This Day in History

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May 20

526 – An earthquake kills about 250,000 people in what is now Syria and Antiochia.

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovers the sea route to India when he arrives at Kozhikode (previously known as Calicut), India.

1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas.

1609 – Shakespeare's sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by the publisher Thomas Thorpe.

1631 – The city of Magdeburg in Germany is seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empire and most of its inhabitants massacred, in one of the bloodiest incidents of the Thirty Years' War.

1861 – American Civil War: The state of Kentucky proclaims its neutrality, which will last until September 3 when Confederate forces enter the state.

The State of North Carolina secedes from the Union.

1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

1883 – Krakatoa begins to erupt; the volcano explodes three months later, killing more than 36,000 people.

1891 – History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope.

1899 – The first traffic ticket in the US: New York City taxi driver Jacob German was arrested for speeding while driving 12 miles per hour on Lexington Street.

1916 – The Saturday Evening Post publishes its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting (Boy with Baby Carriage).

1920 – Montreal radio station XWA broadcasts the first regularly scheduled radio programming in North America.

1927 – Treaty of Jeddah: The United Kingdom recognizes the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud in the Kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd, which later merge to become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

At 07:52 Charles Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, on the world's first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He touched down at Le Bourget Field in Paris at 22:22 the next day.

1932 – Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day.

1940 – The Holocaust: The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.

1969 – The Battle of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam ends.

1983 – First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier.

1989 – The Chinese authorities declare martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations, setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square massacre.

2013 – An EF5 tornado strikes the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, killing 24 people and injuring 377 others.

Births

1768 – Dolley Madison; 1799 – Honoré de Balzac; 1818 – William Fargo (co-founded Wells Fargo & AmEx); 1908 – James Stewart; 1913 – William Redington Hewlett (co-founded Hewlett-Packard); 1915 – Moshe Dayan; 1919 – George Gobel; 1925 – Alexei Tupolev (designed the Tu-144); 1936 – Anthony Zerbe; 1942 – Carlos Hathcock; 1944 – Joe Cocker; 1946 – Cher; 1946 – Dave Despain; 1958 – Ron Reagan, Jane Wiedlin; 1959 – Bronson Pinchot; 1960 – Tony Goldwyn; 1966 – Mindy Cohn ('Natalie' on "The Facts of Life", voice of 'Velma' on "Scooby Doo"); 1968 – Timothy Olyphant (Sheriff Bullock in "Deadwood"); 1971 – Tony Stewart; 1972 – Busta Rhymes

Deaths

1506 – Christopher Columbus; 1989 – Gilda Radner; 1996 – Jon Pertwee (Dr. Who); 2009 – Lucy Gordon; 2011 – Randy Savage; 2012 – Robin Gibb, Ken Lyons, Eugene Polley (invented the TV remote control); 2013 – Ray Manzarek

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May 21

1502 – The island of Saint Helena is discovered by the Portuguese explorer João da Nova.

1758 – Ten-year-old Mary Campbell is abducted in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War. She is returned six and a half years later.

1863 – Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Battle Creek, Michigan.

1871 – Opening of the first rack railway in Europe, the Rigi-Bahnen on Mount Rigi.

1881 – The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton in Washington, D.C.

1917 – The Great Atlanta fire of 1917 causes $5.5 million in damages, destroying some 300 acres including 2,000 homes, businesses and churches, displacing about 10,000 people but leading to only one fatality (due to heart attack).

1924 – University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a "thrill killing".

1927 – Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

1932 – Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

1934 – Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens.

1936 – Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover's severed genitals in her handbag.

1946 – Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

1976 – The Yuba City bus disaster occurs in Martinez, California. Twenty-nine are killed making it the deadliest road accident in U.S. history.

1979 – White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.

1980 – Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is released in theaters.

1981 – Irish Republican hunger strikers Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O'Hara die on hunger strike in Maze prison.

1996 – The ferry MV Bukoba sinks in Tanzanian waters on Lake Victoria, killing nearly 1,000.

2005 – The tallest roller coaster in the world, Kingda Ka opens at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey.

2011 – Radio broadcaster Harold Camping predicted that the world would end on this date.

2014 – The National September 11 Museum opens to the public.

Births

1878 – Glenn Curtiss; 1898 – Armand Hammer; 1901 – Sam Jaffe; 1904 – Robert Montgomery, Fats Waller; 1916 – Harold Robbins; 1917 – Raymond Burr; 1921 – Andrei Sakharov; 1923 – Ara Parseghian; 1924 – Peggy Cass; 1941 – Ronald Isley (The Isley Bros.); 1948 – Leo Sayer; 1951 – Al Franken; 1952 – Mr. T; 1959 – Nick Cassavetes; 1960 – Jeffrey Dahmer; 1966 – Lisa Edelstein (Dr. Cuddy on "House"); 1967 – Chris Benoit; 1972 – The Notorious B.I.G.

Deaths

1542 – Hernando de Soto; 1952 – John Garfield; 1965 – Geoffrey de Havilland (designed the de Havilland Mosquito); 1988 – Sammy Davis, Sr.; 1995 – Les Aspin; 1996 – Lash LaRue; 2000 – Sir John Gielgud; 2003 – Alejandro de Tomaso; 2013 – Leonard Marsh (co-founded Snapple)

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May 22

1762 – Trevi Fountain in Rome is officially completed and inaugurated by Pope Clemens XIII.

1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially began, as the Corps of Discovery departed from St. Charles, Missouri.

1807 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.

1826 – HMS Beagle departs on its first voyage.

1849 – Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is issued a patent for an invention to lift boats over obstacles in a river, making him the only U.S. President to ever hold a patent.

1885 – Prior to burial in the Panthéon, the body of Victor Hugo was exposed under the Arc de Triomphe during the night.

1897 – The Blackwall Tunnel under the River Thames is officially opened.

1915 – Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, and is the only mountain other than Mount St. Helens to erupt in the contiguous US during the 20th century.

Three trains collide in the Quintinshill rail disaster near Gretna Green, Scotland, killing 227 people and injuring 246; the accident is found to be the result of non-standard operating practices during a shift change at a busy junction.

1968 – The nuclear-powered submarine the 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.

1980 – Namco releases the highly influential arcade game Pac-Man.

2004 – The U.S. town of Hallam, Nebraska is wiped out by a powerful F4 tornado (part of the May 2004 tornado outbreak sequence) which kills one resident, and becomes the widest tornado on record at 2.5 miles (4.0 km) wide.

2008 – The Late-May 2008 tornado outbreak sequence unleashes 235 tornadoes, including an EF4 and an EF5 tornado, between May 22 and May 31, 2008. The tornadoes strike 19 states and one Canadian province.

2010 – Air India Express Flight 812, a Boeing 737, goes over a cliff and crashes upon landing at Mangalore, India, killing 158 of the 166 people on board. It is the worst crash involving a Boeing 737.

2011 – An EF5 tornado strikes Joplin, Missouri, killing 162 people and wreaking $2.8 billion worth in damage—the costliest and seventh-deadliest single tornado in U.S. history.

2015 – The Republic of Ireland becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum.

Births

1783 – William Sturgeon (invented the electromagnet and electric motor); 1813 – Richard Wagner; 1844 – Mary Cassatt; 1859 – Arthur Conan Doyle; 1907 – Laurence Olivier; 1914 – Sun Ra; 1922 – Quinn Martin; 1928 – T. Boone Pickens; 1930 – Harvey Milk; 1939 – Paul Winfield; 1940 – Bernard Shaw; 1942 – Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber); 1943 – Tommy John; 1950 – Bernie Taupin; 1959 – Morrissey; 1970 – Naomi Campbell; 1972 – Max Brooks ("World War Z"); 1979 – Maggie Q; 1980 – Lucy Gordon; 1986 – Julian Edelman; 1987 – Novak Djokovic

Deaths

337 – Constantine the Great; 1802 – Martha Washington; 1885 – Victor Hugo; 1967 – Langston Hughes; 1990 – Rocky Graziano; 1998 – John Derek; 2005 – Thurl Ravenscroft

[glatt]

I sense a tornado theme for May 22.

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May 23

1430 – Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to raise the Siege of Compiègne.

1701 – After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London, England.

1934 – The American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

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, the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), commits suicide while in Allied custody.

1958 – The satellite Explorer 1 ceases transmission.

1995 – The first version of the Java programming language is released.

2004 – Part of Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport's Terminal 2E collapses, killing four people and injuring three others.

2010 – Jamaican police begin a manhunt for drug lord Christopher Coke, after the United States requested his extradition, leading to three days of violence during which at least 73 gunmen, policemen and bystanders are killed.

2013 – The Interstate 5 bridge 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.

If anyone could explain to me how a tornado can cause a flood, I'd be interested to hear them out.

Births

1707 – Carl Linnaeus; 1820 – James Buchanan Eads; 1824 – Ambrose Burnside; 1883 – Douglas Fairbanks; 1910 – Scatman Crothers, Artie Shaw; 1912 – John Payne; 1928 – Rosemary Clooney; 1931 – Barbara Barrie; 1933 – Joan Collins; 1934 – Robert Moog (invented the Moog synthesizer); 1936 – Charles Kimbrough (anchorman on "Murphy Brown"); 1942 – Zalman King; 1946 – Michael Morrison (porn actor); 1954 – Marvin Hagler; 1956 – Buck Showalter; 1958 – Mitch Albom, Drew Carey; 1961 – Karen Duffy ('Duff', MTV vj); 1963 – Wally Dallenbach Jr.; 1973 – Maxwell; 1974 – Jewel, Ken Jennings

Deaths

1701 – William Kidd; 1868 – Kit Carson; 1906 – Henrik Ibsen; 1934 – Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker; 1937 – John D. Rockefeller; 1945 – Heinrich Himmler; 1975 – Moms Mabley; 1981 – George Jessel; 1986 – Sterling Hayden; 1994 – Joe Pass; 1999 – Owen Hart; 2002 – Sam Snead

[DanaC]

It explains it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_T...rnado_outbreak

[Gravdigr]

I didn't include that link, because it contains no explanation of how a tornado can cause a flood, that I could find.

I saw the words 'tornado', and 'flood'.

If the explanation is in there, and I somehow did not see it, please show it to me, because I have now read that page twice, and still have yet to see an explanation of how a tornado can cause a flood.

[DanaC]

I got the impression that it was more a matter of the same storm causing the tornado as caused the flood - also that water from the river got caught up in the tornado and dumped onto a town - but I may have misunderstood.

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May 24

1607 – One hundred English settlers disembark in Jamestown, the first English colony in America.

1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.

1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins.

1830 – "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by Sarah Josepha Hale is published.

1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate the first telegraph line.

1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.

1921 – The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti opens.

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.

1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.

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.

1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.

1970 – The drilling of the Kola Superdeep Borehole begins in the Soviet Union.

1976 – The London to Washington, D.C., Concorde service begins.

2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.

2001 – The Versailles wedding hall disaster in Jerusalem, Israel kills 23 and injures over 200. The disaster was caught on a camcorder.

Births

1686 – Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit; 1819 – Queen Victoria; 1879 – H. B. Reese (created Reese's Peanut Butter Cups); 1938 – Tommy Chong; 1941 – Bob Dylan; 1943 – Gary Burghoff ('Radar' on MASH); 1944 – Patti LaBelle; 1945 – Priscilla Presley; 1947 – Waddy Wachtel; 1952 – Sybil Danning; 1953 – Alfred Molina; 1955 – Rosanne Cash; 1958 – Chip Ganassi; 1962 – Héctor Camacho; 1966 – Ricky Craven; 1967 – Eric Close, Heavy D; 1974 – Will Sasso

Deaths

1543 – Nicolaus Copernicus; 1963 – Elmore James; 1965 – Sonny Boy Williamson II; 1974 – Duke Ellington; 2008 – Dick Martin

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by DanaC

...also that water from the river got caught up in the tornado and dumped onto a town...

I'm not going to think about this anymore...

...because I am fucking confused.

[Gravdigr]

May 25

Today is National Missing Children's Day.

Today is also Towel Day.

240 BC – First recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.

1865 – In Mobile, Alabama, 300 are killed when an ordnance depot explodes.

1895 – The 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.

1914 – The House of Commons of the United Kingdom passes the Home Rule Bill for devolution in Ireland.

1925 – Scopes Monkey Trial: John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in Tennessee.

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

1950 – A Chicago Surface Lines streetcar crashes into a fuel truck, killing 33 people.

1953 – At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its first and only nuclear artillery test.

The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston, in Texas.

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.

1961 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of the Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the Moon" before the end of the decade.

1962 – The Old Bay Line, the last overnight steamboat service in the United States, goes out of business.

1968 – The Gateway Arch in Saint Louis is dedicated.

1977 – Star Wars is released in theaters.

Chinese government removes a decade old ban on the works of William Shakespeare.

1979 – American Airlines Flight 191, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, crashes during takeoff at O'Hare International Airport killing all 271 on board and two people on the ground.

1979 – Etan Patz, six years old, disappears from the street just two blocks away from his home in New York City, prompting an international search for the child, and causing U.S. President Ronald Reagan to designate May 25 as National Missing Children's Day (in 1983).

1982 – HMS Coventry is sunk during the Falklands War.

1986 – Hands Across America takes place.

2001 – Erik Weihenmayer, 32 years old, of Boulder, Colorado, becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

2002 – China Airlines Flight 611 disintegrates in mid-air and crashes into the Taiwan Strait. All 225 people on board are killed.

2011 – Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her twenty-five-year run of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

2012 – The Space X 'Dragon' becomes the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous with the International Space Station.

Births

1803 – Ralph Waldo Emerson; 1889 – Igor Sikorsky; 1897 – Gene Tunney; 1903 – Binnie Barnes; 1921 – Hal David; 1925 – Jeanne Crain; 1926 – Claude Akins; 1927 – Robert Ludlum; 1929 – Beverly Sills; 1936 – Tom T. Hall; 1939 – Dixie Carter; 1943 – Jessi Colter; 1943 – Leslie Uggams; 1944 – Frank Oz; 1947 – Karen Valentine; 1955 – Connie Sellecca; 1958 – Paul Weller; 1963 – Mike Myers; 1969 – Anne Heche; 1970 – Octavia Spencer; 1973 – Demetri Martin; 1976 – Cillian Murphy; 1978 – Brian Urlacher; 1994 – Aly Raisman

Deaths

1899 – Rosa Bonheur; 1919 – Madam C. J. Walker; 1990 – Vic Tayback; 2007 – Charles Nelson Reilly

[Beest]

Dang, I've heard of towel day ut didn't know it was today.

-15 Hoopy Frood quotient

[glatt]

lol

Hands Across America

I remember that

[DanaC]

[quote]1895 – The 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.[/QUOTE

Two years hard labour. It broke him physically and mentally.

[Gravdigr]

May 27

1703 – Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg.

1849 – The Great Hall of Euston station in London is opened.

1883 – Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.

1896 – The F4-strength 1896 St. Louis–East St. Louis tornado hits in St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and causing $2.9 billion in damage (1997 US dollars ($38.70 in 1896 dollars)).

1907 – Bubonic plague breaks out in San Francisco.

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 – The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"

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: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing almost 2,100 men.

1958 – The F-4 Phantom II makes its first flight.

1962 – The Centralia, Pennsylvania mine fire is ignited in the town's landfill above a coal mine. As of 2015, the fire continues to burn. It has burned for more than 53 years. At its current rate, it could burn for over 250 more years.

1965 – Vietnam War: American warships begin the first bombardment of National Liberation Front targets within South Vietnam.

1967 – The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy is launched by Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter Caroline.

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.

1995 - In Culpeper, Virginia, the actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.

1997 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that Paula Jones can pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton while he is in office.

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.

Births

1794 – Cornelius Vanderbilt; 1819 – Julia Ward Howe; 1837 – Wild Bill Hickok; 1894 – Dashiell Hammett; 1909 – Dolores Hope (wife of Bob Hope); 1911 – Hubert Humphrey; 1911 – Vincent Price; 1912 – John Cheever, Sam Snead; 1915 – Herman Wouk; 1922 – Christopher Lee; 1923 – Henry Kissinger, Sumner Redstone; 1925 – Tony Hillerman; 1935 – Lee Meriwether; 1936 – Louis Gossett, Jr.; 1939 – Don Williams; 1945 – Bruce Cockburn; 1948 – Pete Sears; 1955 – Richard Schiff; 1957 – Siouxsie Sioux; 1961 – Peri Gilpin; 1964 – Adam Carolla; 1965 – Todd Bridges )'Willis' on "Diff'rent Strokes"); 1968 – Jeff Bagwell; 1970 – Joseph Fiennes; 1971 – Paul Bettany; 1971 – Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes; 1975 – André 3000; 1975 – Jamie Oliver

Deaths

1831 – Jedediah Smith; 1840 – Niccolò Paganini; 1949 – Robert Ripley (Believe it, or not); 1960 – James Montgomery Flagg; 1964 – Jawaharlal Nehru; 1969 – Jeffrey Hunter; 1992 – Uncle Charlie Osborne; 2006 – Paul Gleason; 2011 – Jeff Conaway; 2011 – Gil Scott-Heron; 2012 – Johnny Tapia; 2013 – Bill Pertwee