May 26th is

Paper Airplane Day

Blueberry Cheesecake Day

World Lindy Hop Day

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MORE! Mamie Smith, J. F. Ade Ajayi and Mika Yamamoto, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

Australia – National Sorry Day *

Denmark –
Crown Prince Frederik’s Birthday

Georgia – Independence Day

Guyana – Independence Day

Poland – Mother’s Day

Turkmenistan – Turkmen Carpet Day

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On This Day in HISTORY

47 BC – Julius Caesar visits Tarsus (now in Turkey), where he is acclaimed, on his way to Pontus, on the south coast of the Black Sea

946 – Edmund I, King of the English, is assassinated by Leofa, a thief sentenced to exile

1135 – Alfonso VII of León and Castile is crowned in León Cathedral as Imperator totius Hispaniae (Emperor of all of Spain)

1264 – Prince Koreyasu born, nominal Japanese shōgun of the Kamakura shogunate;  the Hōjō clan regents were actually in control, from 1266 when he was 2 years old until he was deposed in 1289 at age 25. Koreyasu became a Buddhist monk, using the priestly name Ono-no miya

1538 – The city of Geneva, Switzerland, expels John Calvin and his followers, after the city’s council insists that unleavened bread be used for communion at Easter services, so Calvin refuses to give communion at all, and a riot ensues. Calvin lives in exile in Strasbourg for the next three years

1647 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony bans Jesuit priests from the colony on penalty of death; in addition to being French Catholics, the Jesuits converted many Indians in Canada who were potential French allies, and England and France were at war

1647 – Alse Young became the first person executed as a witch in the American colonies, when she is hanged in Hartford, Connecticut

1650 – John Churchill born, 1^st Duke of Marlborough, English general and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire

1689 – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu baptised, English poet and letter writer; she “stole” her education from books in her father’s library, teaching herself Latin. Remembered for letters written home from the Ottoman Empire as the wife of the British ambassador to Turkey, the first notable secular work by a woman about “the Muslim Orient” (Letters from Turkey). Also notable for introducing and campaigning for smallpox inoculation in Britain after her return from Turkey. In her writings, she addresses and challenges the hindering attitudes of her society toward women and their intellectual and social growth

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, by Charles Jervas, circa 1717

1799 – Aleksandr Pushkin born, Russian poet, novelist, dramatist and short-story writer

1805 – The Lewis and Clark expedition first sights the Rocky Mountains

1824 – The United States is the first country to recognize the independence of Brazil

1837 – Washington Roebling born, American civil engineer; Brooklyn Bridge designer

1860 – During the struggle for the unification of Italy, the Expedition of the Thousand, a volunteer corps led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, with help from disgruntled locals, occupies Palermo, Italy

1861 – U.S. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair announces the end of postal connection to the South because of the Civil War

1861 – The Union blockades New Orleans LA and Mobile AL

1869 – Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

1881 – Julia C. Stimson born, American nurse, Major in the United States Army, superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps during WWI, chief of the Nursing Council on National Defense during WWII, recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal as well as Victory Medals for WWI and WWII

1883 – Mamie Smith born, American singer, pianist, and dancer; the first African American artist to make a vocal blues recording (1920)

1895 – Dorothea Lange born, American photographer and journalist; notable work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression

1896 – Tsar Nicholas II is crowned; he will be the last Tsar of Russia

1898 – San Francisco approves City Charter, allows Municipal ownership of utilities

1899 – Muriel McQueen Fergusson born, Canadian lawyer  and Liberal politician; Senator (1953-1975), and the first woman Speaker of the Canadian Senate (1972-1974). She campaigned for increased participation of women in politics, and successfully petitioned in 1946, for the right of all women in New Brunswick to vote in municipal elections. She was also an advocate for pay equity and children’s rights, and the first woman Director of Family Allowances. In 1976, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada

1906 – The Archaeological Institute of America is formed

1908 – The first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made at Masjed Soleyman in southeast Persia; the United Kingdom acquires the rights

1909 – Helen Moore Anderson born, American diplomat; President Truman appoints her as Ambassador to Denmark, first woman to serve as chief of mission at the level of ambassador (1949-1953). She learned Danish after her appointment. Appointed by President Kennedy as minister to Bulgaria (1962-1964), the first woman chief of a U.S. diplomatic mission behind the Iron Curtain; President Lyndon Johnson appointed her to the UN Trusteeship Council in 1965, where she was the first woman to sit on the Security Council, and a year later she served on the UN Committee for Decolonization

Helen Moore Anderson with President Kennedy in 1962

1913 – The Actors’ Equity Association of America is formed in New York

1913 – Emily Duncan becomes Great Britain’s first woman magistrate; she worked for 20 years on the West Ham Union Workhouse board of guardians, and eventually became its Chair

1915 – Antonia Forest born as Patricia Rubinstein; English writer of children’s novel under her pen name; her real name was not made public until after her death. Best known for her series of Marlow novels

1916 – Henriette Roosenburg born, journalist, Dutch resistance courier during WWII and political prisoner; tells the story in her memoir The Walls Came Tumbling Down; after WWII, she became a correspondent for Time Inc, in Paris, The Hague and New York; awarded the Bronze Lion of the Netherlands 

1920 – Peggy Lee born, American singer-songwriter

1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs Immigration Act of 1924 into law; immigration remains open to the college-educated and skilled workers, but entry was denied to Mexicans, and disproportionately to Eastern and Southern Europeans and Japanese. At the same time, the legislation allowed for more immigration from Northern European nations such as Britain, Ireland and the Scandinavian countries

1927 – The last Model T Ford, #15,000,000, rolls off the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company

1929 – J. F. Ade Ajayi born, Nigerian historian, one of a group of scholars identified as the Ibadan School, who introduced African perspectives to African history, focusing on the internal historical forces that shaped African lives

1930 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in United States v. Norris that since Albert Norris, who was charged with conspiracy to transport intoxicating liquors in violation of the National Prohibition Act, purchased the intoxicating liquor but did not sell it or transport it, he was not in violation of the Prohibition Act

1937 – San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge opens after five years of construction; Pedestrian Day, some 200,000 walkers marvel at the 42,000-foot-long suspension bridge. It opens for vehicles the following day

1938 – Lyudmila Petrushevskaya born, Russian novelist and playwright; her work was often censored by the Soviet government, but she published a number of well-respected works of prose after perestroika; her memoir is The Girl from the Metropol Hotel

1940 – Monique Gagnon-Tremblay born, French Canadian Liberal politician; member of the National Assembly of Quebec (1985-2012); Leader of the Opposition (1998)

1940 – The first successful helicopter flight in the U.S., in a Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 designed by Igor Sikorsky

1943 – Erica Terpstra born, Dutch politician of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (WD); Undersecretary for Health, Welfare and Sport (1994-1998); member of the House of Representatives (1977-1994); was an Olympic swimmer at the 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics

1947 – Carol O’Connell born, American crime fiction author, known for Kathy Mallory series, and the standalone novels, The Judas Child, and Bone by Bone

1948 – Stevie Nicks born, American singer-songwriter, vocalist with Fleetwood Mac (1975-1987) who also successful solo career; the only women who has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, as a member of  Fleetwood Mac in 1998, and as a solo artist in 2019

1949 – Dame Anne McGuire born, British Labour politician; member of Parliament for Stirling (1997-2015); Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (2005-2008) Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (2003-2005); Lord Commissioner of the Treasury (2001-2002); Chair of the Scottish Labour Party at the
1992 election

1951 – Madeleine Taylor-Quinn born, Irish Fine Gael politician; member as a Teachta Dála (lower house representative) of the Oireachtas (Parliament) for County Clare and as a Senator; first woman Teachta Dála for Clare, and first woman officer in the Fine Gael party, as Joint Honorary Secretary (1979-1982)

1951 – Sally Ride born, American physicist and NASA astronaut; first American woman in space; first American woman in space, and the first American woman to orbit the Earth. A physics professor, she was one of six women chosen for the astronaut program in 1978. She was a member of the team which investigated the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters. She died of pancreatic cancer in 2012

1953 – Kay Hagan born, American lobbyist and politician; defeated Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole in 2008, the first woman to defeat an incumbent woman in a U.S. Senate race, for U.S. Senator from North Carolina (2009-2015); served in North Carolina Senate (1999-2009); in 2016, she joined the lobbying firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, but in December 2016, Hagan was hospitalized with puzzling symptoms and eventually diagnosed with Powassan virus, a tick-borne disease causing brain swelling, which left her unconscious for 43 days. She spent 5½ months at a rehabilitation center in Atlanta, and continued to undergo therapy, but was unable to walk and limited in her ability to speak

1956 – Fiona Charkham Shackleton born, Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia, high profile English solicitor, whose clients have included members of the British royal family and Sir Paul McCartney

1961 – The Freedom Ride Coordinating Committee is established in Atlanta GA

1963 – The Organization of African Unity (OAU) is formed

1963 – Merethe Lindstrøm born, Norwegian author and short story writer; her novel, Steinsamlere (The Stone Collectors), won the 1997 Tanums kvinnestipend from the Norwegian Writer’s Association

1964 – Caitlín R. Kiernan born in Ireland, (alternate pen name Kathleen Tierney), American author of science fiction and dark fantasy, trained as a paleontologist, transsexual lesbian; noted for Silk, and The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, which won the 2012 James Tiptree Jr. Award

1966 – Vietnamese student protesters attack and burn the U.S. Information Service library and cultural center, after the Saigon police unit assigned to protect flees

1967 – Mika Yamamoto born, Japanese award-winning photojournalist for the news agency Japan Press; though she was wearing a flak jacket, Yamamoto was shot in the neck and died in 2012 while covering the Syrian Civil War in Aleppo, Syria

1972 – President Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in Moscow

1973 – Deep Purple’s single “Smoke On The Water” is released

1973 – Naomi Harris born in Canada, Canadian-American photographer based in New York City; noted for her portraits of people from sub-cultures

Naomi Harris – Self-portrait with dog – Ituna Motel

1977 – Raina Telgemeier born, American cartoonist and graphic novelist; noted for her related graphic novels, Smile; Sisters; and Drama

1979 – Amanda Bauer born, American astronomer and science communicator; Head of Education and Public Outreach at the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope in Tucson, Arizona; Research Astronomer at the Australian Astronomical Observatory (2013-2016); her research concerns how galaxies form, how they create new stars, and particularly why they suddenly stop creating new stars

1987 – U.S. Supreme Court upholds a provision in the Bail Reform Act of 1984 contested in United States v. Salerno; bail may be denied to arrestees charged with serious felonies if clear and convincing evidence shows no release conditions “will reasonably assure . . . the safety of any other person and the community”

1998 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in County of Sacramento vs. Lewis that police can’t be held responsible for injuries to either fleeing suspects or bystanders caused by high-speed chases unless their actions are so egregious that they “shock the conscience” – allowing lawsuits only if police officers show a “reckless disregard for life” – and leaving those injured with no federal remedy against the state and local governments which employ the police officers

1998 – National Sorry Day * a grassroots movement prompted by the refusal of Prime Minister John Howard to issue an official apology to the Aboriginal people from the Australian government because he “did not subscribe to the black armband view of history.” Sorry Day is in remembrance of the mistreatment of indigenous Australians, especially the “Stolen Generations” – Aboriginal and mixed-race children separated, often forcibly, from their families, in an attempt to stamp out the indigenous culture

2009 – President Obama nominates federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to be the first Hispanic justice on the U.S. Supreme Court

2011 – Congress passes a four-year extension of post-September 11^th  powers, contained in the Patriot Act, to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists

2014 – Pope Francis declares a zero-tolerance policy for child sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church, saying it is “an ugly crime” and “like a satanic Mass”

2018 – Jason Seaman, the Indiana science teacher who was shot three times on May 25 before he wrestled a 13-year-old shooter to the floor at Noblesville West Middle School, was released from the hospital. He had undergone surgery for wounds in his abdomen, hip and forearm. A student in Seaman’s class was the only other person shot, but her family issued a statement that her condition was critical but stable 

Jason Seaman

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