Milestones

[admihoek]

My dear slavebard, I quess this Scottish bard Robert Burns was one of your predecessors isn't?
James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry, the Queen's Commissioner in Parliament, received £12,325, the majority of the funding. To many Scots, this amounted to little more than a bribe. Scottish bard Robert Burns wrote, "We were bought and sold for English Gold."
In 1999, after almost three centuries, a Scottish Parliament was opened after a referendum in Scotland. The new parliament does not have the same powers as the old parliament, as Scotland remains a constituent member country of the United Kingdom.

 

[thehangingtree]

"baker bananas" could get me to start eating fruit again...

Tree

 

[admihoek]

Here is a bit of May trivia, which you can take for what it's worth -- no United States president has died in May. Otherwise: May 2nd has seen a pair of notable maiden voyages, as well as the fight of a fey queen who successfully escaped imprisonment only to jump from the frying pan to the chopping block. It is also the anniversary of two religious massacres.

1194. King Richard I of England gives Portsmouth its first Royal Charter.

1230. William de Braose, 10th Baron Abergavenny is hanged by Prince Llywelyn the Great. William was found in Llywelyn's private bedchamber with Llywelyn's wife, Joan, Lady of Wales.
1536. Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, is arrested and imprisoned on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft. King Henry had Anne investigated for high treason in April 1536. On May 2, she was arrested and sent to the Tower of London, where she was tried before a jury of peers and found guilty on 15 May. She was beheaded four days later on Tower Green. Modern 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.

1568. Mary I of Scotland -- a/k/a Mary, Queen of Scots -- escapes from Loch Leven Castle (see picture), where she had been imprisoned by Sir William Douglas. She was assisted by Sir William's son but was forced to sign papers of abdication before she departed. After escaping, Mary managed to raise a small army. After her army's defeat at the Battle of Langside on May 13, she fled to England. When Mary entered England on May 19, she was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth's officers at Carlisle.
Elizabeth considered Mary's designs on the English throne to be a serious threat, and so eighteen years of confinement followed. Mary eventually became a liability that Elizabeth could no longer tolerate. Mary was implicated in several plots to assassinate Elizabeth, raise the Catholic North of England, and put herself on the throne, possibly with French or Spanish help.
In a trial presided over by England's Attorney General Sir John Popham, (later Lord Chief Justice), Mary was ultimately convicted of treason, and was sentenced to beheading at Fotheringay Castle, Northamptonshire on February 8, 1587. The execution was poorly carried out. It is said to have taken three blows to hack off her head. The first blow struck the back of her head, the next struck her shoulder and severed her subclavian artery, spewing blood in all directions. She is said to have been alive and conscious after the first two blows. The next blow took off her head, save some gristle, which was cut using the axe as a saw.

1670. King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson's Bay Company to open up the fur trade in North America.
1668. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends a brief War of Devolution waged over Louis XIV's claim to Spanish possessions in the Belgian provinces following the death of his father-in-law Philip IV of Spain in 1665.
1776. France and Spain agree to donate arms to American rebels.
1808. During the Peninsular War, a popular uprising against the French occupation of Spain begins in Madrid, culminating in a fierce battle fought out in the Puerta del Sol, Madrid's central square. The Spanish rebels were defeated, and during the night the French army under Grand Duke Joachim Murat shot hundreds of citizens along the Prado promenade in reprisal. On June 15 Napoleon's brother, Joseph, was proclaimed the new king of Spain, leading to a general anti-French revolt across the Iberian Peninsula.
1863. In the American Civil War, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson is wounded by friendly fire while returning to camp after reconnoitering for the Battle of Chancellorsville. He succumbs to pneumonia eight days later.

1885. Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time. The magazine achieved a circulation of 300,000 by 1911, at which time it was bought by the Hearst Corporation. In 1966 it reached 5,500,000 readers.

1918. General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.

1920. The first baseball game of the Negro National League is played in Indianapolis, Indiana.
1924. Patrick Mahon is arrested on suspicion of murder after showing up at the Waterloo train station in London to claim his bag. He quickly confessed that the bloody knife and case inside were connected to the death of his mistress, Emily Kaye. Mahon then directed the Scotland Yard detectives to a particularly grisly scene in a Sussex bungalow, where they found Kaye's remains, dismembered and hidden among hatboxes, trunks, and biscuit tins. Mahon was executed for murder in September 1924.
An important investigation innovation came about from the crime scene at the Sussex bungalow: The officers, who were not outfitted with gloves, were forced to pick up Kaye's remains with their bare hands. After the Mahon investigation, rubber gloves became standard equipment at murder scenes.

 

[admihoek]

1933. The modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster is born when a sighting makes local news on May 2, 1933. The newspaper Inverness Courier related an account of a local couple who claimed to have seen "an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface." The story of the "monster" (a moniker chosen by the Courier editor) became a media phenomenon, with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and a circus offering a 20,000 pound sterling reward for capture of the beast.
Loch Ness, located in the Scottish Highlands (see picture), has the largest volume of fresh water in Great Britain; the body of water reaches a depth of nearly 800 feet and a length of about 23 miles. Scholars of the Loch Ness Monster find a dozen references to "Nessie" in Scottish history, dating back to around A.D. 500, when local Picts carved a strange aquatic creature into standing stones near Loch Ness. The earliest written reference to a monster in Loch Ness is a 7th-century biography of Saint Columba, the Irish missionary who introduced Christianity to Scotland. In 565, according to the biographer, Columba was on his way to visit the king of the northern Picts near Inverness when he stopped at Loch Ness to confront a beast that had been killing people in the lake. Seeing a large beast about to attack another man, Columba intervened, invoking the name of God and commanding the creature to "go back with all speed." The monster retreated and never killed another man.

1939. Lou Gehrig's streak of 2130 consecutive Major League Baseball games played comes to an end. The record will stand for 56 years before Cal Ripken, Jr. breaks it.
1941. General Mills begins shipping a new cereal called "Cheerioats" to six test markets. (The cereal is later renamed "Cheerios.")

1946. The "Battle of Alcatraz" begins when Alcatraz Federal prison in San Francisco Bay is taken over by six inmates following a failed escape attempt. The battle lasted from May 2-4, 1946. Two guards and three inmates would be killed in the incident, with another 14 guards and one inmate injured. Bernard Coy, a bank robber serving a twenty-six year sentence at Alcatraz, saw a possible weakness in the bars protecting the West gun gallery. At about 2:00 PM on May 2nd (after a period of dieting), Coy removed his clothes, smeared grease over his body and climbed the bars below the weapons cache. Using a device he had made to spread the bars, he was able to squeeze himself through and overpower the guard on duty. He then lowered numerous weapons to his accomplices below. The armed convicts then captured nine guards and locked them into a cell. The inmates were unable to gain the key that would allow them to exit to the outside, which was evidently hidden by a guard.
Coy and an accomplice, Joseph Cretzer had let three other men out of their cells. After they failed to obtain the necessary key from the guards, and feeling that getting off the island was now impossible, Cretzer began shooting the guards in the cells.
The distress siren had been sounded at the prison, and Marines and the Coast Guard responded to assist in the crisis. Guards began firing at the inmates, and an assault team attempted to retake the prison. One of the team was likely mortally wounded by friendly fire. Marines also began firing grenades into cell block D. Robert Stroud the "Birdman of Alcatraz" had a heroic role in going through the gunfire to close steel cell doors to protect inmates. Most of the ring leaders died in the fighting; two survivors were later executed together in California's gas chamber.

1952. The world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1 makes its maiden voyage, flying from London to Johannesburg.
1955. Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
1964. During the Vietnam War, an explosion sinks the USS Card while docked at Saigon. Viet Cong forces are suspected of placing a bomb on the ship.

1969. The British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 departs on her maiden voyage to New York City.
1972. In the early morning hours a fire breaks out at the Sunshine mine in northern Idaho, killing 91 workers.
1972. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI for 48 years, dies at age 77.
1974. Former U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew is disbarred.

1982. During the Falklands War, the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano.
1989. Hungary begins dismantling its border fence with Austria, which allows a number of East Germans to defect.
1997. A sandstorm sweeps across much of Egypt, causing widespread damage and killing 12 people. Most of the casualties were victims of the strong winds, which also toppled trees and buildings.
The 60-mile-per-hour winds caused car accidents, uprooted trees and downed power lines. The sky initially turned an eerie white color from all the sand flying in the air. As the low atmosphere became saturated with sand, the sun was blotted out and it became dark in the middle of the day. In the southern part of the Sahara desert on this same day, a separate storm caused an accident that killed 36 passengers on a truck.
1999. Mireya Moscoso becomes the first woman to be elected President of Panama.

2000. President Bill Clinton announces that GPS access equivalent to the U.S. military would be available for regular citizens.

2002. The Marad massacre of eight Hindus takes place near Palakkad in Kerala. Iin the early evening, eight Hindus and one Muslim were hacked to death by a Muslim mob on the beach after reeling in their catch for the day.

2004. The Yelwa massacre of more than 630 nomad Muslims is carried out by Christians in Nigeria. Prior to this incident, Muslims attacked Christians in Yelwa. According to testimony gathered by Human Rights Watch in Yelwa, at least 78 Christians, and possibly many more, were killed in Yelwa on February 24. Several churches were destroyed.
Two months after the churches were razed, Christian men and boys surrounded Yelwa. They attacked the town. According to Human Rights Watch, 660 Muslims were massacred over the course of the next two days, including the patients in the Al-Amin clinic. Twelve mosques and 300 houses went up in flames. Young girls were marched to a nearby Christian town and forced to eat pork and drink alcohol. Many were raped, and 50 were killed.
2008. Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Myanmar killing over 130,000 people and leaving millions of people homeless.
2011. Thousands of people gather at Ground Zero of the September 11 attacks in New York to celebrate the news that Osama Bin Laden has been killed. Bin Laden's body, which was handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition, is buried by the U.S. forces at sea less than a day after his death, thus preventing a burial site from becoming a "terrorist shrine." U.S. political leaders across the political spectrum welcome the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed, congratulating American troops, the intelligence community and the White House for putting an end to the hunt for the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.
In the Libyan civil war, Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi continue to attack the city of Misrata as the United Nations withdraws all of its international staff from the capital Tripoli.
Meanwhile, voters in Canada go to the polls for a federal election. Results indicate that the Conservative Party of Canada led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper is on track to retain government with a majority of seats. The New Democratic Party becomes the Opposition in the parliament with the Liberal Party of Canada relegated to third place for the first time in its history.

 

[admihoek]

May 3 is the anniversary of some notable disasters -- the fall of a New England landmark, a great fire in Florida, a tornado in Oklahoma, the death of a warrior queen by natural causes, and the birth of the sales tax in the U.S..
It is also the feast day of a pair of saints whose story makes for an interesting yarn. Antonia and Alexander were martyrs in 313 during the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian.
Diocletian, in order to increase the number of native-born Roman citizens, made intentional celibacy among women a crime. All Roman women of suitable age were commanded to marry and, if possible, produce young. At the same time, Diocletian persecuted Christians. The legend of Antonia and Alexander has the former being forced to a brothel (the penalty for women who refused to wed), where a Christian soldier named Alexander came to her in the guise of a customer. Instead of deflowering her, he traded clothes with her, allowing Antonia to escape. Alexander was discovered very soon after, and both Antonia and Alexander were executed by being burned alive.
612. Byzantine Emperor Constantine III is born. Constantine was crowned co-emperor by his father on January 22, 613 and shortly after was betrothed to his cousin, Gregoria, a daughter of his father's first cousin, Nicetas. As the couple were second cousins, the marriage was technically incestuous, but this consideration must have been outweighed by the advantages of the match to the family as a whole.
Constantine became senior emperor when his father died in 641. He reigned together with his younger half-brother Heraklonas for four months before dying of tuberculosis. His step-mother was suspected of poisining him in order to make Heraklona the sole emperor. Guilty or not, she was disfigured and banished.
1152. Matilda of Boulogne, Queen of England, dies of a fever at Hedingham Castle, Essex. (See picture). She was born in Boulogne, France, the daughter of Eustace III, Count of Boulogne and his wife Mary of Scotland, daughter of King Malcolm III of Scotland and Saint Margaret of Scotland. Matilda was first cousin of her husband's rival, Empress Matilda. Through her maternal grandmother, Matilda was descended from the pre-Conquest English kings. In 1125, Matilda married Stephen of Blois, Count of Mortain. On the death of Henry I of England in 1135, Stephen rushed to England, taking advantage of Boulogne's control of the closest seaports, and was crowned king, beating his rival, the Empress Matilda. In the civil war that followed, known as the Anarchy, Matilda proved to be her husband's strongest supporter. When England was invaded, she called troops from Boulogne and its ally Flanders and besieged Dover Castle with success and then went north to Durham, where she made a treaty with David I of Scotland. After Stephen was captured at the Battle of Lincoln she rallied the king's partisans, and raised an army with the help of William of Ypres. While the Empress Matilda waited in London to prepare her coronation, Matilda and Stephen's brother Henry of Blois had her chased out of the city. The Empress Matilda went on to besiege Henry of Blois at Winchester. Matilda of Boulogne then commanded her army to attack the besiegers. There was a rout in which the Empress's half-brother, Robert of Gloucester, was captured. The two Matildas then agreed to exchange prisoners and Stephen ruled as king again..
1469. The Italian philosopher and writer Niccolo Machiavelli is born. A lifelong patriot and diehard proponent of a unified Italy, Machiavelli became one of the fathers of modern political theory.
Though Machiavelli has long been associated with the practice of diabolical expediency in the realm of politics that was made famous in his work, The Prince, his actual views were not so extreme. In fact, in such longer and more detailed writings as Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy (1517) and History of Florence (1525), he shows himself to be a more principled political moralist. Still, even today, the term "Machiavellian" is used to describe an action undertaken for gain without regard for right or wrong.
1481. The largest of three earthquakes strikes the island of Rhodes. The earthquake occurred at 3:00 in the morning on 3 May. It triggered a small tsunami, which caused local flooding. There were an estimated 30,000 casualties. It was the largest of a series of earthquakes that affected Rhodes, starting on 15 March 1481, continuing until January 1482. Damage from the tsunami was said to be greater than from the earthquake. The tsunami caused a large ship to break free from its moorings. It (or another ship) later sank with loss of all its crew after running onto a reef.

1494. Christopher Columbus first sights land that will be called Jamaica.
1512. Pope Julius !! opens the 5th Lateran Council. (18th ecunemical could) in Rome. The Lateran councils were ecclesiastical councils or synods of the Catholic Church held at Rome in the Lateran Palace next to the Lateran Basilica. Ranking as a papal cathedral, this became a much-favored place of assembly for ecclesiastical councils both in antiquity (313, 487) and more especially during the Middle Ages. Among these numerous synods the most prominent are five which the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church has classed as ecumenical councils: This was the 18th. The Fifth Council of the Lateran (1512–1517) attempted reform of the Church.
1654. A bridge in Rowley, Massachusetts, begins charging tolls for animals.
1715. A total solar eclipse darkens London, UK. It will be the last one visible in London for almost 900 years.
1765. The first American medical college opens in Philadelphia.
1802. Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city.
1808. In the Peninsular War, the Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are executed near Príncipe Pío hill. The Peninsular War was a military conflict between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its ally, Spain. The war lasted until the Sixth Coalition defeated Napoleon in 1814.

1837. The University of Athens is founded. It is the oldest university in the eastern Mediterranean.

1849. The May Uprising in Dresden begins -- the last of the German revolutions of 1848. Germany at the time of the Revolutions of 1848 was a collection of 38 states, including parts of Austria and Prussia, loosely bound together in the German Confederation after the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
1863. General Joseph Hooker and the Army of the Potomac abandon a key hill on the Chancellorsville battlefield in Virginia during the American Civil War. The Union army was reeling after Confederate General Stonewall Jackson's troops swung around the Union right flank and stormed out of the woods on the evening of May 2, causing the Federals to retreat some two miles before stopping the Confederate advance. Hooker himself was wounded when an artillery shell struck the column he was leaning against. Stunned, Hooker took a shot of brandy and ordered the retreat from the Chancellorsville area.
1901. The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, Florida. The Great Fire was one of the worst disasters in Florida history It was similar in scale and destruction to the 1871 Great Chicago Fire. The fire swept through 146 city blocks, destroyed over 2,368 buildings and left almost 10,000 people homeless all in the course of eight hours. It is said the glow from the flames could be seen in Savannah, Georgia; smoke plumes in Raleigh, North Carolina. (See picture.)

1916. The leaders of the Easter Rising are executed in Dublin by firing squad.

1921. West Virginia imposes the first state sales tax in the U.S..
1933. Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first woman to head the United States Mint.
1936. Baseball Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio makes his major league debut with the New York Yankees.

1937. Gone with the Wind, a Civil War novel by Margaret Mitchell, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

 

[admihoek]

1946. In the aftermath of World War II, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East begins in Tokyo against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
1948. The U.S. Supreme Court rules that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.

1951. London's Royal Festival Hall opens.
1952. A ski-modified U.S. Air Force C-47 piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher of Oklahoma and Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict of California becomes the first aircraft to land on the North Pole. A moment later, Fletcher climbed out of the plane and walked to the exact geographic North Pole, probably the first person in history to do so.
1957. Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles, California.

1960. The Off-Broadway musical comedy, The Fantasticks, opens in New York City's Greenwich Village, eventually becoming the longest-running musical of all time.
1961. President John F. Kennedy receives an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from George Washington University, the same institution from which his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. (Prior to attending George Washington, Jackie studied at Vassar College and, thorough a Smith College exchange program, at the Sorbonne.) In his acceptance speech he quipped, "my wife beat me to this honor by about 8 or 9 years. It took her two years to get this degree and it took me two minutes."
1962. Two commuter trains and a freight train collide near Tokyo, Japan, killing more than 160 people and injuring twice that number.
1973. The Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out as the world's tallest building. At the time of its completion in 1973, it was the tallest building in the world and it held this rank for nearly 25 years. Since renamed the Willis Tower, it is still the tallest building in the United States and the fifth-tallest freestanding structure in the world, as well as the fifth tallest building in the world to the roof.
1979. Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain's first female prime minister as the Labour government is ousted in parliamentary elections.
1986. 54-year-old Willie Shoemaker, aboard 18-1 shot Ferdinand, becomes the oldest jockey ever to win the Kentucky Derby.

1988. The White House acknowledges that first lady Nancy Reagan has used astrological advice to help schedule her husband's activities. Nancy probably took the hit for her man (if nothing else, she was loyal) since Reagan's involvement with astrology dated back to his Hollywood days. During Reagan's campaign for governor of California, his opponent accused Reagan of "using astrology" to defeat him and Reagan was once quoted in an interview as saying that he "dabbled" in astrology.
1992. Exxon executive Sidney Reso dies in a storage vault in New Jersey. Four days earlier, he was abducted from the driveway of his Morris Township, New Jersey, home. Reso was shot in the arm, bound and gagged, and then placed in a wooden box that was hidden in a virtually airless storage space. Despite his death, the kidnappers continued with their ransom plans.
Detectives were able to get DNA samples from both the ransom notes and the pay phones at Exxon stations where the kidnappers made their calls, leading them to Arthur and Irene Seale. The couple was arrested on June 19, 1992, after a protracted chase involving more than 100 FBI agents. Arthur Seale was convicted and sentenced to 95 years in prison and fined $1.75 million. Irene Seale received a 20-year sentence.

1999. Oklahoma City is slammed by an F5 tornado killing 42 people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado was one of 66 from the Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak.
The May 3, 1999, Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak was the first stage of a severe weather event that lasted from May 3 to May 6 and brought violent storms to Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, and Tennessee. More than 10,500 buildings and 47 businesses were destroyed, making it the fourth costliest single tornado in U.S. history.

2003. New Hampshire's famous Old Man of the Mountain collapses. The Old Man of the Mountain was a series of five granite cliff ledges on Cannon Mountain in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, USA. that, when viewed from the correct angle, appeared to be the jagged profile of a face. The first recorded discovery of the Old Man was in 1805. The outcrop was 1,200 feet above Profile Lake, and measured 40 feet tall and 25 feet wide. (See picture.)
The formation was carved by glaciers approximately 10,000 years ago and was first discovered by a surveying team circa 1805. The profile has been New Hampshire's state emblem since 1945. It was put on the state's license plate, state highway-route signs, and the back of New Hampshire's Statehood Quarter, which is popularly promoted as the only U.S. coin with a profile on both sides.
Defying attempts at preservation, including the use of cables and spikes for most of the 20th Century, the formation collapsed to the ground between midnight and 2 a.m., May 3, 2003. Centuries of wind, snow, and rain, as well as freezing and thawing cycles, finally caught up with the profile. Dismay over the collapse was so great that people left flowers at the base of the cliffs in tribute; some state legislators sought to change New Hampshire's state flag to include the profile; and many people suggested replacing the Old Man with a plastic replica -- an idea that was quickly rejected by an official task force headed by former Governor Stephen Merrill.

2007. British girl Madeleine McCann is snatched from her bed in holiday apartment 5A of the Ocean Club Holiday Resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal, and is still missing to this day.
2010. Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad is apprehended aboard a flight preparing to depart New York for Dubai.
2011. U.S. officials deliberate releasing “gruesome” photographs of the corpse of Osama bin Laden, to dispel doubt by Islamic militants that U.S. forces really killed him. Meanwhile, hundreds of people in Quetta, Pakistan, join a rally in honor of Osama bin Laden as Pakistani officials criticize the U.S. raid that killed him, saying that the United States had made “an unauthorized unilateral action” that would be not be tolerated in the future.
In the Libyan civil war, thousands of people are at risk of death from thirst and starvation in Yafran due to Muammar Gaddafi's forces besieging the city, shutting off water and blocking food supplies.

Elsewhere, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blasts a hole in two levees along the Mississippi River, flooding some 200 square miles (520 km2) of Missouri farmland in an effort to save the town of Cairo, Illinois, further downriver from record-breaking flood waters.

 

[Eulalia]

My dear slavebard, I quess this Scottish bard Robert Burns was one of your predecessors isn't?
James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry, the Queen's Commissioner in Parliament, received £12,325, the majority of the funding. To many Scots, this amounted to little more than a bribe. Scottish bard Robert Burns wrote, "We were bought and sold for English Gold."
In 1999, after almost three centuries, a Scottish Parliament was opened after a referendum in Scotland. The new parliament does not have the same powers as the old parliament, as Scotland remains a constituent member country of the United Kingdom.

Being very pedantic - but currently it is an issue,​

The United Kingdom was formed by the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when James (Stewart) VI of Scotland​

became also James (Stuart) I of England, Wales and Ireland.​

The Union of Parliaments only came with the Act of Union in 1707.​

If we vote for independence, it will mean repealing the Act of Union and ending the Union of Parliaments,​

but it will not mean the end of the United Kingdom (in spite of propaganda saying it will),​

the Queen will remain Elizabeth I of Scotland and Elizabeth II of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as she is now.​

OK?​

​

 

[admihoek]

Being very pedantic - but currently it is an issue,​

The United Kingdom was formed by the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when James (Stewart) VI of Scotland​

became also James (Stuart) I of England, Wales and Ireland.​

The Union of Parliaments only came with the Act of Union in 1707.​

If we vote for independence, it will mean repealing the Act of Union and ending the Union of Parliaments,​

but it will not mean the end of the United Kingdom (in spite of propaganda saying it will),​

the Queen will remain Elizabeth I of Scotland and Elizabeth II of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as she is now.​

OK?​

​

 

[thehangingtree]

I like the little frog in the lilly pond..

T

 

[Eulalia]

May 3rd: Antonina (or Antonia), Virgin Martyr, 313: her legend is the same as that of Theodora (April 28th), and probably "borrowed" from her to make up for lack of any other information - so for the "crime" of remaining a virgin she was tortured and sentenced to serve in a brothel, exchanged clothes with a Roman soldier named Alexander, but when he was caught and tortured, she gave herself up. They both had their hands cut off, then they were flayed alive, their raw flesh being scorched with torches. Finally, they were tossed onto a fire burning in a pit, and buried there while they died.

 

[thehangingtree]

May 3rd: Antonina (or Antonia), Virgin Martyr, 313: her legend is the same as that of Theodora (April 28th), and probably "borrowed" from her to make up for lack of any other information - so for the "crime" of remaining a virgin she was tortured and sentenced to serve in a brothel, exchanged clothes with a Roman soldier named Alexander, but when he was caught and tortured, she gave herself up. They both had their hands cut off, then they were flayed alive, their raw flesh being scorched with torches. Finally, they were tossed onto a fire burning in a pit, and buried there while they died.

I'd say 'that makes me hungry for some barbeque' but I think cannibalism is verboten here so I won't

Tree

 

[Eulalia]

May 4th: Pelagia of Tarsus, Virgin Martyr, circa 300. According to tradition, Diocletian's son, the heir to the Empire, fell in love with her and wanted to marry her. She refused him because she had sworn to preserve her virginity, so he killed himself. Her (pagan) mother, who was terrified of the consequences, had Pelagia tied up in bondage and transported to Rome. Diocletian himself asked the girl to become his wife. She refused, calling him mad, so she was roasted to death in a bronze bull (THT's licking his lips!) - her flesh melted and the scent of myrrh pervaded Rome.The pagans sent four lions to devour her body, but instead they protected her remains from vultures and crows until the Christians could recover them. Constantine I built a church on the site of her burial.

There are other Pelagias (and Marinas, the Latin equivalent of Greek Pelagia), they get confused with one another. Pelagia the Penitent (Oct 8th) was a an actress/ prostitiute in Antioch who underwent conversion, disguised herself as a monk, and went to Jerusalem where she lived a life of harsh penance in a cave, her secret only being discovered when she died. We'll meet another young Pelagia of Antioch, a relatively well-attested victim of persecution, on June 9th.

 

[thehangingtree]

We'll meet another young Pelagia of Antioch, a relatively well-attested victim of persecution, on June 9th.

THT Inc. is available to help....
T

 

[admihoek]

May 4 is the anniversary of discoveries, battles, and a historic riot. It is also when a wanted criminal and Mother Nature began record runs.

1256. The Augustinian monastic order is established at the Lecceto Monastery when Pope Alexander IV issues a papal bull Licet ecclesiae catholicae. The Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430), are several Christian monastic orders and congregations of both men and women living according to a guide to religious life known as the Rule of Saint Augustine. Prominent Augustinians include the only English Pope Adrian IV, Italian Pope Eugene IV, mystic Thomas à Kempis, Dutch Christian humanist Desiderius Erasmus, the German Reformer Martin Luther, the Spanish navigator Andrés de Urdaneta, Italian composer Vittoria Aleotti, German mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich and the Austrian geneticist Gregor Mendel. The order has made a very significant missionary contribution to Christianity as well as establishing educational and charitable institutions throughout the world.
1343. The four Estonian kings are murdered at the negotiations with the Livonian Order The parlay had been called to end the Saint George's Night Uprising. The St. George’s Night Uprising in 1343-1345 was an unsuccessful attempt by the indigenous Estonian population in the Duchy of Estonia and Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek to annihilate Danish and German rulers and landlords, who had conquered the country in the 13th century during the Livonian crusade, and to eradicate the non-indigenous Christian religion. After initial success the revolt was ended by the invasion of the Teutonic order.
The rebels massacred thousands in a Medieval version of ethnic cleansing. Peace negotiations broke down when the Estonian kings insulted the Germans. In violation of their safe conduct, they were detained. While being escorted to their quarters, the kings were attacked by their German guards and hacked to death in the courtyard.
1415. Religious reformers John Wycliffe and Jan Hus are condemned as heretics at the Council of Constance. Hus was burned at the stake. Wycliffe died of natural causes but that didn't stop the Church from exacting retribution. It was decreed that his books be burned and his remains be exhumed. The latter did not happen until 45 years later,when at the command of Pop Martin V they were dug up, burned, and the ashes cast into a river.

1471. At the Battle of Tewkesbury during the Wars of the Roses, Edward IV defeats a Lancastrian Army and kills Edward, Prince of Wales. He was the only Prince of Wales ever to die in battle though some accounts say he was summarily executed afterwards, The Battle of Tewkesbury completed one phase of the Wars of the Roses.
According to some accounts, shortly after the rout of the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury, a small contingent of men under the Duke of Clarence found the grieving prince near a grove where he was immediately beheaded on a makeshift block, despite his pleas. Paul Murray Kendall, a biographer of King Richard III, accepts this version of events.
Another version of what happened was given by three Tudor sources: The Grand Chronicle of London, Polydore Vergil and Edward Hall. It was later dramatized by William Shakespeare in Henry VI, Part 3, Act V, scene v. The story they give is that Edward survived the battle and was taken captive. He was taken before the victorious Edward IV who was with George, Duke of Clarence; Richard, Duke of Gloucester; and William, Lord Hastings. The king received the prince graciously, and asked him why he had taken up arms against him. The prince replied defiantly, "I came to recover my father's heritage." The king then struck the prince across his face with his gauntlet hand and those with the king proceeded to kill the prince with their swords. Alison Weir, a historian of the period, accepts this version of events.

1626. Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrives in New Netherlands (present day Manhattan Island) aboard the See Meeuw.
1675. King Charles II of England orders the construction of the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
1776. Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to formally renounce allegiance to King George III.

1814. Emperor Napoleon I of France arrives at Portoferraio on the island of Elba to begin his exile.

1855. American adventurer William Walker departs from San Francisco with about 60 men to conquer Nicaragua.
William Walker was a physician, lawyer, journalist, adventurer, and soldier of fortune who attempted to conquer several Latin American countries in the mid-19th century. He held the presidency of the Republic of Nicaragua from 1856 to 1857 and was executed by the government of Honduras in 1860.
1864. The Army of the Potomac embarks on the biggest campaign of the American Civil War and crosses the Rapidan River in Virginia, precipitating an epic showdown that eventually decides the war. Although there was no combat on this day, the stage was set for the epic duel between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. Lee attacked the following day -- the first salvo in the biggest campaign of the war. The fighting lasted into June as the two armies waltzed to the east of Richmond, Virginia, ending in Petersburg, where they settled into trenches and faced off for nearly nine months.

1865. Abraham Lincoln is buried in Springfield, Illinois, three weeks after his assassination.

 

[admihoek]

1886. What begins as a peaceful labor protest in Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, turns into a riot, leaving more than 100 wounded and eight police officers dead. After Chicago authorities arrested and detained nearly every anarchist and socialist in town, eight men, who were either speakers in or organizers of the protest, were charged with murder. The crowd at Haymarket Square was listening quietly to speakers advocating a mandatory eight-hour workday for employees. As the final speaker was winding the rally down, police officers forced their way toward the stage to disperse the crowd, provoking someone to throw a bomb into the crowd. After the explosion, officers began firing wildly in all directions, inciting a riot among protestors. About sixty police officers were wounded and eight died. Although the public was later led to believe that the deaths resulted from the bomb, seven of the eight fatalities and the great majority of the injuries were caused by shots fired by fellow officers during the confusion. Despite the lack of evidence linking the eight anarchists to the bomb, Chicago authorities clamped down on the radicals with the full support of the public. Seven of the eight defendants received death sentences. On November 11, 1887, four of the defendants were hanged. One man, also scheduled for execution, killed himself the day before. Governor John Atgeld pardoned the remaining three defendants in 1893, after they had served seven years in prison.

1904. The United States begins construction on the Panama Canal.
1910. The Royal Canadian Navy is created. Founded as the Naval Service of Canada and given royal sanction in 1911, the RCN was placed under the Department of National Defence in 1923, and amalgamated with the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Army to form the unified Canadian Forces in 1968, where it was known as the Maritime Command until 2011. Over the course of its history, the RCN served in the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War, the First Gulf War, the Afghanistan War and numerous United Nations peacekeeping missions and NATO operations.

1924. The 1924 Summer Olympics open in Paris, France.

1932. In Atlanta, Georgia, mobster Al Capone begins serving an eleven-year prison sentence for tax evasion. One of the most notorious American gangsters of the 20th century, Capone has been the subject of numerous articles, books, and films. Capone's persona and character have been used in fiction as a model for crime-lords and criminal masterminds ever since his death.

1942. In World War II, the Battle of the Coral Sea begins with an attack by aircraft from the United States aircraft carrier Yorktown on Japanese naval forces at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese forces had invaded Tulagi the day before.

1946. In San Francisco Bay, US Marines from the Treasure Island Marine Barracks stop a two-day riot at Alcatraz federal prison. Five people are killed in the riot. Alcatraz, known as "America's Devil's Island," has since been closed. (See picture.)

1948. Norman Mailer's first novel, The Naked and the Dead, is published. The publishers persuaded Mailer to use the euphemism "fug" in lieu of "fuck" in his novel.

1954. American actress Pia Zadora is born Pia Alfreda Schipani in Hoboken, New Jersey, of part Polish and Italian descent. She adapted part of her mother's maiden name (Zadorowski) as her stage name.
Her first film appearance was in 1964's infamous Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, as Girmar, a young Martian girl. She won a Golden Globe as 1982's "Most Promising New Star," but also won "Worst New Star" in the 1982 Golden Raspberry Awards.
She won the now defunct "Best New Star of the Year" Golden Globe for the film Butterfly despite the fact that she actually made her acting debut eighteen years earlier. There were rumors that her husband, Israeli multimillionaire Meshulam Riklis, who financed the movie, bribed the critics.
Zadora garnered both attention and ridicule that year by posing for the press cavorting in a public fountain and wearing a g-string Maillot swimsuit. This resulted in many photos of her and her shapely "can" at the event with a seemingly appropriate homonym, the Cannes Film Festival. (See pictures.)
She has attained some success as a singer, and has had several hit singles throughout the world. In 1984, she received a nominationfor a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Her cover version of the Shirley Ellis hit, The Clapping Song, reached the U.S. Top 40 in 1983, and she had a minor hit with a duet with Jermaine Jackson titled When The Rain Begins To Fall in 1984. In Germany, this song was a #1 hit for four weeks, and in France it also was a major hit.
An urban legend has frequently been circulated that Zadora once starred in a production of The Diary of Anne Frank, in which her performance was so bad that an audience member yelled "She's in the attic!" when the Nazis showed up.

1953. Ernest Hemingway is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
1961. In the American civil rights movement, "Freedom Riders" begin a bus trip through the South. Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and following years to test the United States Supreme Court decisions Boynton v. Virginia (1960) and Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1946). The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961 and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.
1965. San Francisco Giants outfielder Willie Mays hits his 512th career home run to break Mel Ott’s National League record for home runs. Mays would finish his career with 660 home runs, good for third on the all-time list at the time of his retirement.

1970. The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after the ROTC building was burned down, opens fire on students protesting at the United States' invasion of Cambodia. Four students are killed, nine are wounded.
1979. Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1981. Donald Eugene Webb is placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List.
Donald Eugene Webb is a fugitive from justice wanted for allegedly killing police chief Gregory Adams in the small community of Saxonburg, Pennsylvania on December 4, 1980. On May 4, 1981, he became the 375th fugitive to be placed on the Federal Bureau of Investigations's "Ten Most Wanted" list. Still at large after more than a quarter of a century, Webb was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List longer than any other fugitive since its creation in 1950, (25 years, 10 months, and 27 days).
He was removed from the list on March 31, 2007, without ever being located. He was replaced by Shauntay L. Henderson, who was caught on her very first day as a "Top Tenner." (Webb was placed on the list before Henderson was even born.)

1989. In the Iran-Contra Affair, former White House aide Oliver North is convicted of three crimes and was acquitted of nine other charges. The convictions, however, are later overturned on appeal.
1994. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord regarding Palestinian autonomy granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

1998. A federal judge in Sacramento, California, gives "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski accepted a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty.

2000. Ken Livingstone becomes the first Mayor of London. The office, created in 2000, was the first directly-elected mayor in the United Kingdom. The Mayor of London is also referred to as the London Mayor, a form which helps to avoid confusion with the Lord Mayor of the City of London, the ancient and now mainly ceremonial role in the City of London. "Red Ken" (as one British paper dubs him) was subsequently defeated by Conservative rival Boris Johnson.

2003. Ninety-four tornadoes begin the week-long Outbreak of 2003. There were 401 tornado reports in 19 states, 1,587 reports of large hail, and 740 reports of wind damage. More severe weather broke out this week alone than any other week in U.S. history.
2007. The Scottish National Party wins the Scottish general election and becomes the largest party in the Scottish Parliament for the first time ever. The SNP campaigns for the independence of Scotland from the United Kingdom. The party's stated aim is "to create a just, caring and enterprising society by releasing Scotland's full potential as a sovereign state in the mainstream of modern Europe." Having won 47 of the 129 seats in the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary election, the SNP governs as a minority administration, with party leader Alex Salmond as First Minister.
2007. Greensburg, Kansas is almost completely destroyed by a 1.7 mi wide EF-5 tornado. On the evening of May 4, 2007, Greensburg was devastated by a tornado that traveled rapidly through the area, leveling at least 95 percent of the city and killing eleven people between the ages of 46 and 84.
2011. Eyewitness reports say dozens are killed in clashes as thousands of people across Syria rallied to show support for residents of the southern border city of Daraa who have been living under siege since government forces attacked earlier this week. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and urges him to immediately end the violent crackdown against anti-government protesters in Syria, as Syrian tanks and armored vehicles deployed around the town of Rastan, witnesses said, raising fears of another deadly attack on protesters challenging Assad's rule. Meanwhile, an aid ship is forced to cut short its mission to evacuate civilians from Libya after Muammar Gaddafi's forces shell the port of Misrata shortly after it docked; at least four people, including a woman and two children, were killed in the shelling.
In the United States, despite the breach of a levee on the Mississippi River to ease flood pressure in southern Illinois, massive flooding continues from Minnesota to Louisiana and hundreds of square miles of mostly farmland in Missouri are under water. The government of the U.S. state of Arkansas decides to close Interstate 40 between Little Rock and Memphis due to flood waters.

 

[thehangingtree]

Pia is a real darling...

T

 

[admihoek]

Pia is a real darling...

T

i know

 

[admihoek]

May 5 is Cinco de Mayo ("The Fifth of May" in Spanish); it is a national, but not federal, holiday in Mexico which is also widely celebrated in the United States. It commemorates the victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin over the French occupational forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. In the United States Cinco de Mayo is observed by many Americans regardless of ethnic origins, particularly along the southern border states where there is a large Hispanic population.
In the Northern Hemisphere, May 5 is the halfway point through spring -- a cross-quarter day. A cross-quarter day is a day falling approximately halfway between a solstice and an equinox. These days originated as pagan holidays in Northern Europe and the British Isles, and survive in modern times as neo-pagan holidays. The cross-quarter days were also independently developed in East Asia as four of the 24 Solar Terms. In some cultures, including ancient Irish and East Asian cultures, the cross-quarter days mark the beginning of each season. In others, including the modern United States, the cross-quarter days mark the middle of each season.
311. Roman Emperor Galerius dies. During his reign he campaigned, aided by Diocletian, against the Sassanid Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 299. He also campaigned across the Danube against the Carpi, defeating them in 297 and 300. Although he was a staunch opponent of Christianity, Galerius ended the Diocletianic Persecution when he issued an edict of toleration in 311. Galerius died from a horribly gruesome disease described by Eusebius, possibly some form of bowel cancer, gangrene or Fournier gangrene.

867. Japanese Emperor Uda is born. He entered the Buddhist priesthood at age 34 in 900. Having founded the temple at Ninna-ji, Uda made it his new home after his abdication. He was sometimes called "the Cloistered Emperor of Teiji," because that was the name of the Buddhist hall where he resided after becoming a priest.
1215. Rebel barons renounce their allegiance to King John of England -- part of a chain of events leading to the signing of the Magna Carta The 1215 charter required King John of England to proclaim certain liberties, and accept that his will was not arbitrary.
1260. Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire. Kublai was the grandson of Genghis Khan. He studied Chinese culture and became enamored with it. In 1251, his elder brother Möngke became Khan of the Mongol Empire, and Kublai became the governor of the southern territories of the Mongol Empire.
Möngke put Kublai in command of the Eastern Army and summoned him to assist with attacks on Sichuan and, again, Yunnan. Before Kublai could arrive in 1259, word reached him that Möngke had died. Kublai continued to attack Wuhan, but soon received news that his younger brother had usurped power. Both his brother and Kublai crowned themselves Khan in 1260, and the two brothers battled for three years before Kublai finally won.
In 1271, Kublai Khan officially declared the creation of the Yuan Dynasty in China, and proclaimed the capital to be at Dadu (Beijing) in the following year. He ruled better than his predecessors, promoting economic growth with the rebuilding of the Grand Canal, repairing public buildings, and extending highways. Kublai also introduced paper currency, although eventually a lack of fiscal discipline and inflation turned this move into an economic disaster. He encouraged Chinese arts and demonstrated religious tolerance, except in regards to Taoism. Kublai Khan twice attempted to invade Japan in search of gold; however, both times the samurai resisted firmly, and bad weather destroyed the fleets.
1494. Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica and claims it for Spain.

1646. King Charles I of England and Scotland surrenders to the Scottish Presbyterian Army at Newark.
1762. Russia and Prussia sign the Treaty of St. Petersburg. The treaty ended the fighting in the Seven Years War between Prussia and Russia. The treaty followed the accession of Tsar Peter III, and allowed Frederick the Great of Prussia to concentrate on his other enemies.
1789. In France, the Estates-General convenes for the first time in 150 years. The Estates-General was a general assembly consisting of representatives from all but the poorest segment of the French citizenry. The independence which it displayed from the crown paved the way for the French Revolution.

1809. Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread.
1821. Napoleon Bonaparte, the former French ruler who once ruled an empire that stretched across Europe, dies as a British prisoner on the remote island of Saint Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean.

1835. In Belgium, the first railway in continental Europe opens between Brussels and Mechelen.
1862. Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico, the event commemorated by Cinco de Mayo celebrations.

1864. During the American Civil War, the Battle of the Wilderness begins in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. The Battle of the Wilderness, fought from May 5 to May 7, 1864, was the first battle of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Virginia Overland Campaign against General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Both armies suffered heavy casualties, a harbinger of a bloody war of attrition against Lee's army and, eventually, the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia. The battle was tactically inconclusive, as Grant disengaged and continued his offensive.
The battlefield was the Wilderness of Spotsylvania, an expanse of impenetrable scrub growth and rough terrain that encompassed more than 70 square miles (181 km²) of Spotsylvania County in central Virginia. A number of battles were fought in the vicinity between 1862 and 1864, including the bloody Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. I once lived in Spotsylvania and the locals were still successfully hunting for Civil War relics with the aid of metal detectors. They usually came up with spent bullets but they also dug up rusty swords and bayonets, and the metal portions of rifles (the wooden parts had long since rotted away).

1865. In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the first train robbery in the United States takes place. Outlaw legend Jesse James is mistakenly thought to have completed the first successful train robbery in the American West when on July 21, 1873, the James-Younger Gang took $3,000 from the Rock Island Railroad after derailing it southwest of the town of Adair, Iowa. The North Bend train robbery was carried out by Confederate guerillas at the end of the Civil War.

1886. The Bay View Massacre occurs when militia fire upon a crowd of protesters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killing seven.
The massacre was the culmination of events that began on Saturday May 1, 1886 when 7,000 building-trades workers joined with 5,000 Polish laborers to strike against their employers, demanding an eight-hour work day. By Monday, these numbers had increased to over 14,000 workers that gathered at the Milwaukee Iron Company rolling mill in Bay View. They were met by 250 National Guardsmen under order from Governor Jeremiah M. Rusk to "shoot to kill" any strikers who attempted to enter.
Workers camped in the nearby fields and the Kosciuszko Militia arrived by May 4. Early the next day the crowd, which by this time contained women and children, approached the mill and were fired upon. Seven people died as a result, including a thirteen-year-old boy. Several more were injured during the protest.
1891. The Music Hall in New York City (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.
1893. In the Panic of 1893, a crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts a depression. The Panic of 1893 was a serious decline in the economy of the United States that began in 1893 and was precipitated in part by a run on the gold supply. The Panic was the worst economic crisis to hit the nation in its history to that point.

 

[thehangingtree]

I READ THIS AND THERE WERE NO PICTURES?????????????

tht

 

[admihoek]

1919. The delegation from Italy -- led by Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando and Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino --returns to the Versailles Peace Conference in Paris, France, after leaving abruptly 11 days earlier during contentious negotiations over the territory Italy would receive after the First World War. Italy's entrance into World War I on the side of Britain, France and Russia in May 1915 had been based on the Treaty of London, signed the previous month, in which the Allies promised Italy post-war control over a good deal of territory. The leaders of Britain and France, for their part, deeply regretted making such promises; they viewed Italy with annoyance, feeling the Italians had botched their attacks on Austria-Hungary during the war, failed to honor their naval promises and repeatedly asked for resources which they then failed to put towards the war effort. In the final Treaty of Versailles, signed in June, Italy received a permanent seat on the League of Nations, the Tyrol and a share of the German reparations. Many Italians were bitterly disappointed with their post-war lot, however. Resentment of Britain, France and the United States continued to simmer, along with wounded Italian pride and ambitious dreams of future greatness -- all emotions that would later be harnessed to devastating effect by the fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
1920. Massachusetts authorities arrest Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for alleged robbery and murder. Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts. After a controversial trial and a series of appeals, the two Italian immigrants were executed on August 23, 1927.

1925. John T. Scopes is served an arrest warrant for teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.
1930. Amy Johnson takes off to become the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.
1936. Italian troops occupy Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

1945. At the end of World War II in Europe, Admiral Karl Dönitz, leader of Germany after Hitler's death, orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases.
1945. In the only fatal attack of its kind during World War II, a Japanese balloon bomb explodes on Gearhart Mountain in Oregon, killing the pregnant wife of a minister and five children.
1954. A coup d'état carries General Alfredo Stroessner to power in Paraguay.
1955. The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) becomes a sovereign state when the United States, France, and Great Britain end their military occupation, which had begun in 1945. With this action, West Germany was given the right to rearm and become a full-fledged member of the western alliance against the Soviet Union.
1961. Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into space, making a sub-orbital flight of 15 minutes. Shepard would later score another "first" when he became the first human to play golf on the Moon.
1962. The West Side Story soundtrack album goes to Number One and stay at the top spot for 54 weeks, which is more than 20 weeks longer than any other album.
1970. In Cambodia, a U.S. force captures Snoul, 20 miles from the tip of the "Fishhook" area (across the border from South Vietnam, 70 miles from Saigon). A squadron of nearly 100 tanks from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and jet planes virtually leveled the village that had been held by the North Vietnamese. No dead North Vietnamese soldiers were found, only the bodies of four Cambodian civilians. This action was part of the Cambodian "incursion" that had been launched by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces on April 29.
1971. A race riot breaks out in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York.
1981. Brazilian supermodel Marcelle Bittar is born Marcelle Bittar de Almeida in Guarapuava, Paraná, Brazil. In 1996, Marcelle Bittar was registered by her mother in a Mega Model Agency contest, joining the agency casting at only 14 years old. (See pictures.)
1981. Imprisoned Irish-Catholic militant Bobby Sands dies after refusing food for 66 days in protest of his treatment as a criminal rather than a political prisoner by British authorities. His death immediately touched off widespread rioting in Belfast, as young Irish-Catholic militants clashed with police and British Army patrols and started fires.
1987. The U.S. Congress begins the televised Iran-Contra hearings; Oliver North would steal the show.
1992. The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified. The Twenty-seventh Amendment is the most recent amendment to be incorporated into the United States Constitution, having been ratified 203 years after its initial submission in 1789.
This amendment provides that any change in the salary of members of United States Congress may only take effect after the next general election. Sometimes called the "Congressional Compensation Amendment of 1789," the "Congressional Pay Amendment," and the "Madison Amendment," it was intended to serve as a restraint on the power of Congress to set its own salary -- an obvious conflict-of-interest. Since its 1992 adoption, however, this amendment has not hindered members of Congress from receiving nearly annual pay raises, characterized as "cost-of-living adjustments" (COLAs) rather than as pay raises in the traditional sense of the term.
1995. The Dallas, Texas, area is hit by torrential rains and a severe hailstorm that leaves 17 dead and many others seriously injured on this day in 1995. The storm, which hit both Dallas and Tarrant counties, was the worst recorded hail storm to hit the United States in the 20th century.

2002. The World Wrestling Federation changes its name to World Wrestling Entertainment due to a lawsuit from the World Wildlife Fund.
In 2000, the World Wildlife Fund (also WWF), an environmental organization now called the World Wide Fund for Nature, sued the World Wrestling Federation. A British court agreed that Titan Sports had violated a 1994 agreement which had limited the permissible use of the WWF initials overseas, particularly in merchandising.
On Sunday May 5, 2002, the company quietly changed all references on its website from "WWF" to "WWE," while switching the URL from WWF.com to WWE.com. The next day, a press release announced the official name change from World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. to World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., or WWE.
2010. Mass protests in Greece erupt in response to austerity measures imposed by the government as a result of the Greek debt crisis.
2011. Vietnamese soldiers clash with thousands of Hmong Christians in Dien Bien Province demanding religious freedom and autonomy in the northwest of the country, in the worst ethnic unrest in Vietnam in years. The US-based Center for Public Policy Analysis claims that at least 28 protesters were killed and hundreds more were missing, while 3,000 protesters remained at the site, according to officials.
Elsewhere, Syrian troops arrest 300 people in a raid on the Damascus suburb of Saqba and tanks and troops are also reported to have been sent to other to quell anti-government demonstrations in Homs and Hama. About 100 tanks and troop transports converge on the town of Al-Rastan, after anti-regime protesters toppled a statue of the late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad and pledged to press ahead with their "revolution" despite sweeping arrests by Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Meanwhile in the U.S., rising flood waters from the Mississippi River force evacuations around Memphis, Tennessee, as near-record flooding along the river occurs from Canada and the Dakotas down to the Gulf of Mexico.