May 11th is

Eat What You Want Day

Hostess CupCake Day *

National Foam Rolling Day *

Twilight Zone Day

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MORE! Isabelle Bogelot, Salvador Dali and Judith Weir, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Azores – Azores Day
(celebrates political autonomy)

Canada – Nisga’a Nation:
Nisga’a Treaty Day *

Hong Kong –
Cirque de la Symphonie

India – National Technology Day

Indonesia – Day of the Military Police
of the National Armed Forces

Netherlands – Bunnik: Geheime Liefde
(Secret Love Music festival)

United Kingdom – Telford:
Shropshire Kids Festival

Vietnam – Vietnam Human Rights Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

330 – Byzantium is renamed Nova Roma during a dedication ceremony, but it is more popularly called Constantinople

Emperor Constantine I, called ‘the Great’ – ruled 306 to 337 AD

868 – A copy of the Diamond Sūtra is printed in China, making it the oldest known dated printed book; it is a Buddhist sūtra from the Prajñāpāramitā (Perfection of Wisdom) concerning the practices of non-binding and non-attachment

1092 – In England, Lincoln Cathedral is consecrated; it will be the tallest building in the world from 1311 until 1549, the second building to hold the tallest title after the Great Pyramid of Giza (in 1549, the central spire collapsed and was not rebuilt)

1310 – King Philip IV of France, who owed large amounts of money to the Knights Templar, orders fifty-four members of the military order burned at the stake as heretics

1647 – Peter Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam to replace Willem Kieft as  Director-General of New Netherland, the Dutch colonial settlement (present-day New York City); he appoints a nine-man advisory council to represent the colonists

Peter Stuyvesant on left, artist not credited

1720 – Baron Munchhausen born, German story-teller; his tales became The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

1771 – Laskarina Bouboulina born, Greek naval commander, heroine of the Greek War of Independence in 1821; when her second husband was killed fighting Algerian pirates, she took over his fortune and his trading business and had four more ships built at her own expense, including the large warship Agamemnon. When the Turks tried to confiscate her property because her husband had fought with the Russians in the Turko-Russian wars, she met with Russian Ambassador Pavel Stroganov, and gained Russian protection. The Agamemnon was one of the largest warships in the hands of Greek rebels, and she spent much of her fortune on arms and food for the men under her command, taking part in naval blockades and capturing cities held by the Turks, including Tripolis, where she saved most of the female members of the sultan’s household. After her death, Emperor Alexander I of Russia granted her the honorary Admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy, making her the only woman in world naval history to hold that rank until the 20^th Century

Oil painting of Bouboulina, the National Historical Museum, Athens

1792 – Robert Gray, an American merchant sea captain, becomes the first documented white person to sail into the Columbia River

1812 – Spencer Perceval becomes the only British Prime Minister to be assassinated, by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons. Bellingham was demanding compensation from the British Government for being imprisoned in Russia for a year, while on business there for his employers, at the order of a Russian Governor-General, over an alleged debt

1817 – Fanny Cerrito born, Italian prima ballerina and choreographer of Rosida; one of the few women in the 19^th Century to be acclaimed as a choreographer

Lithograph of Fanny Cerrito in “La Lituana”

1838 – Isabelle Bogelot born, philanthropist, feminist and author; noted for setting up temporary shelters for women and children, and transitional housing for women released from prison. She also campaigned for major reforms at the infamous women’s prison, St. Lazare. Co-founder in 1901 of the National Council of French Women (CNFF). Author of Trente ans de solidarité (Thirty Years of Solitude)

1846 – President James K. Polk asks for and receives from Congress a Declaration of War against Mexico, starting the Mexican–American War

1857 – Indian rebels seize Delhi from the British East India Company; the uprising is put down after 18 months, but the British Government takes control from the East India Company, forming the British Indian Empire under the Government of India Act 1858

1875 – Harriet Quimby born, American pilot and screenwriter, first woman granted a U.S. pilot’s license, first woman to fly across the English Channel

1884 – Alma Gluck born in Romania, American operatic soprano and concert singer, one of the most famous singers of her generation in the world

1888 – Irving Berlin born in Russia, American composer and lyricist for stage and screen musicals, one of America’s greatest songwriters

1894 – 4,000 Pullman Palace Car Company workers go on strike in Illinois, which spreads, crippling nationwide rail service until the federal government intervenes

1894 – Martha Graham born, American dancer and choreographer, had tremendous impact on modern dance over her 70 year career, founder of the oldest dance company in the U.S., recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom

1895 – William Grant Still born, American composer of five symphonies and eight operas; the “Dean of African-American composers”

1901 – Rose Ausländer born in Cernauti, Austria-Hungary, lived in the U.S and Germany, Jewish poet who wrote in both German and English, editor of the U.S. German language newspaper Westlicher Herold; most copies of her first books of poems were destroyed when the Nazis occupied Cernauti in 1941

1901 – Gladys Rockmore Davis, American artist who worked as both a painter and a commercial artist

Self-Portrait, by Gladys Rockmore Davis – 1942

1904 – Salvador Dali born, prominent Spanish surrealist artist

1905 – Catherine Bauer Wurster born, influential American urban planner, author and public housing advocate; author of Modern Housing, published in 1934, and still regarded as a classic in the field. She was a leading member of the “housers,” a group of planners who advocated affordable housing for low-income families, she dramatically changed social housing practice and law in the United States. Bauer was the primary author of the Housing Act of 1937 and advised five presidents on housing and urban planning strategies. Following the passage of the Housing Act of 1937, she was named the Director of Information and Research for the newly formed United States Housing Authority, a federal agency of the Department of the Interior under the New Deal. She was the initiator of the standard of one-third of a household’s income as the maximum that should have to be paid for housing  

1910 – The U.S. Congress establishes Glacier National Park in Montana

1918 – Sheila Burnford born in Scotland, British-Canadian author; best known for The Incredible Journey, which won the Canadian Library Association award as the 1963 Book of the Year for Children

1918 – Richard Feynman born, American theoretical physicist and author; won the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics; his autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! was a best-seller

1918 – Mrinalini Sarabhai born in British India, Indian classical dancer and choreographer of over 300 dance dramas; founder and director of the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in Ahmedabad; chair of the Gujarat State Handicrafts and Handloom Development Corporation; honored in 1992 by the Indian government with the Padma Bhushan, the nation’s third highest civilian award

1919 – Jeff Cup begins selling his Chocolate Cup Cakes, the first commercially produced cupcake, but now known as the Hostess CupCake *

1921 – Hildegard Hamm-Brücher born, German liberal politician, chemist and science journalist; served as Minister of State in the Foreign Office and as Secretary of the Ministry of Education; German presidential candidate in 1993

1922 – Ameurfina Melencio-Herrera born, Filipina judge; second woman justice on the Philippine Supreme Court (1979-1992)

1924 – Robert Frost is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

1933 – Anna M. McCann born, American art historian, archaeologist and academic; in the early 1960s, she became the first American woman underwater archaeologist, scuba diving with Jacques Cousteau to explore ancient Roman shipwrecks in the waters near Marseille; Roman Sarcophagi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

1936 – Carla Bley born, American jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader; composed jazz opera Escalator Over the Hill

1940 – The New York World’s Fair opens

1942 – William Faulkner’s collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, is published

1943 – Clarence Ellis born, American computer scientist, the first African American to earn a PhD in Computer Science (1969), and the first to be elected a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (1997). Ellis was a pioneer in CSCW (computer-supported cooperative work), Groupware and Operational Transformation

1946 – Robert Jarvik born, American cardiologist who developed the Artificial Heart

1949 – Israel joins the United Nations

1950 – Eugene Ionesco’s La Cantatrice Chauve (“The Bald Soprano”) premieres in Paris

1954 – Judith Weir born, British composer and Master of the Queen’s Music; noted for operas, The Vanishing Bridegroom, Armida and Miss Fortune

1956 – Theresa Burke born, Canadian journalist, writer and producer for CBC television’s newsmagazine, The Fifth Estate. She won a Canadian Association of Journalists award in 2000 for the program ‘His Word Against History’ about the life of convicted murderer Steven Truscott

1960 –In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents capture fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann who is living under the alias of Ricardo Klement

1961 – Cecile Licad born, Filipina classical pianist; winner of the 1981 Leventritt
Competition Gold Medal

1963 – Racist bombings in Birmingham, Alabama disrupt the nonviolence of the Birmingham campaign and precipitate a crisis involving federal troops

1963 – “Puff the Magic Dragon” by Peter, Paul & Mary is #2 on the charts

1963 – Gunilla Carlsson born, Swedish politician; Minister for International Development Cooperation (2006-2013), Swedish Riksdag member (2002-2013) and deputy chair of the Moderate Party (2003-2015)

1965 – Ellis Island becomes part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument

1973 – Citing government misconduct, Judge William M. Byrne dismisses charges against Daniel Ellsberg for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times

1974 – Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” reaches #7 on the charts

1981 – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats, based on T.S. Eliot, premieres
in London

1987 – Klaus Barbie’s trial begins in Lyon for war crimes committed during WWII

1987 – The Anti-Apartheid Movement in London ends its seventeen-year boycott of Barclays Bank for its ties with South Africa

1989 – U.S President George H.W. Bush orders almost 2,000 troops to Panama

1995 – More than 170 countries extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions

1997 – Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format

1998 – French mint produces the first coins of the Euro, Europe’s new single currency

2000 – Nisga’a Treaty *: the First Nation Nishg’a people and the governments of British Columbia and Canada reach an agreement which recognizes land and water in the Nass River Valley as belonging to the Nisga’a, and creates Bear Glacier Provincial Park. Thirty-one Nisga’a placenames are restored. The Nisg’a now have control over their land, and its forestry and fishing resources

2002 – HRH Princess Margriet of the Netherlands unveils the Man With Two Hats monument in Ottawa, (its twin was unveiled in Apeldoorn May 2) symbolically linking both the Netherlands and Canada for their assistance throughout WWII

Man with Two Hats, sculpted by Dutch artist Henk Visch
photo ©2015 by Ruth Lor Malloy

2010 – Imelda Marcos wins election to the Philippines House of Representatives, for the Ilocos Norte province

2012 – Chinese scientists break world record, transferring photons over 97 kilometers using quantum teleportation

2014 – Thousands protest waste incineration plant construction in Hangzhou, China

2015 – National Foam Rolling Day * is launched to celebrate the health benefits of using a foam roller to massage your muscles to reduce stress and increase mobility

2015 – Record price for a work of art at auction: Picasso’s The Women of Algiers (Version ‘O’) sells for $179.3 million at Christies NY

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