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The h2g2 Calendar - 5 - May

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1

  • Every year - Since 1886, May Day (or International Workers' Day) is celebrated.

  • Every year - the Rochester Sweeps Festival is held.

  • 1916 - English footballer and cricketer William 'Fatty' Foulke dies of pneumonia in Blackpool.

  • 1931 - the Empire State Building in New York City, USA, opens.

  • 1939 - Batman the Superhero first appears in print, in Detective Comics.

  • 1941 - The film Citizen Kane enjoys its world premiere.

  • 1946 - In Kashmir, India, national treasure Joanna Lumley OBE makes her world debut.

  • 1967 - Priscilla Beaulieu marries singer Elvis Presley.

  • 1994 - Formula 1 racing legend Ayrton Senna dies in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola.

  • 1999 - Designed by Bryan Avery, the glass-covered circular London IMAX Theatre opens to the general public.

  • 2008 - The London Agreement on the translation of European patents, concluded in 2000, enters into force in 14 of the 34 Contracting States to the European Patent Convention.

2

  • 1519 - Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, architect and scientist - the archetypal Renaissance man - departed the earth.

  • 1652 - John Milton's daughter Deborah is born.

  • 1803 - The state of Louisiana is purchased from France, doubling the size of the USA and paving the way for further expansion.

  • 1936 - Singer Engelbert Humperdinck is born. He later achieves success in the UK singles chart with a string of number ones in the 1960s.

  • 1975 - Captain of the England football team, David Beckham is born.

  • 1997 - Tony Blair becomes prime minister of the UK.

  • 2008 - Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Myanmar, killing more than 130,000 people and leaving millions homeless.

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4

  • 1886 - How May Day Became a Workers' Holiday. A rally takes place at Haymarket Square.

  • 1949 - The whole team of the Italian football club Torino, save one player who stayed at home due to some injury, die in an air crash while approaching Turin.

  • 1972 - Mike Dirnt, bassist and founding member of Green Day is born.

  • 1989 - Margaret Thatcher reaches ten years in office.

  • 2007 - The Scottish National Party wins the Scottish general election and becomes the largest party in the Scottish Parliament for the first time.

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8

  • 1428 - Joan of Arc's military reputation is established with the raising of the Siege of Orléans.

  • 1886 - Dr John Pemberton's secret elixir - aka Coca Cola - goes on sale. A century later, this simple drink is the cause of one of the hardest-fought battles in commercial history - the cola wars.

  • 1919 - A letter by Edward George Honey is published in the London Evening News proposing a period of silence in remembrance of those who died. The result is Remembrance Sunday, every 11 November from then on.

  • 1926 - British Naturalist and TV presenter Sir David Attenborough is born in London.

  • 1932 - Boxer Charles Sonny Liston is born.

  • 1972 - Darren Hayes, founding member of the band Savage Garden is born on this day.

  • 2001 - The Wicker Man, south-west England's answer to the Angel of the North, is destroyed by arsonists.

  • 2007 - A new Northern Ireland Executive is formed under the leadership of Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party, as First Minister, and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin, as Deputy First Minister.

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10

  • 1508 - Michelangelo begins work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

  • 1914 - Founder of the Boys Brigade Sir William Smith dies.

  • 1915 - Margaret Thatcher's future husband, Denis Thatcher, is born.

  • 1957 - Sid Vicious, prominent figure in the Punk Music movement, is born.

  • 2002 - Five people are killed and 76 are injured in a London rail disaster at Potters Bar Station when the service from King's Cross to King's Lynn derails.

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14

  • 1894 - Blackpool's famous tower is opened.

  • 1944 - Director of THX 1138 and Star Wars George Lucas is born.

  • 1952 - Director of Contact Robert Zemeckis is born.

  • 1961 - Actor Tim Roth, a regular collaborator with filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, is born.

  • 1971 - A London Underground train driver is killed when he accelerates through the sand drag and into the buffers at the Tooting Broadway station.

  • 1973 - Skylab is carried into space.

  • 1997 - The Spice Girls make history by becoming the first British group to enter the US charts at No 1.

15

  • Every year - Feast day of Saint Dymphna, the Patron Saint of the Mentally Ill, Runaways, and Rape Victims.

  • 1464 - Henry Beaufort, leader of the Lancastrians in the War Of The Roses, was surprised and killed at Hexham, Northumberland.

  • 1776 - The Commonwealth of Virginia declares itself independent.

  • 1857 - Williamina Fleming, Astronomy pioneer, and discoverer of the Horsehead Nebula in Orion, is born in Dundee, Scotland.

  • 1859 - Scientist Pierre Curie is born. He later invents Radioactivity... or something.

  • 1905 - Bidders gathered for an auction of 110 acres of land that became Las Vegas.

16

  • 1920 - Joan of Arc is canonised by Pope Benedict XV.

  • 1929 - The first ever Academy Awards are held. The winners already know who they are.

  • 1948 - Judy Finnegan, one half of husband-and-wife television team Richard and Judy is born.

  • 1953 - The James Bond that took us into the 2000s, actor Pierce Brosnan is born.

17

  • 1749 - Vaccine pioneer Edward Jenner is born, a notable day for modern medicine.

  • 1814 - Norway wins independence from Denmark.

  • 1938 - Six people die in a crash on the London Underground when a Circle line train runs into the back of a District line train at Charing Cross, due to a wrongly-wired signal.

  • 1973 - The investigation into the Watergate affair is launched.

  • 1995 - Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama of Tibet, becomes the world's youngest political prisoner.

  • 2000 - The number of the famous Mojave Phone Booth is quietly disconnected and the box itself disappears a short time after.

18

  • 1804 - Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Emperor of France.

  • 1949 - Rick Wakeman of the band Yes is born.

  • 1980 - Vocalist/lyricist with Joy Division Ian Curtis commits suicide.

  • 2004 - Mahatma Gandhi's granddaughter Sonia Gandhi declines to lead India.

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20

  • 1897 - Bram Stoker gives the first public reading of his novel Dracula.

  • 1927 - The child of celebrity aviator Charles Lindbergh is kidnapped.

  • 1996 - Actor Jon Pertwee dies. Pertwee played both the scarecrow Worzel Gummidge and the Time Lord Doctor Who.

  • 2000 - Leo Blair, son of Tony Blair, is born.

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22

  • 337 - Emperor Constantine, founder of the city of Byzantium and the Byzantine Empire, dies.

  • 1455 - The Yorkists are victorious over the Lancastrians at the First Battle of St Albans, heralding the start of the War of the Roses.

  • 1813 - Composer Richard Wagner is born.

  • 1915 - The worst train crash ever to occur in the UK takes place at Quintinshill in Scotland - the accident involves five different trains, with a death toll of 227.

  • 1959 - Lead singer of The Smiths, Morrissey is born.

  • 1969 - Lundy Island, UK is bought by the National Trust.

  • 2006 - At 1pm, thousands of GCSE students across the United Kingdom sit down to their first Humanities paper - little do they know that they are victims of the 2006 GCSE Humanities Paper Debacle.

23

  • 1430 - Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians.

  • 1912 - Gustav Hamel dies in an air crash during a cross-channel flight from Paris in his new Morane-Saulnier monoplane - no trace of him is ever found.

  • 1918 - Denis Compton is born, one of England's best-loved sportsmen, playing brilliant first class cricket for Middlesex and football for Arsenal and England.

  • 1957 - Singer Thereza Louise Bazar of Dollar is born.

  • 2002 - Former star of Neighbours Kylie Minogue becomes a triple award winner at the Ivor Novello Awards.

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  • 1650 - John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough, considered to be one of the greatest military geniuses England has ever produced, is born at Ashe in Devon.

  • 1904 - Entertainer George Formby is born.

  • 1946 - Guitarist Mick Ronson, famed for his collaboration with David Bowie, is born in Hull, Yorkshire.

  • 1994 - Michael Jackson marries Lisa Marie Presley.

27

  • 1906 - Mahler's 6th Symphony, initially subtitled The Tragic, premieres in the industrial town of Essen, Germany.

  • 1943 - Cilla Black, one-time chart-topper and queen of Blind Date, is born.

  • 1948 - Mahatma Gandhi's assassins go on trial.

  • 1995 - Actor Christopher Reeve has a horseriding accident, which leads to spinal and neck injuries and makes him a quadriplegic.

28

  • 1494 - The official birthdate of Scotch Whisky, when the rolls of the Scottish Exchequer record that a Friar called John Cor, at an abbey in Fife, purchased malt to make 'aqua vitae'.

  • 1908 - Ian Fleming, author and creator of James Bond - is born.

  • 1968 - Kylie Minogue is born.

  • 1984 - Comedian Eric Morecambe dies.

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