This Week In History
May 10, 1960
The US nuclear-powered submarine Triton became the first vessel to circumnavigate the world while submerged. The undersea voyage took 84 days
1962: Marvel Comics published the first issue of The Incredible Hulk
1975: Sony introduced the Betamax video recorder. It was outperformed by VHS and both later gave way to DVDS
2000: Microsoft offered to allow other browsers and software to be installed with its Windows system
2010: A mass grave containing the bodies of 250 ethnic Albanians from the Kosovo War was found in Serbia
May 11, 330
Emperor Constantine dedicated Constantinople as the new capital of the Roman Empire. Now called Istanbul, it was built over the ancient Greek city of Byzantium
1904: Surrealist painter Salvador Dali was born in Spain 2010: Doris Eaton Travis, the last surviving Ziegfeld girl, died aged 106. She first danced on Broadway at the age of 13
2010: Benigno Aquino III, son of former president Corazon Aquino, won the Philippines’ presidential election
2010: Morocco closed 10 airports as Iceland’s erupting volcano continued to disrupt air travel
May 12, 1820
Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, was born. On nightly rounds “The Lady with the Lamp” tended to soldiers wounded in the Crimean War
1870: The Dominion of Canada purchased Manitoba from the Hudson Bay Company
1885: The linotype machine was patented, replacing hand-set metal letters with entire lines of lead type
1935: The first meeting took place between Bill Wilson and Dr Bob
Smith, founders of Alcoholics Anonymous
2000: The Tate Modern art gallery opened in London in a disused power station
May 13, 1950
The first Formula One World Championship grand prix was held at Silverstone in England. The winner was Italy’s Giuseppe Farina, driving for Alfa Romeo
1265: Italian poet Dante Alighieri is believed to have been born in Florence
1637: Cardinal Richelieu of France created the first table knife, rounded at the tip, to replace the use of daggers to cut meat
1830:
The Republic of Ecuador was founded with Juan Flores as president
1940: Winston Churchill told Britain’s wartime coalition he could offer “nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat”
May 14, 2019
Grumpy Cat, the feline whose frown endeared her to 12 million fans across social media, died. Her glum face was caused by an underbite and feline dwarfism
1900: The second modern Olympiad opened in Paris, with women permitted to compete for the first time 1940: Two thirds of the Dutch city of Rotterdam was destroyed by German bombing
1955: The Soviet Union and seven other communist states in eastern Europe signed the Warsaw Pact
1995: Six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was proclaimed as the 11th reincarnation of Tibet’s Panchen Lama
May 15, 1940
Nylon stockings went on sale throughout the United States, priced at US$1.15 per pair. Around 780,000 pairs were sold on the first day alone
1940: Brothers Richard and Maurice Mcdonald opened their first restaurant 1955: Britain, France, the US and the USSR signed the Vienna Treaty to restore Austria’s independence
1995: China conducted an underground nuclear test just days after agreeing to an extension of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
2015: US citizen Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings
May 16, 2019
I.M. Pei, Chinese-american architect known for his precision geometry and use of natural light, as seen in his glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris, died aged 102
1960: The first optical laser was demonstrated at the Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California
1975: Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei became the first woman to climb Mount Everest
1995: The Polish currency, the zloty, was floated on international currency markets
2005: Kuwait’s National Assembly passed a law giving women the right to vote and to run for office