18 May History: This Date

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Events, deaths, births, of 18 MAY
[For May 18 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: May 28 — 1700s: May 29 — 1800s: May 30 — 1900~2099: May 31]

ALTERNATE SITES ALL FOR 030518 ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” MAY 18

• Khayyam is born... • Mount St. Helens erupts... • Monte Cassino falls to Allies... • India has nuclear weapons... • Condamnés à mort par la Révolution... • 1000 soldats français assassinés... • Labor back in power in Israel... • Lincoln nominated for President... • Segregation ruled legal... • TK/Solver... • Siege of Vicksburg... • In God We Trust... • AT&T and Yahoo!... • Warrant for Marlowe's arrest...• Heaviside is born... • Nazis occupy Italy... • Evangelist disappears...

On a May 18:
2003 On this his 83rd birthday, Pope John Paul II canonizes as saints: Józef Sebastian Pelczar [17 Jan 1842 – 28 March 1924], Bishop of Przemysl, Poland, and founder of the Zgromadzenie Sluzebnic Najswietszego Serca Jezusowego. Sister Maria Urszula od Jezusa (Julia Ledóchowska) [1865 – 29 May 1939], a Polish Ursuline religious who founded the offshoot congregation of the Urszulanki od N. Serca Jezusa Konajacego. Her sister Maria Teresa (beatified in 1975) founded the future Sodalicje sw.Piotra Klawera and was beatified in 1975. Her younger brother Wlodzimierz became the Prefect General of the Jesuits.
Maria De Mattias [04 Feb 1805 – 20 Aug 1866] who founded the Congregazione delle Suore Adoratrici del Sangue di Cristo on 04 March 1834, which, during her lifetime, expanded to some 70 communities, mostly in central Italy. Virginia Centurione Bracelli [02 April 1587 – 15 Dec 1651], of Genoa, who, on 10 Dec 1602, was made to marry Gaspare Grimaldi Bracelli, a dissolute gambler who died on 13 January 1607, after which she dedicated the rest of her life to God and to the service of the poor.
This brings the number of saints which John Paul II has canonized during his nearly 25-year pontificate, to 473, more than any other Pope.
2003 In the village Sit Tbow, Cambodia, a reporter takes the photo shown below, of the boy Oeun Sambat, 3, and his inseparable companion Chamreun (“Lucky”), a 4-meter-long female python. A fortune teller has said that the boy must have been the son of a dragon in a previous life [disregarding the possibility that he and the snake might have been Romeo and Juliet]. The boy will probably become a traditional healer at the age of 7, but already villagers from the region come to visit him, believing that he has supernatural powers which can help them.

2000 In Kuala Lumpur, Chong Lih Ying, 27 days old, receives the transplant of the left arm and hand of her identical twin, who had died at birth. This is the world's first arm and hand transplant to a baby.

1999 Labor back in power in Israel ^top^
      After three years of a Likud government with Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, a stalled peace process and epidemic political in-fighting within the cabinet lead to electoral defeat by Labor challenger Ehud Barak. During his concession speech that evening, Netanyahu also resigns as Likud party leader.
     In what was regarded as a setback for the Middle East peace process, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres had benn narrowly defeated in national elections by Likud party leader Netanyahu on 960531. Peres, leader of the Labor party, had become prime minister in 1995 after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Jewish extremist.
      Netanyahu, who promised to be tough on terrorism and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, was at forty-seven the youngest prime minister elected in the country’s fifty-year history. Born in Tel Aviv in 1949, he served in the Israel Defense Forces and during the 1980s was the Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. In 1988, he was elected to the Israeli parliament and served as deputy minister of foreign affairs from 1988 to 1991. In 1993, he became the Likud leader, and in 1996, Israel’s prime minister.

1998 AT&T deal with Yahoo! ^top^
AT&T continues its string of deals with portal sites, announcing a marketing partnership with Yahoo! The deal gave AT&T an area in Yahoo!'s online directory to market its phone services, and the companies also agreed to test a voice-enabled online chat.

1994 The Washington Post Company announces that it has acquired most of Mammoth Micro Productions, indicating the growing interest of media companies in multimedia publishing. Mammoth had published CD-ROM titles for IBM, Walt Disney, and Random House.
1993 El Papa Juan Pablo II proclama a San Juan de la Cruz patrono de los poetas de lengua española.
1991 El rey Hassan II de Marruecos acepta la celebración de un referéndum por la autodeterminación en el Sáhara occidental.
1989 El Parlamento de Lituania modifica su Constitución y proclama la soberanía del pueblo lituano.

1974 India detonates nuclear weapon. ^top^
      In the Rajasthan Desert in the state of Pokhran, India successfully detonates its first nuclear weapon, a fission bomb similar in explosive power to the US atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. The explosion comes on the traditional anniversary of Buddha's enlightenment in the Buddhist religion, and the test site’s exuberant scientists radio to Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi the message, "Buddha has smiled."
      The test, which made India the world's sixth nuclear power, breaks the nuclear monopoly of the five members of the security council — the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, China, and France.
      India, which suffered continuing border disputes with China, refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968, claiming that it established a permanent monopoly by the five powers. In the early 1970s, India, fearing a second war with China and a fourth war with Pakistan, actively sought the development of a nuclear deterrent. The successful detonation of its first bomb on 18 May 1974, set off an expanded arms race with Pakistan that saw no further nuclear tests but the development of lethal intermediate and long-range ballistic missiles by both countries.
      On 11 May 1998, India resumed nuclear testing, leading to international outrage and Pakistan's detonation of its first nuclear bomb later in the month.

1971 President Nixon rejects the 60 demands of Congressional Black Caucus
1967 Silver hits record $1.60 an ounce in London.
1959 En Laos comienzan los combates entre el Ejército real y el Pathet Lao, en la llanura de los Jarros.
1951 The United Nations moves out of its temporary headquarters in Lake Success, N.Y., for its permanent home in Manhattan.
1950 La Asamblea Plenaria de Naciones Unidas decide embargar las mercancías de valor importante para la China comunista.

1944 Monte Cassino falls to the Allies ^top^
      The Polish Corps, part of a multinational Allied Eighth Army offensive in southern Italy, finally pushes into Monte Cassino as the battle to break German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's defensive Gustav Line nears its end. General Wladyslaw Anders, leader of the Polish troops who would raise their flag over the ruins of the famous Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino, commenting on the cost of the battle, said, "Corpses of German and Polish soldiers, sometimes entangled in a deathly embrace, lay everywhere, and the air was full of the stench of rotting bodies."
      On 08 September 1943, the unconditional surrender of Italy had been announced days after British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery landed his Eighth Army on the Italian peninsula. Despite having met very little resistance, the Allies chose to consolidate their position rather than immediately battle north to Rome. Consequently, German forces under the command of Field Marshal Kesselring were able to create the Volturno Line across the peninsula just north of Naples. For the next three months, the Allied force, made up of primarily British and American armies, but also New Zealander, Canadian, French-Moroccan, and Italian Resistance units, pounded away at the Volturno Line, eventually forcing the Germans north to the Gustav Line, which straddled the peninsula about 120 km south of Rome.
      On 22 January, 50'000 seaborne Allied troops landed at Anzio, 53 km south of Rome and north of the German fortified line. But they failed to gain much more than a beachhead, and suffered through intense German air and artillery attacks for the next four months.
      Beginning on 11 May, the Allies launched a major offensive along the Gustav Line, and on May 18, Monte Cassino, a highly strategic town, fell to the Allies. The next day, the Allies stormed across the Gustav Line, and, on 23 May, Allied forces at Anzio joined in the offensive and began to break out. On 01 June, the Germans began a mass withdrawal to a line north of Rome, and on 04 June, the first units of US troops entered the former Fascist capital. The next day, Allied forces pushed through Rome in pursuit of the Germans.
— painting Monte Cassino (14x22cm), by John Warwick Smith [26 July 1749 – 22 Mar 1831]

1943 Nazis occupy Italy ^top^
Hitler gives the order for Operation Alaric, the German occupation of Italy in the event its Axis partner either surrendered or switched its allegiance. This operation was considered so top secret that Hitler refused to issue a written order. Instead, he communicated verbally his desire that Field Marshal Erwin Rommel should assemble and ultimately command 11 divisions for the occupation of Italy to prevent an Allied foothold in the peninsula.

1941 II Guerra Mundial: Las tropas del duque de Aosta capitulan en Abisinia.
1940 A Moncornet et Crépy-sur-Serre, le colonel de Gaulle et la 4ème DC arrêtent depuis la veille la progression allemande; ils tiendront jusqu'au 20 mai. — Les Allemands traversent la Sambre, atteignent Amiens — Nouveau cabinet Reynaud, avec Pétain, Daladier, et Mandel — Le général Giraud est fait prisonnier
1930 El dirigible Graf Zeppelin inicia un vuelo en el que cruzará dos veces el Atlántico, con un recorrido de unos 27'000 kilómetros.

1926 Evangelist Aimee McPherson disappears ^top^
      The nationally known evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappears from Venice Beach in Los Angeles, California. Police dispatch planes and ships in an effort to find her, but she is nowhere to be found. Authorities later discovered that radio announcer Kenneth Ormiston, a friend of McPherson, had also vanished.
     She was born Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy, on 9 October 1890, near Ingersoll, Ontario, and would die on 27 September 1944 in Oakland, California.
      McPherson was the Billy Graham of her time. From 1918 she made her headquarters in Los Angeles, where for almost 20 years she preached to large audiences in the Angelus Temple, built for her by her followers at a cost of $1.5 million. In 1923 the temple was dedicated as the Church of the Foursquare Gospel, a name deriving from McPherson's vision of a four-faced creature she interpreted as typifying Christ's fourfold role as Savior, Baptizer, Healer, and Coming King. Based on tenets of hope and salvation for the needy, her pentecostal Foursquare Gospel appealed especially to migrant Southerners and Midwesterners who found themselves frustrated by the complexities of life in urban southern California. In 1927 she incorporated the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.
      McPherson claimed to have faith-healing abilities and put on wonderfully entertaining shows for the public. Because of her religious nature, McPherson's relationship with Ormiston created something of a scandal in 1925, and their disappearance in 1926 made headlines across the country.
      A month later, McPherson turned up in Aqua Prieta, New Mexico, with a wild tale of being kidnapped, but reporters quickly uncovered information to prove that she had been with Ormiston the entire time. Although obstruction of justice charges were filed against her, they were later dropped, allegedly because McPherson came up with $30'000 to appease law enforcement officials.      McPherson attempted a comeback evangelism tour after the scandal had died down, but it flopped and she slowly faded from the public's memory. She compiled a book of sermons, This Is That (1923), and wrote In the Service of the King (1927) and Give Me My Own God (1936). She is the answer to this trivia question: Who baptized Marilyn Monroe?

1919 Se proclama la república del Palatinado, separada del Reich y apoyada por Francia.
1917 US passes Selective Service act
1910 Passage of Earth through tail of Halley's Comet causes near-panic In 1682, astronomer Edmund Halley observed a comet that he predicted would return every seventy-six years, which indeed it did. When it was due in 1986, a series of satellites was launched to probe it. Since Halley's comet had last passed over the sun on May 18, 1910, this was the first time it could be studied by space technology. The comet's 5-km nucleus was found to consist of ice and its tail was composed of gases emitted by solar energy.

1908 In God We Trust ^top^
In a move that seemingly flew in the face of America's founding belief in the separation of church and state, Congress passed legislation on this day in 1908 that made the maxim "In God We Trust" an obligatory element of certain coins. The motto dates back to the early 1860s, when the Civil War stirred religious feelings throughout the nation. America's heightened piety manifested itself in many places, including the treasury department, which received countless letters requesting that the nation's coins pay some form of tribute to God. Concerned citizens and religious leaders found a fast friend in Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, who readily agreed that the "trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins." James Pollock, director of the US Mint at Philadelphia, was charged with devising a suitable motto. After some key revisions from Chase, Pollock decided upon the now-familiar "In God We Trust."

1904 Acuerdo internacional para la represión de la trata de blancas.
1903 Apertura de las Cortes de España con un discurso del Rey Alfonso XIII.
1900 Britain proclaims protectorate over kingdom of Tonga
1899 World Goodwill Day-26 nations meet in first Hague Peace Conference
1897 A public reading of Bram Stoker's new novel, Dracula, or, The Un-dead, is staged in London.

1896 Segregation ruled legal ^top^
In a major victory for supporters of racial segregation, the US Supreme Court ruled seven to one in Plessy vs. Ferguson (163 US 537) that a Louisiana law providing for "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races" on its railroad cars was constitutional as applied to Homer Plessy in 1892. The high court held that as long as equal accommodations were provided, segregation was not discrimination and thus did not deprive African-Americans of equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling, which indicated that the federal government would officially tolerate the "separate but equal" doctrine, was eventually used to justify segregating all public facilities, including railroad cars, restaurants, hospitals, and schools. However, "colored" facilities were never equal to their white counterparts, and African-Americans suffered through decades of debilitating discrimination in the South and elsewhere. In 1954, Plessy v. Ferguson was finally struck down by the Supreme Court with their historic ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

1864 Battle of Spotsylvania, Virginia continues
1864 Engagement at Yellow Bayou (Bayou de Glaize), Louisiana (Red River Expedition)

1863 The siege of Vicksburg begins ^top^
Union General Ulysses S. Grant surrounds Vicksburg, the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, in one of the most brilliant campaigns of the war. Beginning in the winter of 1862-63, Grant made several attempts to capture Vicksburg. In March, he marched his army down the west bank of the Mississippi, while union Admiral David Porter's flotilla ran past the substantial batteries that protected the city. They met south of the city, and Grant crossed the river and entered Mississippi. He then moved north to approach Vicksburg from its more lightly defended eastern side. In May, he had to split his army to deal with a threat from Joseph Johnston's Rebels in Jackson, the state capital that lay 40 miles east of Vicksburg. After defeating Johnston's forces, Grant moved toward Vicksburg. On May 16, Grant fought the Confederates under John C. Pemberton at Champion's Hill and defeated them decisively. He then attacked again at the Big Black River the next day, and Pemberton fled into Vicksburg with Grant following close behind. The trap was now complete and Pemberton was stuck in Vicksburg, although his forces would hold out until July 4. In the three weeks since Grant crossed the Mississippi in the campaign to capture Vicksburg, Grant's men marched 180 miles and won five battles. They took nearly 100 Confederate artillery pieces and nearly 6,000 prisoners, all with relatively light losses. 1861 Arkansas admitted to the Confederate States of America

1860 Abraham Lincoln nominated for US Presidency ^top^
      Abraham Lincoln, a one-time US representative from Illinois, was nominated for the presidency by the Republican National Convention meeting in Chicago, Illinois. Hannibal Hamlin of Maine was nominated for the vice-presidency.
      Lincoln, a Kentucky-born lawyer and former Whig representative to Congress, first gained national stature during his campaign against Senator Douglas for the Illinois senate seat in 1858. The senatorial campaign featured a remarkable series of public encounters on the slavery issue known as the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, in which Lincoln argued against the spread of slavery while Douglas maintained that each territory should have the right to decide whether it would become free or slave.
      Lincoln lost the senate race, but the campaign brought national attention to Lincoln and the young Republican party, and in 1860, he won his party’s presidential nomination. In the November election, Lincoln again faced Douglas, who represented the Northern faction of a heavily divided Democratic Party, as well as Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell.
      On November 6, 1860, Lincoln defeated his opponents with only 40 percent of the popular vote, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. The announcement of his victory signaled the secession of the Southern states, which since the beginning of the year had been publicly threatening secession if the Republicans gained the White House. By the time of Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states had seceded and the Confederate States of America had been formally established with Jefferson Davis as its elected president. One month later, the American Civil War began when Confederate forces under General P. G. T. Beauregard opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

1845 El infante Carlos María Isidro abdica en su hijo Carlos Luis de Borbón sus pretendidos derechos a la Corona de España.
1830 Edwin Budding of England signs an agreement for manufacture of his invention, the lawn mower. Saturdays are destroyed forever
1828 Battle of Las Piedras, ends conflict between Uruguay and Brazil
1822 Agustín Iturbide es proclamado emperador de México por el sargento Pío Marcha y el pueblo.
1804 The French Senate proclaims Napoléon Bonaparte emperor.
1794 (29 floréal an II) DENIS Jean, tisserand, domicilié à Juste-le-Pendue (Loire), est par contumace par le tribunal criminel du département de la Loire, comme fabricant de faux assignats.
1793 Campaña del Rosellón. Acción militar de Thuir, ganada a las tropas revolucionarias francesas por el general Ricardos.
1766 The Church of the United Brethren in Christ was organized in Lancaster, PA, under the leadership of Martin Boehm, 41, and Philip William Otterbein, 39. (It became a branch of the Evangelical United Brethren in 1946.)
1756 England declares war on France — Francia declara la guerra a Inglaterra. Los franceses desembarcan en Menorca.
1643 Queen Anne, widow of Louis XIII, is granted sole and absolute power as regent by the Paris parliament, overriding the late king's will.
1631 The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony decreed that 'no man shall be admitted to the body politic but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits' of the colony. (Separation of church and state was an unthinkable concept in early American colonialism.)

1593 Warrant for the arrest of Christopher Marlowe ^top^
Scholars believe an arrest warrant was issued on this day in 1593 for Christopher Marlowe, after fellow writer Thomas Kyd accused Marlowe of heresy. Playwright Thomas Kyd, whose Spanish Tragedie (also called Hieronomo) was influential in the development of the revenge tragedy, was arrested on May 15, 1593, and tortured on suspicion of treason. Told that heretical documents had been found in his room, Kyd wrote a letter saying the documents belonged to Christopher Marlowe, with whom he had shared rooms previously. An arrest warrant was issued, and Marlowe was arrested on May 20. He bailed out but was killed in a bar brawl May 30. Though little is known about Kyd's childhood, scholars believe he was educated at the Merchant Taylor's School in London and raised to be a scrivener, a professional trained to draw up contracts and other business documents. Of his early work, The Spanish Tragedie (1592) brought him the most recognition. Some scholars believe it served as a model for Shakespeare's Hamlet. Kyd died penniless in 1594.

1291 Acre, the last territory in Palestine taken by the first Crusaders, falls to invading Moslem armies. It signaled the end of a Christian "military presence" in the Near East. (Afterwards, friars sought to spread the gospel by preaching instead.)

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a May 18: ^top^
2003:: 6 Israelis: Shimon Ostinsky, 68; Nellie Perov, 55; Olga Brenner, 52; Marina Tzachivirshvili, 44; Yitzhak Moyial, 64; Roni Yisraeli, 35; one Palestinian victim: Tawil Ralab, 42; and a suicide bomber, at 05:55 (02:55 UT) on Egged bus #6 in northern Jerusalem, between a Palestinian refugee camp and the Jewish neighborhood French Hill. 20 persons are injured. Following this attack, the Israeli Border Police sets up road blocks; at one of them, upon ordering a man to stop, whereupon he turns out to be another suicide bomber who blows himself up, hurting no one else.
2003 Ali Abu Namouss, 18, Palestinian, while walking near his home in the Khan Younis refugee camp, shot by Israeli troops who say that they were firing at Palestinians who were “trying to place an object” near their army post.

2002 Samya Zaidan [< photo], 47, Israeli Arab from Yama village, shot in the back by Israeli soldiers in an armored vehicle. She was in a car, with her mother and sister, in Shuweikieh village north of Tul Karm, West Bank, where they were going to have the car repaired. The Israelis claim that they felt threatened by her car passing others and they fired “warning shots at the ground”, one of which ricocheted and killed her.
2002 Mahmoud Musa Z'khaika [photo >], 38, Israeli Arab resident of Jabal Mukkaber in East Jerusalem, nurse at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, shot by Israeli soldiers as he traveled in his car near Beit Omar, north of Hebron. According to the Israelis, soldiers at a nearby observation post spotted his car trying to cross over a trench that cuts off the village. The soldiers summoned a jeep patrol squad. When the jeep approached, Z'khaika's car did a quick U-turn, and headed back toward Beit Omar. The soldiers fired warning shots in the air, and then toward the car. One of the passengers got out, and fled by foot toward the village. The driver, Z'khaika, continued until the car flipped over. Palestinian eyewitnesses say that Z'khaika got caught in the middle of a clash between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian youths, in which he was not a participant.

2001 Yair Nebenzahl [photo >], 22, shot from ambush as he drove past his settlement of Neveh Tzouf, near Ramallah, in the West Bank. Yair Nebenzahl was an Israeli army officer graduated two months earlier. His father Menachem and mother Adina, were among the founding families of Neveh Tzouf, arriving at the outpost in 1981. The Aqsa Intifada Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. This brings the body count of the al-Aqsa intifada to 462 Palestinians and 84 Israelis.
2001 A Palestinian, as Israeli F-16 planes attack a building in Ramallah housing Force 17, a security service.
2001 Eleven Palestinians, as Israeli F-16 planes attack the security headquarters in Nablus, West Bank. More than 30 are injured, including the probable target, Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, a mastermind of several Hamas bombings, who was held in prison there.
2001 Five Israelis and Palestinian suicide bomber Mahmoud Ahmed Marmash , 20, a carpenter from the West Bank, member of Hamas, at the Sharon shopping mall in Netanya, at about 11:30. Four Israelis die instantly, the fifth somewhat later, of his injuries. 72 are injured, including security guard Lior Kamissa who was about to challenge the bomber, who was wearing a bulging sports jacket on a hot day.
(Palestinian Authority web site http://www.minfo.gov.ps/press/eps_1905.htm) Sharon today sent his F16 airforce jets to hit Palestinian police positions, a prison, and homes. 13 Palestinian young men were murdered by Sharon and more than 100 injured, many are women and children. Homes in residential areas surrounding the attacked Palestinian police positions were heavily damaged. The Martyrs are: Nasri Naser Yacub Hasan 22 years from Dir Al- hatab village in the West Bank Refai Rabayah, 28 from Maythaloon - West bank Ayman Marouf - From Naqura West Bank Fadi Hamed Beit Djan West Bank Muataz Najeh Al Khateeb 27 years from Bourin Fares Hamdan Khalid Sbieh 21 from Tayaseer village - West bank Ahmad Sadeq Al- Khader from Qusin, the West bank -Wael Khader Mali Biet Iba, West Bank -Nabil Isam Ismael 22 from Dier Al-Ghsoon, West Bank Rami Ezzat Yasin 25 from Assira Shamleyyeh West Bank Wael Awad Abdulkarim 29 from Jdaydeh West Bank Ismael Abu raffeh 27 from Gaza and was killed in Ramallah. In addition to Israeli airforce jets, Sharon used his tanks, Navy gunboats, ground to ground missiles and heavy machine guns against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Other cities hit are Nablus where 12 Palestinians were killed (one of them Khalid Subieh, 22) and around 50 injured.

1980:: 61 volcano victims ^top^
     At 08:32 Pacific Daylight Time, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake shook Mount St. Helens. The bulge and surrounding area slid away in a gigantic rockslide and debris avalanche, releasing pressure, and triggering a major pumice and ash eruption of the volcano. 400 meters of the peak collapsed or blew outwards. As a result, 62 square km of valley was filled by a debris avalanche, 650 square km of recreation, timber, and private lands were damaged by a lateral blast, and an estimated 150 million cubic meters of material was deposited directly by lahars into the river channels. Fifty-seven people are killed or missing.
      For more than nine hours a vigorous plume of ash erupted, eventually reaching 20 to 25 km above sea level. The plume moved eastward at an average speed of 95 km/hr, with ash reaching Idaho by noon. By early May 19, the devastating eruption was over.
      At 08:32, Mount St. Helens, a volcano in southwestern Washington State, erupts massively, killing or fatally wounding sixty-one people and leveling some 400 square kilometers of wilderness.
      Called Louwala-Clough, or "the Smoking Mountain" by Native Americans, Mount St. Helens had been dormant for 123 years. In late-March 1980, the volcano, which stood some 2700 m above sea level before its eruption, began emitting steam and ash through its crater and vents. Although authorities succeeded in evacuating several hundred people from the immediate area, they failed to predict the enormous scale of the eruption that occurred on May 18.
      The blast blew the volcano's top into the stratosphere while a northward-directed lateral blast of rock, ash, and hot gas stripped trees from most hill slopes within six miles of the volcano and leveled nearly all vegetation for as far as 20 km away. In addition, the eruption caused a magnitude 5.1 earthquake that shook the northwest face of Mt. Helens into the Toutle River valley, damming Spirit Lake with debris. It was the largest recorded landslide in history and caused floods on the Cowlitz River that destroyed roads, bridges, parks, and 600 square kilometers of forest.
      Ash from the eruption fell on Northwest cities and towns like snow and had drifted around the globe within two weeks. The eruption subsided by late in the afternoon of May 18, and by early the next day had essentially ceased. However, moderate volcanic activity continued at Mt. St. Helens for over four years.

Mount Saint Helens heads the volcano watch list in North America. It is the most active volcano in the Northwest, and one of the most closely monitored volcanoes in the world. "It's the volcano most likely to explode," says Bill Steele, director of the Seismic Monitoring Program at the University of Washington in Seattle.
      Steele keeps tabs on the volcano through 11 seismographs, which are planted around the mountain's base and at the rim of the crater. These extremely sensitive instruments are connected to radio transmitters that send back a record of every "pop and gurgle" inside the volcano. Typically, they record a few small tremors each month.
     Generally, scientists believe these tremors are produced by magma cooling several kilometers beneath the surface of the volcano.
     Magma is molten rock, and when it reaches the surface, it is called lava. At the volcano's core is a conduit, or a system of channels, through which magma can rise to the surface from a reservoir deep in the Earth's crust. When the volcano erupts, lava is added to its slopes.
      As magma cools, it settles and releases various gases, which escape upwards through the rock. These tremors, however, might also be a warning that magma is rising towards the surface. "We might have only a few months of warnings when the magma starts moving back into the mountain," says Steele. "I would not be surprised if we had another eruption in the next ten years."
      Geologists had little warning before Mount Saint Helens's last major eruption. A small earthquake was recorded on March 20, 1980, followed a week later by a minor eruption. But the ground continued to tremble, and six weeks later, on Sunday, May 18, 1980, the mountain exploded in one of the most spectacular eruptions in recent memory.
     The 320 km/h blast flattened trees 30 km away, killed 57 people, and sheared 400 m off the peak of the mountain, leaving a crater nearly 2 km wide. The north side of the volcano burst, letting lose a side-long flare of magma and burning gas that incinerated the surrounding region. Four hundred square kilometers of prime old-growth forests were reduced to a wasteland of scorched timber buried under a thick layer of volcanic ash, where fires burned for weeks afterwards.
     The blast also triggered the largest landslide in recorded history, sending ash and rocks, some the size of large buildings, tumbling across a 22 km swatch of land. The landslide also spilled into Spirit Lake, sending thousands of cubic meters of water surging down the mountain. This water picked up debris and created a mudflow, known as a lahar, which rushed down the mountain, wiping away bridges and roads. The lahar poured down Toutle Valley, jamming rivers, destroying homes, and blocking navigation as far away as the Columbia River.
     Lahar is an Indonesian term used to describe a flowing stream of volcanic debris and water that resembles wet concrete. They usually form during a volcanic eruption or originate on the slopes of a volcano, and are capable of destroying buildings, bridges, and other man-made structures.
     The eruption also sent more than 540 million tons of volcanic ash raining down over 60'000 square kilometers, covering Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska, and sending ash drifting as far away as Virginia. From space, the eruption initially took the shape of a giant mushroom cloud, signifying a blast 400 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima.
      Rebirth is the legacy of natural destruction, and life quickly returned to the scorched earth near Mount Saint Helens. The rapid regeneration surprised most scientists, who believed that the rebirth would occur in steady, regular stages. Instead, nature ran riot, led by dozens of organisms that had amazingly survived the devastation. Moles, tiny pocket gophers, and ants survived because they were buried when the explosion occured. And saplings and shurbs buried in the snow survived, while the taller trees were devastated.
     The tiny pocket gophers turned into a major force for renewal. Their habitual digging into the soil mixed the sterile volcanic ash with the rich earth buried below. Deer mice, ants, and beetles also assisted in turning over the soil, allowing new plants, shrubs, and trees to take root quickly. Algae, plankton, and various freshwater crustaceans quickly appeared to recolonize the ash poisoned lakes in the area, followed soon after by frogs and salamanders.
     Even large animals quickly returned. Elk were seen on the mountain's west slopes within weeks of the eruption, and by the following summer, the hills near the volcano were covered with fireweed, a pink flowering plant whose seeds are carried like little parachutes on the wind. Grasses, plants, and trees quickly took root in the sterile ash, and after three years, the plant composition in the blast zone was similar to adjacent lands that had been recently logged.
     The federal government moves more slowly than mother nature, but some 45'000 hectares around the volcano were set aside in 1992 and turned into a park called the Mount Saint Helens National Volcanic Monument. A law was also passed that allowed nature to follow its own course in the park, permitting scientists to continue studying the cycles of natural regeneration.
     The eruption has also generated an unexpected economic rebirth in the region. Mountain climbing to the summit of the volcano has been allowed since 1986. By the end of 1989, the park had hosted more than 1.5 million visitors. Today, the volcano continues to draw more than 600'000 visitors a year, and tourism has become a major economic engine for the region.
     The last two decades have also witnessed 30 more small eruptions on the mountain, and molten rock continued to surface as late as 1986. Between 1980 and 1986, Mount Saint Helens built a lava dome about 300 m high and one kilometer in diameter. The last significant eruption was in 1994.

MOUNT ST. HELENS ERUPTS: At 08:32 PDT, Mount St. Helens, a volcanic peak in southwestern Washington, suffers a massive eruption, killing 57 people and devastating some 540 square kilometers of wilderness. Called Louwala-Clough, or "the Smoking Mountain," by Native Americans, Mount St. Helens is located in the Cascade Range and stood 9,680 feet before its eruption. The volcano has erupted periodically during the last 4500 years, and the last active period was between 1831 and 1857. On March 20, 1980, noticeable volcanic activity began again with a series of earth tremors centered on the ground just beneath the north flank of the mountain. These earthquakes escalated, and on March 27 a minor eruption occurred, and Mount St. Helens began emitting steam and ash through its crater and vents. Small eruptions continued daily, and in April people familiar with the mountain noticed changes to the structure of its north face. A scientific study confirmed that a bulge more than a mile in diameter was moving upward and outward over the high north slope by as much as six feet per day. The bulge was caused by an intrusion of magma below the surface, and authorities began evacuating hundreds of people from the sparsely settled area near the mountain. A few people refused to leave.
On the morning of May 18, Mount St. Helens was shaken by an earthquake of about 5.0 Richter magnitude, and the entire north side of the summit began to slide down the mountain. The giant landslide of rock and ice, one of the largest recorded in history, was followed and overtaken by an enormous explosion of steam and volcanic gases, which surged northward along the ground at high speed. The lateral blast stripped trees from most hill slopes within 10 km of the volcano and leveled nearly all vegetation for as far as 20 km away. Approximately 10 million trees were felled by the blast. The landslide debris, liquefied by the violent explosion, surged down the mountain at speeds in excess of 160 km/h. The avalanche flooded Spirit Lake and roared down the valley of the Toutle River for a distance of 21 km, burying the river to an average depth of 50 meters. Mudflows, pyroclastic flows, and floods added to the destruction, destroying roads, bridges, parks, and thousands more acres of forest. Simultaneous with the avalanche, a vertical eruption of gas and ash formed a mushrooming column over the volcano more than 20 km high. Ash from the eruption fell on Northwest cities and towns like snow and drifted around the globe within two weeks. Fifty-seven people, thousands of animals, and millions of fish were killed by the eruption of Mount St. Helens. By late in the afternoon of 18 May, the eruption subsided, and by early the next day it had essentially ceased. Mount St. Helens' volcanic cone was completely blasted away and replaced by a horseshoe-shaped crater-the mountain lost 500 meters from the eruption. The volcano produced five smaller explosive eruptions during the summer and fall of 1980 and remains active today. In 1982, Congress made Mount St. Helens a protected research area.

1971 Alexsandr Gennadievich Kurosh, Russian mathematician born on 19 January 1908. He proved important results in Group Theory and is best-known as the author of one of the standard text-books in the subject, The Theory of Groups (1944), it includes the Kurosh subgroup theorem, which describes subgroups of a free product of groups. Almost as famous is his Lectures on General Algebra (1960).
1954 Selig Brodetsky, Jewish Ukrainian-born (10 February 1888) English mathematician.
1927:: 43 persons and a farmer angry about his tax bill who sets off dynamite at a school in Bath, Michigan, and then kills himself.
1924 Corrado Segre, Italian mathematician born on 20 Aug 1863.
1914 Charles Sprague Pearce, US artist born in 1851. — LINKS — Lamentations over the Death of the First-Born of Egypt (1877 — The Shawl
1911 Gustav Mahler, in Vienna, Austria, grandiose composer.
1909 Isaac Albéniz, compositor y pianista español.
1867 (or 08 May?) William Clarkson Frederick Stanfield, English painter born on 03 December 1793. — LINKS — An Italian Lake Town — The Castle of Ischia — Eu, looking towards Tréport — Sketch for The Battle of Trafalgar, and the Victory of Lord Nelson over the Combined French and Spanish Fleets, October 21, 1805 — Lake Como
1837 Marguerite Gérard, French Romantic portrait and genre-scene painter born on 28 January 1761. — MORE ON GÉRARD AT ART “4” MAY — LINKS — Bad News — L’Enfant Chéri — First Steps — Artist Painting a Portrait of a Musician
1827 Antoine-Pierre Mongin, French artist born in 1761 or 1762.
1822 Gérard van Spaendonck, French painter and printmaker born on 23 March 1746. — more

Condamnés à mort par la Révolution: ^top^
1794 (29 floréal an II):
DOSSON Anne, domicilié à Docelle (Vosges), comme émigré, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
PARIS Simon, 57 ans, natif de Nevers (Nièvre), ancien professeur du collège de Bordeaux, depuis la révolution juge de paix, domicilié à Bordeaux (Gironde), par la commission révolutionnaire de Bordeaux, comme contre-révolutionnaire, pour avoir employé ses talents que pour justifier des aristocrates connus, tels que Lumière et Auguste Journu, dont les têtes sont tombées sous le glaive de la loi.
HERBOUT Elisabeth, 38 ans, célibataire, née à Houdain, demeurant à Lillers, guillotinée à Arras
VERRON Antoine, 26 ans, né et domicilié à Coucy-les-Heppes (ou Conchy les Lieppe en Laonnois) (Aisne), comme émigré, par la commission militaire d'Arras.
Domiciliés à Fix, canton de Brioude (Haute-Loire), par le tribunal criminel dudit département:
BERNARDON Clair, et SANGUE Thérèse, femme Bernardon, comme receleurs de prêtres réfractaires.
BERNARDON Pierre, prêtre, comme réfractaire à la loi..
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
LABATTU Antoine, cordonnier et fournisseur pour l'armée, 48 ans, né à Valence-d'Agen (Lot et Garonne), domicilié à Paris, comme fournisseur infidèle.
MATHIEU Antoine, emballeur aux effets de campagne de Franciade, 30 ans, né à St Martin-de-Chichilieuse (Izère), domicilié à Franciade (Seine), comme ayant blâmé le bombardement de la ville de Lyon, et ayant dit, que ceux qui servaient contre les révoltés de la Vendée étaient tous brigands, que jamais les Français ne l'emporteraient la victoire sur les étrangers.
PORTAT Jean, 24 ans, maçon, natif de Bresa, Etats de Venise, domicilié à Paris, comme convaincu d'avoir tenu des propos contenants provocation à la royauté, notamment en traitant dans un café où il était, les Français de j... f…. en c..., de malheureux François, voleurs et mauvais sujets.
SABATERY André, fermier et maire de Valréas (Vaucluse), par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, comme contre-révolutionnaire, ayant arraché les placards de la loi sur le gouvernement révolutionnaire, pour soustraire au Peuple la connaissance de cette loi salutaire.
TEYSSERE Pierre André, commis marchand de vins, 53 ans, natif de Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), domicilié à Mâcon (Sâone et Loire), comme contre-révolutionnaire agent de l'émigré Chenard, et fabricateur et distributeur de faux assignats.
BLANQUET Jean Félix, 59 ans, né et domicilié à Dieppe (Seine Inférieure), comme convaincu d'être complice de conspiration contre la liberté et la sûreté du peuple et contre a représentation nationale.
CEZERON Claude, commis d’un receveur des rentes, domicilié à Paris, comme conspirateur.
CLERC Denis Joseph, 56 ans, né à Pontarlier, fileur de laine, domicilié à Lachaux (Doubs), comme contre-révolutionnaire.
COLLIEZ Claude François, 42 ans, né à Paris, agent de Bourrée-Corberon, domicilié à Troissereux (Oise), comme conspirateur.
DIPSE Jean Henri, rentier 56 ans, né et domicilié à Eu, département (Seine Inférieure), comme conspirateur.
PACOT Louis, ex prêtre et dominicain, 34 ans, natif de Couvin, pays de Liége, domicilié à Paris, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
1793:
MARGAT Julien, domestique, domicilié à Tasensac (Ille-et-Vilaine), comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
Domiciliés dans le département de la Lozère, par le tribunal criminel dudit département:
GRANIER ou GRENIER Etienne, domicilié à Estables, comme contre-révolutionnaire instigateur de révolte.
MURET Etienne Jean, domicilié à Marvejols , comme conspirateur.
POUGET ou POUGNET Jean François, domicilié à Estables, comme contre-révolutionnaire instigateur de révolte.

1752 Robert Levrac-Tournières, French artist born in 1667 or 1668.
1740 André Bouys, French artist born in 1656.
1551 Domenico di Pace “Beccafumi” il Mecherino, Sienese Mannerist painter and sculptor born in 1486. — MORE ON BECCAFUMI AT ART “4” MAY — LINKS — Trinity _ detail — St Paul — Birth of the Virgin — Stigmatization of St Catherine of Siena — a different Saint Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata — The Miraculous Communion of Saint Catherine of Siena — Tanaquil — Marcia — The Holy Family with Young Saint John — Moses and the Golden Calf — The Annunciation — Fall of the Rebellious Angels — Madonna with the Infant Christ and St John the Baptist — Saint Lucy

1302 Un millier de soldats français assassinés: «Matines de Bruges» ^top^
      Au petit matin, les artisans de Bruges, en Flandres, se soulèvent contre la garnison française. Maison par maison, ils assassinent les soldats dans leur lit. On compte un millier de morts. Cette journée a été appelée «Matines de Bruges» par analogie avec les «Vêpres siciliennes» qui chassèrent 20 ans plus tôt les Français de Sicile. Elle réduit à néant le rêve des rois capétiens d'annexer les Flandres.
      Sous Philippe Auguste et Saint Louis, la France était devenue le plus puissant royaume d'Europe. Mais à la fin du XIIIe siècle, les Flandres et l'Angleterre commencent à lui faire de l'ombre grâce à leur enrichissement rapide. L'Angleterre vend de la laine aux communes flamandes comme Bruges, Ypres ou Gand. Celles-ci fabriquent des draps qu'elles revendent à prix d'or dans toute l'Europe. Le comte des Flandres veut s'allier au roi anglais. Mais le roi de France Philippe le Bel l'attire à Paris, l'emprisonne et installe en Flandres un gouverneur à sa dévotion. Des voix dissidentes se font entendre à Bruges. Méfiant, le gouverneur français abroge les libertés communales et occupe en force la ville. C'est alors que surviennent les «Matines de Bruges».
      Deux mois plus tard, les chevaliers français sont battus par les milices communales à la «bataille des éperons d’or», près de Courtrai, ainsi nommée en raison des éperons que les vainqueurs ramassèrent sur le champ de bataille. Le 23 Jun 1305, une paix de compromis permet à Philippe le Bel d’annexer seulement Lille, Douai et Béthune. La France atteint alors la frontière qui sera encore sienne sept siècles plus tard en dépit de nombreuses guerres.
[Tableau Bruges de Nuit, par Degouve]

Births which occurred on a May 18: ^top^

1982 TK/Solver ^top^
VisiCalc producer Software Arts unveiled a new program, TK/Solver, designed to let professionals use advanced mathematical formulas and tables. Although VisiCalc still held a dominant position, other spreadsheets had started to enter the market, and Software Arts needed new products to stay ahead. Unfortunately, Lotus 1-2-3, introduced in 1983, quickly overtook the spreadsheet market: Two years later, Lotus purchased Software Arts.

1937 Jacques Santer, político y abogado luxemburgués.
1933 The Tennessee Valley Authority is created
1920 Karol Joseph Vojtyla, in Wadowice, Poland. He grew up to be a Catholic priest, ordained in 1946, archbishop of Krakow from 1964, and elected the 264th pope on 781016, who took the name of John Paul II.
1914 Stefan Schwarz, Slovak mathematician who died in 1996.
1912 Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu, South African anti-Apartheid leader, who died on 05 May 2003. (his 1912 birth date being unknown, he chose 18 May for birthday purposes).
1904 Jacob K Javits (Sen-R-NY)
1893 Augusto César Sandino, guerrillero nicaragüense.
1891 Rudolf Carnap philosopher (Logical Positivist) He was born in Germany and, on 14 September 1970, died in California. Besides articles in journals, he wrote: — 1922 Der Raum: Ein Beitrag zur Wissenschaftslehre, dissertation, in Kant-Studien, Ergänzungshefte, n. 56 — 1926 Physikalische Begriffsbildung — 1928 Scheinprobleme in der Philosophie, — 1928 Der Logische Aufbau der Welt — 1929 Abriss der Logistik, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Relationstheorie und ihrer Anwendungen — 1934 Logische Syntax der Sprache — 1935 Philosophy and Logical Syntax — 1942 Introduction to Semantics — 1943 Formalization of Logic — 1947 Meaning and Necessity: a Study in Semantics and Modal Logic — 1950 Logical Foundations of Probability — 1952 The Continuum of Inductive Methods — 1954 Einführung in die Symbolische Logik — 1966 Philosophical Foundations of Physics — 1977 Two Essays on Entropy
1885 Eurico Gaspar Dutra president of Brazil (1945-50)
1883 Walter Gropius architect (founded Bauhaus school of design)
1872 Bertrand Russell, English mathematician, philosopher (Literature Nobel 1950), pacifist, who died on 02 February 1970. He published a vast number of books on logic, theory of knowledge, and many other topics. His best known work was Principia Mathematica .— RUSSELL ONLINE: The Analysis of Mind — A Free Man's Worship — Icarus: or, The Future of Science — The Problems of Philosophy — Proposed Roads to Freedom: Socialism, Anarchism and Syndicalism — Proposed Roads to Freedom: Socialism, Anarchism and Syndicalism
1868 Nicholas II Romanov, last Russian tzar (1894-1917)
1852 Julius Adam II (or Katzen-Adam), German artist who died in 1913.

1850 Oliver Heaviside ^top^
British physicist and mathematician Oliver Heaviside worked as a telegrapher from ages twenty to twenty-four, when increasing deafness forced him to resign. He then devoted himself to studying electricity and developed theories that made long-distance telephone possible. In 1902, he theorized that an atmospheric layer reflected radio waves, allowing the waves to follow the curve of the Earth instead of traveling off into space. US physicist Arthur Kennelly independently developed the same theory at about the same time. This layer, called the "Kennelly-Heaviside layer" for many years, is now known as the ionosphere. Its existence was proved in 1923 when radio pulses were transmitted vertically upward and the returning pulses from the reflecting layer were received. Besides that, he proved important results in electromagnetism and vector calculus. He reduced Maxwell's 20 equations in 20 variables to 2 equations in 2 variables. Heaviside's personality did not have its light side. Heaviside died on 03 February 1925.

1836 Wilhelm Steinitz Austria, world chess champion (1866-94)
1830 Karl Goldmark Keszthely Hungary, composer (Sakuhtala)
1810 Johann Peter Hasenclever, German artist born on 16 September 1853.
1746 Félix Azara y Perera, científico español.
1711 Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich, Dalmatian Jesuit mathematician and astronomer, who died on 13 February 1787. His main work was in mathematical physics. He was the first to give a procedure to compute a planet's orbit from three observations of its position.
1680 Recopilación de las Leyes de Indias se publica. Consta de nueve libros y más de seis mil leyes.
1642 Montréal, Québec, is founded.

1048 Abu ol-Fath 'Omar ebn Ebrahim el-Khayyami (Omar Khayyam) ^top^
He would grow up to be a Persian poet, mathematician, and astronomer, renowned in his own country and time for his scientific achievements. Philosophy, jurisprudence, history, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy are among the subjects mastered by this brilliant man. Unfortunately, few of his prose writings survive; these include a few brief tracts on metaphysics and a treatise on Euclid. He is known to English-speaking readers for his roba'iyat ("quatrains") in the version The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, published in 1859 by Edward FitzGerald (born on 31 March 1809). Later editions: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát.
Khayyam died on 04 December 1131.

0526 Saint John I, Pope

Holidays: Haiti : Flag Day/University Day / Uruguay : Battle of Las Piedras (1828)

Religious Observances Christian : Saint Eric of Sweden / RC : Saint Venantius, bishop, martyr / RC : Saint John I, pope and martyr (523-526) / Luth : Erik, King of Sweden, martyr / Santos Félix de Cantalicio, Venancio, y Juan. / Saint Eric: Fondateur de la dynastie des Erik, il succéda à son père sur le trône de Suède en 1156. Il lance une croisade pour convertir les Finnois et doit affronter les Danois. Tué sur le champ de bataille le 18 mai 1160, il est considéré comme le patron de la Suède et le jour de sa mort est fête nationale.

Thoughts for the day:“Inflation is when the buck doesn't stop anywhere.”
“When the buck doesn't stop anywhere, the does are barren.”
“Recession is when millions are laid off, depression is when you are laid off.”

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