Jody Victor : There is almost no day that something important or interesting has not happened in the past. Here's what happened on May 4th....
1776 - Rhode Island declared its freedom from England, two months before the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
1874 - Frank Conrad, the American electrical engineer whose innovations led to the establishment of the first radio station, was born.
1886 - A labor demonstration for an eight-hour workday at Haymarket Square in Chicago turned into a riot when a bomb exploded.
1927 - The academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded.
1946 - A two-day riot at Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay ended after five people were killed.
1961 - A group of Freedom riders left Washington, D.C., for New Orleans to challenge racial segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals.
1970 - Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.
1980 - Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito died at age 87.
1989 - Fired White House aide Oliver North was convicted of shredding documents and two other charges stemming from the Iran-Contra affair. (The convictions were overturned on appeal.)
1994 - Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed an accord on Palestinian autonomy that granted self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
1998 - Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was given four life sentences plus 30 years by a federal judge in Sacramento, Calif., under a plea agreement that spared him the death penalty.
2000 - Londoners elected their mayor for the first time.
2006 - A federal judge sentenced Zacarias Moussaoui to life in prison for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.