Today is Wednesday, May 9, the 129th day of 2018. There are 236 days left in the year.
Birthdays: Actor-writer Alan Bennett is 84. Actor Albert Finney is 82. Actress-turned-politician Glenda Jackson is 82. Producer-director James L. Brooks is 81. Singer-guitarist Richie Furay of Buffalo Springfield and Poco is 74. Actress Candice Bergen is 72. Singer Billy Joel is 69. Blues singer-musician Bob Margolin is 69. Cheap Trick bass guitar player Tom Petersson is 68. Actor John Corbett is 57. Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan is 56. Actress Sonja Sohn is 54. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is 50.
In 1754, a political cartoon in Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette depicted a snake cut into eight pieces, each section representing a part of the American colonies; the caption read, ‘‘JOIN, or DIE.’’
In 1914, President Wilson, acting on a joint congressional resolution, signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
In 1918, CBS newsman Mike Wallace was born Myron Leon Wallace in Brookline.
In 1936, Italy annexed Ethiopia.
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 1978, the bullet-riddled body of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, who had been abducted by the Red Brigades, was found in an automobile in the center of Rome.
In 1980, 35 people were killed when a freighter rammed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida, causing a 1,400-foot section of the span to collapse.
In 1994, South Africa’s newly elected Parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be president, the country’s first black leader.
In 2012, President Obama declared his unequivocal support for same-sex marriage in a historic announcement that came three days after Vice President Joe Biden spoke in favor of such unions.
Last year, President Trump abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey, ousting the nation’s top law enforcement official in the midst of an FBI investigation into whether Trump’s campaign had ties to Russia’s meddling in the election that sent him to the White House.
