UN
Day
World
Migratory Bird Day [UNEP]
Events
of the day
1373 – Julian of Norwich
has visions which are later transcribed
in her Revelations of Divine Love.
1497 – Pope Alexander VI excommunicates
Girolamo Savonarola.
1515 – Mary Tudor, Queen of France and
Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk are
officially married at Greenwich.
1568 – Battle of Langside: the forces
of Mary, Queen of Scots, are defeated
by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants
under James Stewart, Earl of Moray, her
half-brother.
1619 – Dutch statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt
is executed in The Hague after being convicted
of treason.
1648 – Construction of the Red Fort at
Delhi is completed.
1779 – War of Bavarian Succession: Russian
and French mediators at the Congress of
Teschen negotiate an end to the war. In
the agreement Austria receives the part
of its territory that was taken from it
(the Innviertel).
1780 – The Cumberland Compact is signed
by leaders of the settlers in early Tennessee.
1787 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth,
England, with eleven ships full of convicts
(the "First Fleet") to establish
a penal colony in Australia.
1804 – Forces sent by Yusuf Karamanli
of Tripoli to retake Derna from the Americans
attack the city.
1830 – Ecuador gains its independence
from Gran Colombia.
1846 – Mexican-American War: The United
States declares war on Mexico.
1848 – First performance of Finland's
national anthem.
1861 – American Civil War: Queen Victoria
of the United Kingdom issues a "proclamation
of neutrality" which recognizes the
breakaway states as having belligerent
rights.
1861 – The Great Comet of 1861 is discovered
by John Tebbutt of Windsor, New South
Wales, Australia.
1861 – Pakistan’s (then a part of British
India) first railway line opens, from
Karachi to Kotri.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Resaca
– the battle begins with Union General
Sherman fighting toward Atlanta, Georgia.
1865 – American Civil War: Battle of Palmito
Ranch – in far south Texas, more than
a month after Confederate General Robert
E. Lee's surrender, the last land battle
of the Civil War ends with a Confederate
victory.
1880 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas
Edison performs the first test of his
electric railway.
1888 – With the passage of the Lei Áurea
("Golden Law"), Brazil abolishes
slavery.
1909 – The first Giro d'Italia starts
from Milan. Italian cyclist Luigi Ganna
will be the winner.
1912 – The Royal Flying Corps (now the
Royal Air Force) is established in the
United Kingdom.
1917 – Three children report the first
apparition of Our Lady of Fátima in Fátima,
Portugal.
1923 – Robert Bellarmine, a Doctor of
the Catholic Church, is beatified.
1939 – The first commercial FM radio station
in the United States is launched in Bloomfield,
Connecticut. The station later becomes
WDRC-FM.
1940 – World War II: Germany's conquest
of France begins as the German army crosses
the Meuse. Winston Churchill makes his
"blood, toil, tears, and sweat"
speech to the House of Commons.
1940 – Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands
flees her country to Great Britain after
the Nazi invasion. Princess Juliana takes
her children to Canada for their safety.
1941 – World War II: Yugoslav royal colonel
Dragoljub Mihailović starts fighting with
German occupation troops, beginning the
Serbian resistance.
1943 – World War II: German Afrika Korps
and Italian troops in North Africa surrender
to Allied forces.
1948 – 1948 Arab-Israeli War: the Kfar
Etzion massacre is committed by Arab irregulars,
the day before the declaration of independence
of the state of Israel on May 14.
1950 – The first round of the Formula
One World Championship is held at Silverstone.
1951 – The 400th anniversary of the founding
of the National University of San Marcos
is commemorated by the opening of the
first large-capacity stadium in Peru.
1952 – The Rajya Sabha, the upper house
of the Parliament of India, holds its
first sitting.
1954 – The anti-National Service Riots,
by Chinese Middle School students in Singapore,
take place.
1958 – During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela,
Vice President Richard Nixon's car is
attacked by anti-American demonstrators.
1958 – The trade mark Velcro is registered.
1958 – May 1958 crisis: a group of French
military officers lead a coup in Algiers
demanding that a government of national
unity be formed with Charles de Gaulle
at its head in order to defend French
control of Algeria.
1960 – Hundreds of University of California,
Berkeley students congregate for the first
day of protest against a visit by the
House Committee on Un-American Activities.
Thirty-one students are arrested, and
the Free Speech Movement is born.
1963 – The U.S. Supreme Court case Brady
v. Maryland is decided.
1967 – Dr. Zakir Hussain becomes the third
President of India. He is the first Muslim
President of the Indian Union. He holds
this position until August 24, 1969.
1969 – Race riots, later known as the
May 13 Incident, take place in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
1972 – Faulty electrical wiring ignites
a fire underneath the Playtown Cabaret
in Osaka, Japan. Blocked exits and non-functional
elevators lead to 118 fatalities, with
many victims leaping to their deaths.
1972 – The Troubles: a car bombing outside
a crowded pub in Belfast sparks a two-day
gun battle involving the Provisional IRA,
Ulster Volunteer Force and British Army.
Seven people are killed and over 66 injured.
1980 – An F3 tornado hits Kalamazoo County,
Michigan. President Jimmy Carter declares
it a federal disaster area.
1981 – Mehmet Ali Ağca attempts to assassinate
Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square
in Rome. The Pope is rushed to the Agostino
Gemelli University Polyclinic to undergo
emergency surgery and survives.
1985 – Police storm MOVE headquarters
in Philadelphia to end a stand-off, killing
11 MOVE members and destroying the homes
of 250 city residents.
1989 – Large groups of students occupy
Tiananmen Square and begin a hunger strike.
1992 – Li Hongzhi gives the first public
lecture on Falun Gong in Changchun, People's
Republic of China.
1994 – Johnny Carson makes his last television
appearance on Late Show with David Letterman.
1995 – 33-year-old British mother Alison
Hargreaves became the first woman to conquer
Everest without oxygen or the help of
sherpas.
1996 – Severe thunderstorms and a tornado
in Bangladesh kill 600 people.
1998 – Race riots break out in Jakarta,
Indonesia, where shops owned by Indonesians
of Chinese descent are looted and women
raped.
1998 – India carries out two nuclear tests
at Pokhran, following the three conducted
on May 11. The United States and Japan
impose economic sanctions on India.
2000 – In Enschede, the Netherlands, a
fireworks factory explodes, killing 22
people, wounding 950, and resulting in
approximately €450 million in damage.
2005 – The Andijan Massacre occurs in
Uzbekistan.
2005 – The Binh Bridge opens to traffic
in Hai Phong, Vietnam.
2006 – 2006 São Paulo violence: a major
rebellion occurs in several prisons in
Brazil.
2008 – The Jaipur bombings in Rajasthan,
India results in dozens of deaths.
2011 – In the 2011 Charsadda bombing in
the Charsadda District of Pakistan, two
bombs explode, resulting in 98 deaths
140 wounded.
Holidays
and observances
Abbotsbury
Garland Day (Dorset, England)
Christian Feast Day:
Gerard of Villamagna
Glyceria
John the Silent (Roman Catholic)
Julian of Norwich (Roman Catholic)
Our Lady of Fatima
Servatius
May 13 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
One of the three feast days of the Lemuralia,
observed in ancient Rome
Rotuma Day (Fiji)
For details, contact Datacentre
