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April 15th
1452 ~ Birthday of Leonardo da Vinci.
1802 ~ William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy come across a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring him to write "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". 1912 ~ The RMS Titanic sank. 1912 ~ Birthday of Kim Il-sung, "Great Leader" & President of North Korea . 1924 ~ Birthday of Sir Neville Marriner, Conductor. 1945 ~ British & Canadian troops liberate Bergen-Belsen 1955 ~ The first McDonald's restaurant opened in Des Plaines, Illinois. 1985 ~ Birthday of Amy Reid, Porn actress. 1994 ~ Representatives of 124 countries signed the Marrakesh Agreements which replaced the GATT with the WTO. 1998 ~ Death of Pol Pot, Cambodian Dictator. |
April 16th
1867 ~ Birthday of Wilbur Wright, Pioneer Pilot.
1889 ~ Birthday of Charlie Chaplin, Actor, Writer & Film Producer. 1912 ~ Harriett Quimby became the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel. 1918 ~ Birthday of Spike Milligan, Comedian. 1921 ~ Birthday of Peter Ustinov, Writer, Actor & Film Director. 1927 ~ Birthday of Joseph Ratzinger, German Shepard. 1943 ~ Dr. Albert Hofmann discovered the psychedelic effects of LSD. 1947 ~ The explosive nature of ammonium nitrate fertilizer first tested in the wild. 1947 ~ Bernard Baruch coined the term Cold War to describe the relationship between the U.S. and the USSR. 1993 ~ The UN voted to make Srebrenica a 'safe haven'. |
April 17th
1521 ~ Martin Luther appeared before the Holy Roman Emperor at Worms, Germany, and was cross-examined about his thoughts on religious reform.
1741 ~ Birthday of Samuel Chase, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. 1790 ~ Death of Benjamin Franklin, Politician, Inventor, Diplomat, & Printer. 1837 ~ Birthday of J.P. Morgan, Financier, Art Collector, & Philanthropist. 1861 ~ The Virginia State Convention voted to secede from the Union. 1894 ~ Birthday of Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet politician & Premier 1958-1964. 1903 ~ Birthday of Gregor Piatigorsky, Russian cellist. 1961 ~ Cuba was invaded at the “Bay of Pigs” by a U.S. supported invasion force of 1,500 Cuban exiles, who were defeated by Fidel Castro's forces. 1984 ~ Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher was killed by gunfire coming from the Libyan People's Bureau in central London. 2003 ~ Death of Dr. Robert Atkins, noted for the Atkin's Diet. |
April 18th
1772 ~ Birthday of David Ricardo, Economist.
1775 ~ Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott rode to warn of impending arrests of Samuel Adams and John Hancock and seizure of weapons. 1819 ~ Birthday of Franz von Suppé, Croatian /Austrian composer. 1955 ~ Death of Albert Einstein, Physicist. 1958 ~ A federal court ruled that poet Ezra Pound should be released from an insane asylum. 1980 ~ Independence Day in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia). 1978 ~ The U.S. Senate narrowly backed President Carter's controversial Panama Canal treaty. 1983 ~ A suicide bomber destroyed the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. 1999 ~ Wayne Gretzky played his last National Hockey League game, at Madison Square Garden in New York. 2002 ~ Death of Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer. |
April 19th
1775 ~ American Revolutionary War began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
1861 ~ The first bloodshed of the American Civil War. A pro-Secession mob in Baltimore, Maryland attacked Federal Army troops marching through the city. 1881 ~ Death of Benjamin Disraeli, former Prime Minister of the U.K. 1882 ~ Death of Charles Darwin, Biologist & Author. 1912 ~ Birthday of Glenn Seaborg, Chemist and Nobel Prize winner. 1956 ~ Actress Grace Kelly married Rainier III of Monaco. 1989 ~ Death of Daphne du Maurier, Author. 1993 ~ A siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ended when fire destroyed the structure after federal agents smashed their way in. 1995 ~ Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was bombed, killing 168. 2005 ~ Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected pope; he took the name Benedict XVI. |
April 20th
1657 ~ The Jews of New York City (then New Amsterdam) were granted freedom of religion.
1862 ~ The first pasteurization test completed by Louis Pasteur. 1889 ~ Birthday of Adolf Hitler, German dictator, "Der Führer". 1912 ~ Death of Bram Stoker, Author (Dracula). 1918 ~ Manfred von Richthofen shot down his 79th and 80th victims - his final victories. 1937 ~ Birthday of George Takei, American actor. 1968 ~ Pierre Trudeau first became Prime Minister of Canada. 1968 ~ English politician Enoch Powell made his controversial Rivers of Blood speech. 1971 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools. 1999 ~ Columbine High School Massacre |
April 21st
1649 ~ The Maryland Toleration Act, which provided for freedom of worship for all Christians, was passed by the Maryland assembly.
1836 ~ Republic of Texas forces under Sam Houston defeat Mexican troops under General Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. 1838 ~ Birthday of John Muir, Environmentalist. 1910 ~ Death of Mark Twain, author. 1912 ~ The New York Giants and New York Yankees played an exhibition game to benefit survivors of the RMS Titanic. 1918 ~ Manfred von Richthofen, the German fighter ace known as "The Red Baron", was shot down and killed. 1926 ~ Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. 1944 ~ Women in France were enfranchised. 1960 ~ Brazil inaugurated its new capital, Brasilia, transferring the seat of national government from Rio de Janeiro. 1992 ~ The first extrasolar planets were announced by astronomer Alexander Wolszczan. |
April 22nd
1724 ~ Birthday of Immanuel Kant, Philosopher.
1870 ~ Birthday of Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionary. 1889 ~ The Oklahoma Land Rush began. 1904 ~ Birthday of Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist. 1943 ~ Albert Hofmann wrote his first report about the hallucinogenic properties of LSD. 1970 ~ First Earth Day celebrated. 1984 ~ Death of Ansel Adams, Photographer. 1997 ~ A four-month siege of the Japanese embassy in Peru ended when commandos stormed and captured the building, rescuing 71 hostages. Interestingly, all 14 rebels died. 2000 ~ In a pre-dawn raid, armed immigration agents seized Elian Gonzalez from his relatives' home in Miami; the 6-year-old boy was reunited with his father. 2002 ~ Death of Linda Lovelace, Porn actress. Feastdays & Holidays Earth Day : Canada, U.S. |
April 23rd
1564 ~ Birthday of William Shakespeare, Playwright.
1858 ~ Birthday of Max Planck, Physicist. Awarded the Nobel Prize in physics 1918. 1891 ~ Birthday of Sergei Prokofiev, Soviet Composer. 1954 ~ Hank Aaron hit his first major league home run. 1968 ~ Birthday of Timothy McVeigh, American Terrorist. 1969 ~ Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for assassinating Sen. Robert Kennedy. 1984 ~ American announcement of the isolation of the AIDS virus. 1985 ~ Coca-Cola changed its formula and released New Coke. 2004 ~ President Bush eased Reagan-era sanctions against Libya in return for Moammar Gadhafi's giving up weapons of mass destruction. 2007 ~ Death of Boris Yeltsin, Soviet strongman and the architect of the dismantling of the USSR. |
April 24th
1731 ~ Death of Daniel Defoe, English Writer.
1898 ~ Spain declared war on the U.S. over Cuba. 1905 ~ Birthday of Robert Penn Warren, Writer, Pulitzer Prize winner, first American Poet Laureate. 1916 ~ The Easter uprising began when some 1,600 Irish nationalists seized several key sites in Dublin. 1942 ~ Birthday of Barbra Streisand, American Singer & Actress. 1967 ~ Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died in Soyuz 1. 1986 ~ Death of Wallis Simpson, Mistress & Wife of The Duke of Windsor. 1990 ~ The Hubble Space Telescope was launched by Space Shuttle Discovery. 1996 ~ The main assembly of the Palestine Liberation Organization voted to revoke clauses in its charter that called for an armed struggle to destroy Israel. 1997 ~ Death of Pat Paulsen, American comedian and politician. |
April 25th
1719 ~ Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe was published.
1792 ~ The French national anthem, “La Marseillaise” was composed. 1840 ~ Birthday of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Composer. 1900 ~ Birthday of Wolfgang Pauli, Physicist. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1945. 1906 ~ Birthday of William J. Brennan, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice. 1915 ~ Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to remove the Ottoman Turkish Empire from WWI. 1917 ~ Birthday of Ella Fitzgerald, Jazz Singer. 1945 ~ The United Nations was organized in San Francisco, California, by 50 nations. 1953 ~ Francis Crick and James Watson published MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF NUCLEIC ACIDS: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid describing the double helix structure of DNA. 1980 ~ Tehran hostage rescue mission failed. Feastdays & Holidays Australia, New Zealand ~ ANZAC Day |
April 26th
1711 ~ Birthday of David Hume, Philosopher & Historian.
1785 ~ Birthday of John Audubon, Naturalist & Illustrator. 1935 ~ Birthday of Carol Burnett, Singer, Actress & Comedienne. 1937 ~ Planes from the Condor Legion, an adjunct of the Luftwaffe, bombed the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. 1945 ~ The Battle of Bautzen: The last successful German armoured offensive of WWII. 1964 ~ Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania. 1986 ~ The world's worst nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union. 1989 ~ Death of Lucille Ball, Actress & Comedienne. 1994 ~ South Africa held its first multiracial elections. 2005 ~ Syria's 29-year military presence in Lebanon ended.[/QUOTE] |
April 27th
1521 ~ Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed in the Philippines.
1667 ~ John Milton sold the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10. 1791 ~ Birthday of Samuel Morse, inventor of Morse code. 1813 ~ U.S. troops captured York (present day Toronto), the capital of Ontario. 1822 ~ Birthday of Ulysses S. Grant, 18th U.S. President. 1891 ~ Birthdayof Sergei Prokofiev, Soviet composer. 1904 ~ The Australian Labor Party became the first such party to gain national government, under Chris Watson. 1945 ~ Soviet and American armies link up at the Elbe. 1999 ~ Death of Al Hirt, Musician. 2007 ~ Death of Mstislav Rostropovich, Russian cellist and conductor. |
April 28th
1789 ~ Mutiny on the HMS Bounty. Captain William Bligh and 18 sailors are set adrift.
1906 ~ Birthday of Kurt Gödel, mathematician. 1937 ~ Birthday of Saddam Hussein, former leader of Iraq. 1941 ~ Birthday of Ann-Margret, Swedish-born actress. 1945 ~ Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were killed by members of the Italian resistance movement while trying to flee Italy. 1947 ~ Thor Heyerdahl and five crewmates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki. 1952 ~ The U.S. occupation of Japan ended. 1969 ~ Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of France. 2001 ~ Dennis Tito became the world's first space tourist. 2003 ~ Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store launched. |
April 29th
1863 ~ Birthday of William Randolph Hearst, American publisher.
1893 ~ Birthday of Harold Urey, American chemist, awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. 1945 ~ Start of Operation Manna. 1945 ~ American soldiers liberated the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. 1951 ~ Death of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austrian-born philosopher. 1958 ~ The Broadway musical, My Fair Lady, opened in London. 1980 ~ Death of Alfred Hitchcock, director. 1992 ~ Rioting broke out in Los Angeles following the acquittal of four police officers accused of beating Rodney King. 1997 ~ The Chemical Weapons Convention, a worldwide treaty to ban chemical weapons, went into effect. 2008 ~ Death of Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who first synthesized LSD . |
April 30th
1777 ~ Birthday of Carl Friedrich Gauss, Mathematician, Astronomer & Physicist.
1877 ~ Birthday of Alice B. Toklas, Muse and Brownie Chef. 1883 ~ Death of Édouard Manet, Impressionist Painter. 1916 ~ Birthday of Claude Shannon, the "father of information theory”. 1938 ~ Birthday of Larry Niven, Science Fiction author. 1945 ~ Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide after being married for one day. 1948 ~ The Land Rover was introduced. 1973 ~ President Nixon took responsibility for the Watergate scandal. 1975 ~ The South Vietnamese government in Saigon fell to Communist forces. 1993 ~ CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free to everyone. |
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. |
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. |
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 is 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. |
May 15th
1869 ~ Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in New York city.
1886 ~ Death of Emily Dickinson, Poet. 1911 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Standard Oil Company, requiring its break up under the Sherman Anti-Trust act. 1919 ~ The Winnipeg General Strike began. 1930 ~ Ellen Church became the first airline stewardess, on a flight from Oakland, California to Chicago, Illinois. 1953 ~ Birthday of Mike Oldfield, English composer (Tubular Bells). 1957 ~ Britain tested its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple. 1972 ~ George C. Wallace was shot and left paralyzed while campaigning for the U.S. Democratic presidential nomination. 1988 ~ The Soviet Union began withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan. 1991 ~ Edith Cresson became France's first female Prime Minister. |
May 16th
1868 ~ The U.S. Senate failed to convict President Andrew Johnson of the articles of impeachment against him.
1905 ~ Birthday of Henry Fonda, Actor. 1919 ~ Birthday of Liberace, American pianist. 1943 ~ The Jewish Warsaw ghetto uprising ended. 1966 ~ The Chinese Cultural Revolution started when The Communist Party issued the "May 16 Notice". 1969 ~ The Soviet space probe Venera 5 landed on Venus. 1969 ~ Death of Robert R., first confirmed death from AIDS in North America . 1979 ~ Birthday of McKenzie Lee, English Porn actress. 2002 ~ Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones opened in theaters. 2005 ~ Newsweek magazine retracted its Koran abuse story that started protests in Afghanistan. |
May 17th
1749 ~ Birthday of Edward Jenner, inventor of vaccination.
1935 ~ Death of Paul Dukas, French composer. 1936 ~ Birthday of Dennis Hopper, Actor & Director. 1943 ~ The RAF carried out the Dambusters raid. 1954 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court issued their decision in Brown v. Board of Education. 1974 ~ Thirty-three people were killed by terrorist bombings in Ireland. 1992 ~ Death of Lawrence Welk, American musician. 1996 ~ President Bill Clinton signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in - Megan's Law. 2004 ~ Same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts. 2009 ~ Dalia Grybauskaitė was elected the first female President of Lithuania. |
May 18th
1872 ~ Birthday of Bertrand Russell, Logician & Philosopher, awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950.
1911 ~ Death of Gustav Mahler, Austrian Composer. 1919 ~ Birthday of Dame Margot Fonteyn, Ballet dancer. 1937 ~ Birthday of Brooks Robinson, Baseball Hall of Famer. 1944 ~ Monte Cassino fell to the Allies. 1974 ~ India became the sixth nuclear nation by successfully detonated its first nuclear weapon. 1975 ~ Death of Leroy Anderson, American Composer. 1980 ~ Mount St. Helens in Washington state exploded, leaving 57 people dead or missing. 2004 ~ Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. 2009 ~ The Armed Forces of Sri Lanka defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, ending almost 26 years of fighting. |
May 19th
1795 ~ Birthday of Johns Hopkins, Philanthropist.
1890 ~ Birthday of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese leader. 1915 ~ Death of John Simpson Kirkpatrick, ANZAC stretcher bearer at Gallipoli. 1921 ~ The U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants. 1925 ~ Birthday of Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge leader. 1935 ~ Death of T. E. Lawrence, English soldier ("Lawrence of Arabia"). 1965 ~ Tui Malila, the longest living animal known, died in Tonga at the age of either 188 or 192. 1983 ~ Birthday of Eve Angel, Hungarian Porn actress. 2001 ~ Sun Zhonghua was killed by People's Republic of China government officials because she refused to be sterilized under the "One child" policy. 2004 ~ PM Blair hit with a purple flour filled condom. |
May 20th
1772 ~ Birthday of Sir William Congreve, English inventor (“By the rockets’ red glare”).
1806 ~ Birthday of John Stuart Mill, English philosopher. 1873 ~ Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets. 1883 ~ The eruption of Krakatoa began, leading ultimately to the volcano's destruction three months later. 1927 ~ Charles Lindbergh took off from Long Island, New York, on the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, arriving in Paris the next day. 1940 ~ The first prisoners arrive at the Auschwitz concentration camp. 1961 ~ U.S. marshals were sent to restore order in Montgomery, Alabama. 1977 ~ Birthday of Tiger Tyson, Porn actor. 2000 ~ Death of Jean Pierre Rampal, French flutist. 2002 ~ Death of Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist. |
May 21st
1471 ~ Birthday of Albrecht Dürer, German painter and graphic artist.
1881 ~ Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross. 1921 ~ Birthday of Andrei Sakharov, physicist and human rights activist, awarded the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize. 1924 ~ Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a "thrill killing". 1956 ~ The U.S. detonated the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. 1978 ~ Birthday of Briana Banks, German/American Porn actress. 1981 ~ Birthday of Belladonna, Porn actress. 1991 ~ Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a female suicide bomber. 2000 ~ Death of Sir John Gielgud, British actor. 2004 ~ Stanislav Petrov was awarded the World Citizen Award for averting a potential World War III in 1983. |
May 22nd
1813 ~ Birthday of Richard Wagner, Composer.
1840 ~ Transporting British convicts to the New South Wales colony was abolished. 1856 ~ In one of the more impressive expressions of American democracy, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the U.S. Senate because of a speech Sumner had made which attacked Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas. 1859 ~ Birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Physician & Writer. 1885 ~ Death of Victor Hugo, French author. 1907 ~ Birthday of Sir Laurence Olivier, Actor & Director. 1907 ~ Birthday of Hergé, comic book creator. 1947 ~ The Truman Doctrine was enacted. 1969 ~ The lunar module of Apollo 10 separated from the command module and flew to within nine miles of the moon's surface in a dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing. 1972 ~ Ceylon became the republic of Sri Lanka, adopted a new constitution, and joined the British Commonwealth. |
May 23rd
1430 ~ Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English.
1701 ~ Captain William Kidd was hanged in London after being convicted of piracy and murder. 1848 ~ Birthday of Otto Lilienthal, aviation pioneer. 1873 ~ Canada's North West Mounted Police force was established. 1906 ~ Death of Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian writer. 1908 ~ Birthday of John Bardeen, the only man to have been awarded the Nobel prize in Physics twice; 1956 & 1972. 1934 ~ Death of Bonnie and Clyde, Outlaws. 1951 ~ The Tibetan government was forced to sign the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet with the People's Republic of China. 1951 ~ Birthday of Anatoly Karpov, Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. 1977 ~ More than 100 children and six teachers were taken hostage in a primary school in northern Holland. |
May 24th
1819 ~ Birthday of Queen Victoria.
1844 ~ The first telegram was sent by Samuel Morse, from Baltimore, Maryland to Washington, D.C., saying "What hath God wrought?". 1883 ~ The Brooklyn Bridge was opened. 1941 ~ The German battleship Bismarck sank the battlecruiser HMS Hood in the North Atlantic, killing all but three crewmen. 1941 ~ Death of Lancelot Holland, British admiral, died in sinking of the HMS Hood. 1941 ~ Birthday of Bob Dylan, Singer and Songwriter. 1969 ~ Death of Willy Ley, rocket scientist. 1974 ~ Death of Duke Ellington, American composer and musician. 1976 ~ BOAC and Air France opened trans-Atlantic Concorde service to Washington. 2001 ~ 23 people were killed and hundreds injured at a wedding party in Jerusalem when the floor collapsed. |
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