Today is Sunday, May 1, the 121st day of 2011. There are 244 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History

On May 1, 1961, the first U.S. airline hijacking took place as Antulio Ramirez Ortiz, a Miami electrician, commandeered a National Airlines plane that was en route to Key West, Fla., and forced the pilot to fly to Cuba.

On this date

In 1707, the Kingdom of Great Britain was created as a treaty merging England and Scotland took effect.

In 1786, Mozart’s opera “The Marriage of Figaro” premiered in Vienna.

In 1811, the frigate HMS Guerriere boarded the merchant brig USS Spitfire and seized master apprentice John Diggio, a native of Maine, heightening tensions between the U.S. and Britain.

In 1898, Commodore George Dewey gave the command, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley,” as an American naval force destroyed a Spanish squadron in Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.

In 1911, the song “I Want a Girl (Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad),” by Harry Von Tilzer and Will Dillon, was first published.

In 1931, New York’s 102-story Empire State Building was dedicated. Singer Kate Smith made her debut on CBS Radio on her 24th birthday.

In 1941, the Orson Welles motion picture “Citizen Kane” premiered in New York.

In 1960, the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane over Sverdlovsk and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers.

In 1971, the intercity passenger rail service Amtrak went into operation.

In 1982, the World’s Fair opened in Knoxville, Tenn.

Ten years ago

President George W. Bush committed the United States to building a shield against ballistic missile attack. FBI Director Louis Freeh announced his retirement. Thomas Blanton Jr. became the second ex-Ku Klux Klansman to be convicted in the 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Ala., that claimed the lives of four black girls; he was sentenced to life in prison.

Five years ago

Hundreds of thousands of mostly Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. skipped work and took to the streets, flexing their economic muscle in a nationwide boycott. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Anna Nicole Smith could pursue part of her late husband’s oil fortune. Bolivian President Evo Morales nationalized the country’s vast natural gas industry.

One year ago

Pakistan-born U.S. citizen Faisal Shahzad failed in an attempt to set off a homemade bomb in an SUV parked in New York’s Times Square. President Barack Obama named Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen point man for the federal government’s response to the BP oil spill. Jockey Calvin Borel steered Super Saver through the mud to win his third Kentucky Derby in four years, beating Lookin At Lucky by 2 1/2 lengths. Floyd Mayweather Jr. won a unanimous decision over Sugar Shane Mosley in Las Vegas. Actress Helen Wagner, who’d played Nancy Hughes on the CBS soap opera “As the World Turns” for 54 years, died in Mount Kisco, N.Y., at age 91.

Today’s Birthdays

Former astronaut Scott Carpenter is 86. Country singer Sonny James is 82. Singer Judy Collins is 72. Actor Stephen Macht is 69. Singer Rita Coolidge is 66. Pop singer Nick Fortuna (The Buckinghams) is 65. Actor-director Douglas Barr is 62. Actor Dann Florek is 60. Singer-songwriter Ray Parker Jr. is 57. Hall of Fame jockey Steve Cauthen is 51. Actress Maia Morgenstern is 49. Country singer Wayne Hancock is 46. Actor Charlie Schlatter is 45. Country singer Tim McGraw is 44. Rock musician Johnny Colt is 43. Rock musician D’Arcy is 43. Movie director Wes Anderson is 42. Actress Julie Benz is 39. Country singer Cory Morrow is 39. Gospel/rhythm-and-blues singer Tina Campbell (Mary Mary) is 37. Actor Darius McCrary is 35.

Thought for Today

“Any man who has the brains to think and the nerve to act for the benefit of the people of the country is considered a radical by those who are content with stagnation and willing to endure disaster.”

— William Randolph Hearst,

American newspaper publisher (1863-1951)