This week was the anniversary of Allied Victory in Europe over the Nazis during the Second World War. Each generation has its fight against evil and tyranny, and we cannot do better than look to the past to guide us in our own struggle. Below are some of the important births, deaths, and events that occurred this past week in history.
May 5
1260 – Kublai, grandson of Genghis, is unanimously elected khan of the Mongols. He completed the conquest of China and thus became the first Yuan ruler of the entirety of China.
1646 – English King Charles I surrenders to the Scottish Covenanters. He would eventually be handed over to Oliver Cromwell’s men and executed.
1818 – German philosopher Karl Marx is born. His anti-religious, unrealistic, secular, pernicious philosophy of Communism has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, and the most bloody, tyrannical regimes in history.
1821 – Napoleon Bonaparte, former French general and dictatorial emperor, dies in exile.
1891 – New York City’s Music Hall (now Carnegie Hall) opens, with Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the guest of honor, conducting his Marche Solennelle.
1893 – Start of devastating Panic of 1893 in America. “A financial panic in May 1893 led the United States into the worst economic depression it had experienced up to that point in its history. Following the collapse of several Wall Street brokerage houses, over 600 banks and 16,000 businesses failed by the end of the year. National unemployment reached an estimated 20 percent in the first year of the crisis.”
1941 – Defying British occupation, previously exiled Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I returns to organize his own government.
1955 – The Allied military occupation of West Germany (following WWII) officially ends as the Federal Republic of Germany becomes a sovereign state.
May 6
1527 – The Spanish troops under Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, and the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor sack Rome. “I don’t know what greater hell there can be than this one,” Francesco Gonzaga wrote of the aftermath.
1626 – Dutchman Peter Minuit purchases Manhattan island from the natives for 60 guilders. The legend always says the Dutch bought the property for the equivalent of $24 worth of trinkets.
1937 – The disaster of the German Hindenburg dirigible, which took passengers across the Atlantic. “[Smithsonian] the world’s largest dirigible airship went up in towering flames in New Jersey.”
1941 – Soviet dictator Josef Stalin becomes premier of Russia.
May 7
558 – The dome of Constantinople’s Hagia Sophia church caves in, and Emperor Justinian orders it rebuilt.
1253 – Reported date on which Flemish Franciscan missionary and explorer William of Rubruck sets out on his famous journey to the Mongols.
1274 – Catholic Church’s 2nd Council of Lyons opens.
1355 – “[An] attack was made on the ‘alcana,’ or smaller Jewry, of Toledo by Henry de Trastamara, in which no fewer than 1,200 Jews were killed or wounded.”
1700 – Quaker William Penn begins monthly meetings aiming for black emancipation.
1833 – Great German composer Johannes Brahms is born.
1840 – Brilliant Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is born, now best known for his ballets, especially The Nutcracker.
1867 – Alfred Nobel files a patent for the revolutionary explosive dynamite.
1915 – During WWI, the “British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people drowned, including 128 Americans.” The U.S. had been neutral during the war, but this deadly attack began to turn American feeling against Germany.
1945 – The Nazis unconditionally surrender to the Allies, marking victory in Europe during WWII.
May 8
1348 – Reported date on which a ship from Bordeaux lands in England, bringing the deadly plague or Black Death with it.
1429 – Joan of Arc, commissioned by God to save France from English invaders, successfully raises the Siege of Orleans.
1819 – Kamehameha I dies. “A great warrior, diplomat and leader, King Kamehameha I united the Hawaiian Islands into one royal kingdom in 1810 after years of conflict.”
1835 – Reportedly the date on which Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen’s famous fairy tales were first published.
1895 – The Treaty of Shimonoseki, that ended the First Sino-Japanese War, comes into force, giving Japan sovereignty over the island of Taiwan.
1943 – Mordecai Anielewicz, leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and his fellow Jewish freedom fighters are killed when the Nazis gas their bunker.
1945 – V-E Day: celebrated by the Allies during WWII as Victory in Europe Day.
May 9
328 – St. Athanasius becomes patriarch of Alexandria. Known as Athanasius contra mundum (against the world) for preaching the true faith when most clerics compromised with heresy.
1386 – The English and Portuguese monarchs ratify the Treaty of Windsor, cementing an alliance between the two kingdoms.
1451 – Amerigo Vespucci, the navigator and explorer after whom the Americas are named, is born.
1800 – Birth of fanatical abolitionist John Brown, famous leader of the Harpers Ferry revolt. Brown was kind and well-intentioned toward slaves, and he inspired many abolitionists and slaves seeking freedom, but he killed white men in brutal ways (see Pottawatomie Massacre), and he definitely displayed characteristics of crazy fanaticism; his character is still debated today, some calling him “hero,” some calling him “villain.” Read more here.
1865 – President Andrew Johnson’s proclamation marks the official end of hostilities in the Civil War.
1874 – British archaeologist Howard Carter, who excavated King Tut’s tomb in Egypt, is born.
1901 – First time the Australian Parliament opens.
1941 – During WWII, a “boarding party from the HMS Bulldog retrieved an intact Enigma code machine from a captured German submarine. It was a lucky break, and would help the famous Ultra code-breakers at Bletchley Park.” This proved crucial in the Allied war effort.
1960 – The U.S. FDA approves “the pill.” Contraceptives have many damaging side effects for women, and also make no-consequences sex easier for men, hence their popularity with sex traffickers.
May 10
1497 – Explorer Amerigo Vespucci sets out on his first voyage. The Americas are named for him.
1534 – French explorer Jacques Cartier leaves on a voyage that takes him to Newfoundland.
1675 – Nathaniel Bacon, leader of Bacon’s Rebellion (colonials against English authorities), is declared a rebel.
1775 – “The Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on May 10, 1775, after the Battles of Concord and Lexington had been fought.” The American Revolutionary movement for independence from Great Britain had begun.
1801 – The First Barbary War begins between pirates and the U.S.
1818 – Silversmith and Patriot Paul Revere dies. He is most famous for his midnight ride to warn the Revolutionaries to make ready their arms, because the “British are coming,” a feat immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s great poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
1857 – The India Mutiny against British rule begins.
1863 – Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, one of the most prominent Confederate generals, dies of wounds accidentally inflicted by other Confederate soldiers. It is somewhat poetic justice that Jackson, who betrayed the United States and tried to kill the Union by fighting for the Confederacy, should have in his turn been killed by friendly fire.
1869 – The Golden Spike Ceremony occurs, marking the completion of the transcontinental railroad across America.
1899 – Fred Astaire, one of the most talented and iconic dancers of the Golden Age of Hollywood, is born.
1940 – “Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. When he met his Cabinet on May 13 he told them that ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.’ He repeated that phrase later in the day when he asked the House of Commons for a vote of confidence in his new all-party government.” Churchill led Britain to victory in WWII.
1960 – American nuclear-powered submarine USS Triton completes first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.
Did I miss any important events? Let me know in the comments.
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Author: Catherine Salgado
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