1754, The first cartoon appeared in The Pennsylvania Gazette. The cartoon appeared as part of an editorial by Benjamin Franklin commenting on the disunited state of the British Colonies. The title of the featured cartoon is “JOIN or DIE,” and is a drawing of a snake, chopped into eight pieces, each labeled with the abbreviation for one of the colonies.
1860, Sir James Barrie, author of Peter Pan, was born. He died June 19th, 1937.
1913, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. The measure provided for the election of senators by popular vote rather than through selection by state legislatures.
1914, the first Mother’s Day was proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson.
1918, Mike Wallace (television journalist, 60 Minutes) was born today. He dies in 2012.
1961, Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow famously called TV programming a “vast wasteland” in a speech to the National Association Of Broadcasters.
1991, William Kennedy Smith, the nephew of Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, was charged with the rape and assault of a woman at the Kennedy estate in West Palm Beach, Florida. He was later acquitted.
1999, furious demonstrators hurled rocks at the U.S. Embassy in China in protest of NATO’s accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.