This Day in History

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Today is May 18.

This date is observed as International Museum Day, as well as World AIDS Vaccine Day.

Today is also Day of Remembrance of Crimean Tatar Genocide. I didn't know about Crimean tatars...I knew about Irish taters...


Events

332 – Constantine the Great announced free distributions of food to the citizens in Constantinople. Welfare is born.

1291 – Fall of Acre, the end of Crusader presence in the Holy Land.

1593 – Playwright Thomas Kyd's accusations of heresy lead to an arrest warrant for Christopher Marlowe.

1652 – Rhode Island passes the first law in English-speaking North America making slavery illegal.

1756 – The Seven Years' War begins when Great Britain declares war on France.

1860 – Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican Party presidential nomination over William H. Seward, who later becomes the United States Secretary of State.

1896 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that the "separate but equal" doctrine is constitutional.

1896 – Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field in Moscow during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II results in the deaths of 1,389 people. The cause was the rumor that beer & pretzels were in short supply. No shit.

1926 – Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappears in Venice, California.

1933 – New Deal: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.

1944 – World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino: Conclusion after seven days of the fourth battle as German paratroopers evacuate Monte Cassino.

1953 – Jackie Cochran



becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.

1966 - During his 1966 world tour, Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson from The Band were filmed singing several songs in a hotel room in Glasgow, Scotland, the footage turning up in the film Eat The Document. The film was originally commissioned for the ABC television series Stage '66, but after Dylan edited the film himself ABC rejected it as 'incomprehensible for a mainstream audience'.

1974 - Ray Stevens started a three week run streak at No.1 on the US singles chart with the novelty song 'The Streak' which capitalized on the then popular craze of streaking.

1980 – Mount St. Helens



erupts in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage.

1990 – In France, a modified TGV train



achieves a new rail world speed record of 515.3 km/h (320.2 mph).

1994 – Israeli troops finish retreating from the Gaza Strip after occupying it, giving the area to the Palestine to govern.

2009 – The LTTE are defeated by the Sri Lankan government, ending almost 26 years of fighting between the two sides.

2011 - John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for the 1967 Beatles song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' sold for $237,132 (£145,644) at an auction in the US.



1048 – Omar Khayyám, 1822 – Mathew Brady, 1850 – Oliver Heaviside (Kennelly–Heaviside layer), 1892 – Ezio Pinza, 1897 – Frank Capra, 1911 – Big Joe Turner♪ ♫, 1912 – Richard Brooks (director Blackboard Jungle, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Elmer Gantry), 1912 – Perry Como♪ ♫, 1920 – Pope John Paul II, 1922 – Kai Winding♪ ♫, 1928 – Pernell Roberts, 1930 – Fred Saberhagen (author Berserker stories/books), 1931 – Don Martin (Mad's Maddest Artist), 1946 – Reggie Jackson, 1947 – Gail Strickland (The Drowning Pool), 1948 – Joe Bonsall♪ ♫(The Oak Ridge Boys), 1950 – Mark Mothersbaugh♪ ♫(Devo), 1952 – George Strait♪ ♫, 1955 – Chow Yun-fat (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, John Woo movies), 1969 – Martika♪ ♫, 1970 – Tina Fey, 1975 – Jack Johnson♪ ♫, 1979 – Jens Bergensten (co-designed Minecraft)



1675 – Jacques Marquette, 1808 – Elijah Craig (invented Bourbon, PBUH), 1955 – Mary McLeod Bethune, 1973 – Jeannette Rankin,

1980 – Victims of Mount St. Helens eruption:

Reid Blackburn, American photographer and journalist David A. Johnston, American volcanologist and geologist
Harry Truman, owner/operator of Mount St. Helens Lodge

1981 – William Saroyan, 1990 – Jill Ireland, 1995 – Elisha Cook, Jr., 1995 – Alexander Godunov, 1995 – Elizabeth Montgomery, 2012 – Peter Jones(Crowded House), 2012 – Alan Oakley (designed the Raleigh Chopper)



2013 – Steve Forrest, 2017 – Roger Ailes (founder of Fox News)