Today is
May 12.
The 2nd Amendment, "The Right to Bear Arms; One American Right Protecting All Others", is being celebrated today in Pennsylvania.
International Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Day, and
International Nurses Day are also observed today.
Events
1846 – The Donner Party of pioneers departs Independence, Missouri for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship and cannibalism.
1926 – The Italian-built airship Norge becomes the first vessel to fly over the North Pole.
1932 – Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, Charles Jr., is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home.
1937 – The Duke and Duchess of York are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Westminster Abbey.
1941 – Konrad Zuse presents the Z3,
the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.
1942 – World War II: The U.S. tanker SS Virginia is torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German submarine U-507.
1967 - Pink Floyd appeared at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, giving a special concert Games For May - Space Age Relaxation For The Climate Of Spring. This was reportedly the first show to include loudspeakers placed at the back of the hall to give a 'sound in the round', ie quadraphonic, effect. The sound system, developed by EMI technicians, was stolen after the show and not recovered for some years.
1968 - Brian Jones made his final live appearance with The Rolling Stones.
1989 – The San Bernardino train disaster kills four people. A week later an underground gasoline pipeline explodes killing two more people.
1996 - 17-year-old Bernadette O'Brien died the day after being injured while '
body crowd surfing'
at a Smashing Pumpkins gig at The Point, Dublin.
2002 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro's 1959 revolution.
2008 - Singer-songwriter Neil Young had a spider named after him. US university biologist Jason Bond discovered a new species of trapdoor spider
and decided to name it after his favourite musician. Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi was found in Jefferson County, Alabama, in 2007.
2008 – An earthquake (measuring around 8.0 magnitude) occurs in Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people.
2008 – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducts the largest-ever raid of a workplace in Postville, Iowa, arresting nearly 400 immigrants for identity theft and document fraud.
2015 – A train derailment in Philadelphia kills eight people and injures more than 200.
1820 – Florence Nightingale, 1850 – Henry Cabot Lodge, 1889 – Otto Frank, 1907 – Katharine Hepburn, 1918 – Mary Kay Ash ("Paint that mother pink."), 1918 – Julius Rosenberg, 1925 – Yogi Berra, 1928 – Burt Bacharach, 1935 – Felipe Alou, 1936 – Tom Snyder, 1937 – George Carlin, 1939 – Ron Ziegler, 1942 – Billy Swan, 1945 – Ian McLagan, 1948 – Lindsay Crouse, 1948 – Steve Winwood, 1950 – Bruce Boxleitner, 1950 – Gabriel Byrne, 1950 – Billy Squier
, 1955 – Kix Brooks (Brooks & Dunn), 1958 – Eric Singer
(KISS, Badlands, ESP, Lita Ford, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Gary Moore), 1959 – Ray Gillen (Badlands, Black Sabbath), 1959 – Ving Rhames, 1961 – Billy Duffy (The Cult), 1962 – Emilio Estevez, 1963 – Vanessa A. Williams, 1966 – Stephen Baldwin, 1968 – Tony Hawk, 1969 – Kim Fields ('Tootie' on
The Facts Of Life), 1970 – Jim Furyk, 1970 – Samantha Mathis, 1978 – Jason Biggs (
American Pie movies)
1748 – Thomas Lowndes, 1864 – J. E. B. Stuart, 1925 – Amy Lowell, 1944 – Max Brand
, 1957 – Erich von Stroheim, 1992 – Robert Reed (the dad on
The Brady Bunch), 2000 – Adam Petty
(son of Richard Petty (1st 4th generation NASCAR driver, killed (basilar skull fracture)in crash when his throttle stuck open), 2001 – Perry Como, 2001 – Alexei Tupolev, 2008 – Robert Rauschenberg
, 2014 – H. R. Giger