The moon is new. The morning stars are Venus, Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter. The evening stars are Mars, Mercury and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard in 1813; German political theorist Karl Marx in 1818; hatmaker John Stetson in 1830; crusading journalist Nelly Bly in 1864; author Christopher Morley in 1890; radio actor Freeman Gosden, Amos of Amos and Andy, in 1899; actor Tyrone Power in 1914; singer/actress Alice Faye in 1915; actor Michael Murphy in 1938 (age 70); singer Tammy Wynette in 1942; and actors Michael Palin (Monty Python's Flying Circus) in 1943 (age 65), Lance Henriksen (Millennium), in 1940, (age 68) and Tina Yothers (Family Ties) in 1973 (age 35).

In 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile on the island of St. Helena.

In 1847, the American Medical Association was founded in Philadelphia.

In 1862, Mexican troops, outnumbered 3-1, defeated the invading French forces of Napoleon III.

In 1893, Wall Street stock prices took a sudden drop, sparking the second-worst economic crisis in U.S. history.

In 1904, Cy Young pitched major league baseball's first perfect game to lead the Boston Americans to a 3-0 win over Philadelphia.

In 1925, biology teacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in violation of Tennessee state laws.

In 1945, Allied troops liberated the Netherlands from Nazi Germany.

Also in 1945, Elsie Mitchell and five neighborhood children were killed in Lakeview, Ore., when a Japanese balloon they had found in the woods exploded. They were listed as the only known World War II civilian fatalities in the continental United States.

In 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the United States' first man in space in a brief, sub-orbital flight from Cape Canaveral.

In 1981, imprisoned Irish-Catholic militant Bobby Sands died after refusing food for 66 days in protest of his treatment as a criminal rather than a political prisoner by British authorities.

In 1985, U.S. President Ronald Reagan ignored an international uproar and visited a cemetery at Bitburg, West Germany, that contained the graves of World War II Nazi S.S. storm troopers.

In 1993, the self-declared Bosnian-Serb parliament rejected the international peace plan that was supposed to end the yearlong war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Also in 1994, civil war erupted in Yemen.

In 1996, Jose Maria Aznar became prime minister of Spain.

In 2003, a wave of tornadoes killed 40 people in Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee.

Also in 2003, India and Pakistan agreed to renew diplomatic ties but India turned down Pakistan's offer of bilateral nuclear disarmament.

In 2004, Republican senators sought an investigation into charges that Iraq misused revenue from the U.N. oil-for-food program. A report estimated the Saddam Hussein regime collected $10.7 billion in illegal oil revenues.

In 2005, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was elected to a third term.

In 2006, 10 U.S. soldiers were killed in the crash of their helicopter in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.

In 2007, a Newsweek poll indicated U.S. President Bush had fallen to 28 percent approval among the nation's voters, worst presidential rating since Jimmy Carter's 28 percent in 1979.

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Venus, Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter. The evening stars are Mars, Mercury and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre in 1758; Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and Arctic explorer Robert Peary, both in 1856; silent screen star Rudolph Valentino in 1895; actor Stewart Granger in 1913; actor-director-writer Orson Welles and author Theodore White, both in 1915; baseball legend Willie Mays in 1931 (age 77); rock musician Bob Seger in 1945 (age 63); former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1953 (age 55); Tom Bergeron in 1955 (age 53); and actors George Clooney in 1961 (age 47) and Roma Downey (Touched by an Angel) in 1960 (age 48).

In 1527, German troops sacked Rome, killing some 4,000 people and looting works of art and literature as part of a series of wars between the Hapsburg Empire and the French monarchy.

In 1863, Confederate forces commanded by Gen. Robert E. Lee routed Union troops under Gen. Joseph Hooker at the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia.

In 1915, Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox hit his first major league home run in a game against the New York Yankees in New York.

In 1935, in the depths of the Depression, the Works Progress Administration was established to provide work for the unemployed.

In 1937, the German dirigible Hindenburg burst into flames while docking in Lakehurst, N.J., killing 36 people.

In 1941, Josef Stalin became official leader of the Soviet government.

In 1954, 25-year-old British medical student Roger Bannister cracked track and field's most notorious barrier, the 4-minute mile, during a meet at Oxford, England. His time: 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.

In 1975, U.S. President Gerald Ford broadcast an appeal to Americans to welcome the thousands of Vietnamese refugees moving to the United States.

In 1992, legendary actress Marlene Dietrich died at her Paris home at age 90.

In 1993, two postal workers, both apparently bitter over their treatment at work, allegedly shot co-workers in separate incidents in post offices in Michigan and California, leaving at least three dead and three wounded.

In 1994, Paula Jones accused U.S. President Bill Clinton of making an unwanted sexual advance during a meeting in a hotel room in 1991, when he was governor of Arkansas. It was believed to be the first lawsuit of its kind against a sitting president.

Also in 1994, the Channel Tunnel, a railway under the English Channel connecting Britain and France, was officially opened.

In 1997, U.S. President Bill Clinton and Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon signed an agreement for a broader mutual effort to fight drug trafficking.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II became the first pope to enter a mosque -- the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria.

In 2003, as civil disorder continued in Iraq, U.S. President George Bush named retired diplomat Paul Bremer III as his envoy to Iraq, making him the chief U.S. figure in the reconstruction.

Also in 2003, U.S. health officials reported 63 cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, but no deaths.

In 2004, the International Red Cross said it had found evidence of widespread mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by coalition forces in prisons across Iraq.

Also in 2004, as violence continued, U.S. forces in Iraq seized the governor's office in Najaf, a stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, and installed a new governor.

In 2005, a suicide bomber killed at least 58 people in a vegetable market south of Baghdad.

In 2006, the largest rebel group in Sudan's Darfur region and the government of Sudan signed a peace agreement ending their armed conflict in a three-year civil war that claimed an estimated 200,000 lives. However, two smaller rebel groups declined to sign an agreement.

And, unbeaten Barbaro won the 2006 Kentucky Derby by 6.5 lengths.

In 2007, conservative Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president of France with 53 percent of the vote in a runoff battle with Socialist Sergolene Royal.

Also in 2007, a wave of violence killed at least 53 people throughout Iraq. The worst was in Baghdad where a car bomb exploded near a market, destroying buildings and killing at least 27 people, police said.

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Venus, Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter. The evening stars are Mars, Mercury and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include English poet Robert Browning in 1812; German composer Johannes Brahms in 1833; Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1840; Western actor Gabby Hayes in 1885; poet Archibald MacLeish and Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, both in 1892; actor Gary Cooper in 1901; Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid instant camera, in 1909; actor Darren McGavin in 1922; singer Teresa Brewer in 1931 (age 77); Pro Football Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas in 1933; and filmmaker Amy Heckerling in 1954 (age 54).

In 1763, Ottawa Indian chief Pontiac led a major uprising against the British at Detroit.

In 1789, the first presidential inaugural ball, celebrating the inauguration of George Washington, was held in New York City.

In 1824, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was performed for the first time in Vienna, Austria.

In 1915, a German U-boat sank the British liner Lusitania off the coast of Ireland, killing nearly 1,200 people, including 124 Americans.

In 1945, U.S. Army Gen. Dwight Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany from Gen. Alfred Jodl.

In 1960, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced that American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, shot down over the Soviet Union on May 1, had confessed he was on a spying mission for the CIA.

In 1987, U.S. Rep. Stewart McKinney, R-Conn., died of AIDS at age 56, the first member of Congress identified as a victim of the disease.

In 1995, Jacques Chirac, mayor of Paris and former French premier, was elected president of France on his third try.

In 1997, a Bosnian Serb, Dusan Tadic, was convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal in the first case of its kind to go to trial since just after World War II.

In 1998, Daimler-Benz and the Chrysler Corp, announced plans to merge.

In 1999, a U.S. stealth bomber mistakenly bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three people.

In 2000, Vladimir Putin was sworn in as Russia's second president in the first democratic transfer of executive power in the nation's 1,000-year history.

In 2004, Army Pfc. Lynndie England, the 21-year-old woman seen smiling next to naked Iraqi prisoners in widely circulated Abu Ghraib prison photographs, was charged by the military with assaulting Iraqi detainees and conspiring to mistreat them.

Also in 2004, crude oil prices hit a 13-year high of $40 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In 2005, Giacomo, a 50-to-1 shot, won the Kentucky Derby over Closing Argument, which went off at 71-1.

In 2006, Iraqi police found 43 bodies of apparent assassination victims in Baghdad while car bombs killed 14 others.

In 2007, officials reported no survivors in the crash of a Kenyan Airlines plane that went down in a Cameroon mangrove swamp with 114 aboard.

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Venus, Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter. The evening stars are Mars, Mercury and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include Jean Henri Dunant, Swiss founder of the Red Cross Society and a co-founder of the Young Men's Christian Association, in 1828; Harry Truman, 33rd president of the United States, in 1884; cornetist and bandleader Red Nichols in 1905; pianist Mary Lou Williams in 1910; blues guitarist Robert Johnson in 1911; author David Attenborough and comedian Don Rickles, both in 1926 (age 82); boxer Sonny Liston in 1932; actor/singer Rick Nelson in 1940; author Peter Benchley, also in 1940; singer Toni Tennille in 1940 (age 68); actors David Keith in 1954 (age 54) and Melissa Gilbert in 1964 (age 44); and singer Enrique Iglesias in 1975 (age 33).

In 1541, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto discovered the Mississippi River.

In 1879, George Selden of Rochester, N.Y., filed for the first patent for an automobile. It was granted in 1895.

In 1945, U.S. President Harry Truman officially declared V-E Day, the end of World War II in Europe.

In 1970, the Beatles' final original album -- Let It Be -- was released.

In 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon ordered the mining of North Vietnam ports in an effort to force the communists to end the Vietnam War.

In 1984, the Soviet Union declared it would not take part in the Los Angeles Olympics, citing fears over security for its athletes. However, the move was seen as retaliation for the U.S. boycott, called because of Soviet action in Afghanistan, of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

In 1991, to pressure the government of El Salvador into agreeing to a cease-fire, Salvadoran leftist guerrillas sabotaged a power system, leaving the country with half its normal electrical supply.

In 1996, South Africa voted for a new constitution. Its bill of rights included the right to food, housing and education.

In 1998, the U.S. tobacco industry reached a settlement with Minnesota and with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. The deal came as the first trial of a state lawsuit against cigarette makers was about to go to the jury.

In 2002, following up on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller told a Senate committee that the FBI had paid insufficient heed to a July memo from an agent who had warned about Arab men with possible terrorist ties taking flying lessons.

Also in 2002, Cardinal Bernard Law of the Boston Roman Catholic archdiocese said he had known in 1984 about sexual abuse charges against a former priest but had turned the matter over to aides and never followed up. The former priest, John Geoghan, was accused in 86 sexual abuse cases.

In 2003, more than 100 people were reported killed when the main cargo door of a cargo jet suddenly opened at a height of 33,000 feet over the Congo and passengers were sucked out of the plane.

Also in 2003, a tornado struck the Oklahoma City area, injuring at least 118 people and leveling hundreds of buildings and homes.

And, the World Health Organization reported the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, had reached 31 countries, including the United States, with a total of 7,053 cases.

In 2004, the body of Nick Berg, a U.S. businessman imprisoned by Iraqi militants, was found near Baghdad. A videotape depicting his beheading was shown on the Internet three days later.

In 2005, a U.S. Marine task force raided outposts in western Iraq, killing an estimated 100 insurgents.

Also in 2005, commemorations across Europe marked the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory over Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany in World War II.

In 2006, a Johannesburg judge cleared former South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma of raping a 31-year-old family friend.

And, the last known U.S. survivor of the 1912 sinking of the Titanic died of natural causes at her Shrewsbury, Mass., home. Lillian Asplund was 99.

In 2007, six Muslim men were arrested on charges of plotting a killing spree at the U.S. Army's Fort Dix in New Jersey.

Also in 2007, Northern Ireland installed a new power-sharing government linking Catholic and Protestant parties.

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Venus, Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter. The evening stars are Mars, Mercury and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include abolitionist John Brown in 1800; Scottish novelist James Barrie, author of Peter Pan, in 1860; Howard Carter, the egyptologist who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen, in 1874; industrialist Henry J. Kaiser in 1882; Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset in 1883; TV journalist Mike Wallace in 1918 (age 90); tennis champion Richard Pancho Gonzalez in 1928; actor Albert Finney in 1936 (age 72); actress Glenda Jackson in 1936 (age 72); TV producer and filmmaker James L. Brooks in 1940 (age 68); former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in 1942 (age 66); actress Candice Bergen in 1946 (age 62); and singer/songwriter Billy Joel in 1949 (age 59).

In 1502, Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain on his fourth and final voyage to the New World.

In 1926, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett were the first to fly over the North Pole.

In 1961, in a speech to TV bigwigs at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow referred to television as a vast wasteland.

In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee opened its hearing on the possible impeachment of U.S. President Richard Nixon.

In 1978, the body of former Italian minister Aldo Moro, who had been kidnapped by Red Brigade terrorists, was found shot to death in the back of a car in Rome.

In 1979, the United States and Soviet Union reached a basic accord on the SALT 2 nuclear arms treaty.

In 1980, a Liberian freighter rammed a bridge in Florida's Tampa Bay, collapsing part of the span and dropping 35 people to their deaths. A new $240 million Sunshine Skybridge opened on April 30, 1987.

In 1987, 183 people died when a Polish airliner bound for New York crashed near Warsaw.

In 1993, thousands of war veterans, politicians and anti-government demonstrators gathered across Moscow and the former Soviet Union to mark the World War II victory over Germany at Stalingrad.

In 2001, at least 123 people were killed during a stampede at a soccer match in Accra, Ghana.

In 2003, a well-connected Los Angeles socialite, Katrina Leung, who also allegedly acted as a double-agent for China, was formally charged with passing sensitive documents on to Chinese intelligence officers.

In 2004, President Akhmad Kadyrov of Chechnya was assassinated in an explosion at a stadium in Grozny where Russia's World War II victory was being celebrated. Thirty-one other people also died.

In 2005, a federal appeals court ruled that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney didn't have to reveal how the White House energy policies were developed. There had been accusations of alleged industry involvement.

Also in 2005, the federal bankruptcy court gave United Airlines permission to terminate its pension plans.

In 2006, the head of Israeli military intelligence predicted that Iran will produce nuclear bombs within four years.

In 2007, a rare truck bombing in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil killed at least 19 people and injured some 70 others at a building housing Interior Ministry offices.

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Venus, Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter. The evening stars are Mars, Mercury and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include British statesman and scholar James Bryce in 1838; Swiss theologian Karl Barth in 1886; Max Steiner, who composed musical scores for movies, including Gone With The Wind and Casablanca, in 1888; actor/dancer Fred Astaire in 1899; movie producer David O. Selznick (Gone With The Wind) in 1902; pediatrician/author T. Berry Brazelton in 1918 (age 90); actress Nancy Walker in 1922; actor Gary Owens (Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In) in 1936 (age 72); and U2 lead singer Bono in 1960 (age 48).

In 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was captured by Union troops and spent the next two years in prison.

In 1869, the golden spike was driven at Promontory, Utah, joining the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific lines to form America's first transcontinental railway.

In 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, swinging 89 army divisions around France's so-called impregnable Maginot Line. One month later, German forces entered Paris.

In 1973, a federal grand jury investigating the Watergate scandal indicted former Attorney General John Mitchell and former Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans on perjury charges.

In 1984, a federal judge in Utah found the U.S. government negligent in above-ground Nevada nuclear tests from 1951 to 1962 that exposed downwind residents to radiation.

In 1992, at least 14 coal miners were killed in an underground explosion at a mine in Nova Scotia, Canada.

In 1993, the FDA approved the sale of the first female condom.

In 1994, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.

Also in 1994, the Michigan Court of Appeals struck down the state's ban on assisted suicide.

And in 1994, John Wayne Gacy, the convicted killer of 33 young men and boys, was executed in Illinois.

In 1995, a second man, Terry Nichols, was charged in the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Timothy McVeigh earlier had been charged in the case.

Also in 1995, the World Health Organization said a mysterious disease in Zaire was caused by the Ebola virus. By the time the outbreak was declared over in late August, 244 of the 315 known victims had died.

In 2000, Pentagon officials said an investigation had concluded that the U.S. Army's highest-ranking woman had been the victim of sexual harassment from another Army general.

In 2002, former FBI agent Robert Hanssen, who had spied for the Soviet Union and Russia for more than 20 years, was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

In 2003, a record outburst of tornadoes in the Midwest and South over the past few days claimed 48 lives, injured hundreds and leveled hundreds of buildings. The total of 400 twisters was twice the previous U.S. weekly record.

In 2004, U.S. Army forces leveled the Baghdad headquarters of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr and killed 35 of his people.

In 2005, the Secret Service said it was investigating reports a hand grenade was found about 100 feet from where U.S. President George Bush spoke in the former Soviet state of Georgia. It turned out to be a harmless training device.

Also in 2005, Jordanian authorities reportedly confiscated copies of the controversial bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, for allegedly slandering Christianity.

In 2006, Indonesian officials ordered the evacuation of about 17,000 residents of the island of Java as Mount Merapi spewed lava and poisonous smoke and appeared about to erupt.

In 2007, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced he would leave office on June 27 after 10 years.

Also in 2007, Afghan officials said the latest U.S. airstrikes may have killed as many as 50 civilians.

This is Mother's Day.

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Venus, Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter. The evening stars are Mars, Mercury and Saturn.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include Ottmar Mergenthaler, inventor of the Linotype typesetting machine, in 1854; songwriter Irving Berlin in 1888; dancer/choreographer Martha Graham in 1893; Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali in 1904; comic actor Phil Silvers in 1911; comedian Winstead Sheffield Doodles Weaver, in 1911; actor Denver Pyle in 1920; actor Bernard Fox and satirist Mort Sahl, both in 1927 (age 81); Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam leader, in 1933 (age 75); artificial heart developer Dr. Robert Jarvik in 1946 (age 62); actor Doug McClure in 1935; and actress Natasha Richardson in 1963 (age 45).

In 1858, Minnesota, dubbed the Land of 10,000 Lakes, joined the United States as the 32nd state.

In 1862, the Confederate navy destroyed its iron-clad vessel Merrimac to prevent it from falling into the hands of advancing Union forces.

In 1910, Glacier National Park in Montana was created by an act of Congress.

In 1928, the first regularly scheduled television programs were begun by station WGY in Schenectady, N.Y.

In 1969, in one of the more infamous and bloody battles of the Vietnam War, U.S. troops seized Dong Ap Bia mountain, commonly known as Hamburger Hill.

In 1987, Emmanuel Vitria died in Marseilles in southern France at age 67, some 18 years after receiving a transplanted human heart. He was the longest-surviving heart transplant patient.

In 1994, Joseph Hazelwood, captain of the Exxon Valdez, told a federal court in Anchorage, Alaska, he'd had three vodkas just hours before the tanker ran aground, spilling 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound in 1989.

In 1996, a ValuJet airliner crashed in the Florida Everglades, killing 110 people.

In 1997, world chess champion Gerry Kasparov was defeated by a computer, IBM's Deep Blue, in a six-game match in New York.

In 1998, India conducted the first of five underground nuclear tests.

In 2000, five pharmaceutical companies offered to negotiate cuts in the price of AIDS drugs for Africa and other poor regions.

In 2003, The New York Times devoted four pages to a story documenting major inaccuracies and deceptions by one of its reporters, Jayson Blair, in a scandal that cost the paper's two top editors their jobs.

Also in 2003, more than 50 Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives crossed over into Oklahoma to leave the House without a quorum and block action on a redistricting bill unfavorable to their party.

In 2004, a video showing the beheading of a U.S. civilian was posted on the Web site of an Islamic militant group believed to be linked to al-Qaida. The victim, Nick Berg of Philadelphia, had been repairing Iraq telecommunications infrastructure.

In 2005, about 50 Iraqis were reported killed and dozens wounded in a string of bombings that rocked several Iraqi regions.

In 2006, a published report in USA Today said the National Security Agency had obtained government-requested records of phone calls made by millions of Americans since late 2001.

Also in 2006, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told students in Indonesia that Israel was an evil regime that would soon be annihilated.

In 2007, tourists and residents were evacuated from the historic resort town of Avalon on California's Santa Catalina Island where a massive brushfire destroyed homes and thousands of acres. Military hovercraft flew in fire engines to fight the blaze.

Also in 2007, a slim majority of Iraqi lawmakers were reported supportive of a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from their country.