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 Tango
no Sekku (Boy's Day) or
Kodomo no hi
(Children's
Day), Japan
Pictured at right: Koinobori,
courtesy of
chaojikazu/Kazunori Matsuo, with thanks.
Creative
Commons licence Some Rights Reserved.
This is a relatively new holiday, honouring
all the children of the country and wishing them happiness and
prosperity. The emphasis is both on respect for children and also
children's duty and privilege to have gratitude to parents.
Originally today was called Shobu no Sekku after the Japanese
iris plant,
shobu (Iris
sanguinea), whose name is a
Japanese
homonym
for the ultimatum 'win or lose'. The shobu has sword-shaped leaves
with medicinal uses. Shobu are placed under the eaves to fend off
evil, and shobu leaf baths are taken to protect boys' health and
render them fearless.
This festival expresses the hope that all
the boys in each household will grow up healthy and strong. Warrior
figures with helmets and suits of armour are set up in the house,
and today people display the
koi no bori (koinobori;
pictured) a windsock shaped as a carp, which is emblematic of
strength as the carp can swim up even the largest waterfall. The
biggest of these, up to five metres, represent the oldest sons.
Foods of the day include special rice cakes
(kashiwa
mochi) wrapped in
oak
leaves, and
chimaki
– glutinous rice soaked then steamed in bamboo leaves, tied with
straws, which are sold today by vendors at railway stations. When,
after WWII, militaristic customs were banned, today became Kodomo no
hi, Children's Day.
On this day, Japanese boys display fierce,
armoured samurai dolls, harking back to this day's origins as a
militaristic day. May 5 is generally known these days as Kodomo no
hi (Kodomo-No-Hi), or Children's Day. The holiday was traditionally
called Boys' Day Festival until
1948.
Activities for teachers and children
More
More
Ancient Egypt's day of Truth
The fifth day of the moon at this
time of year was dedicated to
Ma'at, the ancient Egyptian goddess of
Truth.
Festival of Delia,
ancient Greece, Purification of Athens (May 5 - 6)
On
the dating of items in the Almanac
Festivals in ancient Greece
Rose festival, Capua, Roman Empire (see Rosalia, May 23)
Egyptian
day (dies egypticus, dies ægypticus or dies
mala), unlucky day in Medieval
Europe. ("But, notwithstanding, I will trust the Lord" was
the associated saying.)
Rain
Ceremonies, Guatemala, for Goddess of Rain and Fertility
Today is dedicated to the Guatemalan goddesses of rain and
fertility, at the halfway point of the northern
spring.
Feast day of St Angelus of
Jerusalem (Angelo) , Carmelite friar, martyr
St Angelus (1185
- 1222)
was a Palestinian
saint
and martyr.
"Saint Angelus is depicted in art as a Carmelite with a knife in his head. He may also be shown (1) with a sword in his breast, holding a book, palm (symbol of martyrdom), and three crowns; (2) as an angel brings him three crowns; (3) with lilies and roses falling from his mouth as symbols of his eloquence; or (4) tied to a tree and shot with arrows (Roeder, Tabor). He is venerated in Leocata, Sicily (Roeder)."
Source
More
Feast day of St Aventinus
Patron against
dizziness.
Feast day of St Caterina
Cittadini
Feast day of
Blessed Edmund Rice
Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice (Irish: Iognáid Rís;
June 1,
1762 -
August 29,
1844), was a Roman
Catholic missionary and educationalist, and founder of two orders of
religious brothers: the
Congregation of Christian Brothers and the
Presentation Brothers.
Feast day of St Geruntius
of Milan
Feast day of St Hilary,
Archbishop of Arles
St Hilary of Arles (c. 403 - 449)
was a bishop
of Arles.
"In art, Saint Hilary is portrayed as
secretary to the bishop with the chain of office, biretta, book and
a dove at his ear. He may also be shown (1) as bishop consecrating a
virgin with a dove at his ear; (2) at a council of bishops, the earth rises to enthrone him and an empty tomb is seen nearby; or (3) driving serpents or dragons from the island of Lérins (Roeder)."
Source
More
Feast day of St Hydroc
Feast day of St Irenaeus
Feast day of St Irene
Feast day of St John Haile
Feast day of St Jovinian
Feast day of St Jutta
Kulmsee (Judith of Kulmsee; Jutta of Sangershausen)
St Jutta (born c. 1200
at Sangershausen in Thuringia;
d. 1260
at Kulmsee,
now Chełmża
in Poland)
was a Prussian
anchoress
and saint.
More
Feast day of St Nuntius
Sulprizio
Feast day of St Pius
V, Pope
(Apple tree,
Pyrus malus,
is
today's plant, dedicated to
this saint.)
St Pius V (1505
- '72),
was
pope
from 1566
to '72
and is a saint
of the Catholic
Church. Early on involved in the Inquisition,
as Pope he resisted the influence of Protestants.
Today's plant is also deciated to St Angelus of Jerusalem (see
above).
According to Wikipedia,
after his election to the papacy, Pius V continued to wear white,
the colour of his Dominican habit. Every pope since him has also worn
white clothing. Prior to Pius V, popes, like cardinals, wore red.
This is why some papal accessories, such as the papal
shoes, camauro,
mozzetta,
and cappello
romano, are red.
Pius V died on May
1, 1572, and was buried in the Basilica
di Santa Maria Maggiore. He was succeeded by Pope Gregory
XIII (reigned 1572 - '85). Pius V was canonized
by Pope Clement
XI (reigned 1700 -
'21) on May
24, 1712.
Today is his feast day, according to Chambers (Robert
Chambers, (Ed.), The
Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection
with the calendar, etc, W & R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879
Edition is online and 1869
edition here
with CD-ROM available; See also
The
English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of
Days).
However, modern sources
give April
30.
Feast day of St Sacerdos of
Saguntum
Feast day of St Theodore of Bologna
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Shop saints
Takoage
(Big Kite-Flying), at the
Suwa shrine,
Hamamatsu,
Shizoka
Prefecture, Japan (May 1 - 5)
At the annual Suwa Shrine Festival
at Hamamatsu, Japan, kite enthusiasts ply their craft in a ceremony
that dates back to about the year 1550, when a feudal lord had a
baby son and put the child's name on a kite for all to see. Today
is the last of five days of kite flying, the day on which blades are
attached to the kites for aerial combat.
Ageuma
Shinji, or
Steeplechase Event,
Kuwana,
Mie Prefecture, Japan
Today's event
is known locally as Ageuma Shinji and commemorates the time when
warriors were trained in horseback riding. These days, teams compete in
steeplechasing. If riders can jump successfully, a good crop will be
theirs. Also on this day a chigo
parade and divination event are held.
Sagami Giant Kite Festival,
Sagami River,
Kanagawa Prefecture,
Japan
"Held on the banks of the Sagami River, this is an annual event at
which a giant (14m long) kite is flown by a team of nearly 100
people." Source
Kachiya Festival, Katori Shrine,
Kōtō,
Tokyo, Japan
This festival commemorates Fujiwara Hidesato's prayer for victory
before suppressing Taira no Masakado's revolt. The festival dates to
Hidesato's offering of his bow and arrow to the shrine after his
victory in battle. During the modern festival, there is a dedication
of a kachiya (victory arrow) and a traditional warrior
parade.
Dainembutsu
Kyogen, Shinsen-en Shrine, Kyoto,
Japan (May 1 - 5)
Dontaku Matsuri,
or Holiday Festival, at
Fukuoka,
Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan (May 3 - 5)
Himeji Oshiro (Castle) Matsuri,
at Himeji
Castle, in
Himeji,
Hyogo Prefecture, Japan (May 3 - 5)
Fuchu
Kurayami Matsuri (Night Festival), at Okunitama Shrine,
Fuchu,
Tokyo, Japan
Kamo
Horse Race, at Kamigamo Shrine,
Kyoto,
Kyoto
Prefecture, Japan
Kurayami Matsuri (Darkness Festival),
Fuchu,
Tokyo, Japan (May
3 - 6)
Feast of the Dragon, China
"In parts of China, the Feast of
the Dragon is held annually on this date. As part
of the celebration in ancient days, dolls were made from mugwort
leaves which were considered sacred. The dolls were hung above gates
and doors to repel negative influences and entities. The
Dragon has always had positive connotations to the Chinese." Source
Children's Day,
South Korea
May 5 is a national holiday
on which children and their parents enjoy excursions.
Coronation Day,
Thailand
Today's national holiday commemorates the
coronation of King
Bhumibol on May 5, 1950. Also called
Chulakongkron's Day, it also honours the king who carried out
modernisation for the national government last century.
Napoleon's Day,
France
The great French general and
dictator died on this day in 1821. Today at the
Les Invalides
in Paris, a mass is held for him amongst
his descendants and admirers.
Liberation
Day (1945),
Denmark
This celebration in Denmark is to commemorate the
end of five years of Nazi occupation in 1945.
May
5, Liberation day (1945),
The
NetherlandsLiberation
Day (1941),
Ethiopia Indian
Immigration Day (1838),
Guyana Europe
Day, Council
of Europe Martyrs'
Day, Albania
Day of the
Lusophone,
CPLP
(Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries)
International
Midwives Day
"Midwife numbers must be expanded to achieve
Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6 by 2015, 350,000 more
midwives are needed!"
Source
International
No Pants Day
Cartoonists Day
The date was chosen because the first recurring character in
American newspaper comics,
The Yellow Kid,
first appeared in print on May 5, 1895.
1210 King Afonso III of Portugal
1813
Søren Kierkegaard (d. 1855), Danish philosopher
1818 Karl
Marx (d. 1883), German philosopher and social
theorist
1826 Empress Eugenie of France (d. 1920), empress as
wife of Napoleon III
1829 Shusaku Honinbo (d. 1862), Go player
1846 Henryk Sienkiewicz (d. 1916), author, recipient
of the Nobel Prize in literature 1905
 1865 Nellie
Bly (d. January 27, 1922),
pseudonym of Elizabeth Jane Cochran/Cochrane,
a pioneering American female
investigative journalist.
On January 25,
1890, Bly bettered
Phileas Fogg's fictional
feat in Around
the World in Eighty Days by doing it in just 72 days, six hours, eleven
minutes and fourteen seconds after her departure from Hoboken, New Jersey, on November 14, 1889.
Born to Judge
Michael Cochran and Mary Jane Kennedy Cochran, part of the large
Cochran family of
Apollo, Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Cochrane revolutionized journalism
for women.
In September
1887, Bly talked her way into the office of John Cockerill, managing
editor of Joseph Pulitzer's New York
World. Cockerill hired the unknown journalist and gave Bly her
first assignment – to be committed to the Women's Lunatic Asylum
on Blackwell's Island. Impersonating an insane woman, Nellie Bly
came back from the asylum ten days later with stories of cruel
beatings, ice cold baths and forced, rancid meals. This adventurous
and daring stunt propelled Bly into the limelight of New York
journalism, and, at only 23, Nellie Bly had become a pioneer of a
proud tradition that was well known in the West until the early 21st
Century: investigative journalism.
On November 14,
1889, Nellie Bly began her worldwide journey on the
Hamburg-American Company liner Augusta Victoria from the
Hoboken Pier at precisely 9:40:30 a.m.
In 1895, Nellie Bly married a
millionaire, Robert Seaman,
forty-three years older than herself, and
retired. Due to embezzlement by employees at his company, she lost most of his money after he died and, in 1919, tried
unsuccessfully to make a comeback.Shop
Nellie Bly
Nellie
Bly trading cards
1869 Hans Pfitzner (d. 1949), composer
1882 (Estelle)
Sylvia
Pankhurst (d. September 27,
1960),
campaigner in the suffragette
movement.
She was born in Manchester, England,
a daughter of Dr Richard
Pankhurst and Emmeline
Pankhurst, members of the Independent
Labour Party and much-concerned with women's rights. Her sisters
Christabel
and Adela
were also activists.
In 1906, she started to
work full-time with the Women's
Social and Political Union with her sister Christabel and her
mother. But in contrast to them she retained her interest in the
labour movement.
"Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst, Honorary
Secretary, organiser, speaker and author, c1909. Sylvia was an
accomplished artist and designer who was trained at the Royal
College of Art in South Kensington. Her art work and imagery gave
the Women's Social and Political Union a coherent visual identity.
Sylvia made votes for working-class women a priority and this
brought her into conflict with her mother and sister, Christabel.
They disapproved of her East London Federation of Suffragettes and
expelled her from the WSPU in 1914. She lectured on woman's
suffrage in the United States (1911); Scandinavia (1913) and
central Europe (1914). She was imprisoned many times for her
involvement and endured weeks and months of hunger, thirst and
sleep strikes in Holloway Gaol." Source
Early
progressives in the Book of Days A
world chronology of women's suffrage
1882 Sir Douglas
Mawson (d. 1958),
English-born Australian
Antarctic
explorer,
the man the Australian one hundred dollar banknote. He was one of the first to
ascend Mount Erebus and get close to the South magnetic pole. Mawson luckily turned down
an invitation to join Robert Falcon Scott's last fatal
expedition.
His exploration resulted in
Australia claiming forty-two percent of Antarctica as Australian
Territory – an area roughly the size of Australia without
Queensland, or the USA without Texas and Alaska.
1890 Christopher Morley (d. 1957),
American editor and author, co-founder of the
Saturday Review of Literature
1901 Blind Willie McTell (d. 1959), blues
singer
1903 James
Beard (d. 1985), chef,
cookbook
writer
1906
Mary Astor (born Lucille Langehanke),
Academy Award-winning American actress
1915
Alice Faye (d. 1998),
Hollywood leading lady (George White's Scandals)
1913
Tyrone Power (d. 1958), Hollywood actor
(The Razor's Edge;
Witness for the
Prosecution;
The Sun Also Rises). Says the IMDB: "His
great-grandfather was the first Tyrone Power (1795-1841), a famed
Irish comedian. His father, known to historians as Tyrone Power Sr, but
to his contemporaries as either Tyrone Power or Tyrone Power the
Younger, was a huge star in the theatre (and later in films) in both
classical and modern roles. … His three children, including his
namesake, Tyrone William Power IV (known professionally as Tyrone Power Jr), have
all followed him in the family acting tradition."
1940 Eric
Burdon, rock and blues singer (The
Animals)
 1943
Michael Palin,
CBE,
English
comedian,
actor
and
television presenter best known for being
one of the members of the comedy group
Monty Python and for his travel
documentaries;
graduate of
Oxford with a degree in History.
Palin agreed to the
Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children being named after
him following his role in
A Fish
Called Wanda, in which he portrayed a character called Ken
who stammered, basing the role on his own father who suffered from
stammering all his life.
Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days
Shop
Monty Python
1943
Bob Woodward,
American journalist who helped break the Watergate story through the
Washington Post
1944 John Rhys-Davies, actor
1957
Richard E Grant, English actor
1952
Campbell
McComas (d.
January 8,
2005), Australian
comedian, writer and actor who specialized as a bogus after-dinner
speaker. In his career, which began on this day in
1976, McComas played
1,822 of these bogus characters. He typically ended his speeches
with the words, "Thank you for having me (but I think you've been
had as well)".
Thank you for having me (but I think you've been had)
McComas the chameleon dies at 52
Phew!!
Have a rest before the big This
day in history section
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Moon Day
Varies
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the 13th
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holidays
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Varies Mahavir
Jayanti
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Jayanti
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Arbor
Day
Varies
Child
Care Professionals Day
Varies Wesak
Day (Malaysia)
Varies Buddha
Purnima
Varies Birthmothers'
Day
Varies Senior
Citizens Day
Varies Unmothers'
Day
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May
5 Cinco
De Mayo
5 International
Tuba Day
5 Halfway
Point Of Spring
5 Chocolate
Custard Day
5 Hoagie
Day
5 International
Midwives Day
6 Nurses
Day
6 No
Diet Day
6 Astronomy
Day
6 Freud
Day
6 Derby
Day
7 School
Day
8 Student
Nurses Day
8 World
Red Cross Day
8 V-E
Day
9 Tear
Tags Off Mattresses Day
10 Blood
Pressure Day
10 School
Nurse Day
10 Clean
Up Your Room Day
10 Golden
Spike Day
11 Minnesota
Day
11 Chair
Day
12 Kite
Day
12 Limerick
Day
12 Military
Spouse Day
12 Receptionists
Day
13 Frog
Jumping Day
13 Tulip
Day
13 Leprechaun
Day
14 Motorcycle
Riders Day
14 Stars
And Stripes Forever Day
14 Dance
Like A Chicken Day
14 Crazy
Day
15 Butterfly
Day
15 Flip
Your Mattress Day
15 International
Day Of Families
16 Clergy
Day
17 Rubber
Band Day
... More
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1028 Death
of Alfonso V, king of León
and Galicia.
1194 Death
of King Casimir II of Poland (ruled
1177 - '94).
1260 Kublai
Khan became ruler of the Mongol
Empire.
1291 Egypt's Mamelukes
(slaves converted to Islam who advanced themselves to high military posts in
Egypt) captured the Crusader fortress of
Acre, the last Christian stronghold in
the Palestine.
1309 Death
of King Charles II of Naples, king of Naples.
1525 Death
of Frederick III of Saxony.
1640 King
Charles I of England disbanded the Short
Parliament.
1646 King
Charles I of England surrendered to the Scottish Presbyterian
Army at Newark.
1698 An order was passed in Wycombe,
in Buckinghamshire
in south central England, directing all constables
and other parish officers to search for vagrants "and all such persons which
they shall apprehend in any such search, or shall take begging, wandering, or
misconducting themselves, the said constables, headboroughs, or tything-men,
being assisted with some of the other parishioners, shall cause to be whipped
naked from the middle upwards, and be openly whipped till the bodies shall be
bloody".
1705 Death
of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor.
1713 "The corporation of Doncaster ordered 'a
whipping-post to be set up at the stocks at Butcher Cross, for punishing
vagrants and sturdy beggars'. The stocks were often so constructed as to serve
both for stocks and whipping-post. The posts which supported the stocks being
made sufficiently high, were furnished near the top with iron clasps to fasten
round the wrists of the offender, and hold him securely during the infliction of
the punishment. Sometimes a single post was made to serve both purposes; clasps
being provided near the top for the wrists, when used as a whipping-post, and
similar clasps below for the ankles when used as stocks, in which case the
culprit sat on a bench behind the post, so that his legs when fastened to the
post were in a horizontal position."
By an act passed by Henry
VIII, vagrants were to be "carried to some market town or other place, and
there tied to the end of a cart naked, and beaten with whips throughout such
market town or other place, till the body should be bloody by reason of such
whipping."
Robert
Chambers, (Ed.), The
Book of Days:
A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, etc,
W & R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879
Edition is online and 1869
edition here with CD-ROM available; See also The
English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers's Book of Days)
See
also September 28,
1699
1760 Tyburn, near London, for many decades a
notorious place for
hanging, claimed its first victim, Earl Ferrers.
1762 Peace
treaty between Russia
and Prussia.
1788 Three vessels of Australia's First Fleet set sail for
England.
1809 Mary Kies
became the first woman to be awarded a US patent (which was
for a "new and useful improvement of weaving straw with silk and thread").
1809 The Swiss
canton of Aargau
denied Jews
citizenship.
1814 War of 1812:
The British
attacked
Fort Ontario at Oswego,
New York.
1821 Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of
France (1799 - 1815)
died
of cancer while in exile on the British island of St Helena.
Not long before his death
he told his secretary, "There is no more oil in the lamp", but his last words
are said to be either "Mon Dieu - la nation Française -
Tête d'armée or "Josephine". Aged 51, he became ill and went into a
coma on this day, dying a few hours later.
Napoleon's willows
It is said that all the
weeping willow trees in Australia are descended from cuttings taken from trees
that surround Napoleon's grave on St Helena, brought by British people when
their ships stopped at the island en route.
The willow is by tradition a
sad tree. People who have lost their love place mourning garlands on willow
branches and exiles hung their harps on them. "She is in her willows"
implies the mourning of a female for her lost mate.
Napoleon's grave
1835 In Belgium, a
railway was opened between Brussels and Mechelen. It
was the first railway in continental Europe.
1847 The
American Medical Association was organized.
1853
Norwalk,
Connecticut, USA:
46 people died as the New Heaven Railroad train ran through an open drawbridge
and plunged into the Norwalk River.
Source
1862
French
intervention in Mexico: The Mexican army
defeated the French
army in the Battle of Puebla.
On December
8, 1861, Napoleon III's troops had taken the port city of Veracruz
with a view to retrieve a debt of US$80m owed by the newly-elected
Mexican government. In the
spring of 1862, President
Benito Juárez
(1806
- '72) sent a small force of under-equipped Mexicans, led by General Ignácio Zaragoza, to
fight a professional French army of 6,000 troops who outnumbered the Mexicans by
about two to one.
Fewer than 1,000 of the Mexicans were regular Mexican army, these being
supplemented with local militias, and untrained volunteers and conscripts.
However, apart from commitment and ability, they had weather on their side, as
movement of French artillery was hampered when rain made the ground muddy.
The
battle might have been merely a temporary setback for Napoleon, but is regarded
by Mexicans as the first step in ridding themselves of the French imperialism. On May 9,
1862, Juarez
declared that the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla would be a national
holiday, the Cinco de Mayo.
1864 American Civil War: The Battle of the Wilderness began in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.
1864
Australia's first trout (an exotic species) was hatched in Tasmania.
1865 In
North
Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati),
the first train robbery in the United States took place.
1865 Bushranger Ben
Hall was shot dead by police at Lachlan Plain, New South Wales, Australia.
"'On 29 April 1865, a
police party led by Sub-Inspector James Davidson, with the aid of two black trackers
(Billy Dargin and Charley) left Forbes. Information had been received from an
informer, believed to have had close associations with the gang. On the night of
4 May the police party ... found their man in the bush near Billabong Creek. A
cold apprehensive night was spent in the bush and on the morning of 5 May 1865,
Ben Hall died in a hail of bullets. Ben Hall was buried in Forbes Cemetery on
Sunday 7 May 1865.' (Nixon 1991, p85)" Source
Highwaymen,
outlaws, bushrangers, pirates, gangsters, etc in the Book of Days
1874 A child labor
law was passed in the Netherlands.
1877 America's 'Indian
Wars':
Sitting Bull led his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid
harassment by the United States Army under Colonel
Nelson Miles.
1891 The Music Hall (now known as Carnegie
Hall) had its grand opening and first public performance (Tchaikovsky was the guest conductor).
1892 The United States Congress passed the Geary Chinese Exclusion Act: All Chinese in the United
States had to register; if not, they risked deportation.
1893 Panic of
1893: A crash on the New York Stock Exchange started a depression.
1894 The
Australian slang term 'fair dinkum'
(meaning 'true', 'genuine' 'Is that so?' or 'I agree') appeared
in print for the first time, in The
Bulletin, though the word 'dinkum' by itself appeared in in Rolph
Boldrewood's classic 1888 novel,
Robbery Under Arms. Various
derivations are proposed for the common Ozzie expression, including that it
comes from the Latin, vere dignum
('honest'). I do not know Latin, so can't confirm this; however, I checked
here
at the Latin Dictionary and
Grammar Aid and it seemed to come close.
As a stereotypical
Australianism, the expression is probably rarely spoken without a degree of
self-consciousness, but it is still used commonly and widely across all sections
of Australian society. However, its popularity has waxed and waned over the
years. I believe it declined in popularity in the  1960s, increased in the 1970s,
and it may be that it has declined more recently among Australian children.
Astute readers of mature
years might recall that two Warner
Brothers cartoon characters came from Australia. Probably the better known
of these was
Taz,
the Tasmanian
Devil, but the one with relevance to this Almanac item was Hippety Hopper (born July 24, 1948, in Hop, Look and Listen, November
19, 1949), the joey, or baby kangaroo,
that Sylvester Pussytat and
Sylvester Junior thought was a
"giant mouse". In a good-natured dig (or was it a dignum?) at
Australians, the Warner Bros cartoonists had Hippety Hopper arriving in the USA
aboard the "SS Fair Dinkum".
(Do you have a picture?)
"In the dialects of
Lincolnshire and Derbyshire there is a word dinkum (dincum in
Derby) which means 'work; a fair share of work'. It is not widely recorded,
but there is an 1891 record from a coal-miner who says 'I can stand plenty o' dincum', that is,
'I can put up with any amount of fair work';
and from north Lincolnshire there's the record of a person who says 'You
have gotten to do your dinkum, soä you understand'. The first record
of the word in Australia has this meaning. It occurs in Rolf Boldrewood's Robbery
Under Arms(1888): 'It took us an hour's hard dinkum to get near
the peak', that is, 'an hour's hard work'." Source
"Most dictionaries
published outside Australia and New Zealand are unhelpful, just saying "origin
unknown". But it seems very possible that it comes from an old English dialect
term, which is recorded principally in Joseph Wright's English Dialect
Dictionary of 1896-1905. He found several examples of dinkum in
various parts of England in the sense of a fair or due share of work. He also
encountered fair dinkum in Lincolnshire, used in the same way that people
might exclaim fair dos! as a request for fair dealing. But there's no
clue where this word comes from, and dictionaries are cautious because it is not
well recorded."
Source
Australian English vocabulary
1895 The first recurring character in American
newspaper comics, The
Yellow Kid, first appeared in print.
1906 Australia: Electric
trams began operation in Melbourne -
between St Kilda and Brighton.
1911 New Zealander JJ Hammond piloted the first plane over
Sydney, Australia.
1912 The Russian Communist Party
newspaper, Pravda,
was established by VI
Lenin, Russia.
1916
American marines
invaded the Dominican Republic.
1919
Death of
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz author, L
Frank Baum (b. 1856).
1920 In New York City, anarchists
Nicola
Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for possession of revolutionary literature.
Sacco
and Vanzetti murder trial Early
progressives in the Book of Days
CounterCulture Wiki
Sacco
& Vanzetti links
Woody
Guthrie, Ballads of Sacco & Vanzetti
1924
Australia: Construction of
Sydney's
Spit Bridge began at
Middle Harbour.
1925 Scopes
Trial: Dayton, Tennessee,
USA, biology teacher John Scopes
was arrested for teaching Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution.
1926 American writer, Sinclair Lewis, declined the
Pulitzer Prize, declaring that all such prizes tend to make writers "safe,
polite, obedient and sterile". However, he
ended up accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature (the first American so
honoured) in 1930.
1930 British pioneer aviatrix Amy Johnson (1903 - '41) took off from
Croydon,
England, in her Gypsy Moth on her historic solo flight to Australia. She landed in
Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, on May 24, an epic flight
of some 19,000 km (approx. 11,000 miles). On
January 5, 1941, Johnson crashed into the Thames
estuary and was drowned.
1934 The Times of London reported on an asthma patient, Signora Anna
Monaro, of Piran,
Slovenia, who had for several weeks emitted a blue glow from her
breasts as she slept.
1936 Italian troops
occupied Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia.
1940 World War
II: In London,
a Norwegian
government in exile was formed.
1941 Ethiopia's
Emperor, Haile
Selassie (Ras Tafari), returned to Addis Ababa from exile in Britain after Ethiopia
was liberated by British forces.
1943 The
film curator of the Library of Congress, Howard Walls, announced
that about 5,000 films would be preserved in the library.
1944 Mohandas
Gandhi was freed from prison.
Unit 731
1945 A US B-29 bomber was shot down over Japan
and eight American airmen prisoners were made available for medical experiments
at Kyushu Imperial University. The eight were dissected while they were still
alive.
This is the
only occasion on which Americans became part of the cruel practices of Lt
Gen. Shiro Ishii's
Unit 731, and
the only time at which such experiments were done in Japan. Unit 731 was most
active in China in a little known chapter of human bestiality in which perhaps
hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were deliberately killed.
The personnel
behind the unit went relatively unpunished as General Douglas
MacArthur and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff secured their immunity from
retribution in exchange for vast amounts of documentation of research conducted
(upon Chinese civilians) into biological warfare, which proved useful to the USA
military.
The Other Holocaust:
Nanjing Massacre and Unit 731
Vivisection of
American POWs
Germ
Warfare Timeline More
More
1945 World War
II: A Japanese
bomb, launched by balloon
and called a fire balloon, exploded near Lakewood, Oregon, USA,
killing a woman and five children who were examining it during a church picnic.
The bomb exploded as the children were dragging it from the woods.
1945 World War II: German
troops in the Netherlands and Denmark
capitulated.
1945 World War II: Mauthausen concentration camp was
liberated.
1945 World War II: Canadian
soldiers liberated the city of Amsterdam from Nazi occupation.
1947 Sixteen
people died in a train derailment at
Camp Mountain,
Queensland,
Australia.
1949 The
Council of Europe was formed.
1950 Bhumibol Adulyadej was crowned as King Rama IX of
Thailand.
1952 Queen Elizabeth
II of the United Kingdom took up residence in
Buckingham Palace.
1954 General
Alfredo Stroessner took power in Paraguay by coup.
1955 The
post-war occupation of West
Germany officially ended and the country regained sovereignty, though
divided into Eastern and Western parts.
1955 The World Bank warned that poverty was a greater threat to
world peace than was the Cold War.
1960 A US spokesman announced that the spy plane shot down by
the Russians on May 1
was a "weather research plane" and pilot Francis Gary Powers was a
"civilian employed by Lockheed".
Source: The Daily Bleed
1961 Mercury
program: Mercury
3 –
In an American effort to catch up with the Soviets in the early
days of the space race, astronaut Alan
Shepard became the first American
to travel into space, reaching an altitude of
186 km. He made a space flight of
15 minutes, making less than one complete orbit.
1963 Britain's first satellite was launched in California,
USA.
1963 The
hotline was established between the
White House and the
Kremlin.
1966 The first Australian
National Servicemen (conscripts) arrived
at the Vietnam battle zone. Three weeks later the first 'nasho' was killed
in battle.
1967 Britain's first satellite, Ariel III, was launched from
Vandenburg
Air Force Base in California.
1967 Scott
McKenzie's classic song of the flower-power days, 'San Francisco (Be Sure
to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)', entered the US charts. The record was produced by
Lou Adler and Papa John
Phillips, written by Phillips, and sung by McKenzie. Phillips played guitar
on the recording and Mama Cass
Elliot played bells. 'San Francisco' became a hippie
anthem in the United
States and was popular around the world.
"Early on the day Scott recorded
'San Francisco', some friends picked wildflowers and wove a garland, which he wore while he sang, as his friends sat on the floor and meditated in the studio.
"Since the city of San Francisco was the primary west coast port of disembarkation for all returning military personnel, the song
'San Francisco' became a homecoming song for all Vietnam Veterans from 1967 on. Scott has dedicated every American performance of
'San Francisco' to Vietnam veterans and in 2002 sang at the 20th anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam Memorial Wall.
"In the rest of the world, especially in Eastern Europe, 'San Francisco' became a freedom song.
'During the Cold War the secret police threatened residents with imprisonment just for listening to western music. Many of these people adopted San Francisco as their personal anthem of hope and freedom. It is very
humbling,' says Scott." Scott
McKenzie fansite
Wilson's
Almanac Book of Days hip list
CounterCulture
Wiki
1968 Paris exploded in left-wing student violence -
1,100 people were injured in riots.
1970 One day after
four Ohio student protesters
had been shot and killed by the
Ohio National Guard at
Kent State University, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry
Rubin and David
Dellinger spoke at the
University of New Hampshire. Hoffman
smoked what appeared to be a lit joint in front of thousands of cheering
students. Despite a general sense of tension on campus, no violence erupted.
Source: The Daily Bleed
1976 On his 24th
birthday, in a lecture theatre at Melbourne's Monash University,
Australian comic,
Campbell
McComas (1952
-
2005), gave his
first performance as a bogus lecturer and after-dinner speaker.
Thank you for having me (but I think you've been had)
1980 After a hostage was murdered, British Special Air Service commandos stormed the
Iranian embassy in
London to
break a six-day siege by terrorists [see
April 30]. All but one of the gunmen were killed.
1981
County Down,
Northern Ireland:
Bobby
Sands (b. 1954), Provisional IRA activist, died after 66 days on
a
hunger strike whilst in
HM Prison Maze (also
known as Long Kesh) for the possession of firearms.
Bobby Sands diary
entries & biographies of the ten hunger strikers
Bobby Sands Trust
Biography
1981 Protests begin against the stationing of American B52 nuclear
bombers in Darwin, Australia.
1983
"On May 5 a cone-shaped UFO was allegedly tracked on military radar and shot
down by ground air defence units near Ordzhonikidze in Northern Caucasus. The
wreckage was recovered by the military and transported to the Odintsovo base." Source
1985 Australian
media mogul Rupert Murdoch announced his plan to buy six
Metro-Media TV stations in the USA, at a cost of some $2 billion. Murdoch had to
relinquish his Australian citizenship and become an American to clinch the deal.
In
other words, he is not fair dinkum (see above, 1894) and possibly never was.
1986
Publication commenced of the Australian edition of the
Soviet Union paper,
Pravda.
1987 Iran-Contra affair: Start of US Congressional televised hearings.
1988 Japanese television broadcasts the first transmission from the
summit of Mount Everest.
1988 Australian yachtswoman Kay
Cottee, became the first female sailor
to perform a single-handed,
non-stop circumnavigation
of the world.
1990 Capital punishment: Jesse Tafero was executed in Florida, USA,
after three electric chair malfunctions caused flames to shoot
from his head.
1992 The
Twenty-seventh
Amendment to the United States Constitution received its 38th ratification
by the Alabama Legislature and therefore became law.
1994 American
Michael
Fay was caned in Singapore as punishment for spray-painting two cars.
2000 Conjunction of all traditional planets (Mercury,
Venus,
Mars,
Jupiter,
Saturn,
Moon and Sun).
2001 Chandra
Levy's parents reported her missing to Washington,
DC police.2005
The United
Kingdom general election took place, in which Tony
Blair's Labour
Party was re-elected for a third, consecutive term. 2006
Porter
Goss announced his resignation as CIA director. 2006
The government of Sudan
signed an accord with the Sudan
Liberation Army (SLA).
Tomorrow: Norwegian pagan martyr
Main calendar
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Wikipedia
and David Brown's prodigious Daily Bleed
are both excellent resources that aid my research.
I frequently make use of their generously liberal 'fair use', 'copyleft'
and 'anti-copyright' policies, with much gratitude.
© My own copyright
policy is also liberal, but as this is my livelihood, conditions apply.
Read more about today at Wilson's
Blogmanac
|
reetings from Australia.
How it works
Cinco de Mayo is a holiday celebrating the defeat of the French at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Outside Mexico, people with
Mexican roots celebrate it in places such as Olvera Street, Los Angeles.
Over, the years the day has become very commercialized
and many people see this holiday as a time for fun and dance. Strange to
relate, Cinco de Mayo has become more of a Chicano holiday than a Mexican
one.
