On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Essay by Don Hofstadter about Points of Entry, photography show about immigration to America over the years, opening at Jewish Museum; photo (M)
New Jersey investors Robert S Kowalskie and Louis M Marino are first publicly identified targets in Federal investigation into possible insider trading in shares of Lotus Development Corp before it was bought by IBM in 1995; two men have been charged with lying in testimony given to Securities and Exchange Commission about their trading in options on Lotus stock; Kowalskie pleads not guilty; Marino pleaded guilty on May 7 to single count of perjury; he will be sentenced in September; graph (Market Place column) (L)
White House wins minor victory in battle with Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W Starr for rhetorical high ground, related to wording of its appeal of lower-court decision rejecting lawyer-client privilege for First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton; Supreme Court rejects letter from Starr, contending that he is acting in name of American people, and that respondent in brief filed by White House lawyers should be United States and not 'Office of Independent Counsel, et al' (M)
Young woman who accused Alex Kelly of raping her 11 years ago testifies on first day of his retrial in Stamford, Conn; she identifies him as her attacker, but changes her testimony on issue that proved pivotal in first trial, which ended with deadlocked jury; says that before Kelly attacked her in back of Jeep he was driving, he removed his hand from her neck to lower car's back seat; that contradicts her testimony in first trial, in which she maintained that he choked her while lowering seat; photo (M)
Atty Gen Janet Reno authorizes prosecutors to seek death penalty for Theodore J Kaczynski, suspect in Unabom case, despite arguments that executing him would be injustice and devastating to relatives who turned him in (New Jersey Daily Briefing) (S)
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of May 14, 1997, covering May 16, 1997.
George Strait
Mary J. Blige
Spice Girls
The Notorious B.I.G.
Soundtrack
1997Elbridge Durbrow, American diplomat (born 1903)[†]
Elbridge Durbrow was a Foreign Service officer and diplomat who served as the Counselor of Embassy and Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow in the late 1940s and then as the US ambassador to South Vietnam from March 14, 1957, to April 16, 1961. He supported the Diem regime until late 1960, when he reported that the situation was deteriorating and that unless steps were taken to reform the government, Diem would be likely overthrown in a coup, or lose the country to the Viet Cong. Diem and his American supporters worked to get Durbrow transferred, and he was recalled by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, and sent to a diplomatic role with NATO in Europe.
1997Mobutu Sese Seko, the President of Zaire, flees the country.[†]
Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga, often shortened to Mobutu Sese Seko or Mobutu and also known by his initials MSS, was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the first and only president of Zaire from 1971 to 1997. Previously, Mobutu served as the second president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 1971. He also served as the fifth chairperson of the Organisation of African Unity from 1967 to 1968. During the Congo Crisis, Mobutu, serving as Chief of Staff of the Army and supported by Belgium and the United States, deposed the democratically elected government of left-wing nationalist Patrice Lumumba in 1960. Mobutu installed a government that arranged for Lumumba's execution in 1961, and continued to lead the country's armed forces until he took power directly in a second coup in 1965.
In 1997, the world population was approximately 5,924,787,816 people[†]