May 2
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Events on This Day
1670 - King Charles II of England chartered the Hudson’s Bay Company. For over a century the company dominated the fur market throughout the Hudson Bay region.1853 - Franconi’s Hippodrome opened at Broadway, West 23rd Street and 5th Avenue in New York City. The 4,000-seat facility opened in grand style for a hippodrome (an arena for a circus or games) with a chariot-and-ostrich race.
1885 - A new magazine for homemakers went on sale. You can still get it by mail or find it right next to the cash register at your favorite grocery store. The magazine is Good Housekeeping. It has our seal of approval.
1887 - Hannibal W. Goodwin of Newark, NJ applied for a patent for celluloid photographic film -- the stuff from which movies are shown.
1932 - NBC radio introduced an entertainer this night. The comic genius started working for a salary of $1,400 a week. His name: Jack Benny.
1938 - Ella Fitzgerald recorded one of her biggest hits, A-Tisket, A-Tasket, with Chick Webb’s band. Following Webb’s death, Fitzgerald took over the band for some three years.
1938 - Thornton Wilder won the Pulitzer Prize for Our Town.
1939 - Lou Gehrig took himself out of the starting lineup of the New York Yankees before the start of a game against the Detroit Tigers, ending his streak of 2,130 consecutive games. ‘The Iron Horse’ had played in every Yankee game since June 1, 1925. (It would be 57 years until Cal Ripken, Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles would shatter that record in the summer of 1995.)
1941 - The Federal Communications Commission agreed to let regular scheduling of TV broadcasts by commercial TV stations begin on July 1, 1941. It was the start of what would become network television.
1945 - The Soviet Union announced the fall of Berlin, and the Allies announced the surrender of Nazi troops in Italy and parts of Austria.
1949 - Arthur Miller was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his Death of a Salesman.
1952 - Baseball great Ted Williams again reported for active duty -- as a Marine fighter pilot. (Williams had been in the U.S. Navy from 1942-1945.)
1953 - Dark Star defeated the heavily favored Native Dancer to win the Kentucky Derby. A $2 wager to win on this dark horse would have put some change in your pocket. Dark Star was a 25-1 long shot.
1954 - Stan ‘The Man’ Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals smacked five home runs in a twin bill against the New York Giants -- establishing a major-league record that has only been matched once: by San Diego Padre Nate Colbert, Aug 1, 1972.
1955 - Tennessee Williams won a Pulitzer Prize for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
1957 - Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, the controversial Republican senator from Wisconsin, died at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.
1960 - Harry Belafonte presented his second Carnegie Hall concert in New York City.
1964 - Northern Dancer, with jockey Bill Hartack, won the Kentucky Derby. Hartack had been on quite a win streak, completing four major victories in six months. The racing legend was atop Iron Liege, Venetian Way, Decidedly and Northern Dancer (not all at the same time, of course). Hartack then rode Northern Dancer to a win in the Preakness Stakes in Maryland. Interesting aside: In 1964 another jockey had ridden Northern Dancer three times then suddenly switched to Hill Rose for the Run for the Roses in Louisville. He was Willie Shoemaker.
1965 - Ed Sullivan had said he would not have this British rock group on his CBS-TV Sunday night show again. This night, however, Ed softened up -- and allowed Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones to make a second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Stones got satisfaction at last!
1965 - The Early Bird satellite was used to transmit television pictures across the Atlantic Ocean this day as global satellite communications began. COMSAT’s first satellite had been launched from Cape Canaveral April 6, 1965.
1969 - The British liner Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) left on her maiden voyage to New York.
1970 - The ‘First Lady of Horse Racing’ (first to ride at a major track, first to win a major feature), Diane Crump, rode Fathom and made history as the first woman jockey to ride in the Kentucky Derby. She finished in 12th place.
1974 - Filming got underway for the motion picture, Jaws, in Martha’s Vineyard, MA. What was to be a 58-day shooting schedule for the film inspired by the Peter Benchley novel soon gave way to 120 days. Costs soared from what was to be a $3.5 million project to $8 million. The director, Steven Spielberg, was able to explain away the rise in costs and the picture did very well at the box office and, later, on video cassette.
1980 - NBC came to terms with its superstar, Johnny Carson, on this day. Johnny signed a new three-year contract for approximately $5-million a year. Carson also reduced his Tonight Show to one hour from ninety minutes and cut his work week to four nights. Plus, he got billing in the show’s title, as it became The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.
1981 - Scottish singer Sheena Easton made it to the top spot on the pop music charts for her first -- and only -- time. Morning Train (Nine to Five) knocked Kiss on My List, by Daryl Hall and John Oates, out of the top of the music charts. Morning Train pulled into the top spot for a two-week stay. Easton had been an actress, appearing as a singer in the 1980 BBC TV documentary, The Big Time; and this time she made it to the big time, winning the 1981 Best New Artist Grammy Award. On U.S. TV, she is remembered as Sonny Crockett’s wife in five episodes of Miami Vice in the 1980s and for singing the title song in the James Bond flick, For Your Eyes Only. Easton scored 14 hits on the charts between 1981 and 1991. Seven of those hits made it to the top ten. The Lover in Me in 1988 was the closest she ever came to having another number one hit. It stopped climbing at number two. Once again, the countdown continues...
1984 - Sunday in the Park with George debuted at the Booth Theatre on Broadway. The musical won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, two 1984 Tony Awards for design (and a nomination for Best Musical). Bernadette Peters starred in the show, which played 604 times, closing Oct 13, 1985.
1985 - The General Motors X-Cars rolled off the assembly line in Detroit, MI for the final time on this day. The cars were a dismal failure, despite being a hit in the beginning. The X-Cars were subject to massive recalls which cost G.M. many millions of dollars.
1986 - The photo essay, A Day in the Life of America, began this day as two hundred photojournalists covered the USA to take 350,000 pictures. For publication of the beautiful coffee table book, only 350 pictures were selected. Several spin-off books such as A Day in the Life of Hawaii, etc. have joined it on coffee tables throughout the world.
1987 - More than 3,000 international jetsetters paid as much as $650 for first-night tickets to hear tenor Placido Domingo perform Verdi’s opera Aida in its original setting - a 3,200-year-old temple of the pharoahs at Luxor, Egypt. Aida had never before been staged in the majestic setting envisioned by its composer, Giuseppe Verdi.
1988 - Cincinnati Reds baseball manager Pete Rose was suspended for 30 days by National League president A. Bartlett Giamatti, two days after Rose shoved umpire Dave Pallone during an April 30 game.
1992 - Former House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur D. Mills died in Searcy, AR at 82 years of age.
1993 - Julio Gallo, brother of Ernest and co-patriarch of the world's largest winery, died in a car crash at 82 years of age. Gallo drove his Jeep off a winding, hilltop road on his son’s ranch in San Joaquin County and plunged down a 35-foot embankment.
1994 - Nelson Mandela claimed victory in the wake of South Africa’s first democratic elections; President F.W. de Klerk acknowledged defeat. Mandela was inaugurated eight days later.
1997 - The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial opened in Washington, D.C. The memorial honoring the 32nd U.S. President features ten-foot statue showing him in a wheeled chair, much like the one he actually used.
1997 - Films opening in the U.S.: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, starring Mike Myers, Elizabeth Hurley, Michael York, Mimi Rogers and Robert Wagner; Breakdown, with Kurt Russell, J.T. Walsh, Kathleen Quinlan, M.C. Gainey and Jack Noseworthy; and Warriors of Virtue, featuring Mario Yedidia, Marley Shelton, Chao-Li Chi and Angus Macfadyen.
1997 - Tony Blair, whose new Labor Party crushed John Major's long-reigning Conservatives in a national election, became at age 44 Britain’s youngest prime minister in 185 years.
1998 - Real Quiet, ridden by jockey Kent Desormeaux, won the 124th Kentucky Derby.
1999 - A meeting between the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic led to the release of three U.S. soldiers captured a month earlier by Serbian troops.
2000 - Jockey Julie Krone became the first female elected to thoroughbred racing’s hall of fame.
2001 - Germany inaugurated its new Chancellery in Berlin amid concerns the building was too grandiose.
2001 - Broadway revived the musical 42nd Street, which had run for most of the 1980s at three different theatres. The new show had a nice run too, with 1,524 performances at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, closing Jan 02, 2005.
2002 - Former NAACP chairman, Dr. William F. Gibson, died at 69 years of age.
2003 - The movie X2: X-Men United opened in U.S. theatres. The action thriller stars Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Brian Cox, Alan Cumming, Bruce Davison, Anna Paquin, Kelly Hu, Aaron Stanford, Katie Stuart and Michael Reid MacKay.
2003 - China reported that an accident on a diesel-powered (conventional) submarine had killed all 70 sailors on board.
2004 - In Panama, Martin Torrijos (40), son of former dictator General Omar Torrijos, was elected president.
2005 - From the TWtD Big Deal Dept: Neiman Marcus agreed to be sold to Texas Pacific Group and Warburg Pincus for $5.1 billion; and Verizon Communications won its bid to buy MCI Inc. in a $8.44 billion deal (Verizon won out despite a higher offer from Qwest Communications.)
2006 - Louis Rukeyser died at his home in Connecticut. He was 73 years old. The best-selling author, columnist, lecturer and TV host (Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser, Louis Rukeyser’s Wall Street) had delivered pun-filled, commonsense commentary on complicated business and economic news for over thirty years.
2006 - The Canadian dollar broke through the 90-U.S.-cent level - its highest rate since 1978. The new value helped Canadians to realize cheaper U.S. imports of everything from vegetables and clothing to computers.
2007 - Former prime minister Hubert Ingraham led his opposition party to victory in the Bahamas, returning to power in and election dominated by questions about the direction of the tourism-driven economy.
2008 - New movies in the U.S.: Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Shaun Toub, Leslie Bibb, Bill Smitrovich, Nazanin Boniadi and Micah Hauptman; and Made of Honor, starring Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan, Sydney Pollack, Kadeem Hardison, Beau Garrett and Richmond Arquette.
2009 - 50-1 longshot Mine That Bird surged from last place to win the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, KY. Mine That Bird pulled away in the stretch to score a 6 3/4-length victory at Churchill Downs, the second-biggest upset in Derby history. And his margin of victory was the largest since Assault won by eight lengths in 1946. The gelding ran the 1 1/4 miles on a sloppy dirt track in 2:02.66 and paid $103.20 -- the second-largest payout in Derby history, behind Donerail ($184.90) in 1913. (Mine That Bird is a relative of Derby winner Northern Dancer -- see 1964, above.)
2009 - Australia’s government announced a plan to spend more than 70 billion dollars boosting its defenses over 20 years in response to a regional military build-up by China and the fading supremacy of its main ally, the U.S.
2010 - Louisiana’s 2.4-billion-dollar-a-year commercial and recreational fishing industry was dealt a blow from the April 20th Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The U.S. government banned ocean activities from Louisiana to parts of the Florida Panhandle for ten days due to health concerns.
2010 - United Airlines announced its intention to buy Continental Airlines in a $3-billion-plus deal that would create the world’s largest carrier.
2011 - The U.S. Army corps. of Engineers blew up a section of the Mississippi River Birds Point levee in Missouri to protect the small town of Cairo, Illinois.
2011 - International terrorist icon Osama bin Laden, architect of the Sep 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, was killed in an early morning ambush in Abbotabad, Pakistan. Elite U.S. forces carried out the raid on bin Laden’s house, also killing 3 other adult males, including one of bin Laden’s sons. One woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant. Courier Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed and his brother Abrar were among the dead.
2012 - Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1895), one of the art world’s most recognizable images, sold for a record $119,922,500 at auction in New York City. The previous record for an artwork sold at auction was $106.5 million for Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust, sold by Christie’s in 2010.
2013 - In a joint news conferece with Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto, visiting U.S. President Barack Obama sought to tamp down a potential rift with Mexico over a dramatic shift in the cross-border fight against drug trafficking and organized crime.
2014 - Movies opening in U.S. theatres included: The Amazing Spider-Man 2, starring Emma Stone, Andrew Garfield, Dane DeHaan, Stan Lee, Sarah Gadon and Felicity Jones; Walk of Shame, with Elizabeth Banks, James Marsden and Ethan Suplee; Bad Johnson, starring Jamie Chung, Cam Gigandet and Nick Thune; Belle, with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Matthew Goode and Emily Watson; Mr. Jones, starring Jon Foster, Sarah Jones and Mark Steger; The Protector 2, with Tony Jaa, Marrese Crump and JeeJa Yanin; and Whitewash, starring Thomas Haden Church, Anie Pascale and Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais.
2014 - A California jury awarded Apple $119 million, far less than it demanded, in a patent battle with Samsung over alleged copying of smart phone features. But the jury also found that Apple had infringed one of Samsung’s two patents, and owed $158,400 to Samsung as a result. Apple originally wanted $2.191 billion and Samsung’s counter-suit had asked for $6.2 million.
2015 - American Floyd Mayweather Jr. beat Filipino Manny Pacquiao by unanimous decision in a 12-round fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
2015 - American Pharoah (3-1 odds) won the 141st running of the Kentucky Derby, beating Firing Line (9-1) by one length and Dortmund (4-1) by three. American Pharoah went on to win horse racing’s Triple Crown (Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes). No horse had won all three since 1978.
2016 - Johnson & Johnson was ordered by a U.S. jury to pay $55 million to a woman who said that using the company’s talc-powder products for feminine hygiene caused her to develop ovarian cancer.
2017 - China announced its tightening of rules for online news as censors tried to control the flood of information from within the country and around the world. Instant-messaging apps, blogs and other media sources were proliferating across the country.
2018 - Residents of Kanpur reacted with dismay after the Indian city was found to have the worst air quality in a global World Health Organization survey. The WHO urged the India to clean up its act. 14 Indian cities were featured in the WHO’s dirtiest air list.
2018 - Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said the POTUS repaid $130,000 to his personal attorney Michael Cohen for hush money Cohen had paid to porn star Stormy Daniels. This statement directly contradicted Trump’s past statements, but was, unfortunately, a part of a continuing pattern of untruthfulness by Trump that the U.S. public was becoming accustomed to.
2019 - France and Germany detailed a plan to create an electric battery industry in Europe -- from the extraction of raw materials all the way to recycling. French Economy minister Bruno Le Maire said about 5 billion euros ($5.6 billion) were to be invested in the Franco-German project, including 1.2 billion euros of public subsidies.
2019 - Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh resigned amid a flurry of investigations into her arranging of bulk sales of her self-published children’s books to disguise hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks. Organizations purchased large quantities of Pugh’s books in exchange for contracts with the city. On Nov 20, 2019, she was indicted by a grand jury on eleven counts, including tax evasion, fraud, and conspiracy. On Feb 27, 2020, Pugh was sentenced to 3 years in prison to be followed by 3 years of probation.
2020 - Scientists embarked on a full-scale hunt for the Asian giant hornets, worried that the invaders could decimate bee populations in the U.S. and establish an irreversible presence.
2020 - Several thousand Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv, demonstrating against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition deal with his chief rival. The country’s Supreme Court was to begin debating a series of legal challenges to the agreement.
2020 - Twitter said it had deleted 20,000 fake accounts linked to the governments of Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Honduras and Indonesia, saying they violated company policy and were a “targeted attempt to undermine the public conversation.”
2020 - COVID-19 news: 1)St Thomas Hospital, a top British hospital, announced its use of blood plasma treatment. This, as part of a trial that transfuses plasma from recovered people into sick people to give their immune systems a boost to fight the virus. 2)Captain Brett Crozier of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier was fired by Navy leaders who said he created a panic by sending his memo pleading for help to too many people. Crozier had raised warnings the ship was facing a growing outbreak of the coronavirus and asked for permission to isolate the bulk of his crew members on shore in Guam. Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said commander “demonstrated extremely poor judgment” in the middle of a crisis. The decision to remove Crozier was immediately condemned by members of the House Armed Services Committee. (On April 5 Crozier tested positive for the coronavirus. By this date 155 people aboard the ship had tested positive.) 3)The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits more than doubled to a second straight record. A total of 6.65 million people filed jobless claims in the week ended March 28. U.S. coronavirus cases reached 1,107,815 with the death toll at 65,068. There were 2,909 deaths in 24 hours, the largest daily fatality increase in the U.S.
2021 - SpaceX safely returned four astronauts from the International Space Station, landing off the coast of Panama City, Florida. The landing -- at 2:57 a.m. ET -- was the first U.S. crew splashdown in darkness since the Apollo 8 moonshot.
2021 - Three people died and 25 were injured when a 40-foot cabin cruiser broke apart on a reef near Point Loma, west of San Diego. The boat had been used in a suspected human smuggling operation, authorities said. The incident occurred as Customs and Border Protection and other agencies dispatched more boats and aircraft to the San Diego area in an effort to disrupt maritime smuggling operations.
2022 - President Biden celebrated Eid al-Fitr at the White House, restoring celebrations of the Muslim holiday that marked the end of Ramadan. Biden’s predecessor had scrapped the celebrations.
2022 - The conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to outlaw abortion. This, according to a written draft of the justices’ decision obtained by political newspaper Politico.
2023 - 40-year-old weight loss company Jenny Craig announced that it was closing after losing its financial backing.
2023 - The Writers Guild of America voted to begin striking over pay and industry changes, bringing TV production to a halt. The biggest point of disagreement was over residuals from streaming media. (The strike lasted 148 days, ending sep 27, 2023 -- and messed up TV programming for the following season.)
and more...
Birthdays on This Day May 2
1729 - Catherine the Great (Catherine II) (Ekaterina Alekseevna)
Russian leader [1762-1796]; died Nov 17, 17961837 - Henry M. (Martyn) Robert
U.S. Army General; author: Robert’s Rules of Order, the standard for parliamentary procedure; died May 11, 19231885 - Hedda Hopper
actress: Alice in Wonderland or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?, Pepe, Reap the Wild Wind, Queen of the Mob, Midnight; newspaper gossip columnist; died Feb 1, 19661887 - Vernon Castle
dancer [w/wife, Irene], screenwriter: The Whirl of Life; died Feb 15, 19181895 - Lorenz Hart
composer, lyricist: half of famous team of (Richard) Rodgers & Hart: I Wish I Were in Love Again, Where or When, With a Song in My Heart, I Could Write a Book, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, There’s a Small Hotel, Little Girl Blue, The Lady is a Tramp, Blue Moon, My Funny Valentine; died Nov 22, 19431902 - Brian Aherne
actor: A Night to Remember, Titanic, The Best of Everything, The Waltz King; died Feb 10, 19861903 - Benjamin Spock
baby doctor, author: The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care; died Mar 15, 1998; more1904 - Bing (Harry Lillis) Crosby
‘der Bingle’: Grammy Award-winning [Lifetime Achievement Grammy: 1962] crooner: White Christmas, I Surrender, Dear, Where the Blue of the Night [Meets the Gold of the Day]; about 2600 records, 120 LPs sold estimated 400 million [by 1975]; Academy Award-winning actor: Going My Way [1944]; Big Broadcast of 1932; over 60 films; died Oct 14, 1977
1907 - Pinky Lee (Pincus Leff)
entertainer: burlesque; The Pinky Lee Show [early 1950s TV]; died Apr 3, 19931908 - William Bakewell
actor: The Strongest Man in the World, Retik, the Moon Menace, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, Romance on the High Seas, The Farmer’s Daughter; died Apr 15, 19931913 - Nigel Patrick (Wemyss)
actor: The Jack of Diamonds, Raintree County, Johnny Nobody, The Mackintosh Man; director: How to Murder a Rich Uncle, Johnny Nobody; writer: The Jack of Diamonds; died Sep 21, 19811920 - William Hutt
actor: stage: Stratford Festival: King Lear, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Importance of Being Earnest; films: The Trojan Horse, The Statement, The National Dream: Building the Impossible Railway, Covergirls, The Elephant Man, There Was a Crooked Man; died Jun 27, 20071921 - Satyajit Ray
Academy Award-winning [life-time achievement award] director: Pather Panchali, Aparajito, The World of Apu, Distant Thunder, The Adversary, Devi; died Apr 23, 19921924 - Theodore Bikel
singer, actor: Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, The African Queen, The Pride and the Passion, The Defiant Ones, The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming; died Jul 21, 20151925 - Roscoe Lee Browne
actor known for his rich voice and dignified bearing: The Comedians, Topaz, The Liberation of L.B. Jones, Super Fly, Uptown Saturday Night, Logan’s Run, Legal Eagles, The Mambo Kings, Dear God; died Apr 11, 20071929 - Link Wray (Frederick Lincoln Wray Jr.)
musician: guitarist, composer: Link Wray and His Ray Men: Rumble, Raw Hide, Jack the Ripper; died Nov 5, 20051933 - Françoise Fabian (Michele Cortes De Leon y Fabianera)
actress: Reunion, The French Woman, Dressmaker, My Night at Maud’s1936 - Engelbert Humperdinck (Arnold George Dorsey)
singer: After the Lovin’, Release Me, There Goes My Everything, The Last Waltz, A Man Without Love, Winter World of Love, Les Bicyclettes de Belsize; more1937 - Lorenzo Music
actor: voice of Garfield, Carlton the Doorman [in Rhoda]; Emmy Award-winning producer: Carlton, Your Doorman [5/21/80]; died Aug 4, 20011939 - Gates (William James) Brown
baseball: Detroit Tigers [World Series: 1968]; died Sep 27, 20131941 - Clay (Palmer) Carroll
‘Hawk’: baseball: pitcher: Milwaukee Braves, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds [World Series: 1970, 1972, 1975/all-star: 1971, 1972], Chicago White Sox, SL Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates1943 - Mickey (Lee Oddis) Bass III
jazz composer, musician: group: New York Powerhouse Ensemble; died Feb 3, 20221945 - Randy Cain
singer: group: The Delfonics: La-La Means I Love You, Didn’t I [Blow Your Mind This Time], Lying to Myself, Ready or Not Here I Come [Can’t Hide from Love]; died Apr 9, 20091945 - Bianca Jagger
actress, model; Mick Jagger’s ex1945 - Goldy McJohn
musician: organ: group: Steppenwolf: Born to be Wild, The Pusher, Magic Carpet Ride, Rock Me; died Aug 1, 20171946 - Leslie Gore
singer: It’s My Party, Judy’s Turn to Cry, She’s a Fool, You Don’t Own Me, Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows, California Nights; actress: Girls on the Beach, Ski Party, The T.A.M.I. Show; died Feb 16, 20151946 - Robert ‘Bob’ Henrit
musician: drums: groups: The Kinks, Argent1946 - David Suchet
actor: Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Oppenheimer, Iron Eagle, A Perfect Murder, The Way We Live Now, Maxwell, The Bank Job, Great Expectations, Effie1947 - James Dyson
industrial designer, founder of the Dyson company, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner1947 - Gerald Irons
football: Oakland Raiders, Cleveland Browns1948 - Larry Gatlin
musician, Grammy Award-winning country singer: group: The Gatlin Brothers: Broken Lady [1976], I Don’t Wanna Cry, Houston (I’m Comin’ to See You), Love is Just a Game, Take Somebody with Me When I Fall, Statues Without Hearts, All the Gold in California1950 - Lou Gramm
singer: groups: Black Sheep, Foreigner: Feels like the First Time, Cold as Ice, Long Long Way from Home, Double Vision, Hot Blooded, Blue Morning Blue Day, Urgent, Waiting for a Girl like You, I Want to Know What Love Is, That was Yesterday1952 - Christine Baranski
actress: The Good Fight, The Good Wife, Chicago: The Musical, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Odd Couple II, The Birdcage, Addams Family Values, Welcome to Mooseport, The Gilded Age
1953 - Jamaal Wilkes
Basketball Hall of Famer [forward]: Golden State Warriors [1974–1977], Los Angeles Lakers [1977–1985]; Los Angeles Clippers [1985]; 4× NBA champion [1975, 1980, 1982, 1985; Lakers retired his number [52]1954 - Prescott Niles
musician: bass guitar: group: The Knack: My Sharona, Your Number or Your Name, That’s What the Little Girls Do, Good Girls Don’t, Baby Talks Dirty, Can’t Put a Price on Love1955 - Donatella Versace
fashion designer: VP, chief designer and public relations giant for the Versace fashion brand; inherited 20% of the company after the murder of her brother Gianni in 19971960 - Steven Chesne
composer: films: Monsoon Wife, Debating Robert Lee, It Happened in a Bungalow, Singapore Sling, Running From the Shadows
1962 - Mitzi Kapture
actress: Silk Stalkings, The Young and the Restless, Night of Terror, The Storytellers, Lethal Purseuit, Private Road: No Trespassing, Rules of Engagement [TV]1962 - Ty Herndon
singer: What Mattered Most, I Want My Goodbye Back, In Your Face, Heart Half Empty, Living in a Moment, She Wants to Be Wanted, Loved Too Much, I Have to Surrender, A Man Holdin On, It Must Be Love, Hands of a Working Man, A Love Like That, Heathers Wall, A Few Short Years
1964 - Brian Tochi
producer, creator, writer, director, actor: Revenge of the Nerds, Police Academy 3: Back in Training, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, Anna and the King, Space Academy, Renegades, Santa Barbara1969 - Todd Sucherman
musician: drummer: group: Styx: Lady, The Best of Times, Babe1970 - Marty McInnis
hockey [right wing]: NY Islanders, Calgary Flames, Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Boston Bruins1972 - Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson aka Flex Kavanah aka Rocky Maivia
professional wrestler; actor: The Mummy Returns, The Scorpion King, Walking Tall [2004]1975 - David Beckham
footballer [midfielder]: first to win league titles in four countries: led Manchester United to 6 Premier League titles from 1993 to 2003; Real Madrid [2003–2007]; Los Angeles Galaxy [2007–2012]; more1978 - Mike Weaver
hockey [defenceman]: Atlanta Thrashers, Los Angeles Kings, Pittsburgh Penguins, Vancouver Canucks1980 - Ellie Kemper
actress: The Office, Bridesmaids, 21 Jump Street, The Mindy Project, Identity Thief, Sofia the First, Brenda Forever, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt1980 - Brad Richards
hockey [center]: NHL: Tampa Bay Lightning [2004 Stanley Cup]; Dallas Stars; New York Rangers1981 - Robert Buckley
actor: iZombie, Lipstick Jungle, One Tree Hill, 666 Park Avenue, Powerless, Dimension 4041985 - Lily Allen
singer: Smile, LDN, Littlest Things, Shame for You, The Fear, Not Fair, 22; TV talk show host: Lily Allen and Friends1985 - Sarah Hughes
U.S. figure skater: 2002 Olympic gold medalist, 2001 World bronze medalist in ladies’ singles1985 - Jarrod Saltalamacchia
baseball [catcher]: Atlanta Braves [2007]; Texas Rangers [2007–2010]; Boston Red Sox [2010–2013]: 2013 World Series champs; Miami Marlins [2014–2015]; Arizona Diamondbacks [2015] Detroit Tigers [2016] Toronto Blue Jays [2017] Detroit Tigers [2018]2015 - Princess Charlotte of Cambridge (Charlotte Elizabeth Diana)
royalty: second child and first daughter of England’s Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day May 2
1948Now Is the Hour (facts) - Bing Crosby
The Dickey Bird Song (facts) - The Freddy Martin Orchestra vocal: Glenn Hughes)
1957
1966
1975
1984
1993
2002
2011
2020
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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