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Events, deaths, births, of 01 MAY

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• Battle of Manila Bay... • Mayday as Labor Day... • Empire State Building opens... • Condamnés à mort par la Révolution... • Mother Jones is born... • Author of Catch 22 is born... • “Silone” is born... • US spy plane shot down over USSR... • Lusitania sails to its doom... • North Vietnamese capture provincial capital... • Senator criticizes Vietnam War... • Locomobile... • US climber reaches top of Everest... • US president empowered over foreign trade... • Watson hired by future IBM... . • Cordwainers unite... • Gloria Carpenter found dead... • Pur Sang des Autos... • Missing intern dies...
RalstonOn a May 01:

2003 Aron Ralston, 27, of Aspen Colorado, is stuck in an eastern Utah desert, with his right arm pinned down by a 400-kg chalkstone boulder which fell about 50 cm onto his arm as he was climbing alone in narrow Blue John Canyon, adjacent to the Maze District of Canyonlands National Park, in the afternoon of 26 April. He ran out of water on 29 April. There is no chance anyone will find him and rescue him. The alternative being death, he cuts off his arm below the elbow with a pocket knife, improvises a tourniquet, rappels 20 meters down a rock wall, hikes 20 km until he meets some hikers who call a rescue helicopter 100 km south of Green River, Utah. [< Ralston when he still had two arms]

2002 California Condor AC-9 [do NOT pronounce it “asinine”] is released to the wild. When it was brought into captivity in 1987, it was the last free-flying California Condor. It became part of the fledgling captive breeding program. Many of the offspring that AC-9 produced and raised in captivity were released to the wild in both California and Arizona.

2000 Joerg Haider resigns after 14 years as leader of Austria's far-right [meaning far-wrong] Freedom Party.
1997 Labour Party returns to power in Britain       ^top^
      After eighteen years of Conservative rule, British voters gave the Labour Party, led by Tony Blair, a landslide victory in British parliamentary elections. In the poorest Conservative Party showing since 1832, Prime Minister John Major was rejected in favor of Scottish-born Blair, who at age forty-three became the youngest British prime minister in over a century. Blair studied law at Oxford, and in 1975 joined the Labour Party. In 1983, he was elected an MP from Sedgefield, and became the party’s spokesperson on treasury affairs in 1985 and trade and industry in 1987. In the next year, he joined the shadow cabinet as energy secretary, and in 1993, he became shadow home secretary. In 1994, he was elected leader of the Labour Party, and over the next three years he orchestrated Labour’s ideological shift to the middle, borrowing such popular Conservative policies as free-market reforms. In May of 1997, his "new" Labour Party won a resounding victory and he was sworn in as prime minister.
1996 At the White House, PLO leader Yasser Arafat meets US President Clinton for 45 minutes, then criticizes Israel for keeping its borders closed to Palestinian workers.
1991 The government of Angola and US-backed guerrillas initialed agreements ending their civil war.
1991 Pope John Paul II publishes his Encyclical Centesimus annus [English text] two weeks in advance of the 100th anniversary of the 15 May 1891 Encyclical Rerum Novarum [English text] of Leo XIII.
1986 Tass reports Chernobyl nuclear power plant mishap
1981 US Senator Harrison A. Williams Jr., D-N.J., is convicted in New York of charges related to the FBI's Abscam investigation.
1979 Marshall Islands (in the Pacific) become self-governing
1979 Home rule introduced to Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland)
1978 Naomi Uemura became first to reach North Pole overland alone
1972 North Vietnamese capture provincial capital.       ^top^
      North Vietnamese troops capture Quang Tri City, the first provincial capital taken during their ongoing offensive. The fall of the city effectively gave the communists control of the entire province of Quang Tri. As the North Vietnamese prepared to continue their attack to the south, 80% of Hue's population — already swollen by 300'000 refugees — fled to Da Nang to get out of the way. Farther south along the coast, three districts of Binh Dinh Province also fell, leaving about one-third of the province under communist control. These attacks were part of the North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive (later called the "Easter Offensive"), a massive invasion by North Vietnamese forces designed to strike the blow that would win them the war. The attacking force included 14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, with more than 120'000 soldiers and approximately 1200 tanks and other armored vehicles. The main North Vietnamese objectives, in addition to Quang Tri in the north, were Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc farther to the south.
      Initially, the South Vietnamese defenders were almost overwhelmed, particularly in the northernmost provinces, where they abandoned their positions in Quang Tri. At Kontum and An Loc, the South Vietnamese were more successful in defending against the attacks, but only after weeks of bitter fighting. Although the defenders suffered heavy casualties, they managed to hold their own with the aid of US advisers and American airpower. Fighting continued all over South Vietnam into the summer months, but eventually the South Vietnamese forces prevailed against the invaders, retaking Quang Tri in September. With the communist invasion blunted, President Nixon declared that the South Vietnamese victory proved the viability of his Vietnamization program, which he had instituted in 1969 to increase the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces so US troops could be withdrawn.
1969 Senator criticizes Nixon's handling of Vietnam War.       ^top^
      In a speech on the floor of the Senate, George Aiken (R-Vermont), senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urges the Nixon administration to begin an immediate "orderly withdrawal" of US forces from South Vietnam. Aiken said, "It should be started without delay." The speech was widely regarded as the end of the self-imposed moratorium on criticism that senators had been following since the Nixon administration took office. Nixon responded on several occasions that ending the Vietnam War was his "first priority." His first public act in response to the mounting criticism was to announce in June 1969 that he would begin an immediate withdrawal of 25'000 soldiers from South Vietnam with additional withdrawals to follow at specified intervals. In order to do this, he instituted his "Vietnamization" program, which was designed to increase the combat capability of the South Vietnamese forces so they could eventually assume responsibility for the entire war effort.
1967 Anastasio Somoza Debayle became president of Nicaragua (of the dictator, CIA-stooge variety).
1965 USSR launches Luna 5; later impacts on Moon
1964 first BASIC program run on a computer (Dartmouth)
1963 A US climber reaches top of Everest       ^top^
      James W. Whittaker of Redmond, Washington, became the first US climber to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.
      Located in the central Himalayas on the border of China and Nepal, Everest stands 8848 m above sea level. Called Chomo-Lungma, or "Mother Goddess of the Land" by the Tibetans, the English named the mountain after Sir George Everest, an early nineteenth-century British surveyor of the Himalayas.
      In May of 1953, climber and explorer Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal made the first successful climb of the peak. Hillary was later knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for the achievement.
      Ten years later, American James Whittaker reached Everest’s summit with his Sherpa climbing partner Nawang Gombu. The first US woman to successfully climb Everest was Stacy Allison in 1988.
1963 Indonesia takes control of Irian Jaya (west New Guinea) from Netherlands
1961 Tanganyika granted full internal self-government by Britain
1961 first US airplane hijacked to Cuba
1961 Fidel Castro announces there will be no more elections in Cuba
1960 US spy plane shot down over Russia.       ^top^
      A US U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft is shot down over Sverdlovsk in central Russia, forcing its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, to bail out at 4600 meters. The CIA-employed pilot survives the parachute jump from his crippled aircraft, but is picked up by the Soviet authorities, who immediately arrest him.
      On 05 May, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced the capture of the US spy, and vowed that he would put him on trial. After initial denials, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower admitted on 07 May that the unarmed reconnaissance aircraft was indeed on a spy mission. In response, Khrushchev cancelled a long-awaited summit meeting in Paris, and in August, Powers was sentenced to ten years in a Soviet prison for his confessed espionage.
      However, a year-and-a-half later, the Soviets agreed to release him in exchange for Rudolph Abel, a Soviet spy caught and convicted in the United States five years earlier. Upon returning to the US, the CIA and the Senate cleared Powers of any personal blame for the incident.
     The incident derailed an important summit meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that was scheduled for later that month. The U-2 spy plane was the brainchild of the Central Intelligence Agency, and it was a sophisticated technological marvel. Traveling at altitudes of up to 21'000 m, the aircraft was equipped with state-of-the-art photography equipment that could, the CIA boasted, take high-resolution pictures of headlines in Russian newspapers as it flew overhead.
      Flights over the Soviet Union began in mid-1956. The CIA assured President Eisenhower that the Soviets did not possess anti-aircraft weapons sophisticated enough to shoot down the high-altitude planes. On 01 May 1960, a U-2 flight piloted by Francis Gary Powers disappeared while on a flight over Russia. The CIA reassured the president that, even if the plane had been shot down, it was equipped with self-destruct mechanisms that would render any wreckage unrecognizable and the pilot was instructed to kill himself in such a situation. Based on this information, the US government issued a cover statement indicating that a weather plane had veered off course and supposedly crashed somewhere in the Soviet Union. With no small degree of pleasure, Khrushchev pulled off one of the most dramatic moments of the Cold War by producing not only the mostly-intact wreckage of the U-2, but also the captured pilot-very much alive. A chagrined Eisenhower had to publicly admit that it was indeed a US spy plane.
1960 India's Bombay state split into Gujarat and Maharashtra states.
1948 The People's Democratic Republic of Korea is proclaimed in North Korea.
1948 Glenn Taylor, Idaho Senator, arrested in Birmingham Alabama for trying to enter a meeting through a door marked "for Negroes"
1947 Vice Adm Roscoe Hillenkoeter becomes first director of the CIA
1944 Messerschmitt Me 262 Sturmvogel, first jet bomber, makes first flight
1939, The World of Tomorrow Fair opens       ^top^
in New York. Spanning 500 hectares, the fair is marked by two structures — the Crystal Ball Perisphere and the gold Trylon — and President Franklin D. Roosevelt presides over the opening ceremonies. Although virtually every nation on earth is represented, Germany is conspicuously absent, as Europe is on the brink of World War II.
1937 FDR signs act of neutrality
1934 Philippine legislature accepts US proposal for independence
1925 Cyprus becomes a British Crown Colony
1915 Lusitania sails off for the last time.       ^top^
     The British 32'000 tons Lusitania, largest passenger vessel on transatlantic service, leaves New York harbor for Britain, with more than 1900 passengers and crew on board. The ship would never reach its destination.
      Germany had published an advertisement warning people against traveling on such enemy ships. In February 1915, the German government announced an unrestricted warfare campaign: any ship sailing to or from Allied countries was subject to attack. This violated international agreements: nonmilitary vessels suspected of carrying war materials were supposed to be stopped and searched, not fired upon.
      On 07 May the Lusitania would be torpedoed by a German U-Boat, 16 km from the coast of Ireland. After a second, larger explosion, the Lusitania would list and then sink in twenty minutes. 63 infants and 1135 other persons would die, including 128 US citizens.
      The sinking of the Lusitania would have a profound impact on US public opinion. Germany apologized for the incident, but claimed that the U-boat fired only one torpedo and that contraband munitions on the ship caused the second explosion. If true, Britain was violating the rules of warfare by using a civilian ship to carry ammunition. The British denied this, claiming that the second explosion was caused by the torpedo igniting coal dust in the ship's almost empty bunkers.
1914 Thomas Watson hired by future IBM       ^top^
      A bright young salesman named Thomas Watson joins the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR), a disorganized conglomeration of smaller companies that produced punch cards and tabulating systems.
      About 235 employees worked at CTR at the time. Watson quickly unified the company and, in 1924, changed its name to International Business Machines (IBM). During his four decades with the company Watson built IBM into one of the world's most successful corporations. When Watson died in 1956, the company employed more than sixty thousand people. The company's primary products included typewriters and primitive computers.
      It was not until Watson's son, Thomas Watson, Jr., took over in 1952 that the company began to focus on the fledgling market for electronic computers. By the late 1960s, IBM produced 70 percent of the world's computers and 80 percent of America's computers. In 1981, the company successfully entered the personal computer market; however, it never gained the same dominance in personal computing that it enjoyed in mainframe computing.
1908 World's most intense shower (6.3 cm in 3 minutes) at Portobelo Panama
1902 Gasoline Locomobile       ^top^
      The first prototype gasoline-powered Locomobile is completed at the company's factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
      Francis and Freelan Stanley created the original steam-powered Locomobile in 1898. "Yankee tinkerers," the Stanley brothers had been working on designs for steam-powered carriages for many years. Success came when one of their cars appeared at a Boston fair in October 1908. Interest in their cars, stemming from the debut of their lightweight, affordable vehicle, led them to undertake the construction of one hundred cars. To put the brothers' ambition in perspective, one need only recognize that the largest US gasoline-powered auto producer in the country, Alexander Winton, made twenty-two cars in 1898; Pope Electric of Hartford, Connecticut, produced a few dozen. The Stanley Brothers' resolve to "mass-produce" inexpensive cars marked an important transition in automobile manufacturing. But only a few months into their venture, the Stanley Brothers sold their enterprise to Amzi Barber, America's sheet-asphalt tycoon. It was under Barber's direction that the Locomobile name became a brand.
      The 1899 Locomobile sold for $600 and, as its advertisements boasted, it was noiseless and odorless. Refreshing to think of, but the Locomobile's water tank held only twenty-one gallons, enough for just a twenty-mile journey. Besides, starting a steam-powered engine was time-consuming and dangerous, as boilers frequently burned out. The gasoline burners that heated the boilers could backfire, potentially setting the car on fire. Sales of the Locomobile peaked in 1900 at sixteen hundred, a remarkable figure at such an early date. The total was far greater than any other American automaker could produce and it rivaled the French automaker, De Dion-Bouton, as the greatest car production in the world. Sales fell the next year, however, as the primacy of gasoline-powered automobiles was established. Gas-powered cars could go farther, faster, and with fewer hassles than steam-powered cars of comparable sizes. Barber hired automobile engineer Andrew Riker to design him a gas-powered vehicle. The car he designed sold for $5000.
      The new Locomobile appealed to rich consumers, and the company shifted its focus from low-cost production for the masses to high-cost production for the elite few. The last Locomobile steamers were produced in 1904. The end of the steam era saw the end of the company's importance. Other firms had been building gas-powered automobiles better, for longer. Locomobile survived through World War I producing trucks for the war market. After the war it became one in the overflowing market of luxury cars. The company died in 1929 after having been briefly incorporated into one of William Durant's holding companies.
1889 first International Workers Day, according to the 2nd Internationale.
1886 US Origin of Mayday as Labor Day in most countries other than the US       ^top^
      MAYDAY — the first of May — is recognized around the world as a day to celebrate international workers’ solidarity. It is often forgotten that this day of commemoration of working class revolutionary awareness originated with the movement for the eight-hour day and the other basic rights of labor that are taken for granted by American workers today — the movement that was centered in Chicago and that reached its peak in 1886.
     The story begins at a convention of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in 1884. The Federation (the predecessor to the American Federation of Labor) called for a great movement to win the 8-hour workday, which would climax on 01 May 1886.
      The plan was to spend two years urging all American employers to adopt a standard 8-hour day, instead of the 10 to 12, even up to 16-hour days that were prevalent. After 01 May of 1886, all workers not yet on an 8-hour schedule, were to cease work in a nation-wide strike until their employer would meet the demand.

80'000 Marched
      Although some employers did meet the deadline, many did not. Accordingly, great demonstrations took place on 01 May all across the US. Chicago's was the biggest with an estimated 80'000 marching on Michigan Avenue, much to the alarm of Chicago's business leaders and newspapers who saw it as foreshadowing "revolution," and demanded a police crackdown.
      In fact, the Anarchists and other political radicals in Chicago were reluctant to have anything to do with the 8-hour day strike, which they saw as "reformist;" but they were prevailed upon by the unionists to participate because Albert Parsons and others were such powerful orators and had a substantial following.
      On 03 May, strikers and their supporters at the McCormick Reaper plant on Blue Island Ave. were killed and injured by police.
     A mass protest meeting was called for the night of 04 May 1886 in the city haymarket at Randolph St. and DesPlaines Ave. It was so poorly planned that the organizers had to round up speakers, including Parsons, at the spur of the moment. A rain began to fall, and as the last speaker was concluding, a large force of 200 police arrived with a demand that the meeting disperse.

Bomb Thrown
      Someone, unknown to this day, then threw a bomb at the massed police. In their confusion, the police began firing their weapons in the dark, killing at least four in the crowd and wounding many more. Several police were killed (only one by the bomb), the rest probably by police fire. The myth of the Haymarket Riot was born.
      In the aftermath of the event, unions were raided all across the country. The Eight-Hour Movement was derailed and it was not until passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1935, that the 8-hour workday became the national standard, a part of the Fair Labor Standards Act passed during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal."
      Albert Parsons and seven others associated with radical organizations were prosecuted in a show trial. None were linked to the unknown bomb thrower, and some were not even present at the time. They were held to be responsible for the bomb thrower's act, because their public criticism of corporate America, the political structure, and the use of police power against the working people, was alleged to have inspired the bomber.

Governor's Pardon
      They were found guilty in a trial which Governor John Peter Altgeld subsequently held to be grossly unfair.
      The Haymarket case became a world-wide scandal. Governor Oglesby was petitioned by hundreds of thousands, including AFL President Samuel Gompers, to grant clemency, and thus prevent a miscarriage of justice by stopping the executions. It was to no avail. They were hanged on 11 November 1887.
      In July of 1889, a delegate from the AFL attending an international labor conference in Paris, urged that 01 May of each year be celebrated as a day of labor solidarity. It was adopted. Accordingly, with the glaring exception of the United States, workers throughout most of the civilized world consider May First to be their "Labor Day."
     On 26 June 1894, Governor John Peter Altgeld, having found the trial to be grossly unfair, pardoned those defendants still alive and in prison; but Parsons, Spies, Fischer, and Engel had been hanged, and Lingg was an alleged suicide [in his prison cell, on the eve of the hanging, by lighting a stick of dynamite in his mouth: how he could get that dynamite is a mystery to me]. — // from http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/haymkmon.htm
1884 Construction begins on Chicago's first skyscraper (10 stories)
1873 First US postal card issued
1867 Reconstruction of South begins, Black voter registration
1863 Confederate Congress passes resolution to kill Black soldiers
1863 Siege of Suffolk, Virginia by Confederates continues
1863 Battle of Port Gibson, Mississippi
1863 Beginning of 4-day Battle of Chancellorsville near Fredericksburg, Virginia
1862 Siege of Yorktown, Virginia continues
1857 William Walker, conqueror of Nicaragua, surrenders to US Navy
1845 At a convention in Louisville, KY, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South was organized as a new denomination, separate from its parent, the Methodist Episcopal Church.
1841 First emigrant wagon train leaves Independence, Missouri for California
1840 First adhesive postage stamps ("Penny Blacks", in England) issued
1810 US President empowered to control foreign trade       ^top^
      During the early 1800s, the United States' relations with both England and France were particularly chilly. US merchant ships had become ensnared in the Napoleonic Wars, prompting Congress and President Thomas Jefferson to take economic action against the British and French governments. However, their decision to seal off trade with Europe proved to be a bad misstep: the embargo caused most domestic merchants to suffer, while some French traders in fact prospered. Legislators moved to rectify the situation by passing the Non-Intercourse Act (1809), which renewed trade relations between America and Europe, save for Britain and France.
      However, America soon reopened the waters to trade with its recalcitrant partners. First, in the spring of 1809, President James Madison lifted the embargo against England; then, on this day in 1810, Congress passed Macon's Bill No. 2, which granted Madison the power to resume trade with England and France. The legislation, which also gave Madison the leeway to slam shut the door to trade with either nation, was hardly a hit at home or abroad: Federalist forces lambasted Macon's Bill, while the French viewed it as a clear demonstration of America's pro-British leanings. The hostilities hardly abated and, a few short years later, Madison sailed the nation into the War of 1812.
1794 Cordwainers Unite!       ^top^
      The long and turbulent history of America's labor unions officially began on this day in 1794, as a group of shoemakers decided to join forces in the battle for wages and workplace amenities. The shoemakers, who consecrated their new brotherhood by gathering in Philadelphia, christened themselves the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers. The Cordwainers' move to unionize was borne of the shift from "economic clientage" to an open wage system that occurred in America during the late eighteenth century. This change inspired workers such as the shoemakers join forces in hopes of legitimizing their wage scales and guarding against competition from bargain-basement priced labor, craftsmen.
1776 Adam Weishaupt founds the secret society of Illuminati
1707 England, Wales and Scotland form UK of Great Britain
1501 In his encyclical "Ad ea quae circa decorem," Pope Alexander VI sanctioned the Minim Friars, a religious order founded by Francis of Paola (1416-1507) in 1435.
1006 Supernova observed by Chinese and Egyptians in constellation Lupus
TO THE TOP
Deaths which occurred on a May 01:
2004 Two US engineers, one Australian, two Britons, one Saudi national guardsman, and three of the four gunmen who shoot randomly in the offices of a Saudi contractor at an oil refinery co-owned by Exxon Mobil and the Saudi company SABIC in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia.
2003 A US citizen, shot by an attacker wearing a Saudi navy uniform, at the King Abdul Aziz Naval base in Jubail, Saudi Arabia.
2003 Khaled Makhamra, a leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, and a Palestinian policeman, shot by Israeli troops attacking Yata, south of Hebron, West Bank. The Reuters body count of the al-Aqsa intifada is now “at least” 2034 Palestinians and 737 Israelis.
2003 Amer Ayad, 2; the 3 brothers Yusuf Abu Hin, 30, Mahmoud Abu Hin, 37, and Ayman Abu Hin, 29, and 9 other Palestinians, including two 13-year-old boys and a man, 67, in Israeli 03:00-to-16:00 attack (intended to arrest the Abu Hins and other militants) on the Sajayia neighborhood of Gaza City. 15 Palestinians are wounded.
Chandra Levy2003 At least 176 persons, including 83 of the 198 boys in a collapsed school dormitory in Bingol, by magnitude 6.4 earthquake at 03:27 (00:27 UT) with epicenter at 38º58'N 40º28'E at a depth of 10 km, 10 km NNW of Bingol in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan.
Gary Condit2001 Assaf Hershkovitz, 31, killed by the Islamic militant group Hamas in retaliation for Palestinians killed by explosions the previous day. Hershkovitz was a resident of the Jewish enclave settlement of Ofra. His father, Arieh Hershkovitz, had been killed in another West Bank drive-by shooting in January 2001. Hershkovitz's van overturned after shots were fired at the vehicle on a road near the Beit El settlement on the outskirts of the West Bank town of Ramallah. He was wearing a bulletproof vest when he was killed. This brings the body count of the 7-month-old al-Aqsa intifada to 72 Israelis (including 4 non-Jews in Israeli army) and 431 Palestinians (including four suicide bombers, several suspected informers for Israel killed by Palestinian militants, 13 Israeli Arabs killed in pro-Palestinian riots and a German resident of the West Bank).
2001 Chandra Levy [< photo], 24, dies mysteriously, sometime after logging off her computer (where she been consulting a web site about at about Klingle Mansion in Rock Creek Park) at 13:00 in her Washington DC apartment, where her wallet, credit card, computer, and cell phone, but not her keys, remain. Soon the revelation of her love affair with married Congressman Gary Condit [photo >], 54, whose district includes her Modesto, California, home town, propels her disapperance into front-page news (eventually it ruins Condit's political career). On 22 May 2002, the dog of a man looking for turtles in Rock Creek Park a couple of kilometers north of Klingle Mansion (6 km from Levy's apartment) discovers bones, a jogging bra, tennis shoes, and other items that turn out to be the remains of Chandra Levy.
1999 Marcus Omofuma, 25, Nigerian suffocated while being forcibly deported from Austria, where he had sought asylum, by three Austrian police officers on a flight to Sofia. Police officers had bound his arms and legs on the way to the airport and covered his mouth with adhesive tape when he continued his verbal protest on the plane. When they removed the adhesive tape after landing, the officers realised that Marcus Omofuma had lost consciousness. By the time a doctor arrived to treat him.
1998 Eldridge Cleaver, 62, in Pomona, California, fiery Black Panther leader who later renounced his past and became a Republican.
1973 Asger Oluf Jörgensen Jorn, Danish painter, printmaker, decorative artist, ceramicist, sculptor, and writer, also active in France, born on 03 April 1914. — more
1973 Gloria Carpenter, 59,       ^top^
found dead in her Modesto, California, home. Her body was submerged in the bathtub, initially leading authorities to believe that she had died of natural causes. Her case led to the lie detector test being found not admissible in court.
      A closer examination of the body revealed that Carpenter had been strangled to death and possibly raped. Investigators found that Carpenter had been out drinking with Jimmy Wayne Glenn earlier in the night. Despite their suspicions, police had no evidence connecting Glenn to the murder. Hoping for a clue, they asked Glenn to take a lie detection test with the newly invented Psychological Stress Evaluator.
      The Psychological Stress Evaluator (PSE) is a device that uses the recording of a person's voice to allegedly detect prevarication through ordinarily imperceptible vibrations. Unlike the standard polygraph machine, the PSE does not need to be hooked up to the person. However, as with the polygraph, there are serious doubts as to whether it actually works.
      In 1988, Congress passed the Employee Polygraph Protection Act after scientific studies showed that the tests were inaccurate. The law bars employers' use of lie detectors and other devices that purportedly gauge whether an individual is lying. Lie detection tests are also inadmissible in criminal courts. The most effective use of lie detection devices seems to be that suspects often confess to crimes if they believe that their lies will be discovered by the machine. Although this wasn't the case with Jimmy Wayne Glenn, the PSE examiner was convinced he was lying. The police continued to focus their investigation on Glenn, eventually finding physical evidence that linked him to the crime. Glenn was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
1959 Oscar Torp Norwegian premier
1932 Paul Doumer, President of France, assassinated by Russian Paul Gargalov.
1929 Edouard Eugène François Vallet, Swiss painter, draftsman, and printmaker, born on 12 January 1876. — more
1928 6 children, by hailstones in Klausenburg, Romania. 10 are injured.
1919 Some 5000 people in 104 small villages, as Mount Kelud (Indonesia) erupts, boiling crater lake which breaks through crater wall.
1915 Neutral US ship Gulflight, sunk by WW I German submarine.
1900 Mihály Munkácsy von Lieb, Hungarian Realist painter born on 20 February 1844. — MORE ON MUNKÁCSY AT ART “4” MAY with links to images.
1898 Nearly 400 Spanish sailors at the Battle of Manila Bay       ^top^
      At the Battle of Manila Bay, a US Navy squadron under Commodore George Dewey wins a decisive victory against a larger Spanish fleet. Four hundred Spanish sailors are killed and ten Spanish warships wrecked or captured at the cost of only six Americans wounded. Dewey’s victory clears the way for the US occupation of Manila in August, and the eventual transfer of the Philippines from Spanish to American control.
      In early 1898, Spain's brutal response to the Cuban rebellion against Spanish rule, the mysterious explosion of the US battleship Maine in Havana harbor, and the heavy losses to American investment caused by the Cuban conflict, were all factors that intensified US feeling against Spain. In late April, the US Congress prepared for war, adopting joint congressional resolutions demanding a Spanish withdrawal from Cuba and authorizing President William McKinley to use force.
      On 23 April, President McKinley asked for 125'000 volunteers to fight against Spain, and the next day Spain issued a declaration of war. One week later, Dewey won his great victory at Manila Bay, and on 11 June, six hundred US Marines landed at Guantanamo, Cuba. In Cuba, American forces, featuring the Theodore Roosevelt-led cavalry regiment known as the "Rough Riders," triumphed at the battles of El Caney and San Juan Heights, and on 03 July, the remaining Spanish fleet was destroyed near Santiago de Cuba.
      On 17 July, nearly 25'000 Spanish soldiers surrendered at Santiago de Cuba, and the war effectively came to an end. An armistice was signed on 12 August, and representatives were sent to Paris, France, to arrange peace. On 10 December, the Treaty of Paris was signed, officially ending the Spanish-American war, virtually dissolving the once-proud Spanish Empire, and granting the United States its first overseas empire. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded to the United States, and Cuba became a US protectorate. Hawaii, an independent republic run by American expatriates since 1894, was also formally annexed during the Spanish-American War.
     At Manila Bay in the Philippines, the US Asiatic Squadron destroys the Spanish Pacific fleet in the first battle of the Spanish-American War. Nearly 400 Spanish sailors were killed and 10 Spanish warships wrecked or captured at the cost of only six Americans wounded. The Spanish-American War had its origins in the rebellion against Spanish rule that began in Cuba in 1895. The repressive measures that Spain took to suppress the guerrilla war, such as herding Cuba's rural population into disease-ridden garrison towns, were graphically portrayed in US newspapers and enflamed public opinion. In January 1898, violence in Havana led US authorities to order the battleship USS Maine to the city's port to protect US citizens. On 15 February, a massive explosion of unknown origin sank the Maine in the Havana harbor, killing 260 of the 400 US crewmembers aboard. An official US Naval Court of Inquiry ruled in March, without much evidence, that the ship was blown up by a mine but did not directly place the blame on Spain. Much of Congress and a majority of the American public expressed little doubt that Spain was responsible, however, and called for a declaration of war. In April, the US Congress prepared for war, adopting joint congressional resolutions demanding a Spanish withdrawal from Cuba and authorizing President William McKinley to use force.
      On 23 April, President McKinley asked for 125'000 volunteers to fight against Spain. The next day, Spain issued a declaration of war. The United States declared war on 25 April. US Commodore George Dewey, in command of the seven-warship US Asiatic Squadron anchored north of Hong Kong, was ordered to "capture or destroy" the Spanish Pacific fleet, which was known to be in the coastal waters of the Spanish-controlled Philippines. On 30 April, Dewey's lookouts caught sight of Luzon, the main Philippine island. That night, under cover of darkness and with the lights aboard the US warships extinguished, the squadron slipped by the defensive guns of Corregidor Island and into Manila Bay. After dawn rose, the US lookouts sighted the Spanish fleet: 10 out-of-date warships anchored off the Cavite naval station. The US fleet, in comparison, was well armed and well staffed, largely due to the efforts of the energetic assistant secretary of the navy, Theodore Roosevelt, who had also selected Dewey for the command of the Asiatic Squadron.
      At 05:41, at a range of 4900 meters from the enemy, Commodore Dewey turned to the captain of his flagship, the Olympia, and said, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.” Two hours later, the Spanish fleet was decimated, and Dewey ordered a pause in the fighting. He met with his captains and ordered the crews a second breakfast. The four surviving Spanish vessels, trapped in the little harbor at Cavite, refused to surrender, and at 11:15. fighting resumed. At 12:30, a signal was sent from the gunboat USS Petrel to Dewey's flagship: "The enemy has surrendered."
      Dewey's decisive victory cleared the way for the US occupation of Manila in August and the eventual transfer of the Philippines from Spanish to US control. In Cuba, Spanish forces likewise crumbled in the face of superior US forces, and on 12 August an armistice was signed between Spain and the United States. In December, the Treaty of Paris officially ended the brief Spanish-US War. The once-proud Spanish empire was virtually dissolved, and the United States gained its first overseas empire. Puerto Rico and Guam were ceded to the United States, the Philippines were bought for $20 million, and Cuba became a US protectorate. Philippine insurgents who fought against Spanish rule during the war immediately turned their guns against the new occupiers, and 10 times more US soldiers died suppressing the Philippines than in defeating Spain.
1897 Louisa Luetgert, murdered by her husband Adolphe Luetgert, who, on 11 March 1897, had had 378 pounds of potash delivered to his sausage factory in Chicago, in which he now boils the corpse. Only a few tiny bone fragments and two gold ring, one engraved with Louisa's name, would be found. Adolphe would be convicted of first-degree murder and die in prison 14 years later.
1886 (or 02 May?) Jerome Thompson, US painter born on 30 January 1814.
1875 Alfred George Stevens, English sculptor, designer, and painter, born on 31 December 1817. — MORE ON STEVENS AT ART “4” MAY with links to images.
1870 Gabriel Lamé, French engineer and mathematician born on 22 July 1795. He worked on a wide variety of different topics. His work on differential geometry and contributions to Fermat's Last Theorem are important. In 1839 he proved the theorem for n=7, ie. that x^7 + y^7 = z^7 has no non-zero integer solutions for x, y and z
1869 A colt, by a meteorite, near New Concord, Ohio.
1794 (12 floréal an II) Condamnés à mort par la Révolution:       ^top^
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire ou militaire de Paris:
BERNARD Claude Antoine, âgé de 32 ans, marchand de bois, né et domicilié à Besançon (Doubs), comme convaincu de conspiration contre l'unité et l'indivisibilité de la République et la sûreté du Peuple français.
MOUTHON François Joseph, âgé de 34 ans, natif de Turin, garde du tyran Sarde, et lieutenant de gendarmerie au service de la République à Carrouge, domicilié à Chambéry (Mont-Blanc), comme contre-révolutionnaire agent des fédéralistes, ayant provoqué une force départementale pour marcher sur Paris.
POULET Jean Antoine, agent de l'émigré Beaufremont commissaire de section à Besançon, âgé de 60 ans, né et domicilié à Besençon (Doubs), comme convaincu d'avoir entretenu des intelligences avec les fédéralistes de Strasbourg.
RABAULT Jacques, négociant armateur, âgé de 56 ans, natif de Jason, département du Tarn, domicilié à Marseille (Bouches du Rhône), comme convaincu de s’être montré un des plus zélés partisans du fédéralisme.
CHALMETON Joseph Ignace, procureur syndic, du district d’Uzès, domicilié à Nismes (Gard).
NOGARET Guillaume, commis marchand épicier, et commissaire de section à Besançon, âgé de 46 ans, natif de Dijon (Côte-d’Or), domicilié à Besançon, (Doubs), comme contre-révolutionnaire.
GLUTRON Jean, âgé de 39 ans, né à Braville, aubergiste et entrepreneur des convois militaires, domicilié à Evreux (Eure), comme fournisseur infidèle.
LAUDOIS Pierre, huissier, âgé de 30 ans, né à St Nicolas (Eure), commis de Glutron, entrepreneur des convois, domicilié à Evreux, même département, comme fonctionnaire public infidèle.
DELIGNY Claude Louis, âgé de 59 ans natif de Boutigny (Seine et Marne), cultivateur fermier, domicilié à Pommeuse, même département, comme convaincu d’avoir enfoui quantité de bijoux et assignats.
CHUPIN (ou CAUPIN ou CHUPPIN) Adélaïde Jos., ex noble, âgée de 43 ans, femme de Langlois de Pommeuse, conseiller de grand-chambre au parlement de Paris, domiciliée à Paris, comme contre-révolutionnaire convaincue d'avoir enfoui quantité d'assignats et bijoux.
LANGLOIS-DE-POMMEUSE Auguste Henri, ex noble, ex conseiller au ci-devant parlement, âgé de 59 ans, né et domicilié à Paris, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
LANGLOIS Auguste Louis (dit Rezy), ancien officier aux gardes, âgé de 46 ans, né et domicilié à Paris, comme contre révolutionnaire.
SEURRE Gervais (dit Joinville), âgé de 44 ans, natif de Nigueville, domestique de Langlois-Pommeuse, domicilié à Paris, comme contre-révolutionnaire, ayant enterré et enfoui une grande partie d'argenterie et de numéraire de Langlois et sa femme.
VILLECOT Guillaume, jardinier, âgé de 39 ans, natif de Maupertuis, domicilié à Guerard, par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, comme convaincu d'avoir caché de l'argenterie dans le jardin de Langlois-Guerard, et porté chez Deligny du numéraire et des bijoux pour les enfouir.
VIGNIE Etienne, ex chapelain de Langlois de Pommeuse, âgé de 40 ans, né à Rigeaux (Seine et Marne), comme convaincu d'avoir facilité les correspondances et intelligences entretenues par les frères et femme Langlois, avec les ennemis extérieurs de la République.
Domiciliés à Ste Lumine-du-Coutay, département de la Loire Inférieure, par la commission militaire séante à Nantes, comme brigands de la Vendée:
GRELE Pierre. — GUILBOT ClaudePILOT HubertRENAUD PierreVERGER Pierre.
A Arras:
CATAËRT Auguste, âgé de 45 ans, né à Lille, y demeurant, orfèvre joaillier, guillotiné.
DE LAMBESSART Lamoral François Joseph Humbert, âgé de 30 ans, rentier, né et demeurant à Lille.
DELATTRE Joseph, âgé de 50 ans, né à Lagnicourt, demeurant à Etrun, receveur, célibataire.
DELORNE D'ALINCOURT Louis, âgé de 38 ans, né à Paris, cultivateur à Allouagne.
LESUR Barnabé François Henri, âgé de 42 ans, né à Béthune, médecin, demeurant à Lille.
VITRY Elisabeth Caroline, âgée de 80 ans, née à Aire, y demeurant, veuve de Lamette N.
Ailleurs:
BOUTTIER Mathieu Louis, prêtre, domicilié à Mézière, canton de Rennes (Ille et Vilaine), comme réfractaire à la loi, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
BRUGIERE Jean, prêtre domicilié à Sauve-Libre, canton de Besse (Puy-de-Dôme), comme réfractaire à la loi, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
DEFUGE Louis, domicilié à Montpellier (Hérault), par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme émigré.
DUDOT Médard, et DUDOT Jean Sébastien, fils de Jean François Xavier, domiciliés à Gorze (Moselle), par le tribunal criminel militaire près de Moselle, comme émigrés.
LIMOGES Leger, ex curé de Bouchaud, domicilié à Bouchaud (Dordogne), comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
PORTEFAIX-BORIE André, ex supérieur du séminaire d'Alby, domicilié à Paulhiac (Lozère), par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme réfractaire à la loi.
1793 JUZEAU Antoine, âgé de 23 ans, négociant, né et domicilié à Angoulême (Charente), est condamné à mort par le tribunal révolutionnaire séant à Paris, comme émigré.
1730 François de Troy, French portrait painter born in February 1645. — MORE ON DE TROY AT ART “4” MAY with links to images.
1171 Dermot MacMurrough, last Irish king of Leinster
Births which occurred on a May 01:
1971 Amtrak starts operations.       ^top^
     In the US during the 1940s the passenger train began fighting a battle against the airplane and private automobile. By the 1960s the passenger train was rarely considered as a means of travel. Schedules were erratic, trains were run down, and more often than not the journey was a miserable experience. Then, in October, 1970, in an attempt to revive passenger rail service, Congress passed the Rail Passenger Service Act, which created the National Railroad Passenger Corporationo a private company. It is better known as Amtrak, a blending of the words "American" and "Track".
      On 01 May 1971, with 25 employees, Amtrak begins managing a nation-wide rail system dedicated to passenger service, as Clocker no. 235 departs from New York's Penn Station at 00:05 bound for Philadelphia. Amtrak announces a schedule of 184 trains, serving 314 destinations. Two of the original employees would be among the 25'000 of the year 2000, when Amtrak would be serving with 265 trains per weekday (excluding commuter trains) more than 500 stations in all US states except Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
     Amtrak takes over the passenger operations of 18 US intercity passenger railroads. The other three would continue their own intercity passenger train service for some time. They are the Rock Island Railroad, the Southern Railway, and the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad. The Southern Railway would ceased operations of its Southern Crescent in 1979, which Amtrak would take over, renaming it the Crescent. The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad would cease passenger train operations in 1983, and Amtrak would replace them by re-routing its California Zephyr.
1931 Empire State Building opens       ^top^
      At the White House in Washington DC, President Herbert Hoover pushed a button that turned on the lights of New York City’s Empire State Building, officially opening the tallest building ever built until 41 years later. Standing 102 stories, or 443 m from the top of its lightning rod to 34th Street and Fifth Avenue below, the skyscraper became a world-famous symbol of US ambition, and dominated the Manhattan skyline for decades. Designed by architect William Frederick Lamb, the Empire State Building was constructed during the height of the Great Depression, but took just over a year to complete at a cost of only forty million dollars. In 1950, a 62-meter television transmitter-tower was constructed on the building’s roof. Although the Empire State Building was surpassed as the world’s tallest building in 1972 by New York’s first World Trade Center tower, and later by others (see below) it remained a top-ten tourist destination for US travelers.
     Every year there is a race up the 1575 steps from the Lobby to the 86th floor. Paul Crake, from Australia, finished in a record 9 min. 53 sec. in 2000. The elevator can do it in 45 sec.
From left to right, in the above scale drawing, the buildings are:
CN Tower (553 m, Toronto), World Financial Center (468 m, Shanghai), Petronas Towers (twin; 452 m, Kuala Lumpur), Sears Tower (443 m, Chicago), Jin Mao Building (420 m, Shanghai), [World Trade Center (twin; 417 m, New York) destroyed on 11 September 2001], Empire State Building (381 m), Central Plaza (Hong Kong), Bank of China (369 m, Hong Kong), Tuntex and Chein-Tai Tower (Kaoshiung), Amoco Building (346 m, Chicago), John Hancock Tower (344 m, Chicago), Shun Hing Square (325 m, Shenzen), Sky Central Plaza (322 m, Guangzhou), Baiyoke Tower II (Bangkok), Chrysler Building (319 m, New York), NationsBank Plaza (Atlanta), First Interstate World Center (310 m, Los Angeles), ATandT Corporate Center (Chicago), Texas Commerce Tower (305 m, Houston).
P.S. A discussion of the many meanings of "the tallest structure in the world".
1933 The Catholic Worker, first issue is published. Founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, the monthly newspaper will promote social reconstruction through shared farming and housing for the urban poor.
1925 "The Thoroughbred of Racing Cars" slogan       ^top^
      Ettore Bugatti registers both the slogan "Le Pur Sang Des Automobiles," and the thoroughbred racing horse profile, as French trademarks.
      The year before, Bugatti had produced the breakthrough sports car on which his historic reputation is founded. The Bugatti 35, often called the most beautiful car ever designed, was the first sports car capable of reaching 160 km/h. Equipped with a hollow front axle, cast aluminum wheels, and cable-actuated brakes, the Bugatti 35's lightweight aluminum body panels tapered gracefully in a continuous line from grill to tail. The Type 35 won 351 races and broke forty-seven records in 1926, living up to its description as the thoroughbred of automobiles.
1924 Terry Southern, US novelist and screenwriter who died on 29 October 1995.
1923 Joseph Heller,       ^top^
near Coney Island in Brooklyn, author of Catch-22. His father, a Russian immigrant who drove a bakery delivery truck, died when Heller was five. Heller attended Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn and worked as a filing clerk and blacksmith's assistant before enlisting in the Army. He trained as a bombardier and flew 60 combat missions near the end of World War II. While in the military, he ran across an apparent paradox in Army regulations. A pilot could be grounded if found insane, but if the pilot requested to be grounded because of insanity, the Army considered him perfectly sane for wanting to avoid danger-and wouldn't ground him. This paradox defined his first novel, the satirical masterpiece Catch-22 (1961).
      After the war, Heller attended college on the GI Bill, earning a master's degree from Columbia and studying at Oxford for a year on a Fulbright scholarship. During the next decade, he taught English at Penn State, wrote advertising copy for Time and Look magazines, and later worked as a promotions manager at McCall's. He wrote Catch 22 in his spare time, over the course of eight years. The book wasn't an overnight success, but it became increasingly popular as the anti-war protest movements of the 1960s caught fire. Catch-22 became known as the first great protest novel after World War II. Heller's subsequent six novels, including Something Happened (1974), Good as Gold (1979), God Knows (1984), and Closing Time (1994), never achieved the popularity of Catch 22. Meanwhile, in 1982, Heller's marriage ended, and he was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a potentially fatal muscular disease. He spent a year in the hospital and recuperating at home. At the end of the year, he married his nurse.
Guillain-Barre Syndrome:
     Guillain-Barre Syndrome (acute idiopathic polyneuritis) is a very rare, rapidly progressive disorder causing inflammation of the nerves (polyneuritis) and paralysis. Although the precise cause of Guillain-Barre Syndrome is unknown, a viral or respiratory infection precedes the onset of the syndrome in about half of the cases. This has led to the theory that Guillain-Barre Syndrome may be an autoimmune disease. Damage to the covering of nerve cells (myelin) and nerve axons (the extension of the nerve cell that conducts impulses away from the nerve cell body) results in delayed nerve signal transmission. There is a corresponding weakness in the muscles innervated by the affected nerves.
1912 Winthrop Rockefeller, US philanthropist and governor of Arkansas (1967-71). He died on 22 February 1973.
1900 Secondino Tranquilli “Ignazio Silone”       ^top^
       An Italian, he would become a writer, leftist politician, possibly secret agent, and died on 22 August 1978.
     Secondino Tranquilli lost his father in 1910, then a brother, and his mother in the January 1915 earthquake in the Marsica region. By age 18, he became a socialist militant, and in 1921 took part in the foundation of the Partito Comunista Italiano, and wrote for party newspapers. From 1921 to 1927 he accomplished missions of the Communist Party in various European countries, and was imprisoned a couple of times. On 13 April 1928 his brother Romolo Tranquilli was arrested as a suspect in the assination attempt on king Vittorio Emanuele III (which resulted in 20 persons killed and 40 wounded, and whose real culprits have never been discovered); Romolo died in prison in 1932 from the tortures inflicted by the fascist police). It seems that Silone, a high ranking Communist by then, became a double agent for the fascist police (so as to alleviate the fate of his brother).
      In a letter of 13 April 1930, Silone announces that he intends to end both his membership in the Communist Party (whose “cretino e criminale” adhesion to Stalinism he rejected) and his collaboration with the fascist police. Silone spent 1931 to 1944 in exile in Switzerland. His most famous novel is Fontamara (published in 1933, first in German). He wrote also Un viaggio a Parigi (6 short stories, 1935), the novels Vino e pane (1937) and Il Seme Sotto la Neve (1941), the essay Il fascismo, le sue origini e il suo sviluppo (1934); the political phisosophy work La scuola dei dittatori (1938), the antology Nuovo incontro con Mazzini (1939), the play Ed egli si nascose (1944, written in Swiss internment imposed because of his clandestine socialist political activities). Disappointed by political parties, he returned to writing: three novels: Una manciata di more (1952), Il segreto di Luca (1956), La volpe e le camelie (1960); a volume of essays and short stories Uscita di Sicurezza (1949); a play: L'avventura di un povero cristiano (1968); his last novel La speranza di Suor Severina (posthumously, 1981).
1898 Eugene Black, US financier; president of the World Bank (1949-62). He died on 20 February 1992.
1896 Mark Clark, US army general during World War II and the Korean War. He died on 17 April 1984.
1887 Alan G. Cunningham,       ^top^
who grew up to be commander of the British forces that captured Ethiopia in World War II, liberating it from its Italian occupiers.
      The younger brother of Admiral Andrew Cunningham, the man who effectively eliminated the Italian naval threat in the Mediterranean as early as 1940, General Alan Cunningham did virtually the same to the Italian threat in Ethiopia. Overcoming topographical and administrative obstacles, Cunningham's forces entered Italian Somaliland, occupied the ports of Chisimaio and Mogadiscio, and then pursued the Axis enemy into the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. On May 20, 1941, along with General Sir William Platt, whose army was advancing on the Italian invaders from the north, Cunningham received the surrender of Amadeo di Savoia, commander of the Italian armies. The way was paved for the return of Ethiopia's emperor, Haile Selassie. Cunningham was less successful in campaigns in Libya and was finally relieved of his command. He returned to England and in 1941 was knighted for the successes he had enjoyed. He went on to become British high commissioner in Palestine from 1945 until Israel's independence in 1948. His autobiography, A Sailor's Odyssey, was published in 1951.
1881 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French philosopher and paleontologist, who died on 10 April 1955.
1865 Frans Mortelmans, Belgian artist who (mortal man's fate) died in 1936.
1858 Charles Vetter, German artist who died in 1936.
1855 Cecilia Beaux, US portrait painter who died on 17 September 1942. — a bit more with links to images.
1848 Adelsteen Eilert Normann (or Normand), Norwegian artist who died in 1918.
1830 Mary Harris Jones “Mother Jones”       ^top^
in Ireland, one of the most passionate and enduring figures in the US union movement.
      Jones immigrated to the United States and married an ironworker. Her involvement with labor was sparked by twin tragedies in the latter half of the nineteenth century: Jones lost her husband in 1867, and then all her worldly goods in the Chicago fire of 1871. Left in a seemingly desperate bind, Jones sought help from the Knights of Labor, then a nascent labor organization enjoying its first fruits of success. Jones identified with the Knights’ push to ameliorate workers' lives, and readily lent her help to their cause. She proved to be a fierce organizer and a tremendous public speaker, inspiring crowds of workers to join forces with the labor movement.
      By 1890, Jones had became one of the flag-bearers for the United Mine Workers, crusading in the name of organizing and aiding the nation's coal miners. Jones died on 30 November 1930, just as the US and its workers were descending into the depths of the Great Depression.
1829 José Alencar, Brazilian journalist, novelist, and playwright, who died on 12 December 1877.
1828 George Clarkson Stanfield, British artist who died on 22 March 1878.
1827 Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton, French Realist painter who died on 05 July 1906. — MORE ON BRETON AT ART “4” MAY with links to images.
1825 George Innes I, US Hudson River School painter who died on 03 August 1894. — MORE ON INNES AT ART “4” MAY with links to images.
1825 Johann Jakob Balmer, Swiss mathematician who died on 12 March 1898. He is best remembered not fon mathematics which occupied most of his life, but for his work on spectral series and his 1885 formula for the wavelengths of the spectral lines of the hydrogen atom l = hm² / (m² - n²), which for m - 3, 4, 5, 6, fitted the data he had; and which correctly predicted the lines for m= 7, and the next few values.
1813 Abraham Hulk I, Dutch British artist who died on 14 November 1884.
1785 Guillaume-François Colson, French artist who died on 03 February 1850.
1769 Arthur Wellesley Duke of Wellington, English general who defeated Napoléon at the Battle of Waterloo; British PM (C) (1828-30). He died on 14 September 1852.
1697 David Mathieu, German artist who died on 08 June 1755.
1682 Paris Observatory inaugurated by Louis XIV and his court.
1672 Joseph Addison, English essayist, poet, and dramatist, who died on 17 June 1719.
1567 Michiel Janszoon van Mierevelt, Dutch painter who died on 27 June 1641.
1493 Phillippus Paracelsus Switzerland, physician/alchemist (or 11/10)
Holidays  66 nations : Labor Day / Zambia : Labour Day (Monday ) / Finland : Vappu Day / Hawaii : Lei Day / Mass : Senior Citizens' Day (1963) / US : Child Health Day / US : Dewey Day (Battle of Manila Bay) (1898) / Turkey : Commemoration of Yunus Emre

Religious Observances RC : St Joseph the Workman, stepfather of Jesus (opt) / Ang, Luth : SS Philip and James, apostles

Thoughts for the day :
Do not clog intellect`s sluices with knowledge of questionable uses.”
“When you try to get even, you end up being at odds.”
“The world needs odd numbers and odd persons, they should not try to get even.”
"He who is swift to believe is swift to forget."
— Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Polish-born scholar [1907 – 23 Dec 1972] — {The only thing I remember about whatever it is that Rabbi What's-His-Name said, is that I never believed it.}
"He who is swift to believe is swift to forget Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.”
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