May 31
|
May 31
|
|
|
MAY is:
Melanoma/Skin Cancer Month - Each year 34,000 Americans get skin cancer; 7,200 die from it. Take time this month to have your skin checked out before exposing it to the dangerous rays of the summer sun. Sponsor: American Academy of Dermatology.
- May is Better Hearing Month - Teach people about hearing loss and causes. Includes prevention and treatment. Sponsor: Texas Hearing Aid Association.
Mental Health Month - Teach people about mental health. Sponsor: National Mental Health Association.
Modern Dance Month - Two women who were responsible for modern dance were born in May: Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham.
TODAY IS:
American Poetry Day - Honors all poets and poetry lovers on the birthday of Walt Whitman. Born on this day in 1819. Sponsor: Book Marketing Update.
Copyright Day - The first U.S. copyright law was passed in 1790. Sponsor: Book Marketing Update.
Feast of the Visitation of Mary
Make My Day Day - Celebrates the birthday of Clint Eastwood. He was born on this day in 1930, in San Francisco. Sponsor: The Life of the Party.
Take This Job and Shove It Day - Celebrated on the birthday of Johnny Paycheck. He was born in Greenfield, Ohio on this day in 1941. Sponsor: All My Events.
World No-Tobacco Day - Sponsor: American Association for World Health.
Born on this Day
1469: Manuel I, King of Portugal
1819: Poet Walt Whitman was born in West Hill, New York.
1819: Surgeon William Mayo, founder of the Mayo Clinic
1912: Sen. Henry Jackson, D-Wash.
1923: Prince Rainier of Monaco
1929: Actress Elaine Stewart
1930: Actor-director Clint Eastwood
1933: Opera singer Shirley Verrett
1936: Actor Keir Dullea
1938: Singer Peter Yarrow
1939: Former Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite
1940: Singer-musician Augie Myers
1941: Singer Johnny Paycheck
1943: Actress Sharon Gless ("Cagney and Lacey")
1943: Football Hall-of-Famer Joe Namath
1950: Actor Tom Berenger
1950: Actor Gregory Harrison
1953: Actor Colm Meaney
1960: Comedian Chris Elliott
1960: Actor Kyle Secor ("Homicide: Life on the
Street")
1961: Actress Lea Thompson ("Caroline in the
City")
1962: Actress Tonya Pinkins
1962: Singer Corey Hart
1964: Rapper DMC
1964: Rapper Kid Frost
1965: Actress Brooke Shields ("Suddenly Susan")
1966: Actor Charlie Schlatter ("Diagnosis
Murder")
1977: Rock musician Scott Klopfenstein (Reel Big Fish)
1987: Actor Curtis Williams Junior ("Corrina,
Corrina")
0455: Petronius Maximus, Western Roman emperor, torn to
pieces by Roman mob
1433: Coronation of Sigsimund as Holy Roman Emperor
1529: Meeting of Papal Legates to discuss King Henry
VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon
1578: The Catacombs of Rome are discovered by accident
1584: Boris Godunov crowned Czar of Muscovy
1594: Death of Jacopo Robusti, known as
"Tintoretto," painter
1638 :Establishment of Hartford, Connecticut
1678: Lady Godiva takes a ride through Coventry
1809: Composer Franz Joseph Haydn died in Vienna, Austria.
1817: Rossini's "Thieving Magpie" was premiered
in Milan. "The Thieving Magpie" is a comic opera in three acts.
1868: 1st recorded bicycle race, 2 kilometers in Paris.
1879: 1st electric railway opens at Berlin Trades
Exposition.
1889: More than two-thousand people perished when a dam
break sent water rushing through Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
1902: Britain and South Africa signed a peace treaty
ending the Boer War.
1905: Richard Strauss' father Franz died. Franz Strauss
had been the principal horn player in Munich and was well-known to people like Wagner and
Mahler.
1910: The Union of South Africa was founded.
1913: The 17th amendment to the Constitution, providing
for the popular election of US senators, was declared in effect.
1916: During World War One, British and German fleets
fought the Battle of Jutland off Denmark.
1959: Science fiction fans sometimes use the term
"space opera" to refer to science fiction dramas that don't contain much
science. But on this day in Stockholm, a genuine space opera was premiered - Karl
Blomdahl's "Aniara."
1961: South Africa became an independent republic.
1962: Israel hanged Adolf Eichmann for his part in the
killing of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany in World War II.
1970: Tens of thousands of people died in an earthquake in
Peru.
1973: The Senate voted to cut off all funds for U.S.
bombing of Cambodia.
1976: Martha Mitchell, the estranged wife of former
Attorney General John N. Mitchell, died in New York.
1977: The trans-Alaska oil pipeline, three years in the
making, was completed.
1986: Addressing AIDS research supporters in Washington,
President Reagan called "for urgency, not panic," but drew scattered oos when he
announced he would seek expanded testing for the disease.
1988: On the third day of the Moscow superpower summit,
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said maybe it was "time to bang our fists on the
table" to complete work on a strategic arms treaty while President Reagan said,
"I'll do anything that works."
1989: House Speaker Jim Wright, dogged by questions about
his ethics, announced he would resign. (Thomas Foley later succeeded him.)
1990: President Bush and his wife, Barbara, welcomed
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in a ceremony at the White House. The two leaders
and their aides discussed German reunification.
1991: Leaders of Angola's two warring factions signed a peace treaty, ending a 16-year-old civil war. Federal health officials announced a new Medicare fee schedule.
1992: An estimated 50-thousand people demonstrated in
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, against Communist-organized elections.
1992: "Crazy for You" was named Broadway's best
musical at the Tony Awards; "Dancing at Lughnasa" was named best play.
1993: President Clinton paid a Memorial Day visit to the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where some in the crowd jeered him for his efforts to avoid
military service; Clinton exhorted his critics to remember that "disagreement is
freedom's privilege."
1994: US Representative Dan Rostenkowski (Democrat,
Illinois), maintaining his innocence, was indicted on 17 felony counts alleging he'd
plundered nearly $700,000 from the government. (Rostenkowski later pleaded guilty to two
counts of misusing federal funds, and spent 451 days in federal custody.)
1994: The United States announced it was no longer aiming
long-range nuclear missiles at targets in the former Soviet Union.
1995: President Clinton declared he was ready to permit
the temporary use of American ground forces in Bosnia to help U.N. peacekeepers move to
safer positions.
1995: Sen. Bob Dole accused Hollywood of promoting
violence, rape and casual sex in music and movies, and said "the mainstreaming of
deviancy must come to an end."
1996: Benjamin Netanyahu claimed victory in Israel's
election for prime minister, defeating incumbent Shimon Peres by nine-tenths of one
percent.
1997: Pope John Paul the Second began an eleven-day tour
of his native Poland, his seventh visit since assuming the papacy.
1998: Storms tore from Pennsylvania through New England,
killing several people and knocking out power for nearly one million customers.
1998: Singer Geri Halliwell, also known as "Ginger
Spice" of the Spine Girls, confirmed she was leaving the group.
1999: During a Memorial Day visit to Arlington National
Cemetery, President Clinton asked Americans to reconsider their ambivalence about Kosovo,
saying it is "a very small province in a small country. But it is a big test of what
we believe in."
1999: In Turkey, the treason trial of Kurdish rebel leader
Abdullah Ocalan opened. (He was convicted and sentenced to death.)
2000: Bandleader Tito Puente died in New York at age 77.
2001: President Clinton, visiting Portugal, tried to calm fears of a nuclear arms race that would leave Europe vulnerable by promising to share any new missile defense technology with U-S allies.
|
|
Send Mail to pbower@neo.rr.com
