On This Day In History
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Day depicted by Spanish painter Goya in his “The Third of May”, painted 1814
Today in History in 1808
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First unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail (“spam”) is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the US west coast
Today in History in 1978
May 4th
1471 Battle of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, final battle between the Houses of Lancaster and York: Prince of Wales, Edward of Westminster killed and King Edward IV restored to his throne. Re-restores political stability to England until his death in 1483.
1814 King Ferdinand VII of Spain signs the Decree of the 4th of May, returning Spain to absolutism
1904 Construction begins by the United States on the Panama Canal
1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman to be elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
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“The Don’t Make A Wave Committee,” a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to the “Greenpeace Foundation”
Today in History in 1972
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Cowboy Bill Pickett invents bulldogging, the skill of grabbing cattle by the horns and wrestling them to the ground
Today in History in 1893
May 5th
1260 Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire
1941 Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa
1955 West Germany is granted full sovereignty by its three occupying powers
1965 First large-scale US Army ground units arrive in South Vietnam
1980 Siege at Iranian Embassy in London ends as the SAS and police storm the building
1981 After 66 days on hunger strike, 26 year old Provisional IRA member and British MP Bobby Sands dies in the Maze Prison. Nine more hunger strikers die in the next 3 months.
Did you Know?
Perfume Chanel No. 5 released by fashion designer Coco Chanel
Today in History in 1921
Would You Believe?
“West Side Story” soundtrack album goes #1 & stays #1 for 54 weeks which is more than 20 weeks longer than any other album
Today in History in 1962
May 6th
1626 Dutch colonist Peter Minuit organizes the purchase of Manhattan Island from Native Americans for 60 guilders worth of goods, believed to have been Canarsee Indians of the Lenape
1840 World’s first adhesive postage stamp, the “Penny Black“, is first used in Great Britain
1937 German airship Hindenburg explodes in flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 35 of the 97 on board and 1 on the ground
1941 Joseph Stalin becomes Premier of the Soviet Union, replacing his foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov
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During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque
Today in History in 2001
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Samuel Pierpont Langley flies his unpiloted Number 5 aircraft using a catapult launch from a boat on the Potomac River, USA. The aircraft travels almost 3/4 of a mile – ten times further than any previous heavier-than-air flying machine.
Today in History in 1896
May 7th
1429 English siege of Orleans broken by Joan of Arc and the French army
1867 Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel Patents Dynamite in England, the first of three patents he would receive for the explosive material
1912 Columbia University approves plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories, after established by Joseph Pulitzer
1915 RMS Lusitania sunk by German submarine off the southern coast of Ireland; 1198 lives lost
1939 Germany and Italy announce an alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis
1945 World War II: Unconditional German surrender to the Allies signed by General Alfred Jodl at Rheims
1952 The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey Dummer
2017 Emmanuel Macron wins France’s presidential election defeating Marine Le Pen
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First printed copies of “Poems” by Emily, Charlotte and Anne Brontë received, published under pseudonym of Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell (2 copies sold)
Today in History in 1846
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Paeleoclimatological research claims dinosaur flatulence may have warmed the earth
Today in History in 2012
May 8th
1660 English parliament declares Charles Stuart to be King Charles II of England
1835 1st installment of Hans Christian Andersen “Fairy Tales” published by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, Denmark
1895 China cedes Taiwan to Japan under Treaty of Shimonoseki
1902 Mount Pelée on the French overseas island of Martinique erupts, wiping out the city of Saint-Pierre, killing 30,000 and leaving only two survivors
1945 V-E Day: World War II ends in Europe after Germany signs an unconditional surrender
1980 World Health Organization announces smallpox has been eradicated
2007 A new Northern Ireland Executive is formed with Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party) as First Minister and Martin McGuinness (Sinn Féin) as Deputy First Minister
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Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta sells the first Coca-Cola (contained cocaine)
Today in History in 1886
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16 year old Keron Thomas disguises himself as a motorman & takes NYC subway train and 2,000 passengers on a 3 hour ride
Today in History in 1993
May 9th
1386 Treaty of Windsor between Portugal and England (oldest diplomatic alliance in the world still in force)
1865 President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation declaring armed resistance in the South is virtually at an end; this is the commonly accepted end date of the American Civil War
1901 The First Australian Parliament opens in Melbourne, though the first working session will not be until 21 May
1941 British intelligence at Bletchley Park breaks German spy codes after capturing Enigma machines aboard the weather ship Muenchen
1945 World War II: The Soviet Union marks Victory Day
1960 US becomes the first country to legalize the birth control pill
2018 Historic win in Malaysian general election by opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan led by 92 year old former Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, defeating Prime Minister Najib Razak and ending 61 years of rule by the Barisan Nasional coalition
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US President Woodrow Wilson proclaims Mother’s Day
Today in History in 1914
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Mark Rothko’s “Orange, Red, Yellow” becomes the most expensive contemporary art piece to be sold at auction for $86.9 million dollars
Today in History in 2012