This day in history

[May 03, 2010]  (AP)  Today is Monday, May 3, the 123rd day of 2010. There are 242 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history:

On May 3, 1960, the Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones musical "The Fantasticks" began a nearly 42-year run at New York's Sullivan Street Playhouse, closing in Jan. 2002 after 17,162 performances.

On this date:

In 1802, Washington, D.C. was incorporated as a city.

In 1810, English poet Lord Byron, inspired by the Greek myth of Hero and Leander, swam across the Hellespont, a strait located in present-day Turkey.

In 1909, a wireless news dispatch was transmitted from The New York Times to the Chicago Tribune in the first such communication between the two cities.

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

In 1933, Nellie T. Ross became the first female director of the U.S. Mint.

In 1945, during World War II, Allied forces captured Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.

In 1948, the Supreme Court, in Shelley v. Kraemer, ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks or members of other racial groups were legally unenforceable.

In 1978, "Sun Day" fell on a Wednesday as thousands of people extolling the virtues of solar energy held events across the country.

In 1979, Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher was chosen to become Britain's first female prime minister as the Tories ousted the incumbent Labour government in parliamentary elections.

In 1986, 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.

Ten years ago: 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. (One of the defendants, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, was convicted of murder; he was freed from a Scottish prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds because of advanced prostate cancer and returned to Libya. The other defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.) The archbishop of New York, Cardinal John O'Connor, died at age 80.

Five years ago: The first democratically elected government in the history of Iraq was sworn in. Iran told a United Nations nonproliferation conference it would press on with its uranium-enrichment technology.

One year ago: A Lakeland, Fla. man, Troy Ryan Bellar, shot and killed his wife, Wendy, and then their 5-month-old and 8-year-old sons before killing himself; Bellar's 13-year-old son, Nathan, escaped unhurt. Ricardo Martinelli won Panama's presidential election.

Today's birthdays: Folk singer Pete Seeger is 91. Actress Ann B. Davis is 84. Singer Frankie Valli is 76. Sports announcer Greg Gumbel is 64. Pop singer Mary Hopkin is 60. Singer Christopher Cross is 59. Country musician Cactus Moser (Highway 101) is 53. Rock musician David Ball (Soft Cell) is 51. Country singer Shane Minor is 42. Actor Bobby Cannavale (ka-nuh-VAL'-ee) is 40. Music and film producer-actor Damon Dash is 39. Country musician John Hopkins (Zac Brown Band) is 39. Country-rock musician John Neff (Drive-By Truckers) is 39. Country singer Brad Martin is 37. Actor Dule (doo-LAY') Hill is 35. Country singer Eric Church is 33. Dancer Cheryl Burke (TV: "Dancing with the Stars") is 26. Actress Jill Berard is 20.

Thought for today: "A man can become so accustomed to the thought of his own faults that he will begin to cherish them as charming little 'personal characteristics.'" -- Helen Rowland, American writer, journalist and humorist (1876-1950)

[Associated Press]

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