May 12

It’s Astronomy Day and Fatigue Syndrome Day and International Nurses Day and Limerick Day and National Nutty Fudge Day and Kite Day

ON THIS DAY…
1191 Richard the Lionheart married Berengaria of Navarre in Limassol, Cyprus
1364 Jagiellonian University, the oldest university in Poland, was founded in Kraków, Poland
1536 In England, Sir Francis Weston, Mark Smeaton and several other alleged lovers of Anne Boleyn, wife of King Henry VIII, are tried for treason; all are executed on May 12th
1831 The first indicted bank robber in the US, Edward Smith, was sentenced to five years hard labor on the rock pile at Sing Sing Prison
1816 The Columbian Press, the first printing press invented in America, was designed by George E. Clymer in Philadelphia, PA
1847 William Clayton invented the odometer
1870 The Manitoba Act was given the Royal Assent, paving the way for Manitoba to become a province of Canada
1874 Elijah J. McCoy patented an ironing table
1888 Charles Sherrill of the Yale track team became the first runner to use the crouching start for a fast break in a foot race
1915 President Wilson demands compensation for Germany sinking the liner the Lusitania – sunk by torpedo off the Irish Coast killing at least 1200 people including women and children
1925 In Berlin, Paul von Hindenburg is sworn in as President
1925 The treaded pneumatic tire was patented in the US by Alden Putnam
1926 The airship Norge became the first vessel to fly over the North Pole
1930 The Adler Planetarium and Astronomical Museum was opened to the public in Chicago, IL
1932 Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found dead in Hopewell, NJ just a few miles from the Lindbergh’s home
1932 The Mickey Mouse film Mickey’s Revue is released; Goofy appears for the very first time – but with the name Dippy Dawg
1935 A self-help group, Alcoholics Anonymous, is launched in Ohio by its founder William Wilson
1936 The Dvorak typewriter keyboard was patented in the US by Dvorak and Dealey
1937 Coronation of King George VI of Britain at Westminster Abbey
1948 The state of Israel and its provisional government was established
1949 Soviet troops end their 11-month land blockade of Berlin, Germany; the blockade was deemed useless since Western powers airlifted food and supplies to the city
1962 Douglas MacArthur delivers his famous “Duty, Honor, Country” valedictory speech at West Point
1966 Busch Memorial Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals major league baseball team, opens in St. Louis, MO
1967 At Queen Elizabeth Hall, England, Pink Floyd stages the first-ever quadraphonic rock concert
1969 Minimum voting age in Britain is lowered from 21 to 18
1971 Mick Jagger and Bianca Perez Morena de Macias we married
1978 The US Department of Commerce declares that hurricanes will no longer be named exclusively after women
2000 The Tate Modern art gallery opens in London
2002 Former President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro becoming first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution
2002 Dinotopia, a six-hour mini-series, airs on The Wonderful World of Disney
2004 The discovery of what was believed to be the world’s oldest seat of learning, the Library of Alexandria, was announced by Zahi Hawass, president of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities during a conference at the University of California
2005 Microsoft officially unveiled its Xbox 360, a video game console boasting improved graphics over its predecessor
2008 Nintendo starts WiiWare games with release of six games

BORN:
1812 Edward Lear, artist, illustrator and writer known for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form which he popularized
1820 Florence Nightingale, OM, RRC, who came to be known as “The Lady with the Lamp”, was a pioneer of modern nursing, a writer and a noted statistician
1850 Henry Cabot Lodge, US House of Representatives (1887-1893), Massachusetts Senator (1893-1924)
1863 Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, geochemist and mineralogist who was a founder of the specialist sciences of geochemistry and biogeochemistry
1874 Baron Clemens von Pirquet, physician who originated a skin test for tuberculosis that bears his name, a classic diagnostic test in which tuberculin is applied to a superficial abrasion of the skin of the arm
1880 Lincoln Ellsworth, explorer, engineer, and scientist who led the first trans-Arctic and trans-Antarctic air crossings
1895 William Francis Giauque, physical chemist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1949 for his “achievements in the field of chemical thermodynamics and especially his work on the behavior of matter at very low temperatures and his closely allied studies of entropy.”
1901 Sir Christopher Hinton, engineer who was a leading figure in the development of the nuclear energy industry in Britain; he supervised the construction of Calder Hall, the world’s first large-scale nuclear power station
1903 Wilfrid Hyde-White, character actor (Tarzan, the Ape Man, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Agatha Christie’s ‘Ten Little Indians’, My Fair Lady)
1907 Katherine Hepburn, 4-time Academy Award-winning actress (On Golden Pond, The Lion in Winter, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Morning Glory)
1907 Leslie Charteris, author-screenwriter who was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of Simon Templar, alias “The Saint”
1910 Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, a crystallographer of distinction, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964 for her discoveries, by the use of X-ray techniques, of the structure of biologically important molecules, including penicillin, vitamin B-12, and later, the protein hormone insulin
1915 Mary Kay Ash, businesswoman and the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc.
1921 Farley Mowat, conservationist and one of Canada’s most widely-read authors (Never Cry Wolf, The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be, A Whale for the Killing)
1924 Tony Hancock, comedian-actor (Hancock’s Half Hour, The Punch and Judy Man, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, The Wrong Box)
1925 Lawrence “Yogi” Berra, Major League Baseball player and manager and one of only four players to be named the Most Valuable Player of the American League three times, and one of only six managers to lead both American and National League teams to the World Series
1929 Burt Bacharach, three-time Academy Award-winning songwriter and composer (“Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)”, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)
1936 Tom Snyder, Emmy Award-winning TV personality and newsman (The Tomorrow Show, The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder)
1936 George Carlin, comedian-actor-writer (With Six You Get Eggroll, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, Cars)
1942 Ian Dury, singer-songwriter (“Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick”, “Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll”, “Reasons to be Cheerful, Part Three”)
1946 L. Neil Smith, science fiction author and political activist (The Lando Calrissian Adventures, The Probability Broach, Pallas)
1948 Steve Winwood, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who, in addition to his solo career, was a member of the bands the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Blind Faith
1948 Lindsay Crouse, actress (All the President’s Men, Krull, The Indian in the Cupboard, The Insider, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
1950 Bruce Boxleitner, actor (How the West Was Won, Tron, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Babylon 5)
1950 Billy Squire, musician-songwriter (“The Stroke,” “In The Dark”, “Rock Me Tonite”, “Lonely Is the Night”)
1950 Gabriel Byrne, actor (In Treatment, Excalibur, Gothic, Miller’s Crossing, The Usual Suspects, The Man in the Iron Mask)
1959 Ving Rhames, actor (Pulp Fiction, Mission Impossible, Dawn of the Dead, Kojak, Jacob’s Ladder)
1961 Bruce McCulloch, writer-actor-comedian (Carpoolers, The Kids in the Hall, Further Tales of the City, Anne of Avonlea)
1962 Emilio Estevez, actor-writer-director (Bobby, Mission: Impossible, The Mighty Ducks, Young Guns, Repo Man)
1963 Vanessa Williams, actress (Candyman, Melrose Place, Soul Food, New Jack City)
1966 Stephen Baldwin, actor (Born on the Fourth of July, The Young Riders, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, The Usual Suspects)
1968 Tony Hawk, professional skateboarder who is credited with the invention of many aerial skateboard tricks including the Stalefish, Madonna, and McHawk, and over 80 others, but is most famous for being the first recorded skater to land the 900, which consists of two-and-a-half rotations (900°) in the air before landing back on the pipe
1968 Catherine Tate, comedienne-actress (Doctor Who, The Catherine Tate Show, Bleak House, Marple: A Murder Is Announced, Big Train)
1969 Kim Fields, actress (The Facts of Life, Roots: The Next Generations, Living Single)
1970 Samantha Mathis, actress (Cold Sassy Tree, Pump Up the Volume, The American President, Broken Arrow, American Psycho, The Mists of Avalon, The Punisher)
1973 Mackenzie Astin, actor (I Dream of Jeannie: 15 Years Later, The Facts of Life, Iron Will)
1978 Jason Biggs, actor (American Pie, As the World Turns, Drexell’s Class, Prozac Nation)

DIED:
1889 John Cadbury, proprietor of a small chocolate business in Birmingham, England, that later became part of Cadbury-Schweppes, one of the world’s largest chocolate producers, dies at 87
1910 Sir William Huggins, astronomer who explored the spectra of stars, nebulae and comets to interpret their chemical composition, dies at 85
1934 Winnie-the-Bear (the real life inspiration for Winnie-the Pooh) passes away at the London Zoo at the ripe old age of 20
1944 Max Brand (Frederick Schiller Faust), fiction author known primarily for his thoughtful and literary Westerns who created the western character Destry as well as Dr. Kildare, dies at 51 while serving as a front line war correspondent during WWII
1956 Louis Calhern, actor (Diplomaniacs, Duck Soup, Heaven Can Wait, Notorious, Executive Suite), dies at 61
1957 Erich von Stroheim, actor-writer-director (Foolish Wives, Greed, Queen Kelly, Sunset Blvd.), dies at 71
1962 Thomas Milton Rivers, virologist who, as chairman of the virus research committee of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation; 1938-55), organized the long-range research program that led to development of the Salk and Sabin anti-poliomyelitis vaccines, dies at 73
1962 Dick Calkins, comic strip artist who is best known for being the first artist to draw the Buck Rogers comic strip, dies at 67
1971 Tor Johnson, actor-professional wrestler (Shadow of the Thin Man, Night of the Ghouls, Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Beast of Yucca Flats), dies at 67
1992 Robert Reed, actor (The Brady Bunch, Search for Tomorrow, Nurse, Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story, Roots, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, Mannix, The Maltese Bippy), dies at 69
1994 Roy J. Plunkett, chemist and inventor of Teflon, dies at 93
2000 Adam Petty, auto racing car driver who was the first fourth-generation driver in NASCAR history, is killed immediately when the throttle of his car stuck and sent him head-on into a wall; he was 19
2001 Perry Como, singer and Emmy Award-winning TV personality whose career spanned over six decades, dies at 88
2004 Syd Hoff, prolific children’s book author, illustrator and cartoonist for The New Yorker (Danny and the Dinosaur, Sammy the Seal, Grizzwold), dies at 91