What happend on this very special days.. in other years?

1932 Lindbergh Baby Found Dead
The twenty-month-old son of Charles A. Lindbergh, the American aviator who made the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight in 1927, was found dead in the woods near the Lindbergh home. On March 1, the infant was kidnapped from the nursery of his parents' home in Hopewell, New Jersey. A ransom note found on the scene of the crime demanded $50,000 in payment for the return of Charles, Jr. Three days later, after Lindbergh involved the authorities against the kidnapper's advice, the ransom was increased to $70,000. Dr. John F. Condon, a civilian sympathetic to Lindbergh, volunteered to intercede in the payment of the ransom, and on April 2, at New Jersey's St. Raymond's Cemetery, he handed over the $70,000 as Lindbergh waited nearby in a car. However, the Lindbergh baby was not returned and on May 12, 1932, the infant's battered and mostly decomposed body was found in the woods just a few miles from the Lindbergh home. The cause of death was determined to be a massive fracture of the skull occurring some two to three months before. Following the tragic discovery, the Lindbergh kidnapping case, already a highly publicized story, became a sensational media event as authorities launched an extensive manhunt for the guilty party, using the recorded serial numbers of the ransom money as a guide. Public outrage over the Lindbergh kidnapping led to the passing of the "Lindbergh Law" by Congress, which made the crime of kidnapping a federal offense punishable by the death penalty. On September 19, 1934, $14,000 of the ransom
 money was found in the Bronx, New York, apartment of Richard Bruno Hauptmann, a German carpenter. During the subsequent criminal trial, Hauptmann maintained his innocence, claiming that a business partner, Isador Fisch, gave him the money before returning to Germany, where he died in March 1934. On February 13, 1935, Hauptmann was convicted and, on April 3, 1936, after a series of appeals, he was executed by electrocution. In the years after the kidnapping, a number of people began to question Hauptmann's guilt and the quality of the criminal investigation; however, much of this criticism was likely motivated by opposition to Lindbergh following the public revelations of his Nazi sympathies.

1937 George VI Crowned at Westminster
At London's Westminster Abbey, George VI and his consort, Lady Elizabeth, were crowned king and queen of the United Kingdom during a coronation ceremony dating back over a millennium. George, who studied at Dartmouth Naval College and served during World War I, ascended to the throne after his elder brother, King Edward VIII, abdicated on December 11, 1936. Edward, the first English monarch to voluntarily relinquish the throne, agreed to give up his title in the face of widespread criticism of his desire to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American divorcee. In 1939, George became the first British monarch to visit America and Canada, and during World War II, he worked to keep up British morale by visiting bombed areas, inspecting war plants, and touring combat zones. In addition, George and Elizabeth, and their two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, remained in bomb-damaged Buckingham Palace during the war, and made a number of important morale-boosting radio broadcasts, for which George overcame a speech impediment. After the war, the royal family made a state visit and tour of South Africa, but a planned tour of Australia and New Zealand had to be postponed indefinitely when the king fell ill in 1949. Despite his illness, George continued to perform state duties until his death in 1952. He was succeeded by his first-born daughter, who was crowned Queen Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953.

1940 Germany Invades France
Two days after the German Wehrmacht stormed into Belgium, Holland, and the Netherlands, the Nazi invasion of France began. In a lightning strike, German forces simply out-flanked the northwest corners of the Maginot Line, previously alleged by the French military command to be an impregnable defense of their eastern border. Within a week, Dutch and Belgian resistance had ended, making the Allied defense of France untenable. On May 26, with German tanks racing across Western Europe, the British initiated Operation Dynamo--the total evacuation of Allied forces from the beach at Dunkirk on the Belgian coast. The ten-day evacuation, during which 340,000 British, French, and Belgian troops were brought to the safety of the British isle, was constantly inflicted by attacks from the German air force. All British citizens in possession of sea-worthy vessels were asked to lend their ships to the effort, and all but 40,000 of the Allied troops who massed at Dunkirk escaped capture. With Western Europe abandoned by its defenders, the German army swept through the rest of France, and on June 14, Paris fell to the Nazis. Eight days later, Henri Petain and other French leaders signed an armistice with the Nazis at Compiegne, and Germany annexed half the country, leaving the other half in the hands of their puppet French rulers. In July, Petain took office as "chief of state" at Vichy, a city in unoccupied France. The Vichy government under Petain and later Pierre Laval collaborated with the Nazis, and French citizens suffered on both sides of the divided nation. On June 6, 1944, liberation of France began with the successful Allied landed at Normandy.

1970 Blackmun Confirmed to Supreme Court
The Senate confirmed President Richard M. Nixon's nomination of Federal Circuit Judge Harry A. Blackmun to the U.S. Supreme Court. Blackmun, born in Nashville, Illinois, in 1908, was regarded as a staunch conservative when he joined the nation's highest court as an associative justice in 1970. Widely praised for his scholarly and carefully drafted opinions, Blackmun was initially allied with other Republican appointees on the court, but all that changed in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade decision. Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in America, was authored by Blackmun and thus made him one of the most vilified Supreme Court members in U.S. history. During the 1980s, he became a champion of maintaining a strict separation between church and state, and often cast liberal votes in cases pitting individual liberties against governmental authority. By the time he retired in 1994, he was considered the high court's most liberal justice, although he often claimed that the court's politics had changed more than his own. He died in 1999 at the age of ninety.

In 1831  The first indicted bank robber in the U.S., Edward Smith, was sentenced to five years hard labor on the rock
              pile at Sing Sing Prison.
In 1847  As you jog around the block today, think of Mormon pioneer William Clayton. It was on this day that he got
              tired of counting the revolutions of a rag tied to a spoke of a wagon wheel to figure out how many miles he
              had traveled. So, while he was crossing the plains in his covered wagon, he invented the odometer.
In 1888  Charles Sherrill of the Yale track team became the first runner to use the crouching start for a fast break in a
              foot race.
In 1917  The first imported horse to win the Kentucky Derby was the English-bred colt, Omar Khayyam. He won
              $49,070 -- the top prize.
In 1917  Max Wolf discovers asteroid #870 Manto
In 1925  Uzbekistan & Kirgizistan become autonomous Soviet republics
In 1926  Airship Norge is 1st vessel to fly over North Pole
In 1928  Mussolini ends woman's rights in Italy
In 1932  Goofy, aka Dippy Dawg, 1st appears in 'Mickey's Revue' by Walt Disney
In 1940  German tanks conquer Moerdijkbrug
In 1940  Nazi blitz conquest of France began by crossing Muese River
In 1941  Great British convoy marches into Alexandria
In 1942  1500 Jews gassed in Auschwitz
In 1942  nazi U-boat sinks American cargo ship at mouth of Mississippi River
In 1943  British premier Winston Churchill arrives in US
In 1948  The state of Israel and its provisional government were established. Palestinian Jews celebrated their
              independence from British mandatory rule.
In 1949  Lifting the Berlin Blockade
In 1950  The American Bowling Congress abolished its white males-only membership restriction after 34 years.
In 1950  Darius Milhauds opera "bolivar," premierses in Paris
In 1951  1st H Bomb test, on Enewetak Atoll
In 1953  The Boston Red Sox dropped Dom DiMaggio, Joe's brother. As a result, Dom announced that he was
              retiring from baseball.
In 1955  Sam Jones of the Chicago Cubs pitched a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates, winning 4-0. Jones became
              the first black pitcher to throw a major-leagueno-hitter.
In 1955  Gisele MacKenzie played a singer on the NBC-TV program, "Justice". She introduced her soon-to-be hit
              song, "Hard to Get". The song went to number four on the "Billboard" pop music chart by September.
In 1955  Passengers crowded in to ride the last run of the Third Avenue elevated, "The El", in New York City. The
              way-above-ground train trip down memory lane went from Chinatown to the Bronx.
In 1957  A.J. Foyt earned his first auto racing victory in Kansas City, Missouri. He went on to become a four-time
              winner of the Indianapolis 500 -- in 1961, 1964, 1967 and 1977.
In 1962  US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island
In 1963  Race riot in Birmingham Alabama
In 1968  "March of Poor" under rev Abernathy reach Washington, DC
In 1970  Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs smacked home run number 500. He would get 12 more before his great
              career as first baseman (and shortstop) with the Cubbies came to a close in 1971.
In 1971  The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger married Bianca Perez Morena de Macias. Mick couldn't remember her
              whole name very well, so she became known as Bianca the world over.
In 1976  Sixteen-year-old, racing-jockey Steve Cauthen rode in his first race. He finished far back in the pack at
              Churchill Downs in Louisville, KY. However, Cauthen got his first winner just five days later.
In 1977  The Eagles earned a gold record for the hit, "Hotel California". The award was the second of three gold
              record singles for the group. The other million sellers were "New Kid in Town" and "Heartache Tonight". Two
              number one songs by The Eagles -- "Best of My Love" and "One of These Nights" -- didn't quite make the
              million-seller mark.
In 1978  From the And You Thought We Had This Straightened Out By Now file: The National Oceanic and
              Atmospheric Administration announced that it would alternate men's and women's names in the naming of
              hurricanes. It was seen as an attempt at fair play. Hurricanes had been named for women for years, until
              NOAA succumbed to pressure from women's groups who were demanding that Atlantic storms be given
              unisex names. "It's not fair that women should get all the attention for causing damage and destruction," one
              women's activist claimed. David, Allen, Hugo, Mitch and Andrew agreed.
In 1985  Lionel Richie received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Tuskegee Institute in Alabama (his alma
              mater). Richie had put 14 hits on the pop charts in the 1980s, including one platinum smash, with Diana Ross,
              "Endless Love" and four gold records ("Truly", "All Night Long", "Hello" and "Say You, Say Me"). All but one
              song ("Se La") of the 14 charted made it to the top ten.

BIRTHS
1768 - Dolly Madison (Payne) (4th U.S. First Lady, wife of U.S. President James Madison)
1784 - James SHERIDAN Knowles born (can THAT be coincidence?!?)
1804 - Robert Baldwin, (L) help establish cabinet govt in Canada (or 1904)
1806 - J. V. Snellman, Finland, journalist/statesman/nationalist
1812 - Edward Lear, England, landscape painter, writer of nonsense verse
1820 - Florence Nightingale, Florence, Italy, nurse (Crimean War)
1828 - Gabriel Dante Rossetti, England, poet/painter, Pre-Raphaelite
1842 - Jules Massenet Montaud, France, composer (Manon, Le Cid)
1845 - Gabriel Urbain Faur‚ Pamiers France, composer (Requiem, Ballade)
1868 - Halsey William Wilson, US, publisher of reference books
1880 - Lincoln Ellsworth, led 1st transarctic, transantarctic flights
1900 - Mildred McAfee (1st Director of U.S. Navy WAVES [Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service);
1903 - Wilfrid Hyde-White, England, actor (My Fair Lady, Peyton Place)
1907 - Katharine Hepburn (Academy Award-winning Actress)
1910 - Gordon Jenkins, Webster Grove MO, orch leader (NBC Comedy Hour)
1914 - Howard K. Smith, LA, TV newsman (ABC, Moderated Kennedy-Nixon debate)
1921 - Joe (Otis W.) Maphis (country singer with wife, Rose Lee)
1922 - Bob Goldham (hockey)
1925 - John Simon, theater critic (NY Times)
         - Lawrence "Yogi" Berra, NY Yankee catcher/coach/manager, Mets, Astros
1929 - Burt Bacharach, composer (I'll Never Fall in Love Again)
1930 - Patricia McCormick, US, platform/springboard diver (Oly-gold-1952,56)
1935 - Felipe Alou (baseball)
         - John Bucyk (Hockey Hall of Famer: Boston Bruins: Lady Byng Trophy winner [1971]) 
1936 - Tom Snyder, Milwaukee WI, newscaster (Tommorow, NBC Weekend News)
1937 - Beryl Burton, UK, won record (7) women's cycling titles
         - George Carlin, Bronx NY, comedian (7 dirty words, AM & FM, Carwash)
1938 - Millie Perkins, Passaic NJ, actress (Jane-Knots Landings)
1939 - Ronald Ziegler, press secretary (Nixon)
1941 - Anthony Newman, Los Angeles CA, harpsichordist/organist (Bhajeb)
1942 - Susan Hampshire, London, actress (David Copperfield)
         - Tod Kubiak (baseball)
1943 - Billy Swan, rocker (I Can Help)
         - Linda Dano, Los Angeles CA, actress (Felicia Gallant-Another World)
1945 - Linda Carlson, Knoxville TN, actress (Bev-Newhart, Katie-Kaz)
1948 - Lindsay Ann Crouse, NYC, actress (Slapshot, Iceman, Places in Heart)
         - Steve Winwood, England, rocker (A Higher Love)
1950 - Billy Squier, Mass, heavy metal guitarist (Don't Say No)
         - Bruce Boxleitner, Elgin IL, actor (Scarecrow & Mrs King)
         - Gabriel Byrne, Dublin Ireland, actor (Hello Again, Cool World)
         - Shozo Fujii, judo champion
         - Jocko Marcellino, rocker (Sha Na Na)
         - Renate Stecher-Meissner, German DR, sprinter (Oly-gold-72)
         - Pat Darcy (baseball)
1951 - Gunnar Larrson, Sweden, 200m/400m swimmer (Olympic-gold-1972)
1958 - Beth Maitland, actress (Traci-Young & Restless)
         - Christian Brando, son of Marlon/killed sisters boyfriend
1959 - Dave Christian, Minn, NHL right wing (Wash Caps, Olympic-gold-1980)
1961 - Billy Duffy, rocker (The Cult-Hell's Kitchen)
1962 - Emilio Estevez, actor (Young Guns)
1966 - Stephen Baldwin (actor: Fled, The Usual Suspects; brother of actors Alec, William and Daniel Baldwin)
1969 - Kim Fields, Los Angeles CA, actress (Tootie-Facts of Life)
1972 - Paul Stout, Saugus CA, actor (Phillip-Scarecrow & Mrs King)
1973 - Mackenzie Astin, actor (Facts of Life, Garbage Pail Kids)
1976 - Matthew P. Newmark, actor (Joseph Carroll-Guns of Paradise)
 

DEATHS
1003 - Gerbert, French scholar
1864 - J.E.B. Stuart, Confederate General, age 31
1884 - Bedrich Smetana
1951 - Oscar DePriest, (Rep-D-Ill), age 80
1962 - Dick Calkins, co-author of Buck Rogers, age 67
1984 - Doris May, actress, heart failure, age 81
1989 - Joe Valdez Caballero, creator of hard taco shell, age 81