Today is May 1.
There are 237 days until Christmas.
Today is
May Day.
Today is also
International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day.
In the U.S., today is
Loyalty Day. Also observed today is
Law Day.
Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Celtic Neopagans, and Wiccans observe this day as
Beltane, while the Welsh celebrate
Calan Mai.
International Workers' Day falls on this date. As does
Lei Day.
Events
1707 – The Act of Union joins the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1759 – Josiah Wedgwood founds the Wedgwood pottery company in Great Britain.
1776 – Establishment of the Illuminati in Ingolstadt (Upper Bavaria), by Jesuit-taught Adam Weishaupt.
1785 – Kamehameha I, the king of Hawaiʻi, defeats Kalanikūpule and establishes the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.
1786 – In Vienna, Austria, Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro is performed for the first time.
1820 – Execution of the Cato Street Conspirators.
1840 – The Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, is issued in the United Kingdom.
1844 – Hong Kong Police Force, the world's second modern police force and Asia's first, is established.
1884 – Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States.
1886 – Rallies are held throughout the United States demanding the eight-hour work day, culminating in the Haymarket affair in Chicago, in commemoration of which May 1 is celebrated as International Workers' Day in many countries.
1893 – The World's Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago.
1915 – The RMS Lusitania
departs from New York City on her 202nd, and final, crossing of the North Atlantic. Six days later, the ship is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,198 lives.
1945 – World War II: A German newsreader officially announces that Adolf Hitler has "fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany". The Soviet flag is raised over the Reich Chancellery, by order of Stalin. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda commit suicide in the Reich Garden outside the Führerbunker. Their children are also killed by having cyanide pills inserted into their mouths by their mother, Magda.
1945 – World War II: Up to 2,500 people die in a mass suicide in Demmin following the advance of the Red Army.
1956 – The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.
1956 – A doctor in Japan reports an "epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system", marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.
1960 – Cold War: U-2 incident: Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis.
1964 - The Beatles received $140,000 dollars for the rights to having their pictures included in packages of bubble gum in the USA.
1966 - The Beatles played live for the last time in the UK when they appeared at the NME Poll Winners concert at Wembley Empire Pool.
1967 – Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu are married in Las Vegas.
1971 – Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) takes over operation of U.S. passenger rail service.
1978 – Japan's
Naomi Uemura (<--Interesting read.), travelling by dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone.
1979 - Elton John became the first pop star to perform in Israel.
1994 – Three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna is killed in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola.
1999 – The body of British climber George Mallory is found on Mount Everest, 75 years after his disappearance in 1924.
2002 – OpenOffice.org released version 1.0, the first stable version of the software.
2003 – Invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (off the coast of California), U.S. President George W. Bush declares that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended".
2003 - American soul singer Barry White suffered a stroke while being treated for kidney failure. The singer died two months later on July 4th.
2005 - Matchbox 20 singer Rob Thomas went to No.1 on the US album chart with his first solo album 'Something To Be.' This marked the first time a male artist from a rock group had debuted at number one with his first solo album since the Billboard Top 200 was introduced 50 years ago.
2013 - Chris Kelly, one half of the 1990s rap duo Kris Kross, died in an Atlanta hospital at the age of 34. Kelly had been found "unresponsive" at his home.
2016 – A wildfire starts in Fort McMurray, Alberta, causing a mandatory evacuation and a provincial state of emergency.
1852 – Calamity Jane, 1862 – Marcel Prévost, 1864 – Anna Jarvis (founded Mother's Day), 1895 – Nikolai Yezhov (head of Soviet NKVD), 1907 – Kate Smith, 1913 – Louis Nye, 1916 – Glenn Ford
, 1918 – Jack Paar, 1924 – Art Fleming, 1924 – Terry Southern, 1925 – Scott Carpenter, 1934 – Shirley Horn, 1939 – Judy Collins, 1943 – Joe Walsh (no, not
that one, this one's an Irish politician), 1945 – Rita Coolidge, 1946 – Joanna Lumley, 1946 – John Woo, 1949 – Paul Teutul, Sr. (
American Chopper), 1950 – Dann Florek, 1954 – Ray Parker, Jr., 1960 – Stevie Cauthen
, 1967 – Tim McGraw, 1972 – Julie Benz (
Dexter), 1982 – Jamie Dornan (Christian Grey' in the
Fifty Shades franchise)
1873 – David Livingstone ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"), 1945 – Joseph & Magda Goebbels, 1965 – Spike Jones, 1978 – Aram Khachaturian, 1994 – Ayrton Senna
, 1998 – Eldridge Cleaver (so
not the Beav's uncle), 2015 – Grace Lee Whitney (Star Trek: TOS)
The year was 1979:
U.S. #1 song:
U.K. #1 song:
U.S. #1 movie:
U.K. #1 movie:
Icouldnotfindanumberonemovieforthisperiodin1979intheUKsowhothefuckknows[/youtube]