21 May History: This Date

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Events, deaths, births, of 21 MAY
[For May 20 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: May 31 — 1700s: Jun 01 — 1800s: Jun 02 — 1900~2099: Jun 03]

ALTERNATE SITES ALL FOR 030521 ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” MAY 21

• Mexican martyrs canonized... • Hong Kong supports Tienanmen protest... • Colette's Le Vagabond... • Shot his parents yesterday, today it's his school... • Death sentences for Qatar coup... • 7 moines massacrés... • Grande Jacquerie... • Condamnés à mort par la Révolution... • Le douanier Rousseau est né... • Alexander Pope is born... • Siege of Port Hudson... • De Soto dies... • Murder for fun... • Nazis kill mental patients... • Nazis gas Polish Jews... • Death camp factory... • Lindbergh crossed Atlantic... • Earhart crossed Atlantic... • Gorbachev consolidates power... • US military defends “Hamburger Hill”... • Dürer is born... • Everest in 17 hours... • US Red Cross... • Reverdy Johnson...

Ona May 21:
2003 At the annual meeting of the World Health Organization, the representatives of 192 countries unanimously adopt the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which mandates, within 5 years, restrictions on tobacco advertising, promotion, and smuggling, together with warnings on cigarette packets. It also recommends tax increases on tobacco. The yearly excess deaths due to tobacco are estimated to be 4.9 million now and, if effective measures are not taken, to rise 10 million by 2020, 70% of them in the poorer areas of the world..
2002 Magnitude 5.3 earthquake at 20:35 UT with epicenter at 36º43'N 24º28 E (85 km WSW of Naxos, Cyclades Islands, Greece) 96 km deep. It is felt in Southern Greece and as far away as Egypt.

2001 Consistory..

      The cardinals from all over the world meet with the Pope in the Vatican to consider the challenges to the Catholic Church in the third millenium. Not on the agenda, but undoubtedly very real, those under the age of 80 size up each other as Pope-to-be.

     At the four-day consistory, the cardinals will have the chance to consider privately and unofficially who might someday replace Pope John Paul II. Among those said to be contenders are [photo >], from left to right: (Top) Angelo Sodano and Norberto Rivera Carrera; (middle) Oscar Andres Rodriquez Maradiaga and Ignacio Antonio Velasco Garcia; (bottom) Francis Arinze and Dionigi Tettamanzi.

     Among the 27 cardinals from Latin America, the region with the largest number of the world's one billion Catholics, the likeliest future pope may be Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, 58, of Mexico. Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, 59, of Honduras, selected in February, is also mentioned, both because of his background as a pastor who has championed the rights of the poor and because he is a skilled communicator who has mastered the delicate art of signaling his aptitude for the job by denying any interest in it.
      Cardinal Francis Arinze, 68, a Nigerian who was converted from animism by Irish missionaries and is now in charge of the Vatican's relations with other religions, is also on the list of papabile — as a long shot.
      Catholics today seem divided between those who prefer a flexible caretaker (read Italian) who can tame the bloated Roman Curia and focus on problems inside the church and those who want someone capable of extending John Paul II's charismatic, globe-trotting reach.
      The Italian cardinals most often mentioned as papabili include a few top Vatican officials, such as Cardinal Sodano, and also some of the better known Italian archbishops. Many Catholic progressives champion Cardinal Carlo Martini, 74, archbishop of Milan, who has called for a Vatican Council III to re-examine the role of women and priests. At a 1999 synod of European bishops, he raised the need for greater "collegiality," a code word for loosening Rome's tight grip on local churches. But his supporters say that does not mean he is out of the running.
      Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, 66, archbishop of Genoa, staked his position by claiming that none of the other cardinals agree with Martini. In 2000, Tettamanzi signaled his own ability to handle modern communications by issuing a 635-page catalog of Catholic teaching over the Internet.

2001 Singapore company director Ng Kwok Soon, 50, has a heated discussion over the firm's debts with Stella Neo Aee Kee, 35. Infuriated Ng pours a bottle of methanol on her and sets her afire with a piece of burning paper. He throws a second bottle of spirit at Stella while she is in flames. Stella Neo suffers burns to 35% of her body, which would require a series of painful operations. On 12 November 2001, Ng, having pled guilty to attempted murder, would be sentenced to life imprisonment.

2000 Death sentences for failed Qatar coup. ^top^
     Successful coups, however, are the usual way rulers are changed.
      An appeals court gives death sentences to 19 people, including the emir's cousin, for a failed coup attempt in 1996. Eighteen other defendants were given life sentences, and 29 were ordered freed. The court order was read by the judge in the presence of journalists. Death sentences have to be approved by the emir.
      Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir's cousin, was a former economy minister and an ex-police chief. He was thought to be the mastermind behind the coup attempt. In February 2000 a lower court sentenced 33 people, including Sheik Hamad, to life in prison for attempting to overthrow the emir. Another 85 defendants were acquitted by that court in a trial that began in November 1997. Nine of those convicted and 20 of those acquitted by the lower court were tried in absentia.
      Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, 47, the current emir, overthrew his father in a 1995 coup. Those convicted were believed to be supporters of his father. The ousted emir, Sheik Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, himself came to power after deposing his cousin. He has now settled in Paris but travels often to London and the Gulf.
      Qatar, home to about 200'000 citizens and more than 300'000 expatriate workers, has the world's third-largest reserves of natural gas and enough oil to support an annual per capita income of about $13'600, one of the world's highest.

2000 Canonization of Mexican martyrs of the Revolution ^top^
Cristóbal Magallanes Jara Román Adame Rosales Rodrigo Aguilar Aleman Julio Álvarez Mendoza Luis Batis Sáinz Agustín Caloca Cortés Mateo Correa Megallanes Atilano Cruz Alvarado Miguel De La Mora De La Mora	Pedro Esqueda Ramírez Margarito Flores García José Isabel Flores Varela David Galván Bermudes Salvador Lara Puente Pedro de Jesús Maldonado Lucero Jesús Méndez Montoya Manuel Morales Justino Orona Madrigal	Sabas Reyes Salazar José María Robles Hurtado David Roldán Lara Toribio Romo González Jenaro Sánchez Delgadillo Tranquilino Ubiarco Robles David Uribe Velasco José Maria De Yermo Y Parres María de Jesús Sacramentado Venegas De La Torre

2000 Everest in less than 17 hours ^top^
A Sherpa guide, Babu Chhiri, 34, climbs through icy winds from the base camp at 5530 m above sea level to the 8850 m summit in 16 hours and 56 minutes , thus breaking the record for the fastest climb, set two years earlier by Kaji Sherpa, who climbed Everest in 20 hours and 24 minutes. Most climbers take two to four days, depending on the weather. This was Chhiri's 10th successful conquest of Everest. Only two others had achieved this feat. In 1995, he became the first climber to scale Everest twice in the same season.
Like most Nepalese Sherpas, Chhiri climbs without bottled oxygen, even though air pressure is low, making breathing strenuous. Chhiri's brother, Dawa, had scaled the mountain earlier and waited at the summit to welcome him. At the summit, the two brothers spent only about 10 minutes before making a hasty retreat to lower camps. Most climbers retreat within a few minutes of scaling the peak, with its high winds, freezing temperatures, rapid weather changes and low oxygen pressure. Chhiri's ascent comes a year after he set a record by camping for 21 hours on the peak.
The Sherpas, who live at the foot of the Himalayas, are known as "Tigers of the Snows." Renowned for their mountaineering skills and stamina, many work as guides and porters for tourists in Nepal. Until this day and since the first recorded climb of Everest in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, more than 800 people have conquered it. Some 180 people have died on its slopes.

1992 La OTAN extiende fuera de las fronteras de sus socios en Europa sus objetivos de mantener la paz y convertirse en el brazo armado de los 52 países que integran la CSCE.
1991 Ethiopia's Marxist president, Mengistu Haile Mariam, resigned and flees into exile as rebels continue to advance.
1990 Ion Iliescu gana las elecciones en Rumanía con el 90% de los votos.

1989 Hong Kong demonstrates in support of Tiananmen protest ^top^
      In Hong Kong, a million people, one-sixth of the British colony’s population, take to the streets of the city to demonstrate in support of Chinese students protesting for democratic reforms in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The Hong Kong demonstration come the day after China’s Communist government declared martial law over Beijing and called in troops and tanks to suppress the dissidents.
      On 15 April, the death of Hu Yaobang, a former Communist Party head who supported democratic reforms, roused some 100'000 students to gather at Beijing's Tiananmen Square to commemorate Hu and voice their discontent with China's authoritative Communist government. On April 22, an official memorial service for Hu Yaobang was held in Tiananmen's Great Hall of the People, and student representatives carried a petition to the steps of the Great Hall, demanding to meet with Premier Li Peng. The Chinese government refused such a meeting, leading to a general boycott of Chinese universities across the country and widespread calls for democratic reforms.
      Ignoring government warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration, students from more than forty universities began a march to Tiananmen on 27 April. The students were joined by workers, intellectuals, and civil servants, and by mid-May over a million people filled the square, the site of Communist leader's Mao Zedong's proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
      On May 20, the government formally declared martial law in Beijing, and troops and tanks were called in to disperse the dissidents. However, large numbers of students and citizens blocked the army's advance, and by 23 May, government forces had pulled back to the outskirts of Beijing. On June 3, with negotiations to end the protests stalled and calls for democratic reforms escalating, the troops received orders from the Chinese government to reclaim Tiananmen at all cost. By the end of the next day, Chinese troops had forcibly cleared Tiananmen Square and Beijing's streets, killing hundreds of demonstrators and arresting thousands of protestors and other suspected dissidents. In the weeks after the government crackdown, an unknown number of dissidents were executed and hard-liners in the government took firm control of the country.
      The international community was outraged by the incident, and economic sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries sent China's economy into decline. However, by late 1990, international trade had resumed, thanks in part to China's release of several hundred imprisoned dissidents.

1988 Gorbachev consolidates power over USSR. ^top^
In an attempt to consolidate his own power and ease political and ethnic tensions in the Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev dismisses the Communist Party leaders in those two republics. Since coming to power in 1985, Gorbachev had faced numerous problems with his efforts to bring about domestic reform in the Soviet Union. First and foremost was the opposition by more conservative Russian officials, who believed that Gorbachev's economic and political reforms might threaten the position of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. Both Karen S. Demirchyan and Kyamran I. Bagirov, heads of the Communist Party in Armenia and Azerbaijan respectively, fell into this group — Gorbachev had publicly complained about his frustrations in bringing about economic reform in the two republics. The second major problem faced by the Soviet leader was the rising tide of ethnic unrest in several Russian republics. In the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the unrest spilled across their borders, with Azerbaijanis and Armenians trading charges about mistreatment at the hands of the other. Neither Demirchyan nor Bagirov seemed capable of dealing with the situation. Gorbachev thus decided to kill two birds with one stone, and, on 21 May, announced that both men were being removed from their positions for "reasons of health." They were quickly replaced with men handpicked by Gorbachev. Gorbachev's action was only a temporary solution to the problems. During the next three years, the slow pace of reform in the Soviet Union could not keep up with the rapidly crumbling economy and increasingly factionalized political system. And ethnic tensions in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and other Soviet republics continued unabated, sometimes exploding into violence. By 1991, it was clear that the Soviet Union was falling apart. In December, Gorbachev resigned as president and the Soviet Union soon thereafter ceased to exist as a nation.

1984 Es elegido presidente del Gobierno de Andorra Josep Pintat Solaus.
1972 El dramaturgo Antonio Buero Vallejo ingresa en la Real Academia Española.
1971 National Guard mobilized to quell riot in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
1970 National Guard mobilized to quell disturbances at Ohio State University.

1969 US military defends “Hamburger Hill” butchery. ^top^
      A US military command spokesman in Saigon defends the battle for Ap Bia Mountain as having been necessary to stop enemy infiltration and protect the city of Hue. The spokesman stated that the battle was an integral part of the policy of "maximum pressure" that US forces had been pursuing for the prior six months, and confirmed that no orders had been received from President Nixon to modify that basic strategy. On 20 May, the battle, described in the US media as the battle for "Hamburger Hill," had come under attack in Congress from Senator Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), who described the action as "senseless and irresponsible." On 22 May in Phu Bai, South Vietnam, Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais, commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division that took "Hamburger Hill," responded to continuing media criticism by saying that his orders had been "to destroy enemy forces" in the A Shau Valley and that he had not received any other orders to reduce casualties by avoiding battles. The battle in question had occurred as part of Operation Apache Snow in the A Shau Valley. During that operation, which had begun on 10 May, paratroopers had engaged a North Vietnamese regiment on the slopes of Hill 937, known to the Vietnamese as Ap Bia Mountain. Entrenched in prepared fighting positions, the North repulsed the initial American assault and on May 14, beat back another attempt by the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry. An intense battle raged for the next 10 days as the mountain came under heavy Allied air strikes, artillery barrages, and 10 infantry assaults.
      On 20 May 20, Maj. Gen. Zais 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 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 was dubbed "Hamburger Hill" in the US media, 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 was occupied by the North Vietnamese a month later. The news of the battle resulted in widespread public outrage over what appeared to be a senseless loss of American lives. The situation was exacerbated by pictures published in Life magazine of 241 US soldiers killed during the week of the battle. Subsequently, Gen. Creighton Abrams, commander of US Military Assistance Command Vietnam, was ordered to avoid such battles. Because of Hamburger Hill, and other battles like it, US emphasis was placed on "Vietnamization" (turning the war over to the South Vietnamese forces), rather than direct combat operations.

1969 Condenado a muerte el asesino de Robert Francis Kennedy, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan.
1969 La nave espacial estadounidense Apolo X se acerca a 15 kilómetros de la Luna. Dos de sus tres tripulantes salieron del módulo lunar.
1968 Diez millones de franceses en huelga. Los enfrentamientos entre estudiantes y policías son diarios.
1968 The nuclear-powered US submarine Scorpion, with 99 men aboard, is last heard from. The remains of the sub would later be found on the ocean floor 600 km southwest of the Azores.

1961 Alabama Governor Patterson declares martial law in Montgomery.
1955 first US transcontinental round-trip solo flight — sunrise to sunset
1951 Las tropas de la ONU (Organización de las Naciones Unidas) rechazan en Corea a los comunistas, al norte del paralelo 38.
1944 II Guerra Mundial: Tras una durísima batalla, los aliados rebasan Montecassino, lo que facilita el enlace con las fuerzas de Anzio Nettuno y el avance sobre Roma.

1942 IG Farben sets up Auschwitz factory ^top^
      The German firm IG Farben sets up a factory just outside Auschwitz, in order to take advantage of Jewish slave laborers from the Auschwitz concentration camps.
      IG Farben, as well as exploiting Jewish slave labor for its oil and rubber production, also performed drug experiments on inmates. Tens of thousands of prisoners would ultimately die because of brutal work conditions and the savagery of the guards.
      After the war several of the firm's officials would be convicted of "plunder," "spoliation of property," "imposing slave labor," and "inhumane treatment" of civilians and POWs. The company itself came under Allied control. The original goal was to dismantle its industries, which also included the manufacture of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, so as to prevent it from ever posing a threat "to Germany's neighbors or to world peace." But as time passed, the resolve weakened, and the Western powers broke the company up into three separate divisions: Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF.

1941 first US ship sunk by a U-boat (Robin Moor)
1941 Los italianos, refugiados en Amba Alagi, tienen que rendirse y capitular en la Campaña de Etiopía. Tras estos sucesos, el imperio es restaurado y Hailé Selasié repuesto en el trono.
1940 Défaite de la IXème armée française — Prise d'Amiens et d'Arras

1932 Earhart completes transatlantic flight ^top^
      Five years to the day that American aviator Charles Lindbergh became the first pilot to accomplish a solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, female aviator Amelia Earhart repeated the feat, landing her plane at Culmore, Ireland. Earhart, who had traveled 3200 km from Newfoundland, in fourteen hours, was the first woman pilot to ever make the journey.
      However, unlike Charles Lindbergh before her, Earhart was well known to the public before her solo transatlantic flight. In 1928, as a member of a three-member crew, she had become the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an aircraft. Although her only function during the crossing was to keep the plane’s log, the event won her national fame, and Americans were enamored with the daring and modest young pilot. For her solo transatlantic crossing in 1932, she was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross by the US Congress. In 1935, in the first flight of its kind by a female aviator, she flew solo from Wheeler Field in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California.
      Two years later, she attempted, along with copilot Frederick J. Noonan, to fly around the world, but her plane was lost somewhere between New Guinea and Howland Island in the South Pacific. The details of the plane's disappearance remain a mystery.

1927 Lindbergh arrives in Paris ^top^
     In the afternoon, after flying 5810 km in thirty-three-and-a-half hours, American aviator Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., 25, lands at Le Bourget field in Paris, becoming the first pilot to accomplish the nonstop transatlantic crossing. Lindbergh’s achievement makes him an international celebrity, and won widespread public acceptance of the airplane and commercial aviation.
      At 07:52 the previous day, Lindbergh had taken off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, on the world’s first solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
      Lindbergh, a young airmail pilot, was a dark horse when he entered a competition with a $25'000 payoff to fly nonstop from New York to Paris. He ordered a small monoplane, configured it to his own design, and christened it the Spirit of St. Louis.
     US pilot Charles A. Lindbergh lands at Le Bourget Field in Paris, successfully completing the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight and the first ever nonstop flight between New York to Paris. His single-engine monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, had lifted off from Roosevelt Field in New York 33 1/2 hours before. Charles Augustus Lindbergh, born in Detroit in 1902, took up flying at the age of 20. In 1923, he bought a surplus World War I Curtiss "Jenny" biplane and toured the country as a barnstorming stunt flyer. In 1924, he enrolled in the Army Air Service flying school in Texas and graduated at the top of his class as a first lieutenant. He became an airmail pilot in 1926 and pioneered the route between St. Louis and Chicago. Among US aviators, he was highly regarded.
      In May 1919, the first transatlantic flight was made by a US hydroplane that flew from New York to Plymouth, England, via Newfoundland, the Azores Islands, and Lisbon. Later that month, Frenchman Raymond Orteig, an owner of hotels in New York, put up a purse of $25'000 to the first aviator or aviators to fly nonstop from Paris to New York or New York to Paris. In June 1919, the British fliers John W. Alcock and Arthur W. Brown made the first nonstop transatlantic flight, flying 3150 km from Newfoundland to Ireland. The flight from New York to Paris would be nearly twice that distance. Orteig said his challenge would be good for five years.
      In 1926, with no one having attempted the flight, Orteig made the offer again. By this time, aircraft technology had advanced to a point where a few thought such a flight might be possible. Several of the world's top aviators — including American polar explorer Richard Byrd, French flying ace René Fonck — decided to accept the challenge, and so did Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh convinced the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce to sponsor the flight, and a budget of $15'000 was set. The Ryan Airlines Corporation of San Diego volunteered to build a single-engine aircraft to his specifications. Extra fuel tanks were added, and the wing span was increased to 14 meters to accommodate the additional weight. The main fuel tank was placed in front of the cockpit because it would be safest there in the event of a crash. This meant Lindbergh would have no forward vision, so a periscope was added. To reduce weight, everything that was not utterly essential was left out. There would be no radio, gas gauge, night-flying lights, navigation equipment, or parachute. Lindbergh would sit in a light seat made of wicker. Unlike other aviators attempting the flight, Lindbergh would be alone, with no navigator or co-pilot. The aircraft was christened The Spirit of St. Louis, and on 12 May 1927, Lindbergh flew it from San Diego to New York, setting a new record for the fastest transcontinental flight.
1927 Man of the Year

     Bad weather delayed Lindbergh's transatlantic attempt for a week. On the night of 19 May, nerves and a newspaperman's noisy poker game kept him up all night. Early the next morning, though he hadn't slept, the skies were clear and he rushed to Roosevelt Field on Long Island. Six men had died attempting the long and dangerous flight he was about to take. At 07:52 EST on 20 May, The Spirit of St. Louis lifted off from Roosevelt Field, so loaded with fuel that it barely cleared the telephone wires at the end of the runway. Lindbergh traveled northeast up the coast. After only four hours, he felt tired and flew within three meters of the water to keep his mind clear. As night fell, the aircraft left the coast of Newfoundland and set off across the Atlantic.
      At about 02:00 on 21 May, Lindbergh passed the halfway mark, and an hour later dawn came. Soon after, The Spirit of St. Louis entered a fog, and Lindbergh struggled to stay awake, holding his eyelids open with his fingers and hallucinating that ghosts were passing through the cockpit. After 24 hours in the air, he felt a little more awake and spotted fishing boats in the water. At about 11:00 (15:00 local time), he saw the coast of Ireland. Despite using only rudimentary navigation, he was two hours ahead of schedule and only 5 km off course. He flew past England and by 15:00 EST was flying over France. It was 20:00 in France, and night was falling.
      At the Le Bourget Aerodrome in Paris, tens of thousands of Saturday night revelers had gathered to await Lindbergh's arrival. At 22:24 local time, his gray and white monoplane slipped out of the darkness and made a perfect landing in the air field. The crowd surged on The Spirit of St. Louis, and Lindbergh, weary from his 33 1/2-hour, 5900-km journey, was cheered and lifted above their heads. He hadn't slept for 55 hours. Two French aviators saved Lindbergh away from the boisterous crowd, whisking him away in an automobile. He was an immediate international celebrity. President Calvin Coolidge dispatched a warship to take the hero home, and "Lucky Lindy" was given a ticker-tape parade in New York and presented with the Congressional Medal of Honor.
      On 02 January 1928, Time magazine put Lindbergh on its cover as its 1928 Person of the Year, its first one.
      His place in history, however, was not complete. In 1932, he was the subject of international headlines again when his infant son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped, unsuccessfully ransomed, and then found murdered in the woods near the Lindbergh home. German-born Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted of the crime in a controversial trial and then executed.
      Then, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Lindbergh became a spokesperson for the US isolationism movement and was sharply criticized for his apparent Nazi sympathies and anti-Semitic views. After the outbreak of World War II, the fallen hero traveled to the Pacific as a military observer and eventually flew more than two dozen combat missions, including one in which he downed a Japanese aircraft. Lindbergh's war-time service largely restored public faith in him, and for many years later he worked with the US government on aviation issues. In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve. He died in Hawaii in 1974.
      Lindbergh's autobiographical works include We (1927), The Spirit of St. Louis (1953) and The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh (1970).
     El aviador estadounidense Charles Augustus Lindbergh llega a París desde Nueva York, con su Spirit of St. Louis, recorriendo 5860 km en 33 horas y 27 minutos. Era la primera travesía del Atlántico sin escalas por un aviador solitario.

1925 El explorador noruego Roald Engebrecht Amundsen parte hacia el Polo Norte.
1924 Leopold and Loeb kidnap Bobby Franks for fun
1916 Britain begins "Summer Time" (Daylight Saving Time)
1916 Ramón Menéndez Pidal toma posesión de su sillón en la Real Academia de la Historia.
1915 Eruption of Lassen Peak, California: extrusion of lava from the summit and a destructive pyroclastic flow and lahars. A series of small explosions had begun on May 30, 1914. Minor activity continued through middle of 1917.

1910 Serialization of Colette's The Vagabond begins ^top^
      French author Colette (born Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette) begins to publish her novel The Vagabond in serial form. Colette had already achieved success as a writer with her racy and popular series of novels about a young girl named Claudine, starting with Claudine at School (1900). However, she published these works under the name Willy, the pen name of her husband, Henri Gauthier-Villars.
      During her marriage to Gauthier-Villars, when she was in her early 20s, Colette grew from a naïve and provincial country girl to a sophisticated Parisienne. She took mime lessons in 1903 and began acting before she separated from her husband in 1906. The pair divorced in 1910, the same year Colette began to publish her novel The Vagabond, based partly on the failed marriage.
      After the divorce, Colette supported herself as a music-hall actress. She also began publishing essays and articles, most notably in the newspaper Le Matin. She married the paper's editor, Henry de Jouvenel, in 1912. Her book Music-Hall Sidelights (1913) was based on her experiences as an actress. She began writing her best works in the 1920s, including Chéri (1920) and The Last of Chéri (1926), about a handsome young man who lives for pleasure and kills himself when he cannot recapture the joy of his first love affair.
      Colette divorced Jouvenel in 1924 and later married the much younger Maurice Goudeket. She continued writing and won many awards and honors. Her novel Gigi (1944), the story of a girl raised to be a courtesan, was adapted for stage and screen, and included one of Colette's rare happy endings. Colette died in Paris in 1954.

1900 Aprovechándose de la guerra de los boxers, Rusia se anexiona Manchuria a costa de China.
1879 Battle of Iquiquw
1876 Ingreso en la Real Academia Española del escritor Gaspar Núñez de Arce.
1864 Belgian missionary priest Father Damien, 24, is ordained a priest on the Island of Hawaii. Born Joseph de Veuster, the Picpus Father began a work among the lepers on the island of Molokai in 1873. Contracting the disease in 1884, Father Damien succumbed to it five years later.

1863 The Siege of Port Hudson begins ^top^
      Nathaniel Banks, commander of the Union Department of the Gulf, surrounds the Confederate stronghold at Port Hudson, Louisiana, and attacks. Fortifications were built at Port Hudson in 1863 to protect New Orleans from a Union attack down the Mississippi River. On April 25, 1862, New Orleans had fallen into Union hands following an attack from the Gulf of Mexico by Admiral David Farragut. Still, Port Hudson was considered an important installation for the South since it was a significant threat to Federal ships on the Mississippi River. In 1863, the Union command began to focus attention on clearing the Mississippi of all Rebels. The major thrust of this effort was taking Vicksburg, Mississippi, the Confederate stronghold to the north of Port Hudson. In April, Ulysses S. Grant summoned Nathaniel Banks to participate in the campaign against Vicksburg.
      Banks wavered at first, preferring instead to wage an independent campaign against Confederates in Louisiana. But in May, he set out to take Port Hudson, then under the command of Franklin Gardner. Banks had some 30,000 troops under his command, while Gardner possessed a force of just 3,500. When Banks began to encircle Port Hudson, Gardner made some feeble attacks to drive him away.
      On May 21, Gardner received orders from Joseph Johnston, operating in Mississippi, to abandon the fort. But Gardner refused, and asked for reinforcements. This was a fatal mistake, and Banks soon had Gardner surrounded. For the next three weeks, Banks attempted to capture Port Hudson but failed each time. It was not until Vicksburg surrendered on July 4 that Gardner also surrendered.

1861 Richmond, Va is designated Confederate Capital
1856 Lawrence, Kans captured, sacked by pro-slavery forces
1846 first steamship arrives in Hawaii
1840 New Zealand is declared a British colony.
1832 First Democratic Party national convention opens in Baltimore.
1831 Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre comunica a su socio Niepce el casual descubrimiento de la impresionabilidad del yoduro de plata por la luz, base de la fotografía.
1822 Agustín de Iturbide y su esposa son coronados emperadores de México.
1813 Napoleón derrota a prusianos y rusos en la batalla de Bautzen (Sajonia).
1804 Lewis and Clark Expedition begins
1536 The General Assembly of Geneva, Switzerland officially embraced Protestantism by accepting the evangelical faith of the Swiss reformers.

1358 Grande Jacquerie. ^top^
Cent paysans du Beauvaisis s'attaquent aux châteaux de leur région, violant et tuant les habitants, brûlant les demeures. Leur révolte s'étend très vite à la paysannerie du bassin parisien. C'est la plus grande des «jacqueries» qui ont ensanglanté les campagnes françaises au Moyen Age. Ces révoltes sont ainsi nommées d'après l'appellation de Jacques ou Jacques Bonhomme donnée aux paysans. Les révoltés figurent parmi les paysans aisés de l'une des régions les plus riches d'Europe. Depuis l'épidémie de peste qui a ravagé l'Occident dix ans plus tôt, ils sont en situation de mieux faire valoir leurs droits car les seigneurs sont partout en quête de main-d'oeuvre pour remettre en culture les terres abandonnées. La Grande Jacquerie survient peu après que les chevaliers français aient été écrasés par les Anglais à Poitiers. Le roi est prisonnier à Londres tandis que Paris est sous la coupe d'Etienne Marcel, le prévôt des marchands. Les paysans ne supportent pas que les nobles, qui ont lâchement fui devant les Anglais, fassent maintenant pression sur eux pour leur extorquer de nouvelles taxes. Les nobles n'en écrasent pas moins les Jacques à Clermont-sur-Oise le 10 Jun 1358. Les chefs des révoltés sont impitoyablement torturés et exécutés. En dépit de ce drame, les révoltes paysannes se renouvelleront les années suivantes, notamment en Angleterre, en 1381, avec Wat Tyler, et en Hongrie.

TO THE TOP

Deaths which occurred on a May 21: ^top^
2003 Nearly 3000 persons in magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Algeria, at 19:44 (18:44 UT), with epicenter near Thénia, at 36º53'N 03º44'E, 10 km deep. One of the severely affected towns is Boumerdes. Some 11'000 persons are injured. 15'000 are left homeless. This earthquake occurred in the boundary region between the Eurasian plate and the African plate. Along this section of the plate boundary, the African plate is moving northwestward against the Eurasian plate with a velocity of about 6 mm per year. The relative plate motions create a compressional tectonic environment, in which earthquakes occur by thrust-faulting (as this one) and strike-slip faulting. [searching for survivors the next morning >] Algeria has experienced many deadly earthquakes, but they have been dwarfed by the 120'000 deaths resulting from the Islamic terrorism raging now for more than a decade, since the military invalidaded an Islamic electoral victory. On 10 October 1980, the city of El Asnam (formerly Orléansville and today Ech-Cheliff) was severely damaged by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake that killed at least 5000 people. The site of El Asnam is situated approximately 220 km to the west of the recent earthquake. The same city, as Orléansville, had been heavily damaged on 09 September 1954, by a magnitude 6.7 earthquake that killed over 1000 people. On 29 October 1989, a magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck about 110 km to the west of the recent earthquake and killed at least 30 people.
2003 Four innocent Afghan soldiers, shot by trigger-happy US Marine guards of the US embassy in Kabul, when they saw the Afghans unloading weapons from a truck at a military compound across the street. Four other Afghan soldiers are wounded.
2002 Abdul Ghani Lone, 69, and a bodyguard, shot by two masked gunmen wearing police uniforms, in Srinagar, Kashmir, at a cemetery during a conmemoration on the 12th arriversary of the assassination of Kashmir independence leader Maulvi Farooq. The attack happened after Lone came down from a platform with 5000 people looking on. He was shot in the heart, abdomen and thigh. A second bodyguard was being wounded. Lone was one of the leaders of the All Party Hurriyat Conference, a group of political and religious parties that advocate Muslim-majority Kashmir's separation from predominantly Hindu India, by peaceful means. Lone was born in 1932 in Kashmir and began his political career as a youth leader in the Congress party, before forming his own People's Conference Party in 1977. Lone was Kashmir's education minister in the 1970s. He joined it to Hurriyat in 1994 when the separatist movement began in earnest. In April 2002 he had been attacked during a hotel news conference by a Hindu nationalist who was a member of the Shiv Sena party, a member of Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's coalition. In November 2001, Lone had been threatened by a militant Islamic group. Two weeks earlier, shots were fired at his house in Srinagar, by agents of the state and central governments, Lone thought.

2002 Utttam Sharma, 13, and two other civilians, during exchange of gunfire between Indian and Pakistani troops in the Akhnoor sector of Kashmir, near the Pakistan border. Sharma was killed by a Pakistani shell. [photo below, left: relatives of Sharma mourn over him]
	[photo below: Pushpa Devi kisses her dead boy goodbye]

2001 Hamad Abu Khosa, 45, and Ahmad Ala’jami, 27, from Alboraij Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip, shot by Israeli soldiers east of the camp.
2001 Newborn Mibenge, minutes old, swallowed by python, near Serenje, Zambia (date estimated from fact that Zambian TV reported it on 22 May). Joyce Mibenge was on her way to plough fields one and a half kilometers from her home when she went into labor. When she had recovered enough to hold her baby she saw a python which had engulfed it whole, but for the legs. She did not even know whether she had had a boy or girl.
2001: 34 Turkish soldiers, of an elite special unit, as a military CASA CN 235 transport crashes in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan.

1998 — Mikael Nickkolauson, 17, ^top^ killed by fellow student, Kipland P. Kinkel, 15, in Springfield, Oregon. The previous evening Kip had killed his parents. This morning he goes to Thurston High School where he shoots 48 rounds from a semi-automatic rifle in less than one minute, killing Mikael Nickkolauson, and wounding more than 20 other persons, one of which, Ben Walker, 16, dies the next day from his injuries. Those who were hospitalized for their wounds are:
Jennifer Alldredge, 17, wound to chest/hand/neck Ryan Atteberry, 17, wound to face Sara Branom, 15, wound to right thigh Tony Case, 17, wound to chest/abdomen/leg Nathan Cole, 17, wound to abdomen Tabitha Fain, 14, wound to thigh Melissa Femrite, 16, wound to left forearm Trina Harty, 17, wound to left leg Kyle Howes, 16, broken tibia and lacerated thigh Betina Lynn, 18, wound to ankle Carolyn McClain, 15, wound to right arm	Elizabeth McKenzie, 15, wound to left hip Tara McMullen, 15, broken right rib Teresa Miltonberger, 16, wound to head Christina Osburn, 17, gunshot wound to pelvis Joshua Pearson, 17, wounded in buttocks Richard Peek, 17, wound to left arm Amber Ramsey, 15, wound to right hip Jacob Russell Ryker, 17, wounded in chest, hand Melissa Taylor, 15, wound to shoulder Gabriel Thomas, 17, wound to left shoulder Jesse Walley, 16, wound to stomach
(Some shooting victims were never hospitalized and thus do not appear on the list above. For example Nichole Buckholtz, 17, was wounded in the right leg and treated by a family doctor.) [News stories archive]

1996 At least 615 drowned as an overloaded Tanzanian ferry capsizes in Lake Victoria.

1996 Sept moines trappistes du monastère de Medéa, Algérie, ^top^
Enlevés le 27 mars, ils sont assassinés par leurs ravisseurs.
L'obscure affaire des moines assassinés (AFP, 21 et 22 juin, 15 juillet) Le Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA) dirigé par Djamel Zitouni a adressé en mai et juin, via la radio franco-marocaine de Tanger "Médi", une série de messages impliquant le gouvernement français dans l'"affaire" des sept moines trappistes de Tibéhirine enlevés le 27 mars et assassinés le 21 mai. Le 18 juin, un communiqué du GIA relate une entrevue entre un émissaire du groupe et des diplomates de l'Ambassade de France à Alger, le 30 avril, soit près d'un mois avant l'enlèvement des moines. Le 16 avril, un message aurait été adressé aux autorités françaises par Djamal Zitouni. Ce message aurait fait part aux Français du désir du GIA de parlementer, et leur aurait annoncé l'arrivée d'un émissaire dont la sécurité serait gagée par la vie des moines. Le 30 avril, une rencontre se serait déroulée à l'Ambassade de France entre un émissaire du GIA ("Abdullah") et des diplomates français, lesquels auraient reçu la preuve que les moines étaient toujours en vie, et une lettre précisant les modalités de négociation. Les autorités françaises auraient remis à "Abdullah" une lettre indiquant deux numéros de téléphone de contact et exprimant le souhait de maintenir ce contact. L'émissaire du GIA aurait ensuite été reconduit dans le quartier de Hussein Dey par une voiture de l'Ambassade, en compagnie du diplomate Clément et du Consul français. Le porte-parole du Ministère français des Affaires étrangères a confirmé la rencontre avec le GIA de Zitouni mais a démenti que ce contact ait impliqué le Consul général et toute tractation entre le France et les ravisseurs des moines. De telles tractations ont cependant été évoquées par le prieur du monastère d'Aiguebelle (Maison-mère du monastère de Tibéhirine). Le prieur a ensuite été désavoué par le supérieur de la communauté, lequel a été lui-même limogé et remplacé à son poste... par le prieur.

1995 Les Aspin, 36, from stroke; former US Secretary of Defense
1991 Rajiv[aratna] Gandhi [Zindabad], former, Indian Prime Minister, assassinated during national elections by a suicide bomber.
1991 Jaime Gutiérrez Álvarez, Catholic priest, rector of Colegio de La Salle in Medellín, Colombia, murdered by gunmen.
El 21 de mayo de 1991, el sacerdote Jaime Gutiérrez Álvarez, rector del Colegio de La Salle de Medellín, fue muerto a dispararos.
1990 Mirwaiz Maulvi Mohammad Farooq, killed by unidentified gunmen, in his house. He was a Kashmir independence leader. Later in the day more than 50 persons are killed when Indian police open fire on mourners carrying the body of Maulvi Farooq.
1989 John Richard Hicks, economista británico, P. Nobel 1972.
1980 Salvador de Moxó Ortiz de Villajos, historiador español.
1957 Aleksandr Ivanovich Nekrasov , Russian astronomer and mathematical physicist born on 09 December 1883.
1953 Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Zermelo, German mathematician born on 27 July 1871.

1942, 4300 Polish Jews ^top^
4300 Jews are deported from the Polish town of Chelm to the Nazi extermination camp at Sobibor, where all are gassed to death. Sobibor had five gas chambers, where about 250'000 Jews were killed between 1942 and 1943. A camp revolt occurred in October 1943; 300 Jewish slave laborers rose up and killed several members of the SS as well as Ukrainian guards. The rebels were killed as they battled their captors or tried to escape. The remaining prisoners were executed the very next day.

1940 the first of 1500 mental patients in East Prussia ^top^
A Nazi "special unit" carries out its mission-and murders more than 1500 hospital patients in East Prussia. Mentally ill patients from throughout East Prussia had been transferred to the district of Soldau, also in East Prussia. A special military unit, basically a hit squad, carried out its agenda and killed the patients over an 18-day period, one small part of the larger Nazi program to exterminate everyone deemed "unfit" by its ideology. After the murders, the unit reported back to headquarters in Berlin that the patients had been "successfully evacuated."

1937 Herbert Ellsworth Slaught, US mathematician born on 21 July 1861.
1935 Jane Addams, US social reformer and pacifist, born on 06 September 1860. In September 1889, with Ellen Gates Starr, she founded the social services center Hull-House, at 800 South Halsted Street, Chicago. She shared the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize (with Nicholas Murray Butler [02 Apr 1862 – 07 Dec 1947]). She was the author of Twenty Years at Hull-House (1919) — The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House (1930) — Democracy and Social Ethics (1902) — Newer Ideals of Peace (1907) — The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets — (1910) — The Long Road of Women's Memory (1916) — Peace and Bread in Time of War (1922).

1924 Bobbie Franks, 14 ^top^
stabbed several times by his cousin Richard Loeb in the backseat of a rented car as Nathan Leopold drives through Chicago's heavy traffic. Leopold and Loeb had abducted Franks from a Chicago street. After Franks bleeds to death on the floor of the car, Leopold and Loeb throw his body in a previously scouted swamp and then disposed of the other evidence in various locations. The case later proves to be one of the most fascinating murders in American history.
      The killers, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, were extremely wealthy and intelligent teenagers whose sole motive for killing Franks was the desire to commit the "perfect crime." Leopold, who graduated from the University of Chicago at age 18, spoke nine languages and had an IQ of 200, but purportedly had perverse sexual desires. Loeb, also unusually gifted, graduated from college at 17 and was fascinated with criminal psychology. The two made a highly unusual pact: Loeb, who was a homosexual, agreed to participate in Leopold's eccentric sexual practices in return for Leopold's cooperation with his criminal endeavors. Both were convinced that their intelligence and social privilege exempted them from the laws that bound other people. Leopold once wrote, "The superman is not liable for anything he may do, except for the one crime that it is possible for him to commit-to make a mistake." In 1924, the pair began to put this maxim to the test by planning to commit a perfect murder. They each established false identities and began rehearsing the kidnapping and murder over and over.
      In an attempt to throw police off their trail, they sent a ransom note demanding $10'000 to Franks' wealthy father. But Leopold and Loeb were not "supermen"; they had made a couple of key mistakes. First, the body, which was poorly hidden, was discovered the next day. This prompted an immediate search for the killers, which Loeb himself joined. The typewriter used to type the ransom note was recovered from a lake and, more important, a pair of glasses was found near Franks' body. When the glasses were traced to the manufacturer, police learned that only three of its kind had ever been produced. Two were immediately accounted for and the third belonged to Nathan Leopold, who calmly told detectives that he must have dropped them while bird hunting earlier in the week. This explanation might have proved sufficient, but reporters covering the case soon discovered other letters from Leopold that matched the ransom note.
      When confronted with this evidence, Leopold and Loeb both confessed. After Leopold's father got down on his knees and begged Clarence Darrow to defend his son, the esteemed attorney agreed, and the trial soon became a national sensation. Darrow, who didn't argue the boys' innocence, directed one of his most famous orations against the death penalty itself. The judge was swayed and imposed life sentences. Apparently unsatisfied with the attorney's work, Leopold's father later reneged on his contract to pay Darrow. In January 1936, a fellow inmate killed Loeb in a bloody razor fight in the prison's shower. Leopold was released on parole in 1958 with help from noted poet Carl Sandburg, who testified on his behalf. He lived out the rest of his life in Puerto Rico, where he died in 1971.

1923 Curley, Crow scout. ^top^
The Crow scout Curley, the last man on the army side to see Custer and the 7th Cavalry alive, dies. Two days later he would be buried at the National Cemetery of the Big Horn Battlefield in Montana. Born around 1859 near the Little Rosebud River, Montana, from an early age Curley had participated in fights with the Crow's hated enemy, the Sioux. Like many of his people, Curley viewed the Anglo-American soldiers as allies in the Crow war with the Sioux. When he was in his late teens, he signed on as a cavalry scout to aid the army's major campaign against the Sioux and Cheyenne in the summer of 1876. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry arrived in the Powder River country of southern Montana in early June 1876. As Custer proceeded toward the Little Big Horn Valley, he found increasing signs that a large number of Indians lay ahead. On 22 June, Curley and five other Crow scouts were detached from a different unit and sent to Custer to bolster his Arikara scouts. On the morning of 25 June, Curley and the other scouts warned Custer that a massive gathering of Indians lay ahead that far outnumbered his contingent of 187 men.
Custer dismissed the report and made the unusual decision to attack in the middle of the day. Both the Crow and Arikara scouts believed this would be suicidal and prepared to die. Right before the battle began, however, Custer released the Crow scouts from duty. All of the scouts, except for Curley, obeyed and rode off to relative safety. However, since the hills were now swarming with small war parties of Sioux and Cheyenne, Curley initially thought he would be safer if he remained with the soldiers. As the fighting gradually began to heat up, Curley reconsidered. He left Custer and rode to the east. Concealing himself in coulees and ravines, Curley avoided attack and made his way to a ridge about a mile and a half to the east. There he watched much of the battle through field glasses, the last man from the army side to see Custer and his men alive. When it had become clear that Custer's army was going to be wiped out, Curley abandoned his looking post and rode away to warn the approaching Generals Terry and Gibbon of the disaster. In the weeks following the battle, Curley provided an accurate and valuable account of the final moments of Custer's 7th Cavalry. Unfortunately, some interviewers later pushed the eager-to-cooperate Curley to revise his account and others simply misrepresented his testimony to fit their own theories. Consequently, for many years Curley was dismissed as a liar. Later historians, however, have vindicated the accuracy of Curley's initial story. Little is known about Curley's life after the Little Big Horn, but at some point he moved to the Crow Agency in Montana where he dies of pneumonia on 21 May 1923. Two days later, he is buried at the National Cemetery at the Little Big Horn Battlefield.

1915 Max Alfred Buri, Swiss artist born on 24 July 1868.
1882 Manuel Ancízar, escritor, abogado y periodista colombiano.
1875 Johann Adam Klein, German painter and printmaker born on 24 November 1792.
1868 Jean-Antoine Duclaux, French artist born on 26 June 1783.
1848 Pierre Laurent Wantzel, French mathematician born on 05 June 1814.
1819 Dionys van Dongen, Dutch painter born on 03 September 1748. — MORE ON VAN DONGEN AT ART “4” MAY — Cattle
1813 Christiaen van Pol, Dutch artist born on 14 March 1752.

Condamnés à mort par la Révolution: ^top^
1794 (2 prairial an II):
BROCHARDIERE François, secrétaire de son père, payeur des dépenses du département de la guerre, domicilié à Vannes (Morbihan), comme émigré, le 2 prairial an 3, par la commission militaire établie à Bruxelles.
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire d'Arras:
BARBIER Jean, 73 ans, marchand né à Veslis en Lorraine, domicilié à Aire (Pas-de-Calais), comme ayant signé, en 1791, une adresse tendante à obtenir des prêtres réfractaires, pour desservir la paroisse Notre-Dame d'Aire
DELAHAYE Louis François Joseph, huissier, 32 ans, né et domicilié à Aire (Pas-de-Calais), époux de Enet Claire Nicole, comme ayant cherché à avilir les patriotes, tant par ses regards que par ses discours insolents, ayant fait partie d'un club monarchique, et signé en 1791 une adresse tendante à faire desservir Notre Dame d'Aire par des prêtres réfractaires.
THOMAS Vindicien, fabricant de tabac, 45 ans, né à Fléchinelle, domicilié à Aire (Pas-de-Calais), époux de Ockerman Thérèse, comme conspirateur ayant traité les députés à la Convention de Gueux, et notamment Robespierre.
Par le tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris:
TOURNACOS François, baron Allemand, 37 ans, natif de Metz, domicilié à Paris, comme conspirateur ayant montré à ceux qui l'interrogeaient un écu de six livres, à la face du tyran roi, disant que c'était là son passe port.
BRUNEL (dit Capet), 44 ans, né à Craponne (Haute Loire), domestique domicilié à Paris, comme conspirateur convaincu d'avoir entretenu une correspondance avec les ennemis extérieur de la République.
RAGOT Agathe Elisabeth, 54 ans, ex religieuse à Bourges, née et domiciliée à Libreval (Cher), convaincue d’avoir entretenu des intelligences et correspondances avec les émigrés.
SIMARD Claude, ex-curé de St Georges, 68 ans, né et domicilié à Libreval (Cher), comme convaincu d'avoir entretenu des correspondance avec les émigrés.
VASSAL Louis François, ex noble 35 ans, natif de Fraicenet (Lot), domicilié à Paris, comme ayant eu des intelligences avec un de ses frères émigrés, et comme ayant lui-même émigré.
DELIGNON Gabriel, 42 ans, né à Villaine (Côte-d’Or), comme conspirateur.
LA FILARD Dominique, cuisinier de la maison d'Artois et ci-devant argenteur de la maison d'Angoulême, depuis receveur de rentes, et agent d'affaires, domicilié à Paris, comme conspirateur.
NICOLAS Pierre François, 39 ans, né à Longchant (Doubs), domestique de Kievry, Irlandais, domicilié à Paris, comme conspirateur.
1793:
LAMBERT Jean Claude, entreposeur de tabac, domicilié à Emontiers (Haute Vienne), par le tribunal criminel dudit département, comme émigré.

1650 Jacobo Graham, conde y duque de Montrose, generalísimo y virrey de Escocia.

1542 Hernando de Soto, 45, ^top^
      On the banks of the Mississippi River in present-day Arkansas, Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto died, ending a three-year journey that took him nearly halfway across the North American continent. In order that the Native Americans would not learn of his death, and thus disprove de Soto’s claims of divinity, his men buried his body in the Mississippi River.
      Born in the last years of the fifteenth century, de Soto first made a name for himself as part of Francisco Pizarro’s expedition to Peru in the 1520s. De Soto returned to Spain loaded with plundered riches, but by the 1530s had grown restless. Emperor Charles V responded by making the dashing young conquistador governor of Cuba with a right to conquer Florida, and thus the North American mainland.
      In late May of 1539, de Soto landed on the west coast of Florida with six hundred troops, servants and staff, two hundred horses, and a pack of bloodhounds. From there, the army set about subduing the natives, seizing any riches they stumbled upon, and preparing the region for eventual Spanish colonization. Traveling north through the Southeast and into the lower Mid-West, de Soto failed to find the gold, silver, or jewels he desired, but his forces succeeded in intimidating and ill-treating the natives as was the method of Spanish conquest elsewhere in the Americas.
      However, North America lacked the large, centralized civilizations of Central and South America, and decisive conquest eluded the Spanish as scattered Indian attacks thinned their ranks. In 1541, the army reached and crossed the Mississippi River, probably the first Europeans ever to do so, and then traveled as far west as present-day Oklahoma, still with little material gains to show for their efforts.
      Turning back to the Mississippi, de Soto died on its banks on May 21, 1542, leaving his men to continue the conquest of North America without him. The army traveled west again, crossing into Texas before returning to the Mississippi. With nearly half of the original expedition dead, the Spaniards constructed a vessel and traveled down the river to sea, and then made their way down the Texas coast to New Spain, finally reaching Veracruz in late 1543.

1506 Cristóbal Colón, navegante que descubrió el continente americano.

Births which occurred on a May 21: ^top^
1934 Bengt Ingemar Samuelsson, profesor e investigador sueco, P. Nobel de Medicina en 1982.
1921 Andrei Dimitrievich Sajarov, científico ruso, P. Nobel de la Paz en 1975.
1916 Harold Robbins, novelista estadounidense.
1914 Greyhound Bus Company begins in Minnesota
1898 Armand Hammer NYC, millionaire industrialist (Occidental Petroleum)
1897 Felix Conrad Müller, German artist who died in 1977.
1895 Lázaro Cárdenas, político y militar mexicano.
1889 Jan Trampota, Czech artist who died on 19 October 1942.

1881 American Red Cross founded ^top^
In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons founded the American National Red Cross, an organization designed to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters in congruence with the International Red Cross. Barton, born in North Oxford, Massachusetts, became a well-known nurse during the American Civil War, and was called the "Angel of the Battlefield" for her tireless dedication to the medical needs of the war’s wounded and sick. In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln commissioned her to search for lost prisoners of war, and with the extensive records she had compiled during the war, she succeeded in identifying thousands of the Union dead at the Andersonville prisoner-of-war camp. She was in Europe in 1870 when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and she went behind the German lines to work for the International Red Cross. In 1873, she returned to the United States, and, four years later, she organized an American branch of the International Red Cross, which became part of the international relief organization in 1882, and received its first US federal charter in 1900. Barton headed the American Red Cross into her eighties, and died in 1912.

1865 C.J. Thomsen Denmark, archeologist, named Stone/Iron/Bronze Ages
1860 Willam Einthoven inventor (electrocardiograph)
1858 Edouard Jean-Baptiste Goursat, French mathematician who died on 25 November 1936. He is best known for his version of the Cauchy-Goursat theorem stating that the integral of a function round a simple closed contour is zero if the function is analytic inside the contour. Author of Cours d'analyse mathématique (1900-1910) which introduced many new analysis concepts.
1857 (or 12 May?) Emilio Boggio, Venezuelan French artist who died on 07 May (or in June?) 1920. — more — Viejo Rodolfo — Manzano en Flor — Costa de la Liguria — Río Oisse
1856 José Batlle y Ordóñez, presidente de Uruguay.
1855 Emile Verhaeren, à Saint-Amands, poète belge.
1851 Léon Bourgeois France, politician, internationalist (Nobel 1920)
1844 Edmond-Georges Grandjean, French artist who died in 1908.
1844 Henri Julien Félix “le Douanier” Rousseau, French Post-Impressionist painter who died on 02 September 1910. — MORE ON “LE DOUANIER” AT ART “4” MAY — LINKS — Moi: Portrait~Paysage — Self-Portrait with a Lamp — The Painter and His Wife — At this site: Le Rêve — Surprise! — Les Joueurs de Football — La Bohémienne Endormie — Boy on Rocks — Eclaireur attaqué par un tigre — Combat Entre Tigre et Buffle — Les Artilleurs — La Tour Eiffel — Moi: Portrait~Paysage — Femme se Promenant Dans un Jardin Exotique — Le Repas du Lion — Le Rêve — La Guerre — L'Octroi — The Tiger Hunt — Tropical Forest with Apes and Snake — Apes in the Orange Grove — Horse Attacked by a Jaguar — Woman with an Umbrella in an Exotic Forest — Exotic Landscape — Jungle with Lion — Unpleasant Surprise [might have been titled: Bare Gets Shock, Bear Gets Shot] — The Snake Charmer — The Flamingos — The Little Cavalier, Don Juan — Happy Quartet — The Representatives of Foreign Powers Coming to Greet the Republic as a Sign of Peace — Old Junier's Cart — Joseph Brummer — 104 images at Webshots
1828 Johann Rudolf Koller, Swiss artist who died on 05 January 1905. — MORE ON KOLLER AT ART “4” MAY — The Richisau — Gotthardpost — Schimmelpaar Bei Herannahendem Gewitter
1826 Adolf Heinrich Lier, German artist who died on 30 September 1882.

1796, Reverdy Johnson, in Annapolis. ^top^
      Johnson grew up to represented Maryland, a slaveholding state south of the Mason-Dixon line, in the US Senate from 1845-49 and again from 1863-68. Under President Zachary Taylor, he served as attorney general.
      Although he personally opposed slavery, Johnson represented the slave-owning defendant in the 1857 Dred Scott case in which the US Supreme Court decided that slaves could not be citizens of the United States. The court's decision increased antislavery sentiment in the North and fed the antagonism that sparked the War Between the States. In 1865, the ruling was made obsolete with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment prohibiting slavery. Contemporary condemnation of the Dred Scott decision can be found in the the minutes and sermon of the Second Presbyterian and Congregational Convention held in Philadelphia in 1858:
     During the Civil War, Reverdy Johnson strived to keep Maryland in the Union. The success of his efforts was of great strategic importance as it kept the District of Columbia, the capital of the Union, from being surrounded by Confederate states. Although Maryland remained loyal to the Union, strong Southern sentiments resulted in the imposition of martial law throughout the state. Several major Civil War military campaigns and battles took place within her borders, including the Battle of Antietam on 17 September 1862, the single bloodiest day in American history.
     Reverdy Johnson was moderate in his attitude toward post-Civil War reconstruction of the rebellious Southern states. When impeachment proceedings were brought against Andrew Johnson, largely for his lenient treatment of the South, Reverdy Johnson was instrumental in securing the President's acquittal.

1792 Gaspard Gustave de Coriolis, French engineer, physicist, and mathematician who died on 19 September 1843. He is best remembered for the Coriolis force. He showed that the laws of motion could be used in a rotating frame of reference if an extra force called the Coriolis acceleration is added to the equations of motion.

1688 Alexander Pope.. ^top^
He would become a poet and satirist of the English Augustan period, best known for his poems An Essay on Criticism (1711), The The Rape of the Lock (1712–14), The Dunciad (1728), and An Essay on Man (1733–34). He is one of the most quotable of all English authors. Pope would die on 30 May 1744.
POPE ONLINE: An Essay on Criticism — An Essay on Criticism — An Essay on Man — An Essay on Man, Moral Essays and Satires — The Rape of the Lock — The Rape of the Lock — Windsor-Forest

The Universal Prayer


        FATHER of all! in every age, 
        In every clime adored,
        By saint, by savage, and by sage, 
        Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!


        Thou great First Cause, least understood, 
        Who all my sense confined
        To know but this, that thou art good, 
        And that myself am blind;

        Yet gave me, in this dark estate, 
        To see the good from ill;
        And,  binding nature fast in fate, 
        Left free the human will:

        What conscience dictates to be done,
        Or warns me not to do,
        This, teach me more than hell to shun, 
        That, more than heaven pursue.

        What blessings thy free bounty gives
        Let me not cast away;
        For God is paid when man receives, 
        To enjoy is to obey.

 
        Yet not to earth's contracted span 
        Thy goodness let me bound,
        Or think thee Lord alone of man,
        When thousand worlds are round:


        Let not this weak, unknowing hand 
        Presume thy bolts to throw,
        And deal damnation round the land 
        On each I judge thy foe.

        If I am right, thy grace impart 
        Still in the right to stay;
        If I am wrong, 0, teach my heart 
        To find that hetter way!

        Save me alike from foolish pride 
        And impious discontent
        At aught thy wisdom has denied, 
        Or aught thy goodness lent

 
         Teach me to feel another's woe, 
        To hide the fault I see;
        That mercy I to others show, 
        That mercy show to me.


        Mean though I am, not wholly so, 
        Since quickened by thy breath;
        0, lead me wheresoe'er I go,
        Through this day's life or death!

        This day he bread and peace my lot:
        All else heneath the sun,
        Thou know'st if best bestowed or not, 
        And let thy will be done.

        To thee, whose temple is all space, 
        Whose altar, earth, sea, skies,
        One chorus let all Being raise, 
        All Nature's incense rise!

1527 Philip II king of Spain (1556-1598) and Portugal (1580-1598)

1471 Albrecht Dürer, artist and mathematician, in Nürnberg, Germany ^top^
             [click on image for complete self-portrait >]
            Albrecht Dürer was born the son of prosperous goldsmith Albrecht Dürer the Elder (1427-1502), and Barbara Holper. His early training was in drawing, woodcutting and printing, which were to remain his main and favorite media throughout his artistic career. 1486 through 1489 he apprenticed in the workshop of Nuremberg artist Michael Wolgemut.
            He traveled much. In 1490 he left his native city for four year, probably initially visiting Cologne and possibly the Netherlands. He traveled to Italy twice in 1494-95 and 1505-07, visited Venice and Bologna, perhaps Florence and Rome. His fame was broadcast through his engravings, and artists in Italy were soon drawing on them for ideas. In Venice he knew and admired above all the aged Giovanni Bellini. In 1495 he established his own workshop in Nuremberg.
            His best known works are his 18 engravings of the Apocalypse cycle, the most interesting of which is The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1498). One of his patrons was the Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony from 1496, whose portrait he painted in 1496. He commissioned Dürer to paint several altarpieces: The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin (c.1496-1497), The Jabach Altarpiece (c.1503-1504), The Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (1508) and The Adoration of the Magi (1504), which is considered to be one of the Dürer's masterpieces. Dürer's other patrons for religious works were wealthy Nuremberg citizens, who commissioned the following pieces: Lot Fleeing with His Daughters from Sodom (c.1498), The Paumgartner Altarpiece (c.1498-1504), Lamentation for Christ (c.1500-1503), The Adoration of the Holy Trinity (1511), The Virgin and Child Before an Archway.
      Dürer was also known for his portraits, which were frequently commissioned from him. Among his best are Portrait of Dürer's Father at 70 (1497), Portrait of Oswolt Krel (1499), Portrait of Bernard von Reesen (1521), Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher (1526). He also painted several self-portraits, which give us the greatest insight into his character and beliefs: Self-Portrait at 13 (1484), Self-Portrait at 22 (1493), Self-Portrait at 26 (1498) and Self-Portrait at 28 (1500).
            Throughout his life Dürer produced a lot of watercolour landscapes and nature studies, the best are Saint John's Church (1489), House by a Pond (1496), Willow Mill (1496-1498), A Young Hare (1502), The Large Turf (1503).
            Dürer's greatest achievement in printmaking were the three engravings of 1513-1514, regarded as his masterpieces Knight, Death and the Devil (1513), St. Jerome in His Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514). After completing these engravings Dürer worked for the Emperor Maximilian , who commissioned him to design a huge print The Triumphal Arch, to celebrate the Emperor's achievements. This monumental project, composed of 192 woodblocks and 330 cm (11') high, is still the largest woodcut print ever made. In 1515 Emperor Maximilian granted him a pension of 100 florins, although it was stopped after his death in 1519. Dürer had to travel to the Netherlands in 1520-1521 to the court of the Emperor Charles V to have the pension confirmed. During his journey he met many famous Netherlands painters such as Quentin Massys, Joos van Cleve, Lucys van Leyden and others. In Antwerp he met Erasmus, the humanist scholar, and sketched his portrait.
            Dürer became an early and enthusiastic follower of Martin Luther. His new faith can be sensed in the growing austerity of style and subject in his religious works after 1520. The climax of this trend is represented by The Four Holy Men (1526).
            Albrecht Dürer is akin to Leonardo in his restless intellectual curiosity. He wrote and published theoretical works: Manual of Measurement (1525); Various Instructions for the Fortification of Towns, Castles and other Localities (1527). His Four Books on Human Proportion were published in October 1528, after his 06 April 1528 death..
— LINKS — St. Jerome in His Study — St. Jerome in the Wilderness — St. Jerome Penitent in the Landscape — St. Jerome Seated Near a Pollard Willow — St. Jerome [with a headache?]

— 427 -BC- Plato (Aristocles), Athens(?)

Holidays Chile : Battle of Inquique/Navy Day (1879) / Macedonia, Greece : Anastenarides Feast-dance barefoot on hot coals / NY : Armed Forces Day / US : Lindbergh Flight Day (1927)

Religious Observances Orthodox : SS Constantine and Helen / Santos Secundino, Valente y Timoteo; santas Felicia y Gisela. / Luth : John Eliot, missionary to the Indians / Saint Constantin: C'est un empereur pas très catholique qui est fêté ce jour par l'Eglise... Baptisé sur son lit de mort, il n'a jamais montré de scrupules pour imposer son pouvoir sur l'empire romain et abattre ses rivaux.

Thought for the day: “Obviously crime pays, or there'd be no crime.” [Wrong! Some do it just for the fun of it.]
“One who is too wise an observer of the business of others, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.” — Pope [unless, perhaps, he uses smoke]
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” — Pope [and vice-versa?]
“'Tis education forms the common mind; Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.” — Pope (Moral Essays, Epis, I, Line 149)
“Know thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.” — Pope
“A man should never be ashamed to admit that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.” — Pope
“An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him.” — Pope
“A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring. There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, Whilst drinking deeply sobers it again.” — Pope ( Essay on Criticism)

Pierian spring??? Something like the “Prague Spring”? a bedspring? Noooo... ^top^
It has to do with Muses, with inspiration, with knowledge.
     In mythology, Pieria was said to be the region of origin of the Muses in Macedonia. (actually Pieria was somewhere in Greece).
     In ancient Greek religion, the Muses were a group of sister goddesses, not individualized, the chief centre of whose cult was Mount Helicon in Boeotia, Greece.
     The mythological systematization of the Muses began with the 8th-century-BC poet Hesiod, who mentioned the names of Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia (Polyhymnia), Urania, and Calliope, who was their chief. Their father was Zeus, and their mother was Mnemosyne (“Memory”). Although Hesiod's list became canonical in later times, it was not the only one; at both Delphi and Sicyon there were but three Muses, one of whom in the latter place bore the fanciful name Polymatheia (“Much Learning”). All the Hesiodic names are significant; thus Clio is approximately the “Proclaimer,” Euterpe the “Well Pleasing,” Thalia the “Blooming,” or “Luxuriant,” Melpomene the “Songstress,” Erato the “Lovely,” Polymnia “She of the Many Hymns,” Urania the “Heavenly,” Calliope “She of the Beautiful Voice,” and Terpsichore “Whirler of the Dance.”
      A common but by no means unique list of the Muses, their specialties, and attributes is: Calliope: heroic or epic poetry (writing tablet) — Clio: history (scroll) — Erato: lyric and love poetry (lyre) — Euterpe: music or flutes (flute) — Melpomene: tragedy (tragic mask) — Polymnia: sacred poetry or the mimic art (pensive look) — Terpsichore: dancing and choral song (dancing, lyre) — Thalia: comedy (comic mask) — Urania: astronomy (globe).
PAINTINGS OF MUSES ONLINE:
by Eustache Le Sueur: Clio, Euterpe and Thalia — Melpomène, Erato, Polymnia
by Nicolas Poussin: Apollon et les Muses
by Simon Vouet: Apollon et les Muses — Les Muses Uranie et Calliopée
by Samuel Morse: “The Muse” (actually his daughter Susan)

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updated Thursday 29-May-2003 12:32 UT

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