May 1st

May 1, 1707 – Great Britain was formed from a union between England and Scotland. The union included Wales which had already been part of England since the 1500’s. The United Kingdom today consists of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

May 1, 1753 – Carl Linnaeus published “Species Plantarum”. The formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature

May 1, 1786 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera “Marriage of Figaro” premiered in Vienna with Mozart himself directing

May 1, 1886 – Thousands of workers walked off the job across the US. The U.S. workers began a nationwide strike to demand a standard 8-hour workday vs a 10–16 hour days

May 1, 1840 – The “Penny Black” was the world’s first adhesive postage stamp issued by Great Britain

May 1,1873 – David Livingstone (Scottish missionary, explorer) passed away

May 1,1883 – Buffalo Bill Cody performed his first Wild West Show.

May 1, 1924 – German automobile manufacturers Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie began their first joint venture (later merge into Mercedes-Benz)

May 1,1925 – The world’s largest trade union was founded. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions has a total of 134 million members.

May 1,1930 – The planet Pluto was officially named. It was discovery by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. It was suggested by 11-year-old Venetia Burney of Oxford, England, who proposed it to her grandfather because the dark, cold planet reminded her of the Roman god of the underworld.

May 1,1931 – The Empire State Building was dedicated in New York City.

May 1, 1939 – Batman first appears in Detective Comics #27

May 1,1941 – Cheerios was first shipped to test markets. It was called “Cheerioats” for its first four years.

May 1, 1941 – The film Citizen Kane premiered at the Palace Theater in New York City. It was directed by Orson Welles and starring himself, Joseph Cotten and Dorothy Corningore

May 1,1945 – Adolf Hitler’s death was announced on German radio. As the Soviet flag is raised over the Reich Chancellery, the German people were informed that “our leader, Adolf Hitler, has fallen for Germany, fighting to his last breath against Bolshevism.”

May 1, 1960 – Charles Holden (English architect, designed the Bristol Central Library) passed away

May 1, 1967 —Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu were married at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas.

May 1,1978 – Naomi Uemura became of the first person to reach the North Pole alone.

May 1, 1989 – Pleasure Island in Walt Disney World’s Downtown Disney opened. It was dedicated to adult nightlife and famous for their New Years Eve celebration. The clubs closed in September 2008, and the area was later redeveloped into the Disney Springs shopping and dining complex

May 1, 2004 – Eight former Communist nations and two Mediterranean countries joined the European Union (EU) marking its largest-ever expansion. The new members included Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, along with the island of Malta and the Greek portion of the island of Cyprus. They joined 15 countries already in the EU, representing in all 450 million persons.

                                           April 2nd

May 2, 1519 – Leonardo da Vinci (Italian painter, sculptor, architect) passed away

May 2, 1885 – Good Housekeeping magazine went on sale for the first time. It was founded by Clark W. Bryan in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

May 2, 1933 – The first sighting Loch Ness monster near Drumnadrochit, Scotland was published in the Inverness Courier

May 2, 1949 – Arthur Miller won a Pulitzer Prize for his play “Death of a Salesman”

May 2, 1952 – The jet age began with the first scheduled flight of the De Havilland Comet 1. Precisely one year after the maiden flight from London to Johannesburg, a Comet 1 crashed due to structural problems, killing 43 people. A series of similar accidents soon led to the grounding of the entire Comet fleet.

May 2, 1953 – King Hussein of Jordan was crowned. King Hussein reigned for nearly 47 years.

May 2, 1972 – J. Edgar Hoover (American 1st Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation) passed away

May 2, 1997 – Tony Blair became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

May 2, 1998 – The Battle of Hogwarts happened. The fictional battle that ended the Second Wizarding War with the death of Lord Voldemort at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

May 2, 2008 – The movie Iron Man was released into theatres. This was the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe released. It was directed by Jon Favreau

May 2, 2011 – U.S. Special Operations Forces killed Osama bin Laden during a raid on his secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

                                          May 3rd

May 3, 1802 – Washington, D.C. was incorporated as a city

May 3, 1856 – The judo World Championships were first held.

May 3, 1913 – The first Indian full-length feature film premiered.

May 3, 1926 – Britain’s Trade Union Congress called for the country’s first ever general strike, begins at 1 minute to midnight in support of striking coal miners and lasts 9 days

May 3, 1931 – Pluto made his debut in the Mickey Mouse cartoon The Moose Hunt.

May 3, 1937 – Gone with the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

May 3, 1958 – Truman Capote’s book “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was published.

May 3, 1978 – The Digital Equipment Corporation sent the world’s first spam email.

May 3, 1999 – A tornado produced the highest wind speeds ever recorded. The F5 tornado hitting parts of Oklahoma City caused the record wind speed of about 301 mph (484 km/h). 45 people were killed, 665 injured.

                                         May 4th

May 4, 1494 – Christopher Columbus landed in Jamaica.

May 4, 1675 – King Charles II of England commissioned the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. The observatory was built on the prime meridian. The mean solar time at this location is the basis for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

May 4, 1886 – The Haymarket Square Riot occurred in Chicago after 180 police officers advanced on 1,300 persons gathered in the square listening to speeches of labor activists and anarchists

May 4, 1893 – Cowboy Bill Pickett invented bulldogging. the skill of grabbing cattle by the horns and wrestling them to the ground

May 4, 1904 – Construction began by the United States on the Panama Canal.

May 4, 1953 – Ernest Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1952 novella The Old Man and the Sea.

May 4, 1959 – Presented by The Recording Academy, The first Grammy Awards ceremonies took place in Los Angeles and New York City.

May 4, 1979 – Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

May 4, 1979 – Star Wars day: It originated from a 1979 newspaper advertisement congratulating Margaret Thatcher on becoming UK Prime Minister, stating: “May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie”. In 2011 The first organized Star Wars Day event was held in Toronto, Canada.

May 4, 2008 – Seth MacFarlane reached an agreement worth $100 million with Fox to keep “Family Guy” and “American Dad” on television until 2012.It made MacFarlane the world’s highest paid television writer

                                            May 5th

May 5th – Celebrated in Mexico as Cinco de Mayo, a national holiday in remembrance of the Battle of Puebla in 1862, in which Mexican troops under General Ignacio Zaragoza, outnumbered three to one, defeated the invading French forces of Napoleon III.

May 5, 1260 – Kublai Khan( grandson of Genghis Khan ) became ruler of the Mongol Empire.

May 5, 1821 – Napoleon (Corsican/French military officer, political leader) passed away

May 5, 1865 – Decoration Day was first observed in the U.S., with the tradition of decorating soldiers’ graves from the Civil War with flowers. The observance date was later moved to May 30th and included American graves from World War I and World War II, and became better known as Memorial Day. In 1971, Congress moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May, thus creating a three-day holiday weekend.

May 5, 1893 – The Wall Street Crash of 1893 began as stock prices fell dramatically. By the end of the year, 600 banks closed and several big railroads were in receivership. Another 15,000 businesses went bankrupt amid 20 percent unemployment. It was the worst economic crisis in U.S. history up to that time.

May 5, 1904 – Cy Young of the Boston Americans threw the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball.

May 5, 1921 – Perfume Chanel No. 5 was released by fashion designer Coco Chanel

May 5, 1934 – The first “Three Stooges” film Soup and nuts was released by the Fox Film Corporation.

May 5, 1944 – After serving two years of his sentence for the non-cooperation movement, Mahatma Gandhi was released from Yerwada prison in Pune due to serious illness.

May 5, 1949 – The Council of Europe is founded.The organization was established to foster peace and prevent future conflicts through cooperation following World War II. Founding members included Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

May 5, 1961 – Alan Shepard became the first American in space. He piloted the spacecraft Freedom 7 during a 15-minute 28-second suborbital flight that reached an altitude of 116 miles (186 kilometers) above the earth.

                                              May 6th

May 6, 1626 – Dutch colonist Peter Minuit organized the purchase of Manhattan Island from Native Americans for 60 guilders worth of goods. It was believed to have been Canarsee Indians of the Lenape.

May 6, 1816 – The American Bible Society is founded. It was led by Elias Boudinot and John Jay. In its first four years, the ABS distributed 100,000 Bibles, and by the early 1830s, it was producing over a million copies

May 6, 1859 – Alexander von Humboldt (German geographer, explorer) passed away

May 6, 1862 – Henry David Thoreau (American writer, philosopher) passed away

May 6, 1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public.

May 6, 1919 – L. Frank Baum (American author) passed away

May 6, 1937 – The German airship Hindenburg burst into flames at 7:20 p.m. as it neared the mooring mast at Lakehurst, New Jersey, following a trans-Atlantic voyage.
Thirty six of the 97 passengers and crew were killed. The inferno was caught on film and also witnessed by a commentator who broke down amid the emotional impact and exclaimed, “Oh, the humanity!” The accident effectively ended commercial airship traffic.

May 6, 1940 – John Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the novel The Grapes of Wrath.

May 6, 1941 – Joseph Stalin became Premier of the Soviet Union, replacing his foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov

May 6, 1952 – Maria Montessori (Italian physician, educator) passed away

May 6, 1954 – Roger Bannister was the first to run the mile in under four minutes.

May 6, 1994 – The Channel Tunnel linking the United Kingdom with France opened.

May 6, 2004 – The last episode of the TV show “Friends” aired on NBC.

                                      May 7th

May 7, 973 – Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor passed away from a high fever.

May 7, 1429 – English siege of Orleans was broken by Joan of Arc and the French army

May 7, 1825 – Antonio Salieri (Italian composer) passed away

May 7, 1846 – First printed copies of “Poems” by Emily, Charlotte and Anne Brontë were received. They were published under pseudonym of Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell (2 copies sold)

May 7, 1847 – The American Medical Association (AMA) was founded in Philadelphia by Dr. Nathan Smith Davis.

May 7, 1867 – Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel patented dynamite in England. The first of three patents he would receive for the explosive material

May 7, 1895 – Alexander Popov demonstrated the world’s first radio receiver. The Russian physicist had initially built the device as a lightning detector. He achieved the first radio transmission between two buildings the following year.

May 7, 1915 – The British passenger ship Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland. There was 1,198 of its 1,924 passengers, including 114 Americans lost. The attack hastened neutral America’s entry into World War I.

May 7, 1945 – General Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender of all German fighting forces thus ending World War II in Europe. Officially surrendering for WWII in a small red brick schoolhouse in Reims, Germany,

May 7, 1946 – Sony was founded by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita. The company started as Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering.

May 7, 1952 – The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey Dummer

May 7, 1992 – The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, prohibiting Congress from giving itself pay raises.

May 7, 1998 – Apple Computer unveils the iMac. Designed by Jony Ive, the iMac G3 featured a distinctive, curvy, translucent, and brightly colored plastic casing. Jobs emphasized the “i” stood for Internet, as well as personal, informative, and other meanings.

May 7, 2000 – Vladimir Putin became President of Russia.

                                       May 8th

May 8, 1541 – Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River, which is present day Memphis.

May 8, 1660 – English Parliament proclaims Charles II, King of England and invites him to return

May 8, 1835 – First installment of Hans Christian Andersen “Fairy Tales” was published by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, Denmark

May 8, 1886 – Coca-Cola was invented by a pharmacist Dr. John Stith Pemberton. It was a medicinal tonic and temperance drink to cure ailments like headaches, indigestion, and nerve disorders. It was marketed as a “brain tonic” to relieve exhaustion and, notably, as a cure for morphine addiction.

May 8, 1927 – The White Bird and its crew mysteriously disappeared. French aviators, Charles Nungesser and François Coli, had taken off from Paris in their Levasseur PL.8 biplane in an attempt to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight. Their disappearance remains a mystery. Charles Lindbergh succeeded two weeks later.

May 8, 1941 – Paramount Pictures was formed by W.W. Hodkinson in Hollywood California. The iconic mountain and stars logo was designed by Hodkinson, inspired by a mountain from his Utah childhood.

May 8, 1945 – V-E(Victory in Europe Day) Day.Following Hitler’s suicide, General Alfred Jodl signed the surrender at Reims on May 7, with a final ratification in Berlin on May 8. Thousands of people took to the streets in cities around the world to celebrate news of Germany’s surrender and the end of World War II in Europe.

May 8, 1970 – The Beatles released the album “Let It Be”. The recording was the last studio album ever released by the legendary English rock band.

May 8, 1978 – Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler climbed Mount Everest without oxygen supply.

May 8, 1980 – World Health Organization announced smallpox has been eradicated

May 8, 1984 – Moscow announced that the USSR will not take part in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Several other countries, such as Cuba, Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Eastern Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Vietnam joined the boycott. Four years earlier, the United States had not sent any athletes to the Summer Olympics in Moscow.

May 8, 1993 – 16-year-old Keron Thomas disguised himself as a motorman and took a NYC subway train and 2,000 passengers on a 3 hour ride

                                            May 9th

May 9, 1429 – Joan of Arc defeatd the English troops besieging Orleans.

May 9, 1502 – Christopher Columbus left Spain for his fourth and final journey to the New World.

May 9, 1901 – Australia opened its first parliament in Melbourne.

May 9, 1914 -US President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Mother’s Day a national observance to be held each year on the 2nd Sunday of May

May 9, 1960 – The first oral birth control pill was approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

May 9, 1997 – Pete Peterson became the first U.S. ambassador to visit Vietnam after the end of the war.

May 9, 2012 – Mark Rothko’s “Orange, Red, Yellow” became the most expensive contemporary art piece to be sold at auction for $86.9 million dollars

                                            May 10th

May 10, 1774 – Louis XV of France passed away frpm smallpox.he was succeeded by his grandson, Louis XVI

May 10, 1775 – Second Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and issues paper currency for 1st time

May 10, 1818 – Paul Revere (American military officer) passed away

May 10, 1863 – Stonewall Jackson (American general)passed away

May 10, 1869 – The newly constructed tracks of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railways were first linked at Promontory Point, Utah. A golden spike was driven by Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific, to celebrate the linkage. It is said that he missed the spike on his first swing which brought roars of laughter from men who had driven thousands upon thousands of spikes themselves.

May 10, 1872 – Victoria Woodhull was the first woman nominated for President of the US

May 10, 1908 – Mother’s Day was observed for the first time. Anna Jarvis held a service at Andrew’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia, to honor her deceased mother.The white carnation, the favorite flower of Jarvis’s mother, became the symbol for the day. In 1912 many states had adopted the holiday, but it became a national holiday in the U.S. in 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson to signed a measure.

May 10, 1924 – J. Edgar Hoover became Director of the FBI.

May 10, 1929 – Disney’s The Skeleton Dance, the first Silly Symphony cartoon, was released.

May 10, 1933 – Nazis ceremonially burn about 25,000 allegedly “un-German” books. The book burnings were part of the right-wing German Student Union’s Action against the Un-German Spirit.

May 10, 1954 – Bill Haley released “Rock Around the Clock”. It was the first rock song to top the Billboard charts and has become a classic of the early rock era.

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May 11th

May 11, 868 – The earliest surviving dated printed book is produced in China. The “Diamond Sutra” is one of the most important texts in Mahayana Buddhism. The British Library in London presently houses the copy.

May 11, 1751 – Pennsylvania Hospital was founded by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia

May 11, 1893 – Henri Desgrange established world’s 1st bicycle world record, travelling 35.325 km (21.95 miles) an hour

May 11, 1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded in Los Angeles, California.The Academy aimed to unite the five branches of filmmaking: actors, directors, writers, technicians, and producers.

May 11, 1949 – Israel joined the United Nations.

May 11, 1969 – British comedy troupe Monty Python was formed. It was made up of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin

May 11, 1981 – Bob Marley (Jamaican/American singer-songwriter, guitarist) passed away

May 11, 1981 – The musical “Cats” premiered in London’s West End in the New London Theatre.

May 11, 1997 – IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer defeated Garry Kasparov in chess, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player.

May 11, 2000 -India’s population officially reached 1 billion – Astha Arora named India’s billionth baby

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May 12th

May 12, 1860 – Charles Barry (English architect, designed the Upper Brook Street Chapel, Halifax Town Hall) passed away

May 12, 1864 – J.E.B. Stuart (American army officer) passed away

May 12, 1937 – George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London, following the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII. King George reigned until his death in 1952. He was succeeded by his daughter Elizabeth, the current reigning monarch.

May 12, 1941 – The world’s first programmable, fully automatic computer was presented. The Z3 was designed by German inventor, Konrad Zuse. The original machine was destroyed in an air raid. A replica can be seen at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

May 12, 1949 – Soviet Russia lifted its blockade of Berlin. The blockade began on June 24, 1948 and resulted in the Berlin airlift. For 462 days – from June 26, 1948, until September 30, 1949,

May 12, 1965 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashed on the Moon. It was intended to become the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, however its retrorockets failed, and the spacecraft impacted the lunar surface.

May 12, 1970 – Ernie Banks became the ninth member of the 500 home run club

May 12, 2002 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro. He became the first President of the United States to visit the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.

May 12, 2008 – A massive 7.9 earthquake rocks China.The disaster caused roughly 70,000 to over 88,000 deaths, displaced millions, and left an estimated $86 billion in damage, destroying roughly 5 million buildings

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May 13th

May 13, 1767 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s first opera Apollo et Hyacinthus was premiered in Salzburg. He was 11 years old.

May 13, 1830 – Ecuador gained its independence from Spain.

May 13, 1832 – Georges Cuvier (French biologist) passed away

May 13, 1846 – At the request of President James K. Polk, Congress declared war on Mexico. The controversial struggle eventually cost the lives of 11,300 U.S. soldiers and resulted in the annexation of lands that became parts of Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah and Colorado. The war ended in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

May 13, 1909 – The Giro d’Italia cycle race was held for the first time. The Giro is considered one of the world’s most important cycle races. Luigi Ganna won the first edition, which went from Milan to Naples and back.

May 13, 1950 – First Formula One Grand Prix race was held at the Silverstone Circuit in the United Kingdom

May 13, 1975 – Bob Wills (American singer-songwriter)passed away

May 13, 1976 – The ABA (American Basketball Association)played it’s final basketball game.The game was held at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.

May 13, 1981 – Pope John Paul II was shot twice at close range while riding in an open automobile in St. Peter’s Square in Rome.

May 13, 1992: Fantasmic! The night time spectacular show debuted at Disneyland Park.

May 13, 2004 The final episode of “Frasier” on NBC was watched by 33 million people

May 13, 2005 – The final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise aired on UPN.

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May 14th

May 14, 1607 – The first permanent English settlement in America established at Jamestown, Virginia. It was by a group of royally chartered Virginia Company settlers from Plymouth, England.

May 14, 1804 – Meriwether Lewis and William Clark departed St. Louis on their expedition to explore the Northwest. They arrived at the Pacific coast of Oregon in November of 1805 and returned to St. Louis in September of 1806, completing a journey of about 6,000 miles.

May 14, 1796 – The smallpox vaccine was developed by Dr. Edward Jenner

May 14, 1948 – Israel declared to be an independent state in Tel Aviv by David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency.

May 14, 1955 – Eight communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

May 14, 1973 – Skylab, the United States’ first space station was launched.

May 14, 1987 – Rita Hayworth (American actress, dancer) passed away

May 14, 1998 – The last episode of Seinfeld airs on NBC

May 14, 1998 – Frank Sinatra (American singer, actor) passed away

May 14, 2015 – B.B. King (American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer) passed away

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May 15th

May 15, 1618 – German astronomer Johannes Kepler discovered the third of his three planetary laws, the “harmonic law”

May 15, 1718 – The world’s first machine gun was patented. British lawyer, James Puckle, invented the 25.4 mm caliber “Puckle Gun” for the use on ships.

May 15, 1756 – England declared war on France, which started the Seven Years’ War.

May 15, 1841 – First emigrant wagon train to make it to California leaves Independence, Missouri on a 1,730 mile journey over the Sierra Nevada

May 15, 1869 – National Woman Suffrage Association formed in New York, founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

May 15, 1886 – Emily Dickinson (American poet)passed away

May 15, 1928 – Mickey and Minnie Mouse made their public debut in the animated short called Steamboat Willie

May 15, 1930 – The first airline stewardess goes on duty. Ellen Church and her team served snacks on a United Airlines flight from Oakland to Chicago. The flight attendants were also responsible for refueling the aircraft, handling luggage, and checking tickets.

May 15, 1940 – The first McDonald’s opened in San Bernardino, California.

May 15, 1941 – Baseball player Joe DiMaggio started his record-breaking 56-game hitting streak.

May 15, 1951 – AT&T became the first US corporation to have a million stockholders after young car salesman Brady Denton purchases 7 shares worth $1,078

May 15, 1972 – George Wallace was shot while campaigning for the presidency in Laurel, Maryland. As a result, Wallace was permanently paralyzed from the waist down.

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May 16th

May 16, 1220 – English King Henry III laid the foundation stone for a new Lady Chapel, start of the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, in London

May 16, 1568 – Defeated at the Battle of Langside, Mary Queen of Scots fled to England in the hope Elizabeth I will help her regain her throne. However, she detained her at Carlisle Castle

May 16, 1770 – Marie Antoinette married future King Louis XVI of France. Marie and Louie first meeting was two days prior at the edge of the Forest of Compiègne.

May 16, 1866 – A Philadelphia pharmacist,Charles Elmer Hires invented The drink root beer. He originally wanted to call his concoction “root tea” to promote sobriety. He rebranded it to “root beer” to appeal to working-class consumers.The beverage was initially sold as a powder, then as a liquid extract and syrup for soda fountains

May 16, 1866 – The five cent piece, or nickel, was introduced. It replaced the silver half-dime and address coin shortages after the Civil War.

May 16, 1919 – Albert Cushing Read took off on the first transatlantic flight in history. The crossing from New York State, USA, to Lisbon, Portugal on a Curtiss NC-4 flying boat took 19 days.

May 16, 1920 – French heroine Joan of Arc was canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XV

May 16, 1929 – The first Academy Awards cermony was held in Hollywood, California.

May 16, 1960 – Theodore Maiman fired the first functional laser. The American physicist’s invention, an advancement of earlier research by scientists in the U.S. and the Soviet Union, was patented in 1967.

May 16, 1975 – Junko Tabei became the first woman to conquer Mount Everest. The ascent by the Japanese adventurer came 22 years after Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first to reach the summit.

May 16, 1986 -The movie premiered “Top Gun” in New York City. It was directed by Tony Scott

May 16, 1990 – Sammy Davis, Jr. (American actor, singer, dancer) passed away

May 16, 1990 – Jim Henson (American puppeteer, director, producer, founded The Company) passed away

May 16, 2002 – Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones opened in theatres in Los Angles and London

May 16, 2013 – Human stem cells are successfully cloned by Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) researchers, led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov.

May 16, 2019 – Last episode of TV sitcom “The Big Bang” airs on NBC

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May 17th

May 17, 1792 – Two dozen merchants and brokers established the New York Stock Exchange. In good weather they operated under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street. In bad weather they moved inside to a coffeehouse to conduct business.

May 17, 1846 – Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in rue Neuve-Saint-Georges, Paris

May 17, 1861 The first color photograph of a tartan ribbon is shown by Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell to the Royal Institution in London

May 17, 1875 – The first Kentucky Derby horse race took place at Churchill Downs in Louisville,Kentucky.

May 17, 1954 – In Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregation of public schools “solely on the basis of race” denies black children “equal educational opportunity” even though “physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors may have been equal. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Thurgood Marshall had argued the case before the Court. He went to become the first African American appointed to the Supreme Court.

May 17, 1990 – The World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental diseases. Precisely 14 years later, the first same-sex marriages in the United States were performed as Massachusetts became the first state to legalize them.

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May 18th

May 18, 1152 – Eleanor of Aquitaine married Henri of Anjou In doing so, it handed the future King Henry II of England most of France, allowing future kings of England to claim France for centuries thereafter

May 18, 1291 – After 100 years of Crusader control, the last Crusader stronghold of Acre is reconquered and destroyed by the Mamluks under Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil

May 18, 1804 – Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor of France, snatching the crown from the hands of Pope Pius VII during the actual coronation ceremony, and then crowning himself.

May 18, 1910 – The Earth passes through the tail of Comet Halley.

May 18, 1980 – Mount St. Helens volcano erupted in southwestern Washington State spewing steam and ash over 11 miles into the sky. This was the first major eruption since 1857.

May 18, 1999 “Millennium” 3rd studio album by the Backstreet Boys was released – It is one of the best-selling albums of all time, over 30 million copies sold

May 18, 1998 – In one of the biggest antitrust lawsuits of the 20th century, American software giant Microsoft Corporation was sued by the U.S. Federal government and 20 state governments charging the company with using unfair tactics to crush competition and restrict choices for consumers. The lawsuits alleged Microsoft used illegal practices to deny personal computer owners the benefits of a free and competitive market and also alleged Microsoft extended its monopoly on operating systems to “develop a chokehold” on the Internet browser software market.

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May 19th

May 19, 1536 – Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, was beheaded for adultery.

May 19, 1643 – Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Harbor were formed as the United Colonies of New England

May 19, 1743 – Jean-Pierre Christin invented the Celsius thermometer.

May 19, 1780 – New England’s Dark Day : Unexplained darkness descended over Eastern Canada and the New England region. Starting at the hours of 10 and 11 a.m. and continued till the middle of the next night.

May 19, 1898 – William Ewart Gladstone (English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) passed away

May 19, 1919 – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk set off the Turkish War of Independence. The fight against the allies of the Triple Entente ended some four years later. The Republic of Turkey was founded, and Atatürk became its first President.

May 19, 1959 – The North Vietnamese Army began organizing the Ho Chi Minh trail.

May 19, 1962 – Marilyn Monroe performed her famous rendition of Happy Birthday. Monroe gave her sultry performance, which was to be her last, at a party for U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The two are believed to have been engaged in an affair.

May 19, 1963 – Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail were published. King used the open letter to defend his nonviolent resistance against racism and segregation. It became one of the central texts for the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

May 19, 1994 – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (American book editor, 37th First Lady of the United States) passed away

May 19, 1995 – World’s youngest doctor, Balamurali Ambati, 17, graduateed from Mount Sinai

May 19, 1999 – Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was released into theatres

May 19, 2005 – Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was released into theatres

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May 20th

May 20, 325 A.D. – The Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council of Catholic Church was called by Constantine I, first Christian Emperor of the Roman Empire. With nearly 300 bishops in attendance at Nicaea in Asia Minor, the council condemned Arianism which denied Christ’s divinity, formulated the Nicene Creed and fixed the date of Easter.

May 20, 1506 – Christopher Columbus (Italian explorer, discovered the Americas) passed away

May 20, 1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issued the first modern atlas.

May 20, 1609 – William Shakespeare’s Sonnets were first published in London by publisher Thomas Thorpe

May 20, 1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act opening millions of acres of government owned land in the West to “homesteaders” who could acquire up to 160 acres by living on the land and cultivating it for five years, paying just $1.25 per acre.

May 20, 1873 – The patent for blue jeans with copper rivets were issued to Levi Strauss.

May 20, 1891 – The 1st public display of Thomas Edison’s prototype kinetoscope were to members of the National Federation of Women’s Club

May 20, 1896 -The six ton chandelier of the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris fell on the crowd resulting in the death of one and the injury of many others.This tragedy occurred when a short circuit caused the mechanism holding the chandelier to break. Gaston Leroux, the author of The Phantom of the Opera, utilized this event as inspiration for his 1911 novel.

May 20, 1902 – Cuba gained independence from the United States

May 20, 1927 – Charles Lindbergh, a 25-year-old aviator, took off at 7:52 a.m. from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, in the Spirit of St. Louis attempting to win a $25,000 prize for the first solo nonstop flight between New York City and Paris. Thirty-three hours later, after a 3,600 mile journey, he landed at Le Bourget, Paris, earning the nickname “Lucky Lindy” and becoming an instant worldwide hero.

May 20, 1932 – Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She departed Newfoundland, Canada, at 7 p.m. and landed near Londonderry, Ireland, completing a 2,026-mile flight in about 13 hours. Five years later, along with her navigator Fred Noonan, she disappeared while trying to fly her twin-engine plane around the equator.

May 20, 1940 – The first prisoners arrive at Auschwitz concentration camp.

May 20, 1990 – The Hubble Space Telescope sent its 1st photographs from space

May 20, 1993 – The last episode of “Cheers” aird on NBC

May 20, 2006 – The Three Gorges Dam was officially opened. The hydroelectric dam is the world’s largest power station in terms of installed capacity.

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May 21st

May 21, 1771 – Christopher Smart (English actor, playwright, poet) passed away

May 21, 1881 – The American Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton. The organization today provides volunteer disaster relief in the U.S. and abroad. Community services include collecting and distributing donated blood, and teaching health and safety classes.

May 21, 1832 – The first US Democratic National Convention, was held in Baltimore

May 21, 1904 – The FIFA, the world governing body of association football, was founded.

May 21, 1927 – Charles Lindbergh completed his first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

May 21, 1935 – Jane Addams (American social worker, Nobel Prize laureate) passed away

May 21, 1980 – Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back opend in theaters.

May 21, 1991 – Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in the midst of a re-election campaign, killed by a bomb hidden in a bouquet of flowers

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May 22nd

May 22, 337 – Constantine the Great (Roman emperor) passed away

May 22, 1885 – Victor Hugo (French author, poet, playwright) passed away

May 22, 1908 – The Wright Brothers patented their ” flying machine”.The Wrights’ invention was a three‑axis control system that allowed a fixed‑wing aircraft to be stabilized and maneuvered in all directions.

May 22, 1947 – Congress approved the Truman Doctrine, which was assuring U.S. support for Greece and Turkey to prevent the spread of Communism.

May 22, 1960 – The strongest earthquake ever recorded hit Chile with the magnitude of 9.5

May 22, 1972 – President Richard Nixon became the first American president to visit Moscow. Four days later, Nixon and Soviet Russia’s leader Leonid Brezhnev signed a pact pledging to freeze nuclear arsenals at current levels.

May 22, 1980 – The arcade game Pac-Man was released in Japan. In October the same year, it was released in the U.S

May 22, 1992 – Johnny Carson hosted “The Tonight Show” for the last time on NBC

May 22, 2010 – Air India Express Flight 812 overshot the runway on landing at Mangalore International Airport. It fell over a cliff and burst into flames. The 737 is the world’s most widely flown aircraft. It is known for the worst air crash involving a Boeing 737 kills 158.

May 22, 2012 – The world’s tallest tower was opened to the public. At 643 meters (2080 feet), the Tokyo Skytree in Japan’s capital city is also the second tallest structure in the world after Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Its prime purpose is relaying TV and radio signals.

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May 23rd

May 23, 1533 – Againsr the Pope’s wishes, King Henry VIII of England & Catherine of Aragon’s marriage was declared null & void by authority English clergy.

May 23, 1785 – Benjamin Franklin announced his invention of bifocals

May 23, 1873 – Canada’s North West Mounted Police Force formed. It was formed with a “Royal” title in 1904.

May 23, 1929 – The first talking cartoon of Mickey Mouse was released.

May 23, 1934 – American outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were killed by police in an ambush near Sailes, Louisiana.The officers fired about 130 rounds overall, emptying their guns.The ambush showed 112 bullet holes in the vehicle, of which around thirty struck the couple. The car they died in can be viewed at the Primm Valley Resort in Primm, Nevada.

May 23, 1949 – The Federal Republic of Germany was established.

May 23, 1937 – John D. Rockefeller (American businessman, philanthropist, founded the Standard Oil Company) passed away

May 23, 1969 – Rock band “The Who” released the song Tommy. It was the first rock opera.

May 23, 1992 – The Italian mafia murdered Giovanni Falcone. Falcone was a judge that was the mafia’s most prominent adversary. After falling victim to a car bomb Falcone became a folk hero in Italy.

May 23, 1995 – Official announcement of the Java programming language was made.

May 23, 1995 – Harold Wilson (English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) passed away.

May 23, 1998 – The Good Friday Agreement was accepted in a referendum in Northern Ireland. It had 75% voting yes.

May 23, 2016 – Chinese archaeologists announced findings of the earliest use of barley in China to make beer, Shaanxi province 3400-2900 BC.

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May 24th

May 24, 1430 – Joan of Arc was captured by the forces of the Duke of Burgundy.

May 24, 1595 – Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appeared. It was the first printed catalog of an institutional library.

May 24, 1738 – John Wesley was converted, which launched the Methodist movement. The celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day

May 24, 1787 – The Constitutional Convention began in Philadelphia with delegates from seven states forming a quorum.

May 24, 1830 – The American writer Sarah Josepha Hale through the Boston publishing firm Marsh, Capen & Lyon published The poem “Mary had a little lamb”.

May 24, 1844 – Telegraph inventor Samuel Morse ( the creator of morse code ) sent the first official telegraph message, “What hath God wrought?” from the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., to Baltimore.

May 24, 1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York was opened to the public.

May 24, 1970 – Engineers began drilling the world’s deepest hole. The Kola Superdeep Borehole had reached the unsurpassed depth of 12,262 meters (40,230 feett) before the project was abandoned due to lack of funding.

May 24, 1974 – Duke Ellington (American pianist, composer, bandleader) passed away

May 24, 1978 – American management consultant Marilyn Loden first coind the term “glass ceiling” to describe invisible career barriers for women.

May 24, 1988 – Section 28 passed as law by Parliament in the United Kingdom prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality. Repealed 2001/2004
1895 Henry Irving becomes the first actor to receive a knighthood

May 24, 2001 – 15-year-old Temba Tsheri was the youngest person to climb to the top of Mount Everest.

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May 25th

May 25, 1553 – Lady Jane Grey married Lord Guildford Dudley in a triple wedding at Durham House, London. Just 46 days before she became queen.

May 25, 1934 – Gustav Holst (English composer) passed away

May 25, 1935 – Jesse Owens set or tied four track and field world records in a span of 45 minutes.

May 25, 1935 – Babe Ruth hit his 714th home run.

May 25, 1961 – As part of the Space Race, President John F. Kennedy stated that the USA will put a man on the moon and bring him back to earth safely, by the end of the decade.

May 25, 1977 – The movie Star Wars was released into theatres.

May 25, 1986 – The massive public fundraising event Hands Across America took place. The goal was to create a continuous human chain stretching from Long Beach, California to Battery Park, New York, symbolizing unity and solidarity against hunger and homelessness in the United States.
While approximately 5 million people participated, the chain was broken in many places, particularly in the Southwestern desert. The total number of participants came close to the estimated total that would have been needed for a single unbroken chain across the country, with estimates of both ranging from 5.4 to 5.7 million. However, many of these participants were in crowds in major cities, where there were often multiple parallel chains, while more remote areas had few or no people present.

May 25, 1994 – After 20 years in exile, Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn returned to his homeland. He had been expelled from Soviet Russia in 1974 after his three-volume work exposing the Soviet prison camp system, The Gulag Archipelago, was published in the West.

May 25, 2001 – 32-year-old Erik Weihenmayer from Boulder Colorado, became the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest

May 25, 2020 – George Floyd, an African American man, died during an arrest by Minneapolis. Police officers, including Derek Chauvin, who knelt on his neck for over nine minutes, despite Floyd’s repeated pleas that he could not breathe. The fatal encounter was captured on a bystander’s video and led to widespread protests against racial injustice and police brutality.

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May 26th

May 26, 1868 – The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ended with Johnson being found not guilty by one vote.

May 26, 1889 –The first Eiffel Tower elevator was opened to the public.

May 26, 1896 – Charles Dow published the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

May 26, 1897 -“Dracula” by Irish author Bram Stoker was published by Archibald Constable and Company in London

May 26, 1908 – Engineers made the first major oil find in Masjed Soleyman. Which was in southwest Persia, and is present day Iran

May 26, 1923 – The 24 Hours of Le Mans was held for the first time. Only three competitors completed the race in 1923. The winners were André Lagarde and Albert Leonard of France, who covered 2210 kilometers in 24 hours.

May 26, 1927 – Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company produced the last (15th millionth) Model T Ford / Tin Lizzie

May 26, 1970 – The Tupolev Tu-144 became the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2. The Russian plane, sometimes nicknamed Concordski, first took to the skies in 1968, two months before the Concorde.

May 26, 1972 – The United States and the Soviet Union signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

May 26, 2004 The United States Army veteran Terry Nichols was found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the Oklahoma City bombing.

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May 27th

May 27, 1199 – John was crowned King of England after the death of his brother Richard I

May 27, 1703 – Tsar Peter the Great founded the city of Saint Petersburg.

May 27, 1851 – The world’s first chess tournament was held in London. Adolf Anderssen, a maths teacher from Wrocław won the tournament. It was held parallel to the 1851 Great Exhibition.

May 27, 1905 – Japanese fleet destroyed the Russian East Sea fleet in the Battle of Tsushima. It was the only decisive clash between modern steel battleships in history

May 27, 1930 – The Chrysler Building in New York (tallest man-made structure at the time) opened to the public.

May 27, 1933 – The cartoon “The Three Little Pigs”, was released by Disney.

May 27, 1937 – In San Francisco, 200,000 people celebrated the grand opening of the Golden Gate Bridge by strolling across it.

May 27, 1939 – The DC comic “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate” was the first appearance of Batman. It was written by Bill Finger and drawn by Bob Kane.

May 27, 2017 – Pandora – The World of Avatar officially opened at Walt Disney World.marking the largest expansion in the park’s history.

May 27, 2017 – Fans of the classic Tower of Terror watched on in disbelief when the re-themed Disneyland attraction opened as Guardians of the Galaxy
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May 28th

May 28, 1431 – Joan of Arc was accused of relapsing into heresy by donning male clothing again, providing justification for her execution

May 28, 1742 – The 1st indoor swimming pool opened in Goodman’s Fields, London

May 28, 1830 – US President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. A key law leading to the forced removal of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes out of Georgia and surrounding states, setting the stage for the Cherokee Trail of Tears

May 28, 1849 – Anne Brontë (English author, poet) passed away

May 28, 1936 – Alan Turing submited On Computable Numbers for publication. In this landmark paper, the British computer pioneer described the Turing Machine and defined the inherent limits of computation.

May 28, 1937 – Volkswagen (VW) was founded. The automobile manufacturer whose name means “People’s Car” in German is one of the world’s biggest.

May 28, 1937 – Neville Chamberlain became British Prime Minister.

May 28, 1940 – Belgium Army formally capitulated to Nazi Germany after 18 days of fighting in the Battle of Belgium

May 28, 1961 – Amnesty International was founded by London lawyer Peter Berenson.

May 28, 1964 – The Palestine Liberation Organization was formed.

May 28, 1966 – The ride It’s a small world opened at Disneyland.

May 28, 1987 – Mathias Rust landed on the Red Square in Moscow. The 19-year old West German amateur pilot illegally landed his Cessna in the heart of the Russian capital at the height of the Cold War.

May 28, 1972 – Edward VIII (of the United Kingdom) passed away

May 28, 1994 – Disney’s Wilderness Lodge officially opened.he resort was themed after 20th-century National Park lodges, specifically inspired by the Old Faithful Inn.

May 28, 2014 – The ride Seven Dwarfs Mine Train opened in Magic Kingdom in Florida

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May 29th

May 29, 1453 – The city of Constantinople was captured by the Turks, who renamed it Istanbul. This marked the end of the Byzantine Empire as Istanbul became the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

May 29, 1660 – The English monarchy was restored with Charles II on the throne after several years of a Commonwealth under Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.

May 29, 1829 – Humphry Davy (English chemist, physicist) passed away

May 29, 1848 – The state Wisconsin was admitted as the 30th U.S. state.

May 29, 1865 – Following the American Civil War, President Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation granting general amnesty to Confederates. The amnesty excluded high ranking Confederates and large property owners, who had to apply individually to the President for a pardon. Following an oath of allegiance, all former property rights, except slaves, were returned to the former owners.

May 29, 1913 – Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Le Sacre du printemps was premiered.

May 29, 1935 – Construction of Hoover Dam was completed.

May 29, 1977 – Janet Guthrie became the first woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.

May 29, 1996 – Benjamin Netanyahu became Israel’s prime minister.

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May 30th

May 30, 1431 – In the Hundred Years’ War, 19-year-old Joan of Arc was burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal in Rouen, France

May 30, 1536 – England’s King Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour( only wife to produce a male heir ), his 3rd wife

May 30, 1539 – Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto’s expedition of 10 ships and 700 men landed in Florida

May 30, 1778 – Voltaire (French philosopher) passed away

May 30, 1783 – The Pennsylvania Evening Post became the first daily newspaper published in America.

May 30, 1806 – The future US President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson accused Jackson’s wife of bigamy.

May 30, 1848 – The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between the United States and Mexico came into force. With Mexico giving California, Nevada, Utah and most of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona to the US in return for $15 million

May 30, 1922 – The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., was dedicated to the city. The Memorial was designed by architect Henry Bacon and features a compelling statue of “Seated Lincoln” by sculptor Daniel Chester French.

May 30, 1967 – Daredevil Evel Knievel jumped his motorcycle over 16 cars lined-up in a row.

May 30, 2024 – Jury in New York City found former US President Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide payments made to prevent damaging personal information from being released prior to the 2016 election

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May 31st

May 31, 1884 – John Harvey Kellogg patented the cereal corn flakes.

May 31, 1859 – The Great Clock housing Big Ben started keeping time. The clock at the top of Elizabeth Tower at the north end of the British Houses of Parliament is one of the world’s best-known timekeepers.

May 31, 1879 – Werner von Siemens presented the world’s first electric locomotive. Von Siemens’ landmark invention was soon used in trams. 1881 saw the introduction of the world’s first electric tram in Berlin, Germany.

May 31, 1889 – Over 2,300 persons were killed in the Johnstown flood in Pennsylvania. Heavy rains throughout May caused the Connemaugh River Dam to burst sending a wall of water 75 feet high pouring down upon the city.

May 31, 1927 – The last Ford Model T was manufactured after a run of over 15 million cars.

May 31, 1947 – Hungary’s democratic government collapsed. It was by Mátyás Rákosi, consolidated control through political maneuvering, repression, and a coup.

May 31, 1961 – South Africa became an independent republic.

May 31, 1976 – The band “The Who” set the record for the loudest concert of all time, 120 decibels at 50 meters, at The Valley in Charlton, London

May 31, 2013 – The widest tornado ever recorded hits El Reno, Oklahoma. The storm had a width of 4.2 km (2.6 mi).