TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Thursday, May

9, the 130th day of 2024. There are 236 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY

On May 9, 1994, South Africa’s newly elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the country’s first Black president.

1860 — Writer J.M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan, was born in Kirriemuir, Scotland.

1914 — President Woodrow Wilson, acting on a joint congressional resolution, signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

1970 — President Richard Nixon made a surprise and impromptu pre-dawn visit to the Lincoln Memorial, where he chatted with a group of protesters who had been resting on the Memorial steps after protests against the Vietnam War and the Kent State shootings.

1974 — The House Judiciary Committee opened public hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. (The committee ended up adopting three articles of impeachment against the president, who resigned before the full House took up any of them.)

1980 — Thirty-five people were killed when a freighter rammed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida, causing a 1,400foot section of the southbound span to collapse.

2016 — Filipinos went to the polls to elect Rodrigo Duterte, the controversial, tough-talking mayor of Davao city, to be their country’s next president.

2019 — Pope Francis issued a groundbreaking new church law requiring all Catholic priests and nuns to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities.

2020 — Rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Little Richard, known for his piercing wail, pounding piano and towering pompadour, died in Tennessee at the age of 87 after battling bone cancer; he had helped shatter the color line on the music charts while introducing Black R&B to white America.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Actor-writer Alan Bennett is 90. Producer-director James L. Brooks is 87. Musician Sonny Curtis (Buddy Holly and the Crickets) is

87. Singer Tommy Roe is

82. Singer-musician Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield and Poco) is 80. Actor Candice Bergen is 78. Pop singer Clint Holmes is 78. Actor Anthony Higgins is 77. Singer Billy Joel is 75. Rapper Ghostface Killah is 54. Actor Chris Diamantopoulos is 49. R&B singer Tamia is

49. Actor Daniel Franzese is

46. Rock singer Pierre Bouvier (Simple Plan) is 45. Actor Rosario Dawson is 45. Rock singer Andrew W.K. is

45. Actor Rachel Boston is

42. TV personality Audrina Patridge is 39. Actor Grace Gummer is 38.