May 21 is National Memo Day
National Waiters and Waitresses Day
National Strawberries and Cream Day
Birthday of Alexander Pope (May 21, 1688), English poet and essayist. He is the third most-often quoted writer after Shakespeare and Tennyson. He wrote:
- To err is human; to forgive divine
- A little learning is a dangerous thing.
- Hope springs eternal in the human breast.
- Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
1758 – Ten-year-old Mary Campbell was abducted from her home in Pennsylvania by Lenape Indians during the French and Indian War. She was returned to a European settlement at age 16 in the famous release of captives orchestrated by Colonel Henry Bouquet at the conclusion of Pontiac’s War in November 1764.
Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Battle Creek, Michigan on May 21, 1863. Distant offshoots are the Davidian Seventh-day Adventist organization and the Branch Davidians.
May 21, 1881 – The American Red Cross was established by Clara Harlowe Barton in Washington, D.C..
University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a “thrill killing”. in 1924.
Charles Lindbergh touched down at Le Bourget Field in Paris on May 21, 1927, completing the world’s first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
Bad weather forced Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland on May 21, 1932, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
1972 – Michelangelo’s Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome was damaged by a vandal, the mentally disturbed Hungarian geologist, Laszlo Toth. The work has been restored and now lives in St. Peter’s behind bullet-proof acrylic glass.