Today is Friday, May 7, the 127th day of 2010. There are 238 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

On May 7, 1945, Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims, France, ending its role in World War II.

ON THIS DATE

In 1789, the first inaugural ball was held in New York in honor of President George Washington and his wife, Martha.

In 1833, composer Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany.

In 1840, composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, Russia.

In 1915, nearly 1,200 people died when a German torpedo sank the British liner RMS Lusitania off the Irish coast.

In 1954, the 55-day Battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam ended with Vietnamese insurgents overrunning French forces.

In 1960, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced that the pilot of an American U-2 plane shot down over Sverdlovsk had been captured alive along with proof the aircraft had been on a spying mission. Leonid Brezhnev replaced Marshal Kliment Voroshilov as president of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

In 1963, the United States launched the Telstar 2 communications satellite.

In 1975, President Gerald Ford formally declared an end to the “Vietnam era.” In Ho Chi Minh City — formerly Saigon — the Viet Cong celebrated its takeover.

In 1977, Seattle Slew won the Kentucky Derby, the first of his Triple Crown victories. (On this date in 2002, Seattle Slew died.)

In 1984, a $180 million out-of-court settlement was announced in the Agent Orange class-action suit brought by Vietnam veterans who charged they’d suffered injury from exposure to the defoliant.

In 2000, Vladimir Putin took the oath of office in Russia’s first democratic transfer of power. Actor-producer-author Douglas Fairbanks Jr. died in New York at age 90.

Associated Press