May 1

Birthdays:

1945 ~ Rita Coolidge, American singer-songwriter.

1940 ~ Elsa Peretti, Italian jewelry designer.

1940 ~ Yury Yershov, Russian mathematician.

1939 ~ Wilhelmina Cooper (née Gertrude Behmenburg, b. Mar. 1, 1980), Dutch-American model who started her own modeling agency, Wilhelmina Models.  She died of lung cancer at age 40.

1939 ~ Max Robinson (né Maxie Cleveland Robinson, Jr., d. Dec. 20, 1988), African-American journalist.  He died at age 49.

1939 ~ Judy Collins, American folk singer.

1927 ~ Gary Bertini (d. Mar. 17, 2005), Israeli conductor.  He died at age 77.

1926 ~ Peter Lax, Hungarian-born mathematician.

1925 ~ Scott Carpenter (né Malcolm Scott Carpenter, d. Oct. 10, 2013), American astronaut.  He was one of the original seven astronauts in the Mercury project.  He died at age 88.

1925 ~ Helen Bamber (d. Aug. 21, 2014), British campaigner who cared for torture victims.  She was a psychologist and established the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture.  She died at age 89.

1925 ~ Chuck Bednarik (né Charles Philip Bednarik, d. Mar. 21, 2015), American professional football player who epitomized football’s toughness.  He was known as the “60-Minute Man” because he played both offense and defense on a regular basis. He was 89 years old.

1924 ~ Art Fleming (d. Apr. 25, 1995), American television game show host, best known for hosting Jeopardy!  He died of pancreatic cancer 6 days before his 71^st birthday.

1924 ~ Evelyn Boyd Granville, American mathematician.

1923 ~ Joseph Heller (d. Dec. 12, 1999), American novelist, best known for his novel, Catch-22.  He died at age 76.

1918 ~ Jack Paar (d. Jan. 27, 2004), American comedian and television host.  He died at age 85.

1917 ~ Ahron Soloveichik (d. Oct 4, 2001), Russian rabbi and biblical scholar.  He died at age 84.

1908 ~ Morris Kline (d. June 10, 1992), American mathematician.  He died at age 84.

1907 ~ Kate Smith (né Kathryn Elizabeth Smith, d. June 17, 1986), American singer.  She died at age 79.

1864 ~ Anna Jarvis (d. Nov. 24, 1948), American founder of Mother’s Day.  She died at age 84.

1857 ~ Theodorus “Theo” van Gogh (d. Jan. 25, 1891), Dutch art dealer and younger brother of painter Vincent van Gogh.  He died of Dementia paralytic just six months after Vincent van Gogh’s suicide.  Theo was 33 years old at the time of his death.

1855 ~ Cecilia Beaux (d. Sept. 7, 1942), American painter.  She died at age 87 in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

1852 ~ Calamity Jane (née Martha Jane Canary Burke, d. Aug. 1, 1903), American Wild West frontierswoman.  She died at age 51.

1852 ~ Santiago Ramón y Cajal (d. Oct. 17, 1934), Spanish neuroscientist and recipient of the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He died at age 82.

1837 ~ Mary Harris “Mother” Jones (d. Nov. 30, 1930), American labor organizer.  Her actual birthdate is unknown, although she was baptized on August 1, 1837.  May 1 is ascribed to her birth because it is International Labor Day.  She was 93 at the time of her death.

1825 ~ Johann Jakob Balmer (d. Mar. 12, 1898), Swiss mathematician.  He died at age 72.

1780 ~ John McKinley (d. July 19, 1852), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Martin Van Buren.  He served in this position from April 1937 until his death 15 years later.  He died at age 72.

1769 ~ Arthur Wellesley, 1^st Duke of Wellington (d. Sept. 14, 1852), Irish-English field marshal.  He served as the Prime Minister for two terms in the early 1800s.  He is the individual referred to when one is speaking of The Duke of Wellington.  He died at age 83.

1764 ~ Benjamin Henry Latrobe (d. Sept. 3, 1820), English-American architect, most famous for his design of the United States Capitol.  He died at age 56.

1751 ~ Judith Sargent Murray (d. June 9, 1820), American activist for women’s rights and playwright.  She was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts and died in Natchez, Mississippi.  She was 69 years old at the time of her death.

1594 ~ John Haynes (d. Jan. 9, 1653), 1^st Governor of Colonial Connecticut.  He died at age 59.

1238 ~ Magnus VI of Norway (d. May 9, 1280).  He died 8 days after his 42^nd birthday.

1218 ~ Rudolph I of Germany (d. July 15, 1291), Holy Roman Emperor.  He died at age 73.

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 (1891 ~ 1942), 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’ (1929 ~ 1977) 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 (1914 ~ 1995) 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.  Fifty years later it would 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.  The stamp was first used on May 6, 1840.  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 Kalanikūpule and thus established the Kingdom of Hawaii.

1759 ~ The Wedgwood pottery company was founded by Josiah Wedgwood (1730 ~ 1795) in Great Britain.

1753 ~ Carl Linnaeus (1701 ~ 1778) 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:

2014 ~ Asaf “Assi” Dayan (b. Nov. 23, 1945), Israeli actor and youngest son of Moshe Dayan.  He was 68 years old.

2008 ~ Philipp Frieherr von Boeselager (b. Sept. 9, 1917), German officer who involved in the July 20, 1944 Plot, which was a conspiracy among high-ranking Wehrmach officers to assassinate Hitler.  He died at age 90.

2005 ~ Kenneth B. Clark (b. July 14, 1914), African-American educator and civil rights activist who fought segregation.  He died at age 90.

2001 ~ Chandra Levy (b. Apr. 14, 1977), American murder victim.  The exact date of her death is unknown, but she went missing on May 1, 2001.  She disappeared 2 weeks after her 24^th birthday.

1998 ~ Eldridge Cleaver (né Leroy Eldridge Cleaver, b. Aug. 31, 1935), American civil rights activist.  He died at age 62.

1965 ~ Spike Jones (né Lindley Armstrong Jones, b. Dec. 14, 1911), American bandleader and musician.  He died of emphysema at age 53.

1945 ~ Joseph Goebbels (né Paul Joseph Goebbels, b. Oct. 29, 1897), Nazi Minister of Propaganda.  He and his wife Magda (b. Nov. 11, 1901) killed their children then both committed suicide to avoid trial for war crimes at the end of World War II.  He was 47; his wife was 41 at the time of their suicides.

1945 ~ René Jules Lalique (b. Apr. 6, 1860), French art nouveau jeweler and art deco glass artist.  He less than a month after his 85^th birthday.

1904 ~ Antonín Dvořák (b. Sept. 8, 1841), Czech composer.  He died at age 61.

1873 ~ David Livingston (b. Mar. 19, 1813), Scottish missionary and explorer.  He is known for exploring Africa to find the source of the Nile River.  He died in what is today known as Zambia of malaria and dysentery.  He was 60 years old.

1572 ~ Pope Pius V (né Antonio Ghislieri, b. Jan. 17, 1504).  He was Pope from January 1566 until his death 6 years later.  He died at age 68.

1555 ~ Pope Marcellus II (né Marcello Cervini degli Spannochi, b. May 6, 1501).  He was Pope for only a month, from April 1555 until his death in May 1555.  He died 5 days before his 54^th birthday.

1118 ~ Edith of Scotland (b. 1080), first wife of King Henry I of England.  She was also known as Matilda of Scotland.  The exact date of her birth is unknown.