May 1st
 

1840 ~ The Penny Black postage stamp put on sale in the UK.

1869 ~ The Folies Bergères opened in Paris. Edouard Manet’s “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère” recalls the lot of one of the employees.

1904 ~ Death of Antonín Dvořák, Czech Composer.

1941 ~ Orson Welles's Citizen Kane premiered in New York City.

1944 ~ Birthday of Rita Coolidge, Singer.

1960 ~ Gary Powers was shot down in a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union.

1978 ~ Death of Aram Khachaturian, Armenian composer.

1982 ~ RAF aircraft attack two airstrips near Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands.

2004 ~ Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the European Union.

2008 ~ Death of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the "DC Madam".

May 2nd
 

1519 ~ Death of Leonardo da Vinci, inventor, painter.

1729 ~ Birthday of Empress Catherine II of Russia.

1892 ~ Birthday of "The Red Baron", Manfred von Richthofen.

1933 ~ The first modern sighting of the Loch Ness monster was reported.

1945 ~ The Soviet Union announced the capture of Berlin.

1952 ~ The De Havilland Comet 1, the world's first jet airliner, launched the jet age.

1955 ~ Tennessee Williams won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof".

1982 ~ The British submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano.

1997 ~ Tony Blair became Prime Minister of the UK.

1999 ~ Death of Oliver Reed , English actor.

May 3rd
 

1469 ~ Birthday of Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian Historian & Political Author.

1844 ~ Birthday of Richard D'Oyly Carte, English Impresario.

1898 ~ Birthday of Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel.

1937 ~ Gone With the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

1945 ~ Indian forces captured Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.

1946 ~ The International Military Tribunal for the Far East began in Tokyo against Japanese military and government officials accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

1971 ~ Anti-war protesters began four days of demonstrations intended to shutting down Washington, D.C.

1990 ~ The Latvian parliament met to declare independence from the USSR.

2002 ~ Death of Barbara Castle, British politician.

2006 ~ Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison.

May 4th
 

1825 ~ Birthday of Thomas Henry Huxley, "Darwin's Bulldog", English Scientist.

1852 ~ Birthday of Alice Liddell, for whom Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland.

1929 ~ Birthday of Audrey Hepburn, Film and Stage Actress Extraordinaire.

1942 ~ The Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval clash fought entirely with carrier aircraft, began during World War II.

1953 ~ Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for "The Old Man and the Sea".

1970 ~ The Ohio National Guard opened fire on Kent State University students protesting the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.

1975 ~ Death of Moe Howard, actor, comedian; member of the Three Stooges.

1979 ~ Margaret Thatcher became the UK’s first female Prime Minister.

1982 ~ The HMS Sheffield was sunk by an Exocet missile during the Falklands War.

2009 ~ Death of Dom DeLuise, American comedian and actor.

May 5th
 

1807 ~ Death of P.D.Q. Bach, fictitious Composer.

1818 ~ Birthday of Karl Marx, Political Philosopher.

1891 ~ NYC’s Carnegie Hall had its grand opening and first public performance, with Pyotr Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.

1925 ~ Biology teacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution in Dayton, Tennessee.

1944 ~ Birthday of John Rhys-Davies, Welsh actor (Gimli).

1961 ~ Alan Shepard became the first American to travel into space.

1973 ~ Birthday of Brooke Ashley, a former Porn actress.

1980 ~ Great Britain’s SAS stormed the Iranian embassy in London after a six day siege.

1992 ~ Wolfenstein 3D was released, the first-ever first-person shooter computer game.

1995 ~ Death of Mikhail Botvinnik, world chess champion.

May 6th
 

1856 ~ Birthday of Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist, founder of Psychoanalysis.

1862 ~ Death of Henry David Thoreau, American author and philosopher.

1915 ~ Birthday of T.H. White, Writer.

1915 ~ Birthday of Orson Welles, Director.

1937 ~ The German zeppelin Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

1940 ~ John Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.

1953 ~ Birthday of Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1954 ~ Roger Bannister became the first man to run the mile in under four minutes.

1994 ~ Queen Elizabeth and French President François Mitterrand opened the Chunnel.

1994 ~ Paula Jones filed suit against President Clinton, alleging he'd sexually harassed her in 1991.

May 7th
 

1825 ~ Death of Antonio Salieri, Composer.

1833 ~ Birthday of Johannes Brahms, Composer.

1840 ~ Birthday of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer.

1915 ~ World War I: A German U-boat sank the RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people.

1919 ~ Birthday of Eva Peron, wife of Argentine President Juan Peron.

1933 ~ Birthday of Johnny Unitas, American football star.

1945 ~ General Alfred Jodl signed unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in World War II.

1954 ~ The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ended in a French defeat (the battle began on March 13).

1999 ~ Kosovo War: Three Chinese embassy workers were killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft “mistakenly” bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. President Clinton called the attack a “tragic mistake”.

2007 ~ The tomb of Herod the Great was discovered.

May 8th
 

1794 ~ French chemist Antoine Lavoisier was tried, convicted, and guillotined all on one day in Paris.

1873 ~ Death of John Stuart Mill, Empiricist Philosopher.

1895 ~ Birthday of Fulton J. Sheen, bishop and television personality.

1968 ~ Birthday of Jamie Summers, American porn star.

1973 ~ The Second Battle of Wounded Knee ended.

1978 ~ David Berkowitz pleaded guilty to the ''Son of Sam'' killings.

1984 ~ The Soviet Union announced that it would boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics.

1985 ~ Death of Theodore Sturgeon, Science Fiction writer.

1988 ~ Death of Robert A. Heinlein, Science Fiction writer.

1999 ~ The Citadel, South Carolina's formerly all-male military school, graduated its first female cadet.

May 9th
 

1860 ~ Birthday of J.M. Barrie, Author, creator of Peter Pan.

1874 ~ Birthday of Howard Carter, British archaeologist.

1901 ~ Australia opened its first parliament in Melbourne.

1903 ~ Death of Paul Gauguin, French Post-Impressionist painter.

1949 ~ Birthday of Billy Joel, American musician.

1961 ~ Jim Gentile of the Baltimore Orioles became the first player in baseball history to hit grand slams in consecutive innings.

1972 ~ Israeli commandos liberated a hijacked Sabena airliner at Lod airport in Tel Aviv.

1974 ~ The U.S. Congress’s House Judiciary Committee opened hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

1986 ~ Death of Tenzing Norgay, Mountaineer.

1994 ~ Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.

May 10th
 

1818 ~ Death of Paul Revere, engraver, American Patriot.

1838 ~ Birthday of John Wilkes Booth, Actor, assassin of Abraham Lincoln.

1857 ~ The Indian Mutiny began when the Sepoys revolted against the British Army.

1869 ~ The first transcontinental railroad in the U.S. was completed at Promontory, Utah.

1899 ~ Birthday of Fred Astaire, Singer, Dancer & Actor.

1924 ~ J. Edgar Hoover became director of the FBI.

1940 ~ British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned, and Winston Churchill formed a new government.

1946 ~ First successful launch of a V-2 rocket at White Sands Proving Ground.

1960 ~ The nuclear submarine USS Triton completed the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.

2002 ~ FBI agent Robert Hanssen was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole for selling American secrets to Russia.

May 11th
 

1904 ~ Birthday of Salvador Dalí, Spanish painter.

1918 ~ Birthday of Richard Feynman, American Physicist.

1930 ~ Birthday of Edsger Dijkstra, Dutch computer scientist.

1957 ~ Birthday of Peter North, Canadian Porn Star.

1973 ~ Charges against Daniel Ellsberg for his role in the Pentagon Papers case were dismissed.

1987 ~ The first heart-lung transplant took place in Baltimore, Maryland.

1988 ~ Death of Kim Philby, Spy.

1997 ~ IBM's Deep Blue chess-playing supercomputer defeated Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player.

1998 ~ India announced that it had tested a group of nuclear weapons.

2001 ~ Death of Douglas Adams, Science Fiction author.

May 12th
 

1820 ~ Birthday of Florence Nightingale, Nurse.

1845 ~ Birthday of Gabriel Fauré, Composer.

1884 ~ Death of Bedrich Smetana, Composer.

1889 ~ Death of John Cadbury, Chocolate Entrepreneur.

1918 ~ Birthday of Julius Rosenberg, Spy.

1943 ~ Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.

1962 ~ Douglas MacArthur delivered his famous "Duty, Honor, Country" valedictory speech at West Point.

1971 ~ Mick Jagger married Bianca Perez Morena de Macias in St Tropez.

2000 ~ The Tate Modern art gallery opened in London.

2003 ~ Al Qaeda killed 26 people in the Riyadh compound bombings.

Oh oh ... two days without any Strange Days! :yikes:

Well, okay, the world still has plenty of strangeness everyday ... but Pixies ... we depend on this thread. :)

Jseal, we miss you.

May 13th
 

1787 ~ Captain Arthur Phillip left Portsmouth, England with eleven ships of convicts to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1842 ~ Birthday of Sir Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert & Sullivan, Composer.

1861 ~ Queen Victoria issued a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognized the breakaway Confederate states as having belligerent rights.

1865 ~ More than a month after the surrender of the Northern Army of Virginia by General Lee, the last land battle of the Civil War ended with a Confederate victory in Texas at the Battle of Palmito Ranch.

1888 ~ Brazil abolished slavery.

1912 ~ The Royal Flying Corps (now the Royal Air Force) was established in the U.K.

1940 ~ Winston Churchill made his "blood, tears, toil and sweat" speech to the House of Commons.

1981 ~ Mehmet Ali Agca attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II at St. Peter's Square in Rome.

1981 ~ Birthday of Sunny Leone, Canadian/American Porn actress.

1995 ~ Alison Hargreaves became the first woman to climb Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas.

May 14th
 

1787 ~ Delegates began gathering in Philadelphia for a convention to draw up the U.S. Constitution.

1925 ~ Death of H. Rider Haggard, Author.

1948 ~ The independent state of Israel was proclaimed.

1955 ~ The USSR and seven other communist bloc countries signed a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

1969 ~ Birthday of Cate Blanchett, Australian actress (Galadriel).

1973 ~ Skylab 1, the first American space station, was launched.

1978 ~ Death of Robert Menzies, twelfth Prime Minister of Australia.

1986 ~ The Pride of Baltimore was lost at sea.

1998 ~ Death of Frank Sinatra, Singer & Actor.

2004 ~ Piers Morgan was fired as editor of the Daily Mirror for publishing photographs of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British soldiers that were shown to be fake.