On May 7, 1789, the first inaugural ball was held in New York in honor of President George Washington and his wife, Martha.
In 1825 Italian composer Antonio Salieri died in Vienna; he was 74.
In 1915 nearly 1,200 people died when a German torpedo sank the British liner Lusitania off the Irish coast.
In 1919 Eva Peron, a powerful political influence as the wife of Argentine President Juan Peron, was born in Los Toldos, Argentina.
In 1939 Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
In 1945 Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims, France.
In 1975 President Gerald Ford formally declared an end to the “Vietnam era”; in Ho Chi Minh City — formerly Saigon — the Viet Cong celebrated its takeover.
In 1989 Mayor Richard M. Daley and Gov. James Thompson helped break ground for the new Comiskey Park.
In 1999 NATO bombs struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three people and injuring 20; President Bill Clinton termed the raid a “tragic mistake.” Also in 1999 a Pontiac, Mich., jury ordered “The Jenny Jones Show” to pay $25 million to the family of Scott Amedure, a gay man who was shot to death after revealing a crush on Jonathan Schmitz, a fellow guest on the talk show. (However, the Michigan Court of Appeals later overturned the award, and the Michigan Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal.)
