Today is Thursday, May third, the 123rd day of 2001. There are 242 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On May third, 1979, Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher was chosen to become Britain's first female prime minister as the Tories ousted the incumbent Labor government in parliamentary elections. On this date: In ousted the incumbent Labor government in parliamentary elections. 1802, Washington DC was incorporated as a city. In 1916, Irish nationalist Padraic Pearse and two others were executed by the British for their roles in the Easter Rising. In 1921, West Virginia imposed the first state sales tax. In 1937, Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel, "Gone With the Wind." In 1944, US wartime rationing of most grades of meats ended. In 1945, Indian forces captured Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese. In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks or members of other racial groups were legally unenforceable. In 1971, anti-war protesters began four days of demonstrations in Washington DC aimed at shutting down the nation's capital. In 1978, "Sun Day" fell on a Thursday as thousands of people extolling the virtues of solar energy held events across the country. In 1986, in NASA's first post-"Challenger" launch, an unmanned Delta rocket, lost power in its main engine shortly after liftoff, forcing safety officers to destroy it by remote control. Ten years ago: The government reported the nation's civilian unemployment rate fell in April to six-point-six percent. Exxon Corporation and the state of Alaska withdrew from a one billion-dollar settlement of the "Exxon Valdez" oil spill (another settlement was reached later). Author Jerzy Kosinski was found dead in his New York City apartment; he was 57. Five years ago: An international conference in Geneva ended 30 months of arduous negotiations over whether to ban land mines with a weak compromise treaty giving countries nine years to switch to detectable, self-destructive devices. One year ago: The trial of two alleged Libyan intelligence agents accused of blowing Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 opened in the Netherlands. (Last January, one of the defendants, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, was convicted of murder; the other defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.) The archbishop of New York, Cardinal John O'Connor, died at age 80. Today's Birthdays: Broadway librettist Betty Comden is 82. Folk singer Pete Seeger is 82. C ountry singer Dave Dudley is 73. Singer James Brown is 68. Singer Engelbert Humperdinck is 65. Sports announcer Greg Gumbel is 55. Singer Christopher Cross is 50. Country musician Cactus Moser (Highway 101) is 44. Country singer Shane Minor is 33. Actor Dule Hill ("The West Wing") is 26. Actress Jill Berard is eleven. "When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt." -- Henry J. Kaiser, American industrialist (1882-1967). (Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)