On This Day in History: May1

Today in history, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro debuted in Vienna, Austria.

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305 – Diocletian  and Maximian  retire from the office of Roman Emperor.

1328 – Wars of Scottish Independence end: Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton – the Kingdom of England recognises the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state.

1707 – The Act of Union joins the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1751 – The first cricket match is played in America.

1753 – Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

1759 – Josiah Wedgwood founds the Wedgwood pottery company in Great Britain.

1851 – Queen Victoria opens the Great Exhibition in London.

1863Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville begins.

1865 – The Empire of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay sign the Treaty of the Triple Alliance

1869 – The Folies Bergère opens in Paris.

1884 – Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States.

1884 – Moses Fleetwood Walker became the first black person to play in a professional baseball game in the United States.

1886 – Rallies, that ended in the Haymarket affair, were held throughout the United States demanding the eight-hour work day

1898Spanish-American War: The Battle of Manila Bay – the United States Navy destroys the Spanish Pacific fleet in the first battle of the war.\

1900 – The Scofield mine disaster kills over 200 men in Scofield, Utah in what is to date the fifth-worst mining accident in United States history

1915 – The RMS Lusitania departs from New York City on her two hundred and second, 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, including 128 Americans, rousing American sentiment against Germany.

1925 – The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is officially founded.

1925 Today it is the largest trade union in the world, with 134 million members.

1926Ford factory workers get 40-hour week

1927 – The first cooked meals on a scheduled flight are introduced on an Imperial Airways flight from London to Paris.

1927 – The Union Labor Life Insurance Company is founded by the American Federation of Labor.

1930 – The dwarf planet Pluto is officially named.

1931The Empire State Building is dedicated in New York City.

1940 – The 1940 Summer Olympics are cancelled due to war.

1941Citizen Kane released

1941 – World War II: German forces launch a major attack on Tobruk.

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”.

1945 – The Yugoslav partisans free Trieste

1948 – The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) is established, with Kim Il-sung as president.

1950 – Guam is organized as a United States commonwealth.

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.

1960Cold War: U-2 incident – Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis.

1961 – The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaims Cuba a socialist nation and abolishes elections.

1965 – Battle of Dong-Yin, a naval conflict between ROC and PRC, takes place.

1970 – Protests erupt in Seattle, Washington, following the announcement by U.S. President Richard Nixon that U.S. Forces in Vietnam would pursue enemy troops into Cambodia, a neutral country.

1971 – Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) is formed to take over U.S. passenger rail service.

1978 – Japan’s Naomi Uemura, travelling by dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone.

1982 – The 1982 World’s Fair opens in Knoxville, Tennessee.

1982 – Operation Black Buck: The Royal Air Force attacks the Argentine Air Force during Falklands War.

1987 – Pope John Paul II beatifies Edith Stein, a Jewish-born Carmelite nun who was gassed in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.

1989 – Disney-MGM Studios opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.

1991 – Rickey Henderson of the Oakland Athletics steals his 939th base, making him the all-time leader in this category. However, his accomplishment is overshadowed later that evening by Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers, when he pitches his seventh career no-hitter, breaking his own record.

1994 – Three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna is killed in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola.

1995 – Croatian forces launch Operation Flash during the Croatian War of Independence.

2001 – Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declares the existence of “a state of rebellion”, hours after thousands of supporters of her arrested predecessor, Joseph Estrada, storm towards the presidential palace at the height of the EDSA III rebellion.

2003 – 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”.

2004 – Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin.

2006 – The Puerto Rican government closes the Department of Education and 42 other government agencies due to significant shortages in cash flow.

2009 – Same-sex marriage is legalized in Sweden.

Birthdays

49 RAY PARKER JR, American singer, songwriter and producer

57 JOANNA LUMLEY, “ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS” English actress

58 RITA COOLIDGE, American Country singer

64 JUDY COLLINS, American singer

66 UNA STUBBS, English actress and dancer,