May Calendar: Today in History |
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MAY DAY - Honored as a day to celebrate workers and the labor movement in numerous countries. ACCORDING TO MOTHER GOOSE - "The young maid who, the first of May, goes to the fields at break of day, and washes with dew from the hawthorn tree, will ever after handsome be." 1707 - Act of Union - England and Scotland became Great Britain. 1948 - North Korea was established. 2011 - U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden, founder of the terrorist organization al Qaeda, was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan. |
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1994 - Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa.
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2003 - New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain collapsed.
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1626 - Peter Minuit landed on Manhattan Island. 1886 - Haymarket Square Riot. 1932 - Al Capone entered prison after being convicted of tax evasion. 1970 - Shooting of students at Kent State University (Ohio). |
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1925 - John Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution (Tennessee). 1961 - The first American went into space, Alan Shepard. CINCO DE MAYO - Mexican-American holiday honoring a Mexican victory over invading European forces. |
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1882 - Chinese Exclusion Act. 1937 - Hindenberg disaster (Lakehurst, New Jersey). NATIONAL SCHOOL NURSE DAY - National Association of School Nurses. |
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1847 - The American Medical Association was founded. 1915 - Sinking of the Lusitania (World War I). 1942 - Battle of the Coral Sea. 1945 - Germany's unconditional surrender ended World War II in Europe. 2000 - Vladimir Putin became president of Russia (the Russian Federation). |
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1794 - Antoine Lavoisier guillotined. 1942 - Battle of the Coral Sea. 1945 - V-E Day (Victory in Europe, World War II). 1973 - End of the occupation of Wounded Knee. |
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1926 - Floyd Bennett and Richard E. Byrd flew over the North Pole. 1962 - The Beatles signed their first record deal. |
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1775 - Fort Ticonderoga was captured from the British by Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. 1869 - Completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. 1924 - J. Edgar Hoover became the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). |
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1858 - Minnesota became a U.S. state. 1894 - Start of the Pullman Strike. 1949 - Siam became Thailand. 1997 - Gary Kasparov was defeated by IBM supercomputer Deep Blue. |
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1551 - The National University of San Marcos was founded in Lima, Peru. 2008 - The Wenchuan Earthquake killed over 69,000 people in China. |
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1717 - Birth of Austria's Maria Theresa. 1787 - The first fleet of convicts left England for Australia. 1846 - Official start of the Mexican-American War. 1888 - Brazil abolished slavery. 1981 - Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded in Rome. |
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1862 - United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was created. 1972 - Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, was shot. |
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1770 - Wedding of Marie Antoinette and the future King Louis XVI. 1929 - First Academy Awards were held. |
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1792 - Formation of the New York Stock Exchange. 1954 - Brown v. Board of Education decision declared school segregation unconstitutional. 2004 - A law legalizing same-sex marriage was passed in Massachusetts. |
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1642 - Montreal, Quebec, was founded. 1804 - Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Emperor of France. 1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson decision declared segregation constitutional under the "Separate but Equal" doctrine. 1980 - Eruption of Washington's Mount St. Helens. |
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1536 - Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's Henry VIII, was beheaded. 1921 - Emergency Quota Act passed by the United States Congress. 1992 - Amendment 27 of the United States Constitution. |
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1506 - Death of Christopher Columbus in Spain. 1927 - Charles Lindbergh, a.k.a. "Lucky Lindy," began the first nonstop solo flight around the world aboard the Spirit of Saint Louis. 1932 - Amelia Earhart began her flight as the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean solo. 1961 - Busload of "Freedom Riders" attacked in Montgomery, Alabama. 2002 - East Timor became an independent nation. |
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1881 - Predecessor of the American Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton. 1956 - Hydrogen bomb dropped over the Bikini Atoll. |
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1972 - Ceylon became Sri Lanka. 1990 - North Yemen and South Yemen merged as the Republic of Yemen. INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY - Educate yourself on diverse species and the threats they face. |
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1873 - Predecessor of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police formed in Canada. 1934 - Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow killed by police. 1949 - Creation of the German Federal Republic. |
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1844 - Samuel Morse's first telegraph message: "What hath God wrought?" 1883 - Brooklyn Bridge opened. |
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1787 - Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia. 1961 - John F. Kennedy addressed Congress on the importance of sending a man to the moon. 1968 - Dedication of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. |
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1521 - Edict of Worms banned Martin Luther's works. 1978 - Opening of the first Atlantic City casino. |
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1703 - Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg, Russia. 1937 - San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge opened. |
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1692 - The Battle of la Hogue, part of the War of the English Succession, began near France's Cherbourg Peninsula. 1790 - Rhode Island became a U.S. state. 1848 - Wisconsin became a U.S. state. |
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1431 - Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.
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1790 - First United States copyright law was enacted. 1943 - End of the Japanese occupation of the Aleutian Islands. 1961 - South Africa became independent. |