A bit of May 9th history…

1386 - Treaty of Windsor between Portugal and England - Oldest diplomatic alliance in the world that is still in force

1865 - President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation declaring armed resistance in the south is at an end - commonly accepted end date of the American Civil War

1914 - President Woodrow Wilson proclaims Mother’s Day

1960 - US becomes 1st country to legalize birth control pill

2018 - Oldest viral DNA, a form of Hepatitis B, discovered in 7000 year old skeleton in Germany. 

A bit of May 8th history…

1835 - 1st installment of Hans Christian Anderson’s “Fairy Tales” published

1858 - John Brown holds anti-slavery convention

1877 - 1st Westminster Dog Show

1886 - Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta sells 1st Coca-Cola (contained cocaine) (pictured)

1980 - World Health Organization announces smallpox has been eradicated 

A bit of May 7th history…

1664 - Louis XIV inaugurates the Palace of Versailles

1945 - Unconditional German surrender to the Allies

1952 - The concept of the integrated circuit, which is the basis for all modern computers, is 1st published

1982 - IBM releases PC DOS version 1.1

1984 - $180 million out-of-court settlement reached in Agent Orange suit

2012 - Paleoclimatological research claims that dinosaur flatulence may have warmed the earth (pictured) 

A bit of May 6th history…

1527 - End of Renaissance: Spanish and German Imperial troops sack Rome

1541 - King Henry VIII orders a bible in English placed in every church

1626 - Dutch colonist Peter Minuit buys Manhattan Island from Native Americans for 60 guilders worth of goods

1837 - US blacksmith, John Deere, creates the 1st steel plough

1937 - Hindenburg explodes at Lakehurst, NJ killing 35 out of 97 passengers (pictured)

1994 - Nelson Mandela and the ANC confirmed as winners in S Africa’s first post-apartheid election

2013 - US Senate passes bill enabling taxing of online sales 

A bit of May 5th history…

1260 - Kublai Khan, grandson of Ghengis Khan, becomes ruler of Mongol Empire

1862 - Cinco de Mayo: Mexicans defeat French forces of Napolean III

1877 - Sitting Bull leads his Lakota Tribe to Canada

1893 - ‘Panic of 1893′ causes a large crash in the NY Stock Exchange

1941 - 1st modern perfume, Chanel No.5, released by Coco Chanel

1961 - Alan Shepard becomes 1st American in space

2000 - Conjunction of Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon (pictured) 

A bit of May 4th history…

1878 - Thomas Edison’s phonograph shown for 1st time

1904 - construction begins by US on the Panama Canal

1970 National guard kills 4 at Kent State (pictured)

1972 - “The Don’t Make a Wave Committee” officially changes it’s name to Greenpeace Foundation

1998 - The Unibomber, Ted Kaczynski, gets 4 life sentences + 30 years 

A bit of May 3rd history…

1715 - Edmond Halley observes total eclipse phenomenon “Bailey’s Beads” (pictured)

1921 - West Virginia imposes 1st state sales tax

1947 - Japan’s post-war constitution goes into effect, granting universal suffrage, stripping Emperor Hirohito of all but symbolic power, and outlawing Japan’s right to make war

1970 - Trans-Arabian Pipeline delivering oil from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean is interrupted in Syria, driving oil tanker prices to all time high

1971 - National Public Radio (NPR) begins programming

1978 - 1st unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail (spam) is sent 

A bit of May 2nd history…

1670 - King Charles II gives royal charter to Hudson Bay Company

2011 - Osama bin Laden, mastermind behind 9/11 attacks, is killed by US special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan

2018 - New research shows plants “talk” to each other through their roots and the soil

2019 - A clean-up on Mt Everest removed 3 tons of trash and 4 bodies

2019 - The second only sketch known of Leonardo Da Vinci (pictured) from Queen Elizabeth’s collection was revealed on the 500th anniversary of his death  

A bit of May 1st history…

1006 - Supernova observed by Chinese and Egyptians in constellation Lupus

1753 - Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus & formal start date of plant taxonomy

1776 - Adam Weishaupt founded secret society of Illuminati 

1930 - Planet Pluto is officially named by 11 year old Venetia Burney

1939 - Batman 1st appears in Detective Comics #27

1999 - Spongebob Squarepants debuts (pictured)

2003 - “Mission Accomplished” speech by President George W Bush declaring that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended. 

A bit of April 30th history…

311- Roman Emperor Galerius issues Edict of Toleration which ends persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire

711 - Islamic conquest of Iberia - Moorish troops land in Gibralter

1789 - George Washington is inaugurated as 1st president of USA

1803 - James Monroe signs Louisiana Purchase Treaty at cost of $15 million, doubles size of USA

1897 - Physicist JJ Thomson discovers electron

1945 - Adolph Hitler commits suicide in Berlin as Red Army captures city

1952 - Mr Potato Head is 1st toy advertised on TV (pictured)

1974 - President Nixon hands over partial transcripts of Watergate tape recordings

1989 - World Wide Web (www) is 1st launched in public domain by CERN

1997 - 42 million watch Ellen DeGeneres publicly declare she is gay

2004 - US media release graphic photos of American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison