This Week In #History ... May 9th - 15th
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk
May 9
1502 Columbus left Spain on his 4th and final trip to New World
1754 1st newspaper cartoon in America-divided snake "Join or Die"
1896 1st horseless carriage show in London (featured 10 models)
1899 Lawn mower patented
1901 Australia opens its 1st parliament in Melbourne
1914 President Wilson proclaims Mother's Day
1926 Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make 1st flight over North Pole
1932 Piccadilly Circus, 1st lit by electricity
1949 Prince Rainier III becomes leader of Monaco
1960 U.S. is 1st country to use the birth control pill legally
1970 100,000s demonstrate against Vietnam War
1978 Corpse of kidnapped ex-premier of Italia Aldo Moro found
1992 Final episode of "Golden Girls" airs on NBC-TV
2001 Police tear gas unruly soccer fans, ensuing panic kills over 100 in Ghana
2010 Somali pirates seize a German-owned tanker, MS Marida Marguerite, off the coast of Somalia
May 10
1497 Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci leaves for 1st voyage to New World
1503 Columbus discovers Cayman Islands
1752 Benjamin Franklins 1st tests the lightning rod
1823 1st steamboat to navigate the Mississippi River arrives at Ft. Snelling
1872 Victoria Woodhull becomes 1st woman nominated for U.S. president
1906 Russia's Duma (Parliament) meets for 1st time
1915 Zeppelin drops hundred of bombs on Southend-on-Sea
1924 J. Edgar Hoover appointed head of FBI
1933 Nazis stage public book burnings in Germany
1945 Russian troops occupied Prague
1960 USS Nautilus completes 1st circumnavigation of globe under water
1969 Apollo 10 transmit 1st color pictures of Earth from space
1979 Vivekananda (Sri Lanka) completes nonstop cycle ride of 187 hours, 28 minutes, around Vihara Maha Devi Park, Colombo, Sri Lanka
1990 Howard Stern holds a mock funeral for rival John DeBella
1996 "Twister" premieres
2010 Solicitor General Elena Kagan is the youngest Justice and third woman nominated for the Supreme Court of the United States
May 11
330 Constantinople (Byzantium) becomes capital of Roman Empire
1749 British parliament accept Consolidation Act: fleet reorganization
1751 1st U.S. hospital founded (Pennsylvania Hospital)
1893 Henri Desgrange establishes 1st bicycle-world record (35.325 km)
1904 Andrew Carnegie donates $1.5M to build a peace palace
1916 Einstein's Theory of General Relativity presented
1926 Airship Norge leaves Spitsbergen for 1st air crossing of Arctic Ocean
1940 New York World's Fair reopens
1949 1st Polaroid camera sold $89.95 in New York City
1965 West Indies becomes 1st holders of the Frank Worrell Cricket Trophy
1978 Margaret A. Brewer is 1st female general in the U.S. Marine Corps
1987 1st heart-lung transplant take place (Baltimore)
1998 India resumes underground nuclear tests after more than a 20 year gap
2010 The Gulf of Mexico oil spill threatens sensitive marshes and wildlife along the Gulf Coast; Admiral Thad Allan is appointed to lead the Federal response to the spill
May 12
1551 San Marcos University in Lima Peru, opens
1777 1st ice cream advertisement (Philip Lenzi-NY Gazette)
1792 Toilet that flushes itself at regular intervals is patented
1888 Crouching start 1st used by Charles Sherrill of Yale
1908 Wireless Radio Broadcasting is patented by Nathan B. Stubblefield
1921 National Hospital Day 1st observed
1932 Goofy, aka Dippy Dawg, 1st appears in 'Mickey's Revue' by Walt Disney
1942 1,500 Jews gassed in Auschwitz
1951 1st H Bomb test, on Enewetak Atoll
1963 Race riot in Birmingham, Alabama
1977 1st quadrophonic concert (Pink Floyd in London)
1986 Bicycle is pedaled 65 mph
1997 Susie Maroney, 22, of Australia, is 1st to swim from Cuba to Florida
2008 8.0 Earthquake in southwest China kills more than 69,000
2010 After new allegations of torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross reports a second U.S. secret prison exists at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan
May 13
1637 Cardinal Richelieu of France creates the table knife
1830 Republic of Ecuador is founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president
1884 Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) forms
1905 James J Jeffries retires as boxing champ
1916 Native American Day is 1st observed
1926 German government of Luther falls
1940 Churchill says "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat"
1950 Diner's Club issues its 1st credit cards
1960 1st launch of Delta satellite launching vehicle; it failed
1968 1,000,000 French demonstrate against De Gaulle and Pompidou
1982 Soyuz T-5 is launched-Berezovoi and Lebedev for 211 days in space
1991 Apple releases Macintosh System 7.0
2005 Star Trek: Enterprise broadcasts it's final show in the U.S.
2010 Pope Benedict XVI celebrates open-air Mass at Fatima, Portugal with over 500,000 pilgrims attending from 35 nations including Vietnam, China and India
May 14
1796 1st smallpox inoculation administered, by Edward Jenner
1842 1st edition of London Illustrated News
1878 Vaseline is 1st sold (registered trademark for petroleum jelly)
1904 1st Olympics in U.S. are held (St. Louis)
1913 French Hals museum opens in Harleem Netherlands
1932 "We Want Beer!" parade in New York
1942 U.S. Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) forms
1955 Warsaw Pact is signed by the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania
1964 Underground America Day is 1st observed
1973 Skylab launched, 1st Space Station
1986 Institute for War documents publishes Anne Franks complete diary
1995 Dalai Lama proclaims 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima 11th reincarnation of Panchen Lama, Tibet's 2nd most sr spiritual leader
2010 Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda sign an agreement seeking more water from the Nile; Kenya issues support while Egypt and Sudan remain opposed
May 15
1602 Cape Cod discovered by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold
1672 1st copyright law enacted by Massachusetts
1800 King George III survives a 2nd assassination attempt
1869 National Woman Suffrage Association forms
1902 Lyman Gilmore is 1st person to fly a powered craft
1911 Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Indiana University, incorporates
1918 1st regular airmail service (between New York and Washington) inaugurated
1928 Mickey Mouse made his 1st appearance
1940 1st nylon stockings sold in U.S.
1957 1st British H-bomb explosion (over Christmas Island)
1965 Canadian Football Players Association organizes
1972 George Wallace shot and left paralyzed by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, Maryland (Assassination attempt)
1980 1st trans-U.S. balloon crossing
1989 Soviet President Gorbachev in Beijing for 1st Sino-Soviet summit in 30 yrs
1997 STS-84 (Atlantis 19), launches, 6th Shuttle-Mir Mission
2010 Over 150 members of the Justice and Equality Movement are killed by Sudanese forces in their effort to gain control of a rebel held area in Darfur