Tidbits of History

May 26 is National Blueberry Cheesecake Day
National Cherry Dessert Day

Sally Ride Day honors Sally Ride, the first American woman to go into space. She was born May 26, 1951 in Los Angeles, California. On June 18, 1983, she became the first American woman in space as a crew member on Space Shuttle Challenger. She died July 23, 2012 of pancreatic cancer.

May 26, 1647- Alse Young became the first person executed as a witch in the American colonies, when she was hanged in Hartford, Connecticut. Her daughter was accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts 30 years later.

The Indian Removal Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 26, 1830; it was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson two days later. It authorized Jackson to negotiate with five Indian tribes in the South to be removed to federal territory west of the Mississippi in exchange for their homelands. Eventually led to the Trail of Tears in 1831.

1857 –Dred Scott was emancipated by the Blow family, his original owners in 1857, three months after the Supreme Court ruled that any person descended from Africans was not a citizen of the U.S.

1864 – Montana is organized as a United States territory.

1896 – Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. By tracking the closing stock prices of twelve companies, adding up their stock prices and dividing by twelve, Dow came up with his average. The index became a popular indicator of stock market activity. The initial twelve companies, none of which are still components of the DJIA, were:

• American Cotton Oil Company, now part of Unilever;
• American Sugar Company, now Domino Foods, Inc.;
• American Tobacco Company, broken up in a 1911 antitrust action;
• Chicago Gas Company, now an operating subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group;
• Distilling and Cattle Feeding Company, now Millennium Chemicals;
• General Electric, removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2018;
• Laclede Gas Company, now Spire Inc,;
• National Lead Company, now NL Industries;
• North American Company, broken up by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1946;
• Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company, now U.S. Steel, removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1991;
• U.S. Leather Company, dissolved in 1952;
• United States Rubber Company, now Michelin .

The very first average price of industrial stocks, on May 26, 1896, was $40.94.

May 26, 1897 – Dracula, a novel by the Irish author Bram Stoker, was published.

House on Un-American Activities formed on May 26, 1938; it was abolished in 1975.

May 26, 1998, The United States Supreme Court ruled that Ellis Island, the historic gateway for millions of immigrants, is mainly in the state of New Jersey, not New York.

May 26, 2004, The United States Army veteran Terry Nichols was found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the Oklahoma City bombing. He was incarcerated at a super-maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.

National Missing Children’s Day in honor of Etan Patz who disappeared on this day in 1979. Etan was the first ever missing child to be pictured on the side of a milk carton.  It wasn’t until 2012 that Pedro Hernandez became a suspect. A former bodega stock clerk confessed to luring 6-year-old Etan Patz into a basement and attacking him; he was found guilty of murder and kidnapping and sentenced to 25 to life in 2017, 38 years after Etan disappeared.

Tap Dance Day, celebrated on the birthday of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson(May 25,1878).

National Brown-Bag-It Day

National Wine Day

Birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803), American essayist, poet, and lecturer.

1878 – Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore opened at the Opera Comique in London. Also called “The Lass that Loved a Sailor”.

1895 – The playwright, poet, and novelist Oscar Wilde was convicted of “committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons” and sentenced to serve two years in prison.

1925 – Scopes Trial: John T. Scopes was indicted for teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in Tennessee.

May 25, 1961, Apollo program: The U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced, before a special joint session of the Congress, his goal to initiate a project to put a “man on the Moon” before the end of the decade.

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space.”

1968 – Saint Louis Gateway Arch was dedicated.

May 22 is Buy a Musical Instrument Day
National Vanilla Pudding Day

On May 22, 1807, a Grand Jury indicted former Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr on a charge of treason. He was acquitted.

Birthday of Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813), German composer famous for his operas, “Tännhauser”, and “Lohengrin”. Part of the third Act of Lohengrin is better known as “Here Comes the Bride” or “The Wedding March”.

Birthday of Mary Cassatt (May 22, 1844), American artist noted for her pictures of mothers and children. Examples of her work can be viewed at Wikiart: Mary Cassatt

In 1849, Abraham Lincoln was issued a patent for an invention to lift boats over obstacles in a river, the only patent ever issued to a U.S. President.

On this day in 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas (“Bleeding Kansas”).

Birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (May 22, 1859), British novelist known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Amnesty Act into law in 1872, restoring full civil and political rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.

In 1906, the Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their “Flying-Machine”.

May 22, 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the goals of his Great Society social reforms to bring an “end to poverty and racial injustice” in America.

May 22, 1972 – Ceylon changes its name to Sri Lanka and became a Republic.

May 22, 1980 – The Pac-man game is released.

Be a Millionaire Day
Pick Strawberries Day
National Quiche Lorraine Day

1819-Birthday of Queen Victoria cekebrated.
Victoria Day is a federal Canadian public holiday celebrated on the last Monday preceding May 25, in honour of Queen Victoria’s birthday. As such, it is the Monday between the 18th to the 24th inclusive, and thus is always the penultimate Monday of May (May 20 in 2024).
The date is simultaneously that on which the current Canadian sovereign’s official birthday is recognized. It is sometimes informally considered the beginning of the summer season in Canada and the first day that it is safe to plant a garden without danger of frost.

Birthday of Dolley Madison in 1768. Dolley Todd Madison was the wife of James Madison, 4th President of the United States from 1809 to 1817. She was noted for holding Washington social functions in which she invited members of both political parties. She was the only First Lady given an honorary seat on the floor of Congress.

Lafayette Day, commemorating the 1834 death of the Marquis de Lafayette, French general who aided the armies of the American Revolution. At birth he was named “Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette”. In 1779 the marquis named his newly born son Georges Washington de Lafayette in honor of the American revolutionary. Three years later, at the suggestion of Thomas Jefferson, Lafayette named his youngest daughter Marie Antoinette Virginie to honor both the French queen and the state of Virginia. In 2002 Lafayette became the sixth foreign national to be given honorary American citizenship by Congress.

1775 – Citizens of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina declare independence from Britain

Eliza Doolittle Day, established in honor of the heroine of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion to encourage the proper use of language. Pygmalion became more popularly known as the film “My Fair Lady”.

First railroad timetable published in newspaper (Baltimore American) on May 20, 1830.

Cuba becomes independent from the United States on May 20, 1902. Cuba was claimed for Spain in 1492 by Columbus. Following the Spanish-American War of 1898, Cuba was administered by the U.S. until 1902.

The first Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover was published May 20, 1916. Entitled Boy with Baby Carriage, it shows 2 boys in baseball uniforms scoffing at another boy dressed in his Sunday suit pushing a baby carriage. One of Norman Rockwell’s favorite models, Billy Paine, posed for all three boys. For this painting, Rockwell received $75.00.

May 20, 1926 – Congress passed Air Commerce Act, licensing of pilots & planes.

Railway Labor Act became law. It is a United States federal law that governs labor relations in the railroad and airline industries. The Act, passed in 1926 and amended in 1934 and 1936, seeks to substitute bargaining, arbitration and mediation for strikes as a means of resolving labor disputes.

1927 – At 7:40 AM, pilot Charles Lindbergh took off from New York’s Roosevelt Field to cross Atlantic.

1932 – Amelia Earhart left Harbor Grace, Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo across Atlantic.

Boy’s Club Day
Malcolm X Day (United States)

May 19, 1536 – Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII of England, was executed. The day after Anne’s execution, the 45-year-old Henry became engaged to Jane Seymour, who had been one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. They were married ten days later.

Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven formed United Colonies of New England, also called the New England Confederation on May 19, 1643. It was revoked in the early 1680’s. Its primary purpose was to unite the Puritan colonies in support of the church, and for defense against the American Indians and the Dutch colony of New Netherland.

1802 – French Order of Legion d’Honneur formed.

1828 – U.S. President John Quincy Adams signed the Tariff of 1828, also called the Tariff of Abominations, into law to protect industry in the North. It set a 38% tax on some imported goods and a 45% tax on certain imported raw materials.

1862 – Homestead Act became law to provide cheap land for settlement of West.

President Jefferson Davis was captured by Union Cavalry in Georgia May 19, 1865.

1884 – Ringling Brothers’ Circus premiered. It was founded by five of the seven Ringling brothers.

First mass production of shoes developed by African-American, Jan Matzeliger, in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1885. Production of shoes went from 50 pairs to 700 pairs per day.

Post Office authorized use of postcards in 1898 but they had to be called “souvenir cards”.

Congress sharply curbed immigration, setting a national quota system in 1921.

German occupiers in Holland in 1941 forbade bicycle taxis.

1941 – New Nazi battleship Bismarck left Gdynia, Poland.

1943 – Berlin was declared “Judenrien” (free of Jews).

US and Canada formed North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) in 1958.

1967 – USSR ratified treaty with England and the U.S. banning nuclear weapons in space.

1971 – USSR launched Mars 2 on May 19, 1971. It is the first spacecraft to crash land on Mars.