Anniversaries and commemorations come and go daily. Most of us, even the best historians, miss most occasions. If we think of history as events then we are faced with a continually showering in the grains of sand. Nevertheless, we do pick out certain patterns in the remembrance of historical dates. The blog here reminds us of some dates where the local, state, national, and global perspectives entwine.
What Time is It? It is flow of a sandstorm that will on each day compress somewhere into a structure – sandstone, selected and only remembered in the longue durée.
On 1 May 1845, Sometime in May 1845, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written by himself, is published by the Boston Anti-Slavery Society.
On 1 May 1895, Dundela Football, Sports & Association Club is formed in Belfast.
On Tuesday, 1 May 1945, The Australian National Film Board is established.
On Tuesday, 1 May 1945, WWII: Hamburg Radio announces that Hitler has died in battle, “fighting up to his last breath against Bolshevism.”
On Tuesday, 1 May 1945, Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda commit suicide after killing their six children. Karl Dönitz appoints Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk as the new Chancellor of Germany in the Flensburg Government.
On Tuesday, 1 May 1945, Troops of the Yugoslav 4th Army, together with the Slovene 9th Corpus NOV, enter Trieste.
On Tuesday, 1 May 1945, Mass suicide in Demmin. An estimated 700–2,500 suicides take place after 80% of the town has been destroyed by Soviets during the past three days.
On Sunday, 1 May 1960, Several Soviet surface-to-air missiles shoot down an American Lockheed U-2 spy plane. Its pilot, Francis Gary Powers of the Central Intelligence Agency, is captured.
On Sunday, 1 May 1960, In India, May 1 is declared as ‘Maharashtra Divas’, i.e., Maharashtra Day (also celebrated as ‘Kaamgaar Divas’, i.e., Workers Day).
On Sunday, 1 May 1960, In Turkey, a bloodless military coup d’état removes President Celâl Bayar and installs 27 General Cemal Gürsel as the head of state.
On Friday, 1 May 1970, Demonstrations against the trial of the New Haven Nine, Bobby Seale, and Ericka Huggins draw 12,000.
On Friday, 1 May 1970, President Richard Nixon orders U.S. forces to cross into neutral Cambodia, threatening to widen the Vietnam War, sparking protests across the United States and leading to the Kent State shootings.
On Thursday, 1 May 1980, The Australian branch of Earthwatch Institute is established in Sydney.
On Thursday, 1 May 1980, “About that Urban Renaissance…”, an article by journalist Dan Rottenberg in Chicago, contains the first recorded use of the word “yuppie”.
On Tuesday, 1 May 1990, The former Episcopal Church in the Philippines (supervised by the Episcopal Church of the United States of America) is granted full autonomy and raised to the state of an Autocephalous Anglican province and renamed the Episcopal Church of the Philippines.
On Monday, 1 May 1995, [during May] The Australian Grand Prix is moved from Adelaide to Melbourne after the Premier of Victoria spends what is reported to be quite a large amount on securing the rights to the race from 1996 onwards. Protests ensue about what many saw as the turning of public parkland into a private racetrack.
On Monday, 1 May 1995, [in May] Kerry Stokes becomes chairman of the Seven Network after reaching 20% ownership of the company.
On Monday, 1 May 1995, [in May] STW-9 is purchased by Sunraysia Television after a fierce bidding war with WIN Television.
On Monday, 1 May 1995, Jacques Chirac is elected president of France.
On Monday, 1 May 2000, A new class of composite material is fabricated, which has a combination of physical properties never before seen in a natural or man-made material.
On Friday, 1 May 2015, Expo 2015 is held in Milan, Italy. [May 1 2015 to October 31 2015]
Images Citations in Composite: ID 17208541 © Anhong | Dreamstime.com; ID 35001957 © DiversityStudio1 | Dreamstime.com; ID 156394527 © Gerd Zahn | Dreamstime.com
Neville Buch