1272 – The first session of the Second Council of Lyon was held to discuss, among others, the pledge by Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos to end the Great Schism and reunite the Eastern church with the West.
1429 - Joan of Arc ends the Siege of Orléans, pulling an arrow from her own shoulder and returning wounded to lead the final charge. The victory marks a turning point in the Hundred Years' War.
1664 - Louis XIV of France inaugurates The Palace of Versailles (pictured).
1763 – Indian Wars: Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa Native American tribe led an attempt to seize Fort Detroit and drive out the British settlers, beginning Pontiac's Rebellion.
1824 - World premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Austria. Work was conducted by Michael Umlauf, under the deaf composer's supervision.
Final part of the 4th movement, Leonard Bernstein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus
1825 - Antonio Salieri, Italian composer died. (b. 1750) (Salieri was an Italian composer and conductor. As the Austrian imperial Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824, he was one of the most important and famous musicians of his time.)
4th movement (“Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen") from Ein Deutsches Requiem, Claudio Obbado, Berlin Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Choir, Eric Ericson Chamber Choir
1st movement (part 1) of the Violin Concerto, Op. 35, Antal Szalai, soloist, (he is playing the 1733 "ex-Garay" Stradivarius)
Pas de deux from The Nutcracker, Gelsey Kirkland, Mikhail Baryshnikov, the American Ballet
1895 – Alexander Stepanovich Popov presented his radio receiver, refined as a lightning detector, to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society.
1915 – World War I: The German submarine Unterseeboot 20 torpedoed and sunk the ocean liner RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 on board, including 128 Americans. Public reaction to the sinking turned many formerly pro-Germans in the United States of America against the German Empire.
1920 – Soviet Russia recognized the independence of the Democratic Republic of Georgia by signing the Treaty of Moscow, only to invade the country six months later.
1952 - The concept for the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer.
1992 - Three employees at a McDonald's Restaurant in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, are brutally murdered and a fourth permanently disabled after a botched robbery. It is the first fast-food murder in Canada.
2007 - The tomb of Herod the Great is discovered.
Picture of the Day
A fishing spider with two of its legs missing. Most likely some predator (a bird, or given its habitat a large fish or frog) grasped the spider by the missing limbs which were jettisoned by the spider in response, a process known as autotomy.
05-06-2008, 09:23 PM
On This Day (May 7) 
