Status Updates From On This Day: The History of...

JUNE 1

How reconcile this world of fact with the bright world of my imagining? My darkness has been filled with the light of intelligence, and behold, the outer daylight world was stumbling and groping in social blindness.
The deaf and blind author Helen Keller who died today, 1968.

MAY 31

Perhaps it is God's will to lead the people of South Africa through defeat and humiliation to a better future and a brighter day.
Jan Smuts, Boer general, at the Boer War peace conference, 1902.

MAY 30

1640 Death of Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, one of the most influential figures in Baroque art in northern Europe.

MAY 29

The Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of "Women's Rights", with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety.

Victoria, Queen of England, in a letter, 1870.

MAY 28

1837 Death of Alfred Adler, Austrian psychiatrist whose theories introduced the concept of the inferiority complex.

MAY 27

Virtuoso's final bow

1849 The illustrious Italian violinist Niccolo Paganini went to his Maker today — though opinion is divided on jusgh which maker that might be. Many are convinced e that the Devil himself played Paganini's violin for him. His skill was sheer wizard — he could give stunning performances on only one string — and his music and dark good looks mesmerized audiences, not least people's ...

MAY 26

1791 The French Assembly forces Louis XVI to hand over the crown and state assets.

MAY 25

Owens' record busting day

1935 Jesse Owens, a 21-year-old black student athlete from Alabama,, set five new world records and equalled a sixth this afternoon — a world record in itself for a single day's achievement. In fact, Owens did it all in a single hour. He equelled the 100 yard record, then set new records for the long jump, 220 yards and 220-yard hurdles, relentlessly breaking the 200 m records...

MAY 24

1814 Pope Pius VII, exiled by Napoleon Bonaparte, retuns to Rome.

MAY 23

Sun loses libel case to 6\-year-old

1991 A disabled English boy, six-year-old Jonathan Hunt, today won "substantial" libel damages from the Sun newspaper — which had dubbed him "the worst brat in Britain". He is the first British child to sue for libel. In an article in July 1989, the San said that Jonathan had set the furniture alight, cut his ear off, killed the cat in a washing machine, painted the dog...

MAY 22

1795 Scottish explorer Mungo Park sets forth on his first voyage to Africa.

MAY 21

1553 Lady Jane Grey, great-granddaughter of Henry VII, is forced to marry Lord Guildford Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland, who has ambitions for the throne of England.

MAY 20

1609 The sonnets of dramatist William Shakespeare are published.

MAY 19

MT ST HELENS EXPLODES

1980 At least 15 people were killed today when a long dormant volcano in the US exploded, About 400 people were evacuated earlier when Mt St Helens in south-western Washington State started smoking a few weeks ago, but geologists did not expect the sudden violence of today's eruption, which started fires, mudslides and floods in areas thought to be safe. About 120 square miles ...

MAY 18

1832 In Paris, French novelist George Sand publishes her first novel, Indiana, in which she makes a plea for women's right to independence.

MAY 17

Watergate secrets go public

1973 America watched in fascination as televised Senate hearings on the Watergate affair opened today. Senator Sam J. Irvin, Democrat of North Carolina, virtually accused the Watergate burglars of trying to steal America's "right to vote in a free election" when he opened public sessions of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. White House denials...

MAY 16

1968 Pete Townshend, guitarist with British pop group The Who, spends a night in jail in New York after kicking a policeman off stage.

MAY 15

1990 Lindi St clare, retired brothel keeper — previously known by her professional name of Miss Whiplash — today lost a 15-year legal battle against Britain's Inland Revenue, who had sued her for back taxes. She ha refused to pay, supposedly for the Inland Revenue's own protection, claiming it would mean the government department would be breaking the law by living off immoral earnings. Today the judge...

MAY 14

1804 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out from St Louis to find an overland route to the Pacific.

MAY 13

Pope in Vatican shooting

1981 A crowd of 20,000 people in St Peter's square in Rome today saw Pope John Paul II shot four times by a Turkish gunman. The Pope, in his white open-top jeep, was blessing the crowds during the weekly audience when the gunman opened fire, hitting the Pope and wounding two other people. The gunman was arrested as the jeep sped to safety. After a five-hour operation the Pope was ...

MAY 12

1932 The kidnapped baby son of aviator Charles Lindbergh is found dead.

MAY 11

Cyclone death toll mounts

1991 the death toll from the cyclone which has devastated Bangladesh is climbing toward 250,000. The entire coastal plain, millions of acres of fertile rice land, is underwater following fierce floods that swept away whole communities. Now, with millions of people marooned in the midst of the flood, there is no water to drink, no food, no shelter, no medical care, and little help...

MAY 10

1849 Katsushika Hokusai, the great printmaker legendary for his pictures of "the floating world" dies at 89, asking for "yet another decade".

MAY 9

Yeah, some of them are about 10 minutes long, others five or six.
Bob Dylan, asked to comment on his songs in an interview, 1965.

MAY 8

1849 In the first international yacht race, Bermudan boat Pearl beats the American Brenda.

MAY 7

Watergate Pulitzer for Woodstein

1973 With US President Richard M. Nixon under increasing pressure to admit a White House cover-up, the Washington Post today won the Pulitzer Prize for the work of investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in exposing the Watergate scandal. Woodward and Bernstein — now widely known as "Woodstein" — have been relentless in unrolling the table of deceit. behind...

MAY 6

1877 The Sioux chief Crazy Horse surrenders and gives up all claim to Nebraska.

MAY 5

NAPOLEON IS DEAD

1821 Napoleon Bonaparte died today in exile on the remote British island of St Helena. He was 51. The military genius known as "the Little Corporal:, Emperor of France and conqueror of Europe, counld not survive more than six years in such a restricted prison. "There is no more oil in the lamp," he told Montholon, his secretary, late last year. Ill since then, he fell into a coma today ...

MAY 4

1904 Charles Rolls and Henry Royce sigh a provision agreement to collaborate in the production of Rolls-Royce cars.

MAY 3

In Flanders fields the poppies blow,
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place,

John McCrae, Canadian poet, written on this day , 1915.