On This Day in History - May 11th - Almanac

Today is Thursday, May 11, the 131st day of 2017 with 234 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Uranus, and Neptune. Evening stars are Jupiter and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include Ottmar Mergenthaler, inventor of the Linotype typesetting machine, in 1854; songwriter Irving Berlin in 1888; dancer/choreographer Martha Graham in 1894; Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali in 1904; actor Margaret Rutherford in 1892; actor Phil Silvers in 1911; actor Winstead Sheffield "Doodles" Weaver in 1911; Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman in 1918; actor Denver Pyle in 1920; actor Bernard Fox in 1927; satirist Mort Sahl in 1927 (age 90); Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam leader, in 1933 (age 84); actor Doug McClure in 1935; singer/songwriter Eric Burdon in 1941 (age 76); artificial heart developer Dr. Robert Jarvik in 1946 (age 71); writer Mike Lupica in 1952 (age 65); actor Natasha Richardson in 1963; actors Tim Blake Nelson in 1964 (age 53) and Jeffrey Donovan in 1968 (age 49); politician Harold Ford, Jr. in 1970 (age 47); actor Cory Monteith in 1982; NFL quarterback Cam Newton in 1989 (age 28).

On this date in history:

In 1858, Minnesota joined the United States as the 32nd state.

In 1862, the Confederate navy destroyed its iron-clad vessel Merrimac to prevent it from falling into the hands of advancing Union forces.

In 1910, Glacier National Park in Montana was created by an act of Congress.

In 1924, Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler merged their companies, forming Mercedes-Benz.

In 1928, the first regularly scheduled television programs were begun by station WGY in Schenectady, N.Y.

In 1963, bombings in Birmingham, Ala., against non-violent Civil Rights campaigners triggers a crisis which leads to the involvement of federal troops.

In 1969, in one of the more infamous and bloody battles of the Vietnam War, U.S. troops seized Dong Ap Bia mountain, commonly known as "Hamburger Hill."

In 1987, Emmanuel Vitria died in Marseilles in southern France at age 67, 18 years after receiving a transplanted human heart. He was the longest-surviving heart transplant patient at that time.

In 1996, a ValuJet airliner crashed in the Florida Everglades, killing 110 people.

In 1997, world chess champion Garry Kasparov was defeated by a computer, IBM's Deep Blue, in a six-game match in New York.

In 2003, the New York Times devoted four pages to a story documenting major inaccuracies and deceptions by one of its reporters, Jayson Blair, in a scandal that cost the newspaper's two top editors their jobs.

In 2006, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told students in Indonesia that Israel was an "evil regime" that would soon be "annihilated."

In 2009, Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was fired and replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal. McChrystal resigned a year later following a damning article in Rolling Stone.

In 2010, in discussing sexual-abuse scandals, Pope Benedict XVI said the Roman Catholic Church was undergoing its greatest persecution because of "sin in the church." He called the situation "frightening."

In 2013, President Obama, addressing police officers in a Top Cops ceremony at the White House, said: "We don't always get that opportunity to stand and applaud the men and women who keep us safe, but they're out there, hundreds of thousands of you, patrolling our streets every single day. And we know that when we need you most you'll be ready to dash into danger, to protect our lives even if it means putting your lives on the line."

In 2014, authorities found the body of a third occupant of a hot-air balloon that hit power lines and crashed in Virginia two days earlier. The pilot and two passengers died in the accident at the Mid-Atlantic Balloon Festival.

A thought for the day: "Prejudice is a product of ignorance that hides behind barriers of tradition." -- Jasper Fforde