May 30th is

Hole in My Bucket Day

Loomis Day *

Mint Julep Day

Water a Flower Day

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MORE! Germaine Tillion, Countee Cullen and Naomi Kawase, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Anguilla – Anguilla Day

Croatia – Parliament Day

Nicaragua – Día de las Madres

Spain – Canary Islands:
Día de Canarias

Trinidad and Tobago –
Indian Arrival Day *

United States – Puerto Rico:
Lod Massacre Remembrance Day *

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On This Day in HISTORY

70 AD – Siege of Jerusalem: Titus and his Roman legions breach the Second Wall of Jerusalem. Jewish defenders retreat to the First Wall; the Romans build a circumvallation, cutting down all trees within fifteen kilometers

1010 – Emperor Renzong of Song born; he began his reign at age 12 in 1022, with his stepmother Liu as regent, who refused to step down when he reached his majority in 1027, and ruled until her death in 1033. He then reigned until his own death in 1063

1381 – The Peasants’ Revolt, a major uprising caused by high taxes to recover the cost of the 100 Years’ War with France, political instability, and losses caused by the Black Plague – the final straw was a violent confrontation with tax collectors. The turmoil lasts until November 1381, and there are casualties of at least 1.500 civilians

1431 – In Rouen, France, the 19-year-old Joan d’Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal

Joan d’Arc at the Stake  – 19th century painting – artist uncredited

1539 – Hernando de Soto lands at what is now Tampa Bay, Florida, with 600 soldiers, hunting gold

1631 – Publication begins of Gazette de France, the first French newspaper

1686 – Antonina Houbraken born, Dutch artist, portraitist and illustrator known for topographical drawings; many of her drawings were attributed to her husband until the recent discovery that drawings signed J.S. were actually hers, and drawings signed J:St were her husband’s work; her work is now regarded as more precise and detailed than his, and often includes human figures

Fantasy Landscape by Antonina Houbraken

1806 – Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel supposedly over heated insults exchanged in a dispute about a horse-racing bet, but Dickinson had accused Jackson’s wife of bigamy

1834 – Portuguese Minister of Justice Joaquim António de Aguiar issues a law seizing “all convents, monasteries, colleges, hospices and any other houses” from the Catholic religious orders in Portugal, earning him the epithet “The Friar-Killer”

1842 – John Francis fails in an attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria as she drives down Constitution Hill in London with Prince Albert

1845 – The Fatel Razack arrives, from India, in the Gulf of Paria of Trinidad and Tobago, carrying the first Indians to the country – now commemorated as Indian Arrival Day *

1847 – Alice Stopford Green born, Irish historian and nationalist, supported the pro-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War and was among the first nominees to the newly formed Seanad Éireann in 1922, where she served as an independent member until her death; her books include Town Life in the Fifteenth Century and The Making of Ireland and its Undoing, published in 1908, and A History of the Irish State to 1014, published in 1925

Alice Stopford Green portrait by Henry H. H. Cameron

1848 – Mexico ratifies the treaty selling the U.S. the territories of New Mexico, California, parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Colorado for $15 million USD

1854 – The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 is signed into law by President Pierce; the initial purpose of the act, drafted primarily by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, was to open up thousands of new farms and to make feasible the Midwestern Transcontinental Railroad. The popular sovereignty clause of the law led pro- and anti-slavery elements to flood into Kansas with the goal of voting slavery up or down, resulting in ‘Bleeding Kansas’

1866 – Die verkaufte Braut (The Bartered Bride), an opera by Bedřich Smetana, premieres in Prague

1869 – Grace Andrews born, American mathematician; PhD from Columbia in 1899; Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Barnard College (1900-1902); she and Charlotte Angas Scott are the only women listed in the first edition of American Men of Science, published in 1906

1872 – Mahlon Loomis, dentist and inventor, receives a patent on July 30 for “an improvement in telegraphing, a wireless telegraph system” – I couldn’t find a reason for May 30 to be Loomis Day * – he was born in July and died in October, but even though his theory about why his method worked was wrong, the method did work, and was an important step toward all the wireless devices we take for granted today

1874 – Josephine Preston Peabody born, American poet and playwright; won the Stratford-on-Avon prize for her drama The Piper 

1896 – The first U.S. auto accident: Henry Wells hits a cyclist in New York City

1899 – Pearl Hart, outlaw, after cutting her hair and dressing in men’s clothing, robs a stage coach 30 miles southeast of the mining town Globe, Arizona with her partner Joe Boot. It was one of the last stage coach robberies in the U.S.

1899 –  Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek (ZAR – also called Transvaal) President Paul Kruger and Sir Alfred Milner, the British High Commissioner for South Africa, meet in Bloemfontein to discuss the franchise question, especially the 14 year residency requirement for foreigners. Six days later, their conference ended without any resolution. On October 11, 1899, the Second Anglo-Boer War began

Sir Alfred Milner and ZAR President Paul Kruger

1901 – Cornelia Otis Skinner born, American actress, monologist, and author of Our Hearts Were Young and Gay

1903 – Countee Cullen born, African American poet of the Harlem Renaissance

1907 – Germaine Tillion born, French anthropologist, ethnologist; she did field work for her doctorate between 1934 and 1940, studying the Berber and Chaoui people in the Aures region of northeastern Algeria. When she returned to Paris in 1940, France had been invaded by Germany. As her first act of resistance, she helped a Jewish family by giving them her family’s papers. She became a member of the French Resistance in the network of the Musée de l’Homme in Paris. Her missions included helping prisoners to escape and organizing intelligence for the allied forces from 1940 to 1942. Tillion was betrayed by a collaborator who infiltrated her group, and was arrested August 13, 1942. In October 1943, she was sent to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück, near  Berlin with her mother, Émilie Tillion, also a resistante.  She undertook a precise ethnographic analysis of the concentration camp. Her mother was killed in March 1945. Tillion escaped from Ravensbrück in the spring of that year in a rescue operation of the Swedish Red Cross that had been negotiated by Folke Bernadotte. In 1973, she published Ravensbruck: An eyewitness account of a women’s concentration camp. Tillion returned to Algeria in 1954 at the brink of the Algerian War of Independence. She described as the principal cause of the conflict the pauperization of the Algerian population. Tillion launched ‘Social Centers’ in October 1955, intended to make available higher education as well as vocational training to the rural population, to help them survive in the cities. In 1957 during the Battle of Algiers, she secretly met with National Liberation Front leader Yacef Saadi, at his instigation, trying to end the spiral of executions and indiscriminate attacks. Tillion was among the first to denounce the use of torture by French forces in the war. She remained outspoken against the impoverishment of the Algerian population, the French use of torture in Algeria, and in favor of the emancipation of women in the Mediterranean. In 2004, along with several other French intellectuals, she issued a statement against the use of torture in Iraq. She died in 2008 at the age of 100

1909 – Benny Goodman born, clarinetist/bandleader; the ‘King of Swing’

1912 – U.S. Marines are sent to Nicaragua to quell a local uprising, and prevent other nations from building a canal there

1912 – Millicent Selsam born, American science teacher and children’s science book author; noted for Egg to Chick, her First Look series, and Biography of an Atom,  which won the 1965 Thomas Alva Edison Award for best children’s science book

Giraffe from How Animals Sleep by Millicent Selsam

1912 – Joseph Stein born, American dramatist/playwright; wrote the book for the musical Fiddler on the Roof

1914 – The new Cunard ocean liner RMS Aquitania, largest of the day at 45,647 tons, sets sails on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York City

1915 – Jerome B. Weisner born, chair of President Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee (1961-1964); critic of NASA’s manned space flights, supporter of Rachel Carson’s findings on DDT, advocate for arms control and critic of anti-ballistic-missile defense systems; President of MIT (1971-1980); named on Richard Nixon’s infamous “enemies list”

1918 – Pita Amor born as Guadalupe Amor Schmidtlein born, Mexican poet; she was called the “11^th Muse” during her youth because she modeled for painters and photographers like Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and Raúl Anguiano, which scandalized her upper-class family; her poetry is notable for its direct expression about metaphysical quandaries in first person voice; Yo soy mi casa, Poesía, and El Zoológico de Pita Amor

Pita Amor with Diego Rivera and his portrait of her

1922 – The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated in Washington DC

1923 – Howard Hanson’s First Symphony, “Nordic” premieres

1926 – George William Jorgensen, Jr born, better known as Christine Jorgensen; a pioneering transsexual

1927 – Joan L. Birman born, American mathematician, specialist in braid theory and knot theory; her book Braids, Links, and Mapping Class Groups, became the standard introductory text; on the Barnard faculty since 1973, now as Research Professor Emerita; awarded the 1996 Chauvenet Prize, given for the outstanding expository article on a mathematical topic

1928 – Agnès Varda born, Belgian director, producer, screenwriter and academic, known for work on feminist issues and social commentary; first woman to receive an honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement; noted for Sans toit ni loi (Without roof or law – released as Vagabond in English-speaking countries)

1932 – The National Theatre of Greece is founded, under an act of parliament signed by the education minister, Georgios Papandreou, on May 30, 1932. The first plays staged were the Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Gregorios Xenopoulos’ comedy O theios Oneiros. There had previously been a Royal National Theatre, which was started in the 1880s, but it had declined and gone dormant in the early 20th Century

1932 – Pauline Oliveros born, American composer, pioneer in development of experimental and post-war electronic art music

1938 – Billie Letts born as Billie Dean Gipson, American novelist and university professor; best known for her novels, Where the Heart Is, Shoot the Moon, and Made in the U.S.A.

1942 – Carole Stone born, British author and radio-television broadcaster and producer of Radio 4’s Any Questions?; author of Networking: The Art of Making Friends and The Ultimate Guide to Successful Networking. Founder of the Carole Stone Foundation in 2018 to encourage people connecting, exchanging ideas and building friendships with people in other countries; she is a Patron of The Centre for Peaceful Solutions, and The Global Foundation to Eliminate Domestic Violence

1946 – Candy Lightner born, political activist, founder of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving)

1955 – Jacqueline McGlade born in Britain, Canadian marine biologist and environmental infomatics (applied science) professor, research focuses on spatial and nonlinear dynamics of ecosystems, climate change and scenario development; Chief Scientist and Director of the Science Division of the UN Environment Programme based in Nairobi (2014-2017); Executive Director of the European Environmental Agency (2003-2013); Professor at University College London Institute for Global Prosperity and Faculty of Engineering, and the Sekenani Research Centre of the Maasai Mara University, Kenya; 2013 Global Citizen Award, Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation 1980 Award in Genetics

1955 – Dame Caroline Swift born, the Honorable Mrs. Justice Swift, noted as British leading counsel in the Shipman Inquiry (2001-2002), concerning Dr. Harold Shipman, horrific serial killer of at least 218 patients under his care, mostly elderly women; appointed as a Justice of the High Court, Queen’s Bench Division (2005-2015); chair of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service since 2017

1962 – Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem premieres

1963 – Élise Lucet born, French investigative journalist, and host of Envoyé special (Special Correspondent) on France 2 television since 2016 

1963 – Helen Sharman born, British chemist and author, chosen out of almost 13,000 applicants to be Britain’s first astronaut for Project Juno; became the first woman to visit the Mir space station in 1991; presenter of science programmes for BBC radio and television; Operations Manager for the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London since 2015

1964 – Wynonna Judd born, American singer, The Judds

1964 – The Beatles’ single “Love Me Do” is #1 in the U.S.

1965 – Vivian Malone is the first black graduate from University of Alabama

1969 – Naomi Kawase born, Japanese film director of documentaries and feature films; 1997 Camera D’Or at the Cannes International Film Festival for Suzaku, the youngest winner of the Camera D’Or; won the 2007 Grand Prix at Cannes for The Mourning Forest, and the 2017 Ecumenical Jury Prize at Cannes for Radiance

1972 – Lod Massacre Remembrance Day * –  17 Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico were killed, with nine other passengers, in a terrorist attack at Lod Airport, outside Tel Aviv, by members of the Japanese Red Army. The terrorists were recruited by the Palestinian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations. Airport security personnel were focused on the possibility of a Palestinian attack, and were taken by surprise by the Japanese attackers. The three terrorists arrived on a flight from France, carrying violin cases, containing modified assault rifles and grenades. They fired indiscriminately at visitors and airport staff in the middle of the terminal, throwing grenades as they stopped to reload. In addition to the 26 people who were killed, 80 more people were injured

1975 – The European Space Agency (ESA) is formed

1975 – Marissa Mayer born, American information technology executive and computer scientist; president and CEO of Yahoo!, from 2012 until the sale of the company to Verizon in 2017; worked for Google (employee #20) from 1999 to 2012, leaving her position as VP of Google Search Products and User Experience (2005-2012) to take over as head of Yahoo! (2012-2017)

1980 – J.M.W.Turner’s painting Juliet & Her Nurse sells for $6.4 million

(It’s kind of a Where’s Waldo – Can you find Juliet and her nurse?)

1991 – In BURNS v. REED, the U.S. Supreme Court rules prosecutors can be sued for legal advice they give police officers

2003 – The animated film Finding Nemo, lead voices by Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres, is released in the U.S. and Canada

2013 – Nigeria passes a law banning same-sex marriage

2016 – Former Chad dictator Hissène Habré becomes the first ex-head of state convicted of crimes against humanity, by the Extraordinary African chambers

2017 – On the eve of Ramadan, over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails ended their 40-day hunger strike, after Israeli authorities agreed to many of the prisoners’ demands, including  increased family visitation rights, more access to telephones, more education for child prisoners and better ventilation in overcrowded prisons

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