On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Elan Corp, troubled Irish drug maker, says it will seek new buyers for two drugs it agreed in Jan to sell to King Pharmaceuticals for $850 million if litigation significantly delays deal; Elan reports first-quarter loss of $130.2 million, down from $50 million profit in 2002 period; chief executive G Kelly Martin comments on plans to shed assets, phone interview (M)
Greenspan Says Tax Cut Is Not Needed for Growth Alan Greenspan suggested to Congress that a large tax cut like the one favored by President Bush was not necessary to generate growth and that the budget deficits resulting from lower taxes without offsetting reductions in spending could be damaging. Mr. Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, said with the end of the uncertainties associated with the war in Iraq, the economy was in a position for strong growth. But if that does not occur, he said, the Fed was prepared to lower rates further. [Page A32.]
Hotel and leisure group Whitbread reports pretax profit rose 14 percent, to 214 million pounds ($342 million) in fiscal year ended Feb 28 (S)
Experts doubt new practices mandated by settlement in which big Wall Street firms agreed to pay $1.4 billion for their role in stock market bubble will matter much to small investors; say $7 trillion in stock losses since broad averages peaked in Mar 2000 have long since taught investors not to rely on Wall Street analyst's research; photo (M)
Japan reports industrial output unexpectedly fell 0.2 percent in Mar from Feb; inventories fell 0.7 percent (S)
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of April 30, 2003, covering May 1, 2003.
Kelly Clarkson
50 Cent
Fleetwood Mac
Darryl Worley
50 Cent
2003Lizzy Greene, American actress[†]
Elizabeth Anne Greene is an American actress, known for her titular role as Dawn Harper in the Nickelodeon sitcom Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn from 2014 to 2018. She has starred as Sophie Dixon in the ABC family drama A Million Little Things from 2018 to 2023.
2003Miss Elizabeth, American wrestler and manager (born 1960)[†]
Elizabeth Ann Hulette, best known in professional wrestling circles as Miss Elizabeth, was an American professional wrestling manager, occasional professional wrestler and professional wrestling TV announcer. She gained international fame from 1985 to 1992 in the World Wrestling Federation and from 1996 to 2000 in World Championship Wrestling (WCW), in her role as the manager to wrestler "Macho Man" Randy Savage, as well as other wrestlers of that period.
2003Wim van Est, Dutch cyclist (born 1923)[†]
Willem "Wim" van Est was a Dutch racing cyclist. He is best known for being the first Dutch cyclist to wear the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification in the Tour de France of 1951, and for falling into a ravine while wearing it.
2003Invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (off the coast of California), U.S. President George W. Bush declares that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended".[†]
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion began on 20 March 2003 and lasted just over one month, including 26 days of major combat operations, in which a United States-led combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded the Republic of Iraq. Twenty-two days after the first day of the invasion, the capital city of Baghdad was captured by coalition forces on 9 April after the six-day-long Battle of Baghdad. This early stage of the war formally ended on 1 May when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the "end of major combat operations" in his Mission Accomplished speech, after which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments leading up to the first Iraqi parliamentary election in January 2005. U.S. military forces later remained in Iraq until the withdrawal in 2011.
In 2003, the world population was approximately 6,420,361,634 people[†]