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May 24
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National Huntington's Disease Awareness Month
MAY is:
National Mime Month
National Photo Month - Promotes the importance of photography in documenting life's events. Sponsor: Photo Marketing Association.
National Physical Fitness and Sports Month - To encourage fitness through sports. Sponsor: President's Council on Physical Fitness.
National Salad Month - Sponsor: Association for Dressings and Sauces.
- Today Is:
- Blowing in the Wind Day - Look for the answers -- they are blowing in the wind. Celebrated on the birthday of Bob Dylan, born on this day in 1941. Sponsor: The life of the Party.
Mary Had a Little Lamb - written on this day in 1830.
Alchemy Day - This is the feast day of Hermes Trismegistus, one of the great alchemists who might have discovered a way to turn lead into gold.
1544: Physicist, William Gilbert, researcher into magnetism
1686: Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, invented the thermometer
1743: Jean-Paul Marat, French revolutionist
1816: Painter Emanuel Leutze was born in Germany. He
painted some of the most famous American works such as "Washington Crossing the
Delaware," and "Columbus Before the Queen."
1819: Queen Victoria was born at Kensington Palace in
London. Her father, the Duke of Kent, was the fourth son of George III. Her mother was a
German princess. Victoria was 18-years-old when she became queen.
1883: Hostess and party-giver Elsa Maxwell, credited with
introducing the "scavenger hunt"
1895: American publisher Samuel I. Newhouse
1914: Actress Lilli Palmer
1928: Author-broadcast executive Roger Caras
1938: Comedian Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong
1941: Musician Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman)
Hard Rains Gonna Fall, and Blowin in the Wind
1943: Actor Gary Burghoff (M*A*S*H*)
1944: Singer Patti LaBelle
1945: Actress Priscilla Presley
1947: Country singer Mike Reid
1948: Actress Judy Kahan
1953: Actor Alfred Molina
1955: Singer Rosanne Cash
1960: Actress Kristin Scott Thomas
1963: Actor-dancer Gene Anthony Ray (TV show
"Fame")
1963: Rock musician Vivian Trimble (Luscious Jackson)
1967: Rapper-recording executive Heavy D
1967: Singer Tommy Page
1969: Rock musician Rich Robinson (The Black Crowes)
1980: Actor Billy L. Sullivan ("Something So
Right").
1983: Actor-rapper Big Tyme
1988: Country singer Billy Gilman
0592: Death of St. Simon Stylites the Younger
1089: Death of LaFranc, Archbishop of Canterbury
1153: Death of St. David I, King of Scotland
1218: The 5th Crusade sails from Acre to Egypt
1337: French King Philip VI announces confiscation of
Gascony from England - Beginning of the Hundred Years War
1430: Capture of Joan of Arc by the Burgundians
1487: Coronation, in Ireland, of Lambert Simnel, posing as
Edward VI, King of England
1530: A list of heretical books drawn up in London;
Tyndale's Bible burned
1543: Nicolaus Copernicus publishes proof of a
sun-centered solar system "De Revolutionibus", he dies just after publication.
1607: Captain Christopher Newport and 105 followers found
the colony of Jamestown at the mouth of the James River on the coast of Virginia.
1610: Sir Thomas Gates institutes laws divine moral
and marshal, a harsh civil code for Jamestown.
1624: After years of unprofitable operation
Virginias charter is revoked and it becomes a royal colony.
1626: The Dutch West Indies Trading Co.(Peter Minuet)
bought the island of Manhattan from the Indians, paying with goods worth about $24.
1626: The House of Commons of England declares
"Tunnage and Poundage" to be illegal
1689: English Parliament passes Act of Toleration,
protecting Protestants.
1738: The Methodist Church is established.
1764: Bostonian lawyer James Otis denounces "taxation
without representation" and calls for the colonies to unite in demonstrating their
opposition to Britains new tax measures.
1798: Believing that a French invasion of Ireland is
imminent, Irish nationalists rise up against the British occupation.
1803: Beethoven dedicated his brand new sonata to a French
violinist named Kreutzer. But Kreutzer hailed the work as "unintelligible" and
proudly declared that he would never play it.
1810: Beethoven's short but to-the-point tragic overture
"Egmont" was premiered.
1830: The first passenger railroad in the United States
began service between Baltimore and Elliott's Mills, Maryland.
1844: Samuel F.B. Morse transmitted the message,
"What hath God wrought!" from Washington to Baltimore as he formally opened
America's first telegraph line.
1846: General Zachary Taylor captures Monterey in Mexican
War.
1863: Bushwackers led by Captain William Marchbanks attack
a Federal militia party in Nevada, Missouri
1866: Berkeley named (for George Berkeley, Bishop of
Cloyne).
1878: The first American bicycle race is held in Boston.
1881: Some 200 people died when the Canadian ferry
"Princess Victoria" sank near London, Ontario.
1883: The Brooklyn Bridge opened by President Arthur &
Govenor Cleveland. The bridge linked Brooklyn and Manhattan Island.
1899: W.T. McCullough of Boston, Massachusetts, opened the
first public garage. One could rent space for selling, storing and repairing vehicles.
1918: Bartok's opera "Bluebeard's Castle"
premiered in Budapest. It was controversial, not only because the music was hard on the
ears, but also because the Bartok version of the Bluebeard story made Bluebeard, a serial
killer, out to be an idealist who was misunderstood.
1930: Amy Johnson becomes the first woman to fly from
England to Australia.
1931: The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) began
service on the "Columbian" run between New York City and Washington, D.C. The
passenger train was the first train with air conditioning throughout.
1935: The first major league baseball game played at night
took place at Cincinnati's Crosley Field as the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies,
2-to-1.
1941: The German battleship "Bismarck" sank the
British dreadnought "Hood" in the North Atlantic.
1951: Willie Mays begins playing for the New York Giants.
1954: The first traveling sidewalk in a railroad station
began its first day of operation in Jersey City, New Jersey.
1958: United Press International was formed through a
merger of the United Press and the International News Service.
1859: Madame Caroline Miolan-Carvalho sang Charles
Gounod's "Ave Maria" in its first public performance.
1961: The Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson,
Mississippi.
1962: Astronaut Scott Carpenter became the second American
to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard "Aurora Seven."
1962: The officials of the National Football League ruled
that half-time of regular season games would be cut to 15 minutes.
1976: Britain and France opened transatlantic Concorde
service to Washington.
1977: In a surprise move, the Kremlin ousted Soviet
President Nikolai Podgorny from the Communist Party's ruling Politburo.
1980: Iran rejected a call by the World Court in The Hague
to release the American hostages.
1982: Mrs. Christina Samane of South Africa gave birth to
the heaviest baby ever born -- a 22-pound, 8-ounce son.
1983: New Yorkers marked the 100th birthday of the
Brooklyn Bridge with a parade and a massive fireworks display.
1983: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled private religious
schools that practice racial discrimination are not eligible for church-related tax
benefits.
1984: A court in El Salvador found five former national
guardsmen guilty of murdering four American churchwomen in December 1980. (The guardsmen
were each sentenced to 30 years in prison.)
1985: President Reagan denounced a House-passed Democratic
package of $56 billion in deficit reductions for the following fiscal year, saying it was
riddled with phony savings.
1986: The Union Jack was flown in Israel for the first
time in 38 years as Margaret Thatcher became the first British prime minister to visit the
Jewish state.
1987: An estimated 250,000 people crowded onto the Golden
Gate Bridge to celebrate the structure's 50th birthday a few days before the actual
anniversary.
1988: President Reagan vetoed legislation that would have
strengthened the nation's ability to defend itself and its industries against trading
practices of other nations that were deemed unfair.
1988: Vice President George Bush and Michael Dukakis won
the Idaho presidential primaries.
1989: China's top army command published a letter strongly
supporting hard-line Premier Li Peng, who was reportedly locked in a power struggle with
rival factions who opposed his strong stance against student protesters.
1990: Two members of the militant environmental group
Earth First! were injured when a pipe bomb exploded in their car in Oakland, California.
1990: The Edmonton Oilers won their fifth Stanley Cup as
they defeated the Boston Bruins, 4-1.
1991: Israel began airlifting 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to
safety as Ethiopian rebels continued to advance on Addid Ababa.
1991: The remains of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, assassinated by a suicide bomber, were cremated.
1991: The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to
deplore Israel's deportation of four Palestinians from the occupied territories.
1992: Al Unser Jr. became the first second-generation
winner of the Indianapolis 500; his father Al Unser, finished third. In the closest finish
ever, he beat Scott Goodyear by .043 seconds.
1992: President Bush authorized the Coast Guard to return
directly home all Haitian refugees picked up at sea. Al Unser Junior became the first
second-generation winner of the Indianapolis 500; his father, four-time winner Al Unser,
finished third.
1993: Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posada Ocampo and
six other people were killed at the Guadalajara, Mexico, airport in what was described as
a shootout involving drug gangs.
1993: The Senate confirmed Roberta Achtenberg, an
acknowledged lesbian, to be a top federal housing official.
1993: "Farewell My Concubine" and "The
Piano" jointly won the Golden Palm award at the Cannes Film Festival.
1994: Four men convicted of bombing New York's World Trade
Center were each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
1994: The United States and Japan agreed to revive efforts
to pry open Japanese markets to U.S. goods.
1995: Former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson died in
London at age 79.
1995: "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss was
sentenced to three years in prison and fined $1,500 for running a call-girl ring that
catered to the rich and famous
1996: President Clinton underwent his annual physical at
Bethesda Naval Medical Center, where he had a precancerous lesion removed from his nose.
On the plus side, his weight was the same as the year before — 216 — and his cholesterol
count had improved from 203 to 191.
1997: The space shuttle "Atlantis" returned to
Earth, bringing with it NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger, who'd spent four months aboard the
Russian "Mir" space station.
1999: A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that
schools can be sued when officials fail to stop students from sexually harassing each
other.
1999: The Supreme Court ruled that police violate people's
privacy rights when they bring TV camera crews or other journalists into homes during
arrests or searches.
1999: Mike Tyson walked out of a Rockville, Md., jail
after serving 3½ months behind bars for assaulting two motorists over a fender-bender.
2000: Israeli troops pulled out unilaterally from south Lebanon, ending 18 years of occupation.
2000: Gunmen killed five people in a robbery attempt at a Wendy's restaurant in Queens, New York.
2000: The state of Maryland dismissed its wiretapping case against Linda Tripp after judge disallowed most of Monica Lewinsky's testimony.
2000: Isiah Thomas, Bob McAdoo and Tennessee women's coach Pat Summitt were elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
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