May 9

May 9 is the 129th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (130th in leap years). There are 236 days remaining.

Events

328 - Athanasius elected bishop of Alexandria
1092 - Lincoln Cathedral is consecrated.
1429 - Joan of Arc defeats the English troops besieging Orleans.
1502 - Christopher Columbus leaves Spain for his fourth and final trip to the "New World".
1671 - Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempts to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. He is immediately caught because he is too drunk to run with the loot. He would later be condemned to death and then mysteriously pardoned and exiled by King Charles II.
1726 - Five men who were arrested during the raid on Mother Clap's molly house in London are executed at Tyburn.
1887 - Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show opens in London.
1901 - Australia opens its first parliament in Melbourne.
1915 - World War I: Second Battle of Artois - German and French forces fight.
1926 - Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett claim to have flown over the North Pole (later discovery of his 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.
1941 - World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by United Kingdom's Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine which Allied cryptergraphers later use to break coded German messages.
1945 - World War II: Hermann Göring is captured by the United States Army; Norway arrests Vidkun Quisling; Soviet Union marks V-E Day.
1946 - King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy abdicates and is succeeded by Humbert II.
1949 - Rainier III of Monaco becomes Prince of Monaco.
1950 - Robert Schuman presents his proposal on the creation of an organized Europe, indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations. This proposal, known as the "Schuman declaration", is considered to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.
1955 - Cold War: West Germany joins NATO.
1960 - Reproductive rights: The Food and Drug Administration approves sale of the birth control pill.
1974 - The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard M. Nixon.
1980 - In Florida, a Liberian freighter named the Summit Venture hits the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay sending 35 people (most of whom were in a bus) to a watery death as a 1,400-foot section of the bridge collapsed.
1987 - A Polish Ilyushin 62M crashes after takeoff in Warsaw, Poland killing 183
1994 - Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.
2002 - The 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an end when the Palestinians inside agreed to have 13 suspected militants among them deported to several different countries. The standoff started on April 2.
2002 - In Kaspiysk, Russia, a remote-controlled bomb explodes during a holiday parade killing 43 and injuring at least 130.

Births

1439 - Pope Pius III (+ 1503)
1800 - John Brown, American abolitionist (+ 1859)
1837 - Adam Opel, German engineer and industrialist
1860 - J. M. Barrie, author (+ 1937)
1873 - Anton Cermak, mayor of Chicago, Illinois (+ 1933)
1873 - Howard Carter, British archaeologist (+ 1939)
1882 - Henry J. Kaiser, industrialist
1892 - Zita of Bourbon-Parma, empress of Austria-Hungary (+ 1989)
1895 - Richard Bathelmess, actor (+ 1963)
1907 - Baldur von Schirach, Nazi official (+ 1974)
1912 - Pedro Armendáriz, actor (+ 1963)
1914 - Hank Snow, country musician (+ 1999)
1918 - Mike Wallace, journalist
1918 - Orville L. Freeman, American politician (+ 2003)
1920 - Richard Adams, author
1921 - Sophie Scholl, resistance fighter with White Rose in Nazi Germany
1927 - Wim Thoelke, show master (+ 1995)
1928 - Pancho Gonzalez, tennis player (+ 1995)
1936 - Glenda Jackson, actress and politician
1936 - Albert Finney, actor
1939 - Ralph Boston, athlete
1940 - James L. Brooks, producer, writer
1942 - John Ashcroft, United States Attorney General
1944 - Richie Furay, musician ("Poco", "Buffalo Springfield")
1946 - Candice Bergen, actress
1949 - Billy Joel, American musician
1965 - Steve Yzerman, ice hockey player
1968 - Marie-José Perec, French athlete

Deaths

1791 - Francis Hopkinson, American author and signer of the Declaration of Independence
1805 - Friedrich Schiller, German poet and historian
1905 - Mrs. Jarvis - the model for Mother's Day
1949 - Prince Louis II of Monaco
1957 - Ezio Pinza, opera singer
1970 - Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers
1978 - Aldo Moro, former Prime Minister of Italy
1985 - Edmond O'Brien, actor
1986 - Tenzing Norgay, mountaineer
1998 - Alice Faye, actress

Holidays and Observances

In the Soviet Union, May 9th commemorated the signing in 1945 of the capitulation of Germany, the most important Axis force in World War II, to the Allied forces. In Russia, as before in the Soviet Union, the 9th of May is celebrated as the end of the "Great Patriotic War", the preferred term for the 4-year long German-Russian war. A certain controversy surrounds this holiday: in some other countries (for instance, France and Germany) the 8th of May is considered to be the day of capitulation. This is documented by historic radio announcements of Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin: both said that the capitulation was declared on May 7th and signed on May 8th, in the presence of the highest military officials of the Allied forces, including the Soviet Union. Later, the Soviet Union changed the date to May 9th for somewhat obscure political reasons.
European Union - Europe Day, commemorating the "Schuman declaration"
Roman Empire - Feast of the Lemures (See Larvae)

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