On this Day...May 7 issue
• In 1915, the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat just ten miles from safety off the coast of Ireland. She was carrying a huge illicit cargo of ammunition, which exploded when she was hit. The ship went down in 18 minutes, 1,198 lives were lost. On the day she'd sail from New York, an ad had appeared in the newspapers from the Imperial German Embassy warning travelers that "the zone of war includes the water adjacent to the British Isles." Some passengers had received warnings by telegram, while others had been stopped by strangers at the dockyard gates. Tragically, everyone had dismissed it as "German propaganda."
• In 1929, "Scarface" Al Capone bumped off his three best gunmen, who had helped slaughter seven of Bugs Moran's men in the Saint Valentine's Day massacre. Now they were all enjoying a meal with their boss at the Hawthorn Hotel in Cicero, Illinois. But Al had discovered they'd been disloyal and were even talking over from him. So he pulled a baseball bat out from under the table and smashed their skulls in. Their corpses were dumped over the Indiana state line, and when the coroner examined them he discovered almost every one of their bones was broken and scarcely an inch of skin was left unbruised.
- from Today's the Day! Jeremy Beadle In Christian history
• In 1899, Amer Presbyterian missionary James Burton Rodgers, 34, preached his first sermon in the Philippines. Rodgers spent the next 35 years in evangelistic and educational ministries, and is regarded as the first Protestant missionary to the Philippines.
- from This Day in Christian History By William D. Blake In the Philippines
• In 1892, Tomas Mateo Claudio, the first Filipino soldier to die in World War I was born in Morong, Rizal. Private Tomas Claudio, who was serving with the US Marine Corps as part of the American Expeditionary Forces to Europe, died at the Battle of Chateau Thierry in France on June 29, 1918.
- www.kahimyang.info In Cebu
• In 1827, a Spanish expedition, which included 1,100 Cebuanos, left Cebu for Bohol to suppress a rebellion in the towns of that province.
- from Cebuano Studies Center, University of San Carlos
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