Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Only 232 days until the Year 2010
Today is:
Mother's Day
On The Way To Today... May 13th
68 - Ascension Day -- which commemorates Christ's ascension into
heaven -- was first observed.
1568 - Mary, Queen of Scots was defeated by the English at the battle
of Langside in Glasgow.
1607 - Captain John Smith and a party of soldiers landed in Virginia,
named the spot Jamestown and established the first permanent British
settlement in the New World.
1619 - Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, statesman and founding father of the
Netherlands, was executed by Prince Maurice of Nassau on a charge of
subverting religion.
1787 - The first fleet of ships carrying convicts to the new penal
colony of Australia left England. They arrived the following January.
1821 - Samuel Rust of New York City patented the first, practical
printing press built in the U.S.
1830 - The Republic of Ecuador was founded, with Juan Jose Flores as
president.
1846 - The U.S. Congress formally declared war on Mexico over
California, although fighting had begun days earlier.
1873 - Ludwig M. Wolf of Avon, Connecticut patented the sewing machine
lampholder. Up to that time, those who could afford it had hired
pygmies from their local Lampholders-R-Us company to hold their sewing
machine lamps. Those who could not afford that service had to sew with
one hand while holding the lamp with the other. Certainly not
convenient.
DeWolf Hopper, during the second act of the musical comedy, "Prince
began a long association between Hopper and the famous poem. The actor
once commented that he had recited the poem some 15,000 times. A happy
day in Mudville for DeWolf Hopper!
1888 - Brazil's parliament agreed to abolish slavery.
1918 - The first airmail postage stamps were issued in six, 16 and
24-cent denominations.
1927 - "Black Friday" occurred in Germany, signaling the collapse of
its economic structure.
jazz standard, "When the Saints Go Marching In", on Decca Records.
1940 - Chosen to head Britain's wartime coalition, Winston Churchill
told parliament he could offer "nothing but blood, toil, tears and
sweat."
1941 - Martin Bormann became deputy leader of German's Nazi party
following Rudolf Hess's mysterious flight to Scotland.
1943 - The Italian commander-in-chief in Tunisia surrendered a day
after his German counterpart, with the Allies holding some 250,000
prisoners of war.
1949 - The first gas turbine to pump natural gas was installed in
Wilmar, Arizona.
1949 - The first British-produced jet bomber, the Canberra, made its
maiden test flight.
1955 - Elvis Presley's performance at Jacksonville, Florida, on this
date was the first Presley show which resulted in a frenzied riot.
Young women and teenagers went wild over the pelvic-thrusting Presley,
and this sparked a concerted effort on the part of conservatives and
religious groups to ban Presley from appearing in their towns.
1958 - Vice President Richard Nixon's limousine was battered by rocks
thrown by anti-U.S. demonstrators in Caracas, Venezuela.
1968 - Talks between North Vietnamese and American negotiators, aimed
at ending the Vietnam War, opened in Paris.
1981 - Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded as he drove through a
crowd of 20,000 in St Peter's Square in Rome. The gunman, Mehmet Ali
Agca, was arrested.
1992 - Three astronauts simultaneously walked in space for the first
time. The trio retrieved and repaired the Intelsat-6 satellite from
the U.S. shuttle Endeavour in a walk lasting 8 hours, 29 minutes.
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