TODAY IN HISTORY - MAY 4TH

1655 – Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italian instrument maker, invented the piano (d. 1731) is born.

1820 – Julia Gardiner Tyler, American wife of John Tyler, 11th First Lady of the United States (d. 1889) is born.

1871 – The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

1886 – Haymarket affair: A bomb is thrown at policemen trying to break up a labor rally in Chicago, United States, killing eight and wounding 60. The police fire into the crowd.

1904 – The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal.

1904 – Charles Stewart Rolls meets Frederick Henry Royce at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, England.

1907 – Lincoln Kirstein, American soldier and playwright, co-founded the New York City Ballet (d. 1996) is born.

1932 – In Atlanta, mobster Al Capone begins serving an eleven-year prison sentence for tax evasion.

1938 – Kanō Jigorō, Japanese founder of judo (b. 1860) dies.

1946 – In San Francisco Bay, U.S. Marines from the nearby Treasure Island Naval Base stop a two-day riot at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Five people are killed in the riot.

1949 – The entire Torino football team (except for two players who did not take the trip: Sauro Tomà, due to an injury and Renato Gandolfi, because of coach request) is killed in a plane crash at the Superga hill at the edge of Turin, Italy.

1953 – Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.

1959 – The 1st Annual Grammy Awards are held.

1961 – American civil rights movement: The "Freedom Riders" begin a bus trip through the South.

1970 – Vietnam War: Kent State shootings: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students; Allison Krause, (b. 1951), Jeffrey Miller, (b. 1950), Sandra Scheuer, (b. 1949) and William Knox Schroeder, (b. 1950) and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the United States and South Vietnam.

1975 – Moe Howard, American actor, singer, and screenwriter (b. 1897) dies.

1979 – Lance Bass, American singer, dancer, and producer is born.

1989 – Iran–Contra affair: Former White House aide Oliver North is convicted of three crimes and acquitted of nine other charges. The convictions, however, are later overturned on appeal.

1998 – A federal judge in Sacramento, California, gives "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski accepts a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty.

2000 – Ken Livingstone becomes the first Mayor of London.

2007 – Greensburg, Kansas is almost completely destroyed by a 1.7 mi wide EF5 tornado. It was the first-ever tornado to be rated as such with the new Enhanced Fujita scale.