10 May History: This Date

<< May 09| HISTORY “4” “2”DAY |May 11 >>
Events, deaths, births, of 10 MAY
[For May 10 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: May 20 — 1700s: May 21 — 1800s: May 22 — 1900~2099: May 23]

ALTERNATE SITES ALL FOR 030510 ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” MAY 10

• Confederate president captured... • Mandela becomes South Africa's president... • Bloody “Hamburger Hill”... • Tom Jones's final volume... • 1000th Rickenbacker car... • Digital's minicomputer... • Hess parachutes in Scotland... • Really Siamese twins... • Microsoft Network... • Condamnés à mort par la Révolution... • “Stonewall” Jackson dies... • 211 Tiananmen prisoners released... • Hoover promoted to head FBI... • Transcontinental railroad... • Revulsion at mining North Vietnam's harbors... • Panic of 1837... • Hitler invades Holland and Belgium ... • Churchill becomes UK prime minister... • Election day deaths in India... • Banzer is born... • Lonely Crowd author dies...

On a May 10:
2002 On the NASDQ, the A shares of the communications services corporation Western Wireless (WWCA) fall from the previous close of $5.68 to an intraday low of $2.91 and close at $3.35. This follows the previous evenings announcement of disappointing first-quarter results: loss of some domestic subscribers, lower-than-expected ebidta (“earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization.”). The stock had traded as high as $72.31 on 17 January 2000. [5~year price chart >]
2000 High wind drove what began as a deliberately set fire into a New Mexico canyon, forcing the evacuation of the entire town of Los Alamos and its 11'000 residents. (The fire had been set to contain an earlier blaze intended to clear brush.)
1999 China breaks off talks on human rights with the US in response to NATO's accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.
1999 The Cézanne painting Still Life With Curtain, Pitcher and Bowl of Fruit is sold for 60.5 million. — MORE AT ART “4” MAY

1995 Content providers line up for MSN ^top^
Microsoft says it has struck deals with forty-three content providers for its new online service, the Microsoft Network. The network, a proprietary online service akin to AOL, is slated to launch in August 1995 along with the long-awaited Windows 95 operating software.
Although MSN debuted with much fanfare, the company all but dropped support for the proprietary service shortly after its launch. Instead, Microsoft turned its attention to the Internet and moved most of MSN's content over to the Web.

1995 Se produce una reunión entre el gobierno de Estados Unidos y Rusia en la que se establece un acuerdo sobre el desarme de ambas naciones.
1994 Annular solar eclipse visible on a path from Maine to Baja California, which I observe from its center in San Elizario, near El Paso TX.

1994 Mandela inaugurated as South African President ^top^
      In South Africa, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is sworn in a president, becoming the country's first black head of state. Two weeks earlier, more than twenty-two million South Africans had turned out to cast ballots in the country's first-ever multiracial parliamentary elections. An overwhelming majority chose anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela to lead a new coalition government that included his African National Congress (ANC) party, former President F. W. de Klerk's National party, and Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom party.
      In 1944, Mandela, a lawyer, joined the ANC, the oldest black political organization in South Africa, where he became a leader of Johannesburg's youth wing of the party. In 1952, he became deputy national president of the ANC, advocating nonviolent resistance to apartheid — South Africa's institutionalized system of white supremacy and racial segregation.
      However, after the massacre of peaceful black demonstrators at Sharpeville in 1960, Nelson helped organize a paramilitary branch of the ANC to engage in guerrilla warfare against the white minority government. In 1961, he was arrested for treason, and, although acquitted, he was arrested again in 1964 for sabotage and was convicted along with several other ANC leaders at the Rivonia Trial.
      Sentenced to life in prison, he became a symbol of the South African and international movement to end apartheid. In 1989, F. W. de Klerk became South African president, and set about dismantling apartheid. De Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, suspended executions, and on 11 February 1990, ordered the release of Nelson Mandela after twenty-seven years at Robben Island prison.
      Mandela subsequently led the ANC in its negotiations with the minority government for an end to apartheid and the establishment of a multiracial government. In 1993, Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and in April of 1994, Mandela was elected South African president in the country's first free elections.
      In his inaugural address, Mandela, who spent 27 years of his life as a political prisoner of the South African government, declared that "the time for the healing of the wounds has come." Two weeks earlier, more than 22 million South Africans had turned out to cast ballots in the country's first-ever multiracial parliamentary elections. An overwhelming majority chose Mandela and his African National Congress (ANC) party to lead the country. Mandela, born in 1918, was the son of the chief of the Xhosa-speaking Tembu people. Instead of succeeding his father as chief, Mandela went to university and became a lawyer. In 1944, he joined the African National Congress (ANC), a black political organization dedicated to winning rights for the black majority in white-ruled South Africa. In 1948, the racist National Party came to power, and apartheid — South Africa's institutionalized system of white supremacy and racial segregation — became official government policy.
      With the loss of black rights under apartheid, black enrollment in the ANC rapidly grew. Mandela became one of the ANC's leaders and in 1952 was made deputy national president of the ANC. He organized nonviolent strikes, boycotts, marches, and other acts of civil disobedience. After the massacre of peaceful black demonstrators at Sharpeville in 1960, Nelson helped organize a paramilitary branch of the ANC to engage in acts of sabotage against the white minority government. He was tried for and acquitted of treason in 1961 but in 1962 was arrested again for illegally leaving the country. Convicted and sentenced to five years at Robben Island Prison, he was put on trial again in 1963 with seven others on charges of sabotage, treason, and conspiracy. In the celebrated Rivonia Trial, named after the suburb of Johannesburg where ANC weapons were found, Mandela eloquently defended his actions. On 12 June 1964, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
      Mandela spent the first 18 of his 27 years in jail at the brutal Robben Island Prison. He was confined to a small cell without a bed or plumbing and was forced to do hard labor in a quarry. He could write and receive a letter once every six months, and once a year he was allowed to meet with a visitor for 30 minutes. However, Mandela's resolve remained unbroken, and while remaining the symbolic leader of the anti-apartheid movement, he led a movement of civil disobedience at the prison that coerced South African officials into drastically improving conditions on Robben Island. In 1982 he was moved to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland, and in 1988 to a cottage, where he lived under house arrest. In 1989, F.W. de Klerk became South African president and set about dismantling apartheid. De Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, suspended executions, and on 11 February 1990, ordered the release of Nelson Mandela.
      Mandela subsequently led the ANC in its negotiations with the minority government for an end to apartheid and the establishment of a multiracial government. In 1993, Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On 26 April 1994, the country's first free elections were won by Mandela and the ANC, and a "national unity" coalition was formed with de Klerk's National Party and the Zulus' Inkatha Freedom Party. On 10 May Mandela was inaugurated in a ceremony attended by numerous international dignitaries. As president, Mandela established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate human rights violations under apartheid and introduced numerous initiatives designed to improve the living standards of South Africa's black population. In 1996, he presided over the enactment of a new South African constitution. Mandela retired from politics in June 1999 at the age of 80. He was succeeded as president by Thabo Mbeki of the ANC.

1990 China releases 211 Tiananmen Square prisoners. ^top^
The government of the People's Republic of China announces that it is releasing 211 people arrested during the massive protests held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in June 1989. Most observers viewed the prisoner release as an attempt by the communist government of China to dispel much of the terrible publicity it received for its brutal suppression of the 1989 protests. In early 1989, peaceful protests (largely composed of students) were held in a number of Chinese cities, calling for greater democracy and less governmental control of the economy. In April, thousands of students marched through Beijing. By May, the number of protesters had grown to nearly 1 million. On 03 June, the government responded with troops sent in to crush the protests. In the ensuing violence, thousands of protesters were killed and an unknown number were arrested.
The brutal Chinese government crackdown shocked the world. In the United States, calls went up for economic sanctions against China to punish the dramatic human rights violations. The US government responded by temporarily suspending arms sales to China. Nearly one year later, on May 10, 1990, the Chinese government announced that it was releasing 211 people arrested during the Tiananmen Square crackdown. A brief government statement simply indicated, "Lawbreakers involved in the turmoil and counterrevolutionary rebellion last year have been given lenient treatment and released upon completion of investigations." The statement also declared that over 400 other "law-breakers" were still being investigated while being held in custody. Western observers greeted the news with cautious optimism. In the United States, where the administration of President George Bush was considering the extension of most-favored-nation status to China, the release of the prisoners was hailed as a step in the right direction.

1989 El sindicalista polaco Lech Walesa recibe la medalla de oro de los Derechos del Hombre 1989, otorgada por el Consejo de Europa.
1988 El presidente François Mitterrand nombra al también socialista Michel Rocard nuevo primer ministro del Gobierno francés, tras la derrota y dimisión del conservador Chirac.

1982 Digital introduces minicomputer ^top^
Digital follows IBM into the market for 16-bit microprocessors. Before 1981, most personal computers, like the popular Apple II and TRS-80 Model II, used 8-bit microprocessors, and at the time, Digital was considered the second most powerful computer company after IBM. On May 10, 1982, the company introduces three personal computers powerful enough to handle many tasks previously left to high-end "minicomputers." The new 16-bit computers force price cuts in the personal computer industry to clear older models.

1981 François Mitterrand est élu président de la République Française. — El socialista François Mitterrand, elegido presidente de Francia, en segunda vuelta, con el 52% de los votos.
1979 Federated States of Micronesia becomes self-governing
1979 Salvador Dalí ingresa en la Academia de Bellas Artes de Francia, como miembro asociado. Links to reproductions of ART BY DALI ONLINE
1979 Vivekananda completes nonstop cycle ride of 187 hrs, 28 min, around Vihara Maha Devi Park, Colombo, Sri Lanka

1972 International revulsion at US for mining North Vietnamese harbors. ^top^
President Richard Nixon's decision to mine North Vietnamese harbors is condemned by the Soviet Union, China, and their Eastern European allies, and receives only lukewarm support from Western Europe. The mining was meant to halt the massive North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam that had begun on March 30. In the continuing air war over North Vietnam, the United States lost at least three planes and the North Vietnamese 10, as 150 to 175 American planes struck targets over Hanoi, Haiphong, and along rail lines leading from China. Lt. Randy Cunningham and Lt. Willie Driscoll, flying a Navy F-4J Phantom from the USS Constellation knocked down three MiGs in one combat mission. Added to two previous victories, this made Cunningham and Driscoll the first American aces of the Vietnam War (and the only US Navy aces of the war). Also on this day: Air Force Capt. Charles B. DeBellevue of the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron, flying with Capt. Richard S. Ritchie in a McDonnell Douglas F-4D, records his first aerial kill. Later, DeBellevue recorded four additional victories with pilot Ritchie — both men achieved the designation of ace (traditionally awarded for five enemy aircraft confirmed shot down in aerial combat). In August, DeBellevue, flying with Captain John A. Madden, Jr., shot down two more MiGs, becoming the leading American ace of the Vietnam War.

1971 US special delivery rates go from 45 to 60 cents.

1969 Bloody “Hamburger Hill” battle in Vietnam. ^top^
The US 9th Marine Regiment and the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, along with South Vietnamese forces, commence Operation Apache Snow in the A Shau Valley in western Thua Thien Province. The purpose of the operation was to cut off the North Vietnamese and prevent them from mounting an attack on the coastal provinces. The operation began with a heliborne assault along the Laotian border and then a sweep back to the east. First contact with the enemy was made by a rifle company from the 101st Airborne on the slopes of Hill 937, known to the Vietnamese as Ap Bia Mountain. Entrenched in prepared fighting positions, the North Vietnamese 29th Regiment repulsed the initial American assault and on 14 May beat back another attempt by the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry. An intense battle raged for the next 10 days and the mountain came under heavy Allied air strikes, artillery barrages, and 10 infantry assaults. On 20 May, Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais, commanding general of the 101st, sent in two additional US airborne battalions and a South Vietnamese battalion as reinforcements. The communist stronghold was finally captured in the 11th attack, when the American and South Vietnamese soldiers fought their way up to the summit of the mountain. In the face of the four-battalion attack, the North Vietnamese retreated to sanctuary areas in Laos.
During the intense fighting, 597 North Vietnamese were reported killed and US casualties were 56 killed and 420 wounded. Due to the bitter fighting and the high loss of life, the battle for Ap Bia Mountain received widespread unfavorable publicity in the United States and American media dubbed it "Hamburger Hill," a name evidently derived from the fact that the battle turned into a "meat grinder." Since the operation was not intended to hold territory but rather to keep the North Vietnamese Army off-balance, the mountain was abandoned soon after the battle and occupied by the North Vietnamese a month later. American public outrage over what appeared to be a senseless loss of American lives was exacerbated by publication in Life magazine of the pictures of the 241 US soldiers killed the week of the Hamburger Hill battle. General Creighton Abrams, commander of US Military Assistance Command Vietnam, was ordered by the White House to avoid such battles. Because of Hamburger Hill, and other battles like it, the US started to shift its policy towards Vietnamization, wherein primary responsibility for the fighting would be handed over to the South Vietnamese.

1964 Nacionalizadas en Túnez las tierras pertenecientes a europeos.
1960 USS Nautilus completes first circumnavigation of globe under water
1957 first meeting of legislature of Cameroon
1949 Se designa la ciudad de Bonn como capital de la República Federal Alemana.
1948 Se celebran elecciones en Corea del Sur, controladas por la ONU.
1943 La aviación aliada bombardea Sicilia.
1941 England's House of Commons detroyed in a blitz.

1941 Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland ^top^
The very day when Hitler planned to invade Russia, and when German bombs dropped on London in a spring "blitz," Rudolf Hess, Hitler's party secretary, flies solo then parachutes into Scotland, hoping to negotiate peace with Britain, in the person of the Duke of Hamilton, whom Hess claimed to have met at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Such a peace would have saved Germany from having to fight on two fronts and greatly increased Hess's own prestige within the Nazi regime. Instead he found peace—in the Tower of London, where the British imprisoned him, the last man ever to be held there.

1940 Churchill becomes Prime Minister ^top^
      Having lost the support of the Labour Party, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns after losing a confidence vote in the House of Commons. Winston Churchill, first lord of the admiralty, is called to replace him.
      In 1938, Chamberlain had signed the Munich Pact with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, leaving Czechoslovakia open to German conquest while jubilantly informing the British people that that the agreement brought "peace for our time."
      In 1939, Hitler's invasion of Poland finally led to a British declaration of war, and over the next eight months, Chamberlain gradually proved himself ill-fitted for the awesome task of leading his nation in a struggle against the German Wehrmacht. After British forces failed to save Norway from Nazi occupation in April of 1940, Chamberlain lost the support of many members of his Conservative party.
      On 10 May, Hitler invades Belgium, and the Netherlands, their governments immediately appeale to Britain for help. Chamberlain pleads to Parliament that a coalition government, of Liberals and Labour, would be necessary to generate support for a war effort, especially given the lethargy that infected Britain, still reeling from World War I. Labour demonstrated no support for Chamberlain, preferring Churchill, whom they thought better able to prosecute a war. As one member of Parliament put it: "Winston — our hope — he may yet save civilization." Great Britain had finally come to take the Nazi threat seriously. Churchill formed an all-party coalition, and rapidly won wide support across Britain.
      On 13 May, in his first speech before the House of Commons, Prime Minister Churchill declared "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat, and tears" and offered an outline of his bold plans for British resistance. In the first year of his administration, Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany, but Churchill promised his country and the world that the British people would "never surrender," and they did not.

1940 Local Defence Volunteers (Home Guard) formed in England

1940 Germany invades Holland and Belgium ^top^
      Le matin du 10 mai, à 4h30, with the radio code word "Danzig," l'offensive allemande est lancée into Holland and Belgium. La Luftwaffe bombarde les terrains d'aviation de Belgique, du nord et de l'est de la France. 4000 parachutistes sont lancés sur les ports de Rotterdam, Dordrecht et Moerdijk, sur la basse Meuse. Les bombardements aériens sèment la terreur parmi les civils, et dans la nuit, un premier train de réfugiés arrive à Paris Dans le même temps, le groupe A de von Rundstedt s'est mis en route. Ses 1400 Panzer traversent le Luxembourg et les Ardennes belges en direction de la Meuse. 3 de ces divisions (qui forment le corps commandé par le général Guderian), ont pour objectif premier la cuvette de Sedan.
      As British and French Allied forces attempt to meet the 136 German divisions breaking into Holland and Belgium on the ground, 2500 German aircraft bomb airfields in Belgium, Holland, France, and Luxembourg, and 16'000 German airborne troops parachute into Rotterdam, Leiden, and The Hague. A hundred more German troops land from gliders and seize the Belgian bridges across the Albert Canal.
      A 8h15 les gouvernements hollandais et belge sont saisis d'un mémorandum daté de la veille par lequel Hitler les informe qu'en vue de "sauvegarder leur neutralité" il a donné ordre aux troupes allemandes d'entrer sur leur territoire. Quelques heures plus tard, des villes comme Bruxelles, Anvers, Dunkerque, Lille, Nancy étaient bombardées par la Luftwaffe.
      Les Alliés ont été totalement surpris. La Belgique et la Hollande lancent hâtivement des ordres de mobilisation générale. Winston Churchill, devenu Premier ministre le matin même, ordonne l'envoi de troupes sur le front hollandais alors que le Luxembourg fait appel à la France en vertu des traités d'assistance de 1839 et 1867. Le plan de Gamelin est déclenché. Le corps de cavalerie du général Prioux se dirige vers la ligne de la Dyle et passe la frontière belge sous les vivats de la foule. Il arrive dans la soirée après avoir parcouru 125 km, mais il constate l'absence de tout ouvrage défensif. De leur côté, le BEF et la Iere armée prennent la même direction. Simultanément, la VIIe armée manoeuvre vers le nord pour atteindre la ligne Anvers-Breda, cependant que 2 divisions doivent couvrir l'embouchure de l'Escaut. Aucun bombardement aérien n'entrave les mouvements alliés, et certains se demandent déjà s'ils ne sont pas tombés dans un piège. Mais le haut commandement est très satisfait de ce début d'opération.
      The Dutch army was defeated in five days. One day after the invasion of Belgium, the garrison at Fort Eben-Emael surrendered, outmanned and outgunned by the Germans.

1939 The Declaration of Union reunites the Methodist Episcopal Church in the US after 109 years of division. (The Methodist Protestant Church had separated from the parent denomination in 1830, as had the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, later, in 1844.)
1936 Manuel Azaña Díaz es designado por las propias Cortes Presidente de la II República española.
1933 The Nazis stage massive public book burnings in Germany.1941, Adolf Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, parachuted into Scotland on what he claimed was a peace mission. In 1968, preliminary Vietnam peace talks began in Paris. In 1981, Socialist Francois Mitterrand defeated incumbent Valery Giscard d'Estaing in the second round of France's presidential election.
1933 El régimen nazi quema, en Berlín, 20'000 libros de autores que figuraban en su lista negra.
1932 Albert Lebrun, elegido presidente de la República Francesa.
1931 Golf ball size hail falls in Burlington NJ
1930 first US planetarium opens (Adler-Chicago)

1927 First hotel with radio reception ^top^
The Hotel Statler of Boston installs radio headsets in 1300 rooms, and starting on May 10, 1927, a central control room in the hotel broadcasts two stations directly to the rooms.

1924 J. Edgar Hoover is promoted to director of the FBI ^top^
from acting director, which he had been for several months. Hoover remained in power for 48 years, personally shaping American criminal justice in the 20th century. "Kid Napoleon," as he was sometimes called as a young man, first became involved in law enforcement as a special assistant to the attorney general, overseeing the mass roundups and deportations of suspected communists during the Red Scare abuses of the late 1910s.
After taking over the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1924, Hoover began secretly monitoring any activities that did not conform to his American ideal. Hoover approved of illegally infiltrating and spying on the American Civil Liberties Union. His spies could be found throughout the government, even in the Supreme Court. He also collected damaging information on the personal lives of civil rights activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr. While Hoover's success at legitimate crime fighting was modest, his hold over many powerful people and organizations earned him respect and kept him in power. He was extremely successful at attracting attention and favorable press to the FBI. It wasn't until after his death in 1972, right before the beginning of the Watergate scandal, that Hoover's corruption became known.

1922 The 1000th Rickenbacker car is produced ^top^
      Named after the company co-founder, American World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, the Rickenbacker Car Company took off in 1922. Rickenbacker, a national darling for his dogfighting exploits, passed on offers from the aviation industry in Washington and from the movie studios in Hollywood in order to start his own car company. In January of 1922, the Rickenbacker car debuted at the New York Auto Show. Priced at $1500 and equipped with a powerful V-6 and a flywheel at both ends of the crankshaft to reduce the teeth-chattering vibration to which consumers had become accustomed, the Rickenbacker sold 1500 units on its first day.
      In two years the company climbed from eighty-third in the industry to nineteenth. "The Car Worthy of the Name," as it was called, was also the first model to introduce four-wheel braking into the economy car class. The 1925 Rickenbacker came with a V-8 and the snappy "hat in the ring" emblem that Rickenbacker's squadron had painted on their planes. In 1926, Rickenbacker marketed the Super Sport as "America's Fastest and Most Beautiful Stock Car."
      But Rickenbacker resigned in September of that year, and four months later his company was dead. The rapid demise of Rickenbacker owes partly to the public's mistrust of the company's early introduction of front-wheel breaking, but more to the fragile ego of its war hero founder. During a period of cut-throat price wars, Rickenbacker came under heavy personal criticism at the hands of automobile dealers, who taunted him, "You're a hero today and a bum tomorrow." Rickenbacker could not separate his company's policies from his person and, injured, he resigned. The company was grounded without its captain's name.

1924 J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
1921 Dinamarca declara a Groenlandia territorio de su soberanía.
1917 Atlantic ships get destroyer escorts to stop German attacks
1910 Comet Halley's closest approach to Earth in 1910 pass
1908 first Mother's Day held (Phila)
1906 Russia's Duma (Parliament) meets for first time
1886 Apertura de las primeras Cortes de la Regencia de María Cristina de Austria, reina de España, viuda de Alfonso XII.
1877 Proclamación de la independencia de Rumania tras declarar la guerra a Turquía, de la que hasta entonces había sido tributaria.
1873 El padre Damián parte hacia Molokai, donde estaban deportados todos los enfermos de lepra.
1872 Victoria Woodhull becomes first woman nominated for US president.

1869 Transcontinental railroad completed ^top^
      In a remote corner of Utah, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads met and drove a ceremonial last spike into a rail that connected their railroads and made transcontinental railroad service possible for the first time in American history.
      Although travelers would have to take a roundabout journey to cross the country on this railroad system, the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Point forever closed a chapter of Western history. No longer would Western-bound travelers need to take the long and dangerous journey by wagon train, and the West would surely lose some its wildness with this new connection to the civilized East.
      As early as 1852, Congress considered the construction of a transcontinental railroad, although the question became enmeshed in the sectional politics of the time. In 1866, starting in Omaha and Sacramento, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads began working towards each other across the northern route, with land grants as the great incentive. In their eagerness for land, the two lines built right past each other and the final meeting place had to be renegotiated. On May 10, 1869, they finally met at Promontory Point, Utah.
      At Promontory Point, Utah, California Governor Leland Stanford pounds in a ceremonial golden spike that completes the nation's first transcontinental railway. After failing to hit the spike on his first attempt, Stanford raised the heavy sledgehammer again and struck a solid square blow. For the first time in American history, railways linked together east and west, the realization of a dream that began two decades earlier. Americans had been enthusiastic railroaders long before the transcontinental line was built. In 1850, some 15'000 kilometers of track covered the United States. By 1860, the number had risen to some 50'000 kilometers, more kilometers of rail than the rest of the world altogether. Initially, most of the construction had been in the nation's growing industrial centers in the Northeast, but by 1860, railways were rapidly expanding into the upper Midwest. Congress began considering how best to support the building of a transcontinental line in the late 1840s. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 made the issue all the more urgent: only a transcontinental railway could effectively tie that far-off region to the rest of the nation. Northern and southern politicians, however, disagreed over where the line should be constructed, and the project stalled for more than a decade. The outbreak of the Civil War finally broke the stalemate. Unencumbered by southern objections, northern legislatures approved a central route from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California. More importantly, in 1862 and 1864 Congress passed acts that gave huge cash subsidies and land grants to private companies that agreed to build the tracks across the continent. Recognizing a moneymaking opportunity, two companies took up the challenge. The California-based Central Pacific began laying tracks eastward from Sacramento. The eastern-based Union Pacific began in Omaha and built west. The laborers working for the Central Pacific faced the greater challenge-building across the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains. As a result, their progress was naturally slower than that of the work force of the Union Pacific, who managed to average a mile a day over mostly flat terrain. The Central Pacific crew was primarily Chinese immigrants, while Irish immigrants dominated the Union Pacific. Toward the end of the project, the two sides engaged in a bitter rivalry that at times took on unpleasant racist overtones. Both groups, however, labored heroically in difficult and frequently dangerous conditions, often working as long as 15 hours each day.
      When the two lines connected at Promontory Point in northern Utah, it was the beginning of a dramatic transformation of the West. A 4800-kilometer journey that had previously taken months to complete could now take only days by rail. More importantly, the abundant resources of the West could be shipped quickly and profitably to insatiable eastern markets, greatly spurring the development of the western economy. In years to come, thousands of emigrants rode the rails westward to homestead land, encroaching on Native American territories and hastening the demise of their way of life. Perhaps more than any other single event, the completion of the transcontinental railroad enabled the US conquest and settlement of the West.

1865 US President Johnson declares armed resistance against the US ended

1865 Jefferson Davis captured ^top^
[picture: Union troops surround an ambulance carrying captured Davis and family to Washington, D.C >].
      Davis [born on 03 June 1865], president of the fallen Confederate government, is captured at dawn with his wife and entourage near Irwinville, Georgia, by a detachment of Union General James H. Wilson's cavalry.
      On 02 April 1865, with the Confederate defeat at St. Petersburg imminent, General Robert E. Lee informed President Davis that he could no longer protect Richmond and advised the Confederate government to evacuate its capital. Davis and his cabinet fled to Danville, Virginia, and, with Robert E. Lee's surrender on 09 April, deep into the South. Lee's surrender of his massive Army of Northern Virginia effectively ended the Civil War, and over the next few weeks the remaining Confederate armies surrendered one by one.
      Davis was devastated by the fall of the Confederacy. Refusing to admit defeat, he hoped to flee to a sympathetic foreign nation such as Britain or France, and was weighing the merits of forming a government in exile when he was arrested by a detachment of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry near Irwinville. A certain amount of controversy surrounds his capture, as Davis was wearing his wife's black shawl when the Union troops cornered him. The Northern press ridiculed him as a coward, alleging that he had disguised himself as a woman in an ill-fated attempt to escape the treason charges levied against him. However, Davis, and especially his wife Varina Davis, maintained that the former Confederate head of state was ill, and that Varina had lent him her shawl to keep his health up during their difficult journey.
      Davis was imprisoned at Fort Monroe, Virginia, in a damp casemate on the moat, in leg-irons, with a lamp continually burning by his bedside, and two guards inside the cell. Outraged Northern public opinion resulted into his being moved to somewhat better quarters, but his health was permanently affected.
     Varina worked determinedly to secure his freedom, and on 11 May of 1867, Jefferson Davis was released on bail (paid in part by several wealthy Northerners). Davis was indicted for treason, but was never tried — perhaps because the federal government feared that Davis would be able to convince a jury that the Southern secession of 1860 to 1865 was legal. The charges were simply dropped on 25 December 1868. Davis never asked for a pardon and never regained his US citizenship.
      After a number of unsuccessful business ventures, he retired to Beauvoir, his home near Biloxi, Mississippi, and began writing his two-volume memoir The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881). He died on 06 December 1889 in New Orleans where he was buried; although four years later his body was moved to Richmond, Virginia.

1864 Battle of Spotsylvania, Virginia continues.
1862 Naval engagement at Plum Run Bend, Arkansas-Tennessee
1861 Union troops and civilians riot in St. Louis, Missouri
1857 Los cipayos, tropas hindúes al mando de oficiales británicos, se amotinan en Mirut. Este levantamiento, conocido por Rebelión de los Cipayos, trajo consigo la proclamación de la India como virreinato de la corona británica.
1841 Las Cortes nombran a Baldemero Espartero regente de España.

1837 The Panic of 1837 ^top^
The battle over the Second Bank of the United States (SBUS), which pitted states' rights advocates against proponents of the federal financial institution, took its toll on the nation's economy on this day in 1837. The Bank scrap had ostensibly been settled a few years earlier, as statist President Andrew Jackson marshaled his forces and effectively crushed the federal-based SBUS. However, in the wake of Jackson's putative victory, a number of legislators predicted that the demise of the bank would wreak havoc on America's fiscal health. These dire forecasts proved to be all too prescient: the absence of the SBUS, which had served as a storing house for federal funds via the Treasury, triggered a "liquidity crisis" that imperiled "small banks."
And, in mid-May of 1837, the failure of cash-strapped banks in New York unleashed the Panic of 1837, one of the most devastating economic crisis in the nation's history. The panic not only felled hundreds of banks, but it wiped out the scores small businesses and farmers had heavily relied on the support of local fiscal institutions. Unemployment climbed to unprecedented peaks, while tension and anguish gripped good chunks of the country; in New York, the militia had to be called in to keep order on Wall Street. All told, the Panic of 1837 stretched on for seven long and painful years.

1796 Napoléon Bonaparte wins a brilliant victory against the Austrians at Lodi bridge in Italy.
1794 (21 floréal an II) THOMAS Anne Marie Louise, femme Megret Serilly, âgée de 31ans, native de Paris, domiciliée à Passy (Yonne), est c.ondamnée à mort par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris, comme conspiratrice; elle s'est déclarée enceinte, et a été transférée à l'évêché, d'où elle a été mise en liberté après le 9 thermidor.
1793 LAURENS Jean Antoine, domicilié à Rhodés (Aveyron), est condamné à la déportation, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
1775 2nd Cont Congress convened in Pa issues paper currency for first time
1775 Colonel Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen with his Green Mountain Boys capture the British-held fortress at Ticonderoga NY, during the US War of Independence.
1774 Louis XVI ascends the throne of France.
1773 The English Parliament passes the Tea Act, which taxes all tea in the American colonies (and will lead to a costumed party in Boston).

1749 The final volume of Tom Jones is published ^top^
      The 10th volume of Henry Fielding's novel Tom Jones is printed. The novel, serialized in 10 small volumes, told the humorous story of the attempts of the illegitimate but charming Tom Jones to win his neighbor's daughter, despite her father's objections to his uncertain parentage. The novel boasted a vast cast of characters chasing each other across England and provided a sweeping comic portrait of 18th century England.
      Fielding was born on 22 April 1707 in Somerset, England. He supported himself as a successful playwright after he lost his family's financial support when he dropped out of Eton at age 17. He wrote some 25 plays, but his career as a playwright was truncated when his satire Historical Register, For the Year 1736 (1737) earned Fielding the prime minister's ire. In search of a new livelihood, Jones studied law and edited a newspaper for several years.
      Meanwhile, Samuel Richardson's epistolary novel Pamela was published to enormous popularity in 1740. A spoof on the book, called Shamela (1741), was generally credited to Fielding, although he never admitted authorship. He did admit to writing Joseph Andrews, another satire, in 1742. On 25 October 1748, the year before Tom Jones was published, Fielding was appointed justice of the peace for Westminster and Middlesex. He played an important role in breaking up criminal gangs. He published one more novel, Amelia (1751), before his death in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1754.
FIELDING ONLINE:
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, A Journey From This World to the Next

1713 Publicación de la Ley Sálica, por la que heredará el trono de España todo varón descendiente de Felipe V en línea recta o transversal, nacido en España y, a falta de éstos, la mujer más cercana en parentesco al rey.
1706 Guerra de Sucesión Española: Las tropas franco-españolas de Felipe V levantan el sitio de Barcelona.
1676 Bacon's Rebellion, frontiersmen vs. Virginia government begins.
1652 John Johnson, a free black granted 550 acres in Northampton. Va
1508 Miguel Angel Buonarroti comienza la pintura de los frescos de la Capilla Sixtina, en el Vaticano. Links to reproductions of ART BY MICHELANGELO ONLINE
1503 Columbus discovers the Cayman Islands.
1427 Jews are expelled from Berne Switzerland.

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Deaths which occurred on a May 10:

2003 Joshua Keith Laney, 8, and Luke Allen Laney, 6, hit with rocks by their Mother Deannna LaJune Laney, 38 [photo >], who hits similarly her other son, Aaron James Laney, 14 months, who survives in critical condition. She then calls 911 and says that God ordered her to kill her sons.

2003 Christopher Ibarra, born in September 2001, after life support is withdrawn from him, at the request of his mother, Tamara Sepulveda, 23, and against the objections (rejected by the California Supreme Court on 23 April 2003) of his father, Moises Vasquez Ibarra, 24, who, since his 20 December 2001 arrest, is in jail awaiting trial because, on 17 December 2001 he beat, shook, and threw the infant against the crib, putting him into an irreversible coma.

2003 Israel E. Levine, 79, after vascular surgery, public-relations director. From the 1950's to the 1970's, he wrote children's nonfiction and magazine articles as well as a dozen biographies for teenage readers. Some of his books: Young man in the White House: John Fitzgerald Kennedy — Lenin: The Man Who Made a Revolution — Conqueror of Smallpox: Dr. Edward Jenner — Discoverer of Insulin: Dr. Frederick G. Banting — The Many Faces of Slavery — Spokesman for the Free World: Adlai E. Stevenson — Champion of World Peace: Dag Hammarskjold — Francis Bacon: 1561-1626 — Faithful rebels; a study in Jewish speculative thought — Inventive Wizard: George Westinghouse — Electronics Pioneer: Lee De Forest.

2003 Thirteen persons, including an Abu Sayyaf Muslim terrorist who had just placed a bomb in one of the motorcycle taxicabs lined up outside the main market in Koronadal, Mindanao island, the Philippines. Some 40 persons are injured.

2002 David Riesman, co-author of The Lonely Crowd. ^top^
     Born on 22 September 1909, Riesman became a lawyer, then after WW II became a professor and writer of sociology. In 1950 his pseudo-scholarly The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character, written with Reuel Denney and Nathan Glazer, became the best-selling book by a sociologist in US, with 1.4 million copies sold during Riesman's lifetime. Readers began to classify others as "other-directed," "inner-directed" or "tradition-directed." In The Lonely Crowd Riesman said that which of those character types prevails within a society is determined by trends in population growth. With a relatively stable population, a balanced social order and little technological change — the Middle Ages, for example, or contemporary countries relatively untouched by industrialization — the dominant character type is tradition-directed. In periods of technological progress and population growth, like the Renaissance and the Reformation, people set lifelong goals for themselves based on values like wealth, fame, the search for scientific truth, the quest for religious salvation and the creation of beauty. But when consumption overtakes production and the population is leveling off or declining, people become less dynamic and more other-directed, seeking to conform to peer groups. Riesman thought the United States was in this third phase.
      The Lonely Crowd was among the first of the postwar classics written by academics that became unanticipatedly famous because the public believed that they had uncovered some alarming condition in US society, such books as The Greening of America, by Charles Reich; The Other America, by Michael Harrington; One-Dimensional Man, by Herbert Marcuse; Life Against Death, by Norman O. Brown; and The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students, by Allan Bloom.
      In 1952, Riesman and Glazer produced a companion volume to The Lonely Crowd called Faces in the Crowd: Individual Studies in Character and Politics. Riesman was co-author of such other books, as Thorstein Veblen (1953), Individualism Reconsidered and Other Essays (1954), Constraint and Variety in American Education (1956), Abundance for What? And Other Essays (1964), Conversations in Japan (1967), The Academic Revolution (1968), The Perpetual Dream (1978) and On Higher Education (1980).

2001 Sixteen persons, in election day violence in India. ^top^
     Nearly 130 million people are eligible to vote for the state legislatures in 823 districts in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry states. A total of 5000 party and independent candidates are participating. Results, to be counted by hand, are not expected before May 13.
     Suspected militants attack polling stations in Assam state, killing five civilians and six members of the security forces. Five more are killed in West Bengal. More than 35'000 soldiers are on alert in Assam state, where a banned militant group, the United Liberation Front of Assam, killed more than 50 people in the run-up to the elections.
      In Kokrajhar district, rebels open fire to scare away voters who defy their call to boycott the elections. Several are injured.
      In West Bengal state, two opposition members are killed in a blast in Bishnupur, 20 km south of Calcutta.
      A municipal worker dies in a bomb explosion in Titagarh to the north, and a man drowns during a political scuffle in Calcutta. Another man dies of injuries sustained while building a bomb the previous day.

1997:: 1560 persons in Richter 7.1 earthquake in eastern Iran near the Afghan border.
1997 Nick Paolone, 18, shot, in Youngstown.
1996 Fourteen persons as two Marine helicopters crash after colliding in the dark. They crashed into a swamp at Camp Lejeune, N.C., during a US-British training exercise.
1994 John Wayne Gacy, executed by the state of Illinois for the murders of 33 young men and boys.
1993 At least 187 persons, in fire in doll factory near Bangkok, Thailand. 500 others are. It is the world's deadliest factory fire.
1991 Four other persons and Julio Cortés Alfonso, Catholic pastor of Tununguí (Boyacá) Colombia, murdered by FARC guerrillas.
1989 Hassler Whitney, of a stroke, US mathematician and mountain-climber, born on 23 March 1907. He is known among rock climbers for having been the first, together with his cousin Bradley Gilman to have climbed (on 03 August 1929)o and without pitons too, a 200-meter high knife-edge ridge on Cannon cliff, New Hampshire. The ridge was subsequently named in their honor, the Whitney-Gilman ridge.

1982 Ann Lee, 44, and Margaret ‘Peggy’ Johnson, 65. ^top^
They are attacked and stabbed to death while walking their dogs on Aldershot Common in southern England. A former British hospital porter, Peter Fell, would be arrested and be forced to confess to the murders. Just three hours later he retracts the confession. Nevertheless he is sentenced to life in prison by Winchester Crown Court in August 1984.
On 05 February 2001, London's Court of Appeals clears Fell of the murders.

1964 Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov, Russian French Cubist painter and stage designer born on 22 May 1881. — MORE ON LARIONOV AT ART “4” MAY — LINKS — Curtain design for the dance performance, Le Soleil de Nuit — Le Renard: costume sketch for Le Coq — Le Renard: Decor with three figures — Décor pour Le Soleil de Nuit — The Cockerel — Soldier at Rest — Vladimir Tatlin
1941 Diederik Johannes Korteweg, Dutch applied mathematician born on 31 March 1848.
1930 Edward Stratemeyer, 67, American writer of popular juvenile fiction, whose Stratemeyer Literary Syndicate (1906-84) produced such books as the Rover Boys series, the Hardy Boys series, the Tom Swift series, the Bobbsey Twins series, and the Nancy Drew series. He was born on 04 October 1862. Afterwards his company was largely directed by his daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (1893-1982).
1923 Vaslav Vorovsky Russian delegate, assassinated
1919 Two Blacks in race riot in Charleston, SC
1904 Henry Morton Stanley, periodista y explorador inglés.

1863 Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, from wounds received at Chancellorsville    ^top^
      The South loses one of its boldest and most colorful generals on this day. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson died of pneumonia a week after losing his arm when his own troops accidentally fired on him during the Battle of Chancellorsville. In the first two years of the war, Jackson terrorized Union commanders and led his army corps on bold and daring marches. He was the perfect complement to Robert E. Lee. A native Virginian, Jackson grew up in poverty in Clarksburg, in the mountains of what is now West Virginia. Orphaned at an early age, Jackson was raised by relatives and became a shy, lonely young man. He had only a rudimentary education but secured an appointment to West Point after another young man from the same congressional district turned his appointment down. Despite poor preparation, Jackson worked hard and graduated 17th in a class of 59 cadets.
      Upon graduating, Jackson served as an artillery officer during the Mexican War, seeing action at Vera Cruz and Chapultepec. He earned three brevets for bravery in just six months and then left the service in 1850 to teach at Virginia Military Institute. He was known as a difficult and eccentric classroom instructor, prone to strange and impromptu gestures in class. He was also a devout Presbyterian who refused to even talk of secular matters on the Sabbath. In 1859, he led a group of VMI cadets to serve as gallows guards for the hanging of John Brown.
      When war broke out in 1861, Jackson became a brigadier general in command of five regiments raised in the Shenandoah Valley. At the Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, Jackson earned distinction by leading the attack that secured an advantage for the Confederates. Confederate General Bernard Bee, trying to inspire his troops, exclaimed "there stands Jackson like a stone wall," and provided one of the most enduring monikers in history. By 1862, Jackson was recognized as one of the most effective commanders in the Confederate army. Leading his force on one of the most brilliant campaigns in military history during the summer of 1862, Jackson marched around the Shenandoah Valley and held off three Union armies while providing relief for Confederates pinned down on the James Peninsula by George McClellan's army. He later rejoined the Army of Northern Virginia for the Seven Days battles, and his leadership was brilliant at Second Bull Run in August 1862. He soon became Lee's most trusted corps commander.
      The Battle of Chancellorsville was Lee's and Jackson's shining moment. Despite the fact that they faced an army twice the size of theirs, Lee daringly split his force and sent Jackson around the Union flank—a move that resulted in perhaps the Army of the Potomac's most stunning defeat of the war. When nightfall halted the attack, Jackson rode forward to reconnoiter the territory for another assault. But as he and his aides rode back to the lines, a group of Rebels opened fire. Jackson was hit three times, and a Southern bullet shattered his left arm. His arm had to be amputated the next day. Soon, pneumonia set in, and Jackson quickly began to fade. He died, as he had wished, on the Sabbath, 10 May 1863, with these last words: "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."

1822 Paolo Ruffini, Modena mathematician born on 22 September 1765.
1819 Mariano Salvador de Maella, pintor español.
1798 George Vancouver, British explorer. (birth date unknown)

Condamnés à mort par la Révolution: ^top^
1794 (21 floréal an II):
BRIEN Pierre, chaudronnier, domicilié aux Herbiers, canton de Montaigu (Vendée), comme brigand de la Vendée, par la commission militaire séante à Granville.
DESPREZ Nicolas Louis, ex curé, domicilié à Sompuis (Marne), comme réfractaire à la loi , par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
RENARD Jean Baptiste, voiturier, domicilié à Ecques (Nord), comme espion, par la commission militaire de l’armée du Nord.
THEUREL Augustin, domicilié à Charmes-St-Valber (Haute-Saône), par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme concussionnaire.
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire séant à Cambray (Nord):
DHENNEVILLE Marie Eugénie, veuve Monaldy, 88 ans, rentière, ex noble, domiciliée à Cambray, comme ayant provoqué l'anéantissement de la liberté, et de la représentation nationale.
DUPUIS Angélique, femme Dechy, marchande de fil, domiciliée à Cambray , comme ayant conservé les bustes de Capet et de sa femme, et pour avoir gardé une petite pierre d'autel, dont son fils se servait pour broyer des couleurs.
EVRARD Jean Népomucène, chef du premier bataillon de l'Oise, comme traître à la patrie.
GILLES Antoine, 72 ans, ci-devant procureur à Arras (Nord), comme ayant provoqué l'anéantissement de la liberté et de la Représentation nationale.
VIENNET Aubert, rentier, domicilié à Cambray (Nord), comme traître à la patrie, prévenu d'avoir discrédité les assignats.
A Arras:
SIMON Noël, âgé de 29 ans, né à Villers le Sec, célibataire, laboureur, déserteur.
CALLAU Rémy Joseph Omer, né à Plouvain, cultivateur, époux de Saudemont Marie Anne Scholastque, guillotiné.
LOCTEMBERG Eugénie, âgé de 33 ans, née à Aire, demeurant à Racquinghem, veuve de Laforge N., guillotiné.
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
CAPET Elizabeth Phil. Marie Hélène, 30 ans, sœur du dernier tyran roi, née et domiciliée à Paris, comme complice de son frère et sa belle sœur.
DUWAES Anne, 55 ans, veuve de l'Aigle, ex marquise née à Keiniltz en Westphalie, domicilié à Montagne-de-Bel-Air, ci-devant St. Germain-en-Laye (Seine et Oise), comme complice des complots formé par Capet et sa femme.
FOLLOPPE Georges, 64 ans, né à Oucalix, près Yverot (Seine Inférieure), pharmacien, officier municipal de Paris, domicilié à Paris, comme complice des complots formés par Capet, sa femme et sa famille.
TANEFFE Françoise Gabrielle, veuve Montmorin, âgée de 50 ans, native de Chadieu (Puy-de-Dôme, domiciliée à Bussy (Yonne),comme complice de son mari, ayant entretenu des correspondances avec Laluzerne. — MONTMORIN-SAINT-HÉREM Armand Marc (comte de) [portrait >] Homme politique français, né à Paris en 1745, décédé à Paris en 1792. Ambassadeur à Madrid de 1778 à 1784, puis gouverneur de Bretagne, il fut nommé ministre des Affaires étrangères peu avant la Révolution de 1789. Il conserva ces fonctions jusqu’en 1791, tentant de s’entremettre entre la cour et Mirabeau. N’ayant pas réussi à empêcher la déclaration de Pillnitz en 1791, il fut accusé de faire partie du comité autrichien. Emprisonné à la prison de l’Abbaye, il y fut tué lors des massacres de septembre 1792.
... comme conspirateurs:
MONTMORIN Antoine Hugues Galixt, ex noble, sous lieutenant, dans le régiment des chasseurs à cheval, âgé de 22 ans, natif de Versailles (Seine et Oise), domicilié à Passy (Seine).
BERSIN CL. L. Angélique (dite Dambaye), ex marquise, domiciliée à Paris.
BUARD Denise, vivant de son bien, domicilié à Paris.
LAMOIGNON Anne Nicolas, veuve Serozan, ex marquise, âgée de 76 ans, née et domiciliée à Paris.
LETELLIER Louis Pierre Marcel (dit Bullier), ci-devant employé à l'habillement des troupes, ex noble, âgé de 22 ans, né et domicilié à Paris.
LENEUF-SOURDEVAL Louis Bernardin, ex comte, 69 ans, né à Caen (Calvados), domicilié à Chatou (Seine et Oise).
LOMENIE Alexis François, 36 ans, ex comte, ci-devant colonel des chasseurs de Champagne, né à Marseille (Bouches du Rhône), domicilié à Brienne (Aube).
LOMENIE Louis Marie Athanase, 64 ans, ex noble, ex ministre de la guerre, et maire de Brienne, né à Paris, domicilié à Brienne (Aube).
LOMENIE Charles, 33 ans, ex chevalier de St Louis et de l'ordre de Cincinnatus, né à Marseille (Bouches du Rhône), domicilié à Brienne (Aube).
LOMENIE Anne Marie Charlotte, 29 ans, femme divorcée de Canizi, née et domiciliée à Paris.
LOMENIE Martial, 30 ans, ex noble coadjuteur de l'évêque du département de l'Yonne, ci-devant archevêque de Sens, né à Marseille (Bouches du Rhône), domicilié à Sens (Yonne).
MEGRET-D'ETIGNY Antoine Jean Marie, 46 ans, ex sous aide major du régiment des Gardes-françaises, ex noble, né à Paris, domicilié à Sens (Yonne).
DUBOIS Jean Baptiste, 41 ans, né à Merey (Marne, domestique de Mégret d'Etigny, domicilié à Sens (Yonne).
MEGRET-SERILLY Antoine Jean François, trésorier général de la guerre, ex noble, âgé de 48 ans, natif de Paris, domicilié à Passy (Yonne).
LHOSTE Jean Baptiste, 47 ans, né à Forges (Oise), agent et domestique de Megret Serilly, domicilié à Paris.
ROSSEL Marie Anne Catherine, 44 ans, femme de Rosset Cery, officier de marine, native de Rochefort (Charente), domicilié à Sens (Yonne), comme conspiratrice ayant entretenue des émigrés.
L'HERMITE Louis Claude (dit Chambertand), ex noble, ex chanoine en la ci-devant cathédrale de Sens, âgé de 60 ans, né et domicilié à Sens (Yonne).
L'HERMITE Elisabeth Jacques, ex comtesse, 65 ans, femme de Rosset, ex comte, lieutenant des carabiniers, maréchal de camp, émigré; née à Paris, domiciliée à Sens (Yonne).
CHAMPMILON Charles, (dit Cressi), 33 ans, ex noble, officier au ci-devant régiment de veille-marine, négociant né et domicilié à Courlon (Yonne).
HALL Théodore, 26 ans, manufacturier et négociant, né et domicilié à Seury (Yonne).
1793:
CLADEL Jean, bourrelier, domicilié à Montauban (Lot), comme chef d'attroupements contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
FRESNEL Marie, femme l’Huissier, domiciliée à Romilly, (Ille-et-Vilaine), par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme contre-révolutionnaire.
SEVIN Gabriel, maire de Medreac, domicilié à Medreac, (Ille et Villaine), comme contre-révolutionnaire, le 10 mai 1793, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
THOMAZET Henri, laboureur, domicilié à Guedillac (Ille-et-Vilaine), comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel du département.
GUILLEMOT-VAUVERT Auguste Anne Marie, domicilié à Port-Brieuc, département des Côte-du-Nord, lieutenant de vaisseau, par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme émigré.
LATOUCHE Germain, chirurgien, domicilié à Apremont (Vendée), par la commission militaire séante aux Sables, comme brigand de la Vendée.
TESSIER Honoré (dit Jassemin), marchand, domicilié à Apremont (Vendée), comme brigand de la Vendée, par la commission militaire des Sables.
TURGIS François, laboureur, domicilié à Rusneberg (Calvados), comme séditieux, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.
1792:
RONDEL Robert, menuisier domicilié à Guedillac (Ille-et-Vilaine), comme contre-révolutionnaire, par le tribunal criminel dudit département.

1790 “Les Patriotes de Montauban”, égorgés; ce pourquoi .DIDIER-BROCA Jean Charles Vincent, âgé de 32 ans, né à Montauban, vivant de son revenu, ci-devant garde du corps du dernier tyran roi, domicilié à Bordeaux (Gironde), sera condamné à mort le 4 germinal an 2, par la commission militaire séante à Bordeaux, comme convaincu d'avoir été l'un des principaux assassins qui firent égorger les Patriotes de Montauban.
1774 Louis XV, rey de Francia.
1670 Claude Vignon, French painter and engraver born on 19 May 1593. — MORE ON VIGNON AT ART “4” MAY — LINKS — Esther before Ahasuerus — Croesus Receiving Tribute from a Lydian Peasant — The Young Singer

Births which occurred on a May 10:
1973 El Frente Polisario es fundado por jóvenes nacionalistas saharauis, dirigidos por Mustafá El Uali y Mohamed Abdelaziz.
1955 Mark David Chapman assassin of John Lennon
1944 Juan José Lucas Jiménez, político español.

1926 Hugo Bánzer Suárez “el Petizo” [“le petit sot”? Non, simplement “le petiot”] ^top^
Bánzer

     Bánzer would become a brutal dictator (23 Aug 1971 – 21 Jul 1978) and later constitutionally elected president (06 Aug 1997 – 07 Aug 2001) of Bolivia.
      He took up a military career (for which he received part of his training at the US Army School of the Americas in Panama — aka finishing school for dictators and torturers — and at Fort Hood, Texas). He was minister of education (1964-1966) in the 04 Nov 1964 – 05 Jan 1966 government of president René Barrientos Ortuño [1919-1969 airplane crash], military attaché in Washington (1967-1969), then director of the Bolivian Military College. Bánzer participated in the 04 Oct 1970 overthrow of president general Alfredo Ovando Candía (who had taken power in September 1969 by overthrowing Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas, who had been promoted from vice-president at the death of Barrientos) by general Rogelio Miranda, who made leftist general Juan José Torres González [1921-1976] president.
     Right-winger Bánzer was fired as director of the Military College in January 1971 by Torres. So Bánzer led a coup, seizing the La Paz military headquarters but failing to topple Torres, who exiled him to Argentina. Bánzer, a colonel at the time, came back clandestinely, overthrew Torres on 22 August 1971, and made himself president. Bánzer's dictartorship was violently repressive. The news media were censored. In 1974 Bánzer prohibited all political activity. Opponents were “"disappeared”. 19'000 persons sought asylum in foreign countries, 15'000 were arrested and at least 200 were killed. Bolivia joined other South American military dictatorships in the covert Plan Condor to kidnap, arrest, torture and assassinate leftists and dissidents in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay. After surviving 13 coup attempts, Banzer did not run for president in the 1978 elections, which were won by fraud (there were 50'000 more votes than registered voters) by general Juan Pereda Asbún [1931-], who pretended to call for new elections, but instead overthrew Bánzer on 21 July 1978 and exiled him to Argentina.
     Pereda was overthrown on 24 Nov 1978 by general David Padilla Arancibia [1924-].
     Bánzer returned in 1979 and ran for president in the July 1979 election (and in all subsequent ones until he was elected) in which no one got an absolute majority, but Congress chose its president, Walter Guevara Arze [1911-], to became president of the republic on 06 Aug 1979; he was overthrown on 01 November 1979 by Alberto Natusch Busch [1933-], who was overthrown on 17 November 1979 by Lidia Gueiler Tejada [1030-], who was overthrown on 18 July 1980 by Luis García Meza Tejada [1933-], who, after committing atrocities presumably even worse than those of the other dictators (at least he would be imprisoned for them), was replaced on 04 September 1981 by Celso Torrelio Villa [1933-], who was succeeded by Guido Vildoso Calderón, who was succeeded on 10 Oct 1982 by Hernán Siles Suazo [1914-] (who had already been president 11-16 April 1952 and 17 Jun 1956 – 06 Aug 1960).
     In the 1985 presidential election Bánzer finished first but with less than 50% of the vote, so that the election was thrown into Congress, whose decision to elect Victor Paz Estensoro (to a non-consecutive 3rd term: 06 Aug 1985 – 06 Aug 1989) was accepted by Bánzer, now anxious to be seen a “reborn democrat”. Lic. Jaime Paz Zamora [1939-] became president 06 Aug 1989 – 06 Aug 1993, and Lic. Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada [1931-] 06 Aug 1993 – 06 Aug 1997.
      In the 1997 presidential election, Banzer, first (with 20% of the vote), was chosen by Congress. The old autocratic Bánzer had not altogether disappeared, he still abused human rights, coddled corruption, and failed to help the poor and the Amerindians. However he endeared himself to the US by repressing the cultivation of coca.
     On 01 July 2001, Bánzer left Bolivia for medical treatment in the United States, where he was diagnosed with lung cancer (he was a cigarette smoker) which had spread to his liver. He stayed until December 2001 for chemotherapy, with a brief trip to Bolivia to resign on it's Independence Day, 06 August 2001, being succeeded by Jorge Quiroga Ramírez [1960-]. The cancer metastasized to Bánzer's brain and throughout his body. He returned to Bolivia in December 2001 and died there on 05 May 2002 of a heart attack.

1919 Ella Grasso, US politician; governor of Connecticut (1975-80), who died on 05 February 1981.
1908 Carl Albert (D) speaker of the US House of Representatives.
1907 Alfonso de Borbón y Battenberg, primogénito de los Reyes de España, Príncipe de Asturias.
1898 Ada Kaufman, future Ariel Durant, Russian-born US writer; with her husband Will(iam James) Durant [05 Nov 1885 – 07 Nov 1981] co-author of the 11-volume The Story of Civilization (1935-1975) and of A Dual Autobiography (1977). She died on 25 October 1981.
1897 Einar Gerhardsen, Norwegian politician; prime minister four times between 1945 and 1965. He died on 19 September 1987.
1886 Karl Barth, Swiss theologian who died on 09 December 1968.
1886 (? or on 08 Feb = 27 Jan Julian) Léon Nicolaevitch Bakst (Lev Samoylovich Rosenberg), Byelorussian Jewish theater costume and scenery designer who died on 28 (27?) December 1924. — MORE ON BAKST AT ART “4” MAY — LINKS — Bacchante — Minister of State — Nymph in red — Nymph in blue — The Faun [Nijinsky] — 17 theatrical designs at FAMSF
1880 Domenico Minervino, who would die on 21 May 1991.
1878 Gustav Stresemann, German chancellor (1923) (Nobel 1926)
1861 Fannie Moody, British artist.
1859 Wilhelm Wrede, German Bible scholar who contended that the gospels reflected the theology of the primitive Church rather than the true history of Jesus. Wrede thus contributed his name to the title of Albert Schweitzer's 1906 theological classic: "The Quest of the Historical Jesus: From Reimarus to Wrede."
1850 Sir Thomas Lipton, Scottish-born English merchant who built the Lipton tea empire. He died on 02 October 1931.
1847 Wilhelm Karl Joseph Killing, German mathematician who died on 11 February 1923. He introduced Lie algebras independently of Lie [17 Dec 1842 – 18 Feb 1899] in his study of non-euclidean geometry. The classification of the simple Lie algebras by Killing was one of the finest achievements in the whole of mathematical research.
1843 Benito Pérez Galdós, novelista español.
1838 John Wilkes Booth, US actor who assassinated Abraham Lincoln on 14 Apr 1865. Cornered by pursuers, Booth was killed or killed himself on 26 April 1865.
1828 James McDougal Hart, Scottish US painter who died on 24 October 1901. — MORE ON HART AT ART “4” MAY — LINKS — An afternoon concert — Returning from harvest — Presidential Range and Starr King Mountain from Lunenburg VT — The Adirondacks
1827 David Johnson, US Hudson River School painter who died on 30 January 1908. — MORE ON JOHNSON AT ART “4” MAY — LINKS — View of Dresden, Lake George
1826 Henry Clifton Sorby, geólogo, naturalista y metalúrgico británico.
1822 (baptized soon after birth) August Xaver Karl Pettenkofen, Viennese painter who died on 21 March 1889. — MORE ON PETTENKOFEN AT ART “4” MAY — Robbers in a Cornfield — Frau mit Topfpflanzen vor Bauernhaus — Platz vor einem ungarischen Bauernhaus

1811 Eng and Chang Bunker, in Siam, the original "Siamese twins". ^top^
The most famous pair of conjoined twins were Eng and Chang Bunker, who were born in Siam (now Thailand). The Bunker Twins fathered 21 children between them and were successful businessman and ranchers in Wilkes County, North Carolina. Attached by a 13-cm connecting ligament near their breastbones, Eng and Chang married sisters Sallie and Adelaide Yates, respectively, and lived fairly private lives when they weren't touring the world to earn incomes.
After their deaths (within hours of each other on 17 January 1874) it was determined they could have been successfully separated, a medical option that was never offered to Eng and Chang during their lives. Although Eng and Chang's fame helped coin the phrase 'Siamese Twins', they were not the first pair of conjoined twins recorded in medical annals as there were probably about 100 such pairs known by the time of their birth, a fact which helped the King of Siam reverse an early death sentence on the brothers.

1788 Augustin-Jean Fresnel, French optics pioneer (one of the founders of the wave theory of light), mathematician, who died on 14 July 1827. In 1822 he invented the Fresnel lens, for lighthouses.
1735 Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro, gran figura del enciclopedismo español, precursor de la Filología Comparada.
1699 Bartolomeo Nazari, Italian artist who died on 24 August 1758.

Holidays Hong Kong : Tin Hau's Day / North and South Carolina : Confederate Memorial Day (1868) / Thailand : Ploughing Ceremony / US-Indians : Native American Day

Religious Observances Denmark : Common Prayer Day / RC : SS Gordian and Epimachus, martyrs / RC : St Antoninus, bishop of Florence, confessor

Thoughts for the day:“Ideals kill some men in politics, but politics kill more ideals in men.”
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” — William James, US psychologist and philosopher.
“Being wise means knowing how to look and what to overlook.”
“Don't overlook the dirt that's been swept under the carpet. Underlook it.”
“Don't pull out from under me the carpet under which you swept the dirt.”
“If you have a skeleton in the closet, don't sweep it under the carpet.”
“Don't sweep the dirt under the carpet; put it where it belongs: in the closet with the skeleton.”
“People who live in glass houses without closets have no business owning skeletons.”
“It's bad manners to show your skeleton to anyone; besides it would be impossible afterwards to put back on all your organs, muscles, and skin.”
“People who have a glass skeleton should not throw themselves onto stones.”
“A skeleton in the closet can become a bone of contention.”
“If you're right to believe only in what you see, you don't have a heart.”
“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can break my heart.”

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