Tidbits of History

Happy 38th anniversary, Benney and Linda!

May 16 is Love a Tree Day
National Sea Monkey Day
Wear Purple for Peace Day
National Barbecue Day

1568 – Mary Queen of Scotland fled to England.

1771 – The Battle of Alamance, a pre-American Revolutionary War battle between local militia and a group of rebels called “The Regulators”, occurs in present-day Alamance County, North Carolina.

Birthday of William Henry Seward (May 16, 1801), American statesman, secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln; negotiator of the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. The U.S. got 586,412 square miles. The Russians were paid $7.2 million, about 2 cents an acre.

1817 – Mississippi River steamboat service begins.

Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir built first automobile in 1862. He was a Belgian engineer who developed the internal combustion engine in 1858.

Charles Elmer Hires invented root beer in 1866.

In 1866, Congress authorized the nickel 5 cent piece to replace the silver half-dime.

By one vote, Senate fails to impeach President Andrew Johnson in 1868.

The Sedition Act of 1918 is passed by the U.S. Congress, making criticism of the government an imprisonable offense.

1927 – Supreme Court ruled bootleggers must pay income tax.

Food stamps are first issued on May 16, 1939.

The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights begin between John F Kennedy International Airport in New York City and Heathrow Airport in London, operated by El Al Israel Airlines in 1951.

First class postage cost increased to 8 cents in 1971 (was 6 cents)

May 16, 1987 – Wedding of the two creators of this website! Happy anniversary, Benney and Linda!

May 16, 1988, Surgeon General C Everett Koop reports that nicotine as addictive as heroin.

1988 – US Supreme Court rules trash may be searched without a warrant.

Queen Elizabeth became first British monarch to address US Congress on May 16, 1991.

1992 – US space shuttle STS-49 lands (maiden voyage of Endeavour). It launched its final commission on this date in 2011.

2004 – The Day of Mourning at Bykivnia forest, just outside of Kiev, Ukraine. Here during 1930s and early 1940s communist bolsheviks executed over 100,000 Ukrainian civilians.

2013 – Human stem cells are successfully cloned.

National Chocolate Chip Day
Police Officer’s Memorial Day

1004 – Henry II (the Saint) crowned King of Italy on May 15, 1004. He was King of Germany in 1002 and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1014.

1252 – Pope Innocent IV issued the papal bull   Ad ex tirpanda, which authorized, but also limited, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition.

Robert Walpole became England first prime minister on May 15, 1730.

In 1791 Maximilien Robespierre proposed the “Self-denying Ordinance”. The National Constituent Assembly dissolved itself on 30 September 1791. Upon Robespierre’s motion it decreed that none of its members should be capable of sitting in the next legislature; this is known as the Self-Denying ordinance, early French version of Term Limits.

Birthday of Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856), American writer, author of “Wizard of Oz”.

Birthday of Ellen Axson Wilson ( (May 15, 1860), wife of Woodrow Wilson, first lady in 1913 to her death in 1914.

1862 – Union Grounds, Brooklyn, first baseball enclosure, opens. Union Grounds was a baseball park located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York. The grounds opened in 1862, its inaugural match being played on May 15. It was the first baseball park enclosed entirely by a fence, thereby allowing proprietor William Cammeyer or his tenant to charge admission. This permitted paying customers to watch the games from benches in a stand while non-paying spectators could only watch from embankments outside the grounds.

1905 – Las Vegas, Nevada founded. It was named “The Meadows” because the valley contained artesian wells that supported extensive green areas or meadows.

1912 – Ty Cobb rushes a heckler at a NY Highlander game and is suspended.
Per Wikipedia:

“On May 15, 1912, Cobb assaulted a heckler, Claude Lueker, in the stands in New York’s Polo Grounds where his Tigers were playing the Highlanders. Lueker and Cobb had traded insults with each other through the first three innings, and the situation climaxed when Lueker called Cobb a “half-nigger.” Cobb, in his discussion of the incident in the Holmes biography, avoided such explicit words but alluded to Lueker’s epithet by saying he was “reflecting on my mother’s color and morals.” He went on to state that he warned Highlander manager Harry Wolverton that if something wasn’t done about that man, there would be trouble. No action was taken. At the end of the sixth inning, after being challenged by teammates Sam Crawford and Jim Delahanty to do something about it, Cobb climbed into the stands and attacked Lueker, who it turns out was handicapped (he had lost all of one hand and three fingers on his other hand in an industrial accident). When onlookers shouted at him to stop because the man had no hands, he reportedly retorted, “I don’t care if he got no feet!””

When Cobb was suspended, the rest of the Detroit Tigers’ team went on strike to protest the lack of protection of players from abusive fans. This eventually led to the formation of the Major League Baseball Players’ Association.

1918 – First airmail postal service inaugurated with service from New York to Philadelphia and to Washington, D.C. The first U.S. airmail stamp cost 24 cents. Domestic airmail became obsolete in 1975 and international air-mail in 1995.

1940 – McDonald’s opens its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California.

The first Arab-Israeli War of 1948: Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq & Saudi-Arabia troops attack Israel.

1960 – Sputnik 4 launched into Earth orbit; later recovery failed.

1969 – Associate Justice Abe Fortas was forced to resign from Supreme Court due to ethics violations. He had been appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965.

May 15, 1972, assassination attempt on US Governor George Wallace of Alabama by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, Md. Wallace was shot five times, one of the bullets lodging in his spinal cord. Wallace was paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. He died in 1998. Arthur Bremer’s motivation was fame, not politics. He was imprisoned until 2007 at which time he was released.

1972 – The island of Okinawa, under U.S. military governance since its conquest in 1945, reverts to Japanese control.

1973 –Nolan Ryan pitches his first no-hitter. He had seven in his active career.

May 12 is World Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Day

Limerick Day Edward Lear has been called the “father” of the limerick because he helped to popularize the form. One of Lear’s:

There was a young lady of Niger
who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
with the lady inside,
and the smile on the face of the tiger.

And one from Ogden Nash:

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, “let us flee!”
“Let us fly!” said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

Garland Day in Abbotsbury, Dorsetshire, England; a ceremony left over from the old May Day festivities observed by children who carry garlands from door to door and receive gifts for the welcoming of May; the garlands are later laid in front of the War Memorial.

First ice cream advertisement by confectioner Philip Lenzi is published in the New York Gazette. on May 12, 1777.

On May 12, 1870, Manitoba becomes a province of Canada. The original province of Manitoba was a square, one-eighteenth of its current size, and was known colloquially as the “postage stamp province”.

On May 12, 1937, George VI crowned King of England following the abdication of his brother, King Edward VII.

Nazi submarine U-507 sank an American cargo ship, the 10,000 ton SS Virginia at mouth of Mississippi River on May 12, 1942, killing 26 sailors.

St Louis’ Busch Memorial Stadium opened in 1966. It was home to the St. Louis Cardinals National League Baseball team for its entire operating existence while also serving as home to the NFL’s Cardinals team from 1966-1987. It replaced Sportsman’s Park. It was demolished in 2005 and replaced with the new Busch Stadium.

Harry A Blackmun was confirmed as a justice on Supreme Court May 12, 1970. He was appointed by President Richard Nixon. He remained on the bench until 1994, becoming one of the most liberal justices on the Court.

2002 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro becoming first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.

Lost Sock Memorial Day
Victory and Peace Day (Armenia)
Victory Day (former Soviet Union countries), marking end of World War II in Europe.

Saint Joan’s Day, observed in New Orleans in honor of Joan of Arc who forced the English to raise the siege on Orleans, France in 1429.

The first newspaper cartoon in America was created by Benjamin Franklin and published in his “Pennsylvania Gazette” on May 9, 1754. It showed a divided snake with the caption: “Join or Die”. Each segment represented one colony or region.

Birthday of Sir James Matthew Barrie (May 9, 1860), Scottish playwright and novelist, author of “Peter Pan.” I had read a condensed version of the story and, of course, saw the movie. I was absolutely delighted when I read the original story. Highly recommend it to whimsy-lovers!

1868 The city of Reno, Nevada, was founded

North Pole Flight Day, anniversary of the first flight over the North Pole, achieved by Commander Richard E Byrd of the U.S. Navy and Floyd Bennett in 1926.

The first Australian Parliament met in Melbourne on May 9, 1901. It is later moved to Canberra on this day in 1927.

May 9, 1942 – Holocaust: The SS murdered 588 Jewish residents of the town of Zinkiv, Ukraine. One of the first and largest Holocaust mass-murder events had occurred on August 27–28, 1941 near the nearby city of Kamianets-Podilskyi. In those two days, 23,600 Jews were killed, most of them Hungarian Jews (14,000-16,000) and the rest mainly local Ukrainian Jews. As the researchers of the Holocaust point out, the Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre was the first mass action in the “Final Solution” of the Nazis, and the number of its victims reached 5 figures. Eyewitnesses reported that the perpetrators made no effort to hide their deeds from the local population.

Also on May 9, 1942, the Zoludek Ghetto (in Belarus) was destroyed and all its inhabitants murdered or deported.

In 1960, the Food and Drug Administration announced it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle’s Enovid, making Enovid the world’s first approved oral contraceptive pill.

Jim Gentile of the Baltimore Orioles became the first player in baseball history to hit grand slams in consecutive innings on May 9, 1961.

Watergate Scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opened formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon on May 9, 1974. Nixon resigned August 9, 1974.

May 8 is

Iris Day The flower is a symbol for creativity, great power and good news to come.
No Socks Day
World Red Cross Day / World Red Crescent Day
National Coconut Cream Pie Day

According to: Urban Dictionary.com May 8th is traditionally known as National Outdoor Intercourse Day! Also may be shortened to “NOID” Most frequently celebrated on college campuses across the USA during the 1970’s and 1980’s.

In 1541, Hernando de Soto stopped near present-day Walls, Mississippi, and saw the Mississippi River (then known by the Spanish as Río de Espíritu Santo, (The River of the Holy Spirit), the name given to it by Alonso Álvarez de Pineda in 1519)

Birthday of Jean Henri Dunant (May 8, 1828), Swiss philanthropist and founder of the Red Cross Society.

Birthday of Oscar Hammerstein (May 8, 1846), German-American opera impresario, playwright, and inventor who established the Manhattan Opera House for the presentation of popular musical events. Grandfather of Oscar Hammerstein II of Rogers and Hammerstein fame. Hammerstein was born in Prussia. According to Wikipedia, he and his father had strong disagreements about Oscar’s future – the father encouraging academic studies and Oscar devoted to music. Oscar sold his violin to finance his flight from his home to the U.S., arriving in 1864. He found work in a cigar factory where he eventually patented over 80 inventions to improve the manufacture of cigars. He became wealthy industrializing cigar manufacturing, and his tobacco fortune provided the money he used to pursue his theater interests.

On May 8, 1846, shortly before the United States formally declared war on Mexico, General Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) defeated a superior Mexican force in the Battle of Palo Alto. The battle took place north of the Rio Grande River near present-day Brownsville, Texas. Taylor’s victory, along with a series of subsequent victories against the Mexicans, made him a war hero. In 1848, Zachary Taylor was elected America’s 12th president.

Birthday of Harry S Truman (May 8, 1884), thirty-third president of the United States. (The “s” did not stand for anything. It was chosen to honor both grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young.)

May 8, 1886 – Pharmacist John Pemberton first sold a carbonated beverage named “Coca-Cola” as a patent medicine.

Mount Pelee on Martinique erupted in 1902, killing 30,000 people.

In 1919 Edward George Honey first proposed the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate the Armistice of World War I, which later results in the creation of Remembrance Day. In the United States it was called Armistice Day and is now Veterans Day.

V-E (Victory in Europe) Day commemorating the end of World War II in Europe with the signing of the unconditional surrender by the Germans in 1945. Also called Armistice Day in France.