May 3

World Press Freedom Day

World Press Freedom Day 2011 to focus on 21st century media.
Events are planned in more than 100 countries to celebrate the Day, which also marks the 20th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration for the promotion of free and pluralistic media.
Among the highlights will be the presentation of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. The award ceremony will be held at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. The Prize, created in 1997, is awarded annually to a person, organization or institution that has made an important contribution to the defence and/or promotion of press freedom, anywhere in the world, especially if it involved taking risks.

An international conference will also be held in Washington from 1-3 May on the theme for the Day, organised by UNESCO, the U.S State Department and over 20 civil society partners. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is a leading funder of the event, which will be supported by private donations. The conference will be held at the Newseum, which is a museum devoted to the history of the press and to freedom of expression worldwide. Discussions will focus on the increasing role of the internet, the emergence of new media and the dramatic rise in social networking. For a complete list of the organizations welcoming this dialogue and volunteering to support the co-hosts in organization of the event, click here.

A special event is planned for 4 May at United Nations headquarters in New York to mark the 20th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration. Adopted in 1991 after a conference held in Windhoek (Namibia) on the development of a free African press, this declaration emphasizes the importance of an independent press for the development and preservation of democracy and economic development. Two years later, the UN General Assembly established World Press Freedom Day.

This anniversary will be celebrated in Windhoek with a regional conference to review the future of the media in Africa. A publication, “So this is media freedom? 20 years after the Windhoek Declaration on press freedom”, analysing two decades of media freedom in Africa, will be launched.

In the Arab States, UNESCO and the satellite network Al Jazeera will work together to host a series of events to mark the Day.

UNESCO is also encouraging all those who are celebrating World Press Freedom Day to observe a minute of silence in memory of the journalists who have given their lives for our right to be informed.

About World Press Freedom Day
World Press Freedom Day is celebrated every year on 3 May worldwide. It is an opportunity to celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom; to evaluate press freedom, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

By decision 48/432 of 20 December 1993, the UN General Assembly proclaimed 3 May as World Press Freedom Day. Since then, it has been celebrated each year on 3 May, the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek. The document calls for free, independent, pluralistic media worldwide characterizing free press as essential to democracy and a fundamental human right.

The Declaration of Windhoek is a statement of free press principles as put together by newspaper journalists in Africa during a UNESCO seminar on “Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press” in Windhoek, Namibia, from 29 April to 3 May 1991.

The Declaration of Windhoek was endorsed by UNESCO's General Conference at its twenty-sixth session (1991).

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Events
The Third of May 1808 by Francisco de Goya, depicting the execution of Madrid citizens on that date by French forces during the Peninsular War
1481 – The largest of three earthquakes strikes the island of Rhodes and causes an estimated 30,000 casualties.
1491 – Kongo monarch Nkuwu Nzinga is baptised by Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of João I.
1791 – The Constitution of May 3 (the first modern constitution in Europe) is proclaimed by the Sejm of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1802 – Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city.
1808 – Finnish War: Sweden loses the fortress of Sveaborg to Russia.
1808 – Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are executed near Príncipe Pío hill.
1815 – Neapolitan War: Joachim Murat, King of Naples is defeated by the Austrians at the Battle of Tolentino, the decisive engagement of the war.
1830 – The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway is opened. It is the first steam hauled passenger railway to issue season tickets and include a tunnel.
1837 – The University of Athens is founded in Athens, Greece.
1849 – The May Uprising in Dresden begins – the last of the German revolutions of 1848.
1860 – Charles XV of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Sweden.
1867 – The Hudson's Bay Company gives up all claims to Vancouver Island.
1877 – Labatt Park, the oldest continually operating baseball grounds in the world has its first game.
1901 – The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, Florida.
1913 – Raja Harishchandra the first full-length Indian feature film is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.
1915 – The poem In Flanders Fields is written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.
1916 – The leaders of the Easter Rising are executed in Dublin.
1920 – A Bolshevik coup fails in the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
1921 – West Virginia becomes the first state to legislate a broad sales tax, but does not implement it until a number of years later due to issues surrounding its enforcement.
1928 – Japanese atrocities in Jinan, China.
1936 – Joe DiMaggio, familiarly referred to as Joltin' Joe and The Yankee Clipper makes his major league debut for the New York Yankees.
1937 – Gone with the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
1939 – The All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.
1942 – World War II: Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo that results in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia.
1945 – World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay.
1947 – New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect.
1948 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules, in Shelley v. Kraemer, that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.
1951 – London's Royal Festival Hall opens with the Festival of Britain
1951 – The United States Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees begin their closed door hearings into the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry Truman.
1952 – Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States land a plane at the North Pole.
1952 – The Kentucky Derby is televised nationally for the first time on the CBS network.
1957 – Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles, California.
1960 – The Off-Broadway musical comedy, The Fantasticks, opens in New York City's Greenwich Village, eventually becoming the longest-running musical of all time.
1960 – The Anne Frank House opens in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1963 – The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and responds with violent force to stop the "Birmingham campaign" protesters. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing newfound attention to the African-American Civil Rights Movement.
1973 – The 108-story Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at 1.451 feet as the world's tallest building.
1978 – The first unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail (which would later become known as "spam") is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.
1986 – Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes in an airliner (Flight UL512) at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.
1987 – A crash by Bobby Allison at the Talladega Superspeedway, Alabama fencing at the start-finish line would lead NASCAR to develop restrictor plate racing the following season both at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega.
1999 – The southwestern portion of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is devastated by an F5 tornado, killing forty-five people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado is one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. This tornado also produced the highest wind speed ever recorded, measured at 301 +/- 20 mph (484 +/- 32 km/h).
2000 – The sport of geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS posted on Usenet.
2001 – The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.
2002 – A military MiG-21 aircraft crashes into the Bank of Rajasthan in India, killing eight.
2003 – New Hampshire's famous Old Man of the Mountain collapses.

Holidays and observances

Christian Feast Day:
The Most Holy Virgin Mary Queen of Poland
Abhai (Syriac Orthodox Church)
Antonia and Alexander
Juvenal of Narni
Philip and James the Less
Pope Alexander I
Sarah the Martyr (Coptic Church)
Moura (Coptic Church)
Theodosius of Kiev (Eastern Orthodox Church)
May 3 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Roodmas, or Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross (Gallican Rite of the Catholic Church)
Constitution Memorial Day (Japan)
Constitution Day (Poland)
Earliest day on which Teacher's Day can fall, while May 9 is the latest; celebrated on the Tuesday of the first full week of May. (United States)
One of the two dates on which World Naked Gardening Day may be celebrated; the other is May 14
World Press Freedom Day (International)

For details, contact Datacentre