April 27:

4977 BC: According to Johannes Kepler, the creation of the universe.

1296: Edward I defeated the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar.

1509: Pope Julius II (aka the "Warrior Pope") excommunicated the Italian city-state of Venice.

1565: The first Spanish settlement in the Philippines was established at Cebu City.

1521: Portuguese navigator and explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed in the Philippines by natives.

1737: Birthday of Edward Gibbon, historian

1746: Battle of Culloden: the last Jacobite uprising by Charles, the eldest son of deposed king James II. William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and son of King George II, decisively defeated the forces of Charles and ended all hopes of a Stuart restoration.

1773: Britain's Parliament passed the Tea Act to bail out the struggling monopoly, the British East India Company. It was widely hated by American colonists as an example of mercantilism.

1791: Birthday of Samuel F.B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph and the Morse code

1805: U.S. agent William Eatonled U.S. forces in an attack on Derna against Berber mercenaries. Thus, the Marines landed on "the shores of Tripoli."

1813: American forces captured York (now Toronto), the seat of Ontario's government.

1813: Explorer Zebulon Pikewas killed in battle during the War of 1812.

1822: Birthday of Ulysses S. Grant, Union general during the Civil War and U.S. president

1861: West Virginiaseceded from Virginia after Virginia had seceded from the Union.

1861: Pres. Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus.

1927: Birthday of Coretta Scott King, civil rights activist, wife of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

1941: The Greek army capitulated in the face of a German invasion

1950: South Africa passed the Group Areas Act, formally segregating the blacks and whites.

1961: The United Kingdom granted independence to Sierra Leone.

1975: Saigon was encircled by forces of North Vietnam.

1978: Beginning of revolution in Afghanistan.

1989: Student protestors took over Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.

1994: South Africa held their first ever multiracial elections and Nelson Mandela was elected president.

April 28:

1442: Birthday of Edward IV, king of England, first of the House of York

1635: Virginia Governor John Harvey was accused of treason and removed from office.

1758: Birthday of James Monroe, 5thpresident of the U.S.

1788: Maryland was the 7thstate to ratify the Constitution.

1789: Famous mutiny on the HMS Bounty against Capt. William Bligh.

1878: Birthday of Lionel Barrymore, American actor

1910: The first night air flight was performed by Claude Grahame-White in England.

1919: Les Irvin made the first jump with an Army Air Corps parachute.

1920: Azerbaijan joined the Soviet Union.

1926: Birthday of Harper Lee, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird

1930: The first organized night baseball game was played in Independence, Kansas.

1937: Birthday of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi dictator

1945: Benito Mussolini and his mistress were shot and killed by Italian partisans who then strung up their bodies in Milan.

1946: The Allies indicted Tojo on 55 counts of war crimes.

1965: U.S. troops landed in the Dominican Republic to prevent a communist revolution.

1967: Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted by the U.S. Army.

1969: Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of France.

1970: Pres. Richard M. Nixon approved American attacks on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in "neutral" Cambodia to cut off the Viet Cong's supply lines.

April 29:

1429: Joan of Arc relieved Orleans from an English siege.

1624: Louis XIII appointed Cardinal Richilieu as chief minister of the Royal Council of France.

1661: Chinese forces of the Ming dynasty occupied Taiwan.

1672: Forces of King Louis XIV of France invaded the Netherlands.

1813: The first U.S. patent for rubber was issued to J.F. Hummel of Philadelphia.

1818: Birthday of Alexander II, Czar of Russia, reformer who freed the serfs

1852: The first publication of Peter Roget's Thesaurus was published.

1854: The Pennsylvania legislature charted the Ashmun Institute, the first college established solely for blacks.

1858: Austrian troops invaded Piedmont.

1859: 150,000 Piedmont soldiers invaded Austrian-held Piedmont territory with the French forces rushing to their aid.

1861: Maryland's House of Delegates voted against secession.

1862: Union forces captured New Orleans.

1863: Birthday of William Randolph Hearst, newspaper tycoon

1879: Birthday of Sir Thomas Beecham, founder of the London Philharmonic

1899: Birthday of Edward Kennedy"Duke" Ellington, renowned jazz composer and musician

1901: Birthday of Hirohito, emperor of Japan during and after WWII

1913: Gideon Sundback of Hoboken patented the all-purpose zipper.

1916: Irish nationalists surrendered to the British in Dublin after the failed Easter Rebellion.

1918: American WWI Ace of Aces, Eddie Rickenbacker, scored his first victory with the help of Capt. James Norman Hall.

1927: Construction of the Spirit of St. Louiswas completed.

1930: Premiere of the film All Quiet on the Western Frontbased upon Erich Maria Remarque's novel and using real WWI veterans in some roles.

1945: U.S. Army forces liberated the Dachau concentration camp outside Munich.

1945: Adolf Hitler married his girlfriend Eva Braun in his bunker in Berlin.

1946: Former Japanese war leaders were indicted in Tokyo as war criminals.

1974: Pres. Richard Nixon announced the release of the Watergate tapes.

1975: The U.S. embassy in Saigon was evacuated as North Vietnamese forces began to overrun the city.

1983: Harold Washington was sworn in as Chicago's first black mayor.

1992: Riots broke out in Los Angeles after 4 police officers were acquitted in the Rodney King beating trial.

2004: WWII Monument opened in Washington, D.C.

2011: Prince William married Kate Middleton.

April 30:

313: Licinius unified the eastern Roman Empire under his rule.

1563: By the order of Charles VI, all Jews were expelled from France.

1725: Spain withdrew from the Quadruple Alliance.

1789: Inauguration of George Washington as the first president of the United States.

1803: Negotiations between representatives of the U.S. and France concluded the Louisiana Purchase, more than doubling the size of the young nation.

1812: Louisiana was admitted to the Union as a state.

1849: Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian patriot and guerilla leader, repulsed a French attack on Rome.

1863: Beginning of the Battle of Chancellorsville, one of the more important battles of the Civil War

1870: Birthday of Franz Lehar, Hungarian composer

1897: British physicist J.J. Thomson announced the discovery of electrons.

1930: The Soviets proposed a military alliance with France and Great Britain.

1931: Opening of the George Washington Bridge linking New York City to New Jersey.

1933: Birthday of Willie Nelson, country singer

1939: Opening of the New York World's Fair.

1943: A British submarine planted a corpse with false invasion plans into the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain.

1945: The day after his wedding, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, his new bride, committed suicide in the Berlin bunker.

1970: U.S. forces invaded Cambodia to disrupt operations of the North Vietnamese Army there.

1973: Pres. Richard Nixon announced the resignation of top aides including Harry R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman.

1975: South Vietnam surrendered as communist forces overran Saigon.

1980: Terrorists seized the Iranian Embassy in London.

1993: Launch of the World Wide Web in the public domain. Previously, it had been only for government and academic scientists.

1997: Big Ben stopped for 54 minutes.

May 1:

408: Theodosius II succeeded to the throne of the eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople.

1308: King Albert was murdered by his nephew John for refusing him a share of Hapsburg lands.

1486: Christopher Columbus convinced Queen Isabella to fund his expedition to establish a new trade route to the riches of East Asia by sailing west.

1805: The state of Virginia passed a law requiring all freed slaves to leave the state or risk imprisonment or deportation.

1851: The Great Exhibition opened at the Crystal Palace in London to showcase the technological marvels of the Industrial Revolution. It was a stunning success.

1852: Birthday of Calamity Jane

1867: Black voter registration began in the South for the first time, during Reconstruction.

1877: Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew all Federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.

1898: Battle of Manilla Bay: American naval forces destroyed the Spanish fleet in a huge mismatch: the guns on our ships had a longer range so our ships could stop outside the range of their ships & destroy them unimpeded.

1915: The luxury liner Lusitania left New York Harbor on its final voyage, headed to Liverpool with a sizable number of Americans on board and war supplies in its cargo hold. The Germans had published a warning in New York newspapers that they would sink the ship.

1927: Adolf Hitler held his first Nazi meeting in Berlin.

1931: The Empire State Building opened in New York.

1937: Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an act of neutrality, keeping the U.S. out of WWII.

1941: Release of Orson Welles's classic Citizen Kane.

1944: First flight of the Messerschmitt Me 262, the first combat jet aircraft.

1945: Martin Bormann, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, escaped the Fhrerbunker as the Red Army neared Berlin.

1948: Establishment of North Korea.

1950: Gwendolyn Brooks became the first black to win the Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry, Annie Allen.

1961: Dictator Fidel Castro announced there would be no more elections in Cuba.

1986: The Tass News Agency reported on an accident at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl.

1960: American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union and the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was captured alive (he chose not to ingest the cyanide pill). It created an international crisis exploited by Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev and ruining Pres. Eisenhower's hopes for peaceful negotiations.

May 2:

1670: King Charles II granted a charter to the Hudson Bay Company.

1729: Birthday of Catherine II, Czarina of Russia

1776: France and Spain agree to donate weapons to American rebels fighting the British.

1798: Black general Toussaint L'Ouverture forced British forces to agree to evacuate the port of Santo Domingo.

1808: The citizens of Madrid rose up in rebellion against Napoleon.

1837: Birthday of Henry Martyn Robert, parliamentarian, author of Robert's Rules of Order

1863: Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson smashed Joseph Hooker's flank at Chancellorsville, Virginia, helping the Confederates win another great victory.

1865: Pres. Andrew Johnson offered a $100,000 reward for the capture of the Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

1890: Congress created the Territory of Oklahoma.

1892: Birthday of BaronManfred von Richthofen, German fighter ace in WWI, aka the "Red Baron"

1895: Birthday of Lorenz Milton Hart, lyricist who collaborated with Richard Rodgers

1923: Lieutenants Oakley Kelly and John Macready took off from New York for the west coast to begin the first successful nonstop transcontinental flight.

1933: First supposed sighting of the Loch Ness monster.

1942: Beginning of the Battle of the Coral Sea.

1945: After 12 days of fierce fighting house-to-house, the Red Army captured Berlin forcing German troops to surrender. German forces also surrendered to the Allied forces in Italy.

1946: Prison revolt at Alcatraz prison

1957: Death of former Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

1970: Student anti-war protestors at Ohio's Kent State University burned down the campus ROTC building. This act of arson resulted in the National Guard taking over the campus.

1972: Death of J. Edgar Hoover, legendary FBI director

1980: Candy Lightner's daughter Cari was killed by a drunk driver leading her to found MADD.

2011: Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces

1939: Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees does not play against the Detroit Tigers at Briggs Stadium, ending his streak of 2,130 consecutive games played.

And we know how the student protests ended a few days later (May 4th)...

Fat Daddy said:

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And we know how the student protests ended a few days later (May 4th)...

---

This makes me shiver, it's so good.

May 3:

1469: Birthday of Niccolo Machiavelli, famed philosopher and political observer

1568: French forces slaughtered hundreds of Spanish in Florida

1855: Macon B Allen became the first African American to be admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts.

1849: Birthday of Jacob Riis, American reformer & muckraker

1859: France declared war on Austria

1863: Second day of the Battle of Chancellorsville.

1865: Pres. Abraham Lincoln's funeral train arrived in Springfield, Illinois.

1898: Birthday of Golda Meir, fourth Primer Minister of Israel

1903: Birthday of Bing (Harry Lillis) Crosby, actor and singer

1926: U.S. Marines landed in Nicaragua.

1933: Birthday of James Brown, American singer and songwriter

1946: Beginning of war crimes trials by the International Military Tribunals in Japan.

1947: Japan's new postwar constitution went into effect.

1952: Joseph Fletch landed the first aircraft at the geographic North Pole.

1971: James Earl Ray, assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was captured in an attempt to break out of jail.

1979: Margaret Thatcher became the first woman prime minister of Great Britain.

1982: A British submarine attacked Argentina's only cruiser during the Falkland Islands War.

May 4: Star Wars Day ("May the 4th be with you!"

1471: In England, the Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury.

1626: According to popular legend, Native Americans sold the island of Manhattan to the Dutch for $24 in cloth and buttons. The truth of the matter is that the Natives did not own the island!

1715: A French manufacturer produced the first folding umbrella.

1776: Rhode Island was the first colony to declare independence from Great Britain.

1795: Thousands of rioters in Lyons, France entered the jails and massacred 99 Jacobin prisoners.

1814: Napoleon arrived on the island of Elba to begin his exile.

1863: The Battle of Chancellorsville ended with another Confederate victory with the retreat of the Union Army.

1865: Pres. Lincoln was buried in Springfield, Illinois.

1886: The Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago: As police tried to break up a Knights of Labor rally and strike, an anarchist threw a bomb at them and chaos ensued resulting in several deaths. The Knights never recovered their reputation although they had nothing to do with those who threw the bomb.

1916: Germany agreed to limit its submarine warfare during WWI.

1929: Birthday of Audrey Hepburn (Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston), actress

1930: The British arrested Mahatma Gandhi.

1942: The U.S. began food rationing during WWII.

1961: The Freedom Riders, a group of 13 civil rights activists, began a bus trip through the South.

1965: Willie Mays hit his 512thhome run to break the National League record.

1970: The National Guard clashed with student protestors at Kent State University resulting in the deaths of 4 students.

1979: Margaret Thatcher was sworn in as Britain's first woman Prime Minister.

1995: Makai Mason's birthday

May 5:

1494: Christopher Columbus landed on Jamaica and named it Santa Gloria.

1813: Birthday of Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher

1816: John Keats' first poem was published in a London newspaper, The Examiner.

1818: Birthday of Karl Marx, German philosopher

1821: Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile on the remote island of St. Helena.

1834: The first mainland railway line opened in Belgium.

1862: Mexican forces defeated the French in the Battle of Puebla, a victory they commemorate every year in Cinco de Mayo.

1877: Legendary Native American leader Sitting Bull led his people into Canada.

1912: The Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravdabegan publishing.

1916: U.S. Marines invaded the Dominican Republic.

1917: Eugene Jacques Bullard became the first black aviator when he earned his flying certificate with the French Air Service.

1920: Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for murder.

1935: Jesse Owens set the long jump record.

1943: Birthday of Michael Palin, actor and screenwriter

1945: Holland and Denmark were liberated from German control.

1955: The Allies ended their postwar occupation of West Germany.

1961: Alan Shephard became the first American in space aboard the Freedom 7capsule. His suborbital flight only lasted 15 minutes but paved the way for future successes in America's space program.

1987: Congressional hearings opened to investigate the Iran-Contra affair.

historian said:

---

May 5:

1494: Christopher Columbus landed on Jamaica and named it Santa Gloria.

1813: Birthday of Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher

1816: John Keats' first poem was published in a London newspaper, The Examiner.

1818: Birthday of Karl Marx, German philosopher

1821: Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile on the remote island of St. Helena.

1834: The first mainland railway line opened in Belgium.

1877: Legendary Native American leader Sitting Bull led his people into Canada.

1912: The Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravdabegan publishing.

1916: U.S. Marines invaded the Dominican Republic.

1917: Eugene Jacques Bullard became the first black aviator when he earned his flying certificate with the French Air Service.

1920: Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for murder.

1935: Jesse Owens set the long jump record.

1943: Birthday of Michael Palin, actor and screenwriter

1945: Holland and Denmark were liberated from German control.

1955: The Allies ended their postwar occupation of West Germany.

1961: Alan Shephard became the first American in space aboard the Freedom 7capsule. His suborbital flight only lasted 15 minutes but paved the way for future successes in America's space program.

1987: Congressional hearings opened to investigate the Iran-Contra affair.

---

No mention of the capsizing this day of the French battleship Mayonnaise, which led to the Mexican celebration of the Sinko de Mayo?

corrected

May 6:

973: Birthday of Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor

1527: Troops of Holy Roman Emperor Charles Vsacked Rome, took Pope Clement VII hostage, destroyed libraries, and killed thousands of citizens.

1682: Louis XIVmoved his court to Versailles.

1758: Birthday of Maximilien Robespierre, French revolutionary leader before and during the Reign of Terror

1856: Birthday of Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis

1861: Arkansas became the ninth state to secede from the Union.

1862: Henry David Thoreaudied of tuberculosis at age 44.

1868: Birthday of Gaston Leroux, French novelist who wrote The Phantom of the Opera

1877: Chief Crazy Horsesurrendered to U.S. troops in Nebraska.

1888: Birthday of Russell Stover, candy manufacturer

1895: Birthday of Rudolph Valentino, actor, film icon

1915: Birthday of Orson Welles, actor, director, and writer

1916: The German government signed the Sussexpledge promising to restrict their use of submarine warfare. It would not last long.

1931: Birthday of Willie Mays, baseball player

1935: Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt singed an executive order to create the Works Progress Administration.

1937: German dirigible Hindenburg, the largest ever built, burst into flames when it touched its moors in Lakehurst, NJ killing 36 passengers and crewmembers.

1940: John Steinbeckwon the Pulitzer prize for his Depression-era novel, The Grapes of Wrath.

1941: Bob Hopegave his first USO show at March Field in southern California.

1942: American forces in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese eventually leading to the brutal Bataan Death March.

1954: Roger Bannister ran the first 4-minute mile.

1960: Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960into law.

1962: The first nuclear warhead was fired from a Polaris submarine.

1994: Opening of the "Chunnel", a tunnel underneath the English Channel connecting England and France.

2004: The final episode of Friendsaired.

May 7:

558: The dome of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople collapsed. Byzantine Emperor Justinian immediately ordered its reconstruction.

1274: The Second Council of Lyons opened in France to regulate the election of the pope.

1429: Joan of Arc broke the English siege of Orleans.

1525: The German peasants' revolt was crushed by the German nobility with the church's support.

1763: Ottawa Chief Pontiac's Rebellion against the British began with an attack on a fort in modern Detroit.

1808: Premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

1812: Birthday of Robert Browning, English poet

1833: Birthday of Johannes Brahms, German composer

1840: Birthday of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer

1847: The American Medical Association was formed in Philadelphia.

1864: The Battle of the Wilderness ended with heavy losses on both sides of the U.S. Civil War.

1892: Birthday of Josip Broz (Tito), communist leader of Yugoslavia after WWII who kept the country unified throughout his life.

1901: Birthday of actor Gary Cooper, actor

1902: Mount Pele on the Caribbean island of Martinique erupted almost completely destroying the city of Sainte Pierre. It was the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20thcentury.

1915: British liner Lusitania struck by 2 torpedoes from a German submarine off the coast of Ireland killing 1200 passengers, including 128 Americans. The captain of the ship failed to take precautions against the known threat while ignoring warnings. Americans were angered and the Germans made concessions, for a time.

1919: Birthday of Eva (Evita) Peron, first lady of Argentina

1942: Battle of the Coral Sea: For the first time in the history of naval warfare, two fleets fought without seeing each other as carrier based airplanes attacked each other. The battle ended with an American victory over Japanese forces.

1945: Germany surrendered unconditionally to the allies ending WWII in Europe.

1954: Battle of Dien Bien Phu: French forces in Indochina (Vietnam) lost decisively in their fight against nationalists, led by communist Ho Chi Minh. The fall of the stronghold convinced the French government to pull out of Vietnam.

1960: Leonid Brezhnev became the new dictator of the Soviet Union after Nikita Khrushchev had been forced into retirement.

1998: Daimler-Benz announced the purchase of American automobile manufacturer Chrysler Corp.

historian said:

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May 7:


1525: The German peasants' revolt was crushed by the German nobility with the church's support.

---

IIRC, I used to have that book!

The Texan who won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1957:

Appropriate for an academic setting?

May 8:

1541: Spanish Conquistador Hernando De Soto discovered the Mississippi River.

1559: The Act of Supremacy defined Queen Elizabeth I as the supreme governor of the church of England.

1792: Congress passed conscription as part of the Militia Act.

1794: The U.S. Post Office was established.

1846: Gen. Zachary Taylor won the Battle of Palo Alto north of the Rio Grande, the first major battle of the Mexican-American War. His successes in this war would make him a national hero and propel him to the White House.

1884: Birthday of Harry S. Truman, president of the U.S.

1886: Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton invented Coca-Cola.

1906: Birthday of Roberto Rossellini, Italian film director

1919: Take off of the first transatlantic flight by a navy seaplane.

1928: Birthday of Theodore Sorensen, Pres. John F. Kennedy's press secretary

1933: Mohandas Gandhi began a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.

1942: The Battle of the Coral Sea ended with the U.S. Navy victorious over the Japanese Navy.

1945: V-E Day (Victory in Europe): German forces finally laid down their arms throughout Europe.

1958: Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the National Guard out of Little Rock as Ernest Green became the first black to graduate from an Arkansas public school.

1963: Premier of Dr. No, the first James Bond movie, starring Sean Connery.

1967: Boxer Muhammad Aliwas indicted for refusing induction into the U.S. Army.

1970: Pres. Richard Nixon defended the attacks of Cambodia, a "neutral" country being used by communist forces to supply Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam. But he did a poor job of it, especially after promising that the U.S. would not invade the country.

1973: The American Indian Movement (AIM) ended their occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota.

1884: The Soviets boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in retribution for American Pres. Jimmy Carter's decision to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

May 9:

1502: Christopher Columbus departed Spain on his final voyage to the New World.

1671: Irish adventurer "Captain Blood" was captured while trying to steal the crown jewels in the Tower of London.

1754: The first newspaper cartoon appeared in America.

1800: Birthday of John Brown, abolitionist

1813: U.S. troops under William Henry Harrison took Fort Meigs from British and Canadian forces.

1860: Birthday of James Mathew Barrie, author of Peter Pan

1864: Famous last words: Union Gen. John Sedgwick was shot and killed by a Confederate sharpshooter during fighting at Spotsylvania. His last words, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--."

1873: Birthday of Howard Carter, British archaeologist who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen

1914: Pres. Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first Mother's Day holiday.

1926: Explorers Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett made the first flight over the North Pole.

1936: Forces of fascist Italy captured the city of Addis-Abba, Ethiopia and annexed the country.

1936: Birthday of Albert Finney, British actor

1941: The Royal Navy captured the German submarine U-110at sea along with its Enigma machine.

1945: Hermann Gring was captured by the U.S. Army. He was the highest ranking Nazi to be captured and eventually put on trial for war crimes.

1946: King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy abdicated the throne and was replaced by Umberto I.

1955: West Germany joined NATO.

1962: For the first time a laser beam was successfully bounced off the moon.

1974: The House Judiciary Committee opened impeachment hearings against Pres. Richard M. Nixon.

1994: South Africa's newly elected Parliament chose Nelson Mandela as president

May 10:

1285: Philip III of Spain was succeeded by Philip IV "the Fair".

1503: Christopher Columbus discovered the Cayman Islans.

1676: Beginning of Bacon's Rebellion in colonial Virginia.

1773: Parliament passed the Tea Act to bail out the struggling East India Company.

1774: Louis XVI succeeded his grandfather Louis XV as king of France. Louis XV is reported to have said to his mistress some time earlier, "After me, the deluge."

1775: American Patriots captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British.

1793: Birthday of Judge R. E. B. Baylor, one of the founders of Baylor University for whom it is named

1794: Elizabeth, sister of the late King Louis XVI, was beheaded

1796: Napoleon Bonaparte won a brilliant victory against the Austrians at Lodi bridge in Italy.


1838: Birthday of John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Pres. Abraham Lincoln

1840: Mormon leader Joseph Smith moved his group to Missouri after they experienced hostility in Missouri where they were living.

1857: The Bengal Army in India revolted against the British.

1863: Death of Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson from wounds he sustained from friendly fire at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Upon learning of his illness, Confederate commander Robert E. Lee said, "I have lost my right arm."

1865: Confederate President Jefferson Davis was captured by Union forces in Georgia.

1869: The presidents of the Union Pacific & Central Pacific railroads met in Promontory, Utah to drive the symbolic last spike into the first transcontinental railroad.

1877: The first telephone was installed in the White House during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration.

1899: Birthday of Fred Astaire (Frederick Austerlitz), American dancer and actor

1902: Birthday of David O. Selznick, film producer

1920: Birthday of Richard Adams, English novelist

1924: J. Edgar Hoover was appointed head of the FBI.

1933: The Nazis began burning books by authors they did not approve.

1940: Winston Churchill became prime minister of Great Britain.

1940: The Germans began the blitzkrieg of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, skirting France's "impenetrable" Maginot Line.

1941: The House of Commons was destroyed during the worst of the London Blitz as 550 German bombers dropped 100,000 incendiary bombs on the city.

1960: The USS Nautiluscompleted the first underwater circumnavigation of the globe.

1994: Inauguration of Nelson Mandela as South Africa's first black president.

Lots of different thoughts about the meaning of this song...

Before the Deluge .... Jackson Browne

historian said:

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May 10:



1877: The first telephone was installed in the White House during the Rutherford B. Hayes administration.

---

President Hayes' first incoming phone call:

Automobile not invented yet

historian said:

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Automobile not invented yet

---

those crooks don't care. They just need to meet their monthly minimum. If they sale grandma 3 warranties on the same car, that's on grandma for not asking the right question.

Boom! High fives all around for getting a live one on the other end of the line.

May 11:

1690: In the first major engagement of King William's War, British troops from Massachusetts seized Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) from the French.

1792: Capt. Robert Gray discovered the Columbia River.

1857: Indian mutineers seized Delhi.

1858: Minnesota became the 32ndstate.

1860: Giuseppe Garibaldi landed at Marsala, Sicily.

1862: Confederates scuttled the CSS Virginianear Norfolk, Virginia.

1864: Confederate Cavalry Gen. J.E.B. Stuart was mortally wounded near Richmond, Virginia.

1888: Birthday of Irving Berlin, American composer of over 1,500 songs ("God Bless America," "Heat Wave," "White Christmas," "Easter Parade," "Cheek to Cheek," etc.)

1904: Birthday of Salvador Dali, surrealist painter

1918: Birthday of Richard Feynman, theoretical physicist

1932: Baylor University held its first All University Day, today known as Diadeloso, The Day of the Bear.

1933: Birthday of Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nationa of Islam

1934: A huge storm sent millions of tons of topsoil from the drought suffering Great Plains to the eastern seaboard. The "dust bowl" added to the miseries farmers had experienced since WWI and for many years before.

1943: U.S. forces began the assault on Japanese held Attu, the westernmost of Alaska's Aleutian island chain.

1953: Waco Tornado: A tornado killed 114 & devastated downtown Waco. It was the worst tornado in Texas since 1900.

1960: Israeli soldiers captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the masterminds of the Holocaust, in Buenos Aires.

1961: Pres. John F. Kennedy ordered more American troops and military advisors sent to South Vietnam.

1969: Beginning of the bloody Battle at "Hamburger Hill" in Vietnam.

1970: A tornado struck in Lubbock killing 25+. It was the worst tornado in the city's history.

1987: Klaus Barbie, aka the "Butcher of Lyon", was charged with war crimes for his acts as Gestapo chief in German occupied Lyon, France during WWII.

May 12:

254: Beginning of the papacy of Stephen I.

1588: King Henry III fled Paris after Henry of Guise triumphantly entered the city.

1641: Thomas Wentworth, chief advisor to Charles I, was beheaded at the Tower of London for his attempts to consolidate the power of the king.

1780: Americans defeated by the British at Charleston, their worst defeat of the war.

1820: Birthday of Florence Nightingale, English nurse and hospital reformer

1865: The last land battle of the Civil War took place at Palmito Ranch, Texas and was a Confederate victory.

1907: Birthday of actress Katharine Hepburn, American actress

1925: Birthday of Yogi Berra (Lawrence Peter Berra), baseball player and coach

1932: The Lindbergh baby, son of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh who had been kidnapped two months earlier, was found dead less than a mile from their home.

1935: "Bill W.", a stockbroker, and "Dr. Bob S.", a heart surgeon, founded Alcoholics Anonymousin Akron, Ohio.

1940: The German conquest of France began with the crossing of the Meuse River.

1943: Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.

1949: The Soviet Union lifted the nearly year-long blockade of West Berlin.

1961: Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visited South Vietnam. He was enthusiastic about their government and their leader Ngo Dinh Diem and would return to Washington urging American support.

May 13:

1568: Mary Queen of Scots was defeated by a group of Scottish Protestants.

1607: About 100 English colonists arrived in Virginia to establish the colony of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America.

1842: Birthday of Sir Arthur Sullivan, composer, collaborator with W. S. Gilbert

1861: Britain proclaimed neutrality in the U.S. Civil War.

1888: Brazil abolished slavery.

1912: The Royal Flying Corps was established in England.

1913: Igor Sikorsky flew the first four-engine aircraft.

1914: Birthday of Joe Louis, world heavyweight boxing champion

1940: Britain's new prime minister, Winston Churchill, gave his first major speech before Parliament promising, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat."

1958: During a goodwill trip through Latin America, Vice President Richard Nixon's car was attacked by an angry mob in Caracas, Venezuela. Nixon's handling of the situation gained him standing with the American people.

1981: Pope John Paul II was shot in St. Peter's Square by an escaped murderer.