1626...The Dutch West India Company is granted ownership of Manhattan when Peter Minuit strikes a deal with the Algonquin Indians to buy the island for $24 worth of trinkets.


Rudolph Valentino 5/6/1895 - 8/23/1926
Italian-born American silent screen actor



1915, Orson Welles, the film, stage, and radio actor; director, producer and writer who combined his talents in the highly regarded movie "Citizen Kane," was born. death on Oct. 10, 1985.  born and died elsewhere.  Hollywood, Radio and Broadway drama.


1915Babe Ruth of the Boston Red Sox hit the first of his 714 major league home runs in a 4-3 loss to the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds.


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1930  Willie Mays born. baseball great Willie Mays, born in 1931.
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1945...Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia announces he will not seek a fourth term.Today's New Yorker birthdays include

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1959  Actor George Clooney

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1972Martin Brodeur, Hockey player
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2002"Spider-Man" became the first movie to make more than $100 million in its opening weekend.2004The final first-run episode of "Friends" aired on NBC.

Frederick Barnard 5/5/1809 - 4/27/1889
president of Columbia College (1864-1889)

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Peter Cooper Hewitt 5/5/1861 - 8/25/1921
American electrical engineer; invented the mercury-vapor lamp

Christopher Morley 5/5/1890 - 3/28/1957
American novelist and columnist for the Saturday Review (1924-41)
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1891...Carnegie Hall – then known simply as the Music Hall – opens on 57th Street and Seventh Avenue with a concert conducted by Russian composer Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky.
1891Carnegie Hall (then named Music Hall) opened in New York City.


1893Panic hit the New York Stock Exchange; by year's end, the country was in the throes of a severe depression.


1955...The original "Damn Yankees," starring Gwen Verdun, makes its debut on Broadway.


1960 NBC News anchor Brian Williams born


1979Vincent Kartheiser, Actor ("Mad Men"),



2010Preliminary plans for a mosque and cultural center near ground zero in New York were unveiled, setting off a national debate over whether the project was disrespectful to 9/11 victims and whether opposition to it exposed anti-Muslim biases.


2011...Celebrated writer and director Arthur Laurents – the co-creator of musical theater classics like "Gypsy" and "West Side Story" – dies in Manhattan at age 93.

1626Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on what is now Manhattan.


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Horace Mann 5/4/1796 - 8/2/1859
American educator and philanthropist
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1895...The permanent Washington Arch in Washington Square is completed. It replaces the wooden original.



1905...40,000 pack the opening of Belmont Park. The feature race ends in a dead heat, with film courtesy of Thomas Edison.


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Audrey Hepburn 5/4/1929 - 1/20/1993
Belgian-born motion-picture and stage actress

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1937Ron Carter, Jazz bassist, turns 751937Dick Dale, Rock musician, turns 75
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1950...Police display a year's worth of illegal drugs captured in raids and later incinerated. The total haul is worth about $100,000.


1958:  Artist Keith Haring born in PA.


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2006A federal judge sentenced Zacarias Moussaoui to life in prison for his role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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1668... 16 families settle in a wooded area that later will become the town of Fordham in the Bronx.

1744... The city's first sanitation code forces skinners, tanners and starch makers to stop pouring residual gunk into the streets.


1903  ?  Bing Crosby 5/3/1903 - 10/14/1977
American singer, actor and songwriter

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May Sarton 5/3/1912 - 7/16/1995
American poet, novelist and essayist60William Inge 5/3/1913 - 6/10/1973
American playwright; awarded Pulitzer Prize for "Picnic" in 195367Sugar Ray Robinson 5/3/1921 - 4/12/1989
American boxer; world champion six times between 1946 and 1960
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1920  Folk singer Pete Seeger 


1934Frankie Valli, ? Singer (The Four Seasons), turns 78


1936Baseball Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio made his major league debut with the New York Yankees.

1949... Giants manager Leo "The Lip" Durocher is reinstated after a five-day suspension for punching a fan at the Polo Grounds.


1960The musical "The Fantasticks" opened off-Broadway, beginning a record run of nearly 42 years.


2001The United States lost its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.


2010Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad was apprehended aboard a flight preparing to depart New York for Dubai.