Today is Saturday, May 11, the 131st day of 2013. There are 234 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight:
On May 11, 1973, the espionage trial of Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo in the “Pentagon Papers” case came to an end as Judge William M. Byrne dismissed all charges, citing government misconduct.
On this date:
In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor of New Netherland.
In 1858, Minnesota became the 32nd state of the Union.
In 1862, during the Civil War, the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia was scuttled by its crew off Craney Island, Va., to prevent it from falling into Union hands.
In 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded during a banquet at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles.
In 1935, the Rural Electrification Administration was created as one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs.
In 1943, during World War II, U.S. forces landed on the Aleutian island of Attu, which was held by the Japanese; the Americans took the island 19 days later.
In 1950, President Harry S. Truman formally dedicated the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state.
In 1953, a tornado devastated Waco, Texas, claiming 114 lives.
In 1960, Israeli agents captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In 1981, legendary reggae artist Bob Marley died in a Miami hospital at age 36. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Cats” opened in London.
In 1985, 56 people died when a flash fire swept a jam-packed soccer stadium in Bradford, England.
In 1996, an Atlanta-bound ValuJet DC-9 caught fire shortly after takeoff from Miami and crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 people on board.
Associated Press
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