Today In History – May

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On this day in history…

May 31

1279 BC Rameses II (The Great) (19th dynasty) becomes Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.

1837 Astor Hotel opens in NYC, it later becomes the Waldorf-Astoria

1879 Madison Square Garden opens in New York, named after 4th President James Madison

1884 Dr John Harvey Kellogg patents “flaked cereal”

1907 Taxis 1st began running in NYC

1911 RMS Titanic launched in Belfast

1968 American movie star Jimmy Stewart retires from the Air Force after 27 years of service, and is promoted to major general by President Reagan

1969 John Lennon & Yoko Ono record “Give Peace a Chance”

1990 Seinfeld starring Jerry Seinfeld, debuts on NBC as Seinfeld Chronicles

2008 Usain Bolt breaks the world record in the 100m sprint, with a wind-legal (+1.7m/s) 9.72 seconds.

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May 30

1381 English peasant uprising begins in Essex

1431 Hundred Years’ War: in Rouen, France, 19-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal.

1445 Coronation as Margaret of Anjou as Queen Consort of England at Westminster Abbey

1821 James Boyd patents Rubber Fire Hose

1842 John Francis attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria

1914 The new and then largest Cunard ocean liner RMS Aquitania, 45,647 tons, sets sails on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England to New York City.

1921 Salzburg, Austria, votes to join Germany

1959 The Auckland Harbour Bridge is officially opened in Auckland, New Zealand.

1967 Robert “Evel” Knievel’s motorcycle jumps 16 automobiles

2003 “Finding Nemo”, directed by Andrew Stanton and starring Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres is released

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May 29

1660 On his 30th birthday Charles II returns to London from exile in the Netherlands to claim the English throne after the Puritan Commonwealth comes to an end

1727 Peter II becomes Tsar of Russia aged 11

1849 Lincoln says “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

1874 Present constitution of Switzerland takes effect

1886 Chemist John Pemberton begins to advertise Coca-Cola

1913 Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score The Rite of Spring is premiered in Paris, provoking a riot.

1919 Albert Einstein’s light-bending prediction confirmed by Arthur Eddington

1919 An expedition sponsored by the Royal Society of London observes a total eclipse of the sun in the Gulf of Guinea, off the African continent

1953 Edmund Hillary (NZ) and Tenzing Norgay (Nepal) are first to reach the summit of Mount Everest as part of a British Expedition

1982 1st papal visit to Britain since 1531

1994 Great iceball comet seen above North Sea

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May 28

585 BC Solar eclipse, as predicted by Greek philosopher Thales, while Lydians at war with the Medes leads to a truce. One of the cardinal dates from which other dates calculated.

1431 Joan of Arc is accused of relapsing into heresy by donning male clothing again, providing justification for her execution

1588 Spanish Armada under the Duke of Medina-Sidonia departs Lisbon to invade England

1742 1st indoor swimming pool opens (Goodman’s Fields, London)

1889 Édouard and André Michelin incorporate the Michelin tyre company

1930 Georges Forbes succeeds Joseph Ward as premier of New Zealand

1937 Golden Gate Bridge in SF opens to vehicular traffic

1937 Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

1952 The women of Greece are given the right to vote.

1999 In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece “The Last Supper” is put back on display.

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May 27

1120 Richard III of Capua is anointed as prince two weeks before his untimely death.

1679 Habeaus Corpus Act (strengthening person’s right to challenge unlawful arrest & imprisonment) passes in England

1703 St Petersburg (Leningrad) founded by Russian Tsar Peter the Great

1849 The Great Hall of Euston station in London is opened.

1883 Tsar Alexander III crowned in Moscow

1907 Bubonic Plague breaks out in San Francisco

1930 Richard Drew invents masking tape

1936 RMS Queen Mary leaves Southampton for NY on maiden voyage

1937 Golden Gate Bridge, SF, dedicated

1999 The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo

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May 26

451 The Battle of Avarayr between Armenian rebels and the Sassanid Empire takes place. The Armenians are defeated militarily but are guaranteed freedom to openly practice Christianity.1647 Alse Young becomes the first person executed as a witch in the American colonies, when she is hanged in Hartford, Connecticut.

1805 Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned king of Italy

1828 Mysterious feral child Kaspar Hauser is discovered wandering the streets of Nuremberg.

1896 Last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, crowned

1913 Emily Duncan becomes Great Britain’s first woman magistrate.

1927 Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company produce the last (and 15th million) Model T Ford / Tin Lizzie

1946 Patent filed in US for H-Bomb

1984 US President President Ronald Reagan rules out US military intervention in Iran-Iraq war

2012 Pope Benedict XVI’s butler is arrested for allegedly leaking confidential documents

2014 World Health Organization confirms that Ebola has reached Sierra Leone

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May 25

1720 The Ship “Le Grand St Antoine” reaches Marseille, bringing Europe’s last major plague outbreak. Kills around 100,000

1935 Track and field athlete Jesse Owens equals or breaks 6 world records in 45 minutes at Big Ten meet at Ferry Field in Ann Arbor US

1659 Richard Cromwell resigns as Lord Protector of England. Many pubs in England have since been called “Tumbledown Dick” in his memory.

1927 Henry Ford announces that he is ending production of the Model T Ford

1961 JFK announces US goal of putting a man on Moon before the end of decade

1967 John Lennon takes delivery of his psychedelically painted Rolls Royce

1989 Mikhail Gorbachev elected Executive President in the Soviet Union

2011 Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her twenty five year run of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

2012 A SpaceX Dragon becomes the first commercial spacecraft to dock at the International Space Station

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May 24

1726 People’s revolt due to increase in gin/brandy tax

1738 John Wesley is converted, launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day.

1830 “Mary Had A Little Lamb” by Sarah Josepha Hale is first published by Boston firm Marsh, Capen & Lyon

1844 Samuel Morse taps out “What hath God wrought” (1st telegraph message)

1862 Westminster Bridge across Thames opens

1890 Tivoli Theater of Varities opens in London

1921 1st parliament for Northern Ireland elected

1930 1st woman to fly from England to Australia solo, lands (Amy Johnson)

1954 German airline Lufthansa forms

1976 In the Judgment of Paris, wine testers rate wines from California higher than their French counterparts, challenging the notion of France being the foremost producer of the world’s best wines.

2001 Mountain climbing: 15-year-old Sherpa Temba Tsheri becomes the youngest person to climb to the top of Mount Everest.

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May 23

1430 Joan of Arc is captured at Compiegne & sold to the English

1576 Tycho Brahe given Hveen Island to build Uraniborg Observatory

1785 Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals

1813 South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador (“The Liberator”)

1865 Flag flown at full mast over White House for the first time since Lincoln was shot

1911 NY Public Library building at 5th Avenue dedicated by President Taft

1922 Walt Disney incorporates his 1st film company Laugh-O-Gram Films

1998 The Good Friday Agreement is accepted in a referendum in Northern Ireland with 75% voting yes.

2002 The “55 parties” clause of the Kyoto protocol is reached after its ratification by Iceland.

2014 Russia and China veto the U.N. Security Council resolution to establish an International Criminal Court for war crimes in Syria

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May 22

334 BC The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of the Granicus

1455 Opening battle in England’s 30-year Wars of the Roses. Richard of York takes St Albans, capturing King Henry VI

1570 1st atlas ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’ (Theatre of the World), published by Abraham Ortelius in Antwerp with 70 maps

1892 Dr Washington Sheffield invents toothpaste tube

1919 Andrew E. Douglass establishes the relative dates of two archaeological sites using ancient wood samples, marking a major step forward in the dating of archaeological sites

1955 Oldest man to drive in the Grand Prix (aged 55) finishes 6th

1961 1st revolving restaurant (Top Of The Needle in Seattle) opens

1977 Final European scheduled run of Orient Express (94 years)

1998 Lewinsky scandal: a federal judge rules that United States Secret Service agents can be compelled to testify before a grand jury concerning the scandal, involving President Bill Clinton.

2010 Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus’ remains are reburied in Frombork Cathedral, Poland after a 200 year search for his tomb.

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May 21

1471 King Edward IV enters London

1602 Martha’s Vineyard first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold

1725 The Order of St. Alexander Nevsky is instituted in Russia by the empress Catherine I. It would later be discontinued and then reinstated by the Soviet government in 1942 as the Order of Alexander Nevsky.

1840 Captain William Hobson proclaims British sovereignty over New Zealand; the North Island by treaty and the South Island by ‘discovery’

1881 American Red Cross founded by Clara Barton

1927 Aviator Charles Lindbergh, in the Spirit of St Louis, lands in Paris after the first solo air crossing of Atlantic

1932 1st transatlantic solo flight by a woman (Amelia Earhart) lands in Ireland

1981 Francois Mitterrand becomes president of France

1998 Indonesian president Suharto resigns after 31 years in power

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May 20

1303 Treaty of Paris restores Gascony to the English and arranges for marriage of English Prince Edward to French Princess Isabella

1498 Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut, India – first European to reach India by sea

1609 Shakespeare’s Sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by the publisher Thomas Thorpe.

1784 Britain & Netherlands sign peace treaty (Peace of Paris)

1873 Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis patent first blue jeans with copper rivets

1910 Funeral for Britain’s King Edward VII

1927 At 7:40 AM, Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York to cross the Atlantic for Paris, aboard Spirit of St Louis (1st non-stop flight)

1932 Amelia Earhart leaves Newfoundland as the first woman fly solo across Atlantic

1989 China declares martial law in Beijing

2015 Journal Nature publishes findings of the oldest man-made tools from Kenya’s Turkana basin – 3.3 million years, the 1st found to pre-date the Homo genus.

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May 19

1506 Columbus selects his son Diego as sole heir

1536 Ann of Boleyn, 2nd wife of English King Henry VIII is beheaded at the Tower of London on charges of adultery, incest and treason

1568 English Queen Elizabeth I arrests Mary, Queen of Scots

1802 French Order of Legion d’Honneur forms

1897 Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Gaol.

1930 White women win voting rights in South Africa

1982 Sophia Loren jailed in Naples for tax evasion

1995 World’s youngest doctor, Balamurali Ambati, 17, graduates Mount Sinai

2009 Sri Lanka announces victory in its 27 year war against the terrorist organisation, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

2015 Historic first handshake between Prince Charles and Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams at the National University of Ireland in Galway

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May 18

1642 Montreal, Canada, founded

1804 Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed Emperor of France by the French Senate

1830 Edwin Budding of England signs an agreement for manufacture of his invention, lawn mower.

1860 Republican Party nominates Abraham Lincoln for president

1896 Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field, Moscow, during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, results in the deaths of 1,389 people

1897 Irish Music Festival 1st held (Dublin)

1897 “Dracula”, by Irish author Bram Stoker is published by Archibald Constable and Company in London

1934 TWA began commercial service

1952 Professor WF Libby said Stonehedge dates back to 1848 BC

1953 1st woman to break sound barrier (Jacqueline Cochrane, USA)

1980 Mount St Helens blows its top in Washington State, 60 die

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May 17

1527 Pánfilo de Narváez departs Spain to explore Florida with 600 men – by 1536 only 4 survive

1620 1st merry-go-round seen at a fair (Philippapolis, Turkey)

1733 England passes Molasses Act, putting high tariffs on rum & molasses imported to the colonies from a country other than British possessions

1881 Revised version of New Testament

1897 The first successful submarine that can run submerged for any considerable distance and combines electric and gasoline engines is launched in the USA by its designer John Philip Holland

1916 British Summer Time (Daylight Savings) introduced

1961 Castro offers to exchange Bay of Pigs prisoners for 500 bulldozers

1984 Prince Charles calls a proposed addition to the National Gallery, London, a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend,” sparking controversies on the proper role of the Royal Family and the course of modern architecture.

1989 Nelson Mandela receives a BA from University of South Africa

1990 World Health Organization takes homosexuality out of its list of mental illnesses

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May 16

1568 Mary Queen of Scotland flees to England

1815 The Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, officially names the town of Blackheath in the upper Blue Mountains.

1817 Mississippi River steamboat service begins

1881 World’s first electric tram goes into service in Lichterfelder (near Berlin)

1911 Remains of a neanderthal man found on Jersey, Channel Islands

1920 Joan of Arc (Jeanne D’arc) canonized a saint

1936 1st British air hostess (Daphne Kearley) flight to France

1947 Billie Holiday is arrested in her New York apartment for possession of narcotics

1975 Junko Tabei from Japan becomes the first woman to reach summit of Mt Everest

1991 Queen Elizabeth II becomes 1st British monarch to address US congress

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May 15

1248 Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden lays cornerstone for Cologne cathedral

1492 Cheese & Bread rebellion: German mercenaries kill 232 residents of Alkmaar, Netherlands

1536 Anne Boleyn & brother George, Lord Rochford, accused of adultery and incest

1718 James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents world’s 1st machine gun

1817 Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1918 The Finnish Civil War ends.

1928 Mickey Mouse made his 1st ever appearance in silent film “Plane Crazy”

1940 McDonald’s opens its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California.

1967 Paul McCartney meets his future wife Linda Eastman

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May 14

1643 Louis XIV becomes King of France aged 4

1787 Delegates gather in Philadelphia to draw up US constitution

1842 Illustrated London News; the world’s first illustrated weekly newspaper, begins publication

1878 Vaseline is granted a patent (U.S. Patent 127,568)

1939 Lina Medina becomes the world’s youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five.

1943 Sinking of the Australian Hospital Ship Centaur off the coast of Queensland, by a Japanese submarine.

1944 Generals Rommel, Speidel & von Stulpnagel attempt to assassinate Hitler

1968 Beatles announce formation of Apple Corp

1986 Netherlands Institute for War Documentation publishes Anne Frank’s complete diary’

2005 Pope Benedict XVI observes his first beatification, elevating Blessed Marianne of Molokai on the road to canonisation into sainthood.

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May 13
1110 Crusaders march into Beirut causing a bloodbath

1787 Arthur Phillip sets sails with 11 ships of criminals to Botany Bay, Australia

1848 First performance of Finland’s national anthem.

1940 Winston Churchill says I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears & sweat

1950 Diner’s Club issues its 1st credit cards

1958 The trade mark Velcro is registered.

1965 Rolling Stones record “Satisfaction”

1989 Approx 2,000 students begin hunger strike in Tiananmen Square, China

1995 New Zealand beats US for the America’s Cup

2014 Christopher Columbus’s flagship, the Santa María, is discovered off the northern coast of Haiti

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May 12

1215 English barons serve ultimatum on King John; leads to Magna Carta

1733 Maria Theresa crowned queen of Bohemia in Prague

1777 1st ice cream advertisement (Philip Lenzi-NY Gazette)

1789 William Wilberforce makes his first major speech on abolition in UK House of Commons, reasons the slave trade morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice

1897 1800-1900 year old fossil of “girl of Yde” found in Drente, Netherlands

1928 Second Opium Law introduced – international law to control drugs

1932 Body of kidnapped son of Charles Lindbergh is found in Hopewell, NJ

1949 1st foreign woman ambassador received in USA (Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India)

1977 1st quadrophonic concert (Pink Floyd in London)

1997 Russia & Chechnya sign peace deal after 400 years of conflict
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May 11

1189 Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa & 100,000 crusaders depart Regensburg for the Third Crusade

1812 Waltz introduced into English ballrooms. Some observers consider it disgusting and immoral.

1813 In Australia, William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth, lead an expedition westwards from Sydney. Their route opens up inland Australia for continued expansion throughout the 19th century.

1833 “Lady-of-the-Lake” strikes iceberg & sinks in N Atlantic; kills 215

1917 King George V grants Royal Letters Patent to New Zealand

1924 Mercedes-Benz is formed by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merging the two companies.

1960 The first contraceptive pill is made available on the market.

1969 Monty Python comedy troupe forms

1981 Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “Cats” (based on T. S. Eliot) premieres in London

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May 10

1503 Columbus discovers Cayman Islands

1752 Benjamin Franklin tests the lightning conductor with his his kite-flying experiment

1796 Napoleon defeats Austria in Battle of Lodi Bridge

1797 1st US Navy ship, the “United States,” is launched

1872 Victoria Woodhull becomes 1st woman nominated for US presidency by Equal Rights Party at Apollo Hall, NYC

1910 Halley’s Comet closest approach to Earth in 1910 pass

1924 J. Edgar Hoover appointed head of FBI

1940 Winston Churchill succeeds Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister

1993 Paul Cézanne still life painting sells for US$28,600,000 in NYC

1994 Nelson Mandela sworn in as South Africa’s first black president

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May 09

1386 Treaty of Windsor between Portugal and England (the oldest diplomatic alliance in the world which is still in force)

1502 Columbus left Spain on his 4th & final trip to New World

1785 British inventor Joseph Bramah patents beer-pump handle

1922 The International Astronomical Union formally adopt Annie Jump Cannon’s stellar classification system, which with only minor changes, is still used today

1927 Canberra replaces Melbourne as the capital of Australia

1932 Piccadilly Circus, London first lit by electricity

1949 Prince Rainier III becomes monarch of Monaco

1960 US becomes the first country to legalise the birth control pill

1962 The Beatles sign their 1st contract with EMI Parlophone

1988 Australia’s new parliament house is opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Canberra

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May 08

1521 Parliament of Worms installs edict against Martin Luther

1541 Hernando de Soto discovers Mississippi River

1847 Scot Robert Thompson patents rubber tyre

1886 Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta sells first Coca-Cola (contained cocaine)

1926 1st flight over North Pole (Bennett & Byrd)

1967 Muhammad Ali is indicted for refusing induction in US Army

1980 World Health Organization announced smallpox had been eradicated

1984 Thames Barrier to stop flooding in London officially completed

1984 USSR announces it will not participate in Los Angeles Summer Olympics

1988 Francois Mitterrand elected president of France

2013 Sir Alex Ferguson announces his retirement as Manchester United’s manager at the end of the season

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May 07

558 In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapses.

1660 Isaack B Fubine of Savoy, in The Hague, patents macaroni

1664 Louis XIV of France inaugurates The Palace of Versailles.

1888 George Eastman patents “Kodak box camera”

1934 World’s largest pearl (6.4 kg) found at Palawan, Philippines

1945 WWII: unconditional German surrender to the Allies signed by General Alfred Jodl at Rheims

1952 The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey Dummer

1993 South Africa agrees to multi-racial elections

1994 Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” is recovered three months after it was stolen

2007 The tomb of Herod the Great is discovered.

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May 06

1541 King Henry VIII orders bible be placed in every church in England

1682 Louis XIV of France moves his court to Versailles.

1833 John Deere makes 1st steel plough

1889 Exposition Universelle (World Fair) opens in Paris with the completed Eiffel Tower

1910 George V becomes King of the United Kingdom upon the death of his father, Edward VII.

1937 German airship Hindenburg explodes in flames at Lakehurst, NJ (36 die)

1950 Elizabeth Taylor (18) marries for the 1st time to hotel heir Conrad “Nicky” Hilton (23)

1960 English princess Margaret marries Antony Armstrong-Jones (Lord Snowdon) at Westminster Abbey

1994 Nelson Mandela and the ANC, finally confirmed winners in South Africa’s first post apartheid election

2001 During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque.

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May 05

1260 Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.

1494 On 2nd voyage to New World, Christopher Columbus sights Jamaica

1809 Mary Kies is the first woman issued a US patent (weaving straw)

1891 Music Hall (Carnegie Hall) opens in New York, Tchaikovsky is guest conductor

1925 Afrikaans is established as an official language in South Africa.

1936 Edward Ravenscroft patents screw-on bottle cap with a pour lip

1941 First modern perfume, Chanel No. 5, released.

1944 Gandhi freed from prison

1955 Indian parliament accepts Hindu divorce

2000 Conjunction of Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn & Moon

2015 Archaeornithura meemannae, the oldest known prehistoric bird, is discovered

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May 04

1839 The Cunard Steamship Company Ltd forms San Bonifacio

1896 1st edition of London Daily Mail (halfpenny)

1904 Charles Stewart Rolls meets Frederick Henry Royce at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, England and go on to form Roll-Royce

1910 Wilfrid Laurier passes the Naval Service Act, which creates the Royal Canadian Navy

1927 Nicaragua agrees to a US supervised presidential election in 1928

1932 Al Capone enters Atlanta Penitentiary convicted of income tax evasion

1942 Battle of Coral Sea begins in the Pacific (1st sea battle fought solely in air) between Japanese, US and Australian navies and air forces

1953 Pulitzer Prize for Literature awarded to Ernest Hemingway for “The Old Man & The Sea”

1972 The Don’t Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to “Greenpeace Foundation”.

1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman to be elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

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May 03

1374 BC Solar eclipse (2m07s) seen at Ugarit by Mesopotamian astromoners “On the day of the new moon, in the month of Hiyar, the Sun was put to shame, and went down in the daytime, with Mars in attendance.”

1808 Day depicted by Spanish painter Goya in his “The of 3rd of May” (painted 1814)

1837 The University of Athens is founded.

1841 New Zealand proclaimed a colony independent of New South Wales

1915 John McCrae writes the poem “In Flanders Fields”

1948 1st broadcast of “CBS Evening News” – longest running network news show in the US

1952 1st landing by an airplane at geographic North Pole

1956 A new range of mountains discovered in Antarctica (2 over 13,000′)

1960 The Anne Frank House opens in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

2000 The sport of geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS posted on Usenet.

2013 Aorun zhaoi, a Theropod dinosaur, dating from 161 million years ago, is discovered in China

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May 02
1497 John Cabot’s expedition departs Bristol searching for new lands across the Atlantic

1536 Anne Boleyn is arrested and taken to the Tower of London

1780 William Herschel discovers 1st binary star, Xi Ursae Majoris

1885 “Good Housekeeping” magazine is 1st published

1905 French newspapers publish lists of Jules Vernes unpublished work

1929 Billie Holiday (14) and her mother are arrested for prostitution following a raid of a brothel in Harlem

1946 The “Battle of Alcatraz” takes place, killing two guards and three inmates

1955 Pulitzer prize awarded Tennessee Williams for (Cat on Hot Tin Roof)

1969 British liner Queen Elizabeth II leaves on maiden voyage to NY

2011 Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI’s most wanted man is killed by United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

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May 01

1682 Louis XIV & his court inaugurate Paris Observatory

1753 Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

1786 Mozart’s opera “Marriage of Figaro” premieres in Wien (Vienna)

1840 “Penny Blacks”, first adhesive postage stamps issued by Great Britain

1851 Great Exhibition opens in the Crystal Palace, London

1869 Folies Bergère opens in Paris

1912 Beverly Hills Hotel opens

1961 Pulitzer prize awarded to Harper Lee for her novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”

1966 Last British concert by Beatles (Empire Pool in Wembley)

1997 Tony Blair elected Prime Minister of UK

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