Did You Know this Happened in May?

May 1- May 13  Not updated, so some old facts!

May 1 – Today is May Day, celebrating the return of spring.

Fact of the Day: The first skyscraper was built in 1884-1885 in Chicago. The 10-story Home Insurance Company building was designed by William Le Baron Jenney. It had a steel frame (steel-girder construction) to carry the weight of the building. The walls provided no support, but hung like curtains on the metal frame. This method of construction revolutionized American architecture and allowed architects to build taller and taller buildings.

What Happened Then? - 1883 - Buffalo Bill (William F. Cody) staged his first Wild West Show.  1941 - The film "Citizen Kane," directed by and starring Orson Welles, opened in New York.  1961 - Fidel Castro announced there would be no more elections in Cuba.

Birthdays: 1909 - Kate Smith, American singer, entertainer. 1916 - Glenn Ford, American film actor. 1918 - Jack Paar, American TV host.

 

May 2 - What Happened Then? - 1611 - The Authorized Version of the Bible (King James Version) was first published.  1885 - "Good Housekeeping" magazine went on sale.

Birthdays:  1729 - Catherine the Great (Ekaterina Alekseevna), (1762-1796) German-born Russian empress. 1895 - Lorenz Hart, American composer, lyricist with Richard Rodgers. 1902 - Benjamin Spock, American pediatrician, author. 1936 - Engelbert Humperdinck (Arnold George Dorsey), American singer.

 

May 3 - What Happened Then? - 1802 - Washington, D.C. was incorporated as a city.   1952 - The first airplane landed on the geographic North Pole.  1971 - National Public Radio started broadcasting.

Birthdays: 1898 - Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel (1969-1974); 1903 - Bing Crosby (Harry Lillis Crosby), American singer, actor. 1919 - Pete Seeger, American folk singer, songwriter.1928 - James Brown, American rock and roll singer. 1937 - Frankie Valli (Francis Castellucio), American singer.

 May 4 - What Happened Then?  1626 - Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on present-day Manhattan Island. He purchased it from resident Algonquin Indians for the equivalent of $24 in trade goods.  1970 - Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.   1973 - The world's tallest building, Sears Tower, Chicago, was completed.

Birthdays:  1929 - Audrey Hepburn (Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Rusten), Belgian-born American actress.

May 5 - What Happened Then?  1893 - Panic hit the New York Stock Exchange and the stock market crashed; by year's end, the country was in a severe depression.   1961 - Alan B. Shepard became America's first space traveler as he made a 15-minute suborbital flight in a capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Birthdays:  1867 - Nelly Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman), American journalist.

 

May 6 - Fact of the Day: Sack of Rome. The Renaissance ended with the Sack of Rome by the armies of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, in May 1527. In eight days, his Spanish troops and German mercenaries killed around 4,000 Romans and looted works of art and literature. Even the Pope, Clement VII, was imprisoned. Though the Renaissance was effectively ended, Rome bounced back and by 1600, it was once again a prosperous city.

What Happened Then?    1882 - Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from the United States for 10 years. 1937 - The hydrogen-filled German dirigible Hindenburg crashed in New Jersey, killing 36 of its passengers. It was the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany.  1994 - A rail tunnel under the English Channel officially opened, connecting Britain and the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age.

Birthdays:  1856 - Sigmund Freud, Viennese founder of psychoanalysis.   1895 - Rudolph Valentino (Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina), silent-film star.  1915 - Orson Welles, American actor, director, producer, writer

May 7:  Birthdays: 1812 - Robert Browning, English poet.  1840 - Peter I. Tchaikovsky, Russian composer.  1909 - Edwin Herbert Land, American, inventor of the Polaroid Land Camera.  1919 - Eva Perón, president of Argentina.

Fact of the Day: Inauguration The first U.S. inauguration was held in 1789 - for George Washington - at Federal Hall in New York City. Washington's second inauguration (and that of his successor, John Adams) was held in Philadelphia because the capital had been moved there. Thomas Jefferson was the first president to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C.   The word inaugurate is from Latin and it meant "to take omens from the flight of birds and to install or consecrate after one takes such omens (or auguries)."

 

May 8:  Birthdays: - Jean Henri Dunant, Swiss philanthropist, founder of the Red Cross and YMCA, first recipient (jointly) of the Nobel Peace Prize.  1847 - Oscar Hammerstein I, American playwright, producer.  1884 - Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States of America (1945-1953).

What Happened Then?  1541 - Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River, which he called Rio de Espiritu Santo.  1794 - The United States Post Office was established.  1886 - Atlanta pharmacist John Styth Pemberton invented the flavored syrup for Coca-Cola.  1902 - On the Caribbean island of Martinique, the volcano Mount Pelée erupted, killing 30,000 people.

May 9:  Birthdays: 1882 - Henry J. Kaiser, American industrialist, shipbuilder, auto manufacturer.

What Happened Then? 1754 - The first cartoon was published, in Benjamin Franklin's "Pennsylvania Gazette."  1960 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a birth-control pill.  1945 V-E Day stands for Victory in Europe Day, unconditional surrender of Germany to Allied forces.

 

May 10:  Birthdays:  Fred Astaire (Frederick Austerlitz), American dancer, actor.  1902 - David O. Selznick, American movie producer.

What Happened Then?  1869 - A golden spike was driven at Promontory, Utah, marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.  1872 - Victoria Woodhull became first woman nominated for U.S. president.  1960 - The U.S. nuclear-powered submarine Triton completed its circumnavigation of the globe after 84 days.

 

May 11:  Birthdays: 1888 - Irving Berlin, Russian-born American composer.  1894 - Martha Graham, American dancer, choreographer, pioneer of modern dance.  1904 - Salvador (Felipe Jacinto) Dalí (y Domenech), Spanish surrealist artist.  1912 - Phil Silvers (Silversmith), Emmy Award-winning American comedian, actor.

What Happened Then  1947 - B.F. Goodrich Co. of Akron, Ohio, announced the development of a tubeless tire.  1949 - Israel was admitted to the United Nations.

 

May 12:  Birthdays: 1820 - Florence Nightingale, English nurse, who was the founder of modern nursing.   1907 - Katharine Hepburn, American Academy Award-winning actress.  1915 - Mary Kay Ash, American, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.

What Happened Then?  1935 - Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in Akron, Ohio by "Bill W.," a stockbroker, and "Dr. Bob S.," a heart surgeon  1937 - King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey upon the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII. He was later succeeded by his daughter, Elizabeth II.  1949 - The Soviet Union lifted its 11-month land blockade against West Berlin, which was an early crisis of the Cold War.

May 13:  Birthdays: 1842 - Composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, British, collaborator with Sir William Gilbert in writing 14 comic operas.

What Happened Then?  1607 - The English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, was settled.

Fact of the Day: Mother's Day

The second Sunday in May is set aside in the United States to celebrate mothers.  Anna Jarvis, born in Grafton, West Virginia in 1864, started the movement to have a Mother's Day. She wrote letters to politicians, newspaper editors, and church leaders and organized a committee called Mother's Day International Association to promote the new holiday. She wanted Mother's Day to be close to Memorial Day so people would recognize mothers for the sacrifices they made for their families in the same way that servicepeople had for their country. The first official Mother's Day observance was in May 1907. President Woodrow Wilson gave the day national recognition in 1914. Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to abolish the holiday she had brought into being, because she protested its commercialization.