May 1

Birthdays:

1940 ~ Elsa Peretti, Italian jewelry designer.

1940 ~ Yury Yershov, Russian mathematician.

1939 ~ Max Robinson (d. 1988), African-American journalist.

1939 ~ Judy Collins, American folk singer.

1927 ~ Gary Bertini (d. 2005), Israeli conductor.

1926 ~ Peter Lax, Hungarian-born mathematician.

1925 ~ Scott Carpenter (d. 2013), American astronaut.  He was one of the original seven astronauts in the Mercury project.

1924 ~ Art Fleming (d. 1995), American television host, best known as being the host of Jeopardy!  He died 6 days before his 71^st birthday.

1923 ~ Joseph Heller (d. 1999), American novelist, best known for his novel, Catch-22.

1918 ~ Jack Paar (d. 2004), American comedian and television host.

1917 ~ Ahron Soloveichik (d. 2001), Russian rabbi and biblical scholar.

1908 ~ Morris Kline (d. 1992), American mathematician.

1907 ~ Kate Smith (d. 1986), American singer.

1864 ~ Anna Jarvis (d. 1948), American founder of Mother’s Day.

1857 ~ Theo Van Gogh (d. 1891), Dutch art dealer and younger brother of painter Vincent Van Gogh.

1855 ~ Celia Beaux (d. 1942), American painter.

1852 ~ Calamity Jane (née Martha Jane Canary Burke, d. 1903), American Wild West frontierswoman.

1852 ~ Santiago Ramón y Cajal (d. 1934), Spanish neuroscientist and recipient of the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

1837 ~ Mary Harris “Mother” Jones (d. 1930), American labor organizer.  Her actual birthdate is unknown.  May 1 is ascribed to her birth because it is International Labor Day.

1825 ~ Johann Jakob Balmer (d. 1898), Swiss mathematician.

1780 ~ John McKinley (d. 1852), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

1769 ~ Arthur Wellesley, 1^st Duke of Wellington (d. 1852), Irish-English field marshal.  He is the individual referred to when one is speaking of The Duke of Wellington.

1764 ~ Benjamin Henry Latrobe (d. 1820), English-American architect, most famous for his design of the United States Capitol.

1751 ~ Judith Sargent Murray (d. 1820), American activist for women’s rights and playwright.

1594 ~ John Haynes (d. 1653), 1^st Governor of Colonial Connecticut.

1218 ~ Rudolph I of Germany (d. 1291), Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Events that Changed the World:

2011 ~ US President Barak Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed by United States Special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.  Due to the time difference between Pakistan and the United States, bin Laden had actually been killed on May 2.

2011 ~ Pope John Paul II was beatified by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.  He would be elevated to sainthood on April 27, 2014.

2009 ~ Same-sex marriage became legal in Sweden.

2004 ~ Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia joined the European Union.

1987 ~ Pope John Paul II beatified Edith Stein, who was born Jewish but converted to Catholicism and became a Carmelite nun.  She was gassed at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

1982 ~ During Operation Black Buck, the British Royal Air Force attacked the Argentine Air Force during the Falklands War.

1982 ~ The 1982 World’s Fair opened in Knoxville, Tennessee.

1971 ~ Amtrak took over operations of all US passenger rail services.

1961 ~ The first American plane was hijacked to Cuba for political purposes.

1960 ~ Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane was shot down when Soviet missiles attacked his plane while he was spying over Russian territory.

1956 ~ The polio vaccine as developed by Jonas Salk became available to the public.

1950 ~ Guam became organized as a commonwealth of the United States.

1948 ~ The People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) was proclaimed.  Kim Il-Sung (1912 ~ 1994) became the country’s first Supreme Leader.

1940 ~ The 1940 Summer Olympics were cancelled due to World War II.

1931 ~ The Empire State Building was dedicated in New York City.

1930 ~ The Planet Pluto was official named.  It would later be downgraded to a dwarf planet.

1927 ~ Imperial Airways served the first cooked meals on a scheduled flight.  Passengers were served a meal on a flight between London and Paris.

1900 ~ The Scofield mine disaster in Scofield, Utah killed over 200 miners, making it one of the worst mining disasters in the United States.

1898 ~ During the first battle of the Spanish-American War, the Battle of Manila Bay, the United States Navy destroyed the Spanish Pacific fleet.

1893 ~ The World’s Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago, Illinois.

1885 ~ The original Chicago Board of Trade Building opened for business.

1884 ~ Moses Fleetwood Walker (1856 ~ 1924) became the first African-American professional baseball player when he played as catcher for the Toledo Blue Stockings.  He only played for the team for one year.

1875 ~ The Alexandra Palace in London, England, reopened after having burned down in an 1873 fire.

1863 ~ The Battle of Chancellorsville during the American Civil War began.

1862 ~ The Union Army captured the City of New Orleans during the American Civil War.

1851 ~ Queen Victoria of Great Britain opened the Great Exhibition in London.

1844 ~ Asia’s first modern police force was established in Hong Kong.

1840 ~ The Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, was issued and put into use in the United Kingdom.  This was the first usage of pre-paid postage, thus stamps from Great Britain do not identify the name of the country.

1786 ~ The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart premiered in Vienna, Austria.

1785 ~ Kamehameha I, the king of Hawaii, defeated Kalanikupule and thus established the Kingdom of Hawaii.

1759 ~ The Wedgwood pottery company was founded by Josiah Wedgwood in Great Britain.

1753 ~ Carl Linnaeus published his Species Planatarum, which became the impetus for the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature to use names for plant taxonomy.

1707 ~ The Act of Union joins the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

GoodByes:

2011 ~ Osama bin Laden (b. 1957), al-Quada terrorist who was killed in Pakistan by US operatives.  President Barack Obama announced his death on this date, however, due to the time difference between the United States and Abbottabad, Pakistan, he was actually killed on May 2 local time.

2008 ~ Philipp Frieherr von Boeselager (b. 1917), German officer who involved in the July 20, 1944 Plot, which was a conspiracy among high-ranking Wehrmach officers to assassinate Hitler.

2005 ~ Kenneth B. Clark (b. 1914), African-American educator and civil rights activist who fought segregation.

1998 ~ Eldridge Cleaver (b. 1935), American civil rights activist.

1965 ~ Spike Jones (né Lindley Armstrong Jones, b. 1911), American bandleader and musician.

1945 ~ Joseph Goebbels (b. 1897), Nazi Minister of Propaganda.  He and his wife Magda (b. 1901) killed their children then both committed suicide to avoid trial for war crimes at the end of World War II.

1904 ~ Antonín Dvořák (b. 1841), Czech composer.

1873 ~ David Livingstone (b. 1813), Scottish missionary and African explorer.

1572 ~ Pope Pius V (né Antonio Ghislieri, b. 1504).

1555 ~ Pope Marcellus II (né Marcello Cervini degli Spannochi, b. 1501).

1118 ~ Edith of Scotland (b.~ 1080), first wife of King Henry I of England.  She was also known as Matilda of Scotland.