Today in History.....May 9

On this day in …

* 1502, Christopher Columbus left Cadiz, Spain, on his fourth and final trip to the Western Hemisphere

* 1754, a cartoon in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette showed a snake cut into sections, each part representing an American colony; the caption read, "Join or die"

* 1913, the 17th amendment to the Constitution, providing for the election of U.S. senators by popular vote rather than selection by state legislatures, was ratified

* 1926, Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett became the first men to fly over the North Pole

* 1936, Italy annexed Ethiopia

* 1945, U.S. officials announced that a midnight entertainment curfew was being lifted immediately

* 1961, Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow condemned television programming as a "vast wasteland" in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters

* 1974, the House Judiciary Committee opened hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Nixon

* 2001, China sought U.S. understanding for its refusal to allow a damaged U.S. Navy spy plane to fly home, saying public sentiment would be outraged if the aircraft flew again over Chinese territory

* 2005, President Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany with a lavish military parade in Moscow. President Bush then traveled to Georgia, the first American chief executive to visit