May
8 & 9 : Time of Remembrance and Reconciliation
for Those Who Lost Their Lives during the
Second World War
By
resolution 59/26 of 22 November 2004, the
UN General Assembly declared 8–9 May as
a time of remembrance and reconciliation
and, while recognizing that Member States
may have individual days of victory, liberation
and commemoration, invited all Member States,
organizations of the United Nations system,
non-governmental organizations and individuals
to observe annually either one or both of
these days in an appropriate manner to pay
tribute to all victims of the Second World
War.
The
Assembly stressed that this historic event
established the conditions for the creation
of the United Nations, designed to save
succeeding generations from the scourge
of war, and called upon the Member States
of the United Nations to unite their efforts
in dealing with new challenges and threats,
with the United Nations playing a central
role, and to make every effort to settle
all disputes by peaceful means in conformity
with the Charter of the United Nations and
in such a manner that international peace
and security are not endangered.
On
2 March 2010, by resolution 64/257, the
General Assembly invited all Member States,
organizations of the United Nations system,
non-governmental organizations and individuals
to observe these days in an appropriate
manner to pay tribute to all victims of
the Second World War. A special solemn meeting
of the General Assembly in commemoration
of all victims of the war was held in the
second week of May 2010, marking the sixty-fifth
anniversary of the end of the Second World
War.
May 9
Alderney, Guensey British Islands
Liberation Day, the end of the German Occupation
of the Channel Islands during World War
II 1945
Europe day
Events
328
– Athanasius is elected Patriarch bishop
of Alexandria.
1092 – Lincoln Cathedral is consecrated.
1450 – 'Abd al-Latif (Timurid monarch) is
assassinated.
1662 – The figure who later became Mr. Punch
made his first recorded appearance in England.
1671 – Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman,
attempts to steal England's Crown Jewels
from the Tower of London.
1726 – Five men arrested during a raid on
Mother Clap's molly house in London are
executed at Tyburn.
1763 – The Siege of Fort Detroit begins
during Pontiac's War against British forces.
1864 – Second War of Schleswig: The Danish
navy defeats the Austrian and Prussian fleets
in the Battle of Heligoland.
1873 – Der Krach: Vienna stock market crash
heralds the Long Depression.
1874 – The first horse-drawn bus makes its
début in the city of Mumbai, traveling two
routes.
1877 – Mihail Kogălniceanu reads, in the
Chamber of Deputies, the Declaration of
Independence of Romania. This day became
the Independence Day of Romania.
1877 – A magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the
coast of Peru kills 2,541, including some
as far away as Hawaii and Japan.
1887 – Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show
opens in London.
1901 – Australia opens its first parliament
in Melbourne.
1904 – The steam locomotive City of Truro
becomes the first steam engine in Europe
to exceed 100 mph (160 km/h).
1911 – The works of Gabriele D'Annunzio
placed by the Vatican in the Index of Forbidden
Books.
1915 – World War I: Second Battle of Artois
between German and French forces.
1918 – World War I: Germans repel the British's
second attempt to blockade the port of Ostend,
Belgium.
1920 – Polish-Soviet War: The Polish army
under General Edward Rydz-Śmigły celebrates
its capture of Kiev with a victory parade
on Khreschatyk.
1926 – Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Floyd
Bennett claim to have flown over the North
Pole (later discovery of Byrd's diary seems
to indicate that this did not happen).
1927 – The Australian Parliament first convenes
in Canberra.
1936 – Italy formally annexes Ethiopia after
taking the capital Addis Ababa on May 5.
1940 – World War II: The German submarine
U-9 sinks the French coastal submarine Doris
near Den Helder.
1941 – World War II: The German submarine
U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On
board is the latest Enigma cryptography
machine which Allied cryptographers later
use to break coded German messages.
1942 – Holocaust: The SS murders 588 Jewish
residents of the Podolian town of Zinkiv
(Khmelnytska oblast, Ukraine). The Zoludek
Ghetto (in Belarus) is destroyed and all
its inhabitants murdered or deported.
1945 – World War II: Ratification in Berlin-Karlshorst
of the German unconditional surrender of
May 8 in Rheims, France, with the signatures
of Marshal Georgy Zhukov for the Soviet
Union, and for the Western Headquarters
Sir Arthur Tedder, British Air Marshal and
Eisenhower's deputy, and for the German
side of Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff
as the representative of the Luftwaffe,
Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel as the Chief
of Staff of OKW, and Admiral Hans-Georg
von Friedeburg as Commander-in-Chief of
the Kriegsmarine.
1945 – World War II: The Channel Islands
are liberated by the British after five
years of German occupation.
1946 – King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy
abdicates and is succeeded by Humbert II.
1948 – Czechoslovakia's Ninth-of-May Constitution
comes into effect.
1949 – Rainier III of Monaco becomes Prince
of Monaco.
1950 – Robert Schuman presents his proposal
on the creation of an organized Europe,
which according to him was indispensable
to the maintenance of peaceful relations.
This proposal, known as the "Schuman
declaration", is considered by some
people to be the beginning of the creation
of what is now the European Union.
1955 – Cold War: West Germany joins NATO.
1960 – The Food and Drug Administration
announces it will approve birth control
as an additional indication for Searle's
Enovid, making Enovid the world's first
approved oral contraceptive pill.
1961 – Jim Gentile of the Baltimore Orioles
becomes the first player in baseball history
to hit grand slams in consecutive innings.
1960 – FCC Chairman Newton N. Minow gives
his Wasteland Speech.
1964 – Ngo Dinh Can, de facto ruler of central
Vietnam under his brother President Ngo
Dinh Diem before the family's toppling,
is executed.
1969 – Carlos Lamarca leads the first urban
guerrilla action against the military dictatorship
of Brazil in São Paulo, by robbing two banks.
1970 – Vietnam War: In Washington, D.C.,
75,000 to 100,000 war protesters demonstrate
in front of the White House.
1974 – Watergate Scandal: The United States
House of Representatives Judiciary Committee
opens formal and public impeachment hearings
against President Richard Nixon.
1977 – Hotel Polen fire: A disastrous fire
burns down the Hotel Polen in Amsterdam
causing 33 deaths and 21 severe injuries.
1979 – Iranian Jewish businessman Habib
Elghanian is executed by firing squad in
Tehran, prompting the mass exodus of the
once 100,000 member strong Jewish community
of Iran.
1980 – In Florida, Liberian freighter MV
Summit Venture collides with the Sunshine
Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, making a 1,400-ft.
section of the southbound span collapse.
35 people in six cars and a Greyhound bus
fall 150 ft. into the water and die.
1980 – In Norco, California, five masked
gunman hold up a Security Pacific bank,
leading to a violent shoot-out and one of
the largest pursuits in California history.
Two of the gunmen and one police officer
are killed and thirty-three police and civilian
vehicles are destroyed in the chase.
1987 – A Polish LOT Ilyushin IL-62M "Tadeusz
Kościuszko" (SP-LBG) crashes after
takeoff in Warsaw, Poland, killing 183 people.
1992 – Armenian forces capture Shusha, marking
a major turning point in the Karabakh War.
2001 – In Ghana 129 football fans die in
what became known as the Accra Sports Stadium
Disaster. The deaths are caused by a stampede
(caused by the firing of teargas by police
personnel at the stadium) that followed
a controversial decision by the referee.
2002 – The 38-day stand-off in the Church
of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an
end when the Palestinians inside agree to
have 13 suspected terrorists among them
deported to several different countries.
2002 – In Kaspiysk, Russia, a remote-controlled
bomb explodes during a holiday parade killing
43 and injuring at least 130.
2004 – Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov
is killed by a land mine under a VIP stage
during a World War II memorial victory parade
in Grozny, Chechnya.
2012 – Mount Salak Sukhoi Superjet 100 crash
occurred when a Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft
crashed into Mount Salak in West Java, Indonesia,
killing 45 people.
Holidays
and observances Anniversary
of Dianetics (Church of Scientology)
Christian Feast Day
Beatus of Lungern
Beatus of Vendome
Christopher (Αγιος Χριστόφορος) (Eastern
Orthodox Church)
George Preca
Gerontius of Cervia
Gregory of Nazianzus, Doctor, Bishop of
Constantinople, 389 CE (commemoration, Anglican
Communion)
Pachomius
Tudy of Landevennec
May 9 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Europe Day, commemorating the Schuman Declaration.
(European Union)
Independence Day, celebrating the declaration
of independence of Romania from the Ottoman
Empire in 1877. (Romania)
Liberation Day, commemorating the end of
the German Occupation of the Channel Islands
during World War II). (Guernsey, Liberation
Day (Jersey))
One of the three days of the Feast of the
Lemures. (Roman Empire)
Victory Day observances, celebration of
the Soviet Union victory over Nazi Germany
(Soviet Union, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan)
Victory and Peace Day, mark the capture
of Shusha in the Karabakh War and the end
of World War II. (Armenia)
For details, contact Datacentre
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