May 1970

May 1, 1970 (Friday)

• At 7:30 in the morning local time 8,000 United States Army troops followed South Vietnam's Army of the Republic of Vietnam troops into Cambodia's Kampong Cham Province, and expanding the American involvement in the Vietnam War to attack North Vietnamese Army enclaves in an area known as the Fishhook. Helicopters and ground troops of the U.S. Army's 1st Air Cavalry Division and an ARVN airborne brigade caught the NVA off guard, while troops of the 25th Infantry Division drove their attack northward and westward; by May 3, the United States would claim 467 of the enemy had been killed, and only eight American soldiers Simultaneously with the invasion, U.S. President Richard Nixon was preparing to announce the invasion in a nationwide address, which began at 0200 UTC. Protests against the expansion of the Vietnam War began on American college campuses later in the day on Friday. For the first time in more than 50 years, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to ask for a meeting with a U.S. president, after having been given no notice of the invasion, and the request was unanimous from both political parties.
• At Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, demonstrations against the trial of the New Haven Nine, Bobby Seale, and Ericka Huggins drew a crowd of 12,000. Although city merchants were prepared for an anticipated riot. and 4,000 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine troops were deployed to nearby bases "as a precautionary measure" the rally was relatively peaceful.
• U.S. Army physician Dr. Jeffrey R. MacDonald was formally charged by the Army with three counts of murder, after an investigation implicated him in the February 17 murder of killing of his wife and two daughters at their home at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
• Born: Dave Willis, American cartoon producer and voice actor, co-creator of Aqua Teen Hunger Force; in Wichita Falls, Texas
• Died:
• *Ralph Hartley, 81, American inventor, electrical engineer and mathematician who conceived the Hartley transform and who invented the Hartley oscillator
• *Yi Eun, 72, the last Crown Prince of Korea during the reign of his older brother, the Emperor Sunjong from 1907 until the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910. Yi Un, who had been the head of the House of Yi since the 1926 death of the last Emperor of Korea, his older brother Sunjong, had been allowed to live in South Korea since November 22, 1963 after President Park Chung Hee allowed him to return from Japanese exile. Yi Eun, seriously ill, was allowed to live in a home on the grounds of Changdeok Palace, one of the former Korean royal family residences in Seoul, and would be buried at the royal family tomb site. His 38-year-old son, Yi Ju became the new head of the former royal house.
• *William L. St. Onge, 55, U.S. Congressman for Connecticut since 1962. Mr. St. Onge had been on his way to the shipyards at Groton to be a guest of honor at the launching of a new submarine, when he collapsed from a heart attack.

  May 2, 1970 (Saturday)

• Twenty-two passengers and one crew member on ALM Flight 980 drowned when the Overseas National Airways DC-9 jet ran out of fuel and made a forced landing in the Caribbean Sea, from the nearest land, the island of Saint Croix in the United States Virgin Islands. The Antillean Airlines flight had departed New York City at 11:00 a.m. for St. Maarten, with 57 passengers and a crew of six, and, after two unsuccessful attempts at landing at Juliana Airport, was cleared for an emergency landing at St. Croix and ditched in the ocean at 3:48 p.m. Forty survivors able to depart the plane and were rescued by helicopters from the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marines, while the other 23 were trapped on the sinking airplane.
• In the aftermath of a protest the evening before, an estimated 500 students from Kent State University went off campus after midnight and into the streets of downtown Kent, Ohio, smashing windows of local businesses and of cars parked on the street, prompting the imposition of an 8:00 p.m. curfew for Saturday night. Five police officers were injured, and 14 students were arrested before tear gas was used to disperse the crowd at 3:00 a.m. Later in the day, a group of 600 protesters set fire to the ROTC building on the KSU campus, prompting Kent mayor Leroy M. Satrom to ask for the Ohio National Guard; 400 guardsmen were dispatched from nearby Akron and deployed on campus.
• Dust Commander, a thoroughbred racehorse that had been purchased for a bargain price of $6,500 by his owner, won the Kentucky Derby by five lengths. In addition to winning jockey Mike Manganello, the Derby was also the first American Triple Crown race to include a female jockey. Diane Crump, riding Fathom, came in 15th of 17 horses. Holy Land with no jockey to ride him, came in last, after throwing Hector Pilar prior to the final turn.
• Darrell Pace of Hamilton, Ohio, who would become a legend in the sport of archery, went to an archery range for the first time and discovered that he was "unusually good at aiming" a bow and arrow. Within three years, he would win the first of four world championships, and would become a gold medalist at the 1976 and 1984 Olympic games. In connection with its centennial celebration in 2011, the World Archery Federation honored him as "Archer of the Century."
• U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough, at one time one of the most powerful members of the U.S. Senate, was defeated by former Congressman Lloyd Bentsen, Jr. in a statewide primary election to determine the Democratic Party nominee. On the same day, Congressman and future U.S. President George Bush won the Republican Party nomination for the Senate seat by an almost 7 to 1 margin over his challenger, University of Plano founder Robert J. Morris.

  May 3, 1970 (Sunday)

• Blessed Leonardo Murialdo of Turin, a 19th-century advocate in Italy for labor reform and the creation of educational institutions, was canonized as a Saint in the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Paul VI. Thousands of members of the order founded by Murialdo, the Congregation of St. Joseph, made the pilgrimage to Rome to attend the ceremony.
• Born: Bobby Cannavale, American comedian and television actor known for Will & Grace and Boardwalk Empire), winner of two primetime Emmy Awards; in Union City, New Jersey

  May 4, 1970 (Monday)

• At 12:24 in the afternoon, four college students were shot and killed at Ohio's Kent State University, and nine others wounded by Ohio National Guardsmen, during a protest against the incursion into Cambodia. Around noon, the Guardsmen fired tear gas into the crowd of 500 protesters, and some demonstrators threw rocks and threw back tear gas grenades. According to an eyewitness, one student threw a rock as the Guardsmen were turning away to leave the area and "one section of the Guard turned around and fired and then all the Guardsmen turned around and fired." A later investigation determined that about 28 members of the Guard had fired their rifles, with 61 shots in the space of 13 seconds. Eight National Guardsmen would be indicted in 1973 for the shooting, and would be acquitted. On May 1, 2007, a student's audio of the recording would be released that included the moment that the command was given to prepare to fire. After the killings, several eyewitnesses said that the initial gunshots, that might have led the Guardsmen to believe they were under attack, had been an ill-timed warning shot fired by a 21-year-old student who was working as an informant for the campus police and for the FBI.
• On the same day, seven members of the U.S. Army's 101st Assault Helicopter Battalion were killed in the mid-air collision of a Huey UH-1H and a Cobra AH-1G during a practice Red Alert at Fire Support Base Kathryn in the Thua Thien province of South Vietnam. Six Army members and one U.S. Marine were killed in the Quang Tin province, and two other Marines and seven from the Army died in other provinces, for a total of 24 deaths in the war that day.
• In Chicago, on the 84th anniversary of the Haymarket bombing that killed seven police officers and four civilians, Mayor Richard J. Daley unveiled the restored Haymarket Square Statue, seven months after it had been destroyed by a bomb placed by the Weather Underground organization. Five months later, on October 6, the Weathermen group would destroy it again with another bomb.
• Born: Will Arnett, Canadian TV actor and comedian known for 30 Rock and Arrested Development; in Toronto
• Died: Jeffrey Miller, 20; Allison Krause, 19; Sandra Lee Scheuer, 20; and William Knox Schroeder, 19, American students at Kent State University. Miller and Krause were participating in an anti-war demonstration, while Scheuer and Schroeder were walking to class, when the four were shot and killed by members of the Ohio National Guard.

  May 5, 1970 (Tuesday)

• The Sahaja Yoga religious movement was founded at the village of Nargol in India's Gujarat state, after Nirmala Srivastava reported her discovery of what she described as "the technique to open the Sahasrara chakra, the energy centre located at the crown of the head" and making it "possible for anyone to experience self-realization". The decades that followed, Sahaja Yoga centers have been established worldwide, reportedly in 80 countries.
• Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who had been deposed as the reigning monarch of Cambodia on March 12, announced from Beijing that he had formed a government-in-exile that would ally with the Communist government of China and the Cambodian Khmer Rouge to overthrow head of state Lon Nol. Sihanouk's group of 11 ministers in waiting was called "GRUNK", and acronym for Gouvernement Royal d'Union Nationale du Kampuchéa and was a coalition of government officials exiled in China.
• The Hekla volcano in southern Iceland erupted, raining ashes and debris within at radius and forcing the evacuation of the surrounding villages. Hekla had last erupted in 1948; since the 1970 event, the eruptions have happened every ten years.
• Born: Todd Newton, American game show host known for Family Game Night; in St. Louis
• Died: Chris Ross, 24, American stand-up comedian and TV actor who was a member of the San Francisco improv group The Committee