Jamestown Day marks the anniversary of the founding of America’s first permanent English colony at Jamestown, Virginia.
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On 9 May 1800, the abolitionist leader John Brown was born at Torrington, Connecticut and hanged 2 Dec 1859, at Charles Town, West Virginia. He was the leader of attack on Harpers Ferry, VA, 16 Oct 1859, which was intended to give impetus to the movement for escape and freedom for slaves. His aim was frustrated and in fact resulted in increased polarization and sectional animosity. Legendary martyr of the abolitionist movement.
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May 9 – National Third Shift Workers Day celebrates those workers who keep businesses and services running 24-hours a day. Read more at https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/third-shift-workers-day/.
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9 May 1893. Born at Cliftondale, Massachusetts, psychologist and author William Marston’s legacy continues to have a profound impact on contemporary criminal science and popular culture. While an undergraduate at Harvard he created the Marston Deception Test now known as the lie detector and was its most ardent advocate. Marston was also a prolific writer, penning many academic and popular texts, although his most well-known work, the Wonder Woman comic book series, which depicted the first female superhero, was written under the pseudonym Charles Moulton. Ahead of his time, Marston foresaw the increasing empowerment of women in the future, famously writing, “I fully believe I am hitting a great movement now under way, the growth in power of women.” He died of cancer 2 May 1947, at Rye, NY.
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On May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, UT, the golden spike was driven into the final tie that joined 1,776 miles of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways, ceremonially creating the nations first transcontinental railroad.
And America was transformed. Now, there has never been a better time to take the train. Trains are a more energy-efficient mode of travel than either autos or airplanes. Riding the rails is a perfect way to reduce your carbon footprint. Not to mention meet interesting people and see breathtaking scenery. National Train Day celebrates the way trains connect people and places with events from coast to coast.
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On 11 May 1888, the songwriter Irving Berlin was born Israel Isidore Baline at Tyumen, Russia.
Irving Berlin moved to New York, NY, with his family when he was four years old. After the death of his father, he began singing in saloons and on street corners in order to help his family and worked as a singing waiter as a teenager. Berlin became one of Americas most prolific songwriters, authoring such songs as Alexanders Ragtime Band, White Christmas, God Bless America, Theres No Business like Show Business, Doin What Comes Naturally, Puttin on the Ritz, Blue Skies and Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning, among others.
He could neither read nor write musical notation. Berlin died Sept 22, 1989, at New York.
Observed on the birthday of one of its champions, Edward Lear.The limerick, which dates from the early 18th century, has been described as the only fixed verse form indigenous to the English language. It gained its greatest popularity following the publication of Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense (and its sequels).
Example:
There was a young poet named Lear
Who said, it is just as I fear
Five lines are enough
For this kind of stuff
Make a limerick each day of the year.
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12 May 1847. Anniversary of the invention of the odometer by Mormon pioneer William Clayton while crossing the plains in a covered wagon. Previous to this, mileage was calculated by counting the revolutions of a rag tied to a spoke of a wagon wheel.
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May 12 – World Bird Day and International Migratory Bird Day bring awareness to the need for conservation of migratory birds and their habitats in the Western Hemisphere. The program promotes environmental education and international conservation.
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13 May 1914. World heavyweight boxing champion, 1937-49, nicknamed the Brown Bomber, Joseph Louis Barrow was born near Lafayette, AL. He died 12 April 1981, at Las Vegas, NV. Buried at Arlington National Cemetery. (Louis’s burial there, by presidential waiver, was the 39th exception ever to the eligibility rules for burial in Arlington National Cemetery.)
13 May 1846. Although fighting had begun days earlier, Congress officially declared war on Mexico on this date. The struggle cost the lives of 11,300 American soldiers and resulted in the annexation by the US of land that became parts of Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah and Colorado. The war ended in 1848. Read more at http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/.
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13 May 1954. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation authorizing US-Canadian construction of a waterway that would make it possible for oceangoing ships to reach the Great Lakes.
May 13 – Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) is an Israeli holiday commemorating the unification of Jerusalem following the Six Day War in June 1967.
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The German physicist Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit was born on 14 May 1686 (old calendar style) at Danzig, Prussia. He introduced the use of mercury in thermometers and devised the Fahrenheit temperature scale.
Observed first in 1907 at the request of Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who asked her church to hold a service in memory of all mothers on the anniversary of her mothers death. In 1909, two years after her mothers death, Jarvis and friends began a letter-writing campaign to create a Mother’s Day observance. Congress passed legislation in 1914 designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. Some say the predecessor of Mothers Day was the ancient spring festival dedicated to mother goddesses: Rhea (Greek) and Cybele (Roman).
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14 May 1796. In the 18th century smallpox was a widespread and often fatal disease. Edward Jenner, a physician in rural England, heard reports of dairy farmers who apparently became immune to smallpox as a result of exposure to cowpox, a related but milder disease. After two decades of studying the phenomenon, Jenner injected cowpox into a healthy eight-year-old boy, who subsequently developed cowpox. Six weeks later, Jenner inoculated the boy with smallpox. He remained healthy. Jenner called this new procedure vaccination, from vaccinia, another term for cowpox. Within 18 months, 12,000 people in England had been vaccinated and the number of smallpox deaths dropped by two-thirds.
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The first public performance of John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever was on 14 May 1897 at Philadelphia.
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14 May 1942. During WWII women became eligible to enlist for noncombat duties in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) by an act of Congress. Women also served through Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES), Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) and Coast Guard or Semper Paratus Always Ready Service (SPARS), the Womens Reserve of the Marine Corps.
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Bay to Breakers, the largest footrace in the world with over 70,000 runners crosses the city of San Francisco.
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Ellen Church became the first airline flight attendant on May 15, 1930 on a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Cheyenne, Wyoming.
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On 15 May 1856, the American newspaperman who wrote the Wizard of Oz stories was born at Chittenango, NY. Although The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the most famous, Baum also wrote many other books for children, including more than a dozen about Oz. He died at Hollywood, CA, 6 May 1919.
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On 15 May 1940, nylon hose went on sale at stores throughout the USA. Competing producers bought their nylon yarn from E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (later DuPont). W.H. Carothers, of DuPont, developed nylon, called Polymer 66, in 1935. It was the first totally man-made fiber and over time was substituted for other materials and came to have widespread application.
Image: CC 4.0, International Erik Liljeroth Nordiska Museet
15 May. Peace Officer Memorial Day is a day to remember police and peace officers killed in action .Every 57 hours a police officer is killed in the line of duty somewhere in America. During National Police week and on Peace Officer Memorial Day, the American Police Hall of Fame and Museum honors those lost with memorial services and outreach to surviving family.
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Biographer’s Day marks the anniversary of the meeting, at London, England, May 16, 1763, of James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, beginning history’s most famous biographer-biographee relationship. Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785) and his Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) are regarded as models of biographical writing. Thus this day is recommended as one on which to start reading or writing a biography.
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Born on 16 May 1801, American statesman, secretary of state under Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $ 7,200,000. At the time some felt the price was too high and referred to the purchase as Seward’s Folly. Seward was governor of New York, 1839 43, and a member of the US Senate, 1848 60. On the evening of Lincolns assassination, 14 April 1865 Seward was stabbed in the throat by Lewis Posell, a fellow conspirator of John Wilkes Booth. Seward recovered and maintained his cabinet position under President Andrew Johnson until 1869. Born at Florida, NY, he died at Auburn, NY, 18 October 1872.
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