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On This Day: May 4
UpdatedMay 4, 2014,8:54 am
On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.
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On May 4, 1874, Frank Conrad, the American electrical engineer whose innovations led to the establishment of the first radio station, was born. Following his death on Dec. 11, 1941, his obituary appeared in The Times.
Go to obituary » |Other birthdays »
On This Date
By The Associated Press
| 1626 | Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on what is now Manhattan. |
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| 1886 | A labor demonstration for an eight-hour workday at Haymarket Square in Chicago turned into a riot when a bomb exploded. |
| 1927 | The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded. |
| 1961 | A group of Freedom Riders left Washington, D.C., for New Orleans to challenge racial segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals. |
| 1980 | Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito died at age 87. |
| 1994 | Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed an accord on Palestinian autonomy that granted self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho. |
| 1998 | Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was given four life sentences plus 30 years by a federal judge in Sacramento, Calif., under a plea agreement that spared him the death penalty. |
| 2000 | Londoners elected their mayor for the first time. |
| 2006 | A federal judge sentenced Zacarias Moussaoui to life in prison for his role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. |
| 2007 | Paris Hilton was sentenced to jail for violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case. (The hotel heiress served 23 days behind bars.) |
Historic Birthdays
Frank Conrad5/4/1874 - 12/11/1941American engineer; helped establish the first commercial radio station.Go to obituary »| 75 | Bartolomeo Cristofori 5/4/1655 - 1/27/1731 Italian harpsichord maker; credited with the invention of the piano |
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| 63 | Horace Mann 5/4/1796 - 8/2/1859 American educator and philanthropist |
| 73 | Sir William Cooke 5/4/1806 - 6/25/1879 English inventor; helped develop electric telegraphy |
| 69 | Julia Tyler 5/4/1820 - 7/10/1889 American wife of President John Tyler |
| 70 | T. H. Huxley 5/4/1825 - 6/29/1895 English biologist and educator |
| 64 | A. Mitchell Palmer 5/4/1872 - 5/11/1936 American attorney general (1919-21); helped touch off the "Red Scare" of 1919-20 |
| 71 | Fritz von Opel 5/4/1899 - 4/8/1971 German automotive industrialist |
| 88 | Lincoln Kirstein 5/4/1907 - 1/5/1996 American dance impresario; director of the New York City Ballet (1948-89) |
| 80 | Emmanuel Robles 5/4/1914 - 2/22/1995 Algerian-French novelist and playwright |
| 63 | Audrey Hepburn 5/4/1929 - 1/20/1993 Belgian-born motion-picture and stage actress |
