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 Feast day of Blessed Alcuin
of York
'The schoolmaster of his age'
Alcuin (c. 735 - May 19,
804), a monk
from York,
England and head of the York cathedral school
c. 770, wrote elementary texts on
arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. He is the most prominent figure
of the Carolingian Renaissance.
After rising
to prominence at the court of the archbishops of York, he was
'headhunted' by Charlemagne
(781), King of the Franks, the greatest
monarch in Christendom. From 782 to 790, Alcuin
had as pupils the king of the Franks, the members of his family, the
young men sent for their education to the court, and the young
clerics attached to the palace chapel. Here in France, Alcuin
transmitted to the Franks the knowledge of Latin culture that had
existed in England.
As 'minister of education' under Charlemagne, he
established schools at cathedrals
and monasteries. From 796 until his
death he was abbot of the great monastery
of St Martin of Tours (f. d. November 11).
Much of what we know today of European Medieval and
Classical history and culture we owe to the fact that Alcuin
established scriptoria, dedicated to copying and preserving ancient
manuscripts, both pagan and Christian. Spreading out from
Charlemagne's court, the practice became widespread in Medieval
Europe.
He was related to Willibrord,
Anglo-Saxon missionary to the Frisians and the first bishop of
Utrecht, whose biography he afterwards wrote. Alcuin is credited
with the invention of cursive script. His many letters are the most
reliable authority for the history of humanism
in the Carolingian age. He was also a theologian and poet.
Alcuin
and the Rise of the Christian Schools, by
Andrew Fleming West
See
also the Venerable Bede (May 25)
Nineteenth
day of the Greek lunar month of Thargelion, Bendideia, ancient Greece
Bendis
was the goddess in ancient Thrace (the name applied by the ancient
Greeks to the north-eastern shores of the Aegean Sea) who equated
with the Greek Artemis and the Roman
Diana, in other words the
goddess of hunting. She has also been compared to Gaia (Gaea), the Earth
mother goddess. Wearing high fur-topped boots and a pointed phallic Phyrgian cap, and carrying a torch
and spear (we know this from Plato), she was worshipped on this day
with a festival of bacchanalian character.
Modern followers of the
Goddess have revived a cult of Bendis.
From
Wikipedia: Her
cult was introduced into
Attica by immigrant Thracian residents,
and became so popular that in Plato's time (c.
430 BCE) its
festivities were naturalized as an official ceremonial of the
city-state, called the Bendideia. Among the events were nighttime
torch-races on horseback, mentioned in Plato's
Republic, 328:
- "You haven't heard that there is to be
a torchlight race this evening on horseback in honor of the
Goddess?" "On horseback?" said I. "That is a new idea. Will they
carry torches and pass them along to one another as they race
with the horses, or how do you mean?" "That's the way of it,"
said Polemarchus, "and, besides, there is to be a night festival
which will be worth seeing."
Kallynteria, Greece and Rome
This ancient festival on this day
involved nurturance and purification rites, dedicated to Pallas Athena. In other cultures, Athena is more or less congruent with the
female deities Minerva,
Ceres, Demeter,
Ma'at,
Oya, Spider Woman, Mawu, Sophia,
Sarasvati, the
Shekinah.
Feast day of St Augustine
Novello
Feast day of St Calocerus
Feast day of St Celestine V
Feast day of St Crispin of
Viterbo
Feast day of St Cyriaca
and Companions
Feast day of St Francis
Coll
Feast day of St Hadulph
Feast day of St Humiliana
de' Cerchi
Feast day of St Ivo of Kermartin
(Ives; Yves; Ivo; Ivo Hélory)
St Ivo (October
17, 1253
- May 19, 1303) is the
patron
saint of lawyers, so all the attorneys ought to have their picnic today. Yves
was an ecclesiastical judge at Rennes, France, in the thirteenth
century. He was known as the "Advocate of the Poor", and in the
Breton tongue he is known as Sant
Ervoan ar wirionez, Saint Ives the truth giver. He was buried in
Tréguier, and was canonized
in June 1347
by Pope Clement
VI.
Born in
Brittany, this saint was an ecclesiastical judge nicknamed
"the Advocate of the Poor". An annual pardon mut (silent
pilgrimage) is held today on his feast day. Pilgrims silently carry
candles and many finish on their hands and knees. Beggars and
paupers in particular take part, for they have always seen
themselves as "the clients of St Yves".
In Brittany, the home of St Ives, it is said that
sometimes on the eve of this
feast day the pots of poor families are filled by the saint. An
ecclesiastical judge himself, Yves is the patron saint of lawyers.
Today's silent pilgrimage in his home town of Treguir attracts
attorneys from many nations, as well as paupers and beggars.
He is the patron
saint of lawyers, though not, it is said, their model, for –
"Sanctus Ivo erat Brito, Advocatus et non latro, Res miranda
populo." Roughly translated, this means: "St. Ives was
from the land of beef/ A lawyer, and not a thief;/ A stretch on
popular belief." Literally translated, it means: "St Ives
was a Breton, a lawyer but not a crook, miracles happen occasionally.
He is also the patron of advocates, canon lawyers, judges, and notaries, of abandoned children and orphans.
More
More
Feast day of St Joaquina
Vedruna de Mas
Feast day of St Parthenius
Feast
day of St Peter
Celestine, Pope
Saint Celestine V, né Pietro Angelerio (according to some sources
Angelario or Angelieri or Angelliero or Angeleri), also known as
Pietro del Morrone (1215
- May 19, 1296)
was Pope
in the year 1294.
In the Divine
Comedy Dante
placed him near the gates of Hell, but not in Hell precisely,
because he deemed him indecisive. Some historians believe he might
have been murdered by Pope Boniface
VIII, and indeed his skull has a suspicious hole. Patron
saint of bookbinders.
"This solitary hermit, who renounced the world at the age
of twenty after a youth spent in piety and acquisition of learning,
eventually became Pope but resigned after four months because he
found his new office irksome. His successor put him in prison, where
he died ten months later. For unclear reasons, perhaps because of
his love of learning, he is the patron of bookbinders.
Make a book or buy an especially beautifully made book." Source
More
Feast day of St Peter de
Duenas
Feast day of St Peter
Wright
Feast day of St Philoterus
Feast day of St Pudentiana
(Potentiana), virgin
More
Feast day of St Theophilus
of Corte
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Shop saints
Flag Day of the Army, Finland
Today's ceremonies in
Finland commemorate fallen service people. Memorial services are
held and wreath-laying ceremonies are held at gravesides.
Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth
and Sports Day, Turkey (1919)
Today's commemoration of
the day in 1919 when Mustafa
Kemal Atatürk (Kemal Ataturk), the father of modern Turkey,
landed in Samsum and began the independence movement, begins with
athletes carrying torches to places where they compete.
Bommo-E Ceremony, Japan
Held at Toshodaiji, today's
commemoration observes the anniversary of the death of Kakusei, the
21st chief priest of the temple. Open fans, or uchiwa, are thrown from the
temple's balcony and are picked up by visitors as good luck
charms.
Port Festival, Japan (May 19 - 21)
The Mikuni Minato Matsuri, or
Port Festival, is held at Mikuni Shrine at Sakai, and features
festival floats (dashi)
and a parade of costumed warriors.
Philippine celebration of the fertility rites of
Santa Clara, Virgin of Salambao (May 17 -
19)
Commemoration of Pontian
Greeks Genocide in Greece
NASCAR Day USA
World Hepatitis Day (2008)
Approximately 500 million people worldwide are affected by Hepatitis
B or C – that’s 1 in every 12 people on the planet.
On which day of the week were you born? Find out here
1762 Johann Gottlieb Fichte (d. 1814),
philosopher
1773 Arthur Aikin (d. 1854), English chemist, mineralogist
and scientific writer
1795 Johns Hopkins (d.
1873), American philanthropist
1827 Paul Amand Challemel-Lacour (d. 1896),
French statesman
1844 Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
(d. 1818)
 1861 Dame
Nellie Melba (born Helen Porter Mitchell; d February 23,
1931), Australian
opera
soprano
who 'played before the crowned heads of Europe'.
Melba's professional debut was in Verdi's Rigoletto at
the Theatre Royale de la Monnaie,
Brussels, on October
13, 1886. On May
24, 1888 she made her first appearance at Britain's famed Royal Opera
House, Covent Garden, but was not particularly successful and returned
to Brussels.
Her acclaimed June 5, 1889, return to Covent Garden in
Romeo and Juliet opposite Jean deReszke sealed her position and she remained Covent Garden's
prima donna through to the 1920s.
She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York in Lucia di
Lammermoor (December 4, 1893). In early 1902, Melba first sang with
Caruso, at Monte Carlo.
On February
13, 1904, she
appeared in the world premiere of Helene by Camille Saint-Saens at Monte Carlo.
In 1920, she appeared on a pioneering
radio broadcast from
Guglielmo
Marconi's factory in Chelmsford,
England. On June 2, 1927, Nellie Melba
received the Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire,
thenceforth being known as 'Dame' Nellie, but she was then, and now,
one of that select band of notables (eg Coleridge, Paderewski,
Lincoln,
Dylan)
generally known or identified by just one name (Melba she made up in
honour of her home town of Melbourne). Her early Australian
appearances were promoted by theatrical entrepreneur JC Williamson.
Wikipedia: After many
"retirements" Melba finally performed her last concerts in
Australia in 1928. She died
in Sydney's St Vincent's hospital of septicaemia in 1931, and was buried in Lilydale, near
Coldstream,
a small town 50 km east of Melbourne. The cortege was more than a kilometre long, and her death made front-page
headlines in the UK and Europe. The reason for her illness was long
kept secret, but was in fact due to an infection acquired during plastic surgery
– a facelift.
Melba Toast and
Pêche Melba (Peach Melba) are
foods named after her.
She's the lady on the Australian
$100
note.
"Dame
Nellie Melba was born on May 19, 1861 at 'Doonside' in
Richmond, Victoria, Australia. She was born Helen Porter Mitchell
and changed her name to Melba as she loved her country Australia,
the place that she was born. The name Melba was a condensed
version of Melbourne. As a child, she grew up with her parents
Isabella and David Mitchell, and her seven younger brothers and
sisters at their country home in Lilydale. She belonged to a very
musical family but it was Nellie who continued her musical
training making her the most famous Diva in the operatic world …
"… In
1886 she left for London with her father, and her son and
husband having no success with influential persons in the music
field. Then it was a trip to Paris which was her last stop where
Madame Marchesi recognised the great angelic purity in her
voice. Marchesi took her on as her student, and thus she made
her great debut in Brussels in 1887 and gradually established
herself as the prima donna of Covent Garden until the mid-1920s.
She visited Australia a few times during her long standing
career and came home in 1902 ..."
Source
Chronology
More
1870 Albert
Fish (d. 1936), serial killer
1879 [William] Waldorf
Astor II (d. September 30,
1952), 2nd Viscount, English politician and
owner of the Observer
1879 Lady
Astor (Nancy Astor; b. Nancy Witcher Langhorne;
d. May 2,
1964),
American-born British politician, wife of Waldorf Astor II with whom
she shared a birthday, the first woman to take a seat in
the House of Commons
(December 1,
1919)
A
world chronology of women's suffrage
1882 Mohammed Mossadegh (d. 1967), Iranian prime
minister
"Dr. Mohammed
Mossadegh (May 19,
1882
- March
4, 1967)
was prime minister of Iran
from 1951
to 1953.
Mossadegh's name is sometimes spelled Mosaddeq. He was
removed from power in a complex plot orchestrated by British and
US intelligence agencies …
"Mossadegh was tried for treason, and
sentenced to three years in prison. Following his release he
remained under house arrest until his death in 1967. The new
government under the Shah in August 1954 reached an agreement with
foreign oil companies to "restore the flow of Iranian oil to
world markets in substantial quantities" [1].
"In
March 2000, then secretary of state Madeleine Albright stated her
regret that Mossadegh was ousted: "The Eisenhower
administration believed its actions were justified for strategic
reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political
development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue
to resent this intervention by America."
"Mossadegh
had a flamboyant personality and was well-known for theatrics,
including weeping, fainting, and napping in public. His numerous
eccentricities, such as wearing his bathrobe in parliament made
him a well-known figure. His controversial actions captured the
attention of the world, and he was named as Time Magazine's 1951 Man of the Year." Source
1890 Ho
Chi Minh (d. 1969), North Vietnamese Communist leader
1891 Oswald Boelcke
(d. 1916), World War I fighter ace
1897 Frank
Luke (d. 1918), World War I fighter ace
1914 Max
Perutz (d. 2002), molecular biologist
1921 Karel van het Reve (d. 1999), Dutch writer
1921
Lenny
McPherson, Australian mobster who controlled much of Sydney's
organized crime in the late-20th Century
1924 Sandy Wilson, British composer
1925 Malcolm
X (born Malcolm Little;
d. 1965), American Black Muslim leader
1925 Pol Pot (d. 1998), Khmer
Rouge Communist dictator 1975
- 79, responsible for
'the Killing Fields'
1930 Lorraine Hansberry (d. 1965), playwright
1933 Edward de Bono, British
developer of 'lateral thinking'
"'Edward de Bono
is regarded by many as the leading authority in the world in the
field of creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking as
a skill. He has written 62 books with translations into 37
languages and has been invited to lecture in 54 countries. He is
the originator of lateral thinking which treats creativity as the
behaviour of information in a self-organising information system -
such as the neural networks in the brain. From such a
consideration arise the deliberate and formal tools of lateral
thinking, parallel thinking etc.'" Source
1934 Jim
Lehrer, journalist, co-anchor
1939 Dick
Scobee, (d. 1986)
astronaut
1940 Carla Zampatti, Australian fashion designer and businesswoman
1941 Nora
Ephron, screenwriter
1942 Gary Kildall (d. 1997), computer programmer
1945 Pete Townshend, musician (The
Who)
1948 Grace
Jones, American actress and singer
1952 Joey
Ramone (d. 2001), singer
1953 Victoria Wood, British comic actress
1956 James Gosling, pioneer of Java programming language
1957
James Reyne, Australian former rock band lead singer (Australian
Crawl)
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May
19 Plant
Something Day
19 Hug
Your Cat Day
19 Circus
Day
20 Pick
Strawberries Day
20 Be
A Millionaire Day
20 Flower
Day
20 Strawberry
Festival (Maryland, USA)
21 Waitstaff
Day
21 Greek
Philosophers' Day
21 Neighbour
Day
21 International
AIDS Candlelight Memorial
22 Victoria
Day (Canada)
22 Skyscraper
Day
23 World
Turtle Day
23 Bifocals
Day
23 Mesmerism
Day
25 Ascension
Of Christ
25 Tap
Dance Day
25 Self
Reliance Day
25 Wine
Day
26 Bob
Day
26 Cherry
Dessert Day
27 International
Jazz Day
27 Bridge
Day
28 Whale
Day
29
Mount
Everest Day
29 Wisconsin
Day
30 Compact
Disc Day
31 Poetry
Day
31 World
No Tobacco Day
June
1 Children's
Day (China)
3 Love
Conquers All Day
3 Egg
Day
3 Family
Day
3 Tattoo
Day
3 Repeat
Day
3 Strawberry
Festival (New Jersey, USA)
3 Blueberry
Festival (Florida, USA)
4 Cheese
Day
5 World
Environment Day
... More
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804 Death of Alcuin (Flaccus Alcuinus),
Anglo-Saxon theologian and one of the fathers of Western calligraphy.
1102 Death of Stephen, Count of Blois.
1125 Death
of Vladimir Monomakh.
1296 Death of Pope Celestine V.
1312
Piers Gaveston, alleged homosexual
lover of King Edward II
of England, was taken prisoner at Scarborough
Castle. On June 19
of the same year he was beheaded by his rivals, including Thomas,
Earl of Lancaster, Guy
de Beauchamp, at Kenilworth,
Warwickshire.
He would shortly be replaced in the king's affections by Hugh
le Despenser.
1535 French explorer Jacques
Cartier set sail for his second voyage to North
America with three ships, 110 men, and Chief Donnacona's
two sons (whom Cartier kidnapped during his first voyage, promising their father
that they would soon be returned). Iroquoian Chief Donnacona lived in the
settlement of Stadacona beside the St. Lawrence River.
1536
Anne Boleyn,
the second wife of Henry VIII of England and mother of
Elizabeth I, was executed on patently false charges of witchcraft, incest
and adultery.
In April, 1536, Henry VIII professed to be concerned that his
wife, Anne Boleyn, was committing adultery. Soon after, four men at court, then
her brother, were arrested for that crime. Seventy peers and gentlemen, some of
whom had an interest in her acquittal, unanimously found her guilty. Yet we know
that Henry married Jane Seymour the day after Anne's death.
After being
blindfolded and kneeling at the block, she repeated several times:
"To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesu receive my soul".
"Anne Boleyn, unfortunate wife of King
Henry VIII, refused to wear a blindfold at her execution, saying
that she was not afraid of death. She consented only to keeping
her eyes closed; but despite this promise, she persisted in
nervously looking about, which distracted the executioner and
made him fearful of missing his aim. A plan was therefore
quickly devised. The executioner removed his shoes and crept up
on the left side of the queen while another man walked up on her
right making considerable noise. As her attention and gaze were
drawn to one side, the executioner struck off her head from the
other. On the following day her widower married Jane Seymour."
Source
More
1568 Queen Elizabeth I of England arrested Mary Queen of Scots.
1588 The Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon for England.
1643 Battle
of Rocroi: French
victory over the Spanish
at Rocroi, France.
1649 An
Act declaring England to be a Commonwealth was passed by the Long
Parliament.
1645 Death of Miyamoto
Musashi, Japanese swordsman.
1694 The death of John Mason, rector of Water
Stratford, Buckinghamshire, England, who not only had predicted the Second
Coming of Christ (Whit Sunday, 1695), but also predicted that he himself would
be resurrected from the dead. Unfortunately for his huge number of cultish
followers, neither event occurred.
1715 Death of Charles Montagu, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
1749 King George II of Great Britain granted the
Ohio Company a charter of land around the forks of the Ohio River.
1780 The
Darkness of 1780: An
unexplained near-total darkness fell on Eastern Canada and
America's New England states at around 2 pm.
On the day (New
England's Dark Day, as it was called), both houses of
the Connecticut Legislature were in session. That afternoon the sky became
exceedingly dark for hours, so in the House of Representatives, members
adjourned, being unable to transact their business, and the members left in
haste. The rumour was circulating that a natural disaster or even the end of the
world was imminent.
Meanwhile, a move to adjourn the Council was opposed by
Colonel Abraham Davenport who is said to have moved that proposed that candles
be lit so they could go on with their business. "I am against an
adjournment," he said, "The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is
not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment: if it is, I choose to be
found doing my duty. I move that candles be brought, and we proceed to
business."
The good senators continued their civic duties in the
council by candlelight until late in the afternoon when the sun gradually
re-emerged.
This event was memorialized in a poem by John Greenleaf
Whittier (1807 - 1892),
entitled 'Abraham
Davenport':
...
'Twas on a May-day of the far old year
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell
Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
A horror of great darkness, like the night
In day of which the Norland sagas tell,
The Twilight of the Gods. The
low-hung sky
Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim
Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs
The crater's sides from the red hell below.
Birds ceased to sing, and all the barnyard fowls
Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars
Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern wings
Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died;
Men prayed, and women wept; all ears grew sharp
To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter
The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ
Might look from the rent clouds, not as He looked
A loving guest at Bethany, but stern
As Justice and inexorable Law.
Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts,
Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut,
Trembling beneath their legislative robes.
"It is the Lord's Great Day! Let us adjourn,"
Some said; and then, as if with one accord,
All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport.
He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice
The intolerable hush. "This well may be
The Day of Judgment which the world awaits;
But be it so or not, I only know
My present duty, and my Lord's command
To occupy till He come. So at the post
Where He hast set me in His providence,
I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face,
No faithless servant frightened from my task,
But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls;
And therefore, with all reverence, I would say,
Let God do His work, we will see to ours.
Bring in the candles." And
they brought them in ...
Remarkably, today, it is still believed within some Christian
churches, especially among
Seventh-day Adventists following interpretations of the event by
Ellen G
White, that the Dark Day was a fulfilment of end-times prophecy.
More
More
1802 Napoléon
Bonaparte instituted the Légion
d'Honneur, the highest French honour for civil and military
distinction.
1830 Australia: Polish explorer
Pawel Edmund Strzelecki named the
Gippsland
region of Victoria, after the then
Governor of New South Wales,
George Gipps.
1845
The HMS Erebus
and Terror with 134 men under
John
Franklin sailed from the River Thames, beginning a disastrous expedition to find
the Northwest Passage.
"Sir John
Franklin set out on his fourth search of the North-West passage on 19 May 1845,
with 134 sailors and officers. They were last seen by the crew of two whaling
ships, the 'Prince of Wales' and the 'Enterprise,' in Baffin Bay at the end of
July. In 1850, near the mouth of Great Fish River, Inuit hunters discovered the
bodies of 30 men and a number of graves. Since some of the bodies were
mutilated, the natives believed that the white men had resorted to cannibalism."
Source
1848 Mexican-American War: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo – Mexico ratified
the treaty, thus ending the war and ceding Texas, California
and most of Arizona
and New
Mexico to the United States for $15 million dollars.
1897 At 6:15 am, Oscar
Wilde was released from from
Pentonville Prison, London, after having served two years hard labour for
homosexual acts. The sentence ruined his health and he died three years later at
the age of only 46.
1906 The 19 km
Simplon Tunnel linking alpine Switzerland and Italy
was officially opened.
1915
John
Simpson Kirkpatrick, Australia's famous 'man with the donkey'
at Gallipoli,
Turkey, was killed by a Turkish
bullet. Kirkpatrick (or Simpson as he is more usually known) became a part of
the ANZAC folklore, and though many believe he was recommended for the
Victoria Cross, twice, and
the Distinguished Conduct Medal, was never decorated for his actions. He has,
however, appeared on a number of Australian stamps, and appears to the left of
Sir John Monash on the Australian $100 banknote.
On the same day Lance-Corporal
Albert Jacka won the Victoria
Cross for bravery under intense Turkish fire.
1917 Victor Voules Brown wrote in a letter regarding conscription
of Australian troops for World War I:
"Last time you wrote you wanted to know why it was
the troops in France did not vote for conscription. I told you as short as I
could perhaps it was censored so will tell you again. To cut it short the boys
in France have had such a doing of it, that they consider it murder (or near
enough to it) to compel anymore to come from Aussie. And then again they
consider once conscription is brought in it is the end of a free Australia (No
doubt about it John Australia is the finest country in the world to my idea.
When the vote for conscription took place I was in Codford & I voted yes,
but dinkum I am like the rest now I have seen it, & wouldn't compel anyone
(barring the few rotters of single chaps that wont come. And of course to get
them one would have to get a lot of others, so under the circumstances let them
stop at home It is no good for a peaceful life over there & I can tell you I am
not looking forward to the next dose."
A decisive defeat of the second referendum on December 20, 1917, which proposed,
"Are
you in favour of the proposal of the Commonwealth Government for reinforcing the
Commonwealth Forces overseas?"
ended the issue of conscription for the remainder of
the First World War.
Source
1919 Mustafa Kemal Ataturk moved to Samsun from
Istanbul by an old ship called
Bandirma with
several friends to work separately from Ottoman
Government in order to prepare the nation for the Independence War.
1921 The
Emergency Quota Act passed the United States Congress establishing national
quotas on immigration.
1924 Wing Commander Stanley Globe and Flight Officer Ivor McIntyre
completed athe first round-Australia flight, in 93 hours. Their feat is
unremembered by the Australian general public.
1926 Thomas Edison spoke at a dinner for the
National Electric Light Association in Atlantic City, USA, on this night. When
asked to speak into the microphone, he said, "I don't know what to say.
This is the first time I ever spoke into one of these things ... Good
night."
1928 The first frog jumping contest was held at
Angels Camp,
California, USA.
1935 TE Lawrence ('Lawrence of Arabia') died
after fracturing his skull in a motorcycle accident on
May 13.
1953 USA: 'Dirty Harry', a 32 kiloton atom bomb
was exploded, with a huge cloud of nuclear fallout covering St George,
Utah.
Proper information was not given by the authorities to the citizens, many of
whom were contaminated. The United States Atomic Energy Commission
used locals in a film to
show that no danger to St George citizens was occurring. Many of those amateur
actors later died of cancer.
1960 Well-known
American rock and roll disc jockey Alan Freed and others were
charged with having taken 'payola', bribes to play certain records in order
to boost sales.
1961 Venera
program: Venera
1 became the first man-made object to fly-by another planet, by passing Venus
(however the probe had lost contact with earth a month earlier and did not send
back any data).
1967 The BBC had banned the playing of
'A Day in the Life', but the Beatles and friends partied on anyway at
Brian Epstein's place to launch
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (released
June 1).
More Wilson's
Almanac Book of Days hip list
1971 Mars probe program: Mars 2 was
launched by the Soviet Union.
1977 The
Orient Express left Paris on its last run.
1978
Dire Straits released the song that put them on the pop music
charts, 'Sultans of Swing'.
1982 Sophia Loren was jailed for tax evasion in Italy.
1982 Four hundred and fifty thousand people were marooned by floods
in the province of Guangdong, China.
1989 At Cardiff Crown Court, Wales, a defendant handed the judge a
note saying that her lips were sealed with superglue "to draw attention to the
mistrial and injustice in this court".
1991
Helen Sharman became the first Briton in space when she entered
space with a Russian mission.
1999 Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was released in movie theaters
across the United States setting a new record for opening day
sales at $28.5 million.
2001 One
child policy: Zhonghua Sun was put to death by People's Republic of China government
officials because she refused to be sterilized.
2005
George Lucas's Star
Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was released in cinemas. It broke the
opening box office record gross, making
US50 million.2006
The
Da Vinci Code (film) was released worldwide (May 17, 18
and 20 in some countries).
The
Dundee Code (2004)
2161 Eight of nine planets will be aligned on same
side of sun.
syzygy: in astronomy,
alignment of three bodies of the solar system along a straight or nearly
straight line. A planet is in syzygy with the earth and sun when it is in opposition or conjunction, i.e.,
when its elongation is
180° or 0°. The moon is in syzygy with the earth and sun when it is new or
full. Source
Tomorrow: Saint Lucifer?; Ascension
Main calendar
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