Family member Ava Grace

Events in 2008 and 5-1

Events in US in the birth year of Ava Grace

• Jan. 3: The presidential primary season begins with Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee.
• Feb. 5: Arizona senator John McCain emerges as the clear front runner among Republicans in the Super Tuesday primary races. On the Democratic side, New York senator Hillary Clinton wins big states such as California and Massachusetts, but Illinois senator Barack Obama takes more states.
• March 4: Sen. John McCain has enough delegates to secure the Republican presidential nomination.
• March 8: President George W. Bush, saying intelligence officials must have "all the tools they need to stop the terrorists," vetoes legislation that would have outlawed all methods of interrogation that are banned in the Army Field Manual, which prohibits waterboarding and other harsh techniques that have been used by the CIA.
• March 18: Sen. Barack Obama delivers a pivotal speech on race, denouncing the provocative remarks on race made by his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., but explains that the complexities of race in America have fueled anger and resentment among many African Americans.
• March 11: The government begins to intervene in the U.S. financial system to avoid a crisis. The Federal Reserve outlines a $200 billion loan program that lets the country's biggest banks borrow Treasury securities at discounted rates and post mortgage-backed securities as collateral. March 16: The Federal Reserve approves a $30 billion loan to JPMorgan Chase so it can take over Bear Stearns, which is on the verge of collapse.
• May 15: California's Supreme Court rules, 4 to 3, that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
• May 20: Senator Edward Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts who's been in office since 1963, is diagnosed with malignant glioma, a brain tumor.
• June 3: On the final day of the 2008 primary season, Sen. Barack Obama secures 2,154 delegates and becomes the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. He's the first black candidate to head a major party ticket in a presidential election. Aug. 28: Obama accepts the Democratic presidential nomination, becoming the first African American to be selected by a major party as its nominee for president.
• June 12: The U.S. Supreme Court rules, 5 to 4, that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have a right to challenge their detention in federal court.
• June 26: The U.S. Supreme Court rules, 5 to 4, that the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a gun, but insists that the ruling "is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."
• Sep. 4: Sen. John McCain accepts the the Republican presidential nomination.
• Sep. 29: An internal inquiry by the U.S. Justice Department's inspector general and its Office of Professional Responsibility reports "significant evidence that political partisan considerations were an important factor in the removal of several of the U.S. attorneys." (Nine federal prosecutors were fired in 2006.)
• Oct. 1: The U.S. Senate ratifies an agreement that allows India to buy nuclear fuel on the world market for its reactors as long as it uses the fuel for civilian purposes only.
• Oct. 10: Connecticut's Supreme Court rules that a state law that limits marriage to heterosexual couples and a civil union law that protects gay couples violate equal protection rights guaranteed by the constitution.
• Oct. 27: A jury finds Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) guilty of seven felony charges for lying on financial disclosure forms and failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts from the VECO Corporation, one of Alaska's biggest oil-field contractors.
• Nov. 4: Democratic senator Barack Obama wins the presidential election against Sen. John McCain, taking 338 electoral votes to McCain's 161. Obama becomes the first African American to be elected president of the United States. Also in the election, Democrats increase their majority in the House and pick up five seats in the Senate.
• Nov. 4: Voters in California narrowly pass a ballot measure, Proposition 8, that overturns the May 15, 2008, California Supreme Court decision that said same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
• Dec. 19: President George W. Bush announces plans to lend General Motors and Chrysler $17.4 billion to survive the next three months.

Birthday Ava Grace (5-1) in history

• Day 5-1 year 1896: A German newspaper reported German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of X-rays.
• Day 5-1 year 1914: Henry Ford introduced the $5-a-day minimum wage.
• Day 5-1 year 1925: Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first woman governor of a state (Wyoming).
• Day 5-1 year 1972: President Nixon ordered the development of the space shuttle.
• Day 5-1 year 2000: INS Commissioner Doris Meissner ruled that 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez must be returned to Cuba.