ON THIS DAY 5 21 2023

This Day in History: May 21

Featured Event

1927






First nonstop solo transatlantic flight made by Charles Lindbergh


American aviator Charles Lindbergh completed the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean on this day in 1927, traveling from New York to Paris in the monoplane Spirit of Saint Louis in about 33.5 hours.


Watch a brief video of Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of Saint Louis
.

Featured Biography

Al Franken, in full Alan Stuart Franken, (born May 21, 1951, New York, New York, U.S.), American Democratic politician, comedian, and political commentator who represented Minnesota in the U.S. Senate from 2009 to 2018.
When Franken was four years old, his family moved from New York City to Minnesota, where his father ran a factory. The younger Franken earned a bachelor’s degree (1973) in political science at Harvard University; while there he met his future wife, Franni Bryson, and the couple later had two children. After graduation he returned to Minnesota to perform in Minneapolis’s Brave New Workshop comedy troupe, which in 1975 led to a job with NBC television’s Saturday Night Live (SNL). On the show Franken was best known for playing the character of self-help guru Stuart Smalley. Franken worked for SNL as a writer and performer until 1980, again during 1985–95, and briefly in 2008. He shared four Emmy Awards for writing on the show and received an additional nine nominations. He also did some acting, wrote and starred in a 1995 film featuring his Stuart Smalley character, and penned the screenplay for the dramatic film When a Man Loves a Woman (1994).


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