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June 3 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

350 – The Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, proclaims himself Roman emperor, entering Rome at the head of a group of gladiators.
713 – The Byzantine emperor Philippicus is blinded, deposed and sent into exile by conspirators of the Opsikion army in Thrace. He is succeeded by Anastasios II, who begins the reorganization of the Byzantine army.
1140 – The French scholar Peter Abelard is found guilty of heresy.
1326 – The Treaty of Novgorod delineates borders between Russia and Norway in Finnmark.
1539 – Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain.
1608 – Samuel de Champlain completes his third voyage to New France at Tadoussac, Quebec.
1621 – The Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherland.
1658 – Pope Alexander VII appoints François de Laval vicar apostolic in New France.
1665 – James Stuart, Duke of York (later to become King James II of England), defeats the Dutch fleet off the coast of Lowestoft.
1781 – Jack Jouett begins his midnight ride to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia legislature of an impending raid by Banastre Tarleton.
1839 – In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsü destroys 1.2 million kilograms of opium confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a casus belli to open hostilities, resulting in the First Opium War.
1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Philippi (also called the Philippi Races): Union forces rout Confederate troops in Barbour County, Virginia, now West Virginia.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Cold Harbor: Union forces attack Confederate troops in Hanover County, Virginia.
1866 – The Fenians are driven out of Fort Erie, Ontario back into the United States.
1885 – In the last military engagement fought on Canadian soil, the Cree leader, Big Bear, escapes the North-West Mounted Police.
1889 – The first long-distance electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, running 14 miles (23 km) between a generator at Willamette Falls and downtown Portland, Oregon.
1916 – The National Defense Act is signed into law, increasing the size of the United States National Guard by 450,000 men.
1935 – One thousand unemployed Canadian workers board freight cars in Vancouver, beginning a protest trek to Ottawa.
1937 – The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson.
1940 – World War II: The Luftwaffe bombs Paris.
1940 – World War II: The Battle of Dunkirk ends with a German victory and with Allied forces in full retreat.
1940 – Franz Rademacher proposes plans to make Madagascar the “Jewish homeland”, an idea that had first been considered by 19th century journalist Theodor Herzl.
1941 – World War II: The Wehrmacht razes the Greek village of Kandanos to the ground and murders 180 of its inhabitants.
1942 – World War II: Japan begins the Aleutian Islands Campaign by bombing Unalaska Island.
1943 – In Los Angeles, California, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines clash with Latino youths in the Zoot Suit Riots.
1950 – Herzog and Lachenal of the French Annapurna expedition become the first climbers to reach the summit of an 8,000-metre peak.
1962 – At Paris Orly Airport, Air France Flight 007 overruns the runway and explodes when the crew attempts to abort takeoff, killing 130.
1963 – Soldiers of the South Vietnamese Army attack protesting Buddhists in Huế with liquid chemicals from tear-gas grenades, causing 67 people to be hospitalized for blistering of the skin and respiratory ailments.
1965 – The launch of Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew. Ed White, a crew member, performs the first American spacewalk.
1969 – Melbourne–Evans collision: off the coast of South Vietnam, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne cuts the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half.
1973 – A Soviet supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 crashes near Goussainville, France, killing 14, the first crash of a supersonic passenger aircraft.
1979 – A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels (480,000 m³) of oil to be spilled into the waters, the second-worst accidental oil spill ever recorded.
1980 – An explosive device is detonated at the Statue of Liberty. The FBI suspects Croatian nationalists.
1980 – The 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak hits Nebraska, causing five deaths and $300 million (equivalent to $931 million in 2019) worth of damage.
1982 – The Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov, is shot on a London street; he survives but is left paralysed.
1984 – Operation Blue Star, a military offensive, is launched by the Indian government at Harmandir Sahib, also known as the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine for Sikhs, in Amritsar. The operation continues until June 6, with casualties, most of them civilians, in excess of 5,000.
1989 – The government of China sends troops to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.
1991 – Mount Unzen erupts in Kyūshū, Japan, killing 43 people, all of them either researchers or journalists.
1992 – Aboriginal land rights are granted in Australia in Mabo v Queensland (No 2), a case brought by Eddie Mabo.
1998 – After suffering a mechanical failure, a high speed train derails at Eschede, Germany, killing 101 people.
2006 – The union of Serbia and Montenegro comes to an end with Montenegro’s formal declaration of independence.
2012 – A plane carrying 153 people on board crashes in a residential neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria, killing everyone on board and 10 people on the ground.
2012 – The pageant for the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II takes place on the River Thames.
2013 – The trial of United States Army private Chelsea Manning for leaking classified material to WikiLeaks begins in Fort Meade, Maryland.
2013 – At least 119 people are killed in a fire at a poultry farm in Jilin Province in northeastern China.
2015 – An explosion at a gasoline station in Accra, Ghana, killing more than 200 people.
2017 – London Bridge attack: Eight people are murdered and dozens of civilians are wounded by Islamist terrorists. Three of the attackers are shot dead by the police.
2019 – Khartoum massacre: In Sudan, over 100 people are killed when security forces accompanied by Janjaweed militiamen storm and open fire on a sit-in protest.

Births on June 3

20 BC – Sejanus, Roman soldier and bodyguard (d. 31 AD)
1139 – Conon of Naso, Basilian abbot (d. 1236)
1421 – Giovanni di Cosimo de’ Medici, Italian noble (d. 1463)
1454 – Bogislaw X, Duke of Pomerania (1474–1523) (d. 1523)
1537 – João Manuel, Prince of Portugal (d. 1554)
1540 – Charles II, Archduke of Austria (d. 1590)
1554 – Pietro de’ Medici, Italian noble (d. 1604)
1576 – Giovanni Diodati, Swiss-Italian minister, theologian, and academic (d. 1649)
1594 – César, Duke of Vendôme, French nobleman (d. 1665)
1603 – Pietro Paolini, Italian painter (d. 1681)
1635 – Philippe Quinault, French playwright and composer (d. 1688)
1636 – John Hale, American minister (d. 1700)
1659 – David Gregory, Scottish-English mathematician and astronomer (d. 1708)
1662 – Willem van Mieris, Dutch painter (d. 1747)
1723 – Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, Italian physician, geologist, and botanist (d. 1788)
1726 – James Hutton, Scottish geologist and physician (d. 1797)
1736 – Ignaz Fränzl, German violinist and composer (d. 1811)
1770 – Manuel Belgrano, Argentinian economist, lawyer, and politician (d. 1820)
1808 – Jefferson Davis, American colonel and politician, President of the Confederate States of America (d. 1889)
1818 – Louis Faidherbe, French general and politician, Governor of Senegal (d. 1889)
1819 – Anton Anderledy, Swiss religious leader, 23rd Superior General of the Society of Jesus (d. 1892)
1819 – Johan Jongkind, Dutch painter (d. 1891)
1832 – Charles Lecocq, French pianist and composer (d. 1918)
1843 – Frederick VIII of Denmark (d. 1912)
1844 – Garret Hobart, American lawyer and politician, 24th Vice President of the United States (d. 1899)
1844 – Detlev von Liliencron, German poet and author (d. 1909)
1852 – Theodore Robinson, American painter and academic (d. 1896)
1853 – Flinders Petrie, English archaeologist and academic (d. 1942)
1864 – Otto Erich Hartleben, German poet and playwright (d. 1905)
1864 – Ransom E. Olds, American businessman, founded Oldsmobile and REO Motor Car Company (d. 1950)
1865 – George V of the United Kingdom (d. 1936)
1866 – George Howells Broadhurst, English-American director and manager (d. 1952)
1873 – Otto Loewi, German-American pharmacologist and psychobiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1961)
1877 – Raoul Dufy, French painter and illustrator (d. 1953)
1879 – Alla Nazimova, Ukrainian-American actress, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1945)
1879 – Raymond Pearl, American biologist and botanist (d. 1940)
1879 – Vivian Woodward, English footballer and soldier (d. 1954)
1881 – Mikhail Larionov, Russian painter and set designer (d. 1964)
1890 – Baburao Painter, Indian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1954)
1897 – Memphis Minnie, American singer-songwriter (d. 1973)
1899 – Georg von Békésy, Hungarian-American biophysicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1972)
1900 – Adelaide Ames, American astronomer and academic (d. 1932)
1900 – Leo Picard, German-Israeli geologist and academic (d. 1997)
1901 – Maurice Evans, English actor (d. 1989)
1901 – Zhang Xueliang, Chinese general and warlord (d. 2001)
1903 – Eddie Acuff, American actor (d. 1956)
1904 – Charles R. Drew, American physician and surgeon (d. 1950)
1904 – Jan Peerce, American tenor and actor (d. 1984)
1905 – Martin Gottfried Weiss, German SS officer (d. 1946)
1906 – R. G. D. Allen, English economist, mathematician, and statistician (d. 1983)
1906 – Josephine Baker, French actress, singer, and dancer; French Resistance operative (d. 1975)
1906 – Walter Robins, English cricketer and footballer (d. 1968)
1907 – Paul Rotha, English director and producer (d. 1984)
1910 – Paulette Goddard, American actress and model (d. 1990)
1911 – Ellen Corby, American actress and screenwriter (d. 1999)
1913 – Pedro Mir, Dominican poet and author (d. 2000)
1914 – Ignacio Ponseti, Spanish physician and orthopedist (d. 2009)
1917 – Leo Gorcey, American actor (d. 1969)
1918 – Patrick Cargill, English actor and producer (d. 1996)
1918 – Lili St. Cyr, American dancer (d. 1999)
1921 – Forbes Carlile, Australian pentathlete and coach (d. 2016)
1921 – Jean Dréjac, French singer and composer (d. 2003)
1922 – Alain Resnais, French director, cinematographer, and screenwriter (d. 2014)
1923 – Igor Shafarevich, Russian mathematician and theorist (d. 2017)
1924 – Karunanidhi, Indian screenwriter and politician, 3rd Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (d. 2018)
1924 – Colleen Dewhurst, Canadian-American actress (d. 1991)
1924 – Bernard Glasser, American director and producer (d. 2014)
1924 – Jimmy Rogers, American singer and guitarist (d. 1997)
1924 – Torsten Wiesel, Swedish neurophysiologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1925 – Tony Curtis, American actor (d. 2010)
1925 – Thomas Winning, Scottish cardinal (d. 2001)
1926 – Allen Ginsberg, American poet (d. 1997)
1926 – Flora MacDonald, Canadian banker and politician, 10th Canadian Minister of Communications (d. 2015)
1927 – Boots Randolph, American saxophonist and composer (d. 2007)
1928 – Donald Judd, American sculptor and painter (d. 1994)
1928 – John Richard Reid, New Zealand cricketer
1929 – Werner Arber, Swiss microbiologist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate
1929 – Chuck Barris, American game show host and producer (d. 2017)
1930 – Marion Zimmer Bradley, American author and poet (d. 1999)
1930 – George Fernandes, Indian journalist and politician, Minister of Defence for India (d. 2019)
1930 – Dakota Staton, American singer (d. 2007)
1930 – Abbas Zandi, Iranian wrestler (d. 2017)
1930 – Ben Wada, Japanese director and producer (d. 2011)
1930 – Joe Coulombe, founder of Trader Joe’s (d. 2020)
1931 – Françoise Arnoul, Algerian-French actress
1931 – Raúl Castro, Cuban commander and politician, 18th President of Cuba
1931 – John Norman, American philosopher and author
1931 – Lindy Remigino, American runner and coach (d. 2018)
1933 – Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, Bahranian king (d. 1999)
1936 – Larry McMurtry, American novelist and screenwriter
1936 – Colin Meads, New Zealand rugby player and coach (d. 2017)
1937 – Jean-Pierre Jaussaud, French race car driver
1939 – Frank Blevins, English-Australian lawyer and politician, 7th Deputy Premier of South Australia (d. 2013)
1939 – Steve Dalkowski, American baseball player (d. 2020)
1939 – Ian Hunter, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1942 – Curtis Mayfield, American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 1999)
1943 – Billy Cunningham, American basketball player and coach
1944 – Thomas Burns, British bishop
1944 – Edith McGuire, American sprinter and educator
1944 – Eddy Ottoz, Italian hurdler and coach
1945 – Hale Irwin, American golfer and architect
1945 – Ramon Jacinto, Filipino singer, guitarist, and businessman, founded the Rajah Broadcasting Network
1945 – Bill Paterson, Scottish actor
1946 – Michael Clarke, American drummer (d. 1993)
1946 – Eddie Holman, American pop/R&B/gospel singer
1946 – Penelope Wilton, English actress
1947 – John Dykstra, American special effects artist and producer
1947 – Mickey Finn, English drummer (d. 2003)
1948 – Jan Reker, Dutch footballer and manager
1950 – Frédéric François, Belgian-Italian singer-songwriter
1950 – Melissa Mathison, American screenwriter and producer (d. 2015)
1950 – Juan José Muñoz, Argentinian businessman (d. 2013)
1950 – Larry Probst, American businessman
1950 – Suzi Quatro, American-English singer-songwriter, bass player, producer, and actress
1950 – Christos Verelis, Greek politician, Greek Minister of Transport and Communications
1950 – Deniece Williams, American singer-songwriter
1952 – Billy Powell, American keyboard player and songwriter (d. 2009)
1952 – David Richards, Welsh entrepreneur and businessman
1954 – Dan Hill, Canadian singer-songwriter
1954 – Susan Landau, American mathematician and engineer
1956 – George Burley, Scottish footballer and manager
1956 – Danny Wilde, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1957 – Horst-Ulrich Hänel, German field hockey player
1959 – Imbi Paju, Estonian-Finnish journalist and author
1960 – Catherine Davani, first female Papua New Guinean judge (d. 2016)
1960 – Tracy Grimshaw, Australian television host
1960 – Carl Rackemann, Australian cricketer and sportscaster
1961 – Lawrence Lessig, American lawyer, academic, and author, founded the Creative Commons
1961 – Peter Vidmar, American gymnast
1961 – Ed Wynne, English guitarist, songwriter, and producer
1962 – Susannah Constantine, English fashion designer, journalist, and author
1962 – Dagmar Neubauer, German sprinter
1963 – Rudy Demotte, Belgian politician, 8th Minister-President of the Walloon Region
1963 – Toshiaki Karasawa, Japanese actor
1964 – André Bellavance, Canadian politician
1964 – Kerry King, American guitarist and songwriter
1964 – James Purefoy, English actor
1965 – Hans Kroes, Dutch swimmer
1965 – Michael Moore, British accountant and politician, Secretary of State for Scotland
1966 – Wasim Akram, Pakistani cricketer, coach, and sportscaster
1967 – Anderson Cooper, American journalist and author
1967 – Tamás Darnyi, Hungarian swimmer
1969 – Takako Minekawa, Japanese singer-songwriter
1969 – Dean Pay, Australian rugby league player and coach
1971 – Luigi Di Biagio, Italian footballer and manager
1971 – Mary Grigson, Australian cross-country mountain biker
1972 – Julie Gayet, French actress
1974 – Kelly Jones, Welsh singer-songwriter and guitarist
1974 – Serhiy Rebrov, Ukrainian international footballer and manager
1975 – Jose Molina, Puerto Rican-American baseball player
1976 – Nikos Chatzis, Greek basketball player
1976 – Jamie McMurray, American race car driver
1977 – Cris, Brazilian footballer
1978 – Lyfe Jennings, American singer-songwriter and producer
1979 – Luis Fernando López, Colombian race walker
1979 – Christian Malcolm, Welsh sprinter
1980 – Amauri, Brazilian-Italian footballer
1981 – Sosene Anesi, New Zealand rugby player
1982 – Yelena Isinbayeva, Russian pole vaulter
1982 – Manfred Mölgg, Italian skier
1983 – Pasquale Foggia, Italian footballer
1984 – Todd Reid, Australian tennis player (d. 2018)
1985 – Papiss Cissé, Senegalese footballer
1985 – Łukasz Piszczek, Polish footballer
1986 – Al Horford, Dominican basketball player
1986 – Micah Kogo, Kenyan runner
1986 – Rafael Nadal, Spanish tennis player
1986 – Adrián Vallés, Spanish race car driver
1986 – Tomáš Verner, Czech ice skater
1987 – Masami Nagasawa, Japanese actress
1989 – Katie Hoff, American swimmer
1991 – Lukasz Teodorczyk, Polish footballer
1991 – Sami Vatanen, Finnish ice hockey defenceman
1991 – Yordano Ventura, Dominican baseball player (d. 2017)
1992 – Mario Götze, German footballer

Deaths on June 3

628 – Liang Shidu, Chinese rebel leader
800 – Staurakios, Byzantine general
1052 – Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno
1395 – Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria (b. 1350)
1397 – William de Montagu, 2nd Earl of Salisbury, English commander (b. 1328)
1411 – Leopold IV, Duke of Austria (b. 1371)
1453 – Loukas Notaras, last megas doux of the Byzantine Empire
1511 – Ahmad ibn Abi Jum’ah, Islamic scholar, author of the Oran fatwa
1548 – Juan de Zumárraga, Spanish-Mexican archbishop (b. 1468)
1553 – Wolf Huber, Austrian painter, printmaker and architect (b. 1485)
1594 – John Aylmer, English bishop and scholar (b. 1521)
1605 – Jan Zamoyski, Polish nobleman (b. 1542)
1615 – Sanada Yukimura, Japanese samurai (b. 1567)
1640 – Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk, English politician, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (b. 1584)
1649 – Manuel de Faria e Sousa, Portuguese historian and poet (b. 1590)
1657 – William Harvey, English physician and academic (b. 1578)
1659 – Morgan Llwyd, Welsh minister and poet (b. 1619)
1665 – Charles Weston, 3rd Earl of Portland, English noble (b. 1639)
1780 – Thomas Hutchinson, American businessman and politician, Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay (b. 1711)
1826 – Nikolay Karamzin, Russian historian and poet (b. 1766)
1858 – Julius Reubke, German pianist and composer (b. 1834)
1861 – Stephen A. Douglas, American lawyer and politician, 7th Secretary of State of Illinois (b. 1813)
1865 – Okada Izō, Japanese samurai (b. 1838)
1875 – Georges Bizet, French pianist and composer (b. 1838)
1877 – Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, Austrian botanist, composer, and publisher (b. 1800)
1882 – Christian Wilberg, German painter and illustrator (b. 1839)
1894 – Karl Eduard Zachariae von Lingenthal, German lawyer and jurist (b. 1812)
1899 – Johann Strauss II, Austrian composer and educator (b. 1825)
1900 – Mary Kingsley, English explorer and author (b. 1862)
1902 – Vital-Justin Grandin, French-Canadian bishop and missionary (b. 1829)
1906 – John Maxwell, American golfer (b. 1871)
1921 – Coenraad Hiebendaal, Dutch rower and physician (b. 1879)
1924 – Franz Kafka, Czech-Austrian lawyer and author (b. 1883)
1928 – Li Yuanhong, Chinese general and politician, 2nd President of the Republic of China (b. 1864)
1933 – William Muldoon, American wrestler (b. 1852)
1938 – John Flanagan, Irish-American hammer thrower and tug of war competitor (b. 1873)
1946 – Mikhail Kalinin, Russian civil servant and politician (b. 1875)
1963 – Edmond Decottignies, French weightlifter (b. 1893)
1963 – Pope John XXIII (b. 1881)
1963 – Nâzım Hikmet Ran, Turkish poet, author, and playwright (b. 1902)
1964 – Kâzım Orbay, Turkish general and politician, 9th Turkish Speaker of the Parliament (b. 1887)
1964 – Frans Eemil Sillanpää, Finnish author and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)
1969 – George Edwin Cooke, American soccer player (b. 1883)
1970 – Hjalmar Schacht, Danish-German economist, banker, and politician (b. 1877)
1971 – Heinz Hopf, German-Swiss mathematician and academic (b. 1894)
1973 – Jean Batmale, French footballer and manager (b. 1895)
1975 – Ozzie Nelson, American actor and bandleader (b. 1906)
1975 – Eisaku Satō, Japanese lawyer and politician, 39th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1901)
1977 – Archibald Hill, English physiologist and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1886)
1977 – Roberto Rossellini, Italian director and screenwriter (b. 1906)
1981 – Carleton S. Coon, American anthropologist and academic (b. 1904)
1986 – Anna Neagle, English actress and singer (b. 1904)
1987 – Will Sampson, American actor and painter (b. 1933)
1989 – Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian religious leader and politician, 1st Supreme Leader of Iran (b. 1902)
1990 – Robert Noyce, American physicist and businessman, co-founded the Intel Corporation (b. 1927)
1991 – Brian Bevan, Australian rugby league player (b. 1924)
1991 – Katia Krafft, French volcanologist and geologist (b. 1942)
1991 – Maurice Krafft, French volcanologist and geologist (b. 1946)
1991 – Lê Văn Thiêm, Vietnamese mathematician and academic (b. 1918)
1992 – Robert Morley, English actor and screenwriter (b. 1908)
1994 – Puig Aubert, German-French rugby player and coach (b. 1925)
1997 – Dennis James, American actor and game show host (b. 1917)
2001 – Anthony Quinn, Mexican-American actor and producer (b. 1915)
2002 – Lew Wasserman, American talent agent and manager (b. 1913)
2003 – Felix de Weldon, Austrian-American sculptor, designed the Marine Corps War Memorial (b. 1907)
2005 – Harold Cardinal, Canadian lawyer and politician (b. 1945)
2009 – David Carradine, American actor (b. 1936)
2009 – Koko Taylor, American singer (b. 1928)
2010 – John Hedgecoe, English photographer and author (b. 1932)
2010 – Rue McClanahan, American actress (b. 1934)
2011 – James Arness, American actor and producer (b. 1923)
2011 – Andrew Gold, American singer, songwriter, musician and arranger (b. 1951)
2011 – Bhajan Lal, Indian politician, 6th Chief Minister of Haryana (b. 1930)
2011 – Jack Kevorkian, American pathologist, author, and activist (b. 1928)
2011 – Jan van Roessel, Dutch footballer (b. 1925)
2012 – Carol Ann Abrams, American producer, author, and academic (b. 1942)
2012 – Rajsoomer Lallah, Mauritian lawyer and judge (b. 1933)
2012 – Roy Salvadori, English race car driver and manager (b. 1922)
2012 – Brian Talboys, New Zealand journalist and politician, 7th Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1921)
2013 – Atul Chitnis, German-Indian technologist and journalist (b. 1962)
2013 – Józef Czyrek, Polish economist and politician, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs (b. 1928)
2013 – Frank Lautenberg, American soldier and politician (b. 1924)
2014 – Svyatoslav Belza, Russian journalist, author, and critic (b. 1942)
2014 – Gopinath Munde, Indian politician, 3rd Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra (b. 1949)
2015 – Avi Beker, Israeli political scientist and academic (b. 1951)
2016 – Muhammad Ali, American boxer (b. 1942)

Holidays and observances on June 3

Christian feast day:
- Charles Lwanga and Companions (Roman Catholic Church), and its related observances:
  - Martyrs’ Day (Uganda)
- Clotilde
- Kevin of Glendalough
- Ovidius
- Vladimirskaya (Russian Orthodox)
- June 3 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Confederate Memorial Day (Kentucky, Louisiana, and Tennessee, United States)
Economist day (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Mabo Day (Australia)
Opium Suppression Movement Day (Taiwan)
World Bicycle Day

June 3 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

May 30 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

AD 70 – Siege of Jerusalem: Titus and his Roman legions breach the Second Wall of Jerusalem. Jewish defenders retreat to the First Wall. The Romans build a circumvallation, cutting down all trees within fifteen kilometers.
1381 – Beginning of the Peasants’ Revolt in England.
1416 – The Council of Constance, called by Emperor Sigismund, a supporter of Antipope John XXIII, burns Jerome of Prague following a trial for heresy.
1431 – Hundred Years’ War: In Rouen, France, the 19-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal. The Roman Catholic Church remembers this day as the celebration of Saint Joan of Arc.
1434 – Hussite Wars: Battle of Lipany: Effectively ending the war, Utraquist forces led by Diviš Bořek of Miletínek defeat and almost annihilate Taborite forces led by Prokop the Great.
1510 – During the reign of the Zhengde Emperor, Ming dynasty rebel leader Zhu Zhifan is defeated by commander Qiu Yue, ending the Prince of Anhua rebellion.
1536 – King Henry VIII of England marries Jane Seymour, a lady-in-waiting to his first two wives.
1539 – In Florida, Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal of finding gold.
1574 – Henry III becomes King of France.
1588 – The last ship of the Spanish Armada sets sail from Lisbon heading for the English Channel.
1631 – Publication of Gazette de France, the first French newspaper.
1635 – Thirty Years’ War: The Peace of Prague is signed.
1642 – From this date all honors granted by Charles I of England are retroactively annulled by Parliament.
1806 – Future U.S. President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel.
1814 – The First Treaty of Paris is signed, returning the French frontiers to their 1792 extent, and restoring the House of Bourbon to power.
1815 – The East Indiaman Arniston is wrecked during a storm at Waenhuiskrans, near Cape Agulhas, in present-day South Africa, with the loss of 372 lives.
1834 – Minister of Justice Joaquim António de Aguiar issues a law seizing “all convents, monasteries, colleges, hospices and any other houses” from the Catholic religious orders in Portugal, earning him the nickname of “The Friar-Killer”.
1842 – John Francis attempts to murder Queen Victoria as she drives down Constitution Hill in London with Prince Albert.
1845 – The Fatel Razack coming from India, lands in the Gulf of Paria in Trinidad and Tobago carrying the first Indians to the country.
1854 – The Kansas–Nebraska Act becomes law establishing the US territories of Kansas and Nebraska.
1868 – Decoration Day (the predecessor of the modern “Memorial Day”) is observed in the United States for the first time after a proclamation by John A. Logan, head of the Grand Army of the Republic (a veterans group).
1876 – Ottoman sultan Abdülaziz is deposed and succeeded by his nephew Murad V.
1883 – In New York City, a stampede on the recently opened Brooklyn Bridge killed twelve people.
1899 – Pearl Hart, a female outlaw of the Old West, robs a stage coach 30 miles southeast of Globe, Arizona.
1911 – At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the first Indianapolis 500 ends with Ray Harroun in his Marmon Wasp becoming the first winner of the 500-mile auto race.
1913 – The Treaty of London is signed, ending the First Balkan War; Albania becomes an independent nation.
1914 – The new, and then the largest, Cunard ocean liner RMS Aquitania, 45,647 tons, sets sails on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York City.
1922 – The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C..
1925 – May Thirtieth Movement: Shanghai Municipal Police Force shoot and kill 13 protesting workers.
1937 – Memorial Day massacre: Chicago police shoot and kill ten labor demonstrators.
1941 – World War II: Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas climb the Athenian Acropolis and tear down the German flag.
1942 – World War II: One thousand British bombers launch a 90-minute attack on Cologne, Germany.
1943 – The Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer of the Zigeunerfamilienlager (Romani family camp) at Auschwitz concentration camp.
1948 – A dike along the flooding Columbia River breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon within minutes. Fifteen people die and tens of thousands are left homeless.
1958 – Memorial Day: The remains of two unidentified American servicemen, killed in action during World War II and the Korean War respectively, are buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
1959 – The Auckland Harbour Bridge, crossing the Waitematā Harbour in Auckland, New Zealand, is officially opened by Governor-General Charles Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham.
1961 – The long-time Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo is assassinated in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
1963 – A protest against pro-Catholic discrimination during the Buddhist crisis is held outside South Vietnam’s National Assembly, the first open demonstration during the eight-year rule of Ngo Dinh Diem.
1966 – Former Congolese Prime Minister, Évariste Kimba, and several other politicians are publicly executed in Kinshasa on the orders of President Joseph Mobutu.
1967 – The Nigerian Eastern Region declares independence as the Republic of Biafra, sparking a civil war.
1968 – Charles de Gaulle reappears publicly after his flight to Baden-Baden, Germany, and dissolves the French National Assembly by a radio appeal. Immediately after, less than one million of his supporters march on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. This is the turning point of May 1968 events in France.
1971 – Mariner program: Mariner 9 is launched to map 70% of the surface, and to study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface, of Mars.
1972 – The Angry Brigade goes on trial over a series of 25 bombings throughout the United Kingdom.
1972 – In Ben Gurion Airport (at the time: Lod Airport), Israel, members of the Japanese Red Army carry out the Lod Airport massacre, killing 24 people and injuring 78 others.
1974 – The Airbus A300 passenger aircraft first enters service.
1979 – Downeast Flight 46 crashes on approach to Knox County Regional Airport in Rockland, Maine, killing 17.
1975 – European Space Agency is established.
1982 – Cold War: Spain joins NATO.
1989 – Tiananmen Square protests of 1989: The 10-metre high “Goddess of Democracy” statue is unveiled in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators.
1990 – Croatian Parliament is constituted after the first free, multi-party elections, today celebrated as the National Day of Croatia.
1998 – The 6.5 M_w  Afghanistan earthquake shook the Takhar Province of northern Afghanistan with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong), killing around 4,000–4,500.
1998 – Nuclear Testing: Pakistan conducts an underground test in the Kharan Desert. It is reported to be a plutonium device with yield of 20kt TNT equivalent.
2003 – Depayin massacre: At least 70 people associated with the National League for Democracy are killed by government-sponsored mob in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi flees the scene, but is arrested soon afterwards.
2008 – Convention on Cluster Munitions is adopted.
2008 – TACA Flight 390 overshoots the runway at Toncontín International Airport, killing five people.
2012 – Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is sentenced to 50 years in prison for his role in atrocities committed during the Sierra Leone Civil War.
2013 – Nigeria passes a law banning same-sex marriage.
2020 – The Crew Dragon Demo-2 launches from the Kennedy Space Center, becoming the first crewed rocket to launch from the United States since 2011.

Births on May 30

1010 – Ren Zong, Chinese emperor (d. 1063)
1201 – Theobald IV, count of Champagne (d. 1253)
1423 – Georg von Peuerbach, German mathematician and astronomer (d. 1461)
1464 – Barbara of Brandenburg, Bohemian queen (d. 1515)
1580 – Fadrique de Toledo, 1st Marquis of Villanueva de Valdueza (d. 1634)
1599 – Samuel Bochart, French Protestant biblical scholar (d. 1667)
1623 – John Egerton, 2nd Earl of Bridgewater, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire (d. 1686)
1686 – Antonina Houbraken, Dutch illustrator (d. 1736)
1718 – Wills Hill, 1st Marquess of Downshire, English politician, Secretary of State for the Colonies (d. 1793)
1719 – Roger Newdigate, English politician (d. 1806)
1757 – Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1844)
1768 – Étienne Marie Antoine Champion de Nansouty, French general (d. 1815)
1797 – Georg Amadeus Carl Friedrich Naumann, German mineralogist and geologist (d. 1873)
1800 – Henri-Marie-Gaston Boisnormand de Bonnechose, French cardinal (d. 1883)
1814 – Mikhail Bakunin, Russian philosopher and theorist (d. 1876)
1814 – Eugène Charles Catalan, Belgian-French mathematician and academic (d. 1894)
1819 – William McMurdo, English general (d. 1894)
1820 – Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau, Canadian lawyer and politician, 1st Premier of Quebec (d. 1890)
1835 – Alfred Austin, English author, poet, and playwright (d. 1913)
1844 – Félix Arnaudin, French poet and photographer (d. 1921)
1845 – Amadeo I, Spanish king (d. 1890)
1846 – Peter Carl Fabergé, Russian goldsmith and jeweler (d. 1920)
1862 – Mirza Alakbar Sabir, Azerbaijani philosopher and poet (d. 1911)
1869 – Grace Andrews, American mathematician (d. 1951)
1874 – Ernest Duchesne, French physician (d. 1912)
1875 – Giovanni Gentile, Italian philosopher and academic (d. 1944)
1879 – Colin Blythe, English cricketer and soldier (d. 1917)
1879 – Konstantin Ramul, Estonian psychologist and academic (d. 1975)
1881 – Georg von Küchler, German field marshal (d. 1968)
1882 – Wyndham Halswelle, English runner and soldier (d. 1915)
1883 – Sandy Pearce, Australian rugby league player (d. 1930)
1884 – Siegmund Glücksmann, German soldier and politician (d. 1942)
1885 – Villem Grünthal-Ridala, Estonian poet and linguist (d. 1942)
1886 – Laurent Barré, Canadian lawyer and politician (d. 1964)
1886 – Randolph Bourne, American theorist and author (d. 1918)
1887 – Alexander Archipenko, Ukrainian-American sculptor and illustrator (d. 1964)
1887 – Emil Reesen, Danish pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1964)
1890 – Roger Salengro, French soldier and politician, French Minister of the Interior (d. 1936)
1892 – Fernando Amorsolo, Filipino painter (d. 1972)
1894 – Hubertus van Mook, Dutch politician, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1965)
1895 – Maurice Tate, English cricketer (d. 1956)
1896 – Howard Hawks, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1977)
1897 – Frank Wise, Australian politician, 16th Premier of Western Australia (d. 1986)
1898 – John Gilroy, English artist and illustrator (d. 1985)
1899 – Irving Thalberg, American screenwriter and producer (d. 1936)
1901 – Alfred Karindi, Estonian pianist and composer (d. 1969)
1901 – Cornelia Otis Skinner, American actress and author (d. 1979)
1902 – Stepin Fetchit, American actor and dancer (d. 1985)
1903 – Countee Cullen, American poet and author (d. 1946)
1906 – Bruno Gröning, German mystic and author (d. 1959)
1907 – Germaine Tillion, French anthropologist and academic (d. 2008)
1908 – Hannes Alfvén, Swedish physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1995)
1908 – Mel Blanc, American voice actor (d. 1989)
1909 – Jacques Canetti, French music executive and talent agent (d. 1997)
1909 – Freddie Frith, English motorcycle road racer (d. 1988)
1909 – Benny Goodman, American clarinet player, songwriter, and bandleader (d. 1986)
1910 – Harry Bernstein, English-American journalist and author (d. 2011)
1912 – Julius Axelrod, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004)
1912 – Erich Bagge, German physicist and academic (d. 1996)
1912 – Hugh Griffith, Welsh actor (d. 1980)
1912 – Millicent Selsam, American author and academic (d. 1996)
1912 – Joseph Stein, American playwright and author (d. 2010)
1914 – Akinoumi Setsuo, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 37th Yokozuna (d. 1979)
1915 – Len Carney, English footballer and soldier (d. 1996)
1916 – Justin Catayée, French soldier and politician (d. 1962)
1916 – Mort Meskin, American illustrator (d. 1995)
1918 – Pita Amor, Mexican poet and author (d. 2000)
1918 – Bob Evans, American businessman, founded Bob Evans Restaurants (d. 2007)
1919 – René Barrientos, Bolivian general and politician, 55th President of Bolivia (d. 1969)
1920 – Franklin J. Schaffner, Japanese-American director and producer (d. 1989)
1922 – Hal Clement, American author and educator (d. 2003)
1924 – Anthony Dryden Marshall, American CIA officer and diplomat (d. 2014)
1925 – John Henry Marks, English physician and author
1926 – Johnny Gimble, American country/western swing musician (Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys) (d. 2015)
1927 – Joan Birman, American mathematician
1927 – Clint Walker, American actor and singer (d. 2018)
1927 – Billy Wilson, Australian rugby league player and coach (d. 1993)
1928 – Pro Hart, Australian painter (d. 2006)
1928 – Agnès Varda, Belgian-French director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2019)
1929 – Georges Gilson, French archbishop
1930 – Mark Birley, English businessman, founded Annabel’s (d. 2007)
1930 – Robert Ryman, American painter (d. 2019)
1931 – Larry Silverstein, American real estate magnate
1932 – Ray Cooney, English actor and playwright
1932 – Pauline Oliveros, American accordion player and composer (d. 2016)
1932 – Ivor Richard, Baron Richard, Welsh politician and diplomat, British Ambassador to the United Nations (d. 2018)
1934 – Alexei Leonov, Russian general, pilot, and cosmonaut (d. 2019)
1934 – Alketas Panagoulias, Greek footballer and manager (d. 2012)
1935 – Ruta Lee, Canadian-American actress and dancer
1935 – Guy Tardif, Canadian academic and politician (d. 2005)
1936 – Keir Dullea, American actor
1937 – Christopher Haskins, Anglo-Irish businessman, life peer, and British politician
1937 – Rick Mather, American-English architect (d. 2013)
1938 – Billie Letts, American author and educator (d. 2014)
1939 – Michael J. Pollard, American actor (d. 2019)
1939 – Dieter Quester, Austrian race car driver
1939 – Tim Waterstone, Scottish businessman, founded Waterstones
1940 – Jagmohan Dalmiya, Indian cricket administrator (d. 2015)
1940 – Gilles Villemure, Canadian-American ice hockey player
1942 – John Gladwin, English bishop
1942 – Carole Stone, English journalist and author
1943 – Anders Michanek, Swedish motorcycle racer
1943 – Gale Sayers, American football player and philanthropist
1944 – Lenny Davidson, English guitarist and songwriter (The Dave Clark Five)
1944 – Meredith MacRae, American actress (d. 2000)
1944 – Stav Prodromou, Greek-American engineer and businessman
1945 – Gladys Horton, American singer (d. 2011)
1946 – Allan Chapman, English historian and author
1946 – Dragan Džajić, Serbian and Yugoslav footballer
1947 – Jocelyne Bourassa, Canadian golfer
1948 – Johan De Muynck, Belgian former professional road racing cyclist
1948 – Michael Piller, American screenwriter and producer (d. 2005)
1948 – David Thorpe, Australian rules footballer
1949 – P.J. Carlesimo, American basketball player and coach
1949 – Paul Coleridge, English lawyer and judge
1949 – Bob Willis, English cricketer and sportscaster (d. 2019)
1950 – Bertrand Delanoë, French politician, 14th Mayor of Paris
1950 – Paresh Rawal, Indian actor, producer, and politician
1950 – Joshua Rozenberg, English lawyer, journalist, and author
1951 – Zdravko Čolić, Bosnian Serb singer-songwriter
1951 – Fernando Lugo, Paraguayan bishop and politician, President of Paraguay
1951 – Stephen Tobolowsky, American actor, singer, and director
1952 – Daniel Grodnik, American screenwriter and producer
1952 – Kerry Fraser, Canadian ice hockey player, referee, and sportscaster
1953 – Jim Hunter, Canadian skier
1953 – Colm Meaney, Irish actor
1955 – Topper Headon, English drummer and songwriter (The Clash)
1955 – Jacqueline McGlade, English-Canadian biologist, ecologist, and academic
1955 – Caroline Swift, English lawyer and judge
1955 – Colm Tóibín, Irish novelist, poet, playwright, and critic
1956 – Tim Lucas, American author, screenwriter, and critic
1957 – Michael Clayton, Australian golfer
1958 – Eugene Belliveau, Canadian football player
1958 – Marie Fredriksson, Swedish singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 2019)
1958 – Steve Israel, American lawyer and politician
1958 – Michael López-Alegría, Spanish-American captain, pilot, and astronaut
1958 – Ted McGinley, American actor
1959 – Phil Brown, English footballer, coach, and manager
1959 – Randy Ferbey, Canadian curler
1959 – Frank Vanhecke, Belgian politician
1961 – Harry Enfield, English actor, director, and screenwriter
1961 – Bob Yari, Iranian-American director and producer
1962 – Kevin Eastman, American author and illustrator, co-created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
1962 – Richard Fuller, English lawyer and politician
1962 – Tim Loughton, English businessman and politician
1962 – Tonya Pinkins, American actress and singer
1963 – Michel Langevin, Canadian drummer and songwriter
1963 – Élise Lucet, French journalist
1963 – Helen Sharman, English chemist and astronaut
1964 – Wynonna Judd, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actress
1964 – Andrea Montermini, Italian race car driver
1964 – Tom Morello, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
1965 – Troy Coker, Australian rugby player
1965 – Billy Donovan, American basketball player and coach
1965 – Iginio Straffi, Italian animator and producer, founded Rainbow S.r.l.
1966 – Thomas Häßler, German footballer and manager
1966 – Stephen Malkmus, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1967 – Tim Burgess, English singer-songwriter
1967 – Rechelle Hawkes, Australian hockey player
1967 – Sven Pipien, German-American bass player
1968 – Jason Kenney, Canadian lawyer and politician, 40th Canadian Minister of National Defence
1968 – Zacarias Moussaoui, French citizen, sentenced to life in prison related to September 11 attacks
1969 – Naomi Kawase, Japanese director, producer, and screenwriter
1969 – Ryuhei Kitamura, Japanese director, producer, and screenwriter
1971 – Paul Grayson, English rugby player and coach
1971 – Duncan Jones, English director, producer, and screenwriter
1971 – Idina Menzel, American singer-songwriter and actress
1971 – Jiří Šlégr, Czech ice hockey player and politician
1971 – Adrian Vowles, Australian rugby league player and sportscaster
1972 – Manny Ramirez, Dominican-American baseball player and coach
1974 – Big L, American rapper (d. 1999)
1974 – Kostas Chalkias, Greek footballer
1974 – CeeLo Green, American singer-songwriter, pianist, producer, and actor
1974 – David Wilkie, American ice hockey player and coach
1975 – Evan Eschmeyer, American basketball player
1975 – Brian Fair, American singer-songwriter
1975 – Andy Farrell, English rugby player and coach
1975 – Marissa Mayer, American computer scientist and businesswoman
1976 – Radoslav Nesterović, Slovenian-Greek basketball player
1976 – Magnus Norman, Swedish tennis player and coach
1976 – Margaret Okayo, Kenyan runner
1977 – Rachael Stirling, English actress
1977 – Federico Vilar, Argentinian-Italian footballer
1979 – Mike Bishai, Canadian ice hockey player
1979 – Clint Bowyer, American race car driver
1979 – Francis Lessard, Canadian ice hockey player
1980 – Steven Gerrard, English international footballer, midfielder and manager
1980 – Ilona Korstin, Russian basketball player
1980 – Ryōgo Narita, Japanese author
1981 – Devendra Banhart, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1981 – Gianmaria Bruni, Italian race car driver
1981 – Ahmad Elrich, Australian footballer
1981 – Remy Ma, American rapper
1981 – Lars Møller Madsen, Danish handball player
1981 – Hisanori Takada, Japanese footballer
1982 – Eddie Griffin, American basketball player (d. 2007)
1982 – James Simpson-Daniel, English rugby player
1984 – Sham Kwok Fai, Hong Kong footballer
1984 – Matt Maguire, Australian footballer
1984 – Alexander Sulzer, German ice hockey player
1985 – Igor Kurnosov, Russian chess player (d. 2013)
1985 – Igor Lewczuk, Polish footballer
1985 – Aaron Volpatti, Canadian ice hockey player
1986 – Nikolay Bodurov, Bulgarian international footballer, centre-back
1989 – Ailee, Korean-American singer and songwriter
1989 – Lesia Tsurenko, Ukrainian tennis player
1990 – Andrei Loktionov, Russian ice hockey player
1991 – Jonathan Fox, English swimmer
1992 – Harrison Barnes, American basketball player
1992 – Danielle Harold, English actress
1994 – Scott Laughton, Canadian ice hockey player

Deaths on May 30

531 – Xiao Tong, prince of the Liang Dynasty (b. 501)
727 – Hubertus, bishop Liège
947 – Ma Xifan, king of Chu (b. 899)
1035 – Baldwin IV, count of Flanders (b. 980)
1159 – Władysław II the Exile, High Duke of Poland and Duke of Silesia (b. 1105)
1252 – Ferdinand III, king of Castile and León (b. 1199)
1347 – John Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy de Knayth, English peer (b. 1290)
1376 – Joan of Ponthieu, Dame of Epernon, French noblewoman
1416 – Jerome of Prague, Czech martyr and theologian (b. 1379)
1431 – Joan of Arc, French martyr and saint (b. 1412)
1434 – Prokop the Great, Czech general (b. 1380)
1469 – Lope de Barrientos, Castilian bishop (b. 1389)
1472 – Jacquetta of Luxembourg, daughter of Pierre de Luxembourg (b. 1416)
1574 – Charles IX of France (b. 1550)
1593 – Christopher Marlowe, English poet and playwright (b. 1564)
1606 – Guru Arjan Dev, fifth of the Sikh gurus (executed) (b. 1563)
1640 – Peter Paul Rubens, German-Belgian painter (b. 1577)
1696 – Henry Capell, 1st Baron Capell of Tewkesbury, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (b. 1638)
1670 – John Davenport, English minister, co-founded the New Haven Colony (b. 1597)
1712 – Andrea Lanzani, Italian painter (b. 1645)
1718 – Arnold van Keppel, 1st Earl of Albemarle, Dutch-English general (b. 1670)
1744 – Alexander Pope, English poet, essayist, and translator (b. 1688)
1770 – François Boucher, French painter and set designer (b. 1703)
1778 – Voltaire, French philosopher and author (b. 1694)
1778 – José de la Borda, French/Spanish mining magnate in colonial Mexico (b. ca. 1700)
1829 – Philibert Jean-Baptiste Curial, French general (b. 1774)
1832 – James Mackintosh, Scottish historian, jurist, and politician (b. 1765)
1855 – Mary Reibey, Australian businesswoman, (b. 1777)
1892 – Mary Hannah Gray Clarke, American author, correspondent, and poet (b. 1835)
1865 – John Catron, American lawyer and judge (b. 1786)
1901 – Victor D’Hondt, Belgian mathematician, lawyer, and jurist (b. 1841)
1911 – Milton Bradley, American businessman, founded the Milton Bradley Company (b. 1836)
1912 – Wilbur Wright, American pilot and businessman, co-founded the Wright Company (b. 1867)
1918 – Georgi Plekhanov, Russian philosopher and theorist (b. 1856)
1925 – Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, German historian and author (b. 1876)
1926 – Vladimir Steklov, Russian mathematician and physicist (b. 1864)
1934 – Tōgō Heihachirō, Japanese admiral (b. 1848)
1939 – Floyd Roberts, American race car driver (b. 1904)
1941 – Prajadhipok, Thai king (b. 1893)
1946 – Louis Slotin, Canadian physicist and chemist (b. 1910)
1947 – Georg von Trapp, Austrian captain (b. 1880)
1948 – József Klekl, Slovene-Hungarian priest and politician (b. 1874)
1949 – Emmanuel Célestin Suhard, French cardinal (b. 1874)
1951 – Hermann Broch, Austrian-American author (b. 1886)
1953 – Dooley Wilson, American actor and singer (b. 1886)
1955 – Bill Vukovich, American race car driver (b. 1918)
1957 – Piero Carini, Italian race car driver (b. 1921)
1960 – Boris Pasternak, Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1890)
1961 – Rafael Trujillo, Dominican soldier and politician, 36th President of the Dominican Republic (b. 1891)
1964 – Isaac Babalola Akinyele, Nigerian king (b. 1882)
1964 – Eddie Sachs, American race car driver (b. 1927)
1964 – Leó Szilárd, Hungarian-American physicist and engineer (b. 1898)
1965 – Louis Hjelmslev, Danish linguist and academic (b. 1899)
1967 – Claude Rains, English-American actor (b. 1889)
1967 – Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Austrian director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1885)
1971 – Marcel Dupré, French organist and composer (b. 1886)
1975 – Steve Prefontaine, American runner (b. 1951)
1975 – Tatsuo Shimabuku, Japanese martial artist, founded Isshin-ryū (b. 1908)
1975 – Michel Simon, Swiss-born French actor (b. 1895)
1976 – Max Carey, American baseball player, coach, and manager (b. 1890)
1976 – Mitsuo Fuchida, Japanese captain (b. 1902)
1978 – Jean Deslauriers, Canadian violinist, composer, and conductor (b. 1909)
1980 – Carl Radle, American bass player and producer (b. 1942)
1981 – Don Ashby, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1955)
1981 – Ziaur Rahman, Bangladeshi general and politician, 7th President of Bangladesh (b. 1936)
1982 – Albert Norden, German journalist and politician (b. 1904)
1986 – Perry Ellis, American fashion designer, founded his own eponymous fashion brand (b. 1940)
1993 – Sun Ra, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (b. 1914)
1994 – Ezra Taft Benson, American religious leader, 13th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1899)
1994 – Marcel Bich, Italian-French businessman, co-founded Société Bic (b. 1914)
1994 – Agostino Di Bartolomei, Italian footballer (b. 1955)
1995 – Ted Drake, English footballer and manager (b. 1912)
1995 – Lofty England, English-Austrian engineer (b. 1911)
1995 – Bobby Stokes, English footballer (b. 1951)
1996 – Léon-Étienne Duval, French cardinal (b. 1903)
1996 – Alo Mattiisen, Estonian composer (b. 1961)
1999 – Kalju Lepik, Estonian poet and author (b. 1920)
2000 – Tex Beneke, American saxophonist and bandleader (b. 1914)
2001 – Denis Whitaker, Canadian general and historian (b. 1915)
2005 – Gérald Leblanc, Acadian poet (b. 1945)
2005 – Tomasz Pacyński, Polish journalist and author (b. 1958)
2005 – Alma Ziegler, American baseball player and stenographer (b. 1918)
2006 – Shohei Imamura, Japanese director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1926)
2006 – David Lloyd, New Zealand biologist and academic (b. 1938)
2006 – Robert Sterling, American actor (b. 1917)
2007 – Jean-Claude Brialy, Algerian-French actor and director (b. 1933)
2007 – Birgit Dalland, Norwegian politician (b. 1907)
2007 – Gunturu Seshendra Sarma, Indian poet and critic (b. 1927)
2009 – Torsten Andersson, Swedish painter and illustrator (b. 1926)
2009 – Susanna Haapoja, Finnish politician (b. 1966)
2009 – Ephraim Katzir, Israeli biophysicist and politician, 4th President of Israel (b. 1916)
2010 – Yuri Chesnokov, Russian volleyball player and coach (b. 1933)
2010 – Dufferin Roblin, Canadian commander and politician, 14th Premier of Manitoba (b. 1917)
2011 – Isikia Savua, Fijian police officer and diplomat (b. 1952)
2011 – Saleem Shahzad, Pakistani journalist (b. 1970)
2011 – Marek Siemek, Polish philosopher and historian (b. 1942)
2011 – Clarice Taylor, American actress (b. 1917)
2011 – Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1921)
2012 – John Fox, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter (b. 1957)
2012 – Andrew Huxley, English physiologist and biophysicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1917)
2012 – Gerhard Pohl, German economist and politician (b. 1937)
2012 – Jack Twyman, American basketball player and sportscaster (b. 1934)
2013 – Jayalath Jayawardena, Sri Lankan physician and politician (b. 1953)
2013 – Larry Jones, American football player and coach (b. 1933)
2014 – Hienadz Buraukin, Belarusian poet, journalist, and diplomat (b. 1936)
2014 – Henning Carlsen, Danish director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1927)
2014 – Joan Lorring, British actress (b. 1926)
2014 – Leonidas Vasilikopoulos, Greek admiral (b. 1932)
2015 – Beau Biden, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 44th Attorney General of Delaware (b. 1969)
2015 – Joël Champetier, Canadian author and screenwriter (b. 1957)
2015 – L. Tom Perry, American religious leader and member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1922)
2016 – Tom Lysiak, Polish-Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1953)
2016 – Rick MacLeish, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1950)
2019 – Jason Marcano, Trinidadian footballer (b. 1983)

Holidays and observances on May 30

Anguilla Day, commemorates the beginning of the Anguillian Revolution in 1967. (Anguilla)
Canary Islands Day (Spain)
Christian feast day:
- Earliest day on which Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary can fall, while July 3 is the latest; celebrated 20 days after Pentecost. (Catholic Church)
- Ferdinand III of Castile
- Isaac of Dalmatia
- Joan of Arc
- Joseph Marello
- May 30 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Indian Arrival Day (Trinidad and Tobago)
Lod Massacre Remembrance Day (Puerto Rico)
Mother’s Day (Nicaragua)
Statehood Day (Croatia)

May 30 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

May 29 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

363 – The Roman emperor Julian defeats the Sasanian army in the Battle of Ctesiphon, under the walls of the Sasanian capital, but is unable to take the city.
1108 – Battle of Uclés: Almoravid troops under the command of Tamim ibn Yusuf defeat a Castile and León alliance under the command of Prince Sancho Alfónsez.
1167 – Battle of Monte Porzio: A Roman army supporting Pope Alexander III is defeated by Christian of Buch and Rainald of Dassel.
1176 – Battle of Legnano: The Lombard League defeats Emperor Frederick I.
1328 – Philip VI is crowned King of France.
1416 – Battle of Gallipoli: The Venetians under Pietro Loredan defeat a much larger Ottoman fleet off Gallipoli.
1453 – Fall of Constantinople: Ottoman armies under Sultan Mehmed II Fatih capture Constantinople after a 53-day siege, ending the Byzantine Empire.
1658 – Battle of Samugarh: decisive battle in the struggle for the throne during the Mughal war of succession (1658–1659).
1660 – English Restoration: Charles II is restored to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland.
1733 – The right of settlers in New France to enslave natives is upheld at Quebec City.
1780 – American Revolutionary War: At the Battle of Waxhaws, the British continue attacking after the Continentals lay down their arms, killing 113 and critically wounding all but 53 that remained.
1790 – Rhode Island becomes the last of North America’s original Thirteen Colonies to ratify the Constitution and become one of the United States.
1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: Between 300 and 500 United Irishmen are executed as rebels by the British Army in County Kildare, Ireland.
1807 – Mustafa IV became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Caliph of Islam.
1848 – Wisconsin is admitted as the 30th U.S. state.
1852 – Jenny Lind leaves New York after her two-year American tour.
1861 – The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce is founded, in Hong Kong.
1864 – Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico arrives in Mexico for the first time.
1867 – The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 (“the Compromise”) is born through Act 12, which establishes the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
1868 – Mihailo Obrenović III, Prince of Serbia is assassinated.
1886 – The pharmacist John Pemberton places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, which appeared in The Atlanta Journal.
1900 – N’Djamena is founded as Fort-Lamy by the French commander Émile Gentil.
1903 – In the May Coup, Alexander I, King of Serbia, and Queen Draga, are assassinated in Belgrade by the Black Hand (Crna Ruka) organization.
1913 – Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score The Rite of Spring receives its premiere performance in Paris, France, provoking a riot.
1914 – The Ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sinks in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with the loss of 1,012 lives.
1918 – Armenia defeats the Ottoman Army in the Battle of Sardarabad.
1919 – Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity is tested (later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington and Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin
1920 – The Louth flood of 1920 was a severe flash flooding in the Lincolnshire market town of Louth which occurred 29 May 1920, resulting in 23 fatalities in 20 minutes. It has been described as one of the most significant flood disasters in Britain during the 20th century.
1931 – Michele Schirru, a citizen of the United States, is executed by Italian military firing squad for intent to kill Benito Mussolini.
1932 – World War I veterans begin to assemble in Washington, D.C., in the Bonus Army to request cash bonuses promised to them to be paid in 1945.
1935 – First flight of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aeroplane.
1945 – First combat mission of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator heavy bomber.
1948 – United Nations Truce Supervision Organization is founded.
1950 – The St. Roch, the first ship to circumnavigate North America, arrives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
1953 – Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay’s (adopted) 39th birthday.
1964 – The Arab League meets in East Jerusalem to discuss the Palestinian question, leading to the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
1973 – Tom Bradley is elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles, California.
1982 – Pope John Paul II becomes the first pontiff to visit Canterbury Cathedral.
1982 – Falklands War: British forces defeat the Argentines at the Battle of Goose Green.
1985 – Heysel Stadium disaster: Thirty-nine association football fans die and hundreds are injured when a dilapidated retaining wall collapses.
1985 – Amputee Steve Fonyo completes cross-Canada marathon at Victoria, British Columbia, after 14 months.
1988 – The U.S. President Ronald Reagan begins his first visit to the Soviet Union when he arrives in Moscow for a superpower summit with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
1989 – Signing of an agreement between Egypt and the United States, allowing the manufacture of parts of the F-16 jet fighter plane in Egypt.
1990 – The Russian parliament elects Boris Yeltsin as president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
1993 – The Miss Sarajevo beauty pageant is held in war-torn Sarajevo drawing global attention to the plight of its citizens.
1999 – Olusegun Obasanjo takes office as President of Nigeria, the first elected and civilian head of state in Nigeria after 16 years of military rule.
1999 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.
2001 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the disabled golfer Casey Martin can use a cart to ride in tournaments.
2004 – The National World War II Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
2008 – A doublet earthquake, of combined magnitude 6.1, strikes Iceland near the town of Selfoss, injuring 30 people.
2012 – A 5.8-magnitude earthquake hits northern Italy near Bologna, killing at least 24 people.
2015 – One World Observatory at One World Trade Center opens.

Births on May 29

1421 – Charles, Prince of Viana (d. 1461)
1439 – Pope Pius III (d. 1503)
1443 – Victor, Duke of Münsterberg, Reichsgraf, Duke of Münsterberg and Opava, Count of Glatz (d. 1500)
1504 – Antun Vrančić, Croatian archbishop (d. 1573)
1555 – George Carew, 1st Earl of Totnes, English Earl, general and administrator (d. 1629)
1568 – Virginia de’ Medici, Italian princess (d. 1615)
1594 – Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim, Bavarian field marshal (d. 1632)
1627 – Anne, Duchess of Montpensier, French princess (d. 1693)
1630 – Charles II of England (d. 1685)
1675 – Humphry Ditton, English mathematician and philosopher (d. 1715)
1716 – Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton, French zoologist and mineralogist (d. 1800)
1722 – James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster, Irish soldier and politician (d. 1773)
1730 – Jackson of Exeter, English organist and composer (d. 1803)
1736 – Patrick Henry, American lawyer and politician, 1st Governor of Virginia (d. 1799)
1780 – Henri Braconnot, French chemist and pharmacist (d. 1855)
1794 – Johann Heinrich von Mädler, German astronomer and selenographer (d. 1874)
1797 – Louise-Adéone Drölling, French painter (d. 1836)
1823 – John H. Balsley, American carpenter and inventor (d. 1895)
1860 – Isaac Albéniz, Spanish pianist and composer (d. 1909)
1871 – Clark Voorhees, American painter (d. 1933)
1873 – Rudolf Tobias, Estonian organist and composer (d. 1918)
1874 – G. K. Chesterton, English essayist, poet, and playwright (d. 1936)
1880 – Oswald Spengler, German historian and philosopher (d. 1936)
1892 – Alfonsina Storni, Swiss-Argentinian poet and author (d. 1938)
1893 – Max Brand, American journalist and author (d. 1944)
1894 – Beatrice Lillie, Canadian-English actress, singer and writer (d. 1989)
1894 – Josef von Sternberg, Austrian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1969)
1897 – Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Czech-American pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1957)
1899 – Douglas Abbott, Canadian lawyer and politician, 10th Canadian Minister of Defence (d. 1987)
1902 – Harry Kadwell, Australian rugby league player and coach (d. 1999)
1903 – Bob Hope, English-American actor, singer, and producer (d. 2003)
1904 – Hubert Opperman, Australian cyclist and politician (d. 1996)
1905 – Sebastian Shaw, English actor, director, and playwright (d. 1994)
1906 – T. H. White, Indian-English author (d. 1964)
1907 – Hartland Molson, Canadian captain and politician (d. 2002)
1908 – Diana Morgan, Welsh-English playwright and screenwriter (d. 1996)
1910 – Ralph Metcalfe, American sprinter and politician (d. 1978)
1913 – Tony Zale, American boxer (d. 1997)
1914 – Stacy Keach Sr., American actor (d. 2003)
1914 – Tenzing Norgay, Nepalese-Indian mountaineer (d. 1986)
1915 – Karl Münchinger, German conductor and composer (d. 1990)
1917 – John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States (d. 1963)
1917 – Marcel Trudel, Canadian historian, author, and academic (d. 2011)
1919 – Jacques Genest, Canadian physician and academic (d. 2018)
1920 – John Harsanyi, Hungarian-American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2000)
1920 – Clifton James, American actor (d. 2017)
1921 – Norman Hetherington, Australian cartoonist and puppeteer (d. 2010)
1922 – Joe Weatherly, American race car driver (d. 1964)
1922 – Iannis Xenakis, Greek-French composer, engineer, and theorist (d. 2001)
1923 – Bernard Clavel, French author (d. 2010)
1923 – John Parker, 6th Earl of Morley, English colonel and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Devon (d. 2015)
1923 – Eugene Wright, American jazz bassist
1924 – Lars Bo, Danish author and illustrator (d. 1999)
1924 – Miloslav Kříž, Czech basketball player and coach (d. 2013)
1924 – Pepper Paire, American baseball player (d. 2013)
1926 – Katie Boyle, Italian-English actress and television host (d. 2018)
1926 – Halaevalu Mataʻaho ʻAhomeʻe, Queen Consort of Tonga (d. 2017)
1926 – Abdoulaye Wade, Senegalese academic and politician, 3rd President of Senegal
1927 – Jean Coutu, Canadian pharmacist and businessman, founded the Jean Coutu Group
1929 – Harry Frankfurt, American philosopher and academic
1929 – Peter Higgs, English-Scottish physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1929 – Roberto Vargas, Puerto Rican-American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 2014)
1932 – Paul R. Ehrlich, American biologist and author
1932 – Richie Guerin, American basketball player and coach
1933 – Helmuth Rilling, German conductor and educator
1933 – Tarquinio Provini, Italian motorcycle racer (d. 2005)
1934 – Bill Vander Zalm, Dutch-Canadian businessman and politician, 28th Premier of British Columbia
1935 – André Brink, South African author and playwright (d. 2015)
1935 – Sylvia Robinson, American singer and producer (d. 2011)
1937 – Charles W. Pickering, American lawyer and judge
1937 – Irmin Schmidt, German keyboard player and composer
1937 – Alwin Schockemöhle, German show-jumper
1937 – Harry Statham, American basketball player and coach
1938 – Christopher Bland, English businessman and politician (d. 2017)
1938 – Fay Vincent, American lawyer and businessman
1939 – Pete Smith, Australian radio and television announcer
1939 – Al Unser, American race car driver
1940 – Taihō Kōki, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 48th Yokozuna (d. 2013)
1940 – Farooq Leghari, Pakistani politician, 8th President of Pakistan (d. 2010)
1941 – Doug Scott, English mountaineer and author
1941 – Bob Simon, American journalist (d. 2015)
1942 – Pierre Bourque, Canadian businessman and politician, 40th Mayor of Montreal
1942 – Kevin Conway, American actor and director (d. 2020)
1943 – Robert W. Edgar, American educator and politician (d. 2013)
1944 – Bob Benmosche, American businessman (d. 2015)
1944 – Quentin Davies, English soldier and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
1945 – Gary Brooker, English singer-songwriter and pianist
1945 – Peter Fraser, Baron Fraser of Carmyllie, Scottish lawyer and politician, Solicitor General for Scotland (d. 2013)
1945 – Julian Le Grand, English economist and author
1945 – Martin Pipe, English jockey and trainer
1945 – Joyce Tenneson, American photographer
1945 – Jean-Pierre Van Rossem, Belgian scholar and author (d. 2018)
1946 – Fernando Buesa, Spanish politician (d. 2000)
1947 – Anthony Geary, American actor
1948 – Michael Berkeley, English composer and radio host
1948 – Keith Gull, English microbiologist and academic
1949 – Robert Axelrod, American actor and screenwriter (d. 2019)
1949 – Brian Kidd, English footballer and manager
1949 – Francis Rossi, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1950 – Rebbie Jackson, American singer and actress
1953 – Danny Elfman, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor
1954 – Robert Beaser, American composer and educator
1954 – Jerry Moran, American lawyer and politician
1955 – Frank Baumgartl, German runner (d. 2010)
1955 – John Hinckley Jr., American attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan
1955 – David Kirschner, American animator, producer, and author
1955 – Gordon Rintoul, Scottish historian and curator
1955 – Ken Schrader, American race car driver and sportscaster
1956 – Mark Lyall Grant, English diplomat, British Ambassador to the United Nations
1956 – La Toya Jackson, American singer-songwriter and actress
1957 – Steven Croft, English bishop and theologian
1957 – Jeb Hensarling, American lawyer and politician
1957 – Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Iranian film director
1958 – Annette Bening, American actress
1958 – Juliano Mer-Khamis, Israeli actor, director, and activist (d. 2011)
1958 – Uwe Rapolder, German footballer and coach
1958 – Mike Stenhouse, American baseball player and sportscaster
1959 – Rupert Everett, English actor and novelist
1959 – Mel Gaynor, English drummer
1959 – Steve Hanley, Irish-English bass player and songwriter
1960 – Thomas Baumer, Swiss economist and academic
1960 – Mike Freer, English politician
1961 – Melissa Etheridge, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist
1961 – John Miceli, American drummer
1962 – Fandi Ahmad, Singaporean footballer, coach, and manager
1962 – Eric Davis, American baseball player
1962 – Carol Kirkwood, Scottish journalist
1962 – Chloé Sainte-Marie, Canadian actress and singer
1963 – Blaze Bayley, English singer-songwriter
1963 – Zhu Jianhua, Chinese high jumper
1963 – Ukyo Katayama, Japanese race car driver
1963 – Claude Loiselle, Canadian ice hockey player and manager
1964 – Howard Mills III, American academic and politician
1964 – Oswaldo Negri Jr., Brazilian race car driver
1966 – Natalie Nougayrède, French journalist
1967 – Noel Gallagher, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1967 – Mike Keane, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1967 – Steven Levitt, American economist, author, and academic
1968 – Torquhil Campbell, 13th Duke of Argyll, Scottish politician
1968 – Tate George, American basketball player
1968 – Jessica Morden, English politician
1968 – Hida Viloria, American activist
1970 – Natarsha Belling, Australian journalist
1970 – Roberto Di Matteo, Italian footballer and manager
1971 – Éric Lucas, Canadian boxer
1971 – Bernd Mayländer, German race car driver
1971 – Jo Beth Taylor, Australian television host and actress
1971 – Rob Womack, English shot putter and discus thrower
1972 – Bill Curley, American basketball player and coach
1972 – Simon Jones, English singer and bass player
1973 – Tomoko Kaneda, Japanese voice actress, singer, and radio personality
1973 – Mark Lee, American guitarist and songwriter
1973 – Alpay Özalan, Turkish footballer
1974 – Steve Cardenas, American martial artist and retired actor
1974 – Stephen Larkham, Australian rugby player and coach
1974 – Aaron McGruder, American author and cartoonist
1974 – Myf Warhurst, Australian radio and television host
1974 – Jenny Willott, English politician
1975 – Jason Allison, Canadian ice hockey player
1975 – Mel B, English singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress
1975 – Sven Kubis, German footballer
1975 – Sarah Millican, English comedian
1975 – Anthony Wall, English golfer
1975 – Daniel Tosh, American comedian, television host, actor, writer, and executive producer
1976 – Caçapa, Brazilian footballer and manager
1976 – Jerry Hairston Jr., American baseball player and sportscaster
1976 – Raef LaFrentz, American basketball player
1976 – Yegor Titov, Russian footballer
1977 – Massimo Ambrosini, Italian footballer
1977 – Marco Cassetti, Italian footballer
1977 – António Lebo Lebo, Angolan footballer
1978 – Pelle Almqvist, Swedish singer-songwriter
1978 – Sébastien Grosjean, French tennis player
1978 – Lorenzo Odone, Italian-American adrenoleukodystrophy patient who inspired the 1992 film, Lorenzo’s Oil (d. 2008)
1978 – Adam Rickitt, English singer
1979 – Arne Friedrich, German footballer
1979 – Brian Kendrick, American wrestler
1979 – John Rheinecker, American baseball player (d. 2017)
1980 – Ernesto Farías, Argentinian footballer
1981 – Andrey Arshavin, Russian footballer
1982 – Nataliya Dobrynska, Ukrainian heptathlete
1982 – Matt Macri, American baseball player
1982 – Kim Tae-kyun, South Korean baseball player
1984 – Carmelo Anthony, American basketball player
1984 – Nia Jax, Australian-American professional wrestler
1984 – Funmi Jimoh, American long jumper
1984 – Andreas Schäffer, German footballer
1984 – Ina Wroldsen, Norwegian singer and songwriter
1985 – Nathan Horton, Canadian ice hockey player
1987 – Lina Andrijauskaitė, Lithuanian long jumper
1987 – Issac Luke, New Zealand rugby league player
1987 – Kelvin Maynard, Dutch footballer (d. 2019)
1987 – Noah Reid, Canadian actor, producer, and screenwriter
1987 – Rui Sampaio, Portuguese footballer
1988 – Muath Al-Kasasbeh, Jordanian captain and pilot (d. 2015)
1988 – Cheng Fei, Chinese gymnast
1988 – Steve Mason, Canadian ice hockey player
1989 – Ezekiel Ansah, Ghanaian-American football player
1989 – Diego Barisone, Argentinian footballer (d. 2015)
1989 – Riley Keough, American model and actress
1990 – Joe Biagini, American baseball pitcher
1992 – Sarah Moundir, Swiss tennis player
1993 – Jana Čepelová, Slovak tennis player
1993 – Maika Monroe, American actress and kiteboarder
1993 – Grete Šadeiko, Estonian heptathlete
1998 – Markelle Fultz, American basketball player
1999 – Park Ji-hoon, South Korean singer and actor

Deaths on May 29

931 – Jimeno Garcés of Pamplona
1040 – Renauld I, Count of Nevers
1259 – Christopher I of Denmark (b. 1219)
1311 – James II of Majorca (b. 1243)
1320 – Pope John VIII of Alexandria, Coptic pope
1327 – Jens Grand, Danish archbishop (b. c. 1260)
1379 – Henry II of Castile (b. 1334)
1405 – Philippe de Mézières, French soldier and author (b. 1327)
1425 – Hongxi Emperor of China (b. 1378)
1453 – Ulubatlı Hasan, Ottoman commander (b. 1428)
1453 – Constantine XI Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor (b. 1404)
1500 – Bartolomeu Dias, Portuguese explorer and navigator (b. 1451)
1500 – Thomas Rotherham, English cleric and minister (b. 1423)
1546 – David Beaton, Scottish cardinal and politician, Lord Chancellor of Scotland (b. 1494)
1593 – John Penry, Welsh martyr (b. 1559)
1660 – Frans van Schooten, Dutch mathematician and academic (b. 1615)
1691 – Cornelis Tromp, Dutch admiral (b. 1629)
1790 – Israel Putnam, American general (b. 1718)
1796 – Carl Fredrik Pechlin, Swedish general and politician (b. 1720)
1814 – Joséphine de Beauharnais, first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte (b. 1763)
1829 – Humphry Davy, English-Swiss chemist and academic (b. 1778)
1847 – Emmanuel de Grouchy, Marquis de Grouchy, French general (b. 1766)
1862 – Franz Mirecki, Polish composer, music conductor, and music teacher (b. 1791)
1866 – Winfield Scott, American general, lawyer, and politician (b. 1786)
1873 – Prince Friedrich of Hesse and by Rhine (b. 1870)
1892 – Bahá’u’lláh, Persian religious leader, founded the Bahá’í Faith (b. 1817)
1896 – Gabriel Auguste Daubrée, French geologist and academic (b. 1814)
1903 – Bruce Price, American architect, designed the Château Frontenac and American Surety Building (b. 1845)
1910 – Mily Balakirev, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1837)
1911 – W. S. Gilbert, English playwright and poet (b. 1836)
1914 – Laurence Sydney Brodribb Irving, English author and playwright (b. 1871)
1914 – Henry Seton-Karr, English explorer, hunter, and author (b. 1853)
1917 – Kate Harrington, American poet and educator (b. 1831)
1919 – Robert Bacon, American colonel and politician, 39th United States Secretary of State (b. 1860)
1920 – Carlos Deltour, French rower (b. 1864)
1921 – Abbott Handerson Thayer, American painter and educator (b. 1849)
1935 – Josef Suk, Czech violinist and composer (b. 1874)
1939 – Ursula Ledóchowska, Austrian-Polish nun and saint, founded the Congregation of the Ursulines of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus (b. 1865)
1941 – Léo-Pol Morin, Canadian pianist, composer, and educator (b. 1892)
1942 – John Barrymore, American actor (b. 1882)
1946 – Martin Gottfried Weiss, German SS officer (b. 1905)
1948 – May Whitty, English actress (b. 1865)
1951 – Fanny Brice, American singer and comedian (b. 1891)
1951 – Dimitrios Levidis, Greek-French soldier and composer (b. 1885)
1953 – Morgan Russell, American painter and educator (b. 1886)
1957 – James Whale, English director (b. 1889)
1958 – Juan Ramón Jiménez, Spanish poet and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1881)
1963 – Netta Muskett, English author (b. 1887)
1966 – Ignace Lepp, Estonian-French priest and psychologist (b. 1909)
1968 – Arnold Susi, Estonian lawyer and politician, Estonian Minister of Education (b. 1896)
1970 – John Gunther, American journalist and author (b. 1901)
1970 – Eva Hesse, American artist (b. 1936)
1972 – Moe Berg, American baseball player, coach, and spy (b. 1902)
1972 – Stephen Timoshenko, Ukrainian-American engineer and academic (b. 1878)
1973 – George Harriman, English businessman (b. 1908)
1977 – Ba Maw, Burmese politician, Prime Minister of Burma (b. 1893)
1979 – Mary Pickford, Canadian-American actress, producer, and screenwriter, co-founded United Artists (b. 1892)
1979 – John H. Wood Jr., American lawyer and judge (b. 1916)
1982 – Romy Schneider, Austrian actress (b. 1938)
1983 – Arvīds Pelše, Latvian-Russian historian and politician (b. 1899)
1987 – Charan Singh, Indian politician, 5th Prime Minister of India (b. 1902)
1988 – Salem bin Laden, Saudi Arabian businessman (b. 1946)
1989 – George C. Homans, American sociologist and academic (b. 1910)
1991 – Margaret Barr (choreographer), Australian choreographer and teacher of dance-drama (b. 1904)
1993 – Billy Conn, American boxer (b. 1917)
1994 – Erich Honecker, German lawyer and politician (b. 1912)
1994- Lady May Abel Smith, member of the British Royal Family (b. 1906)
1996 – Tamara Toumanova, American ballerina and actress (b. 1919)
1997 – Jeff Buckley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1966)
1998 – Barry Goldwater, American general, activist, and politician (b. 1909)
2003 – David Jefferies, English motorcycle racer (b. 1972)
2004 – Archibald Cox, American lawyer and politician, 31st United States Solicitor General (b. 1912)
2004 – Samuel Dash, American academic and politician (b. 1925)
2005 – John D’Amico, Canadian ice hockey player and referee (b. 1937)
2005 – Hamilton Naki, South African surgeon (b. 1926)
2005 – George Rochberg, American soldier and composer (b. 1918)
2006 – Jacques Bouchard, Canadian businessman (b. 1930)
2007 – Dave Balon, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (b. 1938)
2007 – Lois Browne-Evans, Bermudian lawyer and politician (b. 1927)
2008 – Paula Gunn Allen, Native American writer (b. 1939)
2008 – Luc Bourdon, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1987)
2008 – Harvey Korman, American actor and comedian (b. 1927)
2010 – Dennis Hopper, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1936)
2011 – Sergei Bagapsh, Abkhazian politician, 2nd President of Abkhazia (b. 1949)
2011 – Bill Clements, American soldier and politician, 42nd Governor of Texas (b. 1917)
2011 – Ferenc Mádl, Hungarian academic and politician, 14th President of Hungary (b. 1931)
2012 – Mark Minkov, Russian composer (b. 1944)
2012 – Kaneto Shindo, Japanese director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1912)
2012 – Doc Watson, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1923)
2013 – Richard Ballantine, American-English journalist and author (b. 1940)
2013 – Françoise Blanchard, French actress (b. 1954)
2013 – Andrew Greeley, American priest, sociologist, and author (b. 1928)
2013 – Mulgrew Miller, American pianist and composer (b. 1955)
2013 – Henry Morgentaler, Polish-Canadian physician and activist (b. 1923)
2013 – Franca Rame, Italian actress and playwright (b. 1928)
2013 – Ludwig G. Strauss, German physician and academic (b. 1949)
2013 – Wali-ur-Rehman, Pakistani commander (b. 1970)
2014 – Christine Charbonneau, Canadian singer-songwriter (b. 1943)
2014 – Walter Jakob Gehring, Swiss biologist and academic (b. 1939)
2014 – Peter Glaser, Czech-American scientist and engineer (b. 1923)
2014 – Miljenko Prohaska, Croatian composer and conductor (b. 1925)
2014 – William M. Roth, American businessman (b. 1916)
2015 – Henry Carr, American football player and sprinter (b. 1942)
2015 – Doris Hart, American tennis player (b. 1925)
2015 – Betsy Palmer, American actress (b. 1926)
2017 – Manuel Noriega, Panamanian general and politician, Military Leader of Panama (b. 1934)
2017 – Mordechai Tzipori, Israeli Lieutenant General and minister (b. 1924)
2017 – Konstantinos Mitsotakis, Greek politician and prime minister (b. 1918)
2020 – Maikanti Baru, Nigerian engineer, former chief of state oil firm. (b. 1959)

Holidays and observances on May 29

Army Day (Argentina)
Ascension of Bahá’u’lláh (Bahá’í Faith) (Only if Bahá’í Naw-Rúz falls on March 21 of the Gregorian calendar)
Christian feast day:
- Bona of Pisa
- Hypomone (Eastern Orthodox Church)
- Maximin of Trier
- Pope Alexander of Alexandria (Eastern Orthodox Church)
- Theodosia of Constantinople (Eastern Orthodox Church)
- Ursula Ledóchowska
- May 29 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest day on which Feast of the Sacred Heart can fall, while July 2 is the latest; celebrated 19 days after Pentecost. (Catholic Church)
International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers (International)
National Elderly Day (Indonesia)
Oak Apple Day (England), and its related observance:
- Castleton Garland Day (Castleton)
Statehood Day (Rhode Island and Wisconsin)
Veterans Day (Sweden)
World Digestive Health Day

May 29 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

May 27 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

1096 – Count Emicho enters Mainz, where his followers massacre Jewish citizens.At least 600 Jews are killed.
1120 – Richard III of Capua is anointed as Prince two weeks before his untimely death.
1153 – Malcolm IV becomes King of Scotland.
1199 – John is crowned King of England.
1257 – Richard of Cornwall, and his wife, Sanchia of Provence, are crowned King and Queen of the Germans at Aachen Cathedral.
1644 – Manchu regent Dorgon defeats rebel leader Li Zicheng of the Shun dynasty at the Battle of Shanhai Pass, allowing the Manchus to enter and conquer the capital city of Beijing.
1703 – Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg.
1798 – The Battle of Oulart Hill takes place in Wexford, Ireland; Irish rebel leaders defeat and kill a detachment of militia.
1799 – War of the Second Coalition: Austrian forces defeat the French at Winterthur, Switzerland.
1813 – War of 1812: In Canada, American forces capture Fort George.
1860 – Giuseppe Garibaldi begins his attack on Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Italian unification.
1863 – American Civil War: First Assault on the Confederate works at the Siege of Port Hudson.
1874 – The first group of Dorsland trekkers under the leadership of Gert Alberts leaves Pretoria.
1883 – Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.
1896 – The F4-strength St. Louis–East St. Louis tornado hits in St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and causing over $10–million in damage.
1905 – Russo-Japanese War: The Battle of Tsushima begins.
1917 – Pope Benedict XV promulgates the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the first comprehensive codification of Catholic canon law in the legal history of the Catholic Church.
1919 – The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight.
1927 – The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.
1930 – The 1,046 feet (319 m) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public.
1933 – New Deal: The U.S. Federal Securities Act is signed into law requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission.
1933 – The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon Three Little Pigs, with its hit song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”
1935 – New Deal: The Supreme Court of the United States declares the National Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, (295 U.S. 495).
1937 – In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California.
1940 – World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 99 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops; two survive.
1941 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims an “unlimited national emergency”.
1941 – World War II: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing almost 2,100 men.
1942 – World War II: In Operation Anthropoid, Reinhard Heydrich is fatally wounded in Prague; he dies of his injuries eight days later.
1958 – First flight of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II.
1960 – In Turkey, a military coup removes President Celâl Bayar and the rest of the democratic government from office.
1962 – The Centralia mine fire is ignited in the town’s landfill above a coal mine.
1965 – Vietnam War: American warships begin the first bombardment of National Liberation Front targets within South Vietnam.
1967 – Australians vote in favor of a constitutional referendum granting the Australian government the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and to count them in the national census.
1967 – The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy is launched by Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter Caroline.
1971 – The Dahlerau train disaster, the worst railway accident in West Germany, kills 46 people and injures 25 near Wuppertal.
1971 – Pakistani forces massacre over 200 civilians, mostly Bengali Hindus, in the Bagbati massacre.
1975 – Dibbles Bridge coach crash near Grassington, in North Yorkshire, England, kills 33 – the highest ever death toll in a road accident in the United Kingdom.
1980 – The Gwangju Massacre: Airborne and army troops of South Korea retake the city of Gwangju from civil militias, killing at least 207 and possibly many more.
1984 – The Danube-Black Sea canal is opened, in a ceremony attended by the Ceaușescus. It had been under construction since the 1950s.
1996 – First Chechen War: the Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechnyan rebels for the first time and negotiates a cease-fire.
1997 – The 1997 Central Texas tornado outbreak occurs, spawning multiple tornadoes in Central Texas, including the F5 that killed 27 in Jarrell.
1998 – Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.
2001 – Members of the Islamist separatist group Abu Sayyaf seize twenty hostages from an affluent island resort on Palawan in the Philippines; the hostage crisis would not be resolved until June 2002.
2006 – The 6.4 M_w  Yogyakarta earthquake shakes central Java with an MSK intensity of VIII (Damaging), leaving more than 5,700 dead and 37,000 injured.
2016 – Barack Obama is the first president of United States to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and meet Hibakusha.
2017 – Andrew Scheer takes over after Rona Ambrose as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
2018 – Maryland Flood Event: A flood occurs throughout the Patapsco Valley causing one death and destroying the entire first floors of buildings on Main Street in Ellicott City and causing cars to overturn.

Births on May 27

742 – Emperor Dezong of Tang (d. 805)
1332 – Ibn Khaldun, Tunisian historian and theologian (d. 1406)
1378 – Zhu Quan, Chinese military commander, historian and playwright (d. 1448)
1519 – Girolamo Mei, Italian historian and theorist (d. 1594)
1537 – Louis IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Marburg (d. 1604)
1576 – Caspar Schoppe, German author and scholar (d. 1649)
1584 – Michael Altenburg, German theologian and composer (d. 1640)
1601 – Antoine Daniel, French-Canadian missionary and saint (d. 1648)
1626 – William II, Prince of Orange (d. 1650)
1627 – Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier (d. 1693)
1651 – Louis Antoine de Noailles, French cardinal (d. 1729)
1652 – Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine of Germany (d. 1722)
1738 – Nathaniel Gorham, American merchant and politician, 14th President of the Continental Congress (d. 1796)
1756 – Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria (d. 1825)
1774 – Francis Beaufort, Irish hydrographer and officer in the Royal Navy (d. 1857)
1794 – Cornelius Vanderbilt, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1877)
1814 – John Rudolph Niernsee, Viennese-born American architect (d.1885)
1815 – Henry Parkes, English-Australian politician, 7th Premier of New South Wales (d. 1896)
1818 – Amelia Bloomer, American journalist and activist (d. 1894)
1819 – Julia Ward Howe, American poet and songwriter (d. 1910)
1827 – Samuel F. Miller, American lawyer and politician (d. 1892)
1832 – Zenas Ferry Moody, American surveyor and politician, 7th Governor of Oregon (d. 1917)
1836 – Jay Gould, American businessman and financier (d. 1892)
1837 – Wild Bill Hickok, American police officer (d. 1876)
1852 – Billy Barnes, English cricketer (d. 1899)
1857 – Theodor Curtius, German chemist (d. 1928)
1860 – Manuel Teixeira Gomes, Portuguese politician, 7th President of Portugal (d. 1941)
1863 – Arthur Mold, English cricketer (d. 1921)
1867 – Arnold Bennett, English author and playwright (d. 1931)
1868 – Aleksa Šantić, Bosnian poet and author (d. 1924)
1871 – Georges Rouault, French painter and illustrator (d. 1958)
1875 – Frederick Cuming, English cricketer (d. 1942)
1876 – Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski, Polish journalist and author (d. 1945)
1876 – William Stanier, English engineer (d. 1965)
1878 – Anna Cervin, Swedish artist (d. 1972)
1879 – Karl Bühler, German-American linguist and psychologist (d. 1963)
1879 – Hans Lammers, German judge and politician (d. 1962)
1883 – Jessie Arms Botke, American painter (d. 1971)
1884 – Max Brod, Czech journalist, author, and composer (d. 1968)
1887 – Frank Woolley, English cricketer (d. 1978)
1888 – Louis Durey, French composer (d. 1979)
1891 – Claude Champagne, Canadian violinist, pianist, and composer (d. 1965)
1891 – Jaan Kärner, Estonian poet and author (d. 1958)
1894 – Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French physician and author (d. 1961)
1894 – Dashiell Hammett, American detective novelist and screenwriter (d. 1961)
1895 – Douglas Lloyd Campbell, Canadian educator and politician, 13th Premier of Manitoba (d. 1995)
1897 – John Cockcroft, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1967)
1897 – Dink Templeton, American rugby player and coach (d. 1962)
1898 – David Crosthwait, American engineer, inventor and writer (d. 1976)
1899 – Johannes Türn, Estonian chess and draughts player (d. 1993)
1900 – Lotte Toberentz, German overseer of the Nazi Uckermark concentration camp (d. 1964)
1900 – Uładzimir Žyłka, Belarusian poet and translator (d. 1933)
1904 – Chūhei Nambu, Japanese jumper and journalist (d. 1997)
1906 – Buddhadasa, Thai monk and philosopher (d. 1993)
1906 – Harry Hibbs, English footballer (d. 1984)
1906 – Antonio Rosario Mennonna, Italian bishop (d. 2009)
1907 – Nicolas Calas, Greek-American poet and critic (d. 1988)
1907 – Rachel Carson, American biologist, environmentalist, and author (d. 1964)
1909 – Dolores Hope, American singer and philanthropist (d. 2011)
1911 – Hubert Humphrey, American journalist and politician, 38th Vice President of the United States (d. 1978)
1911 – Teddy Kollek, Hungarian-Israeli politician, Mayor of Jerusalem (d. 2007)
1911 – Vincent Price, American actor (d. 1993)
1912 – John Cheever, American novelist and short story writer (d. 1982)
1912 – Sam Snead, American golfer and sportscaster (d. 2002)
1912 – Terry Moore, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 1995)
1915 – Ester Soré, Chilean singer-songwriter (d. 1996)
1915 – Herman Wouk, American novelist (d. 2019)
1917 – Harry Webster, English engineer (d. 2007)
1918 – Yasuhiro Nakasone, Japanese commander and politician, 45th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 2019)
1921 – Bob Godfrey, Australian-English animator, director, and voice actor (d. 2013)
1922 – Otto Carius, German lieutenant and pharmacist (d. 2015)
1922 – Christopher Lee, English actor (d. 2015)
1922 – John D. Vanderhoof, American banker and politician, 37th Governor of Colorado (d. 2013)
1923 – Henry Kissinger, German-American political scientist and politician, 56th United States Secretary of State, Nobel Prize laureate
1923 – Sumner Redstone, American businessman and philanthropist
1924 – Jaime Lusinchi, Venezuelan physician and politician, President of Venezuela (d. 2014)
1924 – John Sumner, English-Australian director, founded the Melbourne Theatre Company (d. 2013)
1925 – Tony Hillerman, American journalist and author (d. 2008)
1927 – Jüri Randviir, Estonian chess player and journalist (d. 1996)
1928 – Thea Musgrave, Scottish-American composer and educator
1930 – John Barth, American novelist and short story writer
1930 – William S. Sessions, American civil servant and judge, 8th Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
1930 – Eino Tamberg, Estonian composer and educator (d. 2010)
1931 – André Barbeau, French-Canadian neurologist (d. 1986)
1931 – John Chapple, English field marshal and politician, Governor of Gibraltar
1931 – Bernard Fresson, French actor (d. 2002)
1931 – Faten Hamama, Egyptian actress and producer (d. 2015)
1931 – Philip Kotler, American author and professor
1933 – Edward Samuel Rogers, Canadian businessman (d. 2008)
1933 – Manfred Sommer, Spanish author and illustrator (d. 2007)
1934 – Ray Daviault, Canadian-American baseball player
1934 – Harlan Ellison, American author and screenwriter (d. 2018)
1935 – Daniel Colchico, American football player and coach (d. 2014)
1935 – Mal Evans, British road manager of The Beatles (d. 1976)
1935 – Jerry Kindall, American baseball player and coach (d. 2017)
1935 – Ramsey Lewis, American jazz pianist and composer
1935 – Lee Meriwether, American model and actress, Miss America 1955
1936 – Benjamin Bathurst, English admiral
1936 – Louis Gossett, Jr., American actor and producer
1936 – Marcel Masse, Canadian educator and politician, 29th Canadian Minister of National Defence (d. 2014)
1937 – Allan Carr, American playwright and producer (d. 1999)
1939 – Simon Cairns, 6th Earl Cairns, English courtier and businessman
1939 – Yves Duhaime, Canadian captain and politician
1939 – Sokratis Kokkalis, Greek businessman
1939 – Gerald Ronson, English businessman and philanthropist
1939 – Lionel Sosa, Mexican-American advertising and marketing executive
1939 – Don Williams, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2017)
1940 – Mike Gibson, Australian journalist and sportscaster (d. 2015)
1942 – Lee Baca, American police officer
1942 – Piers Courage, English racing driver (d. 1970)
1942 – Roger Freeman, Baron Freeman, English accountant and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
1942 – Robin Widdows, English racing driver
1943 – Cilla Black, English singer and actress (d. 2015)
1943 – Bruce Weitz, American actor
1944 – Chris Dodd, American lawyer and politician
1944 – Ingrid Roscoe, English historian and politician, Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire
1944 – Alain Souchon, French singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
1945 – Bruce Cockburn, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1946 – Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Danish bassist and composer (d. 2005)
1946 – John Williams, English motorcycle racer (d. 1978)
1947 – Peter DeFazio, American politician
1947 – Marty Kristian, German-Australian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
1947 – Branko Oblak, Slovenian footballer and coach
1947 – Riivo Sinijärv, Estonian politician, 19th Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs
1948 – Wubbo de Boer, Dutch civil servant (d. 2017)
1948 – Pete Sears, English bass player
1948 – Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart, American occultist and author (d. 2014)
1949 – Hugh Lowther, 8th Earl of Lonsdale, English politician
1949 – Christa Vahlensieck, German runner
1950 – Dee Dee Bridgewater, American singer-songwriter and actress
1950 – Makis Dendrinos, Greek basketball player and coach (d. 2015)
1951 – John Conteh, English boxer
1954 – Pauline Hanson, Australian businesswoman, activist, and politician
1954 – Jackie Slater, American football player and coach
1955 – Eric Bischoff, American wrestler, manager, and producer
1955 – Richard Schiff, American actor, director, and producer
1955 – Ian Tracey, English organist and conductor
1956 – Cynthia McFadden, American journalist
1956 – Rosemary Squire, English producer and manager, co-founded Ambassador Theatre Group
1956 – Giuseppe Tornatore, Italian director and screenwriter
1957 – Dag Terje Andersen, Norwegian politician, Norwegian Minister of Labour
1957 – Nitin Gadkari, Indian lawyer and politician, Indian Minister of Transport
1957 – Eddie Harsch, Canadian-American keyboard player and bass player (d. 2016)
1957 – Siouxsie Sioux, English singer-songwriter, musician, and producer
1958 – Nick Anstee, English accountant and politician, 682nd Lord Mayor of London
1958 – Neil Finn, New Zealand singer-songwriter and musician
1958 – Jesse Robredo, Filipino politician, 23rd Filipino Secretary of the Interior (d. 2012)
1960 – Gaston Therrien, Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster
1961 – José Luíz Barbosa, Brazilian runner and coach
1961 – Peri Gilpin, American actress
1962 – Marcelino Bernal, Mexican footballer
1962 – Ray Borner, Australian basketball player
1962 – Steven Brill, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1962 – Anthony A. Hyman, Israeli-English biologist and academic
1962 – David Mundell, Scottish lawyer and politician, Secretary of State for Scotland
1962 – Ravi Shastri, Indian cricketer and sportscaster
1963 – Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Cuban pianist and composer
1963 – Maria Walliser, Swiss skier
1964 – Adam Carolla, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
1965 – Pat Cash, Australian-English tennis player and sportscaster
1966 – Heston Blumenthal, English chef and author
1967 – Paul Gascoigne, English international footballer, midfielder, coach, and manager
1967 – Eddie McClintock, American actor
1968 – Jeff Bagwell, American baseball player and coach
1968 – Rebekah Brooks, English journalist
1968 – Harun Erdenay, Turkish basketball player and coach
1968 – Frank Thomas, American baseball player and sportscaster
1969 – Todd Hundley, American baseball player
1969 – Jeremy Mayfield, American race car driver
1969 – Craig Federighi, American computer scientist and engineer
1970 – Michele Bartoli, Italian cyclist
1970 – Tim Farron, English educator and politician
1970 – Joseph Fiennes, English actor
1970 – Alex Archer, American-born Australian musician
1971 – Mathew Batsiua, Nauruan politician
1971 – Paul Bettany, English actor
1971 – Wayne Carey, Australian footballer and coach
1971 – Kaur Kender, Estonian author
1971 – Lisa Lopes, American rapper and dancer (d. 2002)
1971 – Lee Sharpe, English footballer
1971 – Grant Stafford, South African tennis player
1971 – Sophie Walker, British politician, leader of the Women’s Equality Party
1971 – Petroc Trelawny, British radio and television broadcaster
1972 – Todd Demsey, American golfer
1972 – Antonio Freeman, American football player
1972 – Maxim Sokolov, Russian ice hockey player
1973 – Jack McBrayer, American actor and comedian
1973 – Tana Umaga, New Zealand rugby player and coach
1973 – Yorgos Lanthimos, Greek film video, and theatre director, producer and screenwriter
1974 – Skye Edwards, British singer-songwriter
1974 – Denise van Outen, English actress, singer, and television host
1974 – Derek Webb, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1974 – Danny Wuerffel, American football player
1975 – André 3000, American rapper
1975 – Michael Hussey, Australian cricketer
1975 – Jamie Oliver, English chef and author
1975 – Feryal Özel, Turkish astrophysicist, astronomer, and academic
1976 – Marcel Fässler, Swiss racing driver
1977 – Abderrahmane Hammad, Algerian high jumper
1977 – Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lankan cricketer
1978 – Adin Brown, American soccer player
1979 – Michael Buonauro, American author and illustrator (d. 2004)
1979 – Mile Sterjovski, Australian footballer
1980 – Craig Buntin, Canadian figure skater
1981 – Alina Cojocaru, Romanian ballerina
1981 – Johan Elmander, Swedish footballer
1984 – Blake Ahearn, American basketball player
1984 – Miguel González, Mexican baseball pitcher
1985 – Chiang Chien-ming, Taiwanese baseball player
1985 – Roberto Soldado, Spanish footballer
1986 – Conor Cummins, Manx motorcycle racer
1986 – Bamba Fall, Senegalese basketball player
1986 – Lasse Schöne, Danish footballer
1987 – Gervinho, Ivorian footballer
1987 – Bella Heathcote, Australian actress
1987 – Eric Kolelas, French-English actor and director
1987 – Bora Paçun, Turkish basketball player
1987 – Matt Prior, Australian rugby league player
1987 – Martina Sablikova, Czech speed skater and cyclist
1988 – Vontae Davis, American football player
1988 – Irina Davydova, Russian hurdler
1988 – Garrett Richards, American baseball pitcher
1988 – Tyler Sash, American football player (d. 2015)
1989 – Igor Morozov, Estonian footballer
1990 – Yenew Alamirew, Ethiopian runner
1990 – Chris Colfer, American actor and singer
1990 – Marcus Kruger, Swedish ice hockey player
1991 – Sebastien Dewaest, Belgian footballer
1991 – Tim Lafai, Samoan rugby league player
1991 – Ksenia Pervak, Russian tennis player
1991 – Eneli Vals, Estonian footballer
1992 – Aaron Brown, Canadian sprinter
1992 – Laurence Vincent-Lapointe, Canadian canoer

Deaths on May 27

366 – Procopius, Roman usurper (b. 325)
398 – Murong Bao, emperor of the Xianbei state Later Yan (b. 355)
475 – Eutropius, bishop of Orange
866 – Ordoño I of Asturias (b. 831)
927 – Simeon I of Bulgaria first Bulgarian Emperor (b. 864)
1039 – Dirk III, Count of Holland (b. 981)
1045 – Bruno of Würzburg, imperial chancellor of Italy (b. c. 1005)
1178 – Godfrey van Rhenen, bishop of Utrecht
1240 – William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey (b. 1166)
1444 – John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, English commander (b. 1404)
1508 – Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (b. 1452)
1508 – Lucrezia Crivelli, mistress of Ludovico Sforza (b. 1452)
1525 – Thomas Müntzer, German mystic and theologian (b. 1488)
1541 – Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury (b. 1473)
1564 – John Calvin, French pastor and theologian (b. 1509)
1610 – François Ravaillac, French assassin of Henry IV of France (b. 1578)
1624 – Diego Ramírez de Arellano, Spanish sailor and cosmographer (b. c. 1580)
1637 – John Boteler, 1st Baron Boteler of Brantfield, English politician (b. c. 1566)
1661 – Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, Scottish general and politician (b. 1607)
1675 – Gaspard Dughet, Italian-French painter (b. 1613)
1690 – Giovanni Legrenzi, Italian organist and composer (b. 1626)
1702 – Dominique Bouhours, French priest and critic (b. 1628)
1707 – Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan, French mistress of Louis XIV of France (b. 1640)
1781 – Giovanni Battista Beccaria, Italian physicist and academic (b. 1716)
1797 – François-Noël Babeuf, French journalist (b. 1760)
1831 – Jedediah Smith, American hunter, explorer, and author (b. 1799)
1840 – Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1782)
1867 – Thomas Bulfinch American mythologist (b. 1796)
1896 – Aleksandr Stoletov, Russian physicist, engineer, and academic (b. 1839)
1910 – Robert Koch, German physician and microbiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1843)
1918 – Ōzutsu Man’emon, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 18th Yokozuna (b. 1869)
1919 – Kandukuri Veeresalingam, Indian author and activist (b. 1848)
1933 – Achille Paroche, French target shooter (b. 1868)
1939 – Joseph Roth, Austrian-French journalist and author (b. 1894)
1941 – Ernst Lindemann, German captain (b. 1894)
1941 – Günther Lütjens, German admiral (b. 1889)
1942 – Muhammed Hamdi Yazır, Turkish theologian, logician, and translator (b. 1878)
1943 – Gordon Coates, New Zealand soldier and politician, 21st Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1878)
1945 – Enno Lolling, German physician (b. 1888)
1947 – Ed Konetchy, American baseball player and manager (b. 1885)
1949 – Robert Ripley, American cartoonist, publisher, and businessman, founded Ripley’s Believe It or Not! (b. 1890)
1953 – Jesse Burkett, American baseball player and manager (b. 1868)
1960 – James Montgomery Flagg, American painter and illustrator (b. 1877)
1963 – Grigoris Lambrakis, Greek physician and politician (b. 1912)
1964 – Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian lawyer and politician, 1st Prime Minister of India (b. 1889)
1967 – W. Otto Miessner, American composer and educator (b. 1880)
1967 – Ernst Niekisch, German academic and politician (b. 1889)
1969 – Jeffrey Hunter, American actor and producer (b. 1926)
1971 – Béla Juhos, Hungarian-Austrian philosopher from the Vienna Circle (b. 1901)
1971 – Armando Picchi, Italian footballer and coach (b. 1935)
1980 – Gün Sazak, Turkish agronomist and politician (b. 1932)
1984 – Vasilije Mokranjac, Serbian composer (b. 1923)
1986 – Ismail al-Faruqi, Palestinian-American philosopher and academic (b. 1921)
1986 – Ajoy Mukherjee, Indian politician, Chief Minister of West Bengal (b. 1901)
1986 – Giorgos Tzifos, Greek actor and cinematographer (b. 1918)
1987 – John Howard Northrop, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1891)
1988 – Hjördis Petterson, Swedish actress (b. 1908)
1988 – Ernst Ruska, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)
1989 – Arseny Tarkovsky, Russian poet and translator (b. 1907)
1990 – Robert B. Meyner, American lawyer and politician, 44th Governor of New Jersey (b. 1908)
1991 – Leopold Nowak, Austrian musicologist and theorist (b. 1904)
1992 – Uncle Charlie Osborne, American fiddler (b. 1890)
1998 – Minoo Masani, Indian lawyer and politician (b. 1905)
2000 – Kazimierz Leski, Polish engineer and pilot (b. 1912)
2000 – Murray MacLehose, Baron MacLehose of Beoch, Scottish politician and diplomat, 25th Governor of Hong Kong (b. 1917)
2000 – Maurice Richard, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (b. 1921)
2003 – Luciano Berio, Italian composer and educator (b. 1925)
2006 – Rob Borsellino, American journalist (b. 1949)
2006 – Paul Gleason, American actor (b. 1939)
2006 – Craig Heyward, American football player (b. 1966)
2007 – Izumi Sakai, Japanese singer-songwriter (b. 1967)
2007 – Gretchen Wyler, American actress and dancer (b. 1932)
2007 – Ed Yost, American inventor, created the hot air balloon (b. 1919)
2008 – Franz Künstler, Hungarian soldier (b. 1900)
2009 – Thomas M. Franck, American lawyer and academic (b. 1931)
2009 – Clive Granger, Welsh-American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1934)
2009 – Mona Grey, British nursing administrator; Northern Ireland’s first Chief Nursing Officer
2009 – Abram Hoffer, Canadian biochemist, physician, and psychiatrist (b. 1917)
2009 – Gérard Jean-Juste, Haitian-American priest and theologian (b. 1946)
2009 – Carol Anne O’Marie, American nun and author (b. 1933)
2009 – William Refshauge, Australian soldier and physician (b. 1913)
2009 – Paul Sharratt, English-American television host (b. 1933)
2010 – Payut Ngaokrachang, Thai animator and director (b. 1929)
2011 – Jeff Conaway, American actor and singer (b. 1950)
2011 – Margo Dydek, Polish-American basketball player (b. 1974)
2011 – Gil Scott-Heron, American singer-songwriter and poet (b. 1949)
2012 – Simeon Daniel, Nevisian educator and politician, 1st Premier of Nevis (b. 1934)
2012 – Friedrich Hirzebruch, German mathematician and academic (b. 1927)
2012 – Anahit Perikhanian, Russian-born Armenian Iranologist (b. 1928)
2012 – David Rimoin, Canadian-American geneticist and academic (b. 1936)
2013 – Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri, Indian politician (b. 1917)
2013 – Bill Pertwee, English actor (b. 1926)
2013 – Abdoulaye Sékou Sow, Malian politician, Prime Minister of Mali (b. 1931)
2014 – Robert Genn, Canadian painter and author (b. 1936)
2014 – Helma Sanders-Brahms, German director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1940)
2014 – Roberto Vargas, Puerto Rican-American baseball player, coach, and manager (b. 1929)
2014 – Massimo Vignelli, Italian-American graphic designer (b. 1931)
2015 – Erik Carlsson, Swedish rally driver (b. 1929)
2015 – Nils Christie, Norwegian sociologist, criminologist, and author (b. 1928)
2015 – Andy King, English footballer and manager (b. 1956)
2015 – Michael Martin, American philosopher and academic (b. 1932)
2017 – Gregg Allman, American musician, singer and songwriter (b. 1947)
2020 – Larry Kramer, American playwright, public health advocate and LGBT rights activist (b. 1935)

Holidays and observances on May 27

Armed Forces Day (Nicaragua)
Children’s Day (Nigeria)
Christian feast day:
- Augustine of Canterbury
- Blessed Lojze Grozde
- Bede (commemoration, Anglican Communion)
- Bruno of Würzburg
- Eutropius of Orange
- Hildebert
- Julius the Veteran
- May 27 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Mother’s Day (Bolivia)
Navy Day (Japan)
Slavery Abolition Day (Guadeloupe, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin)
Start of National Reconciliation Week (Australia)

May 27 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

May 25 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

567 BC – Servius Tullius, the king of Rome, celebrates a triumph for his victory over the Etruscans.
240 BC – First recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet.
1085 – Alfonso VI of Castile takes Toledo, Spain, back from the Moors.
1420 – Henry the Navigator is appointed governor of the Order of Christ.
1521 – The Diet of Worms ends when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw.
1644 – Ming general Wu Sangui forms an alliance with the invading Manchus and opens the gates of the Great Wall of China at Shanhaiguan pass, letting the Manchus through towards the capital Beijing.
1659 – Richard Cromwell resigns as Lord Protector of England following the restoration of the Long Parliament, beginning a second brief period of the republican government called the Commonwealth of England.
1660 – Charles II lands at Dover at the invitation of the Convention Parliament, which marks the end of the Cromwell-proclaimed Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and begins the Restoration of the British monarchy.
1738 – A treaty between Pennsylvania and Maryland ends the Conojocular War with settlement of a boundary dispute and exchange of prisoners.
1787 – After a delay of 11 days, the United States Constitutional Convention formally convenes in Philadelphia after a quorum of seven states is secured.
1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: Battle of Carlow begins; executions of suspected rebels at Carnew and at Dunlavin Green take place.
1809 – Chuquisaca Revolution: Patriot revolt in Chuquisaca (modern-day Sucre) against the Spanish Empire, sparking the Latin American wars of independence.
1810 – May Revolution: Citizens of Buenos Aires expel Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros during the “May Week”, starting the Argentine War of Independence.
1819 – The Argentine Constitution of 1819 is promulgated.
1833 – The Chilean Constitution of 1833 is promulgated.
1865 – In Mobile, Alabama, around 300 people are killed when an ordnance depot explodes.
1878 – Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore opens at the Opera Comique in London.
1895 – Playwright, poet and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of “committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons” and sentenced to serve two years in prison.
1895 – The Republic of Formosa is formed, with Tang Jingsong as its president.
1914 – The House of Commons of the United Kingdom passes the Home Rule Bill for devolution in Ireland.
1925 – Scopes Trial: John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching human evolution in Tennessee.
1926 – Sholom Schwartzbard assassinates Symon Petliura, the head of the government of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, which is in government-in-exile in Paris.
1935 – Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks three world records and ties a fourth at the Big Ten Conference Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
1938 – Spanish Civil War: The bombing of Alicante kills 313 people.
1940 – World War II: The German 2nd Panzer Division captures the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer; the surrender of the last French and British troops marks the end of the Battle of Boulogne.
1946 – The parliament of Transjordan makes Abdullah I of Jordan their Emir.
1953 – Nuclear weapons testing: At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its first and only nuclear artillery test.
1953 – The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston.
1955 – In the United States, a night-time F5 tornado strikes the small city of Udall, Kansas, killing 80 and injuring 273. It is the deadliest tornado to ever occur in the state and the 23rd deadliest in the U.S.
1955 – First ascent of Mount Kangchenjunga: A British expedition led by Charles Evans, Joe Brown and George Band reaches the summit of the third-highest mountain in the world (8,586 meters); Norman Hardie and Tony Streather join them the following day.
1961 – Apollo program: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces, before a special joint session of the U.S. Congress, his goal to initiate a project to put a “man on the Moon” before the end of the decade.
1963 – The Organisation of African Unity is established in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
1966 – Explorer program: Explorer 32 launches.
1968 – The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, is dedicated.
1973 – In protest against the dictatorship in Greece, the captain and crew on Greek naval destroyer Velos mutiny and refuse to return to Greece, instead anchoring at Fiumicino, Italy.
1977 – Star Wars (retroactively titled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope) is released in theaters.
1977 – The Chinese government removes a decade-old ban on William Shakespeare’s work, effectively ending the Cultural Revolution started in 1966.
1978 – The first of a series of bombings orchestrated by the Unabomber detonates at Northwestern University resulting in minor injuries.
1979 – John Spenkelink, a convicted murderer, is executed in Florida; he is the first person to be executed in the state after the reintroduction of capital punishment in 1976.
1979 – American Airlines Flight 191: A McDonnell Douglas DC-10 crashes during takeoff at O’Hare International Airport, Chicago, killing all 271 on board and two people on the ground.
1981 – In Riyadh, the Gulf Cooperation Council is created between Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
1982 – Falklands War: HMS Coventry is sunk by Argentine Air Force A-4 Skyhawks.
1985 – Bangladesh is hit by a tropical cyclone and storm surge, which kills approximately 10,000 people.
1986 – The Hands Across America event takes place.
1997 – A military coup in Sierra Leone replaces President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah with Major Johnny Paul Koroma.
1999 – The United States House of Representatives releases the Cox Report which details the People’s Republic of China’s nuclear espionage against the U.S. over the prior two decades.
2000 – Liberation Day of Lebanon: Israel withdraws its army from Lebanese territory (with the exception of the disputed Shebaa farms zone) 18 years after the invasion of 1982.
2001 – Erik Weihenmayer becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in the Himalayas, with Dr. Sherman Bull.
2002 – China Airlines Flight 611 disintegrates in mid-air and crashes into the Taiwan Strait, with the loss of all 225 people on board.
2008 – NASA’s Phoenix lander touches down in the Green Valley region of Mars to search for environments suitable for water and microbial life.
2009 – North Korea allegedly tests its second nuclear device, after which Pyongyang also conducts several missile tests, building tensions in the international community.
2011 – Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her 25-year run of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
2012 – The SpaceX Dragon becomes the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous and berth with the International Space Station.
2013 – Suspected Maoist rebels kill at least 28 people and injure 32 others in an attack on a convoy of Indian National Congress politicians in Chhattisgarh, India.
2013 – A gas cylinder explodes on a school bus in the Pakistani city of Gujrat, killing at least 18 people.
2018 – The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) becomes enforceable in the European Union.
2018 – Ireland votes to repeal the Eighth Amendment of their constitution that prohibits abortion in all but a few cases, choosing to replace it with the Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland.
2020 – George Floyd, a black man, is killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest when he is restrained in a prone position face-down on the ground for several minutes, provoking protests across the United States and elsewhere around the world.

Births on May 25

1048 – Emperor Shenzong of Song (d. 1085)
1320 – Toghon Temür, Mongolian emperor (d. 1370)
1334 – Emperor Sukō of Japan (d. 1398)
1416 – Jakobus (“James”), Count of Lichtenburg (d. 1480)
1417 – Catherine of Cleves, Duchess consort regent of Guelders (d. 1479)
1550 – Camillus de Lellis, Italian saint and nurse (d. 1614)
1606 – Charles Garnier, French missionary and saint (d. 1649)
1661 – Claude Buffier, Polish-French historian and philosopher (d. 1737)
1713 – John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, Scottish politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1792)
1725 – Samuel Ward, American politician, 31st Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island (d. 1776)
1783 – Philip Pendleton Barbour, American farmer and politician, 12th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (d. 1841)
1791 – Minh Mạng, Vietnamese emperor (d. 1841)
1803 – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, English author, playwright, and politician, Secretary of State for the Colonies (d. 1873)
1803 – Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet and philosopher (d. 1882)
1818 – Jacob Burckhardt, Swiss historian and academic (d. 1897)
1818 – Louise de Broglie, Countess d’Haussonville, French essayist and biographer (d. 1882)
1830 – Trebor Mai (né Robert Williams), Welsh poet (d. 1877)
1846 – Naim Frashëri, Albanian-Turkish poet and translator (d. 1900)
1848 – Johann Baptist Singenberger, Swiss composer, educator, and publisher (d. 1924)
1852 – William Muldoon, American wrestler and trainer (d. 1933)
1856 – Louis Franchet d’Espèrey, Algerian-French general (d. 1942)
1860 – James McKeen Cattell, American psychologist and academic (d. 1944)
1865 – John Mott, American evangelist and saint, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955)
1865 – Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1943)
1867 – Anders Peter Nielsen, Danish target shooter (d. 1950)
1869 – Robbie Ross, Canadian journalist and art critic (d. 1918)
1869 – Mathilde Verne, English pianist and educator (d. 1936)
1878 – Bill Robinson, American actor and dancer (d. 1949)
1879 – Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, Canadian-English businessman and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (d. 1964)
1879 – William Stickney, American golfer (d. 1944)
1880 – Jean Alexandre Barré, French neurologist and academic (d. 1967)
1882 – Marie Doro, American actress (d. 1956)
1883 – Carl Johan Lind, Swedish hammer thrower (d. 1965)
1886 – Rash Behari Bose, Indian soldier and activist (d. 1945)
1886 – Philip Murray, Scottish-American miner and labor leader (d. 1952)
1887 – Padre Pio, Italian priest and saint (d. 1968)
1888 – Miles Malleson, English actor and screenwriter (d. 1969)
1889 – Günther Lütjens, German admiral (d. 1941)
1889 – Igor Sikorsky, Russian-American aircraft designer, founded Sikorsky Aircraft (d. 1972)
1893 – Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, American country musician (d. 1968)
1897 – Alan Kippax, Australian cricketer (d. 1972)
1897 – Gene Tunney, American boxer and soldier (d. 1978)
1898 – Bennett Cerf, American publisher and television game show panelist; co-founded Random House (d. 1971)
1899 – Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bengali poet, author, and flute player (d. 1976)
1900 – Alain Grandbois, Canadian poet and author (d. 1975)
1907 – U Nu, Burmese politician, 1st Prime Minister of Burma (d. 1995)
1908 – Theodore Roethke, American poet (d. 1963)
1909 – Alfred Kubel, German politician, 5th Prime Minister of Lower Saxony (d. 1999)
1912 – Dean Rockwell, American commander, wrestler, and coach (d. 2005)
1913 – Heinrich Bär, German colonel and pilot (d. 1957)
1913 – Richard Dimbleby, English journalist and producer (d. 1965)
1916 – Brian Dickson, Canadian captain, lawyer, and politician, 15th Chief Justice of Canada (d. 1998)
1916 – Giuseppe Tosi, Italian discus thrower (d. 1981)
1917 – Steve Cochran, American film, television and stage actor (d. 1965)
1917 – Theodore Hesburgh, American priest, theologian, and academic (d. 2015)
1920 – Arthur Wint, Jamaican runner and diplomat (d. 1992)
1921 – Hal David, American songwriter and composer (d. 2012)
1921 – Kitty Kallen, American singer (d. 2016)
1921 – Jack Steinberger, German-Swiss physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1922 – Enrico Berlinguer, Italian politician (d. 1984)
1924 – István Nyers, French-Hungarian footballer (d. 2005)
1925 – Rosario Castellanos, Mexican poet and author (d. 1974)
1925 – Jeanne Crain, American actress (d. 2003)
1925 – Eldon Griffiths, English journalist and politician (d. 2014)
1925 – Don Liddle, American baseball player (d. 2000)
1925 – Claude Pinoteau, French film director and screenwriter (d. 2012)
1926 – Claude Akins, American actor (d. 1994)
1926 – William Bowyer, English painter and academic (d. 2015)
1926 – Phyllis Gotlieb, Canadian author and poet (d. 2009)
1926 – Bill Sharman, American basketball player and coach (d. 2013)
1926 – David Wynne, English sculptor and painter (d. 2014)
1927 – Robert Ludlum, American soldier and author (d. 2001)
1927 – Norman Petty, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer (d. 1984)
1929 – Beverly Sills, American soprano and actress (d. 2007)
1930 – Sonia Rykiel, French fashion designer (d. 2016)
1931 – Herb Gray, Canadian lawyer and politician, 7th Deputy Prime Minister of Canada (d. 2014)
1931 – Georgy Grechko, Russian engineer and astronaut (d. 2017)
1931 – Irwin Winkler, American director and producer
1932 – John Gregory Dunne, American novelist, screenwriter, and critic (d. 2003)
1932 – K. C. Jones, American basketball player and coach
1933 – Sarah Marshall, English-American actress (d. 2014)
1933 – Basdeo Panday, Trinidadian lawyer and politician, 5th Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago
1933 – Ray Spencer, English footballer (d. 2016)
1933 – Jógvan Sundstein, Faroese accountant and politician, 7th Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands
1935 – John Ffowcs Williams, Welsh engineer and academic
1935 – Cookie Gilchrist, American football player (d. 2011)
1935 – W. P. Kinsella, Canadian novelist and short story writer (d. 2016)
1935 – Victoria Shaw, Australian-born American actress (d. 1988)
1936 – Tom T. Hall, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1936 – Rusi Surti, Indian cricketer (d. 2013)
1937 – Tom Phillips, English painter and academic
1938 – Raymond Carver, American short story writer and poet (d. 1988)
1938 – Margaret Forster, English historian, author, and critic (d. 2016)
1938 – Geoffrey Robinson, English businessman and politician
1939 – Dixie Carter, American actress and singer (d. 2010)
1939 – Ian McKellen, English actor
1940 – Nobuyoshi Araki, Japanese photographer
1941 – Rudolf Adler, Czech filmmaker^:88
1941 – Uta Frith, German developmental psychologist
1941 – Vladimir Voronin, Moldovan economist and politician, 3rd President of Moldova
1943 – Jessi Colter, American singer-songwriter and pianist
1943 – John Palmer, English keyboard player
1943 – Leslie Uggams, American actress and singer
1944 – Digby Anderson, English journalist and philosopher
1944 – Pierre Bachelet, French singer-songwriter (d. 2005)
1944 – Charlie Harper, English singer-songwriter and producer
1944 – Robert MacPherson, American mathematician and academic
1944 – Frank Oz, English-born American puppeteer, filmmaker, and actor
1944 – Chris Ralston, English rugby player
1946 – Bill Adam, Scottish-Canadian racing driver
1946 – David A. Hargrave, American game designer, created Arduin (d. 1988)
1947 – Karen Valentine, American actress
1947 – Catherine G. Wolf, American psychologist and computer scientist
1948 – Bülent Arınç, Turkish lawyer and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey
1948 – Marianne Elliott, Northern Irish historian, author, and academic
1948 – Klaus Meine, German rock singer-songwriter
1949 – Jamaica Kincaid, Antiguan-American novelist, short story writer, and essayist
1949 – Barry Windsor-Smith, English painter and illustrator
1950 – Robby Steinhardt, American rock violinist and singer
1951 – Bob Gale, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1952 – Jeffrey Bewkes, American businessman
1952 – Nick Fotiu, American ice hockey player and coach
1952 – David Jenkins, Trinidadian-Scottish runner
1952 – Al Sarrantonio, American author and publisher
1952 – Gordon H. Smith, American businessman and politician
1953 – Eve Ensler, American playwright and producer
1953 – Daniel Passarella, Argentinian footballer, coach, and manager
1953 – Stan Sakai, Japanese-American author and illustrator
1953 – Gaetano Scirea, Italian footballer (d. 1989)
1954 – John Beck, English footballer, midfielder and manager
1954 – Murali, Indian actor, producer, and politician (d. 2009)
1955 – Alistair Burt, English lawyer and politician
1956 – Stavros Arnaoutakis, Greek politician
1956 – Larry Hogan, American politician, 62nd Governor of Maryland
1956 – David P. Sartor, American composer and conductor
1957 – Alastair Campbell, English journalist and author
1957 – Edward Lee, American author
1957 – Robert Picard, Canadian ice hockey player
1958 – Dorothy Straight, American children’s author
1958 – Paul Weller, English singer, songwriter and musician
1959 – Julian Clary, English comedian, actor, and author
1959 – Manolis Kefalogiannis, Greek politician
1959 – Rick Wamsley, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1960 – Amy Klobuchar, American lawyer and politician
1960 – Anthea Turner, English journalist and television host
1962 – Ric Nattress, Canadian ice hockey player, coach, and manager
1963 – George Hickenlooper, American director and producer (d. 2010)
1963 – Mike Myers, Canadian-American actor, singer, producer, and screenwriter
1963 – Ludovic Orban, Romanian engineer, and politician, 68th Prime Minister of Romania
1964 – David Shaw, Canadian-American ice hockey player
1965 – Yahya Jammeh, Gambian colonel and politician, President of the Gambia
1967 – Luc Nilis, Belgian footballer and manager
1967 – Mark Rosewater, Head designer of Magic: the Gathering
1968 – Kendall Gill, American basketball player, boxer, and sportscaster
1969 – Glen Drover, Canadian guitarist and songwriter
1969 – Anne Heche, American actress
1969 – Karen Bernstein, Canadian voice actress
1969 – Stacy London, American journalist and author
1970 – Robert Croft, Welsh-English cricketer and sportscaster
1970 – Jamie Kennedy, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
1971 – Stefano Baldini, Italian runner
1971 – Marco Cappato, Italian politician
1972 – Karan Johar, Indian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1972 – Octavia Spencer, American actress and author
1973 – Daz Dillinger, American rapper and producer
1973 – Molly Sims, American model and actress
1974 – Dougie Freedman, Scottish footballer and manager
1974 – Frank Klepacki, American drummer and composer
1974 – Miguel Tejada, Dominican-American baseball player
1975 – Blaise Nkufo, Congolese-Swiss footballer
1976 – Stefan Holm, Swedish high jumper
1976 – Erki Pütsep, Estonian cyclist
1976 – Ethan Suplee, American actor
1976 – Cillian Murphy, Irish actor
1976 – Miguel Zepeda, Mexican footballer
1977 – Andre Anis, Estonian footballer
1977 – Alberto Del Rio, Mexican-American mixed martial artist and wrestler
1978 – Adam Gontier, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1978 – Brian Urlacher, American football player
1979 – Carlos Bocanegra, American international soccer player, defender and Sports Executive
1979 – Sayed Moawad, Egyptian footballer
1979 – Caroline Ouellette, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1979 – Sam Sodje, English-Nigerian footballer
1979 – Jonny Wilkinson, English rugby player
1979 – Chris Young, American baseball pitcher
1980 – David Navarro, Spanish footballer
1981 – Michalis Pelekanos, Greek basketball player
1981 – Matt Utai, New Zealand rugby league player
1982 – Adam Boyd, English footballer
1982 – Daniel Braaten, Norwegian footballer
1982 – Ryan Gallant, American skateboarder
1982 – Roger Guerreiro, Polish footballer
1982 – Justin Hodges, Australian rugby league player
1982 – Ezekiel Kemboi, Kenyan runner
1982 – Jason Kubel, American baseball player
1982 – Stacey Pensgen, American figure skater and meteorologist
1982 – Luke Webster, Australian footballer
1984 – Luke Ball, Australian footballer
1984 – Kyle Brodziak, Canadian ice hockey player
1984 – A. J. Foyt IV, American race car driver
1984 – Shawne Merriman, American football player
1985 – Luciana Abreu, Portuguese singer and actress
1985 – Demba Ba, French footballer
1985 – Gert Kams, Estonian footballer
1985 – Roman Reigns, American football player and wrestler
1986 – Edewin Fanini, Brazilian footballer
1986 – Yoan Gouffran, French footballer
1986 – Takahiro Hōjō, Japanese actor and musician
1986 – Geraint Thomas, Welsh cyclist
1987 – Timothy Derijck, Belgian footballer
1987 – Yves De Winter, Belgian footballer
1987 – Moritz Stehling, German footballer
1987 – Kamil Stoch, Polish ski jumper
1988 – Dávid Škutka, Slovak footballer
1988 – Cameron van der Burgh, South African swimmer
1990 – Bo Dallas, American wrestler
1990 – Nikita Filatov, Russian ice hockey player
1993 – James Porter, English cricketer
1994 – Matt Murray, Canadian ice hockey player
1994 – Aly Raisman, American gymnast
1995 – Kagiso Rabada, South African cricketer
1996 – David Pastrňák, Czech ice hockey player

Deaths on May 25

675 – Li Hong, Chinese prince (b. 652)
709 – Aldhelm, English-Latin bishop, poet, and scholar (b. 639)
803 – Higbald of Lindisfarne, English bishop
912 – Xue Yiju, chancellor of Later Liang
916 – Flann Sinna, king of Meath
939 – Yao Yanzhang, general of Chu
986 – Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, Muslim astronomer (b. 903)
992 – Mieszko I of Poland (b. 935)
1085 – Pope Gregory VII (b. 1020)
1261 – Pope Alexander IV (b. 1185)
1452 – John Stafford, English archbishop and politician
1555 – Gemma Frisius, Dutch physician, mathematician, and cartographer (b. 1508)
1555 – Henry II of Navarre (b. 1503)
1595 – Valens Acidalius, German poet and critic (b. 1567)
1595 – Philip Neri, Italian priest and saint (b. 1515)
1607 – Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi, Italian Carmelite nun and mystic (b. 1566)
1632 – Adam Tanner, Austrian mathematician and philosopher (b. 1572)
1667 – Gustaf Bonde, Finnish-Swedish politician, 5th Lord High Treasurer of Sweden (b. 1620)
1681 – Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Spanish poet and playwright (b. 1600)
1741 – Daniel Ernst Jablonski, German bishop and theologian (b. 1660)
1786 – Peter III of Portugal (b. 1717)
1789 – Anders Dahl, Swedish botanist and physician (b. 1751)
1797 – John Griffin, 4th Baron Howard de Walden, English field marshal and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Essex (b. 1719)
1805 – William Paley, English priest and philosopher (b. 1743)
1849 – Benjamin D’Urban, English general and politician, Governor of British Guiana (b. 1777)
1895 – Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, Ottoman sociologist, historian, and jurist (b. 1822)
1899 – Rosa Bonheur, French painter and sculptor (b. 1822)
1912 – Austin Lane Crothers, American educator and politician, 46th Governor of Maryland (b. 1860)
1917 – Maksim Bahdanovič, Belarusian poet and critic (b. 1891)
1919 – Eliza Pollock, American archer (b. 1840)
1919 – Madam C. J. Walker, American businesswoman and philanthropist, founded the Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company (b. 1867)
1924 – Lyubov Popova, Russian painter and illustrator (b. 1889)
1926 – Symon Petliura, Ukrainian journalist and politician (b. 1879)
1927 – Payne Whitney, American businessman and philanthropist (b. 1876)
1930 – Randall Davidson, Scottish-English archbishop (b. 1848)
1934 – Gustav Holst, English trombonist, composer, and educator (b. 1874)
1937 – Henry Ossawa Tanner, American-French painter and illustrator (b. 1859)
1939 – Frank Watson Dyson, English astronomer and academic (b. 1868)
1942 – Emanuel Feuermann, Ukrainian-American cellist and educator (b. 1902)
1943 – Nils von Dardel, Swedish painter (b. 1888)
1948 – Witold Pilecki, Polish officer and Resistance leader (b. 1901)
1951 – Paula von Preradović, Croatian poet and author (b. 1887)
1954 – Robert Capa, Hungarian photographer and journalist (b. 1913)
1957 – Leo Goodwin, American swimmer, diver, and water polo player (b. 1883)
1968 – Georg von Küchler, German field marshal (b. 1881)
1970 – Tom Patey, Scottish mountaineer and author (b. 1932)
1977 – Yevgenia Ginzburg, Russian author (b. 1904)
1979 – Itzhak Bentov, Czech-Israeli engineer, mystic, and author (b. 1923)
1979 – Amédée Gordini, Italian-born French racing driver and sports car manufacturer (b. 1899)
1981 – Ruby Payne-Scott, Australian physicist and astronomer (b. 1912)
1981 – Fredric Warburg, English author and publisher (b. 1898)
1983 – Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, Turkish author, poet, and playwright (b. 1904)
1983 – Idris of Libya (b. 1889)
1983 – Jack Stewart, Canadian-American ice hockey player (b. 1917)
1986 – Chester Bowles, American journalist and politician, 22nd Under Secretary of State (b. 1901)
1990 – Vic Tayback, American actor (b. 1930)
1995 – Élie Bayol, French racing driver (b. 1914)
1995 – Krešimir Ćosić, Croatian basketball player and coach, Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer 1996 (b. 1948)
1995 – Dany Robin, French actress (b. 1927)
1996 – Renzo De Felice, Italian historian and author (b. 1929)
2003 – Sloan Wilson, American author and poet (b. 1920)
2004 – Roger Williams Straus, Jr., American publisher, co-founded Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publishing Company (b. 1917)
2005 – Sunil Dutt, Indian actor, director, producer, and politician (b. 1929)
2005 – Robert Jankel, English businessman, founded Panther Westwinds (b. 1938)
2005 – Graham Kennedy, Australian television host and actor (b. 1934)
2005 – Ismail Merchant, Indian-born film producer and director (b. 1936)
2005 – Zoran Mušič, Slovene painter and illustrator (b. 1909)
2007 – Charles Nelson Reilly, American actor, comedian, and director (b. 1931)
2008 – J. R. Simplot, American businessman, founded Simplot (b. 1909)
2009 – Haakon Lie, Norwegian politician (b. 1905)
2010 – Alexander Belostenny, Ukrainian basketball player (b. 1959)
2010 – Michael H. Jordan, American businessman (b. 1936)
2010 – Alan Hickinbotham, Australian footballer and coach (b. 1925)
2010 – Gabriel Vargas, Mexican painter and illustrator (b. 1915)
2010 – Jarvis Williams, American football player and coach (b. 1965)
2011 – Terry Jenner, Australian cricketer and coach (b. 1944)
2012 – William Hanley, American author and screenwriter (b. 1931)
2012 – Peter D. Sieruta, American author and critic (b. 1958)
2012 – Lou Watson, American basketball player and coach (b. 1924)
2013 – Mahendra Karma, Indian politician (b. 1950)
2013 – Nand Kumar Patel, Indian politician (b. 1953)
2014 – David Allen, English cricketer (b. 1935)
2014 – Marcel Côté, Canadian economist and politician (b. 1942)
2014 – Wojciech Jaruzelski, Polish general and politician, 1st President of Poland (b. 1923)
2014 – Herb Jeffries, American singer and actor (b. 1913)
2014 – Toaripi Lauti, Tuvaluan educator and politician, 1st Prime Minister of Tuvalu (b. 1928)
2014 – Matthew Saad Muhammad, American boxer and trainer (b. 1954)
2015 – George Braden, Canadian lawyer and politician, 2nd Premier of the Northwest Territories (b. 1949)
2015 – Robert Lebel, Canadian bishop (b. 1924)
2019 – Claus von Bülow, Danish-British socialite (b.1926)

Holidays and observances on May 25

Africa Day (African Union)
African Liberation Day (African Union, Rastafari)
Christian feast day:
- Aldhelm
- Bede
- Canius
- Dionysius of Milan
- Dúnchad mac Cinn Fáelad
- Gerard of Lunel
- Madeleine Sophie Barat
- Mary Magdalene de Pazzi
- Maximus (Mauxe) of Évreux
- Pope Boniface IV
- Pope Gregory VII
- Pope Urban I
- Zenobius of Florence
- May 25 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest day on which Arbor Day can fall, while May 31 is the latest; celebrated on the last Sunday in May. (Venezuela)
Earliest day on which Children’s Day can fall, while May 31 is the latest; celebrated on the last Sunday in May. (Hungary)
Earliest day on which Holiday of Saint Etchmiadzin can fall, while July 27 is the latest; celebrated on the 64th day after Easter. (Armenia)
Earliest day on which Memorial Day can fall, while May 31 is the latest; celebrated on the last Monday in May. (United States)
Earliest day on which Mother’s Day can fall, while May 31 is the latest; celebrated on the last Sunday in May. (Algeria, Dominican Republic, France (First Sunday of June, if Pentecost occurs on this day), Haiti, Mauritius, Morocco, Sweden, Tunisia)
Earliest day on which Turkmen Carpet Day can fall, while May 31 is the latest; celebrated on the last Sunday in May. (Turkmenistan)
First National Government / National Day (Argentina)
Geek Pride Day (geek culture)
Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Jordan from the United Kingdom in 1946.
Last bell (Russia, post-Soviet countries)
Liberation Day (Lebanon)
International Missing Children’s Day and its related observances:
- National Missing Children’s Day (United States),
National Tap Dance Day (United States)
Towel Day in honour of the work of the writer Douglas Adams

May 25 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

May 24 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

919 – The nobles of Franconia and Saxony elect Henry the Fowler at the Imperial Diet in Fritzlar as king of the East Frankish Kingdom.
1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt.
1276 – Magnus Ladulås is crowned King of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral.
1487 – The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel is crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland, with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII’s reign.
1567 – Erik XIV of Sweden and his guards murder five incarcerated Swedish nobles.
1595 – Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library.
1607 – One hundred English settlers disembark in Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in America.
1621 – The Protestant Union is formally dissolved.
1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.
1667 – The French Royal Army crosses the border into the Spanish Netherlands, starting the War of Devolution opposing France to the Spanish Empire and the Triple Alliance.
1683 – The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world’s first university museum.
1689 – The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration protecting dissenting Protestants but excluding Roman Catholics.
1738 – John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day and a church service is generally held on the preceding Sunday.
1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins.
1813 – South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador (“The Liberator”).
1822 – Battle of Pichincha: Antonio José de Sucre secures the independence of the Presidency of Quito.
1832 – The First Kingdom of Greece is declared in the London Conference.
1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message “What hath God wrought” (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C.
1856 – John Brown and his men kill five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas.
1861 – American Civil War: Union troops occupy Alexandria, Virginia.
1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.
1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State.
1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the conflict on the side of the Allies.
1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).
1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2–1 at Crosley Field.
1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.
1940 – Acting on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, NKVD agent Iosif Grigulevich orchestrates an unsuccessful assassination attempt on exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Coyoacán, Mexico.
1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks then-pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen.
1948 – Arab–Israeli War: Egypt captures the Israeli kibbutz of Yad Mordechai, but the five-day effort gives Israeli forces time to prepare enough to stop the Egyptian advance a week later.
1956 – The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland.
1958 – United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.
1960 – Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt.
1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, for “disturbing the peace” after disembarking from their bus.
1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.
1967 – Egypt imposes a blockade and siege of the Red Sea coast of Israel.
1976 – The Judgment of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine.
1981 – Ecuadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera, his wife, and his presidential committee die in an aircraft accident while travelling from Quito to Zapotillo minutes after the president gave a famous speech regarding the 24 de mayo anniversary of the Battle of Pichincha.
1982 – Liberation of Khorramshahr: Iranians recapture of the port city of Khorramshahr from the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq War.
1988 – Section 28 of the United Kingdom’s Local Government Act 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, is enacted.
1991 – Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
1992 – The last Thai dictator, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, resigns following pro-democracy protests.
1992 – The ethnic cleansing in Kozarac, Bosnia and Herzegovina begins when Serbian militia and police forces enter the town.
1993 – Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia.
1993 – Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo and five other people are assassinated in a shootout at Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla Guadalajara International Airport in Mexico.
1994 – Four men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 are each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
1995 – While attempting to return to Leeds Bradford Airport in the United Kingdom, Knight Air Flight 816 crashes in Harewood, North Yorkshire, killing all 12 people on board.
1999 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.
2002 – Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty.
2014 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake occurs in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, injuring 324 people.
2014 – At least three people are killed in a shooting at Brussels’ Jewish Museum of Belgium.
2019 – Twenty-two students die in a fire in Surat (India).
2019 – Under pressure over her handling of Brexit, British Prime Minister Theresa May announces her resignation as Leader of the Conservative Party, effective as of June 7.

Births on May 24

15 BC – Germanicus, Roman general (d. 19)
1335 – Margaret of Bohemia, Queen of Hungary (d. 1349)
1494 – Pontormo, Italian painter (d. 1557)
1522 – John Jewel, English bishop (d. 1571)
1544 – William Gilbert, English physician, physicist, and astronomer (d. 1603)
1576 – Elizabeth Carey, Lady Berkeley, English courtier (d. 1635)
1616 – John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale, Scottish politician, Secretary of State, Scotland (d. 1682)
1628 – Marek Sobieski, Polish noble (d. 1652)
1669 – Emerentia von Düben, Swedish royal favorite (d. 1743)
1671 – Gian Gastone de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1737)
1686 – Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, Polish-German physicist and engineer, developed the Fahrenheit scale (d. 1736)
1689 – Daniel Finch, 8th Earl of Winchilsea, English politician, Lord President of the Council (d. 1769)
1743 – Jean-Paul Marat, Swiss-French physician, journalist, and politician (d. 1793)
1789 – Cathinka Buchwieser, German operatic singer and actress (d.1828)
1794 – William Whewell, English priest and philosopher (d. 1866)
1803 – Alexander von Nordmann, Finnish biologist and paleontologist (d. 1866)
1810 – Abraham Geiger, German rabbi and scholar (d. 1874)
1816 – Emanuel Leutze, German-American painter (d. 1868)
1819 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (d. 1901)
1830 – Alexei Savrasov, Russian painter and academic (d. 1897)
1855 – Arthur Wing Pinero, English actor, director, and playwright (d. 1934)
1861 – Gerald Strickland, 1st Baron Strickland, Maltese lawyer and politician, 4th Prime Minister of Malta (d. 1940)
1863 – George Grey Barnard, American sculptor (d. 1938)
1868 – Charlie Taylor, American engineer and mechanic (d. 1956)
1870 – Benjamin N. Cardozo, American lawyer and judge (d. 1938)
1870 – Jan Smuts, South African lawyer and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of South Africa (d. 1950)
1874 – Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine (d. 1878)
1875 – Robert Garrett, American discus thrower and shot putter (d. 1961)
1878 – Lillian Moller Gilbreth, American psychologist and engineer (d. 1972)
1879 – H. B. Reese, American candy maker, created Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (d. 1956)
1886 – Paul Paray, French organist, composer, and conductor (d. 1979)
1887 – Mick Mannock, Irish soldier and pilot, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1918)
1891 – William F. Albright, American archaeologist, philologist, and scholar (d. 1971)
1895 – Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr., American publisher, founded Advance Publications (d. 1979)
1899 – Suzanne Lenglen, French tennis player (d. 1938)
1899 – Henri Michaux, Belgian-French poet and painter (d. 1984)
1900 – Eduardo De Filippo, Italian actor and screenwriter (d. 1984)
1901 – José Nasazzi, Uruguayan footballer and manager (d. 1968)
1902 – Lionel Conacher, Canadian football player and politician (d. 1954)
1902 – Sylvia Daoust, Canadian sculptor (d. 2004)
1905 – George Nakashima, American woodworker and architect(d. 1990)
1905 – Mikhail Sholokhov, Russian novelist and short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1984)
1909 – Wilbur Mills, American banker and politician (d. 1992)
1910 – Jimmy Demaret, American golfer (d. 1983)
1913 – Joe Abreu, American baseball player and soldier (d. 1993)
1914 – Lilli Palmer, German-American actress (d. 1986)
1916 – Roden Cutler, Australian lieutenant and politician, 32nd Governor of New South Wales (d. 2002)
1917 – Alan Campbell, Baron Campbell of Alloway, English lawyer and judge (d. 2013)
1918 – Coleman Young, American politician, 66th Mayor of Detroit (d. 1997)
1923 – Siobhán McKenna, Irish actress (d. 1986)
1924 – Philip Pearlstein, American soldier and painter
1925 – Carmine Infantino, American illustrator and educator (d. 2013)
1925 – Mai Zetterling, Swedish actress and director (d. 1994)
1926 – Stanley Baxter, Scottish actor and screenwriter
1928 – William Trevor, Irish novelist, playwright and short story writer (d. 2016)
1932 – Arnold Wesker, English playwright and producer (d. 2016)
1933 – Jane Byrne, American lawyer and politician, 50th Mayor of Chicago (d. 2014)
1933 – Réal Giguère, Canadian television host and actor
1933 – Aharon Lichtenstein, French-Israeli rabbi and author (d. 2015)
1935 – Joan Micklin Silver, American director and screenwriter
1936 – Harold Budd, American composer and poet
1937 – Maryvonne Dupureur, French runner and educator (d. 2008)
1937 – Archie Shepp, American saxophonist and composer
1938 – Prince Buster, Jamaican singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2016)
1938 – Tommy Chong, Canadian-American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1940 – Joseph Brodsky, Russian-American poet and essayist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1996)
1941 – Bob Dylan, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, artist, writer, and producer; Nobel Prize laureate
1941 – Patricia Hollis, Baroness Hollis of Heigham, English academic and politician
1942 – Ali Bacher, South African cricketer and manager
1942 – Hannu Mikkola, Finnish race car driver
1942 – Ichirō Ozawa, Japanese lawyer and politician, Japanese Minister of Home Affairs
1943 – Gary Burghoff, American actor
1944 – Patti LaBelle, American singer-songwriter and actress
1944 – Dominique Lavanant, French actress
1945 – Terry Callier, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2012)
1945 – Steven Norris, English engineer and politician
1945 – Richard Ottaway, English lieutenant and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
1945 – Priscilla Presley, American actress and businesswoman
1946 – Tansu Çiller, Turkish economist and politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Turkey
1946 – Jesualdo Ferreira, Portuguese footballer and manager
1946 – Irena Szewińska, Russian-Polish sprinter
1947 – Albert Bouchard, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and drummer
1947 – Mike De Leon, Filipino director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer
1947 – Mike Reid, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and American football player
1947 – Waddy Wachtel, American guitarist, singer-songwriter, and record producer
1947 – Martin Winterkorn, German businessman
1948 – Richard Dembo, French director and screenwriter (d. 2004)
1949 – Jim Broadbent, English actor
1949 – Roger Deakins , English cinematographer
1953 – Alfred Molina, English actor
1955 – Rosanne Cash, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1955 – Philippe Lafontaine, Belgian singer and songwriter
1955 – Rajesh Roshan, Indian composer
1956 – R. B. Bernstein, American constitutional historian
1956 – Larry Blackmon, American singer-songwriter and producer
1956 – Dominic Grieve, English lawyer and politician, Attorney General for England and Wales
1956 – Michael Jackson, Irish archbishop
1958 – Chip Ganassi, American race car driver, team owner and businessman
1959 – Pelle Lindbergh, Swedish-American ice hockey player (d. 1985)
1959 – Barry O’Farrell, Australian politician, 43rd Premier of New South Wales
1960 – Guy Fletcher, English keyboard player, guitarist, and producer
1960 – Bill Harrigan, Australian rugby league referee and sportscaster
1960 – Kristin Scott Thomas, English actress
1961 – Lorella Cedroni, Italian philosopher and theorist (d. 2013)
1961 – Alain Lemieux, Canadian-American ice hockey player and coach
1962 – Héctor Camacho, Puerto Rican-American boxer (d. 2012)
1962 – Gene Anthony Ray, American actor, dancer, and choreographer (d. 2003)
1963 – Ivan Capelli, Italian race car driver and sportscaster
1963 – Michael Chabon, American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter
1963 – Joe Dumars, American basketball player
1963 – Rich Rodriguez, American football player and coach
1963 – Valerie Taylor, American computer scientist and educator
1964 – Liz McColgan, Scottish educator and runner
1964 – Adrian Moorhouse, English swimmer
1964 – Isidro Pérez, Mexican boxer (d. 2013)
1964 – Pat Verbeek, Canadian ice hockey player and manager
1965 – John C. Reilly, American actor
1965 – Shinichirō Watanabe, Japanese director, producer, and screenwriter
1966 – Éric Cantona, French footballer, manager, and actor
1966 – Ricky Craven, American race car driver and sportscaster
1967 – Tamer Karadağlı, Turkish actor
1967 – Andrey Borodin, Russian-English economist and businessman
1967 – Eric Close, American actor
1967 – Heavy D, Jamaican-American rapper, producer, and actor (d. 2011)
1967 – Carlos Hernández, Venezuelan-American baseball player and manager
1969 – Martin McCague, Northern Irish-English cricketer
1969 – Jacob Rees-Mogg, English politician
1969 – Rich Robinson, American guitarist and songwriter
1971 – Kris Draper, Canadian ice hockey player and manager
1972 – Greg Berlanti, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1973 – Rodrigo, Argentinian singer-songwriter (d. 2000)
1973 – Bartolo Colón, Dominican-American baseball player
1973 – Shirish Kunder, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter
1973 – Vladimír Šmicer, Czech footballer and manager
1974 – Sébastien Foucan, French runner and actor
1974 – Masahide Kobayashi, Japanese baseball player and coach
1974 – Magnus Manske, German biochemist and computer programmer, developed MediaWiki
1975 – Will Sasso, Canadian actor and comedian
1975 – Marc Gagnon, Canadian speed skater
1975 – Giannis Goumas, Greek footballer and coach
1975 – Maria Lawson, English singer-songwriter
1976 – Alessandro Cortini, Italian-American singer and keyboard player
1976 – Catherine Cox, New Zealand-Australian netball player
1976 – Silje Vige, Norwegian singer
1977 – Jeet Gannguli, Indian score composer, music director and singer
1978 – Elijah Burke, American wrestler
1978 – Johan Holmqvist, Swedish ice hockey player
1978 – Brad Penny, American baseball player
1978 – Rose, French singer, songwriter and composer
1979 – Tracy McGrady, American basketball player
1979 – Kareem McKenzie, American football player
1980 – Jason Babin, American football player
1980 – Anthony Minichiello, Australian rugby league player
1981 – Andy Lee, Australian comedian, actor, and screenwriter
1982 – Issah Gabriel Ahmed, Ghanaian footballer
1982 – Rian Wallace, American football player
1983 – Custódio Castro, Portuguese footballer
1983 – Pedram Javaheri, Iranian-American meteorologist and journalist
1983 – Woo Seung-yeon, South Korean model and actress (d. 2009)
1984 – Sarah Hagan, American actress
1984 – Dmitri Kruglov, Estonian footballer
1985 – Tim Bridgman, English race car driver
1986 – Mark Ballas, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, dancer, and actor
1986 – Giannis Kontoes, Greek footballer
1987 – Guillaume Latendresse, Canadian ice hockey player
1988 – Artem Anisimov, Russian ice hockey player
1988 – Monica Lin Brown, American sergeant
1988 – Billy Gilman, American musician
1988 – Lucian Wintrich, American political artist and White House correspondent
1989 – G-Eazy, American rapper
1989 – Andrew Jordan, English race car driver
1990 – Mattias Ekholm, Swedish ice hockey player
1991 – Aled Davies, Welsh discus thrower
1991 – Cody Eakin, Canadian ice hockey player
1992 – Marcus Bettinelli, English footballer, goalkeeper
1994 – Daiya Seto, Japanese swimmer
1994 – Emily Nicholl, Scottish netball player
1994 – Daiya Seto, Japanese swimmer
1994 – Emily Temple Wood, American 2016 Wikipedian of the Year award
1999 – Tarjei Sandvik Moe, Norwegian actor

Deaths on May 24

688 – Ségéne, bishop of Armagh (b. c. 610)
1089 – Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury
1136 – Hugues de Payens, first Grand Master of the Knights Templar (b. c. 1070)
1153 – David I of Scotland (b. 1083)
1201 – Theobald III, Count of Champagne (b. 1179)
1351 – Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman, Moroccan sultan (b. 1297)
1408 – Taejo of Joseon (b. 1335)
1425 – Murdoch Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany, Scottish politician (b. 1362)
1456 – Ambroise de Loré, French commander (b. 1396)
1543 – Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish mathematician and astronomer (b. 1473)
1612 – Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, English politician, Lord High Treasurer (b. 1563)
1627 – Luis de Góngora, Spanish poet and cleric (b. 1561)
1632 – Robert Hues, English mathematician and geographer (b. 1553)
1665 – Mary of Jesus of Ágreda, Spanish Franciscan abbess and mystic (b. 1602)
1734 – Georg Ernst Stahl, German physician and chemist (b. 1660)
1792 – George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney, English admiral and politician, 16th Governor of Newfoundland (b. 1718)
1806 – John Campbell, 5th Duke of Argyll, Scottish field marshal and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Argyllshire (b. 1723)
1843 – Sylvestre François Lacroix, French mathematician and academic (b. 1765)
1848 – Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, German author and composer (b. 1797)
1861 – Elmer E. Ellsworth, American colonel (b. 1837)
1872 – Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, German painter and illustrator (b. 1794)
1879 – William Lloyd Garrison, American journalist and activist (b. 1805)
1881 – Samuel Palmer, English painter and illustrator (b. 1805)
1901 – Louis-Zéphirin Moreau, Canadian bishop (b. 1824)
1908 – Old Tom Morris, Scottish golfer and architect (b. 1821)
1915 – John Condon, Irish-English soldier (b. 1896)
1919 – Amado Nervo, Mexican poet, journalist, and educator (b. 1870)
1929 – Nikolai von Meck, Russian engineer (b. 1863)
1941 – Lancelot Holland, English admiral (b. 1887)
1945 – Robert Ritter von Greim, German field marshal and pilot (b. 1892)
1948 – Jacques Feyder, Belgian actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1885)
1949 – Alexey Shchusev, Russian architect, designed Lenin’s Mausoleum and Moscow Kazanskaya railway station (b. 1873)
1950 – Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell, English field marshal and politician, 43rd Governor-General of India (b. 1883)
1951 – Thomas N. Heffron, American actor, director, screenwriter (b. 1872)
1956 – Martha Annie Whiteley, English chemist and mathematician (b. 1866)
1958 – Frank Rowe, Australian public servant (b. 1895)
1959 – John Foster Dulles, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 52nd United States Secretary of State (b. 1888)
1963 – Elmore James, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1918)
1965 – Sonny Boy Williamson II, American singer-songwriter and harmonica player (b. 1908)
1974 – Duke Ellington, American pianist and composer (b. 1899)
1976 – Denise Pelletier, Canadian actress (b. 1923)
1979 – Ernest Bullock, English organist, composer, and educator (b. 1890)
1981 – Herbert Müller, Swiss race car driver (b. 1940)
1984 – Vince McMahon Sr., American wrestling promoter and businessman, founded WWE (b. 1914)
1988 – Freddie Frith, English motorcycle road racer (b. 1909)
1990 – Arthur Villeneuve, Canadian painter (b. 1910)
1991 – Gene Clark, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1944)
1992 – Hitoshi Ogawa, Japanese race car driver (b. 1956)
1995 – Harold Wilson, English academic and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1916)
1996 – Enrique Álvarez Félix, Mexican actor (b. 1934)
1996 – Joseph Mitchell, American journalist and author (b. 1908)
1997 – Edward Mulhare, Irish actor (b. 1923)
2000 – Kurt Schork, American journalist and scholar (b. 1947)
2000 – Majrooh Sultanpuri, Indian poet and songwriter (b. 1919)
2002 – Wallace Markfield, American author (b. 1926)
2003 – Rachel Kempson, English actress (b. 1910)
2004 – Henry Ries, German-American photographer (b. 1917)
2004 – Milton Shulman, Canadian author and critic (b. 1913)
2004 – Edward Wagenknecht, American critic and educator (b. 1900)
2005 – Carl Amery, German activist and author (b. 1922)
2005 – Arthur Haulot, Belgian journalist and poet (b. 1913)
2005 – Guy Tardif, Canadian academic and politician (b. 1935)
2006 – Henry Bumstead, American art director and production designer (b. 1915)
2006 – Claude Piéplu, French actor (b. 1923)
2006 – Michał Życzkowski, Polish technician and educator (b. 1930)
2008 – Dick Martin, American actor, comedian, and director (b. 1922)
2008 – Jimmy McGriff, American organist and bandleader (b. 1936)
2009 – Jay Bennett, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (b. 1963)
2010 – Ray Alan, English ventriloquist, actor, and screenwriter (b. 1930)
2010 – Paul Gray, American bass player and songwriter (b. 1972)
2010 – Raymond V. Haysbert, American businessman and activist (b. 1920)
2010 – Petr Muk, Czech singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1965)
2010 – Anneliese Rothenberger, German soprano and actress (b. 1926)
2011 – Huguette Clark, American heiress, painter, and philanthropist (b. 1906)
2011 – Hakim Ali Zardari, Indian-Pakistani businessman and politician (b. 1930)
2012 – Klaas Carel Faber, Dutch-German SS officer (b. 1922)
2012 – Kathi Kamen Goldmark, American journalist and author (b. 1948)
2012 – Jacqueline Harpman, Belgian psychoanalyst and author (b. 1929)
2012 – Juan Francisco Lombardo, Argentinian footballer (b. 1925)
2012 – Lee Rich, American production manager and producer (b. 1918)
2013 – Helmut Braunlich, German-American violinist and composer (b. 1929)
2013 – Ron Davies, Welsh footballer (b. 1942)
2013 – Gotthard Graubner, German painter (b. 1930)
2013 – Haynes Johnson, American journalist and author (b. 1931)
2013 – Pyotr Todorovsky, Ukrainian-Russian director and screenwriter (b. 1925)
2014 – David Allen, English cricketer (b. 1935)
2014 – Stormé DeLarverie, known as the “Rosa Parks of the lesbian community” (b. 1920)
2014 – Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, Iranian businessman (b. 1969)
2014 – Knowlton Nash, Canadian journalist and author (b. 1927)
2014 – John Vasconcellos, American lieutenant, lawyer, and politician (b. 1932)
2015 – Dean Carroll, English rugby player (b. 1962)
2015 – Kenneth Jacobs, Australian lawyer and judge (b. 1917)
2015 – Tanith Lee, English author (b. 1947)
2018 – Gudrun Burwitz, daughter of Margarete Himmler and Heinrich Himmler (b. 1929)
2018 – John Bain (TotalBiscuit), English gaming commentator and critic (b. 1984)

Holidays and observances on May 24

Aldersgate Day/Wesley Day (Methodism)
Battle of Pichincha Day (Ecuador)
Bermuda Day (Bermuda), celebrated on the nearest weekday if May 24 falls on the weekend.
Christian feast day:
- Anna Pak Agi (one of The Korean Martyrs)
- Donatian and Rogatian
- Jackson Kemper (Episcopal Church)
- Joanna
- Mary, Help of Christians
- Sarah (celebrated by the Romani people of Camargue)
- Vincent of Lérins
- May 24 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Commonwealth Day (Belize)
Earliest day on which El Colacho tradition can fall, while June 27 is the latest; celebrated on Sunday after Corpus Christi. (Castrillo de Murcia, near Burgos)
Independence Day (Eritrea), celebrates the independence of Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1993.
Lubiri Memorial Day (Buganda)
Saints Cyril and Methodius Day (Eastern Orthodox Church, Julian Calendar) and its related observance:
- Bulgarian Education and Culture and Slavonic Literature Day (Bulgaria)
- Saints Cyril and Methodius, Slavonic Enlighteners’ Day (North Macedonia)
Victoria Day; celebrated on Monday on or before May 24. (Canada), and its related observance:
- National Patriots’ Day or Journée nationale des patriotes (Quebec)

May 24 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

May 23 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

1430 – Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to raise the Siege of Compiègne.
1498 – Girolamo Savonarola is burned at the stake in Florence, Italy.
1533 – The marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void.
1568 – Dutch rebels led by Louis of Nassau, defeat Jean de Ligne, Duke of Arenberg, and his loyalist troops in the Battle of Heiligerlee, opening the Eighty Years’ War.
1609 – Official ratification of the Second Virginia Charter takes place.
1618 – The Second Defenestration of Prague precipitates the Thirty Years’ War.
1701 – After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London.
1706 – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defeats a French army under Marshal François de Neufville, duc de Villeroy at the Battle of Ramillies.
1788 – South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution as the eighth American state.
1793 – Battle of Famars during the Flanders Campaign of the War of the First Coalition.
1829 – Accordion patent granted to Cyrill Demian in Vienna, Austrian Empire.
1844 – Declaration of the Báb the evening before the 23rd: A merchant of Shiraz announces that he is a Prophet and founds a religious movement that would later be brutally crushed by the Persian government. He is considered to be a forerunner of the Bahá’í Faith; Bahá’ís celebrate the day as a holy day.
1846 – Mexican–American War: President Mariano Paredes of Mexico unofficially declares war on the United States.
1863 – The General German Workers’ Association, a precursor of the modern Social Democratic Party of Germany, is founded in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony.
1873 – The Canadian Parliament establishes the North-West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
1900 – American Civil War: Sergeant William Harvey Carney is awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism in the Assault on the Battery Wagner in 1863.
1907 – The unicameral Parliament of Finland gathers for its first plenary session.
1911 – The New York Public Library is dedicated.
1915 – World War I: Italy joins the Allies, fulfilling its part of the Treaty of London.
1932 – In Brazil, four students are shot and killed during a manifestation against the Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas, which resulted in the outbreak of the Constitutionalist Revolution several weeks later.
1934 – Infamous American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
1934 – The Auto-Lite strike culminates in the “Battle of Toledo”, a five-day melée between 1,300 troops of the Ohio National Guard and 6,000 picketers.
1939 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Squalus sinks off the coast of New Hampshire during a test dive, causing the death of 24 sailors and two civilian technicians. The remaining 32 sailors and one civilian naval architect are rescued the following day.
1945 – World War II: Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel, commits suicide while in Allied custody.
1945 – World War II: Germany’s Flensburg Government under Karl Dönitz is dissolved when its members are arrested by British forces.
1948 – Thomas C. Wasson, the US Consul-General, is assassinated in Jerusalem, Israel.
1949 – Cold War: The Western occupying powers approve the Basic Law and establish a new German state, the Federal Republic of Germany.
1951 – Tibetans sign the Seventeen Point Agreement with China.
1960 – A tsunami caused by an earthquake in Chile the previous day kills 61 people in Hilo, Hawaii.
1992 – Italy’s most prominent anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards are killed by the Corleonesi clan with a half-ton bomb near Capaci, Sicily. His friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino will be assassinated less than two months later, making 1992 a turning point in the history of Italian Mafia prosecutions.
1995 – The first version of the Java programming language is released.
1998 – The Good Friday Agreement is accepted in a referendum in Northern Ireland with roughly 75% voting yes.
2002 – The “55 parties” clause of the Kyoto Protocol is reached after its ratification by Iceland.
2006 – Alaskan stratovolcano Mount Cleveland erupts.
2008 – The International Court of Justice (ICJ) awards Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Puteh) to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between the two countries.
2013 – A freeway bridge carrying Interstate 5 over the Skagit River collapses in Mount Vernon, Washington.
2014 – Seven people, including the perpetrator, are killed and another 14 injured in a killing spree near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara.
2015 – At least 46 people are killed as a result of floods caused by a tornado in Texas and Oklahoma.
2016 – Two suicide bombings, conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, killed at least 45 potential army recruits in Aden, Yemen.
2016 – Eight bombings were carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Jableh and Tartus, coastline cities in Syria. One hundred eighty-four people were killed and at least 200 people injured.
2017 – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao, following the Maute’s attack in Marawi.

Births on May 23

635 – K’inich Kan Bahlam II, Mayan king (d. 702)
675 – Perumbidugu Mutharaiyar II, King of Mutharaiyar dynasty, Tamil Nadu, India
1052 – Philip I of France (d. 1108)
1100 – Emperor Qinzong of Song (d. 1161)
1127 – Uijong of Goryeo, Korean monarch of the Goryeo dynasty (d. 1173)
1330 – Gongmin of Goryeo, Korean ruler (d. 1374)
1586 – Paul Siefert, German composer and organist (d. 1666)
1606 – Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz, Spanish mathematician and philosopher (d. 1682)
1614 – Bertholet Flemalle, Flemish Baroque painter (d. 1675)
1617 – Elias Ashmole, English astrologer and politician (d. 1692)
1629 – William VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, noble of Hesse-Kassel (d. 1663)
1707 – Carl Linnaeus, Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist (d. 1778)
1718 – William Hunter, Scottish-English anatomist and physician (d. 1783)
1729 – Giuseppe Parini, Italian poet and educator (d. 1799)
1730 – Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia, Prussian prince and general (d. 1813)
1734 – Franz Mesmer, German physician and astrologer (d. 1815)
1741 – Andrea Luchesi, Italian organist and composer (d. 1801)
1789 – Franz Schlik, Austrian earl and general (d. 1862)
1790 – Jules Dumont d’Urville, French admiral and explorer (d. 1842)
1790 – James Pradier, French neoclassical sculptor (d. 1852)
1794 – Ignaz Moscheles, Czech pianist and composer (d. 1870)
1795 – Charles Barry, English architect, designed the Upper Brook Street Chapel and Halifax Town Hall (d. 1860)
1800 – Rómulo Díaz de la Vega, Mexican general and president (1855) (d. 1877)
1810 – Margaret Fuller, American journalist and critic (d. 1850)
1817 – Manuel Robles Pezuela, Unconstitutional Mexican interim president (d. 1862)
1820 – James Buchanan Eads, American engineer, designed the Eads Bridge (d. 1887)
1820 – Lorenzo Sawyer, American lawyer and judge (d. 1891)
1824 – Ambrose Burnside, American general and politician, 30th Governor of Rhode Island (d. 1881)
1834 – Jānis Frīdrihs Baumanis, Latvian architect (d. 1891)
1834 – Carl Bloch, Danish painter and academic (d. 1890)
1837 – Anatole Mallet, Swiss mechanical engineer and inventor (d. 1919)
1837 – Józef Wieniawski, Polish pianist and composer (d. 1912)
1838 – Amaldus Nielsen, Norwegian painter (d. 1932)
1840 – George Throssell, Irish-Australian politician, 2nd Premier of Western Australia (d. 1910)
1844 – `Abdu’l-Bahá, Iranian religious leader (d. 1921)
1848 – Otto Lilienthal, German pilot and engineer (d. 1896)
1855 – Isabella Ford, English author and activist (d. 1924)
1861 – József Rippl-Rónai, Hungarian painter (d. 1927)
1863 – Władysław Horodecki, Polish architect (d. 1930)
1864 – William O’Connor, American fencer (d. 1939)
1865 – Epitácio Pessoa, Brazilian jurist and politician, 11th President of Brazil (d. 1942)
1875 – Alfred P. Sloan, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1966)
1882 – William Halpenny, Canadian pole vaulter (d. 1960)
1883 – Douglas Fairbanks, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1939)
1884 – Corrado Gini, Italian sociologist and demographer (d. 1965)
1887 – Thoralf Skolem, Norwegian mathematician and theorist (d. 1963)
1887 – Nikolai Vekšin, Estonian-Russian sailor and captain (d. 1951)
1888 – Adriaan Roland Holst, Dutch writer (d. 1976)
1888 – Zack Wheat, American baseball player and police officer (d. 1972)
1889 – Ernst Niekisch, German educator and politician (d. 1967)
1890 – Herbert Marshall, English-American actor and singer (d. 1966)
1891 – Pär Lagerkvist, Swedish novelist, playwright, and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
1892 – Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer, British peer and grandfather of Diana Spencer (d. 1975)
1896 – Felix Steiner, Russian-German SS officer (d. 1966)
1897 – Jimmie Guthrie, Scottish motorcycle racer (d. 1937)
1898 – Scott O’Dell, American soldier, journalist, and author (d. 1989)
1898 – Josef Terboven, German soldier and politician (d. 1945)
1899 – Jeralean Talley, American super-centenarian (d. 2015)
1900 – Hans Frank, German lawyer and politician (d. 1946)
1900 – Franz Leopold Neumann, German lawyer and theorist (d. 1954)
1908 – John Bardeen, American physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
1908 – Hélène Boucher, French pilot (d. 1934)
1910 – Margaret Wise Brown, American author and educator (d. 1952)
1910 – Hugh Casson, English architect and academic (d. 1999)
1910 – Scatman Crothers, American actor and comedian (d. 1986)
1910 – Franz Kline, American painter and academic (d. 1962)
1910 – Artie Shaw, American clarinet player, composer, and bandleader (d. 2004)
1911 – Lou Brouillard, Canadian boxer (d. 1984)
1911 – Paul Augustin Mayer, German cardinal (d. 2010)
1911 – Betty Nuthall, English tennis player (d. 1983)
1912 – Jean Françaix, French pianist and composer (d. 1997)
1912 – John Payne, American actor (d. 1989)
1914 – Harold Hitchcock, English visionary landscape artist (d. 2009)
1914 – Celestine Sibley, American journalist and author (d. 1999)
1914 – Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, English economist, journalist, and prominent Catholic layperson (d. 1981)
1915 – S. Donald Stookey, American physicist and chemist, invented CorningWare (d. 2014)
1917 – Edward Norton Lorenz, American mathematician and meteorologist (d. 2008)
1918 – Denis Compton, English cricketer and sportscaster (d. 1997)
1919 – Robert Bernstein, American author and playwright (d. 1988)
1919 – Ruth Fernández, Puerto Rican contralto and a member of the Puerto Rican Senate (d. 2012)
1919 – Betty Garrett, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2011)
1920 – Helen O’Connell, American singer (d. 1993)
1923 – Alicia de Larrocha, Catalan-Spanish pianist (d. 2009)
1923 – Irving Millman, American virologist and microbiologist (d. 2012)
1924 – Karlheinz Deschner, German author and activist (d. 2014)
1925 – Joshua Lederberg, American biologist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2008)
1926 – Basil Salvadore D’Souza, Indian bishop (d. 1996)
1926 – Joe Slovo, Lithuanian-South African activist and politician (d. 1995)
1928 – Rosemary Clooney, American singer and actress (d. 2002)
1928 – Nigel Davenport, English actor (d. 2013)
1928 – Nina Otkalenko, Russian runner (d. 2015)
1929 – Ulla Jacobsson, Swedish-Austrian actress (d. 1982)
1930 – Friedrich Achleitner, German poet and critic (d. 2019)
1931 – Barbara Barrie, American actress
1932 – Kevork Ajemian, Syrian-French journalist and author (d. 1998)
1933 – Joan Collins, English actress
1933 – Ove Fundin, Swedish motorcycle racer
1934 – Robert Moog, electronic engineer and inventor of the Moog synthesizer (d. 2005)
1935 – Lasse Strömstedt, Swedish author (d. 2009)
1936 – Ingeborg Hallstein, German soprano and actress
1936 – Charles Kimbrough, American actor
1939 – Michel Colombier, French-American composer and conductor (d. 2004)
1939 – Reinhard Hauff, German director and screenwriter
1940 – Bjorn Johansen, Norwegian saxophonist (d. 2002)
1940 – Gérard Larrousse, French race car driver
1940 – Cora Sadosky, Argentinian mathematician and academic (d. 2010)
1941 – Zalman King, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2012)
1941 – Rod Thorn, American basketball player, coach, and executive
1942 – Gabriel Liiceanu, Romanian philosopher, author, and academic
1942 – Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao, Indian director, screenwriter, and choreographer
1943 – Peter Kenilorea, Solomon Islands politician, 1st Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands (d. 2016)
1944 – John Newcombe, Australian tennis player and sportscaster
1945 – Padmarajan, Indian director, screenwriter, and author (d. 1991)
1946 – David Graham, Australian golfer
1947 – Jane Kenyon, American poet and translator (d. 1995)
1948 – Myriam Boyer, French actress, director, and producer
1949 – Daniel DiNardo, American cardinal
1949 – Alan García, Peruvian lawyer and politician, 61st and 64th President of Peru (d. 2019)
1950 – Martin McGuinness, Irish republican and Sinn Féin politician, Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland (d. 2017)
1951 – Anatoly Karpov, Russian chess player
1951 – Antonis Samaras, Greek economist and politician, 185th Prime Minister of Greece
1952 – Martin Parr, English photographer and journalist
1954 – Gerry Armstrong, Northern Irish international footballer, striker
1954 – Marvelous Marvin Hagler, American boxer and actor
1955 – Luka Bloom, Irish singer-songwriter and guitarist
1956 – Andrea Pazienza, Italian illustrator and painter (d. 1988)
1956 – Ursula Plassnik, Austrian politician and diplomat, Foreign Minister of Austria
1956 – Buck Showalter, American baseball player, coach, and manager
1958 – Mitch Albom, American journalist, author, and screenwriter
1958 – Drew Carey, American actor, game show host, and entrepreneur
1958 – Lea DeLaria, American actress and singer
1959 – Marcella Mesker, Dutch tennis player and sportscaster
1960 – Linden Ashby, American actor
1961 – Daniele Massaro, Italian footballer and manager
1961 – Norrie May-Welby, Scottish Australian gender activist
1962 – Karen Duffy, American actress
1963 – Viviane Baladi, Swiss mathematician
1964 – Ruth Metzler, Swiss lawyer and politician
1965 – Manuel Sanchís Hontiyuelo, Spanish footballer
1965 – Tom Tykwer, German director, producer, screenwriter, and composer
1965 – Melissa McBride, American actress
1965 – Paul Sironen, Australian rugby league player
1966 – Graeme Hick, Zimbabwean-English cricketer and coach
1966 – Gary Roberts, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1967 – Luís Roberto Alves, Mexican footballer
1967 – Anna Ibrisagic, Swedish politician
1968 – Guinevere Turner, American actress and screenwriter
1970 – Bryan Herta, American race car driver and businessman, co-founded Bryan Herta Autosport
1971 – George Osborne, English journalist and politician, former Chancellor of the Exchequer
1972 – Rubens Barrichello, Brazilian race car driver
1972 – Martin Saggers, English cricketer and umpire
1973 – Maxwell, American singer-songwriter and producer
1974 – Jewel, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actress, and poet
1974 – Manuela Schwesig, German politician, German Federal Minister of Family Affairs
1976 – Ricardinho, Brazilian footballer and manager
1977 – Ilia Kulik, Russian figure skater
1978 – Scott Raynor, American drummer
1979 – Rasual Butler, American basketball player (d. 2018)
1979 – Brian Campbell, Canadian ice hockey player
1980 – Theofanis Gekas, Greek footballer
1980 – Ben Ross, Australian rugby league player
1983 – Silvio Proto, Belgian-Italian footballer
1984 – Hugo Almeida, Portuguese footballer
1985 – Sebastián Fernández, Uruguayan footballer
1985 – Teymuraz Gabashvili, Russian tennis player
1985 – Wim Stroetinga, Dutch cyclist
1985 – Ross Wallace, Scottish footballer
1986 – Ryan Coogler, American film director and screenwriter
1986 – Alexei Sitnikov, Russian-Azerbaijani figure skater
1986 – Alice Tait, Australian swimmer
1986 – Ruben Zadkovich, Australian footballer
1987 – Gracie Otto, Australian actress, director, producer, and screenwriter
1987 – Bray Wyatt, American wrestler
1988 – Rosanna Crawford, Canadian biathlete
1988 – Angelo Ogbonna, Italian footballer
1988 – Morgan Pressel, American golfer
1989 – Ezequiel Schelotto, Italian footballer
1990 – Dan Evans, British tennis player
1990 – Kristina Kucova, Slovakian tennis player
1990 – Oliver Venno, Estonian volleyball player
1991 – Aaron Donald, American football player
1991 – Lena Meyer-Landrut, German singer-songwriter
1991 – César Pinares, Chilean footballer
1996 – Katharina Althaus, German ski jumper
1996 – Emmanuel Boateng, Ghanaian footballer
1996 – Razvan Marin, Romanian footballer
1997 – Pedro Chirivella, Spanish footballer
1997 – Coy Craft, American footballer
1997 – Joe Gomez, English footballer
1997 – Gustaf Nilsson, Swedish footballer
1997 – Sam Timmins, New Zealand basketball player
1998 – Sérgio Sette Câmara, Brazilian race car driver
1998 – Ross Cunningham, Scottish footballer
1998 – Salwa Eid Naser, Bahraini track and field sprinter
1998 – Luca De La Torre, American footballer
1998 – Steve Lacy, American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer
2000 – Felipe Drugovich, Brazilian race car driver
2000 – Jaxson Hayes, American basketball player

Deaths on May 23

230 – Urban I, pope of the Catholic Church
922 – Li Sizhao, Chinese general and governor
962 – Guibert of Gembloux, Frankish abbot (b. 892)
1125 – Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1081)
1304 – Jehan de Lescurel, French poet and composer
1338 – Alice de Warenne, Countess of Arundel, English noble (b. 1287)
1370 – Toghon Temür, Mongol emperor (b. 1320)
1423 – Antipope Benedict XIII (b. 1328)
1498 – Girolamo Savonarola, Italian friar and preacher (b. 1452)
1523 – Ashikaga Yoshitane, Japanese shōgun (b. 1466)
1524 – Ismail I, First Emperor of Safavid Empire (b. 1487)
1591 – John Blitheman, English organist and composer (b. 1525)
1662 – John Gauden, English bishop (b. 1605)
1670 – Ferdinando II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1610)
1691 – Adrien Auzout, French astronomer and instrument maker (b. 1622)
1701 – William Kidd, Scottish pirate (b. 1645)
1749 – Abraham ben Abraham, Polish martyr (b. 1700)
1752 – William Bradford, English-American printer (b. 1663)
1754 – John Wood, the Elder, English architect, designed The Circus and Queen Square (b. 1704)
1783 – James Otis, Jr., American lawyer and politician (b. 1725)
1813 – Géraud Duroc, French general and diplomat (b. 1772)
1815 – Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, American clergyman and botanist (b. 1753)
1841 – Franz Xaver von Baader, German philosopher and theologian (b. 1765)
1855 – Charles Robert Malden, English lieutenant and explorer (b. 1797)
1857 – Augustin-Louis Cauchy, French mathematician and academic (b. 1789)
1868 – Kit Carson, American general (b. 1809)
1886 – Leopold von Ranke, German historian and academic (b. 1795)
1893 – Anton von Schmerling, Austrian politician (b. 1805)
1895 – Franz Ernst Neumann, German mineralogist, physicist, and mathematician (b. 1798)
1906 – Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian director, playwright, and poet (b. 1828)
1908 – François Coppée, French poet and author (b. 1842)
1920 – Svetozar Boroević, Croatian-Austrian field marshal (b. 1856)
1921 – August Nilsson, Swedish shot putter and tug of war competitor (b. 1872)
1934 – Clyde Barrow, American criminal (b. 1909)
1934 – Mihkel Martna, Estonian journalist and politician (b. 1860)
1934 – Bonnie Parker, American criminal (b. 1910)
1937 – John D. Rockefeller, American businessman and philanthropist, founded the Standard Oil Company and Rockefeller University (b. 1839)
1938 – Frederick Ruple, Swiss-American painter (b. 1871)
1942 – Panagiotis Toundas, Greek composer and conductor (b. 1886)
1945 – Heinrich Himmler, German commander and politician, Reich Minister of the Interior (b. 1900)
1947 – Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, Swiss author and poet (b. 1878)
1949 – Jan Frans De Boever, Belgian painter and illustrator (b. 1872)
1956 – Gustav Suits, Latvian-Estonian poet and politician (b. 1883)
1960 – Georges Claude, French engineer and inventor, created Neon lighting (b. 1870)
1962 – Louis Coatalen, French engineer (b. 1879)
1963 – August Jakobson, Estonian author and politician (b. 1904)
1965 – David Smith, American sculptor (b. 1906)
1975 – Moms Mabley, American comedian and actor (b. 1894)
1979 – S. Selvanayagam, Sri Lankan geographer and academic (b. 1932)
1981 – Gene Green, American baseball player (b. 1933)
1981 – Rayner Heppenstall, English author and poet (b. 1911)
1981 – George Jessel, American actor, singer, and producer (b. 1898)
1981 – David Lewis, Belarusian-Canadian lawyer and politician (b. 1909)
1986 – Sterling Hayden, American actor (b. 1916)
1989 – Georgy Tovstonogov, Russian director and producer (b. 1915)
1989 – Karl Koch, German computer hacker (b. 1965)
1991 – Wilhelm Kempff, German pianist and composer (b. 1895)
1991 – Jean Van Houtte, Belgian academic and politician, 50th Prime Minister of Belgium (b. 1907)
1991 – Fletcher Markle, Canadian director, screenwriter, and producer (b. 1921)
1992 – Kostas Davourlis, Greek footballer (b. 1948)
1992 – Giovanni Falcone, Italian lawyer and judge (b. 1939)
1994 – Olav Hauge, Norwegian poet (b. 1908)
1996 – Kronid Lyubarsky, Russian journalist and activist (b. 1934)
1998 – Telford Taylor, American general and lawyer (b. 1908)
1999 – Owen Hart, Canadian-American wrestler (b. 1965)
2002 – Sam Snead, American golfer and journalist (b. 1912)
2006 – Lloyd Bentsen, American colonel and politician, 69th United States Secretary of the Treasury (b. 1921)
2006 – Kazimierz Górski, Polish footballer and manager (b. 1921)
2008 – Iñaki Ochoa de Olza, Spanish mountaineer (b. 1967)
2008 – Utah Phillips, American singer-songwriter and poet (b. 1935)
2009 – Roh Moo-hyun, South Korean soldier and politician, 9th President of South Korea (b. 1946)
2010 – José Lima, Dominican-American baseball player (b. 1972)
2010 – Simon Monjack, English director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1970)
2011 – Xavier Tondo, Spanish cyclist (b. 1978)
2012 – Paul Fussell, American historian, author, and academic (b. 1924)
2013 – Epy Guerrero, Dominican baseball player, coach, and scout (b. 1942)
2013 – Hayri Kozakçıoğlu, Turkish police officer and politician, 15th Governor of Istanbul Province (b. 1938)
2013 – Georges Moustaki, Egyptian-French singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1934)
2013 – Flynn Robinson, American basketball player (b. 1941)
2014 – Mikhail Egorovich Alekseev, Russian linguist and academic (b. 1949)
2014 – Madhav Mantri, Indian cricketer (b. 1921)
2015 – Anne Meara, American actress, comedian and playwright (b. 1929)
2015 – Aleksey Mozgovoy, Ukrainian sergeant (b. 1975)
2015 – Alicia Nash, Salvadoran-American physicist and engineer (b. 1933)
2015 – John Forbes Nash, Jr., American mathematician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1928)
2017 – Roger Moore, English actor (b. 1927)
2020 – Hana Kimura, Japanese professional wrestler (b. 1997)

Holidays and observances on May 23

Christian feast day:
- Aaron the Illustrious (Syriac Orthodox Church)
- Desiderius of Vienne
- Giovanni Battista de’ Rossi
- Julia of Corsica
- Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler (Episcopal Church (USA))
- Quintian, Lucius and Julian
- William of Perth
- May 23 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Constitution Day (Germany)
Earliest day on which Declaration of the Báb can fall, while May 24 is the latest; observed on ‘Aẓamat 8 (Bahá’í Faith)
Earliest day on which National Heroes’ Day can fall, while May 31 is the latest; celebrated on last Monday of May. (Turks and Caicos Islands)
Labour Day (Jamaica)
Students’ Day (Mexico)
World Turtle Day

May 23 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

May 22 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

192 – Dong Zhuo is assassinated by his adopted son Lü Bu.
760 – Fourteenth recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet.
853 – A Byzantine fleet sacks and destroys undefended Damietta in Egypt.
1176 – The Hashshashin (Assassins) attempt to assassinate Saladin near Aleppo.
1200 – King John of England and King Philip II of France sign the Treaty of Le Goulet.
1246 – Henry Raspe is elected anti-king of the Kingdom of Germany in opposition to Conrad IV.
1254 – Serbian King Stefan Uroš I and the Republic of Venice sign a peace treaty.
1370 – Brussels massacre: Hundreds of Jews are murdered and the rest of the Jewish community is banished from Brussels, Belgium, for allegedly desecrating consecrated Host.
1377 – Pope Gregory XI issues five papal bulls to denounce the doctrines of English theologian John Wycliffe.
1455 – Start of the Wars of the Roses: At the First Battle of St Albans, Richard, Duke of York, defeats and captures King Henry VI of England.
1520 – The massacre at the festival of Tóxcatl takes place during the Fall of Tenochtitlan, resulting in turning the Aztecs against the Spanish.
1629 – Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and Danish King Christian IV sign the Treaty of Lübeck ending Danish intervention in the Thirty Years’ War.
1762 – Sweden and Prussia sign the Treaty of Hamburg.
1762 – Trevi Fountain is officially completed and inaugurated in Rome.
1766 – A large earthquake causes heavy damage and loss of life in Istanbul and the Marmara region.
1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially begins as the Corps of Discovery departs from St. Charles, Missouri.
1807 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.
1809 – On the second and last day of the Battle of Aspern-Essling (near Vienna, Austria), Napoleon I is repelled by an enemy army for the first time.
1816 – A mob in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, England, riots over high unemployment and rising grain costs, and the riots spread to Ely the next day.
1819 – SS Savannah leaves port at Savannah, Georgia, United States, on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
1826 – HMS Beagle departs on its first voyage.
1840 – The penal transportation of British convicts to the New South Wales colony is abolished.
1848 – Slavery is abolished in Martinique.
1849 – Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is issued a patent for an invention to lift boats, making him the only U.S. president to ever hold a patent.
1856 – Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina severely beats Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made regarding Southerners and slavery.
1863 – American Civil War: Union forces begin the Siege of Port Hudson which lasts 48 days, the longest siege in U.S. military history.
1864 – American Civil War: After ten weeks, the Union Army’s Red River Campaign ends in failure.
1872 – Reconstruction Era: President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act into law, restoring full civil and political rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.
1900 – The Associated Press is formed in New York City as a non-profit news cooperative.
1906 – The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their “Flying-Machine”.
1915 – Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, the only volcano besides Mount St. Helens to erupt in the contiguous U.S. during the 20th century.
1915 – Three trains collide in the Quintinshill rail disaster near Gretna Green, Scotland, killing 227 people and injuring 246.
1926 – Chiang Kai-shek replaces the communists in Kuomintang China.
1927 – Near Xining, China, an 8.3 magnitude earthquake causes 200,000 deaths in one of the world’s most destructive earthquakes.
1939 – World War II: Germany and Italy sign the Pact of Steel.
1941 – During the Anglo-Iraqi War, British troops take Fallujah.
1942 – Mexico enters the Second World War on the side of the Allies.
1943 – Joseph Stalin disbands the Comintern.
1947 – Cold War: The Truman Doctrine goes into effect, aiding Turkey and Greece.
1957 – South Africa’s government approves of racial separation in universities.
1958 – The 1958 riots in Ceylon become a watershed in the race relations of various ethnic communities of Sri Lanka. The total deaths is estimated at 300, mostly Tamils.
1960 – The Great Chilean earthquake, measuring 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale, hits southern Chile, becoming the most powerful earthquake ever recorded.
1962 – Continental Airlines Flight 11 crashes after bombs explode on board.
1963 – Greek left-wing politician Grigoris Lambrakis is shot in an assassination attempt, and dies five days later.
1964 – Lyndon B. Johnson launches the Great Society.
1967 – Egypt closes the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping.
1967 – L’Innovation department store in Brussels, Belgium, burns down, resulting in 323 dead or missing and 150 injured, the most devastating fire in Belgian history.
1968 – The nuclear-powered submarine USS Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard, 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
1969 – Apollo 10’s lunar module flies within 8.4 nautical miles (16 km) of the moon’s surface.
1972 – Ceylon adopts a new constitution, becoming a republic and changing its name to Sri Lanka, and joins the Commonwealth of Nations.
1972 – Over 400 women in Derry, Northern Ireland attack the offices of Sinn Féin following the shooting by the Irish Republican Army of a young British soldier on leave.
1987 – Hashimpura massacre occurs in Meerut, India.
1987 – First ever Rugby World Cup kicks off with New Zealand playing Italy at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand.
1990 – North and South Yemen are unified to create the Republic of Yemen.
1992 – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia join the United Nations.
1994 – A worldwide trade embargo against Haiti goes into effect to punish its military rulers for not reinstating the country’s ousted elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
1996 – The Burmese military regime jails 71 supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi in a bid to block a pro-democracy meeting.
1998 – A U.S. federal judge rules that U.S. Secret Service agents can be compelled to testify before a grand jury concerning the Lewinsky scandal involving President Bill Clinton.
2000 – In Sri Lanka, over 150 Tamil rebels are killed over two days of fighting for control in Jaffna.
2002 – Civil rights movement: A jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murder of four girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
2010 – Air India Express Boeing 737 crashes over a cliff upon landing at Mangalore, India, killing 158 of 166 people on board, becoming the deadliest crash involving a Boeing 737.
2010 – Inter Milan beat Bayern Munich 2–0 in the Uefa Champions League final in Madrid, Spain to become the first, and so far only, Italian team to win the historic treble (Serie A, Coppa Italia, Champions League).
2011 – An EF5 tornado strikes Joplin, Missouri, killing 158 people and wreaking $2.8 billion in damages, the costliest and seventh-deadliest single tornado in U.S. history.
2012 – Tokyo Skytree opens to the public. It is the tallest tower in the world (634 m), and the second tallest man-made structure on Earth after Burj Khalifa (829.8 m).
2014 – General Prayut Chan-o-cha becomes interim leader of Thailand in a military coup d’état, following six months of political turmoil.
2014 – An explosion occurs in Ürümqi, capital of China’s far-western Xinjiang region, resulting in at least 43 deaths and 91 injuries.
2015 – The Republic of Ireland becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum.
2017 – Twenty-two people are killed at an Ariana Grande concert in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.
2017 – United States President Donald Trump visits the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and becomes the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Western Wall.

Births on May 22

626 – Itzam K’an Ahk I, Mayan king (d. 686)
1009 – Su Xun, Chinese writer (d. 1066)
1408 – Annamacharya, Hindu saint (d. 1503)
1539 – Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford (d. 1621)
1622 – Louis de Buade de Frontenac, French soldier and governor (d. 1698)
1644 – Gabriël Grupello, Flemish Baroque sculptor (d. 1730)
1650 – Richard Brakenburgh, Dutch Golden Age painter (d. 1702)
1694 – Daniel Gran, Austrian painter (d. 1757)
1715 – François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis, French cardinal and diplomat (d. 1794)
1733 – Hubert Robert, French painter (d. 1808)
1752 – Louis Legendre, French butcher and politician (d. 1797)
1762 – Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst, English politician (d. 1834)
1770 – Princess Elizabeth of the United Kingdom (d. 1840)
1772 – Ram Mohan Roy, Indian philosopher and reformer (d. 1833)
1782 – Hirose Tansō, Japanese neo-Confucian scholar, teacher, writer (d. 1856)
1783 – William Sturgeon, English physicist and inventor, invented the electromagnet and electric motor (d. 1850)
1808 – Gérard de Nerval, French poet and translator (d. 1855)
1811 – Giulia Grisi, Italian soprano (d. 1869)
1811 – Henry Pelham-Clinton, 5th Duke of Newcastle, English politician (d. 1864)
1813 – Richard Wagner, German composer (d. 1883)
1814 – Amalia Lindegren, Swedish painter (d. 1891)
1820 – Worthington Whittredge, American painter (d. 1910)
1828 – Albrecht von Graefe, German ophthalmologist and academic (d. 1870)
1831 – Henry Vandyke Carter, English anatomist and surgeon (d. 1897)
1833 – Félix Bracquemond, French painter and etcher (d. 1914)
1833 – Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla, Spanish politician, Prime Minister of Spain (d. 1895)
1841 – Catulle Mendès, French poet, author, and playwright (d. 1909)
1844 – Mary Cassatt, American painter and educator (d. 1926)
1846 – Rita Cetina Gutiérrez, Mexican poet, educator, and activist (d. 1908)
1848 – Fritz von Uhde, German painter and educator (d. 1911)
1849 – Aston Webb, English architect and academic (d. 1930)
1858 – Belmiro de Almeida, Brazilian painter, illustrator, sculptor (d. 1935)
1859 – Arthur Conan Doyle, British writer (d. 1930)
1859 – Tsubouchi Shōyō, Japanese author, playwright, and educator (d. 1935)
1864 – Willy Stöwer, German author and illustrator (d. 1931)
1868 – Augusto Pestana, Brazilian engineer and politician (d. 1934)
1874 – Daniel François Malan, South African clergyman and politician, 5th Prime Minister of South Africa (d. 1959)
1876 – Julius Klinger, Austrian painter and illustrator (d. 1942)
1879 – Warwick Armstrong, Australian cricketer and journalist (d. 1947)
1879 – Jean Cras, French admiral and composer (d. 1932)
1879 – Symon Petliura, Ukrainian statesman and independence leader (d. 1926)
1880 – Francis de Miomandre, French author and translator (d. 1959)
1885 – Giacomo Matteotti, Italian lawyer and politician (d. 1924)
1885 – Soemu Toyoda, Japanese admiral (d. 1957)
1887 – A. W. Sandberg, Danish film director and screenwriter (d. 1938)
1891 – Johannes R. Becher, German politician, novelist, and poet (d. 1958)
1894 – Friedrich Pollock, German sociologist and philosopher (d. 1970)
1897 – Robert Neumann, German and English-speaking author (d. 1975)
1900 – Juan Arvizu, Mexican lyric opera tenor and bolero vocalist (d.1985)
1901 – Maurice J. Tobin, American politician, 6th United States Secretary of Labor (d. 1953)
1902 – Jack Lambert, English footballer and manager (d. 1940)
1902 – Al Simmons, American baseball player and coach (d. 1956)
1904 – Uno Lamm, Swedish electrical engineer and inventor (d. 1989)
1905 – Bodo von Borries, German physicist and academic, co-invented the electron microscope (d. 1956)
1905 – Tom Driberg, British politician (d. 1976)
1907 – Hergé, Belgian author and illustrator (d. 1983)
1907 – Laurence Olivier, English actor, director, and producer (d. 1989)
1908 – Horton Smith, American golfer and captain (d. 1963)
1909 – Margaret Mee, English illustrator and educator (d. 1988)
1912 – Herbert C. Brown, English-American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004)
1913 – Rafael Gil, Spanish director and screenwriter (d. 1986)
1913 – Dominique Rolin, Belgian author (d. 2012)
1914 – Max Kohnstamm, Dutch historian and diplomat (d. 2010)
1914 – Sun Ra, American pianist, composer, bandleader, poet (d. 1993)
1917 – George Aratani, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 2013)
1917 – Jean-Louis Curtis, French author (d. 1995)
1919 – Paul Vanden Boeynants, Belgian businessman and politician, 55th Prime Minister of Belgium (d. 2001)
1920 – Thomas Gold, Austrian-American astrophysicist and academic (d. 2004)
1921 – George S. Hammond, American scientist (d. 2005)
1922 – Quinn Martin, American screenwriter and producer (d. 1987)
1924 – Charles Aznavour, French-Armenian singer-songwriter and actor (d. 2018)
1925 – Jean Tinguely, Swiss painter and sculptor (d. 1991)
1927 – Michael Constantine, American actor
1927 – Peter Matthiessen, American novelist, short story writer, editor, co-founded The Paris Review (d. 2014)
1927 – George Andrew Olah, Hungarian-American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2017)
1928 – Serge Doubrovsky, French theorist and author (d. 2017)
1928 – John Mackenzie, Scottish director and producer (d. 2011)
1928 – T. Boone Pickens, American businessman (d. 2019)
1928 – Hiroshi Sano, Japanese novelist (d. 2013)
1929 – Ahmed Fouad Negm, Egyptian poet (d. 2013)
1930 – Kenny Ball, English jazz trumpet player, vocalist, and bandleader (d. 2013)
1930 – Marisol Escobar, French-American sculptor (d. 2016)
1930 – Harvey Milk, American lieutenant and politician (d. 1978)
1932 – Robert Spitzer, American psychiatrist and academic (d. 2015)
1933 – Chen Jingrun, Chinese mathematician and academic (d. 1996)
1934 – Peter Nero, American pianist and conductor
1936 – George H. Heilmeier, American engineer (d. 2014)
1937 – Facundo Cabral, Argentinian singer-songwriter (d. 2011)
1938 – Richard Benjamin, American actor and director
1938 – Susan Strasberg, American actress (d. 1999)
1939 – Paul Winfield, American actor (d. 2004)
1940 – Kieth Merrill, American filmmaker
1940 – Michael Sarrazin, Canadian actor (d. 2011)
1940 – Bernard Shaw, American journalist
1940 – Mick Tingelhoff, American Pro Football Hall of Famer
1941 – Menzies Campbell, Scottish sprinter and politician
1942 – Roger Brown, American basketball player (d. 1997)
1942 – Ted Kaczynski, American academic and mathematician turned anarchist and serial murderer (Unabomber)
1942 – Barbara Parkins, Canadian actress
1942 – Richard Oakes, Native American civil rights activist (d. 1972)
1943 – Betty Williams, Northern Irish peace activist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2020)
1943 – Tommy John, American baseball player
1944 – John Flanagan, Australian fantasy author
1945 – Bob Katter, Australian politician
1946 – George Best, Northern Irish footballer and manager (d. 2005)
1946 – Michael Green, English physicist and academic
1946 – Howard Kendall, English footballer and manager (d. 2015)
1946 – Andrei Marga, Romanian philosopher, political scientist, politician
1946 – Lyudmila Zhuravleva, Russian-Ukrainian astronomer
1948 – Tomás Sánchez, Cuban painter and engraver
1948 – Nedumudi Venu, Indian actor and screenwriter
1949 – Cheryl Campbell, English actress
1949 – Valentin Inzko, Austrian diplomat
1950 – Bernie Taupin, English singer-songwriter and poet
1953 – François Bon, French writer
1953 – Cha Bum-kun, South Korean footballer and manager
1953 – Paul Mariner, English footballer, coach, and manager
1954 – Barbara May Cameron, Native American human rights activist (d. 2002)
1954 – Shuji Nakamura, Japanese-American physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate
1956 – Lucie Brock-Broido, American poet (d. 2018)
1957 – Lisa Murkowski, American lawyer and politician
1959 – David Blatt, Israeli-American basketball player and coach
1959 – Morrissey, English singer-songwriter and performer
1959 – Kwak Jae-yong, South Korean director and screenwriter
1959 – Mehbooba Mufti, Indian politician
1960 – Hideaki Anno, Japanese animator, director, and screenwriter
1962 – Brian Pillman, American football player and wrestler (d. 1997)
1963 – Claude Closky, French contemporary artist
1965 – Jay Carney, American journalist, 29th White House Press Secretary
1966 – Johnny Gill, American singer-songwriter and producer
1966 – Wang Xiaoshuai, Chinese director and screenwriter
1968 – Graham Linehan, Irish comedian, actor, and author
1969 – Cathy McMorris Rodgers, American lawyer and politician
1970 – Naomi Campbell, English model
1970 – Brody Stevens, American comedian and actor (d. 2019)
1972 – Max Brooks, American author and screenwriter
1973 – Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Danish actor
1974 – Garba Lawal, Nigerian footballer
1974 – Henrietta Ónodi, Hungarian Olympic gymnast
1974 – Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukrainian politician
1975 – Salva Ballesta, Spanish footballer and manager
1976 – Christian Vande Velde, American cyclist
1978 – Ginnifer Goodwin, American actress
1978 – Katie Price, English television personality and glamour model
1979 – Maggie Q, American actress
1979 – Nazanin Boniadi, Iranian-American actress
1980 – Sharice Davids, American politician
1980 – Lucy Gordon, British actress and model (d. 2009)
1981 – Daniel Bryan, American wrestler
1981 – Bassel Khartabil, Syrian computer programmer and engineer (d. 2015)
1981 – Jürgen Melzer, Austrian tennis player
1982 – Erin McNaught, Australian model and actress
1982 – Apolo Ohno, American speed skater
1982 – Hong Yong-jo, North Korean footballer
1983 – Natasha Kai, American soccer player and Olympic medalist
1984 – Karoline Herfurth, German actress
1984 – Didier Ya Konan, Ivorian footballer
1984 – Dustin Moskovitz, American entrepreneur, co-founder of Facebook
1985 – Tranquillo Barnetta, Swiss footballer
1985 – Tao Okamoto, Japanese model and actress
1986 – Julian Edelman, American football player
1986 – Matt Jarvis, English footballer
1986 – Tatiana Volosozhar, Russian figure skater
1987 – Novak Djokovic, Serbian tennis player
1987 – Arturo Vidal, Chilean footballer
1988 – Heida Reed, Icelandic-British actress
1989 – Corey Dickerson, American baseball player
1990 – Wyatt Roy, Australian politician
1991 – Joel Obi, Nigerian footballer
1991 – Suho, South Korean singer and actor
1992 – Anna Baryshnikov, American actress
1994 – Florian Luger, Austrian male model
1998 – Samile Bermannelli, Brazilian fashion model
1999 – Camren Bicondova, American actress
1999 – Femke Huijzer, Dutch model

Deaths on May 22

192 – Dong Zhuo, Chinese warlord and politician (b. 138)
337 – Constantine the Great, Roman emperor (b. 272)
748 – Empress Genshō of Japan (b. 683)
1067 – Constantine X, Byzantine Emperor (b. 1006)
1068 – Emperor Go-Reizei of Japan (b. 1025)
1310 – Saint Humility, founder of the Vallumbrosan religious order of nuns (b. c.1226)
1409 – Blanche of England, sister of King Henry V (b. 1392)
1455 – Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, English commander (b. 1406)
1455 – Thomas Clifford, 8th Baron de Clifford, Lancastrian commander (b. 1414)
1455 – Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, English commander (b. 1393)
1457 – Rita of Cascia, Italian nun and saint (b. 1381)
1490 – Edmund Grey, 1st Earl of Kent, English administrator, nobleman and magnate (b. 1416)
1538 – John Forest, English friar and martyr (b. 1471)
1540 – Francesco Guicciardini, Italian historian and politician (b. 1483)
1545 – Sher Shah Suri, Indian ruler (b. 1486)
1553 – Giovanni Bernardi, Italian sculptor and engraver (b. 1495)
1602 – Renata of Lorraine (b. 1544)
1609 – Pieter Willemsz. Verhoeff, Dutch captain (b. 1573)
1666 – Gaspar Schott, German physicist and mathematician (b. 1608)
1667 – Pope Alexander VII (b. 1599)
1745 – François-Marie, 1st duc de Broglie, French general (b. 1671)
1760 – Baal Shem Tov, Polish rabbi and author (b. 1700)
1772 – Durastante Natalucci, Italian historian and academic (b. 1687)
1795 – Ewald Friedrich von Hertzberg, Prussian politician, Foreign Minister of Prussia (b. 1725)
1802 – Martha Washington, First, First Lady of the United States (b. 1731)
1851 – Mordecai Manuel Noah, American journalist and diplomat (b. 1755)
1859 – Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies (b. 1810)
1861 – Thornsbury Bailey Brown, American soldier (b. 1829)
1868 – Julius Plücker, German mathematician and physicist (b. 1801)
1885 – Victor Hugo, French novelist, poet, and playwright (b. 1802)
1901 – Gaetano Bresci, Italian-American anarchist, assassin of Umberto I of Italy (b. 1869)
1910 – Jules Renard, French author and playwright (b. 1864)
1932 – Augusta, Lady Gregory, Anglo-Irish activist, landlord, and playwright, co-founded the Abbey Theatre (b. 1852)
1933 – Tsengeltiin Jigjidjav, Mongolian politician, 10th Prime Minister of Mongolia (b. 1894)
1938 – William Glackens, American painter and illustrator (b. 1870)
1939 – Ernst Toller, German playwright and author (b. 1893)
1939 – Jiří Mahen, Czech author and playwright (b. 1882)
1954 – Chief Bender, American baseball player, coach, and manager (b. 1884)
1965 – Christopher Stone, English radio host (b. 1882)
1966 – Tom Goddard, English cricketer (b. 1900)
1967 – Langston Hughes, American poet, social activist, novelist, and playwright (b. 1902)
1967 – Charlotte Serber, American Librarian of the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos site (b. 1911)
1972 – Cecil Day-Lewis, Anglo-Irish poet and author (b. 1904)
1972 – Margaret Rutherford, English actress (b. 1892)
1974 – Irmgard Flügge-Lotz, German-American mathematician and aerospace engineer (b. 1903)
1975 – Lefty Grove, American baseball player (b. 1900)
1982 – Cevdet Sunay, Turkish general and politician, 5th President of Turkey (b. 1899)
1983 – Albert Claude, Belgian biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1899)
1985 – Wolfgang Reitherman, German-American animator, director, and producer (b. 1909)
1988 – Giorgio Almirante, Italian journalist and politician (b. 1914)
1989 – Steven De Groote, South African pianist and educator (b. 1953)
1990 – Rocky Graziano, American boxer (b. 1922)
1991 – Shripad Amrit Dange, Indian lawyer and politician (b. 1899)
1991 – Stan Mortensen, English footballer and manager (b. 1921)
1992 – Zellig Harris, American linguist and academic (b. 1909)
1993 – Mieczysław Horszowski, Polish-American pianist and composer (b. 1892)
1997 – Alziro Bergonzo, Italian architect and painter (b. 1906)
1997 – Alfred Hershey, American biochemist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1908)
1998 – John Derek, American actor, director, and photographer (b. 1926)
1998 – José Enrique Moyal, Israeli physicist and engineer (b. 1910)
2000 – Davie Fulton, Canadian lawyer, judge, and politician (b. 1916)
2004 – Richard Biggs, American actor (b. 1960)
2004 – Mikhail Voronin, Russian gymnast (b. 1945)
2005 – Charilaos Florakis, Greek politician (b. 1914)
2005 – Thurl Ravenscroft, American voice actor and singer (b. 1914)
2006 – Lee Jong-wook, South Korean physician and diplomat (b. 1945)
2007 – Pemba Doma Sherpa, Nepalese mountaineer (b. 1970)
2008 – Robert Asprin, American soldier and author (b. 1946)
2010 – Martin Gardner, American mathematician, cryptographer, and author (b. 1914)
2011 – Joseph Brooks, American director, producer, screenwriter, and composer (b. 1938)
2012 – Muzafar Bhutto, Pakistani politician (b. 1970)
2012 – Wesley A. Brown, American lieutenant and engineer (b. 1927)
2013 – Sigurd Ottovich Schmidt, Russian historian and ethnographer (b. 1922)
2015 – Marques Haynes, American basketball player and coach (b. 1926)
2015 – Vladimir Katriuk, Ukrainian-Canadian SS officer (b. 1921)
2016 – Velimir “Bata” Živojinović, Serbian actor and politician (b. 1933)
2017 – Nicky Hayden, American motorcycle racer (b. 1981)
2019 – Judith Kerr, German-born British writer and illustrator (b. 1923)
2020 – Denise Cronenberg, Canadian costume designer (b. 1938)

Holidays and observances on May 22

Abolition Day (Martinique)
Christian feast day:
- Castus and Emilius
- Fulk
- Humilita
- Michael Hồ Đình Hy (one of Vietnamese Martyrs)
- Quiteria
- Rita of Cascia
- Romanus of Subiaco
- May 22 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Harvey Milk Day (California)
International Day for Biological Diversity (International)
United States National Maritime Day
National Sovereignty Day (Haiti)
Republic Day (Sri Lanka)
Translation of the Relics of Saint Nicholas from Myra to Bari (Ukraine)
Unity Day (Yemen), celebrates the unification of North and South Yemen into the Republic of Yemen in 1990.
World Goth Day

May 22 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

May 18 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

332 – Emperor Constantine the Great announces free distributions of food to the citizens in Constantinople.
872 – Louis II of Italy is crowned for the second time as Roman Emperor at Rome, at the age of 47. His first coronation was 28 years earlier, in 844, during the reign of his father Lothair I.
1096 – First Crusade: Around 800 Jews are massacred in Worms, Germany.
1152 – The future Henry II of England marries Eleanor of Aquitaine. He would become king two years later, after the death of his cousin once removed King Stephen of England.
1268 – The Principality of Antioch, a crusader state, falls to the Mamluk Sultan Baibars in the Siege of Antioch.
1291 – Fall of Acre, the end of Crusader presence in the Holy Land.
1302 – Bruges Matins, the nocturnal massacre of the French garrison in Bruges by members of the local Flemish militia.
1388 – During the Battle of Buyur Lake, General Lan Yu leads a Chinese army forward to crush the Mongol hordes of Tögüs Temür, the Khan of Northern Yuan.
1499 – Alonso de Ojeda sets sail from Cádiz on his voyage to what is now Venezuela.
1565 – The Great Siege of Malta begins, in which Ottoman forces attempt and fail to conquer Malta.
1593 – Playwright Thomas Kyd’s accusations of heresy lead to an arrest warrant for Christopher Marlowe.
1631 – In Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Winthrop takes the oath of office and becomes the first Governor of Massachusetts.
1652 – Slavery in Rhode Island is abolished, although the law is not rigorously enforced.
1756 – The Seven Years’ War begins when Great Britain declares war on France.
1783 – First United Empire Loyalists reach Parrtown (later called Saint John, New Brunswick), Canada, after leaving the United States.
1794 – Battle of Tourcoing during the Flanders Campaign of the War of the First Coalition.
1803 – Napoleonic Wars: The United Kingdom revokes the Treaty of Amiens and declares war on France.
1804 – Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of the French by the French Senate.
1811 – Battle of Las Piedras: The first great military triumph of the revolution of the Río de la Plata in Uruguay led by José Artigas.
1812 – John Bellingham is found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging for the assassination of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.
1843 – The Disruption in Edinburgh of the Free Church of Scotland from the Church of Scotland.
1848 – Opening of the first German National Assembly (Nationalversammlung) in Frankfurt, Germany.
1860 – Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican Party presidential nomination over William H. Seward, who later becomes the United States Secretary of State.
1863 – American Civil War: The Siege of Vicksburg begins.
1896 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that the “separate but equal” doctrine is constitutional.
1896 – Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field in Moscow during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II results in the deaths of 1,389 people.
1900 – The United Kingdom proclaims a protectorate over Tonga.
1912 – The first Indian film, Shree Pundalik by Dadasaheb Torne, is released in Mumbai.
1917 – World War I: The Selective Service Act of 1917 is passed, giving the President of the United States the power of conscription.
1926 – Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappears in Venice, California.
1927 – The Bath School disaster: Forty-five people, including many children, are killed by bombs planted by a disgruntled school-board member in Michigan.
1927 – After being founded for 20 years, the Government of the Republic of China approves Tongji University to be among the first national universities of the Republic of China.
1933 – New Deal: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.
1944 – World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino: Conclusion after seven days of the fourth battle as German paratroopers evacuate Monte Cassino.
1944 – Deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union government.
1948 – The First Legislative Yuan of the Republic of China officially convenes in Nanking.
1953 – Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.
1955 – Operation Passage to Freedom, the evacuation of 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist North Vietnam to South Vietnam following the end of the First Indochina War, ends.
1965 – Israeli spy Eli Cohen is hanged in Damascus, Syria.
1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 is launched.
1973 – Aeroflot Flight 109 is hijacked mid-flight and the aircraft is subsequently destroyed when the hijacker’s bomb explodes, killing all 82 people on board.
1974 – Nuclear weapons testing: Under project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonates its first nuclear weapon becoming the sixth nation to do so.
1977 – Likud party wins the 1977 Israeli legislative election, with Menachem Begin, its founder, as the sixth Prime Minister of Israel.
1980 – Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage.
1980 – Students in Gwangju, South Korea begin demonstrations calling for democratic reforms.
1990 – In France, a modified TGV train achieves a new rail world speed record of 515.3 km/h (320.2 mph).
1991 – Northern Somalia declares independence from the rest of Somalia as the Republic of Somaliland but is not recognized by the international community.
1993 – Riots in Nørrebro, Copenhagen, caused by the approval of the four Danish exceptions in the Maastricht Treaty referendum. Police open fire against civilians for the first time since World War II and injure 11 demonstrators.
1994 – Israeli troops finish withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, ceding the area to the Palestinian National Authority to govern.
2005 – A second photo from the Hubble Space Telescope confirms that Pluto has two additional moons, Nix and Hydra.
2006 – The post Loktantra Andolan government passes a landmark bill curtailing the power of the monarchy and making Nepal a secular country.
2009 – The LTTE are defeated by the Sri Lankan government, ending almost 26 years of fighting between the two sides.
2015 – At least 78 people die in a landslide caused by heavy rains in the Colombian town of Salgar.
2018 – A school shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas kills 10 people.

Births on May 18

1048 – Omar Khayyám, Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet (d. 1131)
1186 – Konstantin of Rostov (d. 1218)
1450 – Piero Soderini, Italian politician and diplomat (d. 1513)
1537 – Guido Luca Ferrero, Roman Catholic cardinal (d. 1585)
1631 – Stanislaus Papczyński, Polish priest (d. 1701)
1662 – George Smalridge, English bishop (d. 1719)
1692 – Joseph Butler, English bishop, theologian, and apologist (d. 1752)
1711 – Roger Joseph Boscovich, Ragusan physicist, astronomer, and mathematician (d. 1787)
1777 – John George Children, English chemist, mineralogist, and zoologist (d. 1852)
1778 – Charles Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, Irish soldier and diplomat, British Ambassador to Austria (d. 1854)
1785 – John Wilson, Scottish author and critic (d. 1854)
1797 – Frederick Augustus II of Saxony (d. 1854)
1822 – Mathew Brady, American photographer and journalist (d. 1896)
1835 – Charles N. Sims, American Methodist preacher and 3rd chancellor of Syracuse University (d. 1908)
1850 – Oliver Heaviside, English engineer, mathematician, and physicist (d. 1925)
1851 – James Budd, American lawyer and politician, 19th Governor of California (d. 1908)
1852 – Gertrude Käsebier, American photographer (d. 1934)
1854 – Bernard Zweers, Dutch composer and educator (d. 1924)
1855 – Francis Bellamy, American minister and author (d. 1931)
1862 – Josephus Daniels, American publisher and politician, 41st United States Secretary of the Navy (d. 1948)
1867 – Minakata Kumagusu, Japanese author, biologist, naturalist and ethnologist (d. 1941)
1868 – Nicholas II of Russia (d. 1918)
1869 – Lucy Beaumont, English-American actress (d. 1937)
1871 – Denis Horgan, Irish shot putter and weight thrower (d. 1922)
1872 – Bertrand Russell, British mathematician, historian, and philosopher, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1970)
1876 – Hermann Müller, German journalist and politician, 12th Chancellor of Germany (d. 1931)
1878 – Johannes Terwogt, Dutch rower (d. 1977)
1882 – Babe Adams, American baseball player, manager, and journalist (d. 1968)
1883 – Eurico Gaspar Dutra, Brazilian marshal and politician, 16th President of Brazil (d. 1974)
1883 – Walter Gropius, German-American architect, designed the John F. Kennedy Federal Building (d. 1969)
1886 – Jeanie MacPherson, American actress and screenwriter (d. 1946)
1889 – Thomas Midgley, Jr., American chemist and engineer (d. 1944)
1891 – Rudolf Carnap, German-American philosopher and academic (d. 1970)
1892 – Ezio Pinza, Italian-American actor and singer (d. 1957)
1895 – Augusto César Sandino, Nicaraguan rebel leader (d. 1934)
1896 – Eric Backman, Swedish runner (d. 1965)
1897 – Frank Capra, Italian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1991)
1898 – Faruk Nafiz Çamlıbel, Turkish poet, author, and playwright (d. 1973)
1901 – Henri Sauguet, French composer (d. 1989)
1901 – Vincent du Vigneaud, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)
1902 – Meredith Willson, American playwright and composer (d. 1984)
1904 – Shunryū Suzuki, Japanese-American monk and educator (d. 1971)
1904 – Jacob K. Javits, American colonel and politician, 58th New York Attorney General (d. 1986)
1905 – Ruth Alexander, pioneering American pilot (d. 1930)
1905 – Hedley Verity, English cricketer and soldier (d. 1943)
1907 – Irene Hunt, American author and educator (d. 2001)
1909 – Fred Perry, English-Australian tennis player and academic (d. 1995)
1910 – Ester Boserup, Danish economist and author (d. 1999)
1911 – Big Joe Turner, American blues/R&B singer (d. 1985)
1912 – Richard Brooks, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1992)
1912 – Perry Como, American singer and television host (d. 2001)
1912 – Walter Sisulu, South African politician (d. 2003)
1913 – Jane Birdwood, Baroness Birdwood, Canadian-English publisher and politician (d. 2000)
1914 – Pierre Balmain, French fashion designer, founded Balmain (d. 1982)
1914 – Boris Christoff, Bulgarian-Italian opera singer (d. 1993)
1917 – Bill Everett, American author and illustrator (d. 1973)
1919 – Margot Fonteyn, British ballerina (d. 1991)
1920 – Pope John Paul II (d. 2005)
1921 – Michael A. Epstein, English pathologist and academic
1922 – Bill Macy, American actor (d. 2019)
1922 – Kai Winding, Danish-American trombonist and composer (d. 1983)
1923 – Jean-Louis Roux, Canadian actor and politician, 34th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (d. 2013)
1923 – Hugh Shearer, Jamaican journalist and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Jamaica (d. 2004)
1924 – Priscilla Pointer, American actress
1924 – Jack Whitaker, American sportscaster (d. 2019)
1925 – Lillian Hoban, American author and illustrator (d. 1998)
1927 – Richard Body, English politician (d. 2018)
1927 – Ray Nagel, American football player and coach (d. 2015)
1928 – Pernell Roberts, American actor (d. 2010)
1929 – Jack Sanford, American baseball player and coach (d. 2000)
1929 – Norman St John-Stevas, Baron St John of Fawsley, English lawyer and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (d. 2012)
1930 – Warren Rudman, American soldier, lawyer, and politician (d. 2012)
1930 – Fred Saberhagen, American soldier and author (d. 2007)
1931 – Don Martin, American cartoonist (d. 2000)
1931 – Robert Morse, American actor
1931 – Kalju Pitksaar, Estonian chess player (d. 1995)
1931 – Clément Vincent, Canadian farmer and politician (d. 2018)
1933 – Bernadette Chirac, French politician, First Lady of France
1933 – H. D. Deve Gowda, Indian farmer and politician, 11th Prime Minister of India
1933 – Don Whillans, English rock climber and mountaineer (d. 1985)
1934 – Dwayne Hickman, American actor and director
1936 – Leon Ashley, American singer-songwriter (d. 2013)
1936 – Türker İnanoğlu, Turkish director, producer, and screenwriter
1936 – Michael Sandle, English sculptor and academic
1937 – Brooks Robinson, American baseball player and sportscaster
1937 – Jacques Santer, Luxembourger jurist and politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Luxembourg
1938 – Janet Fish, American painter and academic
1939 – Patrick Cormack, Baron Cormack, English historian, journalist, and politician
1939 – Giovanni Falcone, Italian lawyer and judge (d. 1992)
1939 – Gordon O’Connor, Canadian general and politician, 38th Canadian Minister of Defence
1940 – Erico Aumentado, Filipino journalist, lawyer, and politician (d. 2012)
1941 – Gino Brito, Canadian wrestler and promoter
1941 – Malcolm Longair, Scottish astronomer, physicist, and academic
1941 – Miriam Margolyes, English-Australian actress and singer
1942 – Nobby Stiles, English footballer, coach, and manager
1944 – Albert Hammond, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1944 – W. G. Sebald, German novelist, essayist, and poet (d. 2001)
1946 – Frank Hsieh, Taiwanese lawyer and politician, 40th Premier of the Republic of China
1946 – Reggie Jackson, American baseball player and sportscaster
1946 – Gerd Langguth, German political scientist and author (d. 2013)
1947 – John Bruton, Irish politician, 10th Taoiseach of Ireland
1947 – Gail Strickland, American actress
1948 – Joe Bonsall, American country/gospel singer
1948 – Yi Mun-yol, South Korean author and academic
1948 – Richard Swedberg, Swedish sociologist and academic
1948 – Tom Udall, American lawyer and politician, 28th New Mexico Attorney General, United States Senator from New Mexico
1949 – Rick Wakeman, English progressive rock keyboardist and songwriter (Yes)
1949 – Walter Hawkins, American gospel music singer and pastor (d. 2010)
1950 – Rod Milburn, American hurdler and coach (d. 1997)
1950 – Mark Mothersbaugh, American singer-songwriter and painter
1951 – Richard Clapton, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1951 – Jim Sundberg, American baseball player and sportscaster
1951 – Angela Voigt, German long jumper (d. 2013)
1952 – Diane Duane, American author and screenwriter
1952 – David Leakey, English general and politician
1952 – George Strait, American singer, guitarist and producer
1952 – Jeana Yeager, American pilot
1953 – Alan Kupperberg, American author and illustrator (d. 2015)
1954 – Wreckless Eric, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1954 – Eric Gerets, Belgian footballer and manager
1955 – Chow Yun-fat, Hong Kong actor and screenwriter
1956 – Catherine Corsini, French director and screenwriter
1956 – John Godber, English playwright and screenwriter
1957 – Michael Cretu, Romanian-German keyboard player and producer
1957 – Henrietta Moore, English anthropologist and academic
1958 – Rubén Omar Romano, Argentinian-Mexican footballer and coach
1958 – Toyah Willcox, English singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1959 – Graham Dilley, English cricketer and coach (d. 2011)
1959 – Jay Wells, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1960 – Brent Ashton, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1960 – Jari Kurri, Finnish ice hockey player, coach, and manager
1960 – Yannick Noah, French tennis player
1961 – Russell Senior, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1963 – Marty McSorley, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1963 – Sam Vincent, American basketball player and coach
1964 – Ignasi Guardans, Spanish academic and politician
1966 – Renata Nielsen, Polish-Danish long jumper and coach
1966 – Michael Tait, American singer-songwriter and producer
1967 – Nina Björk, Swedish journalist and author
1967 – Heinz-Harald Frentzen, German race car driver
1967 – Nancy Juvonen, American screenwriter and producer, co-founded Flower Films
1967 – Mimi Macpherson, Australian environmentalist, entrepreneur and celebrity
1968 – Philippe Benetton, French rugby player
1968 – Ralf Kelleners, German race car driver
1969 – Troy Cassar-Daley, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1969 – Martika, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1969 – Antônio Carlos Zago, Brazilian footballer and manager
1970 – Tina Fey, American actress, producer, and screenwriter
1970 – Tim Horan, Australian rugby player and sportscaster
1970 – Billy Howerdel, American guitarist, songwriter, and producer
1970 – Javier Cárdenas, Spanish singer, television and radio presenter
1970 – Vicky Sunohara, Canadian former ice hockey player
1971 – Brad Friedel, American international soccer player, goalkeeper, manager and sportscaster
1971 – Mark Menzies, Scottish politician
1971 – Nobuteru Taniguchi, Japanese race car driver
1972 – Turner Stevenson, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1973 – Donyell Marshall, American basketball player and coach
1973 – Aleksandr Olerski, Estonian footballer (d. 2011)
1974 – Nelson Figueroa, American baseball player and sportscaster
1975 – Jem, Welsh singer-songwriter and producer
1975 – John Higgins, Scottish snooker player
1975 – Jack Johnson, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1976 – Ron Mercer, American basketball player
1976 – Marko Tomasović, Croatian pianist and composer
1976 – Oleg Tverdovsky, Ukrainian-Russian ice hockey player
1977 – Lee Hendrie, English footballer
1977 – Danny Mills, English footballer and sportscaster
1977 – Li Tie, Chinese footballer and manager
1978 – Ricardo Carvalho, Portuguese footballer
1978 – Marcus Giles, American baseball player
1978 – Charles Kamathi, Kenyan runner
1979 – Jens Bergensten, Swedish video game designer, co-designed Minecraft
1979 – Mariusz Lewandowski, Polish footballer
1979 – Michal Martikán, Slovak slalom canoeist
1979 – Milivoje Novaković, Slovenian footballer
1979 – Julián Speroni, Argentinian footballer
1980 – Reggie Evans, American basketball player
1980 – Michaël Llodra, French tennis player
1980 – Diego Pérez, Uruguayan footballer
1981 – Mahamadou Diarra, Malian international footballer
1981 – Ashley Harrison, Australian rugby league player
1982 – Jason Brown, English footballer
1982 – Marie-Ève Pelletier, Canadian tennis player
1983 – Gary O’Neil, English footballer
1983 – Luis Terrero, Dominican baseball player
1983 – Vince Young, American football player
1984 – Ivet Lalova, Bulgarian sprinter
1984 – Simon Pagenaud, French race car driver
1984 – Darius Šilinskis, Lithuanian basketball player
1984 – Joakim Soria, Mexican baseball player
1984 – Niki Terpstra, Dutch cyclist
1985 – Oliver Sin, Hungarian painter
1985 – Henrique Sereno, Portuguese footballer
1986 – Ahmed Hamada, Egyptian race car driver
1986 – Kevin Anderson, South African tennis player
1988 – Taeyang, South Korean singer
1990 – Dimitri Daeseleire, Belgian footballer
1990 – Yuya Osako, Japanese footballer
1990 – Josh Starling, Australian rugby league player
1992 – Adwoa Aboah, British fashion model
1993 – Stuart Percy, Canadian ice hockey player
1993 – Jessica Watson, Australian sailor
1998 – Polina Edmunds, American figure skater
1999 – Laura Omloop, Belgian singer-songwriter
2000 – Ryan Sessegnon, English footballer
2000 – Steven Sessegnon, English footballer
2002 – Alina Zagitova, Russian figure skater

Deaths on May 18

526 – Pope John I (b. 470)
893 – Stephen I of Constantinople (b. 867)
932 – Ma Shaohong, general of Later Tang
947 – Emperor Taizong of the Liao Dynasty
978 – Frederick I, duke of Upper Lorraine
1065 – Frederick, Duke of Lower Lorraine (b. c. 1003)
1096 – Minna of Worms, Jewish martyr killed during the Worms massacre (1096)
1160 – Eric Jedvardsson (King Eric IX) of Sweden (since 1156); (b. circa 1120)
1297 – Nicholas Longespee, Bishop of Salisbury
1401 – Vladislaus II of Opole (b. 1332)
1410 – Rupert of Germany, Count Palatine of the Rhine (b. 1352)
1550 – Jean, Cardinal of Lorraine (b. 1498)
1551 – Domenico di Pace Beccafumi, Italian painter (b. 1486)
1675 – Stanisław Lubieniecki, Polish astronomer, historian, and theologian (b. 1623)
1675 – Jacques Marquette, French-American missionary and explorer (b. 1637)
1692 – Elias Ashmole, English astrologer and politician (b. 1617)
1721 – Maria Barbara Carillo, victim of the Spanish Inquisition (b.1625)
1733 – Georg Böhm, German organist and composer (b. 1761)
1780 – Charles Hardy, English-American admiral and politician, 29th Colonial Governor of New York (b. 1714)
1781 – Túpac Amaru II, Peruvian-Indian rebel leader (b. 1742)
1792 – Levy Solomons, Canadian merchant and fur trader (b. 1730)
1795 – Robert Rogers, English colonel (b. 1731)
1799 – Pierre Beaumarchais, French playwright and publisher (b. 1732)
1800 – Alexander Suvorov, Russian general (b. 1729)
1807 – John Douglas, Scottish bishop and scholar (b. 1721)
1808 – Elijah Craig, American minister, inventor, and educator, invented Bourbon whiskey (b. 1738)
1844 – Richard McCarty, American lawyer and politician (b. 1780)
1853 – Lionel Kieseritzky, Estonian-French chess player (b. 1806)
1867 – Clarkson Stanfield, English painter (b. 1793)
1889 – Isabella Glyn, Scottish-English actress (b. 1823)
1900 – Félix Ravaisson-Mollien, French archaeologist and philosopher (b. 1813)
1908 – Louis-Napoléon Casault, Canadian lawyer, judge, and politician (b. 1823)
1909 – Isaac Albéniz, Spanish pianist and composer (b. 1860)
1909 – George Meredith, English novelist and poet (b. 1828)
1910 – Eliza Orzeszkowa, Polish author and publisher (b. 1841)
1910 – Pauline Viardot, French soprano and composer (b. 1821)
1911 – Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer and conductor (b. 1860)
1922 – Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, French physician and parasitologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1845)
1941 – Werner Sombart, German economist and sociologist (b. 1863)
1943 – Ōnishiki Daigorō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 28th Yokozuna (b. 1883)
1947 – Hal Chase, American baseball player and manager (b. 1883)
1955 – Mary McLeod Bethune, American educator and activist (b. 1875)
1956 – Maurice Tate, English cricketer (b. 1895)
1958 – Jacob Fichman, Israeli poet and critic (b. 1881)
1963 – Ernie Davis, American football player, coach, and manager (b. 1939)
1968 – Frank Walsh, Australian politician, 34th Premier of South Australia (b. 1897)
1971 – Aleksandr Gennadievich Kurosh, Russian mathematician and theorist (b. 1908)
1973 – Jeannette Rankin, American social worker and politician (b. 1880)
1974 – Harry Ricardo, English engine designer and researcher (b. 1885)
1975 – Leroy Anderson, American composer and conductor (b. 1908)
1980 – Victims of Mount St. Helens eruption:
- Reid Blackburn, American photographer and journalist (b. 1952)
- David A. Johnston, American volcanologist and geologist (b. 1949)
1980 – Ian Curtis, English singer-songwriter (b. 1956)
1981 – Arthur O’Connell, American actor (b. 1908)
1981 – William Saroyan, American novelist, playwright, and short story writer (b. 1908)
1987 – Mahdi Amel, Lebanese journalist, poet, and academic (b. 1936)
1989 – Dorothy Ruth, American horse breeder and author (b. 1921)
1990 – Jill Ireland, English actress (b. 1936)
1995 – Elisha Cook, Jr., American actor (b. 1903)
1995 – Alexander Godunov, Russian-American ballet dancer and actor (b. 1949)
1995 – Brinsley Le Poer Trench, 8th Earl of Clancarty, Irish ufologist and historian (b. 1911)
1995 – Elizabeth Montgomery, American actress (b. 1933)
1998 – Obaidullah Aleem, Indian-Pakistani poet and author (b. 1939)
1999 – Augustus Pablo, Jamaican singer, keyboard player, and producer (b. 1954)
1999 – Betty Robinson, American runner (b. 1911)
2000 – Stephen M. Wolownik, Russian-American composer and musicologist (b. 1946)
2001 – Irene Hunt, American author and illustrator (b. 1907)
2004 – Elvin Jones, American drummer and bandleader (b. 1927)
2006 – Jaan Eilart, Estonian geographer, ecologist, and historian (b. 1933)
2007 – Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1932)
2008 – Joseph Pevney, American actor and director (b. 1911)
2008 – Roberto García-Calvo Montiel, Spanish judge (b. 1942)
2009 – Velupillai Prabhakaran, Sri Lankan rebel leader, founded the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (b. 1954)
2012 – Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, German opera singer and conductor (b. 1925)
2012 – Peter Jones, English-Australian drummer and songwriter (b. 1967)
2012 – Alan Oakley, English bicycle designer, designed the Raleigh Chopper (b. 1927)
2013 – Aleksei Balabanov, Russian director and screenwriter (b. 1959)
2013 – Jo Benkow, Norwegian soldier and politician (b. 1924)
2013 – Steve Forrest, American actor (b. 1925)
2013 – David McMillan, American football player (b. 1981)
2013 – Lothar Schmid, German chess player (b. 1928)
2014 – Dobrica Ćosić, Serbian politician, 1st President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (b. 1921)
2014 – Hans-Peter Dürr, German physicist and academic (b. 1929)
2014 – Kaiketsu Masateru, Japanese sumo wrestler (b. 1948)
2014 – Chukwuedu Nwokolo, Nigerian physician and academic (b. 1921)
2014 – Wubbo Ockels, Dutch physicist and astronaut (b. 1946)
2015 – Halldór Ásgrímsson, Icelandic accountant and politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Iceland (b. 1947)
2015 – Raymond Gosling, English physicist and academic (b. 1926)
2015 – T. J. Moran, American businessman and philanthropist (b. 1930)
2015 – Jean-François Théodore, French businessman (b. 1946)
2017 – Roger Ailes, American businessman (b. 1940)
2017 – Jacque Fresco, American engineer and academic (b. 1916)
2017 – Chris Cornell, American singer (b. 1964)
2020 – Ken Osmond, American actor and the police officer (b. 1943)

Holidays and observances on May 18

Christian feast day:
- Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury
- Eric IX of Sweden
- Felix of Cantalice
- Pope John I
- Venantius of Camerino
- May 18 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Victoria Day (Canada) (Earliest possible date of the last Monday preceding May 25)
Baltic Fleet Day (Russia)
Battle of Las Piedras Day (Uruguay)
Day of Remembrance of Crimean Tatar genocide (Ukraine)
Flag and Universities Day (Haiti)
Independence Day (Somaliland) (unrecognized)
International Museum Day
Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day (Sri Lankan Tamils)
Revival, Unity, and Poetry of Magtymguly Day (Turkmenistan)
Teacher’s Day (Syria)
Victory Day (Sri Lanka)
World AIDS Vaccine Day

May 18 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

May 17 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

1395 – Battle of Rovine: The Wallachians defeat an invading Ottoman army.
1536 – George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford and four other men are executed for treason.
1536 – Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn’s marriage is annulled.
1590 – Anne of Denmark is crowned Queen of Scotland.
1642 – Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve (1612–1676) founds the Ville Marie de Montréal.
1673 – Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River.
1792 – The New York Stock Exchange is formed under the Buttonwood Agreement.
1805 – Muhammad Ali becomes Wāli of Egypt.
1809 – Emperor Napoleon I orders the annexation of the Papal States to the French Empire.
1814 – Occupation of Monaco changes from French to Austrian.
1814 – The Constitution of Norway is signed and Crown Prince Christian Frederick of Denmark is elected King of Norway by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly.
1859 – Members of the Melbourne Football Club codified the first rules of Australian rules football.
1863 – Rosalía de Castro publishes Cantares Gallegos, the first book in the Galician language.
1865 – The International Telegraph Union (later the International Telecommunication Union) is established in Paris.
1875 – Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby with the jockey Oliver Lewis (2:37.75)
1900 – Second Boer War: British troops relieve Mafeking.
1900 – The children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, is first published in the United States. The first copy is given to the author’s sister.
1902 – Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer.
1914 – The Protocol of Corfu is signed, recognising full autonomy to Northern Epirus under nominal Albanian sovereignty.
1915 – The last British Liberal Party government (led by H. H. Asquith) falls.
1933 – Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort form Nasjonal Samling — the national-socialist party of Norway.
1939 – The Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers play in the United States’ first televised sporting event, a collegiate baseball game in New York City.
1940 – World War II: Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium.
1943 – World War II: Dambuster Raids commence by No. 617 Squadron RAF.
1954 – The United States Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, outlawing racial segregation in public schools.
1967 – Six-Day War: President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt demands dismantling of the peace-keeping UN Emergency Force in Egypt.
1969 – Venera program: Soviet Venera 6 begins its descent into the atmosphere of Venus, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure.
1973 – Watergate scandal: Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate.
1974 – The Troubles: Thirty-three civilians are killed and 300 injured when the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) detonates four car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, Republic of Ireland.
1974 – Police in Los Angeles raid the Symbionese Liberation Army’s headquarters, killing six members, including Camilla Hall.
1977 – Nolan Bushnell opened the first Chuck E. Cheese’s in San Jose, California.
1980 – General Chun Doo-hwan of South Korea seizes control of the government and declares martial law in order to suppress student demonstrations.
1980 – On the eve of presidential elections, Maoist guerrilla group Shining Path attacks a polling location in Chuschi (a town in Ayacucho), starting the Internal conflict in Peru.
1983 – The U.S. Department of Energy declassifies documents showing world’s largest mercury pollution event in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (ultimately found to be 4.2 million pounds , in response to the Appalachian Observer’s Freedom of Information Act request.
1983 – Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
1984 – Prince Charles calls a proposed addition to the National Gallery, London, a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend”, sparking controversies on the proper role of the Royal Family and the course of modern architecture.
1987 – Iran–Iraq War: An Iraqi Dassault Mirage F1 fighter jet fires two missiles into the U.S. Navy warship USS Stark, killing 37 and injuring 21 of her crew.
1990 – The General Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) eliminates homosexuality from the list of psychiatric diseases.
1992 – Three days of popular protests against the government of Prime Minister of Thailand Suchinda Kraprayoon begin in Bangkok, leading to a military crackdown that results in 52 officially confirmed deaths, hundreds of injuries, many disappearances, and more than 3,500 arrests.
1994 – Malawi holds its first multi-party elections.
1995 – Shawn Nelson steals an M60 tank from the California Army National Guard Armory in San Diego and proceeds to go on a rampage.
1997 – Troops of Laurent Kabila march into Kinshasa. Zaire is officially renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo.
2000 – Arsenal and Galatasaray fans clash in the 2000 UEFA Cup Final riots in Copenhagen
2004 – The first legal same-sex marriages in the U.S. are performed in the state of Massachusetts.
2006 – The aircraft carrier USS Oriskany is sunk in the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef.
2007 – Trains from North and South Korea cross the 38th Parallel in a test-run agreed by both governments. This is the first time that trains have crossed the Demilitarized Zone since 1953.
2014 – A plane crash in northern Laos kills 17 people.

Births on May 17

1155 – Jien, Japanese monk, poet, and historian (d. 1225)
1443 – Edmund, Earl of Rutland (d. 1460)
1451 – Engelbert II of Nassau, Count of Nassau-Vianden and Lord of Breda (1475–1504) (d. 1504)
1490 – Albert, Duke of Prussia, last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights (d. 1568)
1500 – Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (d. 1540)
1551 – Martin Delrio, Belgian occultist and theologian (d. 1601)
1568 – Anna Vasa of Sweden, Swedish princess (d. 1625)
1610 – Stefano della Bella, Italian engraver and etcher (d. 1664)
1628 – Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria (d. 1662)
1636 – Edward Colman, English Catholic courtier under Charles II (d. 1678)
1682 – Bartholomew Roberts, Welsh pirate (d. 1722)
1698 – Gio Nicola Buhagiar, Maltese painter (d. 1752)
1706 – Andreas Felix von Oefele, German historian and librarian (d. 1780)
1718 – Robert Darcy, 4th Earl of Holderness, English politician and diplomat, Secretary of State for the Southern Department (d. 1778)
1732 – Francesco Pasquale Ricci, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1817)
1743 – Seth Warner, American colonel (d. 1784)
1749 – Edward Jenner, English physician and microbiologist (d. 1823)
1758 – Sir John St Aubyn, 5th Baronet, English politician (d. 1839)
1768 – Caroline of Brunswick (d. 1821)
1768 – Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, English general and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (d. 1854)
1794 – Anna Brownell Jameson, Irish-English author (d. 1860)
1818 – Ezra Otis Kendall, American professor, astronomer and mathematician (d. 1899)
1821 – Sebastian Kneipp, German priest and therapist (d. 1897)
1835 – Thomas McIlwraith, Scottish-Australian politician, 8th Premier of Queensland (d. 1900)
1836 – Virginie Loveling, Belgian author and poet (d. 1923)
1836 – Wilhelm Steinitz, Austrian-American chess player (d. 1900)
1845 – Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan priest and poet (d. 1902)
1860 – Martin Kukučín, Slovak author and playwright (d. 1928)
1860 – Charlotte Barnum, American mathematician and social activist (d. 1934)
1863 – Léon Gérin, Canadian lawyer, sociologist, and civil servant (d. 1951)
1864 – Louis Richardet, Swiss target shooter (d. 1923)
1864 – Ante Trumbić, Croatian lawyer and politician, 27th Mayor of Split (d. 1938)
1866 – Erik Satie, French pianist and composer (d. 1925)
1868 – Horace Elgin Dodge, American businessman, co-founded Dodge (d. 1920)
1868 – Panagis Tsaldaris, Greek politician, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1936)
1870 – Newton Moore, Australian politician, 8th Premier of Western Australia (d. 1936)
1873 – Henri Barbusse, French author and journalist (d. 1935)
1873 – Dorothy Richardson, English author and journalist (d. 1957)
1874 – George Sheldon, American diver (d. 1907)
1882 – Karl Burman, Estonian architect and painter (d. 1965)
1886 – Alfonso XIII of Spain, Spanish monarch (d. 1941)
1888 – Tich Freeman, English cricketer (d. 1965)
1889 – Dorothy Gibson, American actress and singer (d. 1946)
1889 – Alfonso Reyes, Mexican author (d. 1959)
1891 – Napoleon Zervas, Greek general and politician (d. 1957)
1893 – Frederick McKinley Jones, American inventor and entrepreneur (d. 1961)
1895 – Saul Adler, Belarusian-English captain and parasitologist (d. 1966)
1895 – Reinhold Saulmann, Estonian sprinter and bandy player (d. 1936)
1897 – Odd Hassel, Norwegian chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
1898 – A. J. Casson, Canadian painter (d. 1992)
1899 – Carmen de Icaza, Spanish writer (d. 1979)
1901 – Werner Egk, German pianist and composer (d. 1983)
1903 – Cool Papa Bell, American baseball player and manager (d. 1991)
1904 – Marie-Anne Desmarest, French author (d. 1973)
1906 – Zinka Milanov, Croatian-American soprano and educator (d. 1989)
1909 – Julius Sumner Miller, American physicist and academic (d. 1987)
1911 – Lisa Fonssagrives, Swedish-American model (d. 1992)
1911 – Maureen O’Sullivan, Irish-American actress (d. 1998)
1912 – Archibald Cox, American lawyer and politician, 31st United States Solicitor General (d. 2004)
1912 – Ace Parker, American baseball and football player (d. 2013)
1912 – Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner, American inventor (d. 2006)
1913 – Hans Ruesch, Swiss racing driver and author (d. 2007)
1914 – Robert N. Thompson, American-Canadian chiropractor and politician (d. 1997)
1918 – Joan Benham, English actress (d. 1981)
1918 – Birgit Nilsson, Swedish operatic soprano (d. 2005)
1919 – Antonio Aguilar, Mexican singer-songwriter, producer, actor, and screenwriter (d. 2007)
1919 – Merle Miller, American author and screenwriter (d. 1986)
1919 – Gustav Naan, Russian-Estonian physicist and philosopher (d. 1994)
1920 – Harry Männil, Estonian-Venezuelan businessman, co-founded ACO Group (d. 2010)
1921 – Dennis Brain, English composer (d. 1957)
1921 – Bob Merrill, American composer and screenwriter (d. 1998)
1922 – Jean Rédélé, French racing driver, founded Alpine (d. 2007)
1923 – Michael Beetham, English commander and pilot (d. 2015)
1924 – Roy Bentley, English footballer (d. 2018)
1924 – Francis Tombs, Baron Tombs, English engineer and politician (d. 2020)
1926 – David Ogilvy, 13th Earl of Airlie, English-Scottish soldier and politician
1926 – Dietmar Schönherr, Austrian-Spanish actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2014)
1926 – Franz Sondheimer, German-English chemist and academic (d. 1981)
1929 – Branko Zebec, Yugoslav football player and coach (d. 1988)
1931 – Marshall Applewhite, American cult leader, founded Heaven’s Gate (d. 1997)
1931 – Dewey Redman, American saxophonist (d. 2006)
1932 – Rodric Braithwaite, English soldier and diplomat, British Ambassador to Russia
1932 – Peter Burge, Australian cricketer (d. 2001)
1933 – Yelena Gorchakova, Russian javelin thrower (d. 2002)
1934 – Friedrich-Wilhelm Kiel, German educator and politician
1934 – Earl Morrall, American football player and coach (d. 2014)
1934 – Ronald Wayne, American computer scientist, co-founded Apple Inc.
1935 – Dennis Potter, English voice actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1994)
1936 – Dennis Hopper, American actor and director (d. 2010)
1937 – Hazel R. O’Leary, American lawyer and politician, 7th United States Secretary of Energy
1938 – Jason Bernard, American actor (d. 1996)
1938 – Marcia Freedman, Israeli activist
1938 – Pervis Jackson, American R&B bass singer (d. 2008)
1939 – Hugh Dykes, Baron Dykes, English politician
1939 – Gary Paulsen, American author
1940 – Alan Kay, American computer scientist and academic
1940 – Reynato Puno, Filipino lawyer and jurist, 22nd Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines
1941 – David Cope, American composer and author
1941 – Ben Nelson, American lawyer and politician, 37th Governor of Nebraska
1942 – Taj Mahal, American blues singer-songwriter and musician
1943 – Sirajuddin of Perlis, Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia
1943 – Johnny Warren, Australian footballer, coach, and sportscaster (d. 2004)
1944 – Jesse Winchester, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (d. 2014)
1945 – B.S. Chandrasekhar, Indian cricketer
1945 – Tony Roche, Australian tennis player and coach
1946 – Udo Lindenberg, German singer-songwriter and drummer
1947 – Stephen Platten, English bishop
1948 – Dick Gaughan, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist
1949 – Bill Bruford, English drummer, songwriter, and producer
1949 – Keith, American pop singer
1950 – Howard Ashman, American playwright and composer (d. 1991)
1950 – Keith Bradley, Baron Bradley, English accountant and politician
1950 – Janez Drnovšek, Slovenian economist and politician, 2nd President of Slovenia (d. 2008)
1950 – Alan Johnson, English politician, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
1950 – Valeriya Novodvorskaya, Russian journalist and politician (d. 2014)
1951 – Simon Hughes, English lawyer and politician
1952 – Howard Hampton, Canadian lawyer and politician
1954 – Michael Roberts, South African-English jockey
1955 – Bill Paxton, American actor and director (d. 2017)
1955 – David Townsend, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2005)
1956 – Sugar Ray Leonard, American boxer
1956 – Annise Parker, American politician
1956 – Bob Saget, American comedian, actor, and television host
1956 – Dave Sim, Canadian cartoonist and author
1957 – Pascual Pérez, Dominican baseball player (d. 2012)
1958 – Paul Di’Anno, English rock singer-songwriter
1959 – Marcelo Loffreda, Argentine rugby player and coach
1960 – Lou DiBella, American boxing promoter, actor, and producer
1960 – Simon Fuller, English talent manager and producer, created the Idols series
1961 – Enya, Irish singer-songwriter and producer
1961 – Jamil Azzaoui, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1961 – Justin King, English businessman
1962 – Lise Lyng Falkenberg, Danish journalist and author
1962 – Andrew Farrar, Australian rugby league player and coach
1962 – Craig Ferguson, Scottish-American comedian, actor, and talk show host
1962 – Jane Moore, English journalist and author
1962 – Rosalind Picard, American computer scientist and engineer, co-founded Affectiva
1963 – Jon Koncak, American basketball player
1963 – Page McConnell, American keyboard player and songwriter
1964 – Stratos Apostolakis, Greek footballer and coach
1964 – Mauro Martini, Italian race car driver
1964 – Menno Oosting, Dutch tennis player (d. 1999)
1965 – Trent Reznor, American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer
1965 – Jeremy Vine, English journalist and author
1966 – Qusay Hussein, Iraqi soldier and politician (d. 2003)
1966 – Mark Kratzmann, Australian tennis player and coach
1966 – Danny Manning, American basketball player and coach
1966 – Gilles Quénéhervé, French sprinter
1967 – Nancy Benoit, American professional wrestling valet and model (d. 2007)
1967 – Mohamed Nasheed, Maldivian lawyer and politician 4th President of the Maldives
1967 – Patrick Ortlieb, Austrian skier
1968 – Dave Abbruzzese, American rock drummer and songwriter
1969 – Keith Hill, English footballer and manager
1970 – Hubert Davis, American basketball player and coach
1970 – Jordan Knight, American singer-songwriter and actor
1970 – Matt Lindland, American mixed martial artist, wrestler, and politician
1970 – Jodie Rogers, Australian diver
1970 – René Vilbre, Estonian director and screenwriter
1971 – Mark Connors, Australian rugby player
1971 – Shaun Hart, Australian footballer, coach, and sportscaster
1971 – Stella Jongmans, Dutch athlete
1971 – Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, Dutch royal
1971 – Gina Raimondo, Governor of Rhode Island
1972 – Barry Hayles, English born Jamaican international footballer
1973 – Josh Homme, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1974 – Andrea Corr, Irish singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress
1974 – Wiki González, Venezuelan baseball player
1974 – Eddie Lewis, American international soccer player
1975 – Marcelinho Paraíba, Brazilian footballer
1975 – Alex Wright, German wrestler
1976 – Kandi Burruss, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1976 – Shayne Dunley, Australian rugby league player
1976 – José Guillén, Dominican-American baseball player
1976 – Daniel Komen, Kenyan runner
1976 – Wang Leehom, American-Taiwanese singer-songwriter, producer, actor, and director
1976 – Mayte Martínez, Spanish runner
1976 – Kirsten Vlieghuis, Dutch freestyle swimmer
1978 – John Foster, American baseball player and coach
1978 – Paddy Kenny, English footballer
1978 – Carlos Peña, Dominican-American baseball player
1978 – Magdalena Zděnovcová, Czech tennis player
1979 – David Jarolím, Czech footballer
1979 – Wayne Thomas, English footballer
1980 – Davor Džalto, Bosnian historian and philosopher
1980 – Fredrik Kessiakoff, Swedish cyclist
1980 – Alistair Overeem, Dutch mixed martial artist and kickboxer
1980 – Ariën van Weesenbeek, Dutch drummer
1981 – Beñat Albizuri, Spanish cyclist
1981 – Leon Osman, English footballer
1981 – Lim Jeong-hee, South Korean singer
1981 – Chris Skidmore, English historian and politician
1981 – Giannis Taralidis, Greek footballer
1982 – Matt Cassel, American football player
1982 – Dan Hardy, English mixed martial artist
1982 – Reiko Nakamura, Japanese swimmer
1982 – Tony Parker, French-American basketball player
1982 – Chloe Smith, English politician
1983 – Channing Frye, American basketball player
1983 – Chris Henry, American football player (d. 2009)
1983 – Nicky Hofs, Dutch footballer
1983 – Kevin Kingston, Australian rugby league player
1983 – Jeremy Sowers, American baseball player
1984 – Christian Bolaños, Costa Rican footballer
1984 – Christine Ohuruogu, English runner
1984 – Christine Robinson, Canadian water polo player
1984 – Passenger, English singer-songwriter and musician
1985 – Teófilo Gutiérrez, Colombian footballer
1985 – Derek Hough, American actor, singer, and dancer
1985 – Christine Nesbitt, Canadian speed skater
1985 – Todd Redmond, American baseball player
1985 – Matt Ryan, American football player
1986 – Marius Činikas, Lithuanian footballer
1986 – Timo Simonlatser, Estonian skier
1986 – Jodie Taylor, English footballer
1987 – Edvald Boasson Hagen, Norwegian cyclist
1987 – Aleandro Rosi, Italian footballer
1988 – Nikki Reed, American actress, singer, and screenwriter
1988 – Jennison Myrie-Williams, English footballer
1989 – Mose Masoe, New Zealand rugby league player
1989 – Rain Raadik, Estonian basketball player
1989 – Tessa Virtue, Canadian ice dancer
1990 – Fabian Giefer, German footballer
1990 – Charlie Gubb, New Zealand rugby league player
1990 – Katrina Hart, English runner
1990 – Guido Pella, Argentine tennis player
1991 – Johanna Konta, Australian-English tennis player
1991 – Adil Omar, Pakistani rapper and music producer
1991 – Abigail Raye, Canadian field hockey player

Deaths on May 17

528 – Empress Dowager Hu of Northern Wei
528 – Yuan Yong, imperial prince of Northern Wei
528 – Yuan Zhao, emperor of Northern Wei (b. 526)
896 – Liu Jianfeng, Chinese warlord
924 – Li Maozhen, Chinese warlord and king (b. 856)
946 – Al-Qa’im bi-Amr Allah, Fatimid caliph (b. 893)
1299 – Daumantas of Pskov, Lithuanian prince (b. c. 1240)
1336 – Go-Fushimi, emperor of Japan (b. 1288)
1365 – Louis II, Elector of Brandenburg (b. 1328)
1395 – Konstantin Dejanović/Constantine Dragaš, Serbian ruler (b. 1355)
1464 – Thomas de Ros, 9th Baron de Ros, English politician (b. 1427)
1510 – Sandro Botticelli, Italian painter (b. 1445)
1521 – Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, Welsh politician, Lord High Constable of England (b. 1478)
1536 – George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford, English courtier and diplomat, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (b. 1504)
1536 – William Brereton, English courtier (b. 1487)
1536 – Henry Norris, English courtier (b. 1482)
1546 – Philipp von Hutten, German explorer (b. 1511)
1551 – Shin Saimdang, South Korean poet and calligraphist (b. 1504)
1558 – Francisco de Sá de Miranda, Portuguese poet (b. 1485)
1575 – Matthew Parker, English archbishop and academic (b. 1504)
1606 – False Dmitriy I, pretender to the Russian throne (b. 1582)
1607 – Anna d’Este, French princess (b. 1531)
1626 – Joan Pau Pujol, Catalan organist and composer (b. 1570)
1643 – Giovanni Picchi, Italian organist and composer (b. 1571)
1727 – Catherine I of Russia (b. 1684)
1729 – Samuel Clarke, English clergyman and philosopher (b. 1675)
1765 – Alexis Clairaut, French mathematician, astronomer, and geophysicist (b. 1713)
1797 – Michel-Jean Sedaine, French playwright and composer (b. 1719)
1801 – William Heberden, English physician and scholar (b. 1710)
1807 – John Gunby, American general (b. 1745)
1809 – Leopold Auenbrugger, Austrian physician (b. 1722)
1822 – Armand-Emmanuel de Vignerot du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu, French general and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of France (b. 1766)
1829 – John Jay, American politician and diplomat, 1st Chief Justice of the United States (b. 1745)
1838 – René Caillié, French explorer and author (b. 1799)
1838 – Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, French bishop and politician, Prime Minister of France (b. 1754)
1839 – Archibald Alison, Scottish priest and author (b. 1757)
1868 – Kondō Isami, Japanese commander (b. 1834)
1875 – John C. Breckinridge, American lawyer and politician, 14th Vice President of the United States, Confederate States general (b. 1821)
1879 – Asa Packer, American businessman, founded Lehigh University (b. 1805)
1880 – Ziya Pasha, Greek author and translator (b. 1826)
1886 – John Deere, American blacksmith and businessman, founded the Deere & Company (b. 1804)
1888 – Giacomo Zanella, Italian priest and poet (b. 1820)
1911 – Frederick August Otto Schwarz, German-American businessman, founded FAO Schwarz (b. 1836)
1916 – Boris Borisovich Golitsyn, Russian physicist and seismologist (b. 1862)
1917 – Clara Ayres, American nurse (b. 1880)
1917 – Charles Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak (b. 1829)
1919 – Guido von List, Austrian-German journalist, author, and poet (b. 1848)
1921 – Karl Mantzius, Danish actor and director (b. 1860)
1922 – Dorothy Levitt, English racing driver and journalist (b. 1882)
1927 – Harold Geiger, American pilot and lieutenant (b. 1884)
1934 – Cass Gilbert, American architect (b. 1859)
1935 – Paul Dukas, French composer, critic, and educator (b. 1865)
1936 – Panagis Tsaldaris, Greek lawyer and politician, 124th Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1868)
1938 – Jakob Ehrlich, Czech-Austrian academic and politician (b. 1877)
1943 – Johanna Elberskirchen, German author and activist (b. 1864)
1947 – George Forbes, New Zealand farmer and politician, 22nd Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1869)
1951 – William Birdwood, Anglo-Indian field marshal (b. 1865)
1960 – Jules Supervielle, Uruguayan-French poet and author (b. 1884)
1963 – John Wilce, American football player, coach, and physician (b. 1888)
1964 – Nandor Fodor, Hungarian-American psychologist and parapsychologist (b. 1895)
1974 – Ernest Nash, German-American photographer and scholar (b. 1898)
1977 – Charles E. Rosendahl, American admiral and pilot (b. 1892)
1980 – Gündüz Kılıç, Turkish football player and coach (b. 1918)
1985 – Abe Burrows, American director, composer, and author (b. 1910)
1987 – Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist, sociologist, and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1898)
1992 – Lawrence Welk, American accordion player and bandleader (b. 1903)
1995 – Toe Blake, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (b. 1912)
1996 – Kevin Gilbert, American singer-songwriter and producer (b. 1966)
1999 – Bruce Fairbairn, Canadian trumpet player and producer (b. 1949)
1999 – Lembit Oll, Estonian chess Grandmaster (b. 1966)
2000 – Donald Coggan, English archbishop (b. 1909)
2001 – Jacques-Louis Lions, French mathematician (b. 1928)
2001 – Frank G. Slaughter, American physician and author (b. 1908)
2002 – László Kubala, Hungarian-Spanish footballer, coach, and manager (b. 1927)
2002 – Aşık Mahzuni Şerif, Turkish poet and composer (b. 1940)
2004 – Jørgen Nash, Danish poet and painter (b. 1920)
2004 – Tony Randall, American actor (b. 1920)
2004 – Ezzedine Salim, Iraqi politician (b. 1943)
2005 – Frank Gorshin, American actor (b. 1934)
2006 – Cy Feuer, American director, producer, and composer (b. 1911)
2007 – Lloyd Alexander, American soldier and author (b. 1924)
2007 – T. K. Doraiswamy, Indian poet and author (b. 1921)
2009 – Mario Benedetti, Uruguayan journalist, author, and poet (b. 1920)
2009 – Jung Seung-hye, South Korean journalist and producer (b. 1965)
2010 – Yvonne Loriod, French pianist, composer, and educator (b. 1924)
2010 – Walasse Ting, Chinese-American painter and poet (b. 1929)
2011 – Harmon Killebrew, American baseball player and sportscaster (b. 1936)
2012 – Gideon Ezra, Israeli geographer and politician, Israeli Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office (b. 1937)
2012 – Patrick Mafisango, Congolese-Rwandan footballer (b. 1980)
2012 – Donna Summer, American singer-songwriter (b. 1948)
2013 – Philippe Gaumont, French cyclist (b. 1973)
2013 – Peter Schulz, German politician, Mayor of Hamburg (b. 1930)
2013 – Ken Venturi, American golfer and sportscaster (b. 1931)
2013 – Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentine general and politician, 42nd President of Argentina (b. 1925)
2014 – Gerald Edelman, American biologist and immunologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1929)
2014 – C. P. Krishnan Nair, Indian businessman, founded The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts (b. 1922)
2014 – Douangchay Phichit, Laotian politician (b. 1944)
2014 – Thongbanh Sengaphone, Laotian politician (b. 1953)
2017 – Todor Veselinović, Serbian football player and manager (b. 1930)
2019 – Herman Wouk, American author (b. 1915)
2020 – Lucky Peterson, American blues singer, keyboardist and guitarist (b. 1964)

Holidays and observances on May 17

Birthday of the Raja (Perlis)
Christian feast day:
- Giulia Salzano
- Paschal Baylon
- William Hobart Hare (Episcopal Church (USA))
- Restituta
- May 17 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Children’s Day (Norway)
Constitution Day (Nauru)
Norwegian Constitution Day
The earliest date on which Trinity Sunday can fall, while June 20 is the latest; celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost. (Western Christianity)
Feast of ‘Aẓamat (Bahá’í Faith, day shifts with March Equinox, see List of observances set by the Baháʼí calendar)
Galician Literature Day or Día das Letras Galegas (Galicia)
National Day Against Homophobia (Canada)
International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia also known as IDAHOT
Liberation Day (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Navy Day (Argentina)
World Hypertension Day
World Information Society Day (International)

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