Paradise Driver

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Today is Sunday, May 9th.

The 130th day of 2004.

There are 236 days left in the year.

This is Mother's Day.



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Today's Highlight in History:



On May 9, 1754, The first American newspaper cartoon was published. The illustration, in Benjamin Franklin's "Pennsylvania Gazette", showed a snake cut into sections, each part representing an American colony; the caption read, "Join or die."



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On this date:



In 1502, Christopher Columbus left Cadiz, Spain, on his fourth and final trip to the Western Hemisphere.



In 1671, Irish adventurer Thomas Blood, known as Colonel Blood, is caught after stealing the crown jewels from the Tower of London; he is ultimately pardoned by King Charles II.



In 1899, The lawn mower was patented.



In 1913, The 17th amendment to the Constitution, providing for the election of U.S. senators by popular vote rather than selection by state legislatures, was ratified.



In 1914, The first Mother's Day was proclaimed by President Wilson.



In 1926, Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett became the first men to fly over the North Pole.



In 1936, Italy annexed Ethiopia.



In 1943, The 5th German Panser army surrenders in Tunisia



In 1945, U.S. officials announced that a midnight entertainment curfew was being lifted immediately.



In 1960, The Food and Drug Administration approved a pill as safe for birth control use. (The pill, Enovid, was made by G.D. Searle and Company of Chicago.)



In 1961, Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow condemned television programming as a "vast wasteland" in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters.



In 1963, A secret military satellite is launched by the Air Force from Point Arguello, Ca., releasing 400 million tiny copper hairs into a polar orbit to provide a cloud of reflective material for relaying radio signals from coast to coast within the U.S.



In 1970, 100,000s demonstrate against the Vietnam War in Washington, DC.



In 1974, The House Judiciary Committee opened hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Nixon.



In 1978, The bullet-riddled body of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, who'd been abducted by the Red Brigades, was found in an automobile in the center of Rome.



In 1980, 35 motorists were killed when a Liberian freighter rammed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, Fla., causing a 1,400-foot section to collapse.



In 1989, President G. H. W. Bush complained that Panama's elections were marred by "massive irregularities," and he called for worldwide pressure on General Manuel Antonio Noriega to step down as military leader.



In 1987, Actor Tom Cruise (27) weds actress Mimi Rogers (33).



In 1991, William Kennedy Smith, nephew of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D- Mass., was charged with the March 30 rape and assault of a woman at the Kennedy estate in West Palm Beach, Fla. He was later acquitted.



Ten years ago (1994):



South Africa's newly elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the country's first black president. Mandela promised a South Africa for "all its people, black and white."



Five years ago (1999):



A chartered bus carrying members of a casino club on a Mother's Day gambling excursion flipped off a highway in New Orleans, killing 22 people.



Furious Chinese demonstrators hurled rocks and debris into the U.S. Embassy in a second day of protests against NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.



One year ago (2003):



The United States and its allies asked the UN Security Council to give its stamp of approval to their occupation of Iraq.



The Republican-led House approved 222-203 a $550 billion tax cut package.



Louisiana Democrat Russell B. Long, who greatly influenced tax laws during nearly four decades in the Senate, died at 84.



In Cleveland, a camouflage-clad gunman fired hundreds of rounds as he roamed the halls of Case Western Reserve University's business school, killing one person; suspect Biswanath Halder later pleaded innocent.



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Today's Birthdays:



CBS News correspondent Mike Wallace is 86.



Actor-writer Alan Bennett is 70.



Actor Albert Finney is 68.



Actress-turned-politician Glenda Jackson is 68.



Musician Sonny Curtis (Buddy Holly and the Crickets) is 67.



Producer-director James L. Brooks is 64.



Singer Tommy Roe is 62.



Singer-musician Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield and Poco) is 60.



Actress Candice Bergen is 58.



Singer Clint Holmes is 58.



Actor Anthony Higgins is 57.



Singer Billy Joel is 55.



Rock singer-musician Tom Petersson (Cheap Trick) is 54.



Actress Alley Mills is 53.



Actor John Corbett is 43.



Singer Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode) is 42.



Rapper Ghostface Killah is 34.



Singer Tamia is 29.



Rock musician Dan Regan (Reel Big Fish) is 27.



Actress Rosario Dawson is 25.



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Thought for Today:

"A mother never realises that her children are no longer children." -

- Holbrook Jackson, British critic and historian (1874-1948 ).

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