On this date:
In 1754, a political cartoon in Benjamin Franklins Pennsylvania Gazette depicted a snake cut into eight pieces, each section representing a part of the American colonies; the caption read, JOIN, or DIE.
On May 9, 1958, Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcocks eerie thriller starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, premiered in San Francisco, the movies setting.
In 1961, in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton N. Minow decried the majority of television programming as a vast wasteland.
In 1994, South Africas newly elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the countrys first black president.
One year ago: President Donald Trump abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey, ousting the nations top law enforcement official in the midst of an FBI investigation into whether Trumps campaign had ties to Russias meddling in the election that sent him to the White House.
