Art Houtteman (1927–2003) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. In 325 career games, Houtteman pitched 1,555 innings and posted a win–loss record of 87–91, with 78 complete games, 14 shutouts, and a 4.14 earned run average. He was signed by scout Wish Egan in 1945 at 17 years of age, and joined a Detroit Tigers pitching staff that had lost players to injuries and World War II. After moving between the major and minor leagues over the next few years, he was nearly killed in a driving accident just before the 1949 season. Houtteman rebounded from his injuries and went on to win 15 games that season and made his only All-Star appearance in the following year. He played three more seasons with the Tigers, then pitched for the pennant-winning Cleveland Indians during their 1954 season. After losing his position as starting pitcher, he played two more seasons with the Indians before he was bought by the Baltimore Orioles, with whom he finished his final season in Major League Baseball. Houtteman ended his baseball career in the minor leagues and became a sales executive in Detroit. (Full article...)

Recently featured: "What Is and What Should Never Be" (Supernatural) – Lochry's Defeat – Ipswich Town F.C.

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

• ... that Vera Bogdanovskaia (pictured) was killed in 1896 while trying to make H-C≡P, a chemical not successfully synthesized until 1961?
• ... that after the British National Board for Prices and Incomes was closed, member Hugh Clegg wrote a book entitled How to Run an Incomes Policy, and Why We Made Such a Mess of the Last One?
• ... that Pete Hampton is believed to be the first African American to make a harmonica recording?
• ... that electronic musician Peaches is featured on the remix of Natalia Kills' song "Trouble"?
• ... that Qingdao Airlines, a Chinese air carrier that launched operations in April 2014, aims to become a "boutique airline"?
• ... that football coach Choo Seng Quee was a British agent during World War II?

• In horse racing, California Chrome ridden by Victor Espinoza wins the Kentucky Derby.
• The Ukrainian government launches an offensive on pro-Russian rebels in Sloviansk while clashes in Odesa kill more than 40 people.
• Two mudslides in Badakhshan, Afghanistan, kill at least 350 people and displace 4,000 others.
• More than 50 royal mummies are discovered in Egypt's KV40 tomb.
• Neil Robertson (pictured) becomes the first snooker player to make 100 century breaks in a single season.
• A bomb blast in Ürümqi kills 3 people and injures 79 others.

Ongoing: MV Sewol – Chibok kidnapping
Recent deaths: Bob Hoskins

May 4: Mother's Day in Hungary, Lithuania, Mozambique, Portugal, Romania and Spain (2014); Remembrance of the Dead in the Netherlands; Star Wars Day

• 1776 – The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations became the first of England's Thirteen Colonies to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown.
• 1814 – Ferdinand VII abolished the Spanish Constitution of 1812, returning Spain to absolutism.
• 1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy engaged Allied naval forces at the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other.
• 1974 – An all-female Japanese team reached the summit of Manaslu (pictured) in the Himalayas, becoming the first women to climb an 8,000-meter peak.
• 2000 – Ken Livingstone took office as the first Mayor of London.

More anniversaries: May 3 – May 4 – May 5