May 9 They used them as propaganda tools to draw together the country's diverse peoples (who spoke many languages) in order to promote national political union, the best hope of securing liberty and equal justice for all. Benjamin Franklin was responsible for suggesting the country's first emblem -- a native rattlesnake -- and its first personification -- Hercules. Both were readily understood by his contemporaries: the snake device conveyed the need for political solidarity among the colonies, while the strength of the infant Hercules was likened to that of the mighty young nation. Subsequent devices continued to symbolize national union, while personifications were generally composite figures that fused ideas of Liberty, America, Wisdom, or Civil Government. The Capitol's early planners drew upon this small but expressive group of accepted American symbols to convey to the public its actual and metaphorical roles. Symbols of Union Benjamin Franklin consulted Baroque emblem books to find an appropriate symbol for the union of the colonies. A French source provided the image of a cut snake with the motto that translated as "Join, or Die." An Italian iconography book stated that snakes symbolized democracy, government by the people. Probably owing to the snake's negative connotations, Franklin and others sought alternative symbols of union.These included a circular chain of thirteen links and a Liberty Column supported by hands and arms that represented the states. After the Revolution, national political union was embodied in the Great Seal of the United States (early version above). Several groups of thirteen elements -- leaves on the olive branch, arrows clutched by the eagle, stars above its head, and a shield of stripes on its breast -- referred to war, peace, and the American flag, itself the Revolution's principal symbol of union."
1386 England and Portugal sign the Treaty of Windsor, pledging permanent alliance and friendship. Kings Richard and John are the signers.
1502 Christopher Columbus leaves Cadiz, Spain, on his fourth and final trip to the Western Hemisphere. "...Columbus wanted to regain his good name so he set sail in 1502 to find the riches he had been seeking. Once in Hispaniola, the colonists would not allow him on the island. He sailed west and landed in present-day Panama. Gold was found and a trading post established but the native Indians grew restless and Columbus was forced to leave. His luck was running out. Weather, ill health, worms and rotten food took many lives and ships. He eventually made it to Jamaica but the Indians and the governor of Hispaniola would not help him find food. He sailed for Spain in 1504. He and his son settled in Seville..."
1657 Death: William Bradford, English born governor of Plymouth Colony. "...As the settlers moved out for more land, the church was divided and the old "comfortable fellowship" ended. In 1650, Bradford finished piecing together his journal, bringing the record up to 1646. He notes sorrowfully the death of Elder William Brewster and the departure of Edward Winslow for England. Nevertheless Bradford struggled on until 1656, leaving office just few short months before his death in 1657. William Bradford's life and influence have been chronicled by many. As the author of a manuscript journal and the long-term governor of Plymouth Colony, his documented activities are vast in scope. His remarkable ability to manage men and affairs was a large factor in the success of the Plymouth Colony. The Pilgrims "desperate adventure" was marked by Bradford’s stamina, versatility and vision..."
1671 Irishman Captain Thomas Blood makes an unsuccessful attempt to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.
1754 The first published political cartoons in the American colonies appear in The Pennsylvania Gazette, a newspaper founded by Benjamin Franklin. Many of the early cartoons do not have the element of satire so common in today's political cartoons, depending more on symbolism. "Symbols for a New Nation Symbols are history encoded in visual shorthand. Eighteen-century Euro-Americans invented or adopted emblems -- images accompanied by a motto -- and personifications -- allegorical figures -- to express their political needs.
1773 Birth: Jean Sismondi, Swiss historian, economist.
1785 British inventor Joseph Bramah patents the beer-pump handle.
1800 Birth: John Brown, US abolitionist. "This date marks the birth of John Brown in 1800. He was an American abolitionist, whose attempt to end slavery by force greatly increased anxiety between North and South in the period before the American Civil War. Called Old Brown of Osawatomie John Brown was from Torrington, Connecticut. His family moved to Ohio when he was five years old. Early in life he acquired the hatred of slavery that marked his subsequent career, his father having been actively hostile to the institution. While living in Pennsylvania in 1834, Brown initiated a project among sympathetic abolitionists to educate young blacks. The next 20 years of his life were largely dedicated to this and similar abolitionist ventures, entailing many sacrifices for himself and his large family..."
1825 The first gaslit theater in America opens; the Chatham Theatre in New York City.
1828 The British Test and Corporation Acts are repealed so that Catholic and Nonconformists can hold public office in Britain.
1846 Mexican War: Zachary Taylor with 1,700 US troops beat back 5,700 Mexicans under Arista at the battle of Resaca de la Palma and go on to recover Fort Texas.
1860 Birth: Sir James M. Barrie, author; Peter Pan.
1873 Birth: Howard Carter, egyptologist; will discover the tomb of Tutankhamen.
1882 Birth: Henry J. Kaiser, US industrialist.
1883 Birth: Jose Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher.
1896 The first horseless carriage show is opened to the motor trade in London, with 10 models on show at London's Imperial Institute.
1901 Australia opens its first federal parliament in Melbourne.
1915 WW1: The Battle of Artois begins. When the battle ends on 27 May, 216,000 men will have been killed or wounded.
1915 WW1: May 9-July 23 Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler serves at La Bassee and Arras as a Dispatch Runner with Regimental HQ, 16 Bavarian Infantry Regiment. (Masser)
1916 President Wilson orders mobilization of US troops along the Mexican border. This will lead Carranza, the Mexican president, to order US troops out of Mexico.
1926 Americans Commander Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett become the first men to fly over the North Pole.
1927 The new city of Canberra replaces Melbourne as Australia's capital. Parliament House in Canberra is opened.
1933 The Reich Propaganda Ministry orders the burning of more than 25,000 'un-German' books which are thrown on to a huge bonfire outside Berlin University.
1934 Mussolini creates the Italian Corporate State. "...People, especially people on the left, tend to forget - presumably because it is inconvenient to remember - that Mussolini was a revolutionary socialist before he was anything else. They forget, too, that he founded Fascism not as a right-wing dictatorship but as a left-wing revolutionary movement that provided an alternative first to socialism then to communism...The Fascist Third Way between capitalism and communism aimed to abolish class war and replace it with class collaboration. This meant the promotion of the productive elements in society from whatever class and the abolition of the parasitical elements from whatever class. The means by which the Fascists attempted to impose their Third Way was the corporate state. This did not involve the nationalisation of the workplace as in Marxist-inspired solutions, but its incorporation. Shareholders, whether in the form of the state or private individuals, still owned the means of production. Both workers and bosses, however, were members of the corporations that ran enterprises, with the state acting as referee if the need arose. The Fascist corporate state was never really tried..."
1935 The silver jubilee of King George V is celebrated in London and throughout the empire.
1937 Holocaust: A Nazi decree bars Jews from receiving university degrees.
1939 WW2: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill urges a military alliance with the USSR.
1940 WW2: The RAF begins night bombing of Germany.
1940 WW2: Romania places itself under German protection.
1940 WW2: Hitler slips out of Berlin and travels to an improvised headquarters called Felsennest near Münstereifel on the Western front. (Architect)
1942
1942 Holocaust: Wearing of the yellow star of David is made compulsory for Jews living in Holland. (Atlas)
1942 Holocaust: German Jews are forbidden to enter beauty parlors and barber shops. (Persecution)
1942 Birth: John Ashcroft, US Senator, Attorney General.
1945 VE Day: The war in Europe is over. The unconditional surrender of Germany to the Allied forces begins. The surrender document was signed the day before, in what will become known as the Victory in Europe (V-E) Day. A separate German surrender to the USSR is signed near Berlin, Germany, and also goes into effect on May 9th.
1945 The ban on horse racing and the nationwide midnight curfew in the United States during are immediately lifted, as the Germans had surrendered the previous day.
1945 Death: Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff (Rudolf Glauer) is said to have committed suicide by drowning himself in the Bosporus. Primary Source: Herbert Rittlinger in a letter to Ellic Howe dated June 20, 1968. "...although the Thule was purportedly a literary-cultural group, this appears to have been a cover for counter-revolutionary activism. Sebottendorff's Bevor Hitler Kam, a 1933 attempt to claim some of Hitler's glory, and Hermann Rauschning's Hitler speaks, a discredited attempt to paint Hitler as a magician, are often used to support this claim. Ravenscroft saw a link between the Thule and such early "fringe freemasons" as Robert Wentworth Little, but his research standards are demonstrated when, among other errors, he identifies Dietrich Eckart as being Rudolf Glauer. Sebottendorff, expelled from Germany in 1923 as an undesirable alien, returned in 1933. With his book, Bevor Hitler Kam, banned by the Bavarian political police on March I, 1934, and the Thule Group dissolved, Sebottendorff was arrested by the Gestapo, interned in a concentration camp and then expelled to Turkey, where he committed suicide by jumping into the Bosporus on May 9, 1945 upon hearing of the German surrender. Anti-masons will attempt to embarass Freemasonry by imagining a link with Hitler, and occult writers will attempt to inflate the importance of magic in world affairs, but neither of these claims can be proven from the available facts."
1946 Italy's King Victor Emmanuel is forced to formally abdicate in his favor of his son, Prince Humbert.
1950 French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposes the creation of a supranational European federation to strengthen the European economies. 'The Schuman Declaration', as it will become known, will eventually lead to the creation of the European Economic Community, now the European Union.
1960 The United States becomes the first country to legalize the birth control pill; Enovid-10, made by G.D. Searle and Company of Chicago, Illinois.
1961 FCC chairman Newton Minow condemns television programming in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters. He refers to television as 'a vast wasteland.'
1963 A state of emergency is declared in British Guiana following a three-week general strike.
1965 Lunar 5, an unmanned Soviet spacecraft, is launched toward the moon from a rocket already in Earth's orbit. It will later crash in the Sea of Clouds, rather than making the projected soft landing.
1967 Muhammad Ali, formerly Cassius Clay, is indicted on this date by a Federal grand jury for refusing to be inducted into the Army. The World Boxing Association takes away his title as World Heavyweight Champion, and all published records of his title are deleted.
1967 Dr. Zakir Hussain is elected president of India.
1969 Tricia Nixon invites the Turtles to play a masked ball at the White House.
1976 Ulrike Meinhof, a leader of the West German Baader-Meinhof terrorist group, hangs herself in prison.
1977 Just a few months after taking the oath of office, President Jimmy Carter sets about healing America's various ills. One of the areas in dire need of attention is Social Security, America's program for paying out retirement benefits, which is increasingly threatened by the slumping economy and the swelling unemployment rolls. And so, on this day in 1977, Carter proposes a tax hike aimed at bolstering Social Security's 'fiscal integrity.' Along with bumping the tax rate up from 7 percent to 7.5 percent, the president's proposal also calls for federal funds to be shifted to Social Security if unemployment ever leaves the retirement program impotent. The latter point arouses considerable debate and prompts legislators to perform a heady round of revisions to the tax bill. In the winter of 1977, Congress will give the green light to the overhauled version of the president's legislation.
1978 The bullet-riddled body of Aldo Moro, Italy's former prime minister who had been abducted by Red Brigade terrorists, is found in an automobile in the center of Rome.
1979 The United States and Soviet Union reach a basic accord on the SALT 2 nuclear arms treaty.
1979 18 people are killed when troops open fire on terrorists occupying San Salvador cathedral in El Salvador.
1980 Pope John Paul II and the Archbishop of Canterbury meet for the first time in Ghana.
1980 A Liberian freighter rams a bridge in Florida's Tampa Bay, collapsing a 1,400-foot section of the span and dropping 35 people to their deaths. A new $240 million Sunshine Skybridge will open seven years later, on 30 April 1987.
1990 President George H. Bush and congressional leaders announce plans for emergency budget talks, with tax increases and spending cuts on the negotiating table.
1993 Thousands of war veterans, politicians and antigovernment demonstrators gather across Moscow and the former Soviet Union to celebrate the WW2 victory over Germany.
1993 Paraguay holds its first presidential and parliamentary elections for nearly 50 years.
1995 The United States returns 13 Cuban boat people to their homeland, the first to be sent back under a new policy bitterly protested by Cuban-Americans.
1995 World leaders mark the 50th anniversary of the end of WW2 in Europe with three days of emotional Victory Day celebrations and ringing calls for global reconciliation.
1995 The US Senate votes 98-0 to confirm John Deutch as director of the CIA.
1996 US scientists announce that they have found a protein, without which the AIDS virus cannot fuse to human cells.
1996 The National Party, which had inflicted apartheid on South Africa and later helped break the hated system, decides to quit Nelson Mandela's 2-year-old government of national unity, effective June 30.
1996 President Yoweri Museveni wins a landslide victory in Uganda's first presidential election in 16 years.
2000 Senator John McCain, R-Arizona, endorses George W. Bush, his former rival for the Republican presidential nomination.
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