Weather Briefing for Monday, May 3, 2021

Macon County Public Library

Exploring North Carolina’s Lookout Towers: A Guide to Hikes and Vistas with Author Peter Barr Thursday, May 6th, 6:30 p.m. outside the Macon County Public Library in the picnic pavilion next to Macon Early College- Exploring North Carolina’s Lookout Towers: A Guide to Hikes and Vistas with Author Peter Barr Join us for a presentation by the author and a chance to purchase your own copy of his updated book on NC’s lookout towers. Please call, email or visit Kristina Moe at the library to register- 828-524-3600, [email protected] Friends of the Greenway

Friends of the Greenway would like to invite you to FROG FAIR, our spring arts & crafts fair on May 8, 2021 from 9-3 at FROG Quarters, 573 E. Main St, Franklin (at the Town bridge). We are excited to report that so far, 26 vendors have chosen to participate at the FAIR. As a fund raiser event for FROG, we collect a vendor registration fee, will offer a continental breakfast, lunch specials, homemade desserts and hold a 50/50 drawing with a $50 guarantee. Area musicians will perform throughout the day, with a sitting area for extra enjoyment. Mark your calendar and come enjoy the day. Stop by FROG Quarters Wednesday-Saturday between 9-2 to become a registered vendor or to purchase 50/50 drawing tickets. Hope to see you on May 8. For vendor information, email us at [email protected].

National News Update

The SpaceX Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station ended this morning with the return to earth of the “Resilience” Dragon Capsule in the Gulf of Mexico southwest of Panama City, Florida and a splashdown at 2:57am. A video highlight is posted below.

Here is video of the launch from November 15, 2020

On This Day

May 3rd is the 123rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 242 days remain until the end of the year. Historical Events

1374BC – Solar eclipse (2m 07s) seen at Ugarit by Mesopotamian astronomers “On the day of the new moon, in the month of Hiyar, the Sun was put to shame, and went down in the daytime, with Mars in attendance.”
752 – Mayan king Bird Jaguar IV of Yaxchilan in modern-day Chiapas, Mexico assumes the throne.
1294 – John II becomes Duke of Brabant and Limburg
1342 – Count Hartmann II becomes ruler of Vaduz (Liechtenstein)
1382 – Battle of Beverhoutsveld near Bruges in modern-day Belgium – the army of Ghent beats a drunken Bruges militia
1481 – The largest of three earthquakes strikes the island of Rhodes and causes an estimated 30,000 casualties.
1491 – Kongo monarch Nkuwu Nzinga is baptised by Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of João I.
1616 – Treaty of Loudun ends a French civil war.
1715 – A total solar eclipse was visible across northern Europe, and northern Asia, as predicted by Edmond Halley to within 4 minutes accuracy.
1791 – The Constitution of May 3 (the first modern constitution in Europe) is proclaimed by the Sejm of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1802 – Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city after Congress abolishes the Board of Commissioners, the District’s founding government. The “City of Washington” is given a mayor-council form of government.[1]
1808 – Finnish War: Sweden loses the fortress of Sveaborg to Russia.
1808 – Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are executed near Príncipe Pío hill.
1815 – Neapolitan War: Joachim Murat, King of Naples is defeated by the Austrians at the Battle of Tolentino, the decisive engagement of the war.
1830 – The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway is opened; it is the first steam-hauled passenger railway to issue season tickets and include a tunnel.
1837 – The University of Athens is founded in Athens, Greece.[2]
1848 – The boar-crested Anglo-Saxon Benty Grange helmet is discovered in a barrow on the Benty Grange farm in Derbyshire.
1849 – The May Uprising in Dresden begins: The last of the German revolutions of 1848–49.
1855 – American adventurer William Walker departs from San Francisco with about 60 men to conquer Nicaragua.
1901 – The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, Florida.
1913 – Raja Harishchandra, the first full-length Indian feature film, is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.
1920 – A Bolshevik coup fails in the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
1921 – Ireland is partitioned under British law by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, creating Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.
1921 – West Virginia becomes the first state to legislate a broad sales tax, but does not implement it until a number of years later due to enforcement issues.
1926 – Britain’s Trade Union Congress calls for the country’s first ever general strike, begins at 1 minute to midnight in support striking coal miners, lasts 9 days
1928 – The Jinan incident begins with the deaths of twelve Japanese civilians by Chinese forces in Jinan, China, which leads to Japanese retaliation and the deaths of over 2,000 Chinese civilians in the following days.[3]
1939 – The All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
1942 – World War II: Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo that results in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia.
1945 – World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay.
1947 – New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect.
1948 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Shelley v. Kraemer that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.[4]
1951 – London’s Royal Festival Hall opens with the Festival of Britain.
1951 – The United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations begin their closed door hearings into the relief of Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry Truman.
1952 – Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States land a plane at the North Pole.
1952 – The Kentucky Derby is televised nationally for the first time, on the CBS network.
1957 – Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
1963 – The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and responds with violent force to stop the “Birmingham campaign” protesters. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing new-found attention to the civil rights movement.
1971 – Erich Honecker becomes First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, remaining in power until 1989.[5]
1978 – The first unsolicited bulk commercial email (which would later become known as “spam”) is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.
1979 – Margaret Thatcher wins the United Kingdom general election.[6] The following day, she becomes the first female British Prime Minister.
1986 – Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes on Air Lanka Flight 512 at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.
1987 – A crash by Bobby Allison at the Talladega Superspeedway, Alabama fencing at the start-finish line would lead NASCAR to develop the restrictor plate for the following season both at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega.
1999 – The southwestern portion of Oklahoma City is devastated by an F5 tornado, killing forty-five people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado is one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. This tornado also produces the highest wind speed ever recorded, measured at 301 +/- 20 mph (484 +/- 32 km/h).
1999 – Infiltration of Pakistani soldiers on Indian side results in the kargil war.
2000 – The sport of geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS posted on Usenet.
2001 – The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.
2007 – The 3-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann disappears in Praia da Luz, Portugal, starting “the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history”.
2015 – Two gunmen launch an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, which was held in response to the Charlie Hebdo shooting.
2016 – Eighty-eight thousand people were evacuated from their homes in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada as a wildfire ripped through the community, destroying approximately 2,400 homes and buildings.
2018 – Kilauea volcano on Big Island, Hawaii begins erupting forcing the evacuation of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and residential areas
2019 – Cyclone Fani strikes Odisha State, India and Bangladesh, killing 33 people after one of the biggest human evacuations ever – 1.2 million in India in 24 hours
2020 – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says China responsible for the spread and severity of COVID-19 and should be held accountable
2020 – Investor Warren Buffett dumps his holdings in four major US airlines saying “the world has changed” for aviation, reflecting an increasingly bleak outlook for the industry
2020 – Brazilian confirmed COVID-19 cases pass 100,000 with the death toll at 7,025, the 9th country to do so

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