy future is to stop all new fossil fuel development, and the first step is saving public lands from free-for-all drilling.  Take action before the deadline this Friday: Urge the BLM to approve the president’s plan and to address the damage already done to Chaco Canyon by the oil and gas industry. Thanks for protecting our public lands,  Jorge Aguilar Southern Region Director Food & Water Watch

I was shocked to see this and wonder what the Biden Admin has to say let alone Sec Deb Haaland