This Week In #History ... June 20th - 26th

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

Jun 20
1632 Britain grants 2nd Lord Baltimore rights to Chesapeake Bay area
1782 Congress approves Great Seal of U.S. and eagle as it's symbol
1793 Eli Whitney patents his cotton gin
1863 1st bank chartered in U.S., National Bank of Davenport, Iowa
1895 1st female PhD (science) earned (Caroline Willard Baldwin)
1901 Charlotte Manye is 1st native African to graduate from a U.S. college
1909 1st balloon honeymoon (Roger Burham and Eleanor Waring)
1919 Treaty of Versailles: Germany ends incorporation of Austria
1939 Test flight of 1st rocket plane using liquid propellants
1943 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) founded
1949 Central Intelligence Agency Act, passes
1960 Federation of Mali (& Senegal) becomes independent of France
1970 British government of Edward Heath forms, with Margaret Thatcher
1981 Pope John Paul II hospitalized for 55 days for infection
1990 50,000 die in a 7.6 earthquake in Iran
1996 Space Shuttle STS-78, Columbia 20, launches into space
2010 Presidential elections take place in Poland after the death of President Lech Kaczynski in a plane crash April 10, 2010

Jun 21
1607 1st Protestant Episcopal parish in America established, Jamestown
1633 Galileo Galilei is forced by Inquisition to "abjure, curse, and detest" his Copernican heliocentric views
1788 U.S. Constitution goes into effect as New Hampshire is 9th to ratify
1893 1st Ferris wheel premieres at Chicago's Columbian Exposition
1907 E. W. Scripps founded United Press
1919 German Admiral von Reuter scuttles his own captured fleet
1932 Heavyweight Jack Sharkey TKOs Max Schmeling (New York City)
1941 2nd French troops occupies Damascus Syria
1948 1st stored computer program run, on Manchester Mark I
1956 Anti-protons detected in the atmosphere
1964 Beckwith arrested for murder of Medger Evers, found guilty 30 years later
1975 "Jaws" by Steven Spielberg opens
1985 American, Brazilian and West German forensic pathologists confirm skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil were Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele
1993 English mathematician Andrew Wiles proves last theorem of Fermat
2001 Total solar eclipse in Madagascar - Atlantic Ocean (4m56s)
2010 Dhaka's University of Engineering and Technology in Bangladesh is shut down after a student rampage injures four people because of 2010 FIFA World Cup fever

Jun 22
1377 Richard II succeeds Edward III as king of England
1675 Royal Greenwich Observatory established in England by Charles II
1772 Slavery outlawed in England
1812 Napoleon's Grand Army invades Russia
1870 1st Boardwalk in America invented
1910 1st Zeppelin with passengers sets afloat
1915 BMT, then Brooklyn Rapid Transit, begins subway service
1931 RVU, Radio-Volks-University, forms
1940 France falls to Nazi Germany; armistice signed, France disarms
1954 Congress passes revised organic act for Virgin Islands
1962 1st test flight of Hoovercraft
1970 President Nixon signs 26th amendment, voting age lowered to 18
1981 Mark David Chapman pleads guilty to killing John Lennon
1990 Florida passes a law that prohibits wearing a throng bathing suit
2010 Kurdish rebels claim responsibility for a bus bomb in Istanbul, Turkey; five people were killed and twelve people injured

Jun 23
930 World's oldest parliament, the Iceland Parliament, established
1683 William Penn signs friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape indians in Pennsylvania; only treaty "not sworn to, nor broken"
1775 1st regatta held on Thames, England
1848 Antoine Joseph Sax patents Saxophone
1868 Christopher Latham Sholes patents "Type-writer"
1902 Gioacchino Rossini's unveils monument to Santa-Croce
1917 Ammunition factory in Boleweg Bohemia explodes, killing 1,000
1925 British warship fires on Hong Kong harbor strikers
1938 Civil Aeronautics Authority (U.S.) established
1947 Truman's veto of Taft-Hartley Act overridden by congress
1958 Foundation Praemium Erasmianum (Erasmus Prize) established
1967 Lyndon Baines Johnson and Alexei Kosygin hold 1st of 2 summit meetings in Glassboro, New Jersey
1979 Rock group, the Knack releases "My Sharona"
1989 Movie "Batman" premieres
1996 Nintendo 64 goes on sale in Japan
2010 At last count, 76 people are dead while hundreds have disappeared after a train crash in the Republic of Congo caused the train to fall into a ravine

Jun 24
1314 Battle of Bannockburn; Scotland regains independence from England
1441 Eton College founded by Henry VI
1540 Henry VIII divorces his 4th wife, Anne of Cleves
1817 1st coffee planted in Hawaii on Kona coast
1894 Decision to hold modern Olympics every 4 years
1901 1st exhibition by Pablo Picasso, 19, opens in Paris
1914 King Peter I of Serbia names son Alexander the Prince-regent
1930 1st radar detection of planes, Anacostia DC
1941 Germans advanced into Russia and took Vilna, Brest-Litovsk and Kaunas
1957 "I Love Lucy," last airs on CBS-TV
1964 FTC rules health warnings must appear on all cigarette packages
1975 Moon tremor perceived, hit by Taurid meteors
1982 Equal Rights Amendment goes down to defeat
1992 John Gotti begins life sentence in jail
1997 Melissa Drexler, 18, charged with killing her baby during her prom
2010 Brazilian storms in Alagoas and Pernambuco states kill 46 people

Jun 25
1096 1st Crusade slaughter Jews of Werelinghofen Germany
1580 Book of Concord, standards of Lutheran Church, 1st published
1788 Virginia becomes 10th state to ratify U.S. constitution
1867 1st barbed wire patented by Lucien B Smith of Ohio
1905 Warsaw and Lodz revolt against Russian occupation
1919 1st advanced monoplane airliner flight (Junkers F13)
1929 President Hoover authorizes building of Boulder Dam, Hoover Dam
1938 Federal minimum wage law guarantees workers 40 cents per hour
1947 Tennis shoe introduced
1953 1st passenger to fly commercially around the world < 100 hours
1962 Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) forms
1977 Roy C. Sullivan of Virginia is struck by lightning for 7th time
1989 1st U.S. postmark dedicated to Lesbian and Gay Pride
1991 Slovenia and Croatia declare independence from Yugoslavia
1997 Christies auctions off Princess Di's clothing for $5.5 million
2010 Jean Leonard Rugambage, a Rwandan journalist, is shot dead in front of his home in Kigali; the exiled chief editor of Umuvugizi believes the government is responsible

Jun 26
1284 Pied Piper lures 130 children of Hamelin away (actually happened)
1498 Toothbrush invented
1857 Cawnpore England massacre
1870 1st section of Atlantic City Boardwalk opens
1902 Order of Merit instituted by King Edward VII
1910 1st federal corrupt election practices law passed
1919 N.Y. Daily News begins publishing
1927 Comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke approaches within 0.0394 AUs of Earth
1936 1st flight of Fw61 helicopter
1945 U.N. Charter signed by 50 nations in SF
1952 Nelson Mandela and 51 others infringe South Africa curfew
1960 Madagascar (formerly Malagasy Rep) declares independence from France
1968 Iwo Jima and Bonin Islands returned to Japan by US
1978 First dedicated oceanographic satellite, SEASAT 1, launched
1989 Canada updates coins with a new potrait of the Queen
1997 Galileo, Ganymede Observations, Orbit 9
2010 Leaders of the twenty largest economies meet for the 2010 G-20 Summit in Toronto, Canada

#nowyouknow

This Week In #History ... June 13th - 19th

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

Jun 13
1373 Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of Alliance, world's oldest, signed in London
1774 Rhode Island becomes 1st colony to prohibit importation of slaves
1837 1st Mormon missionaries to British Isles leave Kirtland, Ohio
1895 Emile Levassor wins 1st Paris-Bordeaux-Paris auto race (24 kph)
1900 China's Boxer Rebellion against foreigners and Christians
1910 Pilot Charles Hamilton makes 1st 1-day round-trip from New York to Philadelphia
1922 Longest attack of hiccups begins Charlie Osborne, 98 hiccupped over 435 million times before it stops, He dies 11 months after it stops
1932 Great Britain and France sign peace treaty
1942 Franklin D. Roosevelt creates Office of War with Elmer Davis as head
1950 South African parliament accept "Groups Area Act"
1963 Vostok 6 launched, pilot is 1st woman cosmonaut
1971 New York Times began publishing "Pentagon Papers"
1981 Teenager fires 6 blanks at Queen Elizabeth II
1991 The National, 1st all-sports daily newspaper, ceases publication
2010 Ethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan's city of Osh and Jalal-Abad left more than 100 people dead and over 1,400 injured after three days of four days of fighting

Jun 14
1623 1st breach-of-promise lawsuit: Reverend Gerville Pooley, Virginia files against Cicely Jordan, he loses
1834 Isaac Fischer, Jr. patents sandpaper
1881 Player piano patented by John McTammany, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass)
1901 1st golf championship is played
1919 1st nonstop air crossing of Atlantic (Alcock and Brown)
1929 Prussia and Vatican sign Concord
1938 Chlorophyll patented by Benjamin Grushkin
1942 Anne Frank begins her diary
1952 Keel laid for 1st nuclear powered sub Nautilus
1965 John Lennon's 2nd book "A Spaniard in the Works" is published
1975 U.S.S.R. launches Venera 10 for Venus landing
1985 Lebanese Shiite Muslim extremists hijacked TWA Flight 847
1992 Mona Van Duyn is named 1st female U.S. poet laureate
1998 "Comic Relief" benefit comedy show
2010 China's Premier, Wen Jiabao visits migrant workers at a Beijing construction site and declares the need for better treatment of the country's migrant workers

Jun 15
1215 King John signs Magna Carta at Runnymede, England
1664 New Jersey established
1844 Goodyear patents vulcanization of rubber
1869 Celluloid patented by John Wesley Hyatt, Albany, New York
1898 U.S. Marines attack Spanish off Guantanamo, Cuba
1908 World congress for Woman's rights opens in Amsterdam
1924 J. Edgar Hoover assumed leadership of the FBI
1934 Great Smokey Mountains National Park dedicated
1943 Congress of racial Equality (CORE) forms
1951 Joe Louis scored his last knock out victory
1960 Angel Cordero wins his 1st of over 7000 horse races
1972 West German police arrested RAF leader Ulrike Meinhof
1985 Russian space probe Vega 2 lands on Venus
1994 Disney's "Lion King," opens in theaters with $42 million
2010 The inquiry into Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland, 1972, determined British paratroopers first the first shot without warning, and concocted lies to cover up their acts

Jun 16
1487 Battle at Stoke: Henry VII beats John de la Pole and Lord Lovell
1794 1st stone layed at Dutch biggest grain windmill (De Walvisch)
1858 Abraham Lincoln says "A house divided against itself cannot stand"
1893 R. W. Rueckheim invents Cracker Jack
1903 Pepsi Cola company forms & Ford Motors incorporates
1909 1st U.S. airplane sold commercially, by Glenn Curtiss for $5,000
1923 Sun Yat Sen founds military academy
1933 National Industrial Recovery Act becomes law, later struck down
1944 U.S. bombs Kyushu Japan
1953 Despite Johnny Mize 2,000th hit, Yankees lose ending 18 game win streak and also ending St. Louis Brown 14 game losing streak
1967 50,000 attend Monterey International Pop Festival
1975 Italy's Communist party PCI, wins
1983 European Space Agency launches European Comm Satellite 1, Oscar 10
1991 Boris Yeltsin elected president of Russian SSR
2010 In response to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, BP agrees to finance a $20 billion fund to compensate those whose livelihood has been damaged

Jun 17
1579 Sir Francis Drake lands on coast of California
1745 American colonials capture Louisburg, Cape Breton I from French
1837 Charles Goodyear obtains his 1st rubber patent
1885 Statue of Liberty arrived in New York City
1898 U.S. Senate agrees to annex Hawaii
1915 League to Enforce Peace forms in Philadelphia
1928 Amelia Earhart leaves Newfoundland to become 1st woman (passenger) to fly Atlantic (as a passenger in a plane piloted by Wilmer Stultz)
1938 Japan declares war on China
1946 SW Bell inaugurates mobile telephone commercial service, St. Louis
1960 Ted Williams hit his 500th home runs
1967 1st Chinese hydrogen bomb explodes
1973 1st du Maurier Golf Classic (La Canadienne): Jocelyne Bourassa
1982 President Reagan 1st United Nations General Assembly address, "evil empire" speech
1991 South Africa abolishes last of its apartheid laws
2010 BP CEO Tony Hayward testifies before the U.S. about the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster at the Deepwater Horizon rig that has caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history

Jun 18
1178 5 Canterbury monks report explosion on moon (only known observation)
1580 States of Utrecht forbid catholic worship
1815 Battle of Waterloo; Napoleon defeated by Wellington and Blucher
1898 1st amusement pier opens in Atlantic City, New Jersey
1903 1st transcontinental auto trip begins in San Francisco; arrives New York 3-months later
1914 Oscar Egg bicycles world record time (44,247 km)
1924 Pope Pius XI's encyclical Maximam gravissimamque
1936 1st bicycle traffic court in America established, Racine, Wisconsin
1945 William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) British radio traitor charged with treason
1953 Egypt proclaimed a republic, General Neguib becomes president
1963 3,000 blacks boycott Boston public school
1973 NCAA makes urine testing mandatory for participants
1981 Vaccine to prevent hoof and mouth disease announced
1989 Comet Churyunov-Gerasimenko at perihelion
1994 Gay Games open in New York City
2010 Roza Otunbayeva, interim leader of Kyrgyzstan, estimates the death toll from the country's worst ethnic battle in decades could be as many as 2,000 people

Jun 19
1464 French King Louis XI forms postal service
1829 Sir Robert Peel found London Metropolitan Police (Bobbies)
1865 Union General Granger declares slaves are free in Texas
1910 Father's Day celebrated for 1st time (Spokane, Wash)
1921 Turk and Christian of Palestine sign a friendship treaty against Jews 
1931 1st photoelectric cell installed commercially, West Haven, CT
1940 "Brenda Starr," 1st cartoon strip by a woman, appears in Chicago 
1947 1st plane (F-80) to exceed 600 mph (1004 kph)-Albert Boyd, Muroc Ca
1960 Juan Marichal debuts as San Francisco Giant pitcher, beats Phillies on 1 hitter
1970 Jim Bouton's controversial "Ball Four" is published
1978 Garfield, created by Jim Davis, 1st appears as a comic strip
1988 World's Largest Sausage completed at 13 miles long
1992 "Batman Returns" opens
2010 Rival clashes between nomadic groups in the Darfur region of Sudan kills at least 48 people

#nowyouknow

This Week In #History ... May 23- May 29th

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

May 23
1430 Joan of Arc is captured at Compiegne and sold to the British
1618 2nd Defenestration of Prague; beginning of 30 Years War
1785 Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals
1873 Postal cards sold in San Francisco for 1st time
1903 1st direct primary election law in U.S. adopted, by Wisconsin
1915 Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary and Germany during WW I
1923 1st flight of Sabena: Brussel-Lympne, Great Britain
1934 Wallace Carothers manufactures 1st nylon (polymeer 66)
1943 Thomas Mann begins writing his novel Dr. Faustus
1953 Schools 1st use Cliff's Notes
1962 Scott Carpenter orbits Earth 3 times in U.S. Aurora 7
1977 Moluccan extremists hold 105 schoolchildren and 50 others hostage on a hijacked train in Netherlands, children released May 27, siege ends June 11
1986 U.S. and West Europeans veto heavier sanctions against South Africa
1994 Star Trek The Next Generation, finale airs this week in syndication
2009 Under investigation for bribery during his Presidency, former President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, commits suicide

May 24
1626 Peter Minuet buys Manhattan from Indians for trinkets, valued at $24
1738 Methodist Church forms
1862 Beardslee field telegraph used for 1st time
1899 1st auto repair shop opens (Boston)
1909 Bristol University granted Royal Charter
1921 British Legion forms
1930 1st woman to fly from England to Australia solo, lands (Amy Johnson)
1940 Hitler affirms General von Rundstedts "Stopbevel"
1951 Racial segregation in Washington D.C. restaurants ruled illegal
1959 1st house with built-in bomb shelter exhibited in Pleasant Hills, Pennsylvania
1968 President De Gaulle proposes referendum and students set fire to Paris bourse
1980 Iran rejects a call to World Court to release U.S. hostages
1989 French war criminal Paul Touvier arrested in monastery in Nice
1997 STS-84 (Atlantis 19), lands
2010 After South Korea's ROKS Cheonan ship is sunk by North Korea, South Korea cuts off trade with North Korea and announces North Korean ships will no longer be allowed to use South Korean waters

May 25
1241 1st attack on Jewish community of Frankfort-on-the-Main Germany
1721 John Copson becomes America's 1st insurance agent
1825 American Unitarian Association founded
1900 Eyre M. Shaw, 78, becomes oldest gold medalist in Olympics (yachting)
1914 British House of Commons passes Irish Home Rule
1927 Henry Ford stops producing Model T car (begins Model A)
1937 1st airmail letter to circle globe returns to New York
1948 San Francisco receives its 1st telecast
1959 Supreme Court rules that Louisiana prohibiting black-white boxing is unconstitutional
1965 Muhammad Ali KOs Sonny Liston in 1 for heavyweight boxing title
1973 Argentine Peronist Hector Campora installed as president
1983 1st National Missing Children's Day is proclaimed
1992 Jay Leno becomes permanent host of "Tonight Show"
2002 China Airlines flight 611 crashes near Taiwan, killing 225, crash probably due to structural failure
2002 China Airlines flight 611 crashes near Taiwan, killing 225, crash probably due to structural failure

May 26
1596 England, France and Netherlands signs Drievoudig Covenant against Spain
1805 Napoleon is crowned king of Italy
1864 Territory of Montana formed
1900 British troops under Ian Hamilton attack the Vaal in South Africa
1911 1st Indianapolis 500 auto race is run
1922 Lenin suffers a stroke
1930 Supreme Court rules buying liquor does not violate the Constitution
1941 German occupiers begin youth labor
1948 South Africa elects a nationalist government with apartheid policy
1958 Ceylon emergency crisis proclaimed
1969 Apollo 10 astronauts returned to Earth
1977 Movie "Star Wars" debuts
1989 Danish parliament allows legal marriage among homosexuals
1998 Date for Paula Jones sex harassment trial vs. President Clinton
2006 The May 2006 Java earthquake kills over 5,700 people and leaves 200,000 homeless.

May 27
1703 St. Petersburg (Leningrad) founded by Peter the Great
1796 James S. McLean patents his piano
1854 Marine Telegraph from Ft. Point to San Francisco completed
1900 Lord Roberts' army fights the Vaal in South Africa
1919 Charles Strite patents pop-up toaster
1921 After 84 years of British control, Afghanistan achieves sovereignty
1931 1st full scale wind tunnel for testing airplanes, Langley Field, Virginia
1941 Franklin D. Roosevelt declares state of emergency due to Germany's sinking of Robin Moor
1951 Chinese Communists force Dalai Lama to surrender his army to Beijing
1961 1st black light is sold
1970 British expedition climbs south face of Annapurna I
1980 South Korean police ends people's uprising; 2,000 killed
1988 Senate ratified a treaty eliminating medium-range nuclear missiles
1997 1st all female (20 British women) team reaches North Pole
2009  In Venezuela hundreds of opponents of President Hugo Chavez marched in support of press freedom, two years after his government refused to renew the concession of an opposition-aligned television station.

May 28
1539 Hernando de Soto lands in Florida
1674 German Parliament declares war on France
1731 All Hebrew books in Papal State are confiscated
1742 1st indoor swimming pool opens (Goodman's Fields, London)
1863 1st black regiment (54 Mass) leaves Boston to fight in Civil War
1901 Laws against phosphor matches enacted (inhibition white phosphorous)
1915 John B. Gruelle patents Raggedy Ann doll
1923 Attorney General says it is legal for women to wear trousers anywhere
1937 Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco opens to vehicular traffic
1948 Iraq captures Ge'ulim settlement
1959 Monkeys Able and Baker zoom 300 mi (500 km) into space on Jupiter missile, became 1st animals retrieved from a space mission
1971 U.S.S.R. Mars 3 launched, 1st spacecraft to soft land on Mars
1982 Pope John Paul II is 1st pope to visit Great Britain
1990 Longest wheelie (David Robilliard with 5h12m33s (Channel Islands))
1997 Linda Finch completes Amelia Earhart attempted around-the-world flight
2008 The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly of Nepal formally declares Nepal a republic, ending the 240-year reign of the Shah dynasty.

May 29
1167 Lombard League defeat Frederick Barbarossa at Battle of Legnano
1453 Constantinople falls to Muhammad II (Turks); ends Byzantine Empire
1692 Royal Hospital Founders Day 1st celebrated
1790 Rhode Is becomes last of original 13 colonies ratifying Constitution
1900 Trademark "Escalator" registered by Otis Elevator Co
1910 Pope's encyclical on Editae Saepe, against church reformers
1919 Einstein's light-bending prediction confirmed by Arthur Eddington
1928 Fritz von Opel reaches 200 kph in experimental rocket car
1940 In WW II, Germans capture Ostend and Ypres in Belgium and Lille in France
1951 1st North Pole flight in single engine plane - C F Blair
1959 Charles de Gaulle forms French government
1969 Britain's Trans-Arctic expedition makes 1st crossing of Arctic Sea ice
1979 Radio's 1st rock network "Source" premieres
1987 Michael Jackson attempts to buy Elephant Man's remains
1997 Span scientists announce new human species in 780,000 year old fossil
2009 Russian and American officials formally dedicated a high-tech plant in southern Siberia, built with the help of $1 billion from the US and designed to destroy about 2 million chemical weapons shells.

#nowyouknow

This Week In #History ... May 17- 22nd

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

May 17
1620 1st merry-go-round seen at a fair (Philippapolis, Turkey)
1792 24 merchants form New York Stock Exchange at 70 Wall Street
1803 John Hawkins and Richard French patent the Reaping Machine
1846 Saxophone is patents by Antoine Joseph Sax
1877 Edwin T. Holmes installs 1st telephone switchboard burglar alarm
1890 Comic Cuts, 1st weekly comic paper, published in London
1916 British Summer Time (Daylight Savings), 1st introduced
1926 German government of Marx takes power
1938 Congress approves Vinson Naval Act, which funds a two-ocean navy
1948 Soviet Union recognized Israel
1960 1st atomic reactor system patents, J W Flora of Canoga Park, California
1971 Washington State bans sex discrimination
1983 Israel and Lebanon sign a peace treaty
1993 Intel's new Pentium processor is unveiled
2010 Iceland's volcano causes Britain's two busiest airports to close in addition to Dublin Airport and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

May 18
1642 Montreal, Canada founded
1703 Dutch and English troops occupy Cologne
1804 Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed Emperor of France
1830 Edwin Budding of England signs an agreement for manufacture of his invention, lawn mower.
1897 Irish Music Festival 1st held (Dublin)
1917 U.S. passes Selective Service act
1927 Ritz Hotel opens in Boston
1934 Congress approves "Lindbergh Act," makes kidnapping a capital offense
1942 New York City ends night baseball games for rest of WW II
1953 Jacqueline Cochran is 1st woman to break the sound barrier
1964 Supreme Court rules unconstitutional to deprive naturalized citizens of citizenship if they return to home country for more than 3 years
1978 Italy legalizes abortion
1986 David Goch finishes swimming 55,682 miles in a 25-yd pool
1993 Italian police arrest Mafia boss Benedetto "Nitto" Santapaola
2010 Christina Figueres of Costa Rica is appointed by U.N. Secretary - General Ban Ki Moon to lead efforts to combat global warming and climate change

May 19
1568 English queen Elizabeth I arrests Scottish queen Mary
1643 Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Harbor form United Colonies of New England
1848 Mexico gives Texas to U.S., ending the war
1857 William Francis Channing and Moses G Farmer patents electric fire alarm
1885 Jan Matzeliger begins 1st mass production of shoes
1900 World's longest railroad tunnel (Simplon) links Italy and Switzerland, opens
1913 Webb Alien Land-Holding Bill passes, forbidding Japanese from owning land
1923 KPD (communist revolts) in German Ruhr cities occupied by Allies
1939 Churchill signs British-Russian anti-nazi pact
1950 New York Times reports of worlds smallest and dumbest mechanical brain
1958 U.S. and Canada form North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)
1971 U.S.S.R. launches Mars 2, 1st spacecraft to crash land on Mars
1987 1st American Comedy Award
1995 World's youngest doctor, Balamurali Ambati, 17, graduates Mount Sinai
2010 Buildings across Bangkok are set on fire by red shirt protesters after the military stormed a protest camp in the center of the city

May 20
1498 Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut, India
1704 Elias Neau forms school for slaves in New York
1830 D. Hyde patents fountain pen
1874 Levi Strauss markets blue jeans with copper rivets, price $13.50 doz
1900 2nd modern Olympic games open in Paris (lasted 5 months)
1910 Funeral for Britain's King Edward VII
1919 Volcano Keluit on Java, erupts killing 550
1930 1st airplane catapulted from a dirigible, Charles Nicholson pilot
1939 1st regular transatlantic airmail (New York to Marsseille France)
1948 1st use of Israeli Air Force and 1st war victory, defeating Syrian army
1967 BBC bans Beatle's "A Day in the Life" (drug references)
1974 Soyuz 14 returns to Earth
1985 FBI arrests John A Walker, Jr., convicted of spying for U.S.S.R.
1993 10m meteor comes within 150,000 km of Earth (1993KA)
2010 Scientists at the Craig J. Venter Institute announce they have successfully created the world's first artificial lifeform by transplanting a synthesized genome into an existing cell

May 21
1502 Portuguese Admiral Da Nova discovers St. Helena
1819 1st bicycles (swift walkers) in U.S. introduced in New York City
1861 Richmond, Virginia is designated Confederate Capital
1904 Federation Internationale de Football Association (Soccer) forms in Paris
1917 Leo Pinckney, 1st American drafted during WW I
1925 Canadians allow to sell beer
1934 Oskaloosa Iowa, becomes 1st U.S. city to fingerprint its citizens
1945 German war criminal Heinrich Himmler captured
1955 1st transcontinental round-trip solo flight-sunrise to sunset
1964 1st nuclear-powered lighthouse begins operations (Chesapeake Bay)
1977 "Fiddler on the Roof" closes at Winter Garden New York City after 167 performances
1987 Military coup in Fiji Islands under Lieutenant Colonel Sitivani Rabuka
1997 Emmy 24th Daytime Award presentation - Susan Lucci loses for 17th time
2010 A food crisis in Niger causes Nigerians to flee across the border into Nigeria

May 22
1570 1st atlas, with 70 maps, published
1761 1st life insurance policy in U.S., issued in Philadelphia
1803 1st public library opens (Connecticut)
1807 Townsend Speakman 1st sells fruit-flavored carbonated drinks in Philadelphia
1888 Leroy Buffington patents a system to build skyscrapers
1900 Edwin S Votey patents pneumatic piano player
1909 1st San Francisco fireboat, David Scannell, launched
1923 Stanley Baldwin succeeds Andrew Bonar Law as British premier
1933 World Trade Day/National Maritime Day 1st celebrated
1943 1st jet fighter is tested
1954 Robert Zimmerman aka Bob Dylan is Bar Mitzvahed
1972 Ceylon becomes Republic of Sri Lanka as its constitution is ratified
1981 Soyuz 40 returns to Earth
1995 Laverne and Shirley 20th anniversary reunionn special, televised
2010 Air India Express Flight 812 crashes near Mangalore International Airport; eight passengers survive and 158 perish

#nowyouknow

This Week In #History ... May 9th - 15th

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

May 9
1502 Columbus left Spain on his 4th and final trip to New World
1754 1st newspaper cartoon in America-divided snake "Join or Die"
1896 1st horseless carriage show in London (featured 10 models)
1899 Lawn mower patented
1901 Australia opens its 1st parliament in Melbourne
1914 President Wilson proclaims Mother's Day
1926 Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make 1st flight over North Pole
1932 Piccadilly Circus, 1st lit by electricity
1949 Prince Rainier III becomes leader of Monaco
1960 U.S. is 1st country to use the birth control pill legally
1970 100,000s demonstrate against Vietnam War
1978 Corpse of kidnapped ex-premier of Italia Aldo Moro found
1992 Final episode of "Golden Girls" airs on NBC-TV
2001 Police tear gas unruly soccer fans, ensuing panic kills over 100 in Ghana
2010 Somali pirates seize a German-owned tanker, MS Marida Marguerite, off the coast of Somalia

May 10
1497 Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci leaves for 1st voyage to New World
1503 Columbus discovers Cayman Islands
1752 Benjamin Franklins 1st tests the lightning rod
1823 1st steamboat to navigate the Mississippi River arrives at Ft. Snelling
1872 Victoria Woodhull becomes 1st woman nominated for U.S. president
1906 Russia's Duma (Parliament) meets for 1st time
1915 Zeppelin drops hundred of bombs on Southend-on-Sea
1924 J. Edgar Hoover appointed head of FBI
1933 Nazis stage public book burnings in Germany
1945 Russian troops occupied Prague
1960 USS Nautilus completes 1st circumnavigation of globe under water
1969 Apollo 10 transmit 1st color pictures of Earth from space
1979 Vivekananda (Sri Lanka) completes nonstop cycle ride of 187 hours, 28 minutes, around Vihara Maha Devi Park, Colombo, Sri Lanka
1990 Howard Stern holds a mock funeral for rival John DeBella
1996 "Twister" premieres
2010 Solicitor General Elena Kagan is the youngest Justice and third woman nominated for the Supreme Court of the United States

May 11
330 Constantinople (Byzantium) becomes capital of Roman Empire
1749 British parliament accept Consolidation Act: fleet reorganization
1751 1st U.S. hospital founded (Pennsylvania Hospital)
1893 Henri Desgrange establishes 1st bicycle-world record (35.325 km)
1904 Andrew Carnegie donates $1.5M to build a peace palace
1916 Einstein's Theory of General Relativity presented
1926 Airship Norge leaves Spitsbergen for 1st air crossing of Arctic Ocean
1940 New York World's Fair reopens
1949 1st Polaroid camera sold $89.95 in New York City
1965 West Indies becomes 1st holders of the Frank Worrell Cricket Trophy
1978 Margaret A. Brewer is 1st female general in the U.S. Marine Corps
1987 1st heart-lung transplant take place (Baltimore)
1998 India resumes underground nuclear tests after more than a 20 year gap
2010 The Gulf of Mexico oil spill threatens sensitive marshes and wildlife along the Gulf Coast; Admiral Thad Allan is appointed to lead the Federal response to the spill

May 12
1551 San Marcos University in Lima Peru, opens
1777 1st ice cream advertisement (Philip Lenzi-NY Gazette)
1792 Toilet that flushes itself at regular intervals is patented
1888 Crouching start 1st used by Charles Sherrill of Yale
1908 Wireless Radio Broadcasting is patented by Nathan B. Stubblefield
1921 National Hospital Day 1st observed
1932 Goofy, aka Dippy Dawg, 1st appears in 'Mickey's Revue' by Walt Disney
1942 1,500 Jews gassed in Auschwitz
1951 1st H Bomb test, on Enewetak Atoll
1963 Race riot in Birmingham, Alabama
1977 1st quadrophonic concert (Pink Floyd in London)
1986 Bicycle is pedaled 65 mph
1997 Susie Maroney, 22, of Australia, is 1st to swim from Cuba to Florida
2008 8.0 Earthquake in southwest China kills more than 69,000
2010 After new allegations of torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross reports a second U.S. secret prison exists at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan

May 13
1637 Cardinal Richelieu of France creates the table knife
1830 Republic of Ecuador is founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president
1884 Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) forms
1905 James J Jeffries retires as boxing champ
1916 Native American Day is 1st observed
1926 German government of Luther falls
1940 Churchill says "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat"
1950 Diner's Club issues its 1st credit cards
1960 1st launch of Delta satellite launching vehicle; it failed
1968 1,000,000 French demonstrate against De Gaulle and Pompidou
1982 Soyuz T-5 is launched-Berezovoi and Lebedev for 211 days in space
1991 Apple releases Macintosh System 7.0
2005 Star Trek: Enterprise broadcasts it's final show in the U.S.
2010 Pope Benedict XVI celebrates open-air Mass at Fatima, Portugal with over 500,000 pilgrims attending from 35 nations including Vietnam, China and India

May 14
1796 1st smallpox inoculation administered, by Edward Jenner
1842 1st edition of London Illustrated News
1878 Vaseline is 1st sold (registered trademark for petroleum jelly)
1904 1st Olympics in U.S. are held (St. Louis)
1913 French Hals museum opens in Harleem Netherlands
1932 "We Want Beer!" parade in New York
1942 U.S. Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) forms
1955 Warsaw Pact is signed by the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania
1964 Underground America Day is 1st observed
1973 Skylab launched, 1st Space Station
1986 Institute for War documents publishes Anne Franks complete diary
1995 Dalai Lama proclaims 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima 11th reincarnation of Panchen Lama, Tibet's 2nd most sr spiritual leader
2010 Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda sign an agreement seeking more water from the Nile; Kenya issues support while Egypt and Sudan remain opposed

May 15
1602 Cape Cod discovered by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold
1672 1st copyright law enacted by Massachusetts
1800 King George III survives a 2nd assassination attempt
1869 National Woman Suffrage Association forms
1902 Lyman Gilmore is 1st person to fly a powered craft
1911 Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Indiana University, incorporates
1918 1st regular airmail service (between New York and Washington) inaugurated
1928 Mickey Mouse made his 1st appearance
1940 1st nylon stockings sold in U.S.
1957 1st British H-bomb explosion (over Christmas Island)
1965 Canadian Football Players Association organizes
1972 George Wallace shot and left paralyzed by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, Maryland (Assassination attempt)
1980 1st trans-U.S. balloon crossing
1989 Soviet President Gorbachev in Beijing for 1st Sino-Soviet summit in 30 yrs
1997 STS-84 (Atlantis 19), launches, 6th Shuttle-Mir Mission
2010 Over 150 members of the Justice and Equality Movement are killed by Sudanese forces in their effort to gain control of a rebel held area in Darfur

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