May 21......

May 21 is the 141st (142nd in leap years) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 224 days remaining in the year on this date.

Best Liberal Quote of the Day: On Greatness "The greatness of a nation is not the military power to enforce its will upon others, but rather its capacity to aspire inspire high ideals and a humanizing spirit." — James A. Forbes

Stupidest Quote from the Right for the Day: On Liberal Bashing "We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism....we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation today....our battle is with Satan himself." — Jerry Falwell, expressing a decidedly unfavorable view of liberal humanism

Thought for the day: "Obviously crime pays, or there'd be no crime."

{Disclaimer: I have attempted to give credit to the many different sources that I get entries. Any failure to do so is unintentional. Any statement enclosed by brackets like these are the opinion of the blogger, A Proud Liberal.}

EVENTS

● 143 - Earliest known date in America-pre Mayan king Harvest-Bergvorst installed

● 685 - Battle at Nechtansmere: Picten beat Northumbrians

● 878 - Syracuse is captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily.

● 996 - Sixteen-year-old Otto III is crowned Holy Roman Emperor by his cousin Pope Gregory V.

● 1040 - King Henry III gives Utrecht the Groninger currency

● 1216 - French crown prince Louis enters England

● 1420 - Treaty of Troyes-French King Charles VI gives France to English

● 1471 - King Henry VI was killed in the tower of London. Edward IV took the throne.

● 1502 - The island of Saint Helena is discovered by the Portuguese navigator João da Nova.

● 1526 - Sermon of Bathe, Aargau: TC evangelical theology

● 1536 - The General Assembly of Geneva, Switzerland officially embraced Protestantism by accepting the evangelical faith of the Swiss reformers.

● 1542 - Hernando de Soto died along the Mississippi River while searching for gold.

● 1602 - Martha's Vineyard 1st sighted (Captain Bartholomew Gosnold)

● 1674 - John Sobieski is elected by the szlachta to be the King of Poland.

● 1683 - West Indian Company sells 1/3 of Suriname

● 1725 - The Order of Alexander Nevsky was instituted in Russia by an empress Catherine I.

● 1739 - Methodist hymnwriter Charles Wesley, 31, on the first anniversary of his religious conversion, penned the hymn, "O For a Thousand Tongues."

● 1740 - English revivalist George Whitefield wrote in a letter regarding Jesus' character; 'He was God and man in one person, that God and man might be happy together again.'

● 1758 - Mary Campbell is abducted from her home in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War.

● 1790 - Paris was divided into 48 zones.

● 1793 - Curaçao Island Council forbids criticism on House of Orange

● 1804 - Lewis & Clark Expedition begins

● 1809 - Battle at Aspern-Essling: Austrian arch duke Karl beats Napoleon

● 1819 - 1st bicycles (swift walkers) in US introduced in NYC

● 1832 - 1st Democratic National Convention (Baltimore)

● 1840 - New Zealand became a British colony

● 1846 - 1st steamship arrives in Hawaii

● 1851 - Abolition of slavery in Colombia, South America.

● 1856 - Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces.

● 1861 - North Carolina is 10th state to secede from Union

● 1861 - Richmond VA is designated Confederate Capital

● 1863 - American Civil War: Siege of Port Hudson – Union forces begin to lay siege to the Confederate-controlled Port Hudson, Louisiana.

● 1864 - Belgian missionary priest Father Damien, 24, was ordained on the Island of Hawaii. Born Joseph de Veuster, the Picpus Father began a work among the lepers on the island of Molokai in 1873. Contracting the disease in 1884, Father Damien succumbed to it five years later.

● 1864 – General David Hunter takes command of Department of West Virginia

● 1871 - France - Beginning of "Semaine Sanglante" (Bloody Week). Horrendous repression and butchery in the suppression of the Paris Commune begins. The massacres and summary executions leave 20,000-35,000 dead. The Thiers butcher declares "the expiation will be complete. It will take place in the name of the laws, by the law, with the laws." The worst butchery is always, always done within, and in the name of, the laws of the butchers.

● 1879 - War of the Pacific: Two Chilean ships blocking the harbor of Iquique (then belonging to Peru), battle two Peruvian vessels in the Battle of Iquique.

● 1881 - The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton.

● 1894 - Paris anarchist Emile Henry executed for February bombing of the bourgeois Cafe Terminus, killing one and injuring 17. "Courage camarades, viv e l'anarchie" - his last words; executed at dawn, guillotined at age 21.

● 1894 - The Manchester Ship Canal in England is officially opened by Queen Victoria, who knights its designer Sir Edward Leader Williams.

● 1906 - Louis H Perlman patents a demountable tire carrying rim for cars

● 1912 - Coal company goons attack striking miners at Miami, West Va., with machine guns and bombs.

● 1916 - The anarchist brothers Enrique and Ricardo Flora Magon go on trial in Los Angeles for mailing articles inciting "murder, arson, and treason."

● 1916 - Clocks go forward for the first Daylight Saving Day, originally sold to the public as a wartime emergency measure to conserve evening use of electricity.

● 1917 - Great Atlanta fire of 1917.

● 1917 - Leo Pinckney, 1st American drafted during WWI

● 1918 - House of Representatives passes amendment allowing women to vote

● 1921 - Andrei Sakharov, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Soviet scientist and dissident, was born.

● 1923 - Founding Congress of the Labour and Socialist International, in Hamburg, Germany.

● 1924 - University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a "thrill killing."

● 1925 - George Lloyd of Dolobran becomes British High Director of Egypt

● 1925 - Roald Amundsun leaves Spitsbergen with 2 seaplanes to North Pole

● 1927 - Lindbergh lands in Paris France, after 1st solo air crossing of Atlantic

● 1929 - Automatic electric stock quotation board installed, NYC

● 1931 - Belgian Government of Jaspar falls

● 1932 - 1st transatlantic solo flight by a woman (Amelia Earhart) lands

● 1933 - Mount Davidson Cross lit by FDR via telegraph

● 1934 - Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint each of its citizens.

● 1935 - Death of Jane Addams, founder of Settlement House Movement and an opponent of World War I.

● 1936 - Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover's severed genitals in her hand. Her story soon became one of Japan's most notorious scandals.

● 1937 - a Soviet station becomes the first scientific research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic Ocean.

● 1940 - Allied counter attack at Atrecht North-France

● 1940 - AVRO-chairman Willem Vogt fires all Jewish employees

● 1940 - Reynaud forms French Government

● 1941 - World War II: 950 miles off the coast of Brazil, the freighter SS Robin Moor becomes the first United States ship sunk by a German U-boat.

● 1941 - German airforce occupies airport at Maleme Kreta

● 1941 - Singer Johan Heesters visits Dachau concentration camp

● 1942 - Great-Britain convoy PQ16 departs to Russia

● 1944 - German Lutheran theologian and Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter from prison: 'God alone protects; otherwise there is nothing.'

● 1944 - Hitler begins attack on English/US "terror pilots"

● 1944 - Earl Browder dissolves the CPUSA.

● 1945 - The "Little Wagner Act" is signed in the American territory of Hawaii, guaranteeing pineapple and sugar workers the right to bargain collectively. The workers, mainly Asian Americans, soon will go on strike for higher wages and a 40-hour week. Twenty eight thousand striking laborers shut down 33 of Hawaii's 34 plantations. After a long and bitter 79-day strike, the workers win decisively -- the first time in Hawaiian history that employers have been unable to fracture sugar-worker strikers into in-cohesive racial groups.

● 1945 - German war criminal Heinrich Himmler captured

● 1947 - "Justice has been done -- both ways," said white taxi cab driver Roosevelt C. Hurd, Sr., after an all-white jury acquitted him and 27 codefendants of dragging from jail, shooting, beating, and lynching Willie Earle, a black prisoner awaiting trial in Pickens, South Carolina. The acquittal verdict was rendered despite the confessions of 26 of the 28 defendants and the testimony of nine witnesses that Hurd shot Earle.

● 1950 - Tornado sweeps southern England; Two people die and more are injured as violent storms and a tornado sweep through counties around London.

● 1950 - Vietnamese troops of Ho Chi-Minh attack Cambodia

● 1952 - Playwright Lillian Hellman testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Her refusal to provide political information about friends causes her to be blacklisted.

● 1953 - French Government of Mayer resigns

● 1954 - Amendment to give 18-year-olds right to vote is defeated

● 1955 - 1st transcontinental round-trip solo flight-sunrise to sunset

● 1956 - Jordan government of Said el-Mufti forms

● 1956 - First aerial test of H-Bomb makes Bikini Atoll unlivable. Underground tests had begun in 1954.

● 1957 - French Government of Mollet resigns

● 1958 - Indonesian paratroopers re-conquer Morotai Island

● 1958 - US performs nuclear test at Bikini Island (atmospheric tests)

● 1958 - Trunk dialling heralds cheaper calls; Automated telephone connection making calls easier and cheaper will be introduced in December.

● 1961 - American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Malcolm Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out.

● 1964 - 1st nuclear-powered lighthouse begins operations (Chesapeake Bay)

● 1964 - Fire in Wégimond Belgium resort, kills 19

● 1964 - US begin intelligence flights above Laos

● 1967 - Followers of Malcolm X riot in Chicago.

● 1968 - At a protest demonstration in Beijing, China, the group Xeng Wu Lian calls for the people to govern themselves directly, as in the Paris Commune. The Red Guards accuse them of being anarchists.

● 1968 - Germany - Beginning of the occupation of the Univ. of West Berlin, demanding university reform, and in sympathy with the student occupations and demands in France.

● 1968 - Second mass arrest at Columbia University.

● 1968 - Police in helicopters drop tear gas on a University of California campus rally in Berkeley.

● 1968 - US nuclear-powered sub (Scorpion), with 99 men, reported missing & is later found at the bottom of the ocean off Azores

● 1968 - USSR performs nuclear test (underground)

● 1969 - Robert Kennedy's murderer Sirhan Sirhan sentenced to death

● 1970 - National Guard mobilized to quell disturbances at Ohio State University

● 1970 - USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR

● 1970 - Weather Underground issues its first revolutionary communiqué, launching a summer of bombings in protest of the Vietnam War.

● 1971 - Members of American Indian Movement occupy Naval Air Station near Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

● 1971 - National Guard mobilized to quell riot in Chattanooga TN

● 1972 - Catholic Lithuanian youth immolates himself during a week of uprisings against Soviet troops.

● 1972 - More than 170 protesters are arrested in Washington, D.C., as 7,000 rally against the war in Southeast Asia.

● 1972 - Michelangelo's Pietà, in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, is damaged by a vandal.

● 1975 - Lowell W Perry confirmed as chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission

● 1975 - Trial against Baader-Meinhof-group begins in Stuttgart

● 1977 - Fire in hotel Duc de Brabant Brussels, kills 19

● 1978 - Yamada Mumon Roshi appointed head of Zen Rinzai Sect

● 1978 - Chumash tribe ends protest at ancient burial ground, Little Cohu Bay, Point Conception, Calif., a proposed location for importing liquid natural gas.

● 1979 - An all-straight jury convicts former San Francisco city supervisor Dan White of the lightest charge possible in the assassination of S.F. city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone. White's defense argued that White was depressed because of overconsumption of junk food, the so-called "Twinkie defense." Thousands march on city hall in response, provoking a police riot.

● 1980 - Pres. Carter announces state of emergency at Love Canal. A little late, for the families who'd lived atop it during years of government indifference.

● 1981 - U.S. Senate approves $20 billion program to return US to full-scale production of chemical and nerve gas weapons. Alas, no foreign power seizes on the act to threaten military invasion for the purpose of "regime change."

● 1981 - Pierre Mauroy becomes Prime Minister of France.

● 1981 - François Mitterrand becomes President of France

● 1982 - British troops lands on Falkland Islands

● 1982 - Discussing Soviet weaponry at a National Security Council meeting, Acting President Reagan asks CIA deputy director Bobby Inman, "Isn't the SS-19 their biggest missile?" "No" says Inman, "that's the SS-18." "So," exclaims the President, "they've even switched the numbers on their missiles in order to confuse us!" Inman explains that the numbers are assigned by U.S. intelligence, not by the Soviets.

● 1983 - Challenger moves to Vandenberg Air Force Base, for mating for STS-7 mission

● 1984 - First North American Bioregional Congress convenes in Excelsior Springs, Ozarkia bioregion, Missouri.

● 1984 - First union activists fired by LTV.

● 1986 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

● 1987 - Military coup in Fiji Islands under Lieutenant Colonel Sitivani Rabuka

● 1988 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

● 1991 - Ethiopia's Marxist president (Mengistu Haile Mariam) resigns

● 1991 - Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated by a female suicide bomber near Madras.

● 1992 - China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China

● 1992 - New Jersey senate overrides Governor Florio's veto & lowers sales tax to 6%

● 1993 - Opposition leader Xanana Gusmao of East-Timor sentenced to life

● 1993 - Venezuela president Carlos Andrés Pérez fired

● 1993 - Kyrgystan announces plans to dismantle its army.

● 1994 - South Yemen secedes from Yemen

● 1996 - Blackout in many areas of Queens NY

● 1996 - The MV Bukoba sinks in Tanzanian waters on Lake Victoria, killing nearly 1000.

● 1998 - Jaime Cubero, Brazilian anarchist, author, teacher, dies.

● 1998 - At Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, Kipland Kinkel, suspended for bringing a gun to school, shoots a semi-automatic rifle into a room filled with students, killing 2 wounding 25 others after killing his parents at home.

● 1998 - In Miami, Florida, five abortion clinics are hit by a butyric acid attacker.

● 1998 - Soeharto, Indonesian dictator who had been ruling for 32 years, resigned.

● 2000 - A chartered British Aerospace Jetstream 31 crashes near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, killing 19.

● 2001 - French Taubira law which officially recognize the Atlantic slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity.

● 2003 - An earthquake hits northern Algeria, killing more than 2,000 people.

● 2004 - Sherpa Pemba Dorje climbs Mount Everest in 8 hours 10 minutes, breaking his rival Sherpa Lakpa Gelu's record from the previous year.

● 2004 - Stanislav Petrov is awarded the World Citizen Award for averting a potential World War III in 1983.

● 2006 - The Republic of Montenegro holds a referendum proposing independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.

BIRTHS

● 1471 - Albrecht Dürer, German painter (d. 1528)

● 1527 - King Philip II of Spain (d. 1598)

● 1664 - Giulio Alberoni, Italian cardinal (d. 1754)

● 1688 - Alexander Pope, English poet (d. 1744)

● 1755 - Alfred Moore, American judge (d. 1810)

● 1763 - Joseph Fouché, French statesman (d. 1820)

● 1780 - Elizabeth Fry, British social reformer (d. 1845)

● 1792 - Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis, French scientist (d. 1843)

● 1815 -Edwin Christy, American minstrel show performer (d. 1862)

● 1835 - František Chvostek, Moravian physician (d. 1884)

● 1843 - Charles Albert Gobat, Swiss politician (d. 1914)

● 1844 - Henri Rousseau, French artist (d. 1910)

● 1850 -Gustav Lindenthal, Austrian-born American civil engineer; designed the Hell Gate Bridge (d. 1935)

● 1850 - Giuseppe Mercalli, Italian volcanologist (d. 1914)

● 1851 - Léon Bourgeois, French statesman, Nobel laureate (d. 1925)

● 1853 - Jacques Marie Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac, French politician (d. 1905)

● 1856 -Grace Hoadley Dodge, American philanthropist (d. 1914)

● 1860 - Willem Einthoven, Dutch inventor, Nobel laureate (d. 1927)

● 1863 - Archduke Eugen of Austria, Austrian field marshal (d. 1954)

● 1873 - Hans Berger, German neuroscientist (d. 1941)

● 1878 - Glenn Curtiss, American aviation pioneer (d. 1930)

● 1880 - Tudor Arghezi, Romanian writer (d. 1967)

● 1898 - Armand Hammer, American physician (d. 1990)

● 1901 - Horace Heidt, American band leader (d. 1986)

● 1901 - Sam Jaffe, American film producer (d. 2000)

● 1901 - Suzanne Lilar, Belgian essayist, novelist and playwright (d. 1992)

● 1902 - Earl Averill, baseball player (d. 1983)

● 1902 - Marcel Lajos Breuer, Hungarian-born architect (d. 1981)

● 1903 - Manly Wade Wellman, American author (d. 1986)

● 1904 - Robert Montgomery, American actor (d. 1981)

● 1904 - Fats Waller, American pianist (d. 1943)

● 1912 - Monty Stratton, baseball player (d. 1982)

● 1913 - Gina Bachauer, Greek pianist (d. 1976)

● 1916 - Tinus Osendarp, Dutch runner (d. 2002)

● 1916 - Harold Robbins, American novelist (d. 1997)

● 1917 - Raymond Burr, American actor (d. 1993)

● 1918 -Jeanne Bates, Actress

● 1920 - Anthony Steel, British actor (d. 2001)

● 1921 - Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist (d. 1989)

● 1923 - Armand Borel, Swiss mathematician (d. 2003)

● 1923 - Ara Parseghian, American football coach

● 1924 - Peggy Cass, American actress (d. 1999)

● 1926 - Robert Creeley, American poet (d. 2005)

● 1928 - Tom Donahue, American FM disc jockey (pioneer, freeform radio) (d. 1975)

● 1930 - Malcolm Fraser, 22nd Prime Minister of Australia

● 1933 - Maurice André, French trumpeter

● 1934 - Bengt I. Samuelsson, Swedish biochemist, Nobel laureate

● 1936 - Günter Blobel, German biologist, Nobel laureate

● 1939 - Heinz Holliger, Swiss musician

● 1941 -David Groh, Actor ("Rhoda")

● 1941 - Martin Carthy, English musician

● 1941 - Ronald Isley, American singer (The Isley Brothers)

● 1943 - Hilton Valentine, British guitarist (The Animals)

● 1944 - Mary Robinson, President of Ireland

● 1944 - Marcie Blane, American singer

● 1945 - Ernst Messerschmid, German astronaut

● 1947 -Bill Champlin, Rock musician (Chicago)

● 1947 - Jonathan Hyde, Australian-born actor

● 1948 -Carol Potter, Actress

● 1948 - Leo Sayer, English musician

● 1951 - Al Franken, American comedian and future US Senator from Minnesota

● 1952 - Mr. T, (Laurence Tureaud) American actor ("The A Team") {Don't be a fool, fool.}

● 1952 -Dave Wannstedt, College football coach

● 1955 - Paul Barber, British field hockey player

● 1955 - Stan Lynch, American drummer

● 1957 - Judge Reinhold, American actor

● 1957 - Renée Soutendijk, Dutch actress

● 1959 - Nick Cassavetes, American actor

● 1960 - Jeffrey Dahmer, American serial killer (d. 1994)

● 1960 - Kent Hrbek, American professional baseball player

● 1961 -Brent Briscoe, Actor

● 1963 - Richard Appel, American writer

● 1964 - Danny Bailey, English footballer

● 1964 - Danny Lee Clark, American football player

● 1966 - Lisa Edelstein, American actress

● 1967 -Lisa Edelstein, Actress ("House")

● 1967 - Chris Benoit, Canadian professional wrestler

● 1968 - Matthias Ungemach, German rower

● 1969 - Masayo Kurata, Japanese voice actress

● 1970 - Carl Veart, Australian soccer player

● 1972 - The Notorious B.I.G., American musician (d. 1997)

● 1972 - Alesha Oreskovich, American model

● 1973 - Noel Fielding, British comedian

● 1974 - Fairuza Balk, American actress

● 1974 - Havoc, American rapper (Mobb Deep)

● 1975 - Lee Gaze, Welsh guitarist

● 1976 - Kardinal Offishall, Canadian rapper

● 1977 - Quinton Fortune, South African footballer

● 1977 - Ricky Williams, American football player

● 1978 - Briana Banks, German-American adult film star

● 1978 - Jamaal Magloire, Canadian professional basketballer

● 1978 - Adam Gontier, lead singer of Canadian band Three Days Grace

● 1979 - Damian Ariel Álvarez, Argentinian footballer

● 1979 - Jesse Capelli, Canadian pornographic actress

● 1979 - Scott Smith, mixed martial arts fighter

● 1980 - Chris Raab, American actor

● 1981 - Belladonna, American pornographic actress

● 1981 - Max, German singer

● 1984 - Bria Myles, American model

● 1985 - Kano, British rapper

● 1985 - Mutya Buena, British singer (ex-Sugababes)

● 1987 - Ashlie Brillault, American actress ("Lizzie McGuire")

● 1990 -Scott Leavenworth, Actor ("7th Heaven")

● 1991 -Sarah Ramos, Actress ("American Dreams")

● 1992 - Olivia Olson, American singer and actress

DEATHS

● 987 - King Louis V of France

● 1254 - Conrad IV of Germany (b. 1228)

● 1481 - King Christian I of Denmark, Norway and Sweden (b. 1426)

● 1512 - Pandolfo Petrucci, ruler of Siena

● 1524 - Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, English soldier

● 1542 - Hernando de Soto, Spanish explorer

● 1607 - John Rainolds, English scholar (b. 1549)

● 1639 - Tommaso Campanella, Italian theologian (b. 1568)

● 1647 - Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, Dutch poet (b. 1581)

● 1650 - James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, Scottish royalist (b. 1612)

● 1664 - Elizabeth Poole, Puritan businesswoman

● 1670 - Niccolo Zucchi, Italian astronomer (b. 1586)

● 1686 - (N. S.) Otto von Guericke, German scientist (b. 1602)

● 1690 - John Eliot, English Puritan missionary (b. 1604)

● 1724 - Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, English statesman (b. 1661)

● 1742 - Lars Roberg, Swedish physician (b. 1664)

● 1771 - Christopher Smart, English poet (b. 1722)

● 1786 - Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Swedish chemist (b. 1742)

● 1790 - Thomas Warton, English poet (b. 1728)

● 1844 - Giuseppe Baini, Italian composer (b. 1775)

● 1862 - John Drew, Irish-born American actor (b. 1827)

● 1879 - Arturo Prat, Chilean naval officer (b. 1848)

● 1894 - Emile Henry, French anarchist (b. 1872)

● 1894 - August Kundt, German physicist (b. 1839)

● 1895 - Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer (b. 1819)

● 1911 - Williamina Fleming, Scottish-born astronomer (b. 1857)

● 1915 - Leonid Gobyato, Russian general (b. 1875)

● 1919 - Yevgraf Fyodorov, Russian mathematician (b. 1853)

● 1929 - Archibald Primrose, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1847)

● 1935 - Jane Addams, American social worker, Nobel laureate (b. 1860)

● 1949 - Klaus Mann, German writer (b. 1906)

● 1952 - John Garfield, American actor (b. 1913)

● 1957 - Aleksandr Vertinsky, Russian singer (b. 1889)

● 1964 - James Franck, German-born physicist, Nobel laureate (b. 1882)

● 1965 - Geoffrey de Havilland, British aircraft designer (b. 1882)

● 1970 - E. L. Grant Watson, Australian biologist (b. 1885)

● 1973 - Vaughn Monroe, American musician (b. 1911)

● 1981 - Patsy O'Hara, Irish hunger striker (b. 1957)

● 1984 - Ann Little, American actress (b. 1891)

● 1988 - Sammy Davis, Sr., American dancer (b. 1900)

● 1991 - Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (b. 1944)

● 1996 - Paul Delph, American musician and producer (b. 1957)

● 1996 - Lash LaRue, American actor (b. 1917)

● 1999 - Karnail "Bugz" Pitts, American rapper (D12) (b. 1979)

● 2000 - Barbara Cartland, English author (b. 1901)

● 2000 - Sir John Gielgud, British actor (b. 1904)

● 2000 - Mark R. Hughes, American entrepreneur (b. 1956)

● 2002 - Niki de Saint Phalle, French artist (b. 1930)

● 2003 - Frank D. White, American politician (b. 1933)

● 2005 - Howard Morris, American comic actor and director (b. 1919)

● 2006 - Katherine Dunham, American dancer (b. 1909)

● 2006 - Spencer Clark, American racecar driver (b. 1987)

● 2006 - Billy Walker, American singer (b. 1929)

HOLIDAYS AND OBSERVANCES

● Roman Catholic:
● St. Ansuinus
● St. Barrfoin
● St. Charles-Eugène de Mazenod
● St. Constantine the Great
● St. Goderik
● St. Gollen
● St. Mireille
● Sts. Nicostratus, Antiochus, and Companions
● St. Polyeuctus, Victorius and Donatus
● St. Secundinus
● St. Secundus & Companions
● St. Serapion the Sindonite
● St. Theobald of Vienne
● Sts. Timothy, Polius & Eutychius
● St. Valens

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for May 8 (Civil Date: May 21)
● Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian.
● St. Arsenius the Great.
● St. Arsenius of Novgorod, fool-for-Christ.
● St. Arsenius the Lover of labor, of the Kiev Caves.
● St. Hierax of Egypt.

● Greek Calendar:
● St. Milles the Melode, monk.
● Commemoration of the miraculous healing of blinded Stephen by the Mother of God of Cassiopia.
● Repose of Schemahieromonk Michael of Valaam, confessor for the Orthodox Calendar (1934), and Blessed Basiliscus of Uglich (1863).

● Eastern Orthodox:
● Sts. Constantine and Helena, Equal-to-the-Apostles

● Lutheran:
● John Eliot, missionary to the Indians

● Ancient Rome : Agonalia

● Dia de la Afrocolombianidad marks the abolition of slavery in Colombia.

● Chile : Battle of Inquique/Navy Day (1879)

● Macedonia, Greece : Anastenarides Feast-dance barefoot on hot coals

● New York : Armed Forces Day

● US : Lindbergh Flight Day (1927)

● These Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
● Canada : Victoria Day (1819) - ( Monday )
● US : Armed Forces Day - ( Saturday )


Click on this LINK to see original Wikipedia list with many having links with details.

Additional facts taken from:

On this day in the New York Times

The BBC’s Take on the day

On This Day Website

Geov Parrish's this Day in Radical History, things that happened on this day that you never had to memorize in school.

Scope Systems Any Day Website

Roman Catholic Saint of the Day

Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar

Quotes of the Day taken from The Best Liberal Quotes Ever: Why the Left Is Right Compiled by William P. Martin ©2004

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