May 2nd is

Children’s Book Week *

Chocolate Truffle Day

Foster Care Day *

Life Insurance Day *

Robert’s Rules of Order Day *

World Asthma Day *

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MORE! George Bernard Shaw, Ella Fitzgerald and Edvard Munch, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Several countries have a second day off for May Day celebrations:
Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Transdniestria, Ukraine, and Vietnam

Bhutan – Third Druk Gyalpo Anniversary
(3rd ruler of Bhutan) and Teachers’ Day

Israel – Independence Day

Sint Maarten – Carnival Day

Spain – Community Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

1194 – King Richard I of England, upon returning from captivity in Austria, gives Portsmouth its first Royal Charter, including permissions for an annual fifteen-day free market fair, weekly markets, and a local court to deal with minor matters, and exempting its inhabitants from paying an annual tax of £18

Modern-day Portsmouth

1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, is arrested and imprisoned on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft

1559 – John Knox returns to Scotland from Geneva to lead the Scottish Reformation, and denounce womankind

1568 – Mary, Queen of Scots, imprisoned at Loch Leven charged with murder and adultery, for her suspected part in her first husband’s murder, and her hasty marriage to the divorced and Protestant Lord Bothwell, who is also implicated in the murder plot, is forced to abdicate in favor of her son. On this day, she escapes from Loch Leven Castle and flees to England, but is soon kept in custody there

1660 – Alessandro Scarlatti born, Italian Baroque composer of operas and cantatas

1670 – English King Charles II gives a royal charter to the Hudson’s Bay Company

1729 – Catherine the Great born, Empress of Russia, first as wife of Peter III, then in her own right from 1762 until 1796

1750 – Carlo Goldoni’s comedy La Botega di Caffè (The Coffee Shop) premieres in Mantua

1759 – Life Insurance Day * – The charter for the Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers is issued, the first life insurance program in the U.S.

1780 – William Herschel discovers the first binary star, Xi Ursae Majoris

1833 – Russian Tsar Nicolas I bans public sale of serfs

1837 – Henry Martyn Robert born, American author, engineer and soldier; in 1876, he publishes his first manual on parliamentary procedure, Robert’s Rules of Order  – his birthday now celebrated as Robert’s Rules of Order Day *

1865 – President Andrew Johnson issues Proclamation 131, offering rewards for the arrest of Confederate President Jefferson Davis ($100,000), who is captured on May 10, 1865. Several others are also listed with rewards of various amounts offered, including Clement C. Clay ($25,000), who helped create a spy network for the Confederate War Department and is suspected of involvement in John Wilkes Booth’s assassination plans, but he is released a few months after he turns himself in

1865 – Clyde Fitch born, American dramatist, the first American playwright to publish his plays; Beau Brummell, Nathan Hale, The Girl With the Green Eyes, Girls

Clyde Fitch with poster for his play ‘Girls’

1878 – The U.S Mint stops minting a 20 cent coin

1878 – Nannie Helen Burroughs born, African-American educator, lecturer, civil rights activist and businesswoman, founder of the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington D.C.

1885 – Good Housekeeping magazine is first published

1885 – The infamous ‘Congo Free State’ is formed by King Leopold II of Belgium

1890 – The territory of Oklahoma is created

1900 – George Bernard Shaw’s You Never Can Tell debuts in London

1908 – The song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is registered for copyright

1919 – Children’s Book Week * is established, the longest-running national literacy initiative in the U.S., now sponsored by EveryChildaReader.net and the Children’s Book Council – This year’s theme is One World, Many Stories

1927 – U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in “Buck v. Bell” permits forced sterilizations of various “unfits” by states’ authorities where surgeries are practiced for eugenic reasons

1932 – Pearl S. Buck awarded the Pulitzer Prized for Literature for The Good Earth

1935 – Foster Care Day * – Title IV-E of the Social Security Act authorizes federal grants to states for foster care and adoption assistance programs, to be administered by the U.S. Children’s Bureau

1936 – Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf premieres in Moscow

1938 – Ella Fitzgerald records “A-Tisket, A-Tasket”

1947 – Eugene O’Neill’s drama Moon for the Misbegotten premieres in NYC

1949 – Arthur Miller wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Death of a Salesman

1952 – Debut of John Cage’s Water Music

1955 – Tennessee Williams wind Pulitzer Drama Prize for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

1964 – The Beatles Beatles’ Second Album becomes #1 on the album charts

1969 – British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth II leaves on her maiden voyage

1977 – Eric Clapton records “Wonderful Tonight”

1980 – Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) is banned in South Africa

1990 – The South African government opens talks with the African National Congress about ending apartheid

1994 – Dr Kevokian found innocent on charges of assisting suicides

1995 – Ralph Fiennes stars in the title role of a revival of Hamlet on Broadway

1998 – World Asthma Day * started by the Global Initiative for Asthma, which sets medical guidelines for the disease, the day is now observed in over 35 countries

1999 –Mireya Moscoso becomes the first woman elected President of Panama; she  oversees the transition of control of the Panama Canal from the U.S. to Panama

Mireya Moscoso speaking at the UN

2000 – President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the U.S. military

2008 – The movie Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr. is released

2012 – Norwegian painter Edvard Munch’s famous painting The Scream sells at auction for $119,922,500

2013 – Rhode Island becomes the 10^th U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage

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