#Middlebury #MomentsInTime
On April 30, 1933, Willie Nelson is born into a family of Texas musicians. He penned his first song at age 7. Years later he wrote “Funny How Time Slips Away,” “Night Life” and the Patsy Cline classic “Crazy” all in one week.- On May 5, 1944, Bertha Benz, the wife of inventor Karl Benz and the first person to drive an automobile over a long distance, dies in Germany. In 1888, Bertha drove 65 miles to her mother’s, over unpaved roads. She refueled the car with Ligroin, a detergent then used as fuel. When the car’s fuel line clogged, she unclogged it using one of her hairpins.
- On May 2, 1957, Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) succumbs to illness exacerbated by alcoholism and dies at age 48. McCarthy had been a key figure in the anticommunist hysteria known as the “Red Scare” that engulfed the U.S. after World War II.
- On May 1, 1963, despite running out of oxygen, James Whittaker of Redmond, Wash., becomes the first American to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.
- On May 4, 1977, British journalist David Frost interviews former President Richard Nixon. In the televised interview, Nixon admitted that he had not thought the White House tape recordings regarding the Watergate scandal would come out.
- On May 3, 1980, 13-year-old Cari Lightner of Fair Oaks, Calif., is killed by a drunk driver while walking along a quiet road on her way to a church carnival. Cari’s tragic death compelled her mother, Candy Lightner, to found the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).
- On May 6, 2004, the familiar theme song (“I’ll Be There For You””by the Rembrandts) heralds the final original episode of NBC’s long-running comedy series “Friends.” The show had debuted in 1994 and ran for 236 episodes.
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