Milestones

By Melissa August; Peter Bailey; Elizabeth L. Bland; Jeannette Isaac; Unmesh Kher; Nadia Mustafa Sunday, May 23, 2004
    • MARRIED. SPANISH CROWN PRINCE FELIPE, 36, and former TV anchorwoman LETIZIA ORTIZ, 31, the first commoner ever in line to be the Queen of Spain; in Spain's first royal wedding since 1906; in Madrid.

    RELEASED. BRANDON MAYFIELD, 37, U.S. lawyer arrested as a material witness in the March terrorist bombings in Madrid; in Portland, Ore. Pending a grand jury hearing, he cannot leave the state and must ask permission to leave his house.

    CHARGED. LARRY STEWART, 46, Secret Service ink expert who testified for the government at the Martha Stewart trial; with two counts of perjury; in New York City. Attorneys for Stewart, convicted on charges related to insider trading, will seek a retrial.

    SENTENCED. JEREMY SIVITS, 24, U.S. Army specialist; to one year in jail and a bad-conduct discharge; for taking pictures of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated; in the first court-martial stemming from abuse at Abu Ghraib prison; in Baghdad.

    BARRED. KELLI WHITE, 27, U.S. sprinter; from competing until May 2006; for steroid use, costing her a trip to the Athens Olympics and her medals since 1998; in Colorado Springs, Colo.

    DIED. ELVIN JONES, 76, post-bebop drummer best known for pushing the innovative saxophonist John Coltrane to rapturous heights; in New York City. In the early 1950s he refined his explosive, polyrhythmic style in the fertile Detroit jazz scene, and in 1955 he moved to New York, where he recorded with Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins. He joined Coltrane's quartet in 1960 and later led the Elvin Jones Jazz Machine.

    DIED. JOERGEN NASH, 84, provocative Danish artist and author of 42 books who took responsibility for beheading Copenhagen's famed Little Mermaid statue with a hacksaw in 1963; in Copenhagen. In the 1960s he engaged in such antics as blowing whistles to interrupt Parliament, unleashing mice at the Danish Literature Academy and tossing firecrackers onstage at the Copenhagen Royal Theater.

    DIED. JUNE TAYLOR, 86, Emmy Award — winning choreographer whose high-kicking, wide-smiling routines on The Jackie Gleason Show introduced the Broadway-inspired chorus line to television audiences in the 1950s and '60s; in Miami. When a bout of tuberculosis at age 20 derailed her career as a Chicago nightclub dancer, she founded her own touring company, the June Taylor Dancers, and in 1946 ran into Gleason at a Baltimore nightclub.

    DIED. ARNOLD BECKMAN, 104, scientist and philanthropist whose inventions revolutionized the chemical industry by replacing laborious procedures with accurate, user-friendly electronic instruments; in La Jolla, Calif. Among his inventions: a simple, speedy tool for measuring acidity called the pH meter.