| Science Boy
Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Dante's Inferno, Circle 4
Posts: 8,478
|  On This Day (May 5)
- 1789 The Estates-General convened in Versailles to discuss a financial crisis in France, triggering a series of events that led to the French Revolution.
- 1818 - Karl Marx, German political philosopher born. (d. 1883) (Marx was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. Often called the father of communism, Marx was both a scholar and a political activist. He addressed a wide range of political as well as social issues, and is known for, amongst other things, his analysis of history. His approach is indicated by the opening line of the Communist Manifesto (1848): The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.)
Karl Marx
- 1865 - In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the first train robbery in the United States takes place.
- 1891 New York City's Carnegie Hall, built by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, officially opened with a concert conducted by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
- 1925 - Scopes Trial: John T. Scopes is served an arrest warrant for teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.
- 1949 Ten European countries signed the Treaty of London, creating the Council of Europe, today one of oldest international organisations working for European integration.
- 1950 Prince Bhumibol Adulyadej was crowned in Bangkok as King Rama IX of Thailand, currently the world's longest-serving head of state.
- 1961 Project Mercury: Aboard the American spacecraft Freedom 7, astronaut Alan Shepard made a sub-orbital flight, becoming the second person to travel into outer space after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
On This Day (May 4) - 1493 Pope Alexander VI issued the papal bull Inter caetera, establishing a Line of Demarcation dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal.
- 1826 - Frederic Edwin Church, American painter born. (d. 1900) (Church was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters.)
Twilight in the Wilderness
- 1855 American adventurer William Walker and a group of mercenaries sailed from San Francisco to conquer Nicaragua.
- 1886 An unknown assailant threw a bomb into a crowd of police, turning a peaceful labor rally in Chicago into the Haymarket massacre, resulting in the deaths of seven police officers and an unknown number of civilians.
- 1904 - Construction begins by the United States on the Panama Canal.
- 1904 - Charles Stewart Rolls met Frederick Henry Royce at the Midland Hotel in Manchester England.
- 1942 World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy engaged Allied naval forces at the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other, and the first naval battle in history in which neither side's ships sighted or fired directly upon the other.
- 1953 - Ernest Hemingway is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
- 1970 - Vietnam War: Kent State shootings The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after the ROTC building was burnt down, opens fire killing four students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the United States' invasion of Cambodia.
- 1979 Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- 1990 The Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR declared the restoration of independence of Latvia, stating that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 were illegal.
Picture of the Day 
An HDR image of Upper Antelope Canyon, Page, Arizona. Antelope Canyon is the most-visited and most-photographed slot canyon in the Southwestern United States. It was formed by erosion of Navajo Sandstone, primarily due to flash flooding and secondarily due to other sub-aerial processes. Photography within the canyons is difficult due to the wide exposure range (often 10 EV or more) made by light reflecting off the canyon walls. On This Day (May 3) - 1791 The Polish Constitution of May 3, one of the earliest codified national constitutions in the world, was adopted by the Sejm.
- 1808 Finnish War: Sweden lost the fortress of Suomenlinna to Russia.
- 1815 Austrian troops led by Frederick Bianchi, Duke of Casalanza defeated the forces under King Joachim Murat of Naples at the Battle of Tolentino, the decisive battle of the Neapolitan War.
- 1937 - Gone with the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
- 1945 World War II: German ocean liner Cap Arcona, left to float defencelessly in the Bay of Lόbeck with thousands of prisoners from various concentration camps on board, was attacked and sunk by RAF Typhoons.
- 1947 A new Constitution of Japan went into effect, providing for a parliamentary system of government, guaranteeing certain fundamental rights, and relegating the Japanese monarchy to a purely ceremonial role.
Picture of the Day 
Caterpillar of the Spurge Hawk-moth (Hyles euphorbiae) on its primary food source the Cypress Spurge, seen in Kriegtal near Binn, Valais, Switzerland. It is often used as an agent of biological pest control against the noxious weed known as leafy spurge. |
05-04-2008, 08:45 PM
