May 25th is

National Brown-Bag It Day

National Missing Children’s Day *

Red Nose Day *

National Tap Dance Day *

National Wine Day

Intergalactic Towel Day *

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MORE! Christian Doppler, Beverly Sills and Douglas Adams, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Christianity – Ascension Day, also called Holy Thursday, the day of Christ’s bodily ascension into heaven

Chad, Comoros, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Ghana, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritania, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe – Africa Unity Day aka Africa Day, African Freedom Day, OAU Day

Argentina – May Revolution Day

Bolivia – Sucre:
First Cry for Freedom *

Jordan – Independence Day

Lebanon – South Liberation Day *

Wales – Hay-On-Wye:
Hay Festival (writer-reader fest)

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On This Day in HISTORY

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 by Chinese, Babylonian, and medieval European chroniclers

1085 – Moorish-held Toledo falls under a siege by Alfonso VI of Castile

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

1660 – Charles II lands at Dover at the invitation of the Convention Parliament (England), which marks the end of the Cromwell-proclaimed Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and begins the Restoration of the British monarchy.

1680 – Elizabeth Haddon born, American colonialist, Quaker, founder of Haddon Township and Haddonfield, New Jersey; her courtship with John Estaugh is described in Longfellow’s poem “Elizabeth” from Tales of a Wayside Inn

Elizabeth Haddon House, Haddonfield NJ

1787 – The Constitutional Convention convenes in Philadelphia

1803 – Ralph Waldo Emerson born, Essayist, philosopher, poet; a leading figure of the Transcendentalist movement

1809 – First Cry for Freedom * – Patriot revolt in Chuquisaca (modern day Sucre) against the Spanish Empire, sparking the Latin American wars of independence

1842 – Christian Doppler presents his idea, now known as the Doppler Effect, to the Royal Bohemian Society, Prague

1846 – Princess Helena of the United Kingdom born, founding member of the Royal Red Cross and Royal School of Needlework, Royal British Nurses’ association president

1878 – Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore opens at the Opera Comique in London

1878 – Bill “Bojangles” Robinson born, iconic American tap dancer; star performer in Broadway and the Silver Screen (see 1989 entry for National Tap Dance Day)

1886 – Leta Stetter Hollingworth born, American psychologist; pioneer in psychology of women, clinical and educational psychology; did notable work with exceptional children

1886 – Philip Murray born in Scotland, American steelworker; first president of the United Steel Workers of America (USWA); president of the CIO who forged an alliance between Labor and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, and laid the foundation for the 1955 merger between the CIO and the AFL

1887 – Sue Shelton White born, American feminist leader and lawyer; editor of the National Woman’s Party’s newspaper, The Suffragist; arrested in 1919 for burning a paper effigy of Woodrow Wilson during a protest in front of the White House – after her release from jail, toured with other arrestees on a train tour of the U.S. they called the “Prison Special” to keep the suffrage issue before the public; earned a law degree in 1923, helping to draft the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA); worked for the Democratic National Committee and Eleanor Roosevelt; on legal staff for the Social Security Administration (1935), then principle attorney for the Federal Security Agency, until she became ill with cancer

1889 – Igor Sikorsky born in Russia; aviation pioneer, immigrated to the U.S. in 1919; developed many successful aircraft, including the Pan American ‘flying boats’ and the first mass-produced helicopter, the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300

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

1898 – Bennett Cerf born, American publisher, co-founder of Random House Publishers; editor of several joke books and literary anthologies

1905 – Dorothy Porter Wesley born, African American librarian, bibliographer and curator who worked on the world-class research collection at the Moorland-Springarn Research Center at Howard University

1914 – British House of Commons passes the Irish Home Rule act, but it is postponed by the outbreak of WWI and never takes effect; superseded by the Government of Ireland Act 1920

1925 – Teacher John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in Tennessee

1925 – Rosario Castellanos born, Mexican poet, author; work deals with cultural and gender oppression; one of Mexico’s most important 20^th century literary figures

1926 – Miles Davis born, American Jazz trumpeter, composer and bandleader, one of the most influential figures in 20^th century music

1927 – Robert Ludlum born, American writer; originator of the Jason Bourne series

1928 – Mary Wells Lawrence born, American businesswoman, first woman CEO of a  NY Stock Exchange-listed company, first female executive of a U.S. advertising firm

1929 – Beverly Sills, leading American lyric coloratura soprano; after retiring from the stage, she became the general manager of the New York City Opera, then chair of Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Opera; devoted time to arts and charity causes, especially the March of Dimes

1938 – Raymond Carver born, American short story author and poet; noted for award-winning stories like “A Small, Good Thing” and “Where I’m Calling From”

1939 – Ian McKellen born, English actor, LGBT rights activist and supporter of the charities Age UK and Only Make Believe

1944 – Frank Oz (Oznowicz) born in England to refugees from the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands; the family moved to America when he was seven; American puppeteer, and filmmaker, giving voice and movement to several of the Muppets on Sesame Street and The Muppet Show; also the voice of Yoda in the Star Wars movies; his directing credits include Little Shop Of Horrors, What About Bob? and Housesitter

1945 – Arthur C. Clark born, British science fiction author, inventor and undersea explorer, proposes relay satellites in geosynchronous orbit

1953 – The first non-commercial educational TV station goes on the air in Houston TX

1961 – President John F. Kennedy announces the U.S. goal of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade

1962 – The Isley Brothers release “Twist and Shout”

1964 – Frank Gilroy’s play The Subject Was Roses opens on Broadway; it wins the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and a Tony Award for Best Play

1964 – In Griffen v. Prince Edward County School Board, the U.S. Supreme Court rules 7-2 that closing schools to avoid desegregation is unconstitutional, as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment; the school board had voted in 1959 t0 close public schools rather than integrate them, and offers vouchers to all students to pay for nonsectarian private school tuition, but no private schools in the county existed for black students, who were deprived of formal education from 1959 to 1963, as all the private schools continued to refuse admission to black students

1968 – The Rolling Stones release “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” in the U.K.

1968 – The Gateway Arch in St. Louis MO is dedicated

1969 – The movie Midnight Cowboy opens in New York

1973 – Mike Oldfield releases “Tubular Bells”

1977 – Premiere of  the original Star Wars movie, Episode IV, A New Hope

1983 – The first National Missing Children’s Day * – The U.S. Department of Justice has a ceremony each year honoring the efforts of agencies, organizations, and individuals to protect children

1986 – An estimated 7 million Americans take part in “Hands Across America” to raise money for the hungry and homeless

1988 – The first Red Nose Day * is launched by Comic Relief in the United Kingdom as a response to famine in Ethiopia; the campaign becomes a project of the U.S. Comic Relief  Inc. in 2015; globally, Red Nose Day has raised over $1 billion toward making lasting change in the lives of poor and disadvantaged people, and ending childhood poverty since 1988

1989 – The first National Tap Dance Day * is held to celebrate this American dance form, on the birthday of “Bojangles” Robinson (see 1878 entry); it is proclaimed by President George H.W. Bush as a recognized National Day in 2004, but now also celebrated in other countries, including Japan, Australia, India and Iceland

1997 – A military coup by the Armed Forces Military Council (AFRC) in Sierra Leone ousts President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, and puts Johnny Paul Koroma in power, setting off an explosion of violence against civilians; he is overthrown in 1998 during conflict with Nigerian forces; Koroma indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone established in 2002 by treaty between the U.N. and Sierra Leone for crimes against humanity; though presumed dead, there is no positive proof, so the indictments against him remain in force

1999 – The U.S. House of Representatives releases the Cox Report which details the People’s Republic of China’s nuclear espionage against the U.S.A.

2000 – South Liberation Day * – Israel withdraws its army from most of the Lebanese territory after 22 years of its first invasion in 1978

2001 – The first Intergalactic Towel Day * is launched in tribute to the author Douglas Adams, after his death on May 11, by his fans, who carry a towel, as described in his series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – “A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have . . .”

2006 – Enron chief executives Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling are found guilty of fraud and conspiracy

2013 – 80-year-old Yuichiro Miura of Japan is the oldest person to climb Mount Everest

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