Milestones

[admihoek]

May 12 has seen more than its fair share of battles and outbreaks of war. This is also the date when "America's Caesar" delivered a memorable valedictory address.
254. Pope Saint Stephen I succeeds Pope Lucius I as the 23rd pope. In the year 258, the emperor Valerian began persecuting Christians, and Stephen was sitting on his pontifical throne celebrating Mass for his congregation when the emperor's men came and beheaded him on August 2. As late as the 18th century, the chair was preserved, still stained with blood.
303. Roman Emperor Diocletian orders the beheading of the 14-year-old Pancras of Rome. Saint Pancras was a Roman citizen who converted to Christianity, and was beheaded for his faith at the age of just 14. His name is Greek and literally means "the one that holds everything".
1191. Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre. Whether the marriage was ever even consummated is a matter for conjecture. Richard's sexual orientation is hotly debated among revisionist historians, some claim unproven homosexuality, others present him as a notorious womanizer and even a rapist. Whatever his orientation, he took his new wife with him for the first part of the crusade. They returned separately, but Richard was captured and imprisoned. Berengaria remained in Europe, attempting to raise money for his ransom. The marriage was childless but Berengaria was thought to be barren.
1264. The Battle of Lewes begins, between King Henry III of England and the rebel Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester. The battle was fought at Lewes in Sussex, from May 12 to May 14, 1264. It was the high point of the career of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester and made him the "uncrowned king of England."
1328. Antipope Nicholas V, a claimant to the papacy, is consecrated in Rome by the Bishop of Venice. He was the last Imperial antipope, that is, set up by a Holy Roman Emperor. He was elected through the influence of the excommunicated Emperor, Louis IV the Bavarian, by an assembly of priests and laymen, and consecrated at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome on May 12, 1328 by the bishop of Venice. On February 19, 1329 Nicholas V presided at a bizarre ceremony at which a straw puppet representing Pope John XXII and dressed in pontifical robes was formally condemned, degraded, and handed over to the secular arm. Nicholas V was excommunicated by John XXII in April 1329. Having obtained assurance of pardon, he presented a confession of his sins at Avignon on August 25, 1330 to John XXII, who absolved him. He remained in honorable imprisonment in the papal palace at Avignon until his death in October 1333.
1588. In the French Wars of Religion, Henry III of France flees Paris after Catholic leader Henry of Guise enters the city.
1689. William III of England joins the League of Augsburg, starting King William's War with France. The first of the French and Indian Wars, King William's War (1689–1697), was the North American theater of the War of the Grand Alliance (1688–1697) fought principally in Europe between the armies of France under Louis XIV and those of a coalition of European powers including England. The war saw attacks by France and its Indian allies on English frontier settlements, most notably the Schenectady Massacre of 1690. The English failed to seize Quebec City, and the French commander there attacked the British-held coast. The Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 was supposed to end the war, but peace did not last long, and soon the colonies were embroiled in the next of the French and Indian Wars, Queen Anne's War.

 

[admihoek]

1780. After a siege that began on April 2, 1780, Americans suffer their worst defeat of the revolution, with the unconditional surrender of Major General Benjamin Lincoln to British Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton and his army of 10,000 at Charleston, South Carolina. With the victory, the British captured more than 3,000 Patriots and a great quantity of munitions and equipment, losing only 250 killed and wounded in the process. Having suffered the humiliation of surrendering to the British at Charleston, Major General Lincoln was able to turn the tables and accept Cornwallis' ceremonial surrender to General George Washington at Yorktown on October 20.
1797. In the War of the First Coalition, Napoleon I of France conquers Venice. The War of the First Coalition (1792–1797) was the first major effort of multiple European monarchies to contain Revolutionary France. France declared war on the Habsburg monarchy of Austria on 20 April 1792, and the Kingdom of Prussia joined the Austrian side a few weeks later. The coalition eventually collapsed, leaving only Britain to fight in the field.
1864. In the American Civil War, the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House takes place; thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers die in "the Bloody Angle." The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, sometimes simply referred to as the Battle of Spotsylvania, was the second major battle in Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign of the American Civil War. It was fought in the Rapidan-Rappahannock river area of central Virginia, a region where more than 100,000 men on both sides fell between 1862 and 1864.
1865. The Battle of Palmito Ranch begins in Texas. This is the first day of the last major land action to take place during the American Civil War, resulting in a Confederate victory. The battle was fought on May 12 – May 13, 1865, and in the kaleidoscope of events following the surrender of Robert E. Lee's army, was nearly ignored. It was the last major clash of arms in the war.
Private John J. Williams of the 34th Indiana Volunteer Infantry was the last person killed during the Battle at Palmito Ranch, and probably the last combat casualty of the war.
1903. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's trip to San Francisco is captured on moving-picture film, making him the first president to have an official activity recorded in that medium.
1916. James Connolly is sat on a chair and shot dead in Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin, after his role in the Easter Uprising. He was so badly injured from the fighting (a doctor had already said he had no more than a day or two to live, but the execution order was still given) that he was unable to stand before the firing squad. Instead of being marched to the same spot where the others had been executed, at the far end of the execution yard, he was tied to a chair and then shot. The executions were not well received, even throughout Britain, and drew unwanted attention from the United States, which the British Government was trying to lure into the war in Europe.
1918. The rulers of Germany and Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Emperor Karl I, meet to sign an agreement pledging their mutual allegiance and determining to share the economic benefits from their relationship with the newly independent state of Ukraine, one of the most fertile and prosperous regions of the former Russian Empire. The meeting of the two emperors was intended not only to divide the much-needed spoils of the Ukraine treaty but also to strengthen the steadily unraveling alliance between the Central Powers as World War I stretched into its fourth exhausting year.
Time was running out for the Central Powers. On the home front, rampant hunger led to strikes and a general atmosphere of discontent and frustration with the war, both at home and on the battlefield. Barely a week after the May 12 meeting, the first in a series of mutinies occurred in the Austro-Hungarian army, led by a group of Slovenian nationalists. Similar rebellions were subsequently launched by Serbs, Rusyns (Ruthenians) and Czechs within the empire's troops. By the autumn, Germany was confronting mutinies within its own troops and an Allied breakthrough on the previously invincible Hindenburg Line; on November 11, 1918, the war was over.
1926.: In the United Kingdom, a nine-day general strike ends. It was called by the general council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to act to prevent wage reduction and worsening conditions for coal miners.
1932. Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home.
1937. At London's Westminster Abbey, George VI and his consort, Lady Elizabeth, are crowned king and queen of the United Kingdom as part of a coronation ceremony that dates back more than a millennium.
George ascended to the throne after his elder brother, King Edward VIII, abdicated on December 11, 1936. Edward, who was the first English monarch to voluntarily relinquish the English throne, agreed to give up his title in the face of widespread criticism of his desire to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American divorcee.
George Vi reigned until his death in 1952. He was succeeded by his first-born daughter, who was crowned Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953.
1941. Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.
1942. In World War II, the Second Battle of Kharkov begins in the eastern Ukraine as the Soviet Army launches a major offensive. During the battle the Soviets will capture the city of Kharkov from the German Army, only to be encircled and destroyed.
1955. Austria regains its independence as the Allied occupation following World War II ends.
1958. A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command agreement is signed between the United States and Canada.
1962. General Douglas MacArthur delivers his famous "Duty, Honor, Country" valedictory speech at West Point.
1963. A young and unknown Bob Dylan walks off the set of The Ed Sullivan Show -- the country's highest-rated variety show -- after network censors rejected the song he planned on performing. The song that caused the flap was Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues, a satirical talking-blues number skewering the ultra-conservative John Birch Society and its tendency to see covert members of an international Communist conspiracy behind every tree. Rather than choose a new number to perform or change his song's lyrics -- as the Rolling Stones and the Doors would famously do in the years to come --Dylan stormed off the set in angry protest.
The story got widespread media attention in the days that followed, causing Ed Sullivan himself to denounce the network's decision in published interviews. In the end, however, the free publicity Bob Dylan received may have done more for his career than his abortive national-television appearance scheduled for this day in 1963 ever could have.
1970. American actress Samantha Mathis is born in Brooklyn, New York. She is the daughter of actress Bibi Besch and granddaughter of actress Gusti Huber. When Samantha was three years old, her parents divorced, and she stayed with her mother. Growing up with an actress mother influenced Mathis's career choice.
Her first starring role in a feature film was the part of Nora in Pump Up the Volume with Christian Slater, whom she was dating at the time. They were also both in Broken Arrow. Mathis began dating River Phoenix when they starred together in The Thing Called Love . She was with him the night that he died outside LA's Viper Room. (See pictures.)
1975. In the Mayaguez incident, the Cambodian navy seizes the American merchant ship SS Mayaguez in international waters.
The Mayaguez incident involving the Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia on May 12–15, 1975, marked the last official battle of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The names of the Americans killed are the last names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, as well as those of three Marines who were left behind on the island of Koh Tang after the battle and who were subsequently executed by the Khmer Rouge while in captivity. The merchant ship's crew, whose seizure at sea had prompted the U.S. attack, had been released in good health, unknown to the U.S. Marines or the U.S. command of the operation, before the Marines attacked. To this day, it is the only known engagement which involves the U.S. military and the Khmer Rouge.
1982. During a procession outside the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Fátima, Portugal, security guards overpower Juan Fernandez Krohn before he can attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet. Krohn, an ultraconservative Spanish priest opposed to the Vatican II reforms, decided that the Pope must be killed for being an "agent of Moscow."
1999. David Steel becomes the first Presiding Officer (speaker) of the modern Scottish Parliament.
2002. Former President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro's 1959 revolution.
Carter was also the first president to visit Ford's Theater in Washington since Abraham Lincoln was assassinated there. Presidents traditionally had boycotted the place.
2008. The Wenchuan earthquake (measuring around 8.0 magnitude) strikes Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people. It was the deadliest earthquake to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed at least 240,000 people, and the strongest since the 1950 Chayu earthquake in the country, which registered at 8.5 on Richter magnitude scale. It is the 21st deadliest earthquake of all time.
2010. An Afriqiyah Airways Flight crashes and kills everyone but one person on board. Of the 104 passengers and crew on board, the sole survivor was a 9-year-old Dutch boy.
2011. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi appears on state television for the first time in two weeks; the Gaddafi compound is hit again in airstrikes and the North Korean embassy in Tripoli is reportedly damaged in a NATO air raid.. Meanwhile, The Syrian military continues to crack down on protesters, with students in the city of Aleppo the latest target.
Elsewhere, Queen Elizabeth II becomes the second-longest-reigning British monarch.

 

[admihoek]

May 13 was the last day of the Lemuria (or Lemuralia) in ancient Rome, when rituals were performed to exorcise homes and appease spiteful ghosts. The Lemuralia came on three alternate days -- May 9, 11, and 13 -- with the last one the most significant. It was celebrated at night and in silence. During this season the temples of the gods were closed, and it was thought unlucky for women to marry -- as well as the entire month of May. Those who dared to marry were believed to die soon after.
The significance of May 13 persisted into Christian times. On the culminating day of the Lemuralia, May 13 in 609 or 610 -- the day being recorded as more significant than the year -- Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon at Rome to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs; and the feast of the dedicatio Sanctae Mariae ad Martyres has been celebrated at Rome ever since.
1373. Julian of Norwich has visions which are later transcribed in her Revelations of Divine Love. It is believed to be the first published book in the English language to be written by a woman. Julian of Norwich was an English anchoress who is regarded as one of the most important Christian mystics. She is venerated in the Anglican and Lutheran churches, but has never been canonized, or officially beatified, by the Catholic Church, probably because so little is known of her life aside from her writings, including the exact date of her death. There is also scholarly debate as to whether Julian was a nun in a nearby convent, or even a laywoman.
1497. Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola. Savonarola was an Italian Dominican priest and leader of Florence from 1494 until his execution in 1498. He was known for religious reformation, anti-Renaissance preaching, book burning, and destruction of art. He was infamous for his "Bonfire of the Vanities," in which paintings were incinerated, He vehemently preached against what he saw as the moral corruption of the clergy, and his main opponent was Pope Alexander VI. He is sometimes seen as a precursor of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, though he remained a devout and pious Roman Catholic his whole life. On May 13, 1497 he was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI; and in 1498, Alexander demanded his arrest and execution. On April 8, a crowd attacked the convent of San Marco; a bloody struggle ensued, during which several of Savonarola's supporters were killed: he surrendered along with Fra Domenico da Pescia and Fra Silvestro, his two closest associates. Savonarola was charged with heresy, uttering prophecies, sedition, and religious error. During the next several weeks all three were tortured on the rack. All three signed confessions; the torturers spared only Savonarola's right arm, in order that he might be able to sign his confession, which he did sometime prior to May 8. On the day of his execution he was taken out to the Piazza della Signoria along with Fra Silvestro and Fra Domenico da Pescia. The three were ritually stripped of their vestments, degraded as heretics and schismatics, and given over to the secular authorities to be burned. The three were hanged in chains from a single cross; an enormous fire was lit beneath them.
An eyewitness wrote in his diary that the burning took several hours, and that the remains were several times broken apart and mixed with brushwood so that not the slightest piece could be later recovered, as the ecclesiastical authorities did not want Savonarola's followers to have any relics. The ashes of the three were afterwards thrown in the Arno beside the Ponte Vecchio.
1515. Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk are officially married at Greenwich. Mary Tudor was the younger sister of King Henry VIII of England and queen consort of France through her marriage to Louis XII. The latter was more than 30 years her senior. Following his death, which had occurred less than two months after her coronation (as his third wife), she married Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. The marriage, which was performed secretly in France, took place without having obtained her brother's consent. This being technically an act of treason, it necessitated the intervention of Thomas Wolsey and the couple were eventually pardoned by the King, although they were forced to pay a large fine.
1568. At the Battle of Langside, the forces of Mary Queen of Scots are defeated by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, Earl of Moray, her half-brother and the regent of her son King James VI.
During the battle, which was fought out in the southern suburbs of Glasgow, a cavalry charge routed Mary's 6,000 Catholic troops, and they fled the field. Three days later, Mary escaped to Cumberland, England, where she sought protection from Queen Elizabeth I. Queen Elizabeth I initially welcomed Mary but was soon forced to put her cousin under house arrest after Mary became the focus of various English Catholic and Spanish plots to overthrow her.
In 1586, a major Catholic plot to murder Elizabeth was uncovered, and Mary was brought to trial, convicted for complicity, and sentenced to death. On February 8, 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded for treason at Fotheringhay Castle in England. Her son, King James VI of Scotland, calmly accepted his mother's execution, and upon Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603, he became James I, king of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
1607. Some 100 English colonists settle along the west bank of the James River in Virginia to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America. After only two weeks, Jamestown came under attack from warriors from the local Algonquian Native American confederacy, but the Indians were repulsed by the armed settlers.
During the next two years, disease, starvation, and more Native American attacks wiped out most of the colony, but the London Company continually sent more settlers and supplies. The severe winter of 1609 to 1610, which the colonists referred to as the "starving time," killed most of the Jamestown colonists, leading the survivors to plan a return to England in the spring. However, on June 10, Thomas West De La Warr, the newly appointed governor of Virginia, arrived with supplies and convinced the settlers to remain at Jamestown.
1648. Construction of the Red Fort at Delhi is completed. (See picture.) The Red Fort was the palace for Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan's new capital, Shahjahanabad, the seventh Muslim city in the Delhi site. He shifted his capital from Agra in a move designed to bring prestige to his reign, and to provide ample opportunity to apply his ambitious building schemes and interests.
1779. Russian and French mediators at the Congress of Teschen negotiate an end to the War of the Bavarian Succession. In the agreement Austria receives the part of its territory that was taken from it (the Innviertel).
1787. Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England with eleven ships full of convicts to establish a penal colony in Australia.
1804. Forces sent by Yusuf Karamanli of Tripoli to retake Derna from the Americans attack the city.
1846. The United States declares war on Mexico.
1861. The Great Comet of 1861 is first sighted from Australia. The comet of 1861 interacted with the Earth in an almost unprecedented way. For two days, when the comet was at its closest (0.1326 AU), the Earth was actually within the comet's tail, and streams of cometary material converging towards the distant nucleus could be seen. By day also the comet's gas and dust even obscured the Sun.
An elliptical orbit with a period of about 400 years was calculated, which would indicate a previous appearance about the middle of the 15th century, and a return in the 23rd century.
1863. In the American Civil War,Union General Ulysses S. Grant advances toward the Mississippi capital of Jackson during his bold and daring drive to take Vicksburg, the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. A few days later, on May 16, Grant defeated Pemberton at Champion's Hill and drove the Rebels back into Vicksburg. With the threat from the east neutralized, Grant sealed Vicksburg shut and laid siege to the city. Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, and the Confederacy was severed in two.
1914. Boxing champion Joe Louis is born in Lafayette, Alabama.
1917. Three shepherd children report seeing the Virgin Mary near Fatima, Portugal. She reportedly appeared on the 13th day of six consecutive months in 1917, starting on May 13, 1917. According to the story, she imparted three "secrets" to the children.
The first secret was a vision of Hell. The second secret included Mary's instructions on how to save souls from Hell and convert the world to the true Catholic Faith and Church of Christ,
The Vatican withheld the third secret until June 26, 2000, although it was supposed to have been released in 1960. The Church maintains that it predicted the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul ll. But some sources claim that the third part of the secret revealed in the year 2000 was not the real secret, or at least not the full secret.
Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) said in November 1984 that the Secret would cause "sensationalism" and dealt with the "end times." This comment could not be understood if the Secret referred to the assassination attempt in 1981.
This followed the report in the October 1981 issue of the German Catholic magazine Stimme des Glaubens of a discussion at Fulda in November 1980 when Pope John Paul II had stated to a select group of German Catholics, in response to the question why he had not revealed the Third Secret of Fatima, "If you read that the oceans will inundate continents, and millions of people will die suddenly in a few minutes, once this is known, then in reality it is not necessary to insist on the publication of this Secret."
1929. The first suicide jumps off the Statue of Liberty.
1930. A farmer is killed by hail in Lubbock, Texas. It is the only known fatality due to hail in the United States.
1939. The first commercial FM radio station in the United States is launched in Bloomfield, Connecticut. The station later became WDRC-FM.

 

[admihoek]

1940. Germany's conquest of France begins in World War II as the German army crosses the Meuse River. On the same day, Churchill makes his "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech to the House of Commons.
1941. Austrian actress Senta Berger is born in Vienna. After early success in Europe, she went to Hollywood in 1962 and worked with stars such as Charlton Heston, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, and Yul Brynner. (See pictures.)
In 1966, Berger co-starred with Kirk Douglas in the movie Cast a Giant Shadow. Berger played the role of Magda, a soldier in the army of Israel during the Israeli War of Independence. Some say that this was Berger's greatest movie role. Since February 2003, Senta Berger has been president of the German Film Academy, which seeks to advance the new generation of actors and actresses in Germany and Europe. The Academy will decide the assignment of the German Film Awards in the future. In the spring of 2006 her autobiography was published in Germany: Ich habe ja gewußt, daß ich fliegen kann ("I Knew That I Could Fly"). Among her memories of Hollywood are a less-than-subtle attempt by Darryl Zanuck to get her on his casting couch.
1958. During a goodwill trip through Latin America, Vice President Richard Nixon's car is attacked by an angry crowd and nearly overturned while traveling through Caracas, Venezuela. The incident was the dramatic highlight of trip characterized by Latin American anger over some of America's Cold War policies. By 1958, relations between the United States and Latin America had reached their lowest point in years. This was the atmosphere into which Vice President Richard Nixon arrived during his goodwill trip through Latin America in April and May 1958. The trip began with some controversy, as Nixon engaged in loud and bitter debates with student groups during his travels through Peru and Uruguay. In Caracas, Venezuela, however, things took a dangerous turn. A large crowd of angry Venezuelans who shouted anti-American slogans stopped Nixon's motorcade through the capital city. They attacked the car, damaged its body and smashed the windows. Inside the vehicle, Secret Service agents covered the vice president and at least one reportedly pulled out his weapon. Miraculously, they escaped from the crowd and sped away. In Washington, President Eisenhower dispatched U.S. troops to the Caribbean area to rescue Nixon from further threats if necessary. None occurred, and the vice president left Venezuela ahead of schedule.
1958. A group of French military officers lead a coup in Algiers demanding that a government of national unity be formed with Charles de Gaulle at its head in order to defend French control of Algeria.
1960. Hundreds of UC Berkeley students congregate for the first day of protest against a visit by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Thirty-one students are arrested, and the Free Speech Movement is born. The Free Speech Movement had long-lasting effects at the Berkeley campus and was a pivotal moment for the civil liberties movement in The Sixties. It was seen as the beginning of the famous student activism that existed on the campus in the 1960's, and continues to a lesser degree today.
1967. Dr. Zakir Hussain becomes the third President of India. He is the first Muslim President of the Indian Union. He holds this position until August 24, 1969.
1972. Faulty electrical wiring ignites a fire underneath the Playtown Cabaret in Osaka, Japan. Blocked exits and nonfunctioning elevators cause 118 fatalities, with many victims leaping to their deaths.
1972. A car bombing outside a crowded pub in Belfast sparks a two-day gun battle involving the Provisional IRA, Ulster Volunteer Force and British Army. Seven people are killed and over 66 injured.
1981. Mehmet Ali Ağca attempts to assassinate Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square in Rome. The Pope was rushed to the Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic to undergo emergency surgery, and managed to survive.
1981. Canadian model and porn star Sunny Leone is born in Toronto, Ontario, to immigrant parents from India. She is best known for winning Penthouse magazine's Pet of the Year title for 2003. She is also noted for being one of the few pornographic actresses with an Indian background. (See pictures.)
1985. Philadelphia police drop an explosive onto the headquarters of the radical group MOVE; 11 people die in the resulting fire.
1994. Johnny Carson makes his last television appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman.
1996. Severe thunderstorms and a tornado in Bangladesh kill 600 people.
2000. In Enschede, the Netherlands, a fireworks factory explodes, killing 22 people, wounding 950, and resulting in approximately €450 million in damage.
2005. The Andijan Massacre occurs in Uzbekistan. The massacre began when Uzbek Interior Ministry and National Security Service troops fired into a crowd of protesters in Andijan, Uzbekistan. Estimates of those killed on May 13 range from between 187, the official count of the government, and 5,000 people, with most outside reports estimating several hundred dead. The exact number of victims is still uncertain. The bodies of many of those who died were allegedly hidden in mass graves following the massacre. Calls from Western governments for an international investigation prompted a major shift in Uzbek foreign policy favoring closer relations with Asian nations. The Uzbek government ordered the closing of the United States air base in Karshi-Khanabad and improved ties with the People's Republic of China, India, and Russia, all of which supported the regime's response in Andjian.
2008. The Jaipur bombings in Rajasthan, India results in dozens of deaths. The Jaipur bombings were a series of nine synchronized bomb blasts that took place within a span of fifteen minutes at locations in Jaipur, the capital city of the Indian state of Rajasthan, and a tourist destination. A tenth bomb was found and defused. Official reports confirm 63 dead with 216 or more people injured.
Two days after the blasts, a previously unknown Islamic militant group known as Indian Mujahideen, sent an e-mail to Indian media in which they claimed responsibility for the attacks and said they would "demolish the faith (Hinduism)" of the "infidels of India". The police were able to find credible evidence linking the suspected bombers to Bangladeshi militants which resulted in backlash against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Rajasthan. India planned to expel more than 50,000 Bangladeshi migrants in Rajasthan.
2011. Eight decapitated corpses, including that of a deputy prison governor, are located by police in Durango, Northwest Mexico. Meanwhile, a 62-year-old British woman is beheaded in a supermarket on the Spanish island of Tenerife in what officials say appears to be a random attack. An individual is arrested.
In the Libyan civil war, upon speculation that Gaddafi was injured in a NATO air-strike, Libyan State TV released an audio tape of what it claims to be Gaddafi giving a message saying that he was not hurt and is alive.

 

[Eulalia]

I was listening today to some lovely music of your Dutch composer Jan Sweelinck,
born in May (exact date unknown) in Deventer, 450 years ago (1562) - he deserves a mention Admi!

On to Virgin Martyrs.
May 13th, Glyceria ("sweetness"), one of those girl-nmartyrs whose legend. as it's developed, has given her more and more ingenious tortures.
This version is typical:

St.Glyceria suffered as a martyr for her faith in Christ in the second century during the persecutions against Christians under Emperor Antoninus. She came from an illustrious family, and her father, Macarius, was a high-ranking Roman official. Later, the family moved to the Thracian city of Trajanopolis.
St.Glyceria lost both her father and mother at an early age. Befriending some Christians, she converted to the true Faith and visited the church every day. Sabinus, the prefect of Trajanopolis, received the imperial edict ordering Christians to offer sacrifice to idols, and designated a certain day for the citizens to worship the idol, Zeus.
St.Glyceria made firm her decision to suffer for Christ. She told her fellow Christians of her intentions and begged them to pray that the Lord would give her the strength to undergo suffering. On the appointed day, St.Glyceria made the Sign of the Cross on her forehead and went to the pagan temple.
The saint stood on a raised spot in the rays of the sun, and removed the veil from her head, showing the holy Cross traced on her forehead. She prayed fervently to God to bring the pagans to their senses and destroy the stone idol of Zeus. Suddenly, thunder was heard, and the statue of Zeus crashed to the floor and smashed into little pieces.
In a rage, Sabinus and the pagan priests ordered that St.Glyceria be pelted with stones, but the stones did not touch her. St.Glyceria was then locked in prison, where the priest Philokrates came to her and encouraged the martyr in the struggle before her.
In the morning, when the tortures had started, an angel suddenly appeared, and they torturers fell to the ground in terror. When the vision vanished, Sabinus, who was hardly able to speak, ordered that St.Glyceria be thrown back into prison.
They shut the door securely and sealed it with the prefect’s own ring, so that no one could get in. However, angels of God brought St.Glyceria food and drink. Several days later, Sabinus came to the prison and removed the seal. Going in to the cell, he was shaken when he saw that Glyceria was alive and well.
Setting off for the city of Heraclea in Thrace, Sabinus gave orders to bring St.Glyceria with them. Bishop Dometius and the Christians of Heraclea came out to meet her and prayed that the Lord would strengthen the saint to endure martyrdom. [Eu's geek-note: versions differ as to whether it was Heraclea Perinthus in Thrace, now Tekirdag in Turkey, or Heraclea Ponitca, Propontis, now Eregli in Turkey]
At Heraclea, St.Glyceria was thrown into a red-hot furnace, but the fire was extinguished at once by an invisible force. The prefect then gave orders to rip the skin from St Glyceria’s head.
[Eul note: another version has her hung up by her hair and beaten with iron rods, until her hair and scalp were torn off her]
She was then thrown into a cell with sharp stones. She prayed incessantly, and at midnight an angel appeared and healed her of her wounds.
When the jailer, Laodicius, came for the saint in the morning, he did not recognize her. Thinking that the martyr had been taken away, he feared he would be punished for letting her escape. He tried to kill himself, but St.Glyceria stopped him. Shaken by the miracle, Laodicius believed in the true God, and he asked the saint to pray that he might suffer and die for Christ with her.
“Follow Christ and you will be saved,” the holy martyr replied. Laodicius placed upon himself the chains with which the saint was bound, and at trial told the prefect and everyone present about the miraculous healing of St.Glyceria by an angel, and confessed himself a Christian. For his belief in Christ, Laodicius was beheaded by the sword. Christians secretly took up his remains, and reverently buried them.
St.Glyceria was sentenced to be eaten by wild beasts. She went to her execution with great joy, but the lioness set loose upon the saint meekly crawled up to her and lay at her feet. Finally, the saint prayed to the Lord, imploring that He take her unto Himself. In answer, she heard a Voice from Heaven, summoning her to heavenly bliss. At that moment, another lioness was set loose upon her. It pounced on St.Glyceria and killed her, but did not tear her apart. Bishop Dometius and the Christians of Heraclea reverently buried her.
St.Glyceria suffered for Christ around the year 177. Her holy relics were glorified with a flow of healing myrrh.

Another Glyceria is also culted as a Virgin Martyr by the Russian Orthodox Church on this date in Novgorod. She was the daughter of Panteleimon, a starets (elder in an Orthodox monastery) from Novgorod. She died in 1522. According to the second Novgorod Chronicle, her incorrupt relics were uncovered on July 14, 1572 near the stone church of Sts. Florus and Laurus. Archbishop Leonid of Novgorod buried the holy relics in this church. During her interment, healings occurred at the relics of the saint.

 

[admihoek]

I was listening today to some lovely music of your Dutch composer Jan Sweelinck,
born in May (exact date unknown) in Deventer, 450 years ago (1562) - he deserves a mention Admi!

On to Virgin Martyrs.

I like your supplements and are stunned about your knowledge. thx and yes in that way are you a good bardslave and corrected me in a slaveway

 

[Eulalia]

the Sweelinck programme on BBC told me how laid-back and tolerant Amsterdam was, even with a Calvinist council, at a time when people in Scotland, England and the rest of Europe were being burnt for being the wrong sort of Christians. They might not have had "coffee-pot" shops then, though!

 

[admihoek]

the Sweelinck programme on BBC told me how laid-back and tolerant Amsterdam was, even with a Calvinist council, at a time when people in Scotland, England and the rest of Europe were being burnt for being the wrong sort of Christians. They might not have had "coffee-pot" shops then, though!

thx slave and I'm looking for that famous Sweelinck boy

 

[Naraku]

Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues



Well, I was feelin’ sad and feelin’ blue
I didn’t know what in the world I wus gonna do
Them Communists they wus comin’ around
They wus in the air
They wus on the ground
They wouldn’t gimme no peace . . .
So I run down most hurriedly
And joined up with the John Birch Society
I got me a secret membership card
And started off a-walkin’ down the road
Yee-hoo, I’m a real John Bircher now!
Look out you Commies!
Now we all agree with Hitler’s views
Although he killed six million Jews
It don’t matter too much that he was a Fascist
At least you can’t say he was a Communist!
That’s to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria
Well, I wus lookin’ everywhere for them gol-darned Reds
I got up in the mornin’ ’n’ looked under my bed
Looked in the sink, behind the door
Looked in the glove compartment of my car
Couldn’t find ’em . . .
I wus lookin’ high an’ low for them Reds everywhere
I wus lookin’ in the sink an’ underneath the chair
I looked way up my chimney hole
I even looked deep down inside my toilet bowl
They got away . . .
Well, I wus sittin’ home alone an’ started to sweat
Figured they wus in my T.V. set
Peeked behind the picture frame
Got a shock from my feet, hittin’ right up in the brain
Them Reds caused it!
I know they did . . . them hard-core ones
Well, I quit my job so I could work all alone
Then I changed my name to Sherlock Holmes
Followed some clues from my detective bag
And discovered they wus red stripes on the American flag!
That ol’ Betsy Ross . . .
Well, I investigated all the books in the library
Ninety percent of ’em gotta be burned away
I investigated all the people that I knowed
Ninety-eight percent of them gotta go
The other two percent are fellow Birchers . . . just like me
Now Eisenhower, he’s a Russian spy
Lincoln, Jefferson and that Roosevelt guy
To my knowledge there’s just one man
That’s really a true American: George Lincoln Rockwell
I know for a fact he hates Commies cus he picketed the movie Exodus
Well, I fin’ly started thinkin’ straight
When I run outa things to investigate
Couldn’t imagine doin’ anything else
So now I’m sittin’ home investigatin’ myself!
Hope I don’t find out anything . . . hmm, great God!

The song was recorded in 1963 but not released on record until 1991. It can be found on "The Bootleg Series, Vol 1 - 3, Rare & Unreleased 1961 - 1991".
Historical note: George Lincoln Rockwell was the founder & head of the American Nazi Party.

 

[thehangingtree]

"I don't know but I've been told
the streets of heaven are lined with gold
Ask me how things could get much worse
If the russaians would happen to get there first"

I shall be free #4
Bob Dylan

With apologies to Imagemaker

t

 

[Eulalia]

From each according to her ability,​

to each according to his need!​

​

 

[admihoek]

May 14 is the anniversary of an iconic trek in American history, a king's assassination, and childbirth by the youngest mother in medical history.
964. Pope John XII dies. Pope John XII, born Octavianus, was Pope from December 16, 955, to May 14, 964. The son of Alberic II, Patrician of Rome (932–954), and his stepsister Alda of Vienne, he was a seventh generation descendant of Charlemagne on his mother's side. Before his death, Alberic administered an oath to the Roman nobles in St. Peter's, that on the next vacancy of the papal chair his only son, Octavianus, should be elected pope. He succeeded his father as Patrician of Rome in 954, at only seventeen years of age. After the death of the reigning pontiff, Agapetus II, Octavanius, then eighteen years of age, was actually chosen his successor on 16 December, 955. His adoption of the apostolic name of John XII was the third example of taking a regnal name upon elevation to the papal chair, the first being John II (533–535) and the second John III. Pope John XII was depicted as a coarse, immoral man in the writings which remain about his papacy, whose life was such that the Lateran was spoken of as a brothel, and the moral corruption in Rome became the subject of general disgrace. Onofrio Panvinio, in the revised edition of Bartolomeo Platina's book about the popes, added an elaborate note indicating that the legend of Pope Joan may be based on a mistress of John XII: Panvinius, in a note to Platina's account of pope Joan, suggests that the licentiousness of John XII, who, among his numerous mistresses, had one called Joan, who exercised the chief influence at Rome during his pontificate, may have given rise to the story of "pope Joan."
1264. After the Battle of Lewes, Henry III of England is captured in France, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England. While Henry was reduced to being a figurehead king, de Montfort broadened representation to include each county of England and many important towns -- that is, to groups beyond the nobility.
Henry and Prince Edward continued under house arrest. The short period that followed was the closest England came to complete abolition of the monarchy until the Commonwealth period of 1649–1660. But only fifteen months later Prince Edward had escaped captivity (having been freed by his cousin Roger Mortimer) to lead the royalists into battle again and he turned the tables on de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. Following this victory, savage retribution was exacted on the rebels.
Henry's reign ended when he died in 1272, after which he was succeeded by his son, Edward I a/k/a Edward Longshanks, arguably the greatest warrior-king of the Middle Ages.
1265. Italian poet Dante Alighieri is born. Dante Alighieri was a Florentine poet of the Middle Ages. His central work, the Divina Commedia is considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature
1509. At the Battle of Agnadello In northern Italy, French forces defeat the Venetians.
1610. King Henri IV of France is assassinated, bringing Louis XIII to the throne. As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the Wars of Religion before ascending to the throne in 1589. In 1598 he enacted the Edict of Nantes which guaranteed religious liberties to the Protestants and thereby effectively ended the civil war.
One of the most popular French kings, both during and after his reign, Henry showed great care for the welfare of his subjects and displayed an unusual religious tolerance for the time. Although he was a man of kindness, compassion, and good humor, and was much loved by his people, he was the subject of many murder attempts. On May 14, 1610, King Henry IV was assassinated in Paris by Catholic fanatic François Ravaillac, who stabbed the king to death while he rode in his coach. Henry was buried at the Saint Denis Basilica. Henry's widow, Marie de Médicis, served as Regent to their 9-year-old son, Louis XIII, until 1617.
After his attack on the king, Ravaillac was immediately seized and taken to the Hôtel de Retz to avoid a mob lynching, before being transferred to the Conciergerie. In the course of his trial, Ravaillac was frequently tortured in an attempt to make him identify accomplices, but he denied that he had been prompted by anyone or had any accomplices.
On May 27, he was taken to the Place de Grève and was tortured one last time before being dismembered by four horses, a method of execution reserved for regicide. Alistair Horne describes the torture Ravaillac suffered: "Before being drawn and quartered, ... he was scalded with burning sulphur, molten lead and boiling oil and resin, his flesh then being torn by pincers." Following his execution, Ravaillac's parents were forced into exile and the rest of his family was ordered to never use the name "Ravaillac" again.
1643. Four-year-old Louis XIV becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Louis XIII. Known as the "Sun King," his reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days, and is one of the longest documented reigns of any European monarch.
1787. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, delegates meet to write a new Constitution for the United States.
1796. Edward Jenner, an English country doctor from Gloucestershire, administers the world's first vaccination as a preventive treatment for smallpox, a disease that had killed millions of people over the centuries. The vaccine was a success. Doctors all over Europe soon adopted Jenner's innovative technique, leading to a drastic decline in new sufferers of the devastating disease.
1804. The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begin their historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River. This iconic trek in American history was as closely watched in the early 19th century as the first Moon landing in the 20th century.
The Lewis and Clark expedition (1804-1806) was the first United States overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back. Thomas Jefferson had long thought about such an expedition. In 1804, the Louisiana Purchase sparked interest in expansion to the west coast. A few weeks after the purchase, President Jefferson, an advocate of western expansion, had the Congress appropriate $2,500, "to send intelligent officers with ten or twelve men, to explore even to the Western ocean." They were to study the Indian tribes, botany, geology, Western terrain and wildlife in the region, as well as evaluate the potential interference of British and French Canadian hunters and trappers who were already well established in the area. The expedition was the first to cross North America.
1861. William Fetterman, who will later lead 80 of his soldiers to their deaths at the hands of the Sioux, joins the Union Army. During the Civil War he served with distinction and received at least two battlefield promotions in recognition of his gallantry. Like his better-known comrade George Custer, Fetterman emerged from the Civil War with an unwavering confidence in himself and his military abilities. Moreover, like Custer, his overconfidence eventually proved to be his undoing. After the Civil War, Fetterman was assigned to Fort Phil Kearny in northern Wyoming. Fort Phil Kearny was an impressive compound nearly the size of three football fields. The tall wooden stockade around the fort made it nearly impregnable to Indian attack, but the stockade also proved to be the fort's Achilles' heel. In order to maintain the 2800-foot wooden stockade and provide firewood for the bitter Wyoming winters, soldiers traveled several miles from the fort to reach the nearest forests. Frequently, small bands of Sioux attacked the group of soldiers assigned to the "wood train."
Soon after Captain Fetterman arrived at the fort in November 1866, he began to argue for troops to pursue and wipe out the Indians who attacked the wood trains. Fetterman began openly ridiculing the commander of the fort, Colonel Henry Carrington, for failing to chase down and destroy the Sioux. Carrington, however, had come to suspect the Sioux attacks were only feints designed to lure his troops into an ambush and he forbade his officers to pursue the fleeing Indians.
Impetuous and overconfident, Fetterman dismissed Carrington's fears. On December 21, 1866, a small band of Indians again attacked the wood train. Fetterman and his men chased after the Indians, failing to notice that they seemed to be fleeing with a deliberate slowness. The decoys -- one of whom was a young brave named Crazy Horse -- led the soldiers straight into an ambush of almost 2,000 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe warriors. Fetterman and all of his soldiers were dead within 40 minutes. The Fetterman Massacre, as it came to be called, was the worst disaster suffered by the U.S. Army in the Plains Indian War until the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876.
1864. During the American Civil War, Union and Confederate troops clash at Resaca, Georgia. This was one of the first engagements in a summer-long campaign by Union General William T. Sherman to capture the Confederate city of Atlanta.
1868. In the Japanese Boshin War, the Battle of Utsunomiya Castle ends as former Shogunate forces withdraw northward to Aizu by way of Nikkō. The Boshin War ( Boshin Senso) -- "War of the Year of the Dragon" -- was a civil war in Japan, fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and those seeking to return political power to the imperial court.
An alliance of southern samurai and court officials secured the cooperation of the young Emperor Meiji, who declared the abolition of the two-hundred-year-old Shogunate. Military movements by imperial forces and partisan violence in Edo led Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the sitting shogun, to launch a military campaign to seize the emperor's court at Kyoto. The military tide rapidly turned in favor of the smaller but relatively modernized imperial faction, and after a series of battles culminating in the surrender of Edo, Yoshinobu personally surrendered. The Tokugawa remnant retreated to northern Honshū and later to Hokkaidō, where they founded the Ezo republic. Defeat at the Battle of Hakodate broke this last holdout and left the imperial rule supreme throughout the whole of Japan, completing the military phase of the Meiji Restoration.

 

[admihoek]

1900. The 1900 Summer Olympics open in Paris.
1904. The Third Olympiad of the modern era, and the first Olympic Games to be held in the United States, opens in St. Louis, Missouri. The 1904 Games were actually initially awarded to Chicago, Illinois, but were later given to St. Louis to be staged in connection with the St. Louis World Exposition. Like the Second Olympiad, held in Paris in 1900, the St. Louis Games were poorly organized and overshadowed by the world's fair.
There were few entrants other than Americans in the various events, and, expectedly, U.S. athletes won a majority of the competitions and the unofficial team championship. In the field events, the Americans made a near-perfect sweep, winning everything but lifting the bar and throwing the 56-pound weight.
1913. Washington Senators pitcher Walter Johnson throws his 54th consecutive scoreless inning in Sportsman Park, Illinois, leading his Washington Senators to victory over the St. Louis Browns, 10-5. With the win, Johnson broke a 1910 record set by Jack Coombs of the Philadelphia Athletics, who threw 53 innings in a row without letting up a run. Johnson’s record of consecutive scoreless innings stood for 55 years until 1968 when Don Drysdale of the Los Angeles Dodgers put together 58 and 2/3 innings without allowing a run.
Johnson’s scoreless inning streak in 1913 began on April 10, and lasted 55 and 2/3 innings pitched. He threw an impressive six shutouts in a row before finally being scored on by the Browns on May 14. Though Johnson’s 417 career wins make him second only to Cy Young, he also lost 279 games, mostly because of the ineptitude of his team. His career ERA of 2.17 ranks seventh all-time, but his .591 winning percentage is relatively low, as he spent the majority of his career with a perennially losing ball club in Washington. Fans often said of the Senators: "first in war, first in peace, last in the American League."
1925. Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway is published. The novel details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway in post-World War I England. It is one of Woolf's best-known novels. In 2005, the novel was chosen by Time magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to present.
1931. Five people are killed in Ådalen, Sweden, as soldiers open fire on an unarmed trade union demonstrators..
1939. Lina Medina becomes the world's youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five. Lina was brought to a hospital by her parents at the age of 5 years because of increasing abdominal size. She was originally thought to have had a tumor, but her doctors determined she was in the seventh month of pregnancy.
Dr. Gerardo Lozada took her to Lima, the capital of Peru, prior to the surgery to have other specialists confirm that Lina was in fact pregnant. A month and a half later, on May 14, 1939, she gave birth to a boy by a caesarean section necessitated by her small pelvis.
There was never evidence that Lina Medina's pregnancy occurred in any but the usual way, but she never revealed the father of the child, nor the circumstances of her impregnation. Dr. Escomel suggested she might not actually know herself by writing that Lina "couldn't give precise responses." Lina's father was arrested on suspicion of rape and incest, but was later released due to lack of evidence.
1940. In World War II, Rotterdam is bombed by the German Luftwaffe. The Battle of the Netherlands ends with the Netherlands surrendering to Germany.
1943. U.S. and Great Britain chiefs of staff, meeting in Washington, D.C., approve and plot out Operation Pointblank, a joint bombing offensive to be mounted from British airbases. Operation Pointblank's aim was grandiose and comprehensive: "The progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people."
Ironically, the very day planning for Pointblank began in Washington, the Germans shot down 74 British four-engine bombers as the Brits struck a munitions factory near Pilsen. Nazi propaganda minister (and Hitler's de facto prime minister) Joseph Goebbels, writing in his diary, recorded that the biggest setback about the British raid on the factory was that the drafting room was destroyed.
1948. Israel is declared an independent state and a provisional government is established. Immediately after the declaration, Israel is attacked by the neighboring Arab states.
1948. Three-year-old June Devaney, recovering from pneumonia at Queen's Park Hospital in Blackburn, England, is kidnapped from her bed. Nurses discovered her missing at 1:20 a.m. the next day, and police were immediately summoned to investigate. Two hours later, her body was found with multiple skull fractures. The medical examiner determined that Devaney had been raped and then swung headfirst into a wall.
On August 11, police caught up with Peter Griffiths. His footprints matched the ones found at the scene. When his fingerprints also came back a match, he confessed to the awful crime, blaming it on alcohol. Griffiths was found guilty of murder and was executed on November 19, 1948.
1951. Trains run on the Talyllyn Railway in Wales for the first time since preservation, making it the first railway in the world to be operated by volunteers.
1955. Eight communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.
1961. A "Freedom Riders" bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama, and the civil rights protestors are beaten by an angry mob.
1963. Kuwait joins the United Nations.
1970. In the Vietnam War, Allied military officials announce that 863 South Vietnamese were killed from May 3 to 9. This was the second highest weekly death toll of the war to date for the South Vietnamese forces. These numbers reflected the changing nature of the war as U.S. forces continued to withdraw and the burden of the fighting was shifted to the South Vietnamese as part of Richard Nixon's "Vietnamization" of the war effort.
1973. Skylab, America's first space station, is successfully launched into an orbit around the earth. Eleven days later, U.S. astronauts Charles Conrad, Joseph Kerwin, and Paul Weitz made a rendezvous with Skylab, repairing a jammed solar panel and conducting scientific experiments during their 28-day stay aboard the space station.
1974. American model Jennifer Allan is born Jennifer Lynn Allan in Las Vegas, Nevada. She had previously worked as a cigarette girl in one of the casinos of her hometown before an opportunity to model swimwear arose. Although she had no intention of taking up modeling as a full-time career (her initial goal was to become an elementary school teacher) she obtained further assignments in catalogs and TV commercials and appeared in a music video before being chosen as Playboy's Playmate of the Month in September 1996. (See pictures,)
1988. In the Carrollton bus disaster, a drunk driver going the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky, hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group. The crash and ensuing fire kill 27.
1991. Two diesel trains carrying commuters crash head-on, killing more than 40 people and injuring 400 near Shigaraki, Japan. This was the worst rail disaster in Japan since a November 1963 Yokohama crash killed 160 people.
1998. The finale of Seinfeld airs on NBC in the United States, with 76 million viewers tuning in. Many long-time fans were disappointed by the final episode. The hit sitcom ended with not with a bang but a yawn; but after all it was the "show about nothing."
1998. The legendary singer, actor and show-business icon Frank Sinatra dies of a heart attack in Los Angeles, at the age of 82.
2006. Much of New England is hit with a massive flood, forcing people out of their homes and causing millions of dollars worth of damage. The New England region of the U.S. is made up of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. New Hampshire was hit hardest by the flooding.
2011. Muammar Gaddafi is among three Libyans facing arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity including the killing of unarmed protesters, forced displacement, illegal detentions and airstrikes on civilians. Meanwhile, more than 400 people fleeing Libya and Tunisia arrive on the Italian island of Lampedusa in two boats, the latest in a stream of refugees fleeing the ongoing conflicts in North Africa.
In the United States, the Morganza Spillway on the Mississippi River is opened for the second time in its history, deliberately flooding 3,000 square miles (7,800 km2) of rural Louisiana and placing a nuclear power plant at risk in order to save most of Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Meanwhile, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in the U.S. city of New York for alleged sexual assault.

 

[Eulalia]

May 15th: Dympna (presumably Irish Domhnadh < Domnina), Virgin Martyr, date unknown. According to her legend, she was the daughter of a pagan king in Ireland. She converted to Christianity and was baptized in secret. After her mother died, her father desired Dympna. She fled with her priest, Gerebernus, to Gheel, inland from Antwerp. There they became hermits, but her father found them and, having again failed to persuade his daughter to marry him, he cut off the her head and had the priest killed too. The bodies were entombed in a cave. The remains were found, probably in the 13th century, which was when the legend was first set down in writing. Dympna's relics were transferred to Gheel and those of Gerebernus to Xanten. Fragments of the two sarcophagi are in Gheel, along with a brick alleged to have been found in one of them, bearing the word DYMPNA. Dympna's relics became famous for curing fits and mental disorders, and Gheel acquired a reputation for enlightened "care in the community" for pilgrims suffering from mental illness. In art she's shown with a sword in her hand and a fettered devil at her feet.

 

[admihoek]

May 15 was the Mercuralia in ancient Rome, a festival in honor of Mercury. On this day, merchants would sprinkle their heads, their ships and merchandise, and their businesses with water taken from the well at Porta Capena.
Mercury (Mercuriusin Latin) was a major god of trade, profit and commerce, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter. His name is related to the Latin word merx ("merchandise"; compare merchant, commerce, etc.). In his earliest forms, he appears to have been related to the Etruscan deity Turms, but most of his characteristics and mythology were borrowed from the analogous Greek deity Hermes. Like Hermes, he was also a messenger of the gods and a god of trade, particularly of the grain trade. Mercury was also considered a god of abundance and commercial success, particularly in Gaul. He was also, like Hermes, the Romans' psychopomp, leading newly-deceased souls to the afterlife.
Mercury has influenced the name of a number of things in a variety of scientific fields, such as the planet Mercury, the element mercury, and the plant mercury. The word mercurial is commonly used to refer to something or someone erratic, volatile or unstable, derived from Mercury's swift flights from place to place.
392. Roman Emperor Valentinian II is assassinated while advancing into Gaul against the Frankish usurper Arbogast. He is found hanging in his residence at Vienne. Arbogast maintained that the emperor’s death was suicide. While our main source, Zosimus writing in the early sixth century from Constantinople, states that the Frank had Valentinian murdered, ancient authorities are divided in their opinion. Ambrose's eulogy is the only contemporary Western source for Valentinian's death. It is ambiguous on the question of the emperor's death, which is not surprising, as Ambrose represents him as a model of Christian virtue. Suicide, not murder, would make the bishop dissemble on this key question.
1252. Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad exstirpanda, which authorizes the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition. Torture quickly gains widespread usage across Catholic Europe.
The torture methods used by inquisitors were mild compared to secular courts, as they were forbidden to use methods that resulted in bloodshed, mutilation or death. Also, torture could be performed only once (although a session could be "suspended", and when continued would be regarded as the same session of torture).
Among the possible punishments were a long pilgrimage for first offenders, wearing a yellow cross for life, confiscation of property, banishment, public recantation, or long-term imprisonment. Burning at the stake was only for the most serious cases, including repeat offenders and unrepentant heretics. Execution was done not by the Church, which was forbidden to kill, but by secular officials.
1525. The battle of Frankenhausen ends the Peasants' War. The Peasants' War (in German, der Deutsche Bauernkrieg) was a popular revolt in the Holy Roman Empire in the years 1524 - 1525.
The conflict, which took place mostly in southern, western and central areas of modern Germany but also affected areas in neighboring modern Switzerland and Austria, involved. At its height in the spring and summer of 1525, an estimated 300,000 peasant insurgents were involved. Contemporary estimates put the dead at 100,000. It was Europe's most massive and widespread popular uprising before the 1789 French Revolution.
1536. Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, stands trial in London on charges of treason, adultery and incest. She is condemned to death by a specially-selected jury.
Anne was crowned Queen of England on 1 June 1533. On 7 September, she gave birth to the future Elizabeth I of England. To Henry's displeasure, however, she failed to produce a male heir. Henry was not totally discouraged, for he said that he loved Elizabeth and that a son would surely follow. Three miscarriages followed, however, and by March 1536, Henry was courting Jane Seymour.
In April-May 1536, Henry had Anne investigated for high treason. Tried and found guilty on 15 May, she was beheaded four days later; historians view the charges against her, which included adultery and incest, as unconvincing. Following the coronation of her daughter, Elizabeth, as queen, Anne was venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation.
1567. Mary Queen of Scots marries James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, her third husband.
1602. Bartholomew Gosnold becomes the first European to see Cape Cod. Cape Cod (or simply the Cape) is an arm-shaped peninsula forming the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States. (See pictures.)
Although the Cape was originally connected to the mainland, the Cape Cod Canal, which opened in 1914, effectively transformed Cape Cod into a large island. Three bridges cross this canal from the mainland to the Cape. Cars can cross on the Sagamore Bridge and the Bourne Bridge; the other is a railroad bridge.

 

[admihoek]

1718. James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents the world's first machine gun.
1755. Laredo, Texas is established by the Spanish. Laredo has the distinction of flying seven flags (the Flag of the Republic of the Rio Grande in addition to the Six Flags of Texas). Founded in 1755, Laredo grew from a villa to the capital of the brief Republic of the Rio Grande to the largest inland port on the United States-Mexican Border.
1756. The Seven Years' War begins when England declares war on France. The Seven Years' War, incorporating the Pomeranian War and the French and Indian War enveloped both European and colonial theatres.
The war was described by Winston Churchill as the first world war because it was the first conflict in human history to be fought around the globe, although almost all of the combatants were either European nations or their overseas colonies.
The war ended France's power, both in the Americas (where it lost mostl of its possessions) and in continental Europe until the time of the French Revolution. Great Britain, meanwhile, emerged as the dominant colonial power in the world, the 18th century superpower.
1776. During the American Revolution, the Virginia Convention instructs its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence.
1781. In the American Revolutionary War, a 352-man-strong Loyalist force commanded by Major Andrew Maxwell surrenders a fortified frame building, named Fort Granby, to a Patriot force in South Carolina.
Maxwell is better remembered for gathering plunder than any conspicuous military ability. When a Patriot force commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Henry Lee assaulted his position at Fort Granby, Maxwell agreed to surrender, provided he was allowed to maintain possession of his plunder. After some haggling, Lee accepted the proposition, and Maxwell departed the fort with two wagon-loads of personal loot.
1800. President John Adams orders the federal government to pack up and leave Philadelphia and set up shop in the nation's new capital in Washington, D.C. After Congress adjourned its last meeting in Philadelphia on May 15, Adams told his cabinet to make sure Congress and all federal offices were up and running smoothly in their new headquarters by June 15, 1800. Philadelphia officially ceased to serve as the nation's capital as of June 11, 1800.
At the time, there were only about 125 federal employees. Official documents and archives were transferred from Philadelphia to the new capital by ship over inland waterways. President and Mrs. Adams did not move in to the (unfinished) president's mansion until November of that year. Settling into the White House was a challenge for the new first lady. In December, Abigail Adams wrote to a friend later she had to line-dry their clothes in what eventually became the East Room.
1811. Paraguay declares independence from Spain.
1849. Troops of the Two Sicilies take Palermo and crush the republican government of Sicily.
1864. The Battle of New Market, Virginia, is fought during the American Civil War – Students from the Virginia Military Institute fight alongside the Confederate Army to force Union General Franz Sigel out of the Shenandoah Valley.
If you are a fan of "alternative history" and wonder what the world would have been like had the South won the war, here is a link to an intriguing scenario: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline-191
1869. In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.
1896. A particularly intense tornado hits Sherman, Texas, and kills 73 people. It is estimated that the tornado was a rare F5 tornado, in which winds exceeded 260 miles per hour. Storms of that strength happen, on average, less than once a year.
1905. Las Vegas, Nevada, is founded when 110 acres (0.4 km²), in what later would become downtown, are auctioned off.
1911. The United States Supreme Court declares Standard Oil to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act and orders the company to be dissolved.
1918. The U.S. Post Office Department begins the first regular airmail service in the world between New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.
1928. The animated short Plane Crazy is released, featuring the first appearances of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
1932. The Prime Minister of Japan Inukai Tsuyoshi is killed In an attempted coup d'état launched by radical elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy, aided by cadets in the Imperial Japanese Army and civilian remnants of the League of Blood Incident. Prime Minister Tsuyoshi was assassinated by 11 young naval officers. The following trial and popular support by the Japanese population led to light sentences, strengthening military factions, weakening immediately the rule of law, but also, in the long term, the young Japanese democracy.
1940. Nylon stockings go on sale for the first time in the United States.
1942. Gasoline rationing begins in 17 Eastern states as an attempt to help the American war effort during World War II. By the end of the year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had ensured that mandatory gasoline rationing was in effect in all 48 states.
1945. The last skirmish of the Second World War in Europe is fought near Prevalje, Slovenia. The fighting is between the Yugoslav army and retreating German and local fascist forces.
1957. Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple.
1963. Gordon Cooper is launched into space aboard Faith 7 on the longest American space mission to that date. Faith 7 was the capstone of Project Mercury, the NASA program that put the first American into space in 1961 and the first astronaut into orbit in 1962. Cooper completed 22 orbits of the earth and spent 34 hours in space. He was the first American astronaut to spend more than a day in space. On the afternoon of May 16, Faith 7 landed safely in the Pacific Ocean, four miles from the recovery ship Kearsarge.
1969. California Governor Ronald Reagan has an impromptu student park owned by University of California at Berkeley fenced off from student anti-war protestors, sparking a riot called Bloody Thursday.
Beginning at noon, about 3,000 people appeared in Sproul Plaza at nearby U.C. Berkeley for a rally. Several people spoke, including ASUC Student Body President Dan Siegel because students were concerned about the fencing-off and destruction of the park. Siegel said later that he never intended to precipitate a riot; however when he shouted "Let's take the park!," police turned off the sound system. This angered the crowd which responded by moving down Telegraph Avenue toward People's Park chanting "We want the park!" The protesters were met by 159 Berkeley and university police officers assigned to guard the fenced-off park site. The protesters opened a fire hydrant, the officers fired tear gas canisters, some protesters attempted to tear down the fence, and bottles, rocks, and bricks were thrown. A major confrontation ensued between police and the crowd. Initial attempts by the police to disperse the protesters were not successful, so more officers were called in from surrounding cities.
1970. The Beatles' last LP, Let It Be, is released in the United States. The curtain comes down on rock and roll's golden age.
1972. In Laurel, Maryland, Arthur Bremer shoots and paralyzes Alabama Governor George Wallace while Wallace is campaigning to be American President.
On August 4, 1972 the jury of six men and six women took just over an hour and a half to reach their verdict. Bremer was sentenced to 63 years in prison for shooting Wallace and three other people. His sentence was reduced to 53 years after an appeal.
When asked if he had anything to say, Bremer replied "Well, Mr. Marshall [the prosecutor] mentioned that he would like society to be protected from someone like me. Looking back on my life I would have liked it if society had protected me from myself. That's all I have to say at this time."
Part of Bremer's diary was published in 1973 as An Assassin's Diary. In it, he states that he was not particularly opposed to Wallace's populist political agenda but that his primary motive was to become infamous.
1976. Patricia Columbo and Frank DeLuca are arrested for the brutal slaying of Columbo's parents and brother in Elk Grove, Illinois. Twenty-year-old Columbo had left her family home two years earlier to live with DeLuca, a 36-year-old married man. The pair later killed Frank, Mary, and Michael Columbo in order to receive the family inheritance, unaware that the Columbos had written Patricia out of their wills years earlier.
Patricia Columbo and Frank DeLuca were each sentenced to 200 to 300 years in prison. But Columbo managed to keep herself in the spotlight: In 1979, it was reported that she had assisted in organizing sex orgies involving guards and wardens at her prison in Dwight, Illinois. High-ranking officials at the prison, including the warden, were forced to resign in the wake of the scandal.
1981. American actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler is born in Queens, New York. She is most famous for her role as Meadow Soprano on the acclaimed HBO television series The Sopranos. (See pictures.)
Sigler began acting and singing at the age of seven. In 1997 she was cast as the smart but troubled Meadow Soprano, daughter of New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano. The show was a hit and Sigler rose to fame as a TV actress. During the early production of The Sopranos, Sigler struggled with an eating disorder and is now a spokesperson for the National Eating Disorders Association.
1988. After more than eight years of fighting, the Red Army begins its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
1990. Portrait of Doctor Gachet by Vincent van Gogh is sold for a record $82.5 million, the most expensive painting at the time. (See picture.)
1991. Edith Cresson becomes France's first female prime minister.
2007. American evangelist Jerry Falwell meets his Maker. Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. (August 11, 1933 – May 15, 2007) was a Baptist minister and televangelist. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. He founded Liberty University in 1971 and co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979, which is credited (at least in part) for the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S. president.
2010. Australian Jessica Watson becomes the youngest person to sail, non-stop and unassisted around the world solo. Watson departed from Sydney on 18 October 2009, heading eastbound over the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. She returned to Sydney on 15 May 2010, three days before her 17th birthday. Her route did not meet World Sailing Speed Record Council (WSSRC) criteria for circumnavigation of the globe so the record is "unofficial."
2011. Muslim mobs attack Christian protesters calling for the Egyptian government to take action to reduce religious tensions in Cairo; 65 people are injured.
In the U.S., thousands of residents are ordered to evacuate their homes in Louisiana as the Mississippi River spillway opens. The Morganza Spillway on the Mississippi River has been opened for the first time in 37 years, deliberately flooding 3,000 square miles of rural Louisiana to save most of Baton Rouge and New Orleans

 

[admihoek]

sorry, I was busy with other things therefore this one is too late but interesting because Allan Poe's marriage, Joan D'Arc and the iventing of Root Beer therefore
May 16 is the anniversary of a terrorist attack, two May-December weddings with tragic endings, and a deadly flood. Also on this date, a leader unleashed a revolution against his own government that turned into a reign of terror.
218. Julia Maesa, aunt of the assassinated Roman emperor Caracalla, is banished to her home in Syria by the self-proclaimed emperor Macrinus and declares her 14-year old grandson Elagabalus, emperor of Rome.
Once back in Syria and possessed of ample funds, Maesa engaged in a plot to overthrow Macrinus and place one of her grandsons, Elagabalus, son of Julia Soaemias, in his place. In order to legitimize this pretension, mother and daughter fomented the rumor that the 14 year old boy was Caracalla's illegitimate son. The two Julias were successful, mainly because Macrinus was of an obscure origin without the proper political connections, and Elagabalus became emperor.
For her loyalty and support, Elagabalus honored Julia Maesa with the title Augusta avia Augusti (Augusta, grandmother of Augustus). The teenager proved to be a disaster as emperor, scorning Roman values with both religious and sexual scandals. He took the liberty of marrying a Vestal virgin. She was one of a rumored five wives during his brief four years reign), Julia Maesa decided to promote instead her fourteen year-old grandson Alexander Severus. She convinced Elagabalus to adopt Alexander as his heir. Elagabulus was murdered shortly afterwards by the Praetorian Guard alongside his mother. Both were thrown into the Tiber river in contempt after being dragged from the palace through the streets.
1204. Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders is crowned first Emperor of the Latin Empire. The Latin Empire or Latin Empire of Constantinople (Latin: Imperium Romaniae) is the name given by historians to the Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire after their sack of Constantinople in 1204.
The Empire was intended to supplant the Byzantine Empire as titular successor to the Roman Empire in the east, with a Western Catholic emperor enthroned in place of the Byzantine Greeks. Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders, was crowned Emperor as Baldwin I on this date in 1204.
As early as 1258, the Battle of Pelagonia signaled the beginning of the end of Latin predominance in Greece. Then, on July 25, 1261, with most of the Latin troops away on campaign, the Nicaean general Alexios Strategopoulos found an unguarded entrance to the city, and entered it with his troops, restoring the Byzantine Empire for his master, Michael VIII Palaiologos.
1568. Mary Queen of Scots flees to England, a case of jumping from the frying pan to the fire. She would be imprisoned for the rest of her life by her cousin, Elizabeth I of England, who rightly saw Mary as a threat to her crown. Mary was eventually convicted of plotting against Elizabeth, and beheaded for treason.
1717. Writer Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, is imprisoned in the Bastille. The outspoken writer was born to middle-class parents, attended college in Paris, and began to study law. However, he quit law to become a playwright and made a name for himself with classical tragedies. Critics embraced his epic poem, La Henriade, but its satirical attack on politics and religion infuriated the government, and Voltaire was arrested in 1717. He spent nearly a year in the Bastille.
Voltaire's time in prison failed to dry up his satirical pen. In 1726, he was forced to flee to England. He returned several years later and continued to write plays. In 1734, hisLettres Philosophiques criticized established religions and political institutions, and he was forced to flee again. He retreated to the region of Champagne, where he lived with his mistress and patroness, Madame du Chatelet. In 1750, he moved to Berlin on the invitation of Frederick II of Prussia and later settled in Switzerland, where he wrote his best-known work, Candide. He died in Paris in 1778, having returned to supervise the production of one of his plays.
1770. 14-year old Marie Antoinette marries 15-year-old Louis-Auguste, who later becomes king of France. They would be executed by guillotine in the French Revolution.
1836. Edgar Allan Poe marries his 13-year-old cousin Virginia. Virginia Clemm and Edgar Allan Poe, who were first cousins, were married by a Presbyterian minister, Rev. Amasa Converse, on May 16, 1836. Virginia was 13, though the two listed her age as 21. Edgar was 27.
Debate has raged regarding how unusual this paring was; noted Poe biographer Arthur Hobson Quinn says the arrangement was not particularly unusual. They were by all accounts a happy and devoted couple. Virginia developed tuberculosis, however, and died on January 30, 1847 after five years of illness. Edgar's love for Virginia, and the effect that her suffering and ultimate death had upon him, are reflected in his tragic poems Annabel Lee and Ulalume, and possibly in the decline of his mental state in his last years.
1843. The first major wagon train heading for the Northwest sets out with one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail.
1866. Charles Elmer Hires invents root beer. Root beer comes in two forms, alcoholic and as a soft drink. The alcoholic version is made from a combination of vanilla, cherry tree bark, licorice root, sarsaparilla root, artificial sassafras root bark flavoring (the pure form is mildly carcinogenic), nutmeg, anise, and molasses among other ingredients. The soft drink version of root beer is non-alcoholic and is generally made using root beer extract or other flavored syrups along with carbonated water. The soft drink version of root beer constitutes about 3% of the American soft drink market.
1868. President Andrew Johnson is acquitted during his impeachment
1918. The Sedition Act of 1918 is passed by the U.S. Congress, making criticism of the government a jailable offense. The Sedition Act of 1918 was an amendment to the Espionage Act of 1917 passed at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, who was concerned any widespread dissent in time of war constituted a real threat to an American victory.
The Sedition Act forbade Americans to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, flag, or armed forces during war. The Act was an attempt by the United States government to limit freedom of speech. This is in conflict with the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, which states, in part: "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or the press". Note that there is no "war" exception (or any exceptions whatsoever) to this freedom stated in the text of the amendment.
Although the Sedition Act was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Schenck v. United States, it was repealed in 1921. Some legal experts view the Sedition Act as being antithetical to the letter and spirit of the United States Constitution, specifically the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
1920. In Rome, Pope Benedict XV canonizes Joan of Arc.
1943. In Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising comes to an end as Nazi soldiers gain control of Warsaw's Jewish ghetto, blowing up the last remaining synagogue and beginning the mass deportation of the ghetto's remaining dwellers to the Treblinka extermination camp.
1948. Chaim Weizmann is elected as the first President of Israel. The position is a largely ceremonial, figurehead role with real day-to-day power lying in the hands of the Prime Minister of Israel.
1951. The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights begin between Idlewild Airport in New York City and Heathrow Airport in London, operated by El Al Airlines.
1960. Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser, at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.
1960. In the wake of the Soviet downing of an American U-2 spy plane on May 1, Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev lashes out at the United States and President Dwight D. Eisenhower at a Paris summit meeting between the two heads of state. Khrushchev's outburst angered Eisenhower and doomed any chances for successful talks or negotiations at the summit. The collapse of the May 1960 summit meeting was a crushing blow to those in the Soviet Union and the United States who believed that a period of "peaceful coexistence" between the two superpowers was on the horizon. During the previous few years, both Eisenhower and Khrushchev had publicly indicated their desire for an easing of Cold War tensions, but the spy plane incident put an end to such talk, at least for the time being.
1966. The Communist Party of China issues the "May 16 Notice," marking the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was a period of social chaos and political anarchy in the People's Republic of China which greatly affected every part of the country and the livelihood of the people, in addition to altering the country's moral, historical, and social perceptions.
It was launched by Communist Party of China Chairman Mao Zedong on May 16, 1966, officially as a campaign to rid China of its "liberal bourgeoisie" elements and to continue revolutionary class struggle. It is widely recognized, however, as a method to regain control of the party after the disastrous Great Leap Forward led to a significant loss of Mao's power to rivals Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, and would eventually manifest into waves of power struggles between rival factions both nationally and locally.
Between 1966 and 1968, Mao's principal lieutenants, Vice-Chairman Lin Biao and Mao's wife Jiang Qing, acting on his instructions, organized a mass youth militia called the Red Guards to overthrow Mao's perceived enemies and seize control of the state and party apparatus, replacing the Central Committee with the Cultural Revolution Committee, and local governments with revolutionary committees. In the chaos and violence that ensued, many revolutionary elders, authors, artists, and religious figures were purged and killed, and millions were persecuted and possibly as many as half a million people died.
1966. And speaking of cultural revolutions, American singer Janet Jackson is born as Jenet Damita Jo Jackson. She is a Grammy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated American singer, songwriter, actress, dancer, choreographer, record producer, and activist. She is ranked as the ninth most successful artist in the history of rock and roll and the second most successful female recording artist of all time in the U.S., according to Billboard. Despite her many achievements, Ms. Jackson will forever be remembered for a "wardrobe malfunction" during her Super Bowl halftime performance. (See pictures.)
1968. In France, the May 1968 crisis escalates as a general strike spreads to factories and industries across the country, shutting down newspaper distribution, air transport, and two major railroads. By the end of the month, millions of workers were on strike, and France seemed to be on the brink of radical leftist revolution.
1975. Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
1988. A report by United States' Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.
1991. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland addresses a joint session of the United States Congress. She is the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.
2005. Kuwait permits women's suffrage in a 35-23 National Assembly vote.
2011. The Sahara Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, closes down after 59 years of operation. Meanwhile, the Fox TV network cancels America's Most Wanted after 23 years on the air and 1151 fugitives caught. Elsewhere, European Union finance ministers approve a 78 billion euro bailout package for Portugal while the International Monetary Fund approves another US$2 billion loan to Ireland. As a gesture of gratitude for the latter (?), Irish republican dissidents have issued a bomb threat for London, the first coded warning outside Northern Ireland in 10 years, officials have said.

 

[admihoek]

Miles 17 may

On May 17, an athlete with a hangover turned in a perfect performance, a bastion of capitalism was founded, and the U.S, Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision.
1521. Edward Stafford, third Duke of Buckingham, is executed for treason. The real power in Henry VIII's court was not with the great nobles but with low-born men such as Thomas Wolsey. Stafford, with his royal blood and numerous connections by descent or marriage with the rest of the aristocracy, became a leader of the disaffected nobles. The ever-suspicious king personally examined various witnesses, and had Stafford arrested in 1521. The charges, such as that Stafford had listened to prophecies regarding when the king would die, are generally considered to be trumped-up. Stafford was tried before a panel of 17 peers, but with the king's mind already decided, conviction was certain, and he was executed on Tower Hill.
1536. George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford and four other men are executed for treason. Viscount Rochford was the brother of Queen Anne Boleyn, and the husband of Jane Parker. A prominent figure in the politics of the early 1530s, he was convicted of incest with his sister, the Queen, during the period of her trial for high treason. They were both executed as a result. In 1536 Anne Boleyn miscarried what would have been a son. Her failure to provide Henry with a male heir coincided with Henry's infatuation with Jane Seymour, one of his wife's ladies in waiting. To rid himself of her Henry and his chief advisor, Thomas Cromwell, devised a plot whereby Anne was accused of adultery with five men, one of whom was her brother, George. George was charged with incest with the Queen and plotting with Anne to kill the King. The allegations were a total fabrication. He stoically accepted his sentence that he be hanged, drawn and quartered (the sentence was later commuted to beheading).
1673. Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River.
1681. Louis XIV sends and expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France.
1769. George Washington launches a legislative salvo at Great Britain's fiscal and judicial attempts to maintain its control over the American colonies. With his sights set on protesting the British policy of "taxation without representation," Washington brought a package of non-importation resolutions before the Virginia House of Burgesses. The resolutions, drafted by George Mason largely in response to England's passage of the Townshend Acts of 1767, decried Parliament's plan to send colonial political protestors to England for trial. Though Virginia's royal governor promptly fired back by disbanding the House of Burgesses, the dissenting legislators were undeterred. During a makeshift meeting held at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia's delegates gave their support to the non-importation resolutions. Maryland and South Carolina soon followed suit with the passing of their own non-importation measures. The non-importation resolutions lacked any means of enforcement, and Chesapeake tobacco merchants of Scottish ancestry tended to be loyal to their firms in Glasgow. However, tobacco planters supported the measure, and the mere existence of non-importation agreements proved that the southern colonies were willing to defend Massachusetts, the true target of Britain's crackdown, where violent protests against the Townshend Acts had led to a military occupation of Boston, beginning on October 2, 1768. When Britain's House of Lords learned that the Sons of Liberty, a revolutionary group in Boston, had assembled an extra-legal Massachusetts convention of towns as the British fleet approached in 1768, they demanded the right to try such men in England. This step failed to frighten New Englanders into silence, but succeeded in rallying Southerners to their cause: it created an American identity where before there had been none.
1775. During the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress bans trade with Canada.
1792. The New York Stock Exchange is founded when the Buttonwood Agreement is signed by 24 stock brokers outside of 68 Wall Street in New York under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street which earlier was the site of a stockade fence.
1809. Napoleon I of France orders the annexation of the Papal States to the French Empire.
1873. El Paso, Texas is established by charter from the Texas Legislature.
1875. Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.
1902. Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer.
The Antikythera mechanism is believed by many to be an ancient mechanical analog computer (as opposed to most computers today which are digital computers) designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was discovered in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to about 150-100 BC.
The origins of the mechanism are unclear, as are the circumstances by which it came to be on the cargo ship. The ship was Roman, but there is no doubt that the mechanism itself was made in Greece.
One hypothesis is that the device was constructed at an academy founded by the ancient Stoic philosopher Posidonius on the Greek island of Rhodes, which at the time was known as a center of astronomy and mechanical engineering. Investigators have suggested that the ship could have been carrying it to Rome, together with other treasure looted from the island to support a triumphal parade being staged by Julius Caesar.
1916. British Summer Time is first introduced (BST is the equivalent of Daylight Saving Time in the U.S.)
1926. Chiang Kai-shek is made supreme war lord in Canton, China.
1927. U.S. Army aviation pioneer, Major Harold Geiger, dies in the crash of his Airco DH.4 de Havilland plane at Olmstead Field, Pennsylvania.
1933. Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort form Nasjonal Samling (National Gathering) --the Nazi party of Norway.
1940. In World War II, Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium.
1943. The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC computer. ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer,was the first large-scale, electronic, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems. ENIAC was designed and built to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory. The first problems run on the ENIAC, however, were related to the design of the hydrogen bomb.
A chip of silicon measuring 0.02 inches (0.5 mm) square holds the same capacity as the ENIAC, which occupied a large room.
1965. Based on outcry from parents who bought into what may have started as an idle rumor, the FBI launched a formal investigation in 1964 into the supposedly pornographic lyrics of the song Louie, Louie. That investigation finally neared its conclusion on this day in 1965, when the FBI Laboratory declared the lyrics of Louie, Louie to be officially unintelligible.
1969. The Soviet Venera 6 begins its descent into the atmosphere of Venus, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure.
1970. Norwegian ethnologist Thor Heyerdahl and a multinational crew set out from Morocco across the Atlantic Ocean in Ra II, a papyrus sailing craft modeled after ancient Egyptian sailing vessels. Heyerdahl was attempting to prove his theory that Mediterranean civilizations sailed to America in ancient times and exchanged cultures with the people of Central and South America. The Ra II crossed the 4,000 miles of ocean to Barbados in 57 days. Certain cultural similarities, such as the shared importance of pyramid building in ancient Egyptian and Mexican civilizations, perhaps suggested a link. To test the feasibility of ancient transatlantic travel, Heyerdahl built a 45-foot-long copy of an ancient Egyptian papyrus vessel in 1969, with the aid of traditional boatbuilders from Lake Chad in Central Africa. Constructed at the foot of the Pyramids and named after the sun god Ra, it was later transported to Safi in Morocco, from where it set sail for the Caribbean. Defects in design and other problems caused it to founder in July, 600 miles short of its goal. It had sailed 3,000 miles.
1973. The U.S. Senate begins televised hearings into the Watergate scandal.
1974. Thirty-three people are killed by terrorist bombings in Dublin and Monaghan, Ireland.
1974. In Los Angeles, California, police surround a home in Compton where the leaders of the terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) are hiding out. The SLA had kidnapped Patricia Hearst, of the fabulously wealthy Hearst family publishing empire, months earlier, earning headlines across the country. Los Angeles police shot an estimated 1,200 rounds of ammunition into the tiny Compton home as six SLA members shot back. Tear gas containers thrown into the hideout started a fire, but the SLA refused to surrender. Autopsy results showed that they continued to fire back even as smoke and flames were searing their lungs; they clearly chose suicide and martyrdom over jail. Randolph Hearst, Patty's father, remarked that the massive attack had turned "dingbats into martyrs." The raid left six SLA members dead, including leader Donald DeFreeze, also known as Cinque. Patty Hearst was not inside the home at the time. She was not found until September 1975.
1983. The New York Islanders win their fourth consecutive Stanley Cup, sweeping the Edmonton Oilers four games to none with a 4-2 win at home on New York’s Long Island.
1984. Prince Charles calls a proposed addition to the National Gallery, London, a "monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend," sparking controversies on the proper role of the Royal Family and the course of modern architecture. London's National Gallery, founded in 1824, its elegant dome and graceful colonnades,dominating the north side of Trafalgar Square, houses a rich collection of over 2,300 paintings from 1250 to 1900.
1987. An Iraqi warplane attacks the U.S. Navy frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 American sailors. Iraq and the United States called the attack a mistake.
1992. "Black May" begins in Thailand as Thai police and protestors start attacking each other. By midnight, the current Thai government declares a state of emergency, and military troops open fire. "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
1996. U.S. President Bill Clinton signs "Megan's Law," a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in.
1998. David Wells of the New York Yankees pitches the 15th perfect game in baseball history against the Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium. Wells was the subject of some controversy when his autobiography Perfect I'm Not: Boomer on Beer, Brawls, Backaches and Baseball, was published. In the book he reported having a hangover when he pitched his perfect game.
2004. As a result of a ruling by the state supreme court, Marcia Kadish, 56, and Tanya McCloskey, 52, of Malden, Massachusetts, marry at Cambridge City Hall in Massachusetts, becoming the first legally married same-sex partners in the United States. They have since divorced.
2007. Trains from North and South Korea cross the 38th Parallel in a test-run agreed by both governments. This is the first time that trains have crossed the Demilitarized Zone since 1953.
2011. A NATO airstrike on the Libyan capital Tripoli damages two government buildings. The Libyan oil minister, Shukri Ghanem, reportedly defects to Tunisia. Meanwhile in the Syrian uprising, at least one mass grave is reported to have been discovered in the city of Daraa; the government denies it exists. In the United States, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is remanded in custody at New York City's notorious Rikers Island jail after being dragged from a plane, charged with trying to rape a hotel maid and denied bail.
Queen Elizabeth II starts her first state visit to the Republic of Ireland, the first visit of a British monarch since Ireland's independence from the United Kingdom in 1921. Elizabeth is also the first British monarch to visit Ireland since George V's state visit in 1911.

 

[Eulalia]

May 17th: Resistuta, Virgin Martyr (304). A North African girl, she was one of several arrested during the Diocletian persecution at an illegal celebration of the Eucharist. They were taken to Carthage to be interrogated, tried and sentenced. Being the youngest and most attractive, she was picked out for specially cruel tortures, and finally she was tied up in bondage, laid in an old boat, coated in tar, set alight, and pushed out to sea. The charred hulk was washed up on the shore of Ischia, to be found by one Lucina. The martyr's burnt remains were enshrined on the island, but translated in the 16th century to a new church dedicated to her in Naples.
When her body lay on the beach, it's said to have been covered with pretty Sea Daffodils (Pancratium maritimum) that grow on Mediterranean beaches, they're known as 'St Restituta's lilies'.

A poem about her by the Irish poet Rosa Mulholland (aka Lady Gilbert) is a bit "Victorian" in style, but I think it carries an erotic charge:

“Loose me, O Love, and let me willing go;
Our life was love, and love be ours in death;
Plead now no more with eyes that are my sun,
A sun that’s setting towards a night begun.
Loose me, and let me with the waters flow
To darkness where yon red star beckoneth!

“O tenderly beloved, my love hath been
Idolatrous. Dear eyes too much adored,
The murdered Christ, our Master, Love Divine,
Hath raised His cross above thy gaze and mine
And set His own thorn-covered brow between
Two shuddering souls, Love’s Martyr and their Lord.

“O eyes of love, lift up! Dear eyes, look high
And seek for these no more, but stay on Him;
Sad longing lips, grow sweet and straight with prayer,
And mourn not my departure otherwhere,
Betwixt the lonely sea and threatening sky.
O passionate lips and eyes, grow meek and dim!”

They struck her speaking on her patient mouth
To silence, and from one in chains withdrawn,
Tore her and set her sweet eyes toward the sea,
Her gentle body unresistingly
Laid on the rotting hulk turned facing south,
And bound her thus with bare brow towards the dawn.

Flung were the long veils of her golden hair
Over the hulk to gild its shapeless prow,
And forth it went, a strange rich argosy:
“Now by the winds and waves go hence and die,
Ponder alone in terror and despair
The vain delusion of the Christian’s vow!”

Through sighing midnight outward darkly drove
The tide from Carthage, bearing on its breast
A living maid upon her funeral bier.
‘Mid sounds of death, poor quivering eye and ear
Alive to catch the last farewells of love
In solitary anguish, can ye not close and rest?”

(“Saint Restituta, Virgin-Martyr,” RosaMulholland, 1887)

 

[admihoek]

thx beloved bardslave