May 12th is
Public Gardens Day *
International Nurses’ Day
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Day
Fibromyalgia Awareness Day
Limerick Day
Military Spouse Appreciation Day
Nutty Fudge Day
One Day Without Shoes Day
________________________________________________________________
MORE! Gabriel Faure, Dorothy Hodgkin and Duke Ellington, click
________________________________________________________________
WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
Islam – Shab e-Barat, the night when Allah arranges the affairs of the following year, writing the destinies of all creations for the coming year, taking their past deeds into account
Voudon – “Mangers” pour divers loas
Bangladesh – Shab e-Barat
Denmark, Faroe Islands and Greenland –
Great Prayer Day
Georgia – Saint Andrew’s Day
Iran – Imam Mahdi’s Birthday
Portugal – Pope Francis Visit/Centennial of Fátima
Thailand – Royal Ploughing Ceremony
(beginning of rice growing season)
_______________________________________________________________
On This Day in HISTORY
907 – Military governor Zhu Wen forces Emperor Ai into abdicating, ending the Tang dynasty after nearly 300 years of rule
1215 – English barons, fed up with high-handed “royal justice” and high taxes, have risen in rebellion against King John, and now present him with an ultimatum: sign the Magna Carta, meant to apply only to the King, the Nobles and the Church, but it becomes an inspiration for more extended liberties over time
1789 – William Wilberforce makes his first major speech on abolition in British House of Commons, propounding reasons the slave trade is morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice
1812 – Edward Lear born, English poet and landscape painter
1820 – Florence Nightingale born, English nurse, social reformer and statistician, known as “The Lady with the Lamp” during the Crimean War, considered the founder of modern nursing
1828 – Dante Gabriel Rossetti born, English painter and poet
1832 – Gaetano Donizetti’s opera L’elisir d’amore (“The Elixir of Love”) premieres at the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan
1845 – Gabriel Faure born, French composer
1849 – Matilda Coxe Stevenson born, American ethnologist, first president of the Women’s Anthropological Society of America
1862 – Louise Phelps Kellogg born, American historian, author and educator; a leading authority on the French and British eras in the Great Lakes region; The British Regime in Wisconsin and the Northwest
1870 – Manitoba becomes a province of Canada
1874 – Clemens von Pirquet born, Austrian physician; devised tuberculosis skin test
1898 – Louisiana adopts a new state constitution with a “grandfather clause” designed to eliminate black voters
1900 – Mildred H McAfee born, American educator and first director of the WAVES in the United States Navy, dean of women at Centre College and Oberlin College, president of Wellesley College
1902 – 140,000 miners of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania go out on a strike called by the United Mine Workers after the owners refuse to recognize the UMW, negotiate or submit to arbitration
1910 – Dorothy Hodgkin born, British biochemist; 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, improved X-ray crystallography, confirmed structure of penicillin and discovered the structure of vitamin B12 and insulin
1919 – The Transvaal British Indian Association calls a mass meeting to organise opposition to the proposed Asiatics (Land and Trading) Amendment Act, which will prohibit Transvaal Indians from owning shares in limited companies
1926 – Dmitri Shostakovitch’s First Symphony premieres in Leningrad
1928 – Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini ends women’s rights in Italy
1930 – Marc Connelly is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Green Pastures, which was the first play with an all-black cast to be performed on Broadway
1933 – The Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration are formed to help the needy and struggling farmers
1934 – Duke Ellington’s “Cocktails for Two” is #1 on the charts
1949 – Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India is the first foreign woman ambassador to be received in U.S.
1965 – Israel and West Germany exchange letters beginning diplomatic relations
1965 – The Rolling Stones record their song “Satisfaction”
1967 – The Jimi Hendrix Experience release their debut album Are You Experienced
1968 –The “Poor People’s March” led by Reverend Ralph Abernathy reaches Washington DC, a multiracial demonstration for economic and human rights
1977 – The Eagles album Hotel California, released in 1976, goes gold
1982 –Novelist John Updike is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Rabbit is Rich
1999 – Sir David Steel becomes the first Speaker of the modern Scottish Parliament
2002 – Jimmy Carter becomes the first present or former U.S. president to visit Cuba since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959
2008 – The first Public Gardens Day * is sponsored by American Public Gardens Association
2012 – The discovery of a missing Mayan calendar piece disproves 2012 Armageddon.
________________________________________________________________
.