This day in .....

5 May 1762 – Russia and Prussia sign the Treaty of St. Petersburg.

Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1762)

Treaty ending the Seven Years' War between Prussia and Russia

For other uses, see Treaty of Saint Petersburg.

The Treaty of Saint Petersburg was concluded on 5 May 1762, and ended the fighting in the Seven Years' War between Prussia and Russia. The treaty followed the accession of Emperor Peter III, who admired the Prussian king Frederick the Great. It allowed the latter to concentrate on his other enemies, Austria and Saxony, in what became known as the Second Miracle of the House of Brandenburg.^[1]

The treaty was signed on by Chancellor Vorontsov for Russia and for Prussia by its envoy, Baron Wilhelm Bernhard von der Goltz.^[2] Russia pledged to assist in concluding peace among the individual participants in the Seven Years' War and to return to Prussia all lands occupied by Russian troops during the war.^[3] The intent to return the land was made known before the signing of the treaty; on 23 February Russia declared "that there ought to be Peace with this King of Prussia; that Her Tsarish Majesty, for their own part, is resolved on the thing; gives up East Prussia and the so-called conquests made; Russian participation in such a War has ceased."^{[4][volume needed]} Furthermore, it was agreed that Russia would help Prussia in negotiating a peace with Sweden.^[2]

Frederick II (1712–1786) was so overjoyed, that he "ordered Te Deum and fêtes (festivals)" after the signing of the Treaty on 5 May.^[5] His reason for rejoicing was well merited, "for the Tsar promised him the assistance of a token force of 18,000 men" to be used against the Austrian army.^[6] The subsequent Treaty of Hubertusburg made peace between Prussia, Austria and Saxony, but "though it restored the prewar status quo, marked the ascendancy of Prussia as a leading European power."^[7]

Two years after the treaty, Prussia and Russia would enter into a defensive alliance.^[8]

1. ^ Koch, Christopher W; Koch, Christophe Guillaumede (1839). The Revolutions of Europe. Whiltaker and Co. p. 147.
2. ^ ^{a b} "St. Petersburg Peace Treaty". Retrieved 25 September 2011.
3. ^ "Seven Years' War". 1 July 2010. Archived from the original on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 17 September 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
4. ^ Carlyle, Thomas. History of Friedrich II of Prussia. Boston, MA: Dana Estes & Company. pp. 111–12. OCLC 70189088.
5. ^ MacDonogh, Giles (April 2010). "The King of Carlyle". 60 (4): 72. Retrieved 26 September 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)^{[permanent dead link]}
6. ^ Gooch, George (1962). Frederick the Great. Hamden, CT: Archon Books. p. 54. OCLC 406038.
7. ^ "Seven Years' War". Retrieved 26 September 2011.
8. ^ Jerzy Łojek (1986). Geneza i obalenie Konstytucji 3 maja. Wydawn. Lubelskie. pp. 19–20. ISBN 978-83-222-0313-2. Retrieved 17 December 2011.

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6 May 1840 – The Penny Black postage stamp becomes valid for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Penny Black

World's first adhesive postage stamp

For other uses, see Penny Black (disambiguation).

The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was first issued in the United Kingdom on 1 May 1840 but was not valid for use until 6 May. The stamp features a profile of 21-year-old Queen Victoria.

In 1837, British postal rates were high, complex, and anomalous. To simplify matters, Sir Rowland Hill proposed an adhesive stamp to indicate pre-payment of postage.^[2] At the time it was normal for the recipient to pay postage on delivery, charged by the sheet and on distance travelled. By contrast, the Penny Black allowed letters of up to 1⁄2 ounce (14 grams) to be delivered at a flat rate of one penny, regardless of distance.^[2]

1. ^ ^{a b c} "The Ultimate Penny Black Stamp Guide". Warwick & Warwick. Archived from the original on 1 May 2020.
2. ^ ^{a b} "The Penny Post revolutionary who transformed how we send letters". BBC. Retrieved 14 August 2019.

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6 May 1840 – The Penny Black postage stamp becomes valid for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Penny Black

World's first adhesive postage stamp

For other uses, see Penny Black (disambiguation).

The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was first issued in the United Kingdom on 1 May 1840 but was not valid for use until 6 May. The stamp features a profile of 21-year-old Queen Victoria.

In 1837, British postal rates were high, complex, and anomalous. To simplify matters, Sir Rowland Hill proposed an adhesive stamp to indicate pre-payment of postage.^[2] At the time it was normal for the recipient to pay postage on delivery, charged by the sheet and on distance travelled. By contrast, the Penny Black allowed letters of up to 1⁄2 ounce (14 grams) to be delivered at a flat rate of one penny, regardless of distance.^[2]

1. ^ ^{a b c} "The Ultimate Penny Black Stamp Guide". Warwick & Warwick. Archived from the original on 1 May 2020.
2. ^ ^{a b} "The Penny Post revolutionary who transformed how we send letters". BBC. Retrieved 14 August 2019.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

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7 May 1832 – Greece's independence is recognized by the Treaty of London.

London Conference of 1832

International conference to establish the Kingdom of Greece

The London Conference of 1832 was an international conference convened to establish a stable government in Greece. Negotiations among the three Great Powers (Britain, France and Russia) resulted in the establishment of the Kingdom of Greece under a Bavarian prince. The decisions were ratified in the Treaty of Constantinople later that year. The treaty followed the Akkerman Convention which had previously recognized another territorial change in the Balkans, the suzerainty of the Principality of Serbia.^[1][2]

1. ^ Konstantopoulou Photeine, The foundation of the modern Greek state: Major treaties and conventions, 1830–1947 (1999)
2. ^ Mitev, Plamen; Parvev, Ivan; Baramova, Maria; Racheva, Vania (2010), Empires and Peninsulas: Southeastern Europe between Karlowitz and the Peace of Adrianople, 1699–1829, ISBN 978-3-643-10611-7

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8 May 1429 – Joan of Arc lifts the Siege of Orléans, turning the tide of the Hundred Years' War.

Siege of Orléans (1428–1429)

Turning point in the Hundred Years' War

Not to be confused with Battle of Orléans.

The siege of Orléans (12 October 1428 – 8 May 1429) marked a turning point of the Hundred Years' War between France and England. The siege took place at the pinnacle of English power during the later stages of the war, but was repulsed by French forces inspired by the arrival of Joan of Arc. The French would then regain the initiative in the conflict and begin to recapture territories previously occupied by the English.

The city held strategic and symbolic significance to both sides of the conflict. The consensus among contemporaries was that the English regent, John of Lancaster, would have succeeded in realising his brother the English king Henry V's dream of conquering all of France if Orléans fell. For half a year the English and their Burgundian allies appeared to be on the verge of capturing the city, but the siege collapsed nine days after Joan of Arc arrived.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Charpentier & Cuissard 1896, p. 410.
2. ^ ^{a b} Davis 2003, p. 76.
3. ^ ^{a b} Pollard 2005, p. 14.

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9 May 1992 – Westray Mine disaster kills 26 workers in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Westray Mine

Coal mine in Nova Scotia, Canada

The Westray Mine was a Canadian coal mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia. Westray was owned and operated by Curragh Resources Incorporated (Curragh Inc.), which obtained both provincial and federal government money to open the mine, and supply the local electric power utility with coal.

The mine opened in September 1991, but closed eight months later when it was the site of an underground methane explosion on May 9, 1992, killing all 26 miners working underground at the time. The week-long attempts to rescue the miners were widely followed by national media until it was obvious there would be no survivors.

About a week later, the Nova Scotia government ordered a public inquiry to look into what caused one of Canada's deadliest mining disasters, and published its findings in late 1997. The report stated that the mine was mismanaged, miners' safety was ignored, and poor oversight by government regulators led to the disaster. A criminal case against two mine managers went to trial in the mid-1990s, but ultimately was dropped by the crown in 1998, as it seemed unlikely that a conviction could be attained. Curragh Resources went bankrupt in 1993, partially due to the disaster.

One hundred and seventeen miners became unemployed almost immediately after the explosion; they were paid 12 weeks' severance six years after the mine's closure, but only when the provincial government was pressured to intervene. The mine was dismantled and permanently sealed in November 1998.

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10 May 1824 – The National Gallery in London opens to the public.

National Gallery

Art museum in London, England

Not to be confused with the National Portrait Gallery, London.

For other uses, see List of national galleries.

The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900.^{[2][note 1]} The current director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi.

The National Gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.^[3] Its collection is held in trust by the charity on behalf of the British public, and entry to the main collection is free of charge.

Unlike comparable museums in continental Europe, the National Gallery was not formed by nationalising an existing royal or princely art collection. It came into being when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein in 1824. After that initial purchase, the gallery was shaped mainly by its early directors, especially Charles Lock Eastlake, and by private donations, which now account for two-thirds of the collection.^[4] The collection is smaller than many European national galleries, but encyclopaedic in scope; most major developments in Western painting "from Giotto to Cézanne"^[5] are represented with important works. It used to be claimed that this was one of the few national galleries that had all its works on permanent exhibition,^[6] but this is no longer the case.

The present building, the third site to house the National Gallery, was designed by William Wilkins. Building began in 1832 and it opened to the public in 1838. Only the façade onto Trafalgar Square remains essentially unchanged from this time, as the building has been expanded piecemeal throughout its history. Wilkins's building was often criticised for the perceived weaknesses of its design and for its lack of space; the latter problem led to the establishment of the Tate Gallery for British art in 1897. The Sainsbury Wing, a 1991 extension to the west by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, is a significant example of Postmodernist architecture in Britain.

1. ^ "LATEST VISITOR FIGURES". ALVA. Retrieved 20 March 2026.
2. ^ "Our history | About us | National Gallery, London". www.nationalgallery.org.uk. Retrieved 12 June 2024.
3. ^ "Constitution". The National Gallery. Archived from the original on 6 April 2010.
4. ^ Gentili, Barcham & Whiteley 2000, p. 7.
5. ^ Chilvers, Ian (2003). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. Oxford Oxford University Press, p. 413. The formula was used by Michael Levey, later the gallery's eleventh director, for the title of a popular survey of European painting: Levey, Michael (1972). From Giotto to Cézanne: A Concise History of Painting. London: Thames and Hudson
6. ^ Potterton 1977, p. 8.

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11 May 1857 – Indian Rebellion of 1857: Indian rebels seize Delhi from the British.

Indian Rebellion of 1857

Uprising against British Company rule

"Sepoy Mutiny" redirects here. For other uses, see Sepoy Mutiny (disambiguation).

"Indian War of Independence" redirects here. For other uses, see The Indian War of Independence (disambiguation).

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power, including military forces, on behalf of the British Crown.^[4][5] The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 as a mutiny of sepoys of the company's garrison in Meerut, a town 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Delhi. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions, chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India,^[b][6][c][7] though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east.^[d][8] The rebellion posed a military threat to British power in that region,^[e][9] and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858.^[10] On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859.

The name of the revolt is contested, and it is variously described as the Sepoy Mutiny, the Indian Mutiny, the Great Rebellion, the Revolt of 1857, the Indian Insurrection, and the First War of Independence.^[f][11]

The Indian rebellion was fed by resentments born of diverse perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh land taxes, summary treatment of some rich landowners and princes,^[12][13] and scepticism about British claims that their rule offered material improvement to the Indian economy.^[g][14] Many Indians rose against the British; however, many also fought for the British, and the majority remained seemingly compliant to British rule.^[h][14] Violence, which sometimes betrayed exceptional cruelty, was inflicted on both sides: on British officers and civilians, including women and children, by the rebels, and on the rebels and their supporters, including sometimes entire villages, by British reprisals; the cities of Delhi and Lucknow were laid waste in the fighting and the British retaliation.^[i][14]

After the outbreak of the mutiny in Meerut, the rebels quickly reached Delhi, whose 81-year-old Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was declared the Emperor of Hindustan. Soon, the rebels had captured large tracts of the North-Western Provinces and Awadh (Oudh). The East India Company's response came rapidly as well. With help from reinforcements, Kanpur was retaken by mid-July 1857, and Delhi by the end of September.^[10] However, it then took the remainder of 1857 and the better part of 1858 for the rebellion to be suppressed in Jhansi, Lucknow, and especially the Awadh countryside.^[10] Other regions of Company-controlled India—Bengal province, the Bombay Presidency, and the Madras Presidency—remained largely calm.^[j][7][10] In the Punjab, the Sikh princes crucially helped the British by providing both soldiers and support.^[k][7][10] The large princely states, Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, and Kashmir, as well as the smaller ones of Rajputana, did not join the rebellion, serving the British, in Governor-General Lord Canning's words, as "breakwaters in a storm".^[15]

In some regions, most notably in Awadh, the rebellion took on the attributes of a patriotic revolt against British oppression.^[16] However, the rebel leaders proclaimed no articles of faith that presaged a new political system.^[l][17] Even so, the rebellion proved to be an important watershed in Indian and British Empire history.^[m][11][18] It led to the dissolution of the East India Company and forced the British to reorganize the army, the financial system, and the administration in India through passage of the Government of India Act 1858.^[19] India was thereafter administered directly by the British government in the new British Raj.^[15] On 1 November 1858, Queen Victoria issued a proclamation to Indians, which, while lacking the authority of a constitutional provision,^[n][20] promised rights similar to those of other British subjects.^[o][p][21] In the following decades, when admission to these rights was not always forthcoming, Indians were to pointedly refer to the Queen's proclamation in growing avowals of a new nationalism.^[q][r][23]

1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Tyagi1974 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. ^ ^{a b c} Peers 2013, p. 64.
3. ^ Buettner, Elizabeth (2000), "Problematic spaces, problematic races: defining 'Europeans' in late colonial India", Women's History Review, 9 (2): 277–298, 278, doi:10.1080/09612020000200242, ISSN 0961-2025, S2CID 145297044, Colonial-era sources most commonly referred to individuals whom scholars today often describe as 'white' or 'British' as 'European' or 'English'.
4. ^ Marshall 2007, p. 197
5. ^ David 2003, p. 9
6. ^ ^{a b} Bose & Jalal 2004, pp. 72–73
7. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Marriott, John (2013), The other empire: Metropolis, India and progress in the colonial imagination, Manchester University Press, p. 195, ISBN 978-1-84779-061-3
8. ^ ^{a b} Bender, Jill C. (2016), The 1857 Indian Uprising and the British Empire, Cambridge University Press, p. 3, ISBN 978-1-316-48345-9
9. ^ ^{a b} Bayly 1987, p. 170
10. ^ ^{a b c d e} Bandyopadhyay 2004, pp. 169–172, Brown 1994, pp. 85–87, and Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 100–106
11. ^ ^{a b c d} Peers, Douglas M. (2006), "Britain and Empire", in Williams, Chris (ed.), A Companion to 19th-Century Britain, John Wiley & Sons, p. 63, ISBN 978-1-4051-5679-0
12. ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 100–103.
13. ^ Brown 1994, pp. 85–86.
14. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Marshall, P. J. (2001), "1783–1870: An expanding empire", in P. J. Marshall (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire, Cambridge University Press, p. 50, ISBN 978-0-521-00254-7
15. ^ ^{a b} Spear 1990, pp. 147–148
16. ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 177, Bayly 2000, p. 357
17. ^ ^{a b} Brown 1994, p. 94
18. ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 179
19. ^ Bayly 1987, pp. 194–197
20. ^ ^{a b} Adcock, C.S. (2013), The Limits of Tolerance: Indian Secularism and the Politics of Religious Freedom, Oxford University Press, pp. 23–25, ISBN 978-0-19-999543-1
21. ^ ^{a b} Taylor, Miles (2016), "The British royal family and the colonial empire from the Georgians to Prince George", in Aldrish, Robert; McCreery, Cindy (eds.), Crowns and Colonies: European Monarchies and Overseas Empires, Manchester University Press, pp. 38–39, ISBN 978-1-5261-0088-7, archived from the original on 19 September 2023, retrieved 30 March 2017
22. ^ Peers 2013, p. 76.
23. ^ ^{a b} Embree, Ainslie Thomas; Hay, Stephen N.; Bary, William Theodore De (1988), "Nationalism Takes Root: The Moderates", Sources of Indian Tradition: Modern India and Pakistan, Columbia University Press, p. 85, ISBN 978-0-231-06414-9, archived from the original on 19 September 2023, retrieved 19 September 2023

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12 May 1965 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashes on the Moon.

Luna 5

Space probe

Luna 5, or E-6 No.10 (Ye-6 series), was an uncrewed Soviet spacecraft intended to land on the Moon as part of the Luna programme. It was intended to become the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, however its retrorockets failed, and the spacecraft impacted the lunar surface.

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Cite error: The named reference NSSDC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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13 May 1909 – The first edition of the Giro d'Italia, a long-distance multiple-stage bicycle race, began in Milan; the Italian cyclist Luigi Ganna was the eventual winner

Giro d'Italia

Cycling road race held in Italy

For the women's race, see Giro d'Italia Women.

The Giro d'Italia (pronounced [ˈdʒiːro diˈtaːlja]; lit. 'Tour of Italy'),^[1] also known simply as the Giro,^[2] is an annual multiple-stage road cycling race primarily held in Italy.^[3] The first race was organized in 1909 to increase sales of the newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport,^[3][4] and the race is still run by a subsidiary of that paper's owner.^[5][6] The race has been held annually since its first edition in 1909, except during the two world wars.^[3] As the Giro gained prominence and popularity, the race was lengthened, and the peloton expanded from primarily Italian participation to riders from all over the world. The Giro is a UCI World Tour event, which means that the teams that compete in the race are mostly UCI WorldTeams, with some additional teams invited as 'wild cards'.^[7][8]

The Giro is one of professional cycling's three-week-long Grand Tours,^[3][9] and after the Tour de France is the second most important stage race in the world (the Triple Crown of Cycling denotes the achievement of winning the Giro, the Tour and the UCI Road World Championships in the same season). The Giro is usually held during May, sometimes continuing into early June.^[3] While the route changes each year, the format of the race stays the same, with at least two time trials, and a passage through the mountains of the Alps, including the Dolomites. Like the other Grand Tours, the modern editions of the Giro d'Italia normally consist of 21 stages over a 23- or 24-day period that includes two or three rest days.^[3]

The rider with the lowest aggregate time is the leader of the general classification and wears the pink jersey. While the general classification gathers the most attention, stage wins are prestigious of themselves, and there are other contests held within the Giro: the points classification, the mountains classification for the climbers, young rider classification for the riders under the age of 25, and the team classification.^[10]

1. ^ Juliet Macur (29 May 2015). "'Gironimo!' and 'Lanterne Rouge'". The New York Times.
2. ^ Stephen Farrand (13 March 2016). "Nibali could skip Giro d'Italia due to risk of mountain stage cancellations". Cycling News.
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Gregg Seltzer (26 May 2011). "The History of the Giro d'Italia". Livestrong. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
4. ^ "Tour d'Italie ou Giro d'Italia" [Tour of Italy or Giro d'Italia] (in French). Larousse.fr. 30 March 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
5. ^ Cite error: The named reference BRI 1909 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
6. ^ "RCS Sport". RCSMediaGroup. RCS MediaGroup S.p.A. 24 January 2013. Archived from the original on 18 February 2013. Retrieved 20 June 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
7. ^ "2012 – 2013 UCI Road Calendar". Union Cycliste Internationale. Archived from the original on 17 February 2009. Retrieved 6 June 2013.
8. ^ Nigel Wynn (2 November 2011). "UCI WorldTour calendar 2012". Cycling Weekly. IPC Media Limited. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
9. ^ "Million dollar, baby!". Cycling News. Future Publishing Limited. 12 January 2007. Retrieved 21 May 2011.
10. ^ Laura Weislo (13 May 2008). "Giro d'Italia classifications demystified". Cycling News. Future Publishing Limited. Retrieved 27 August 2009.

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14 May 1796 – Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox inoculation.

Edward Jenner

English physician (1749–1823)

For the New Zealand poet and translator, see Edward Jenner (writer).

Edward Jenner (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) was an English physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines and created the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine.^[1][2] The terms vaccine and vaccination are derived from Variolae vaccinae ("pustules of the cow"), the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. He used it in 1798 in the title of his Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox, in which he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox.^[3]

Jenner is often called "the father of immunology",^[4] and his work is said to have saved "more lives than any other man".^{[5]: 100 [6]} In Jenner's time smallpox killed around 10% of the global population, with the number as high as 20% in towns and cities where infection spread more easily.^[6] In 1821 he was appointed physician to King George IV, and was also made mayor of Berkeley and justice of the peace. He was a member of the Royal Society. In the field of zoology, he was among the first modern scholars to describe the brood parasitism of the cuckoo (Aristotle also noted this behaviour in his History of Animals). In 2002 Jenner was named in the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons.

1. ^ Riedel S (January 2005). "Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination". Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center). 18 (1). Baylor University Medical Center: 21–25. doi:10.1080/08998280.2005.11928028. PMC 1200696. PMID 16200144.
2. ^ Baxby D (2009) [2004]. "Jenner, Edward (1749–1823)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/14749. Retrieved 2 December 2022.
3. ^ Baxby D (1999). "Edward Jenner's Inquiry; a bicentenary analysis". Vaccine. 17 (4): 301–307. doi:10.1016/s0264-410x(98)00207-2. PMID 9987167.
4. ^ Cite error: The named reference JennerBBC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Baron1838_vol2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
6. ^ ^{a b} "How did Edward Jenner test his smallpox vaccine?". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. 13 May 2016. Archived from the original on 26 January 2022. Retrieved 2 December 2017.

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15 May 1849 – The Sicilian revolution of 1848 is finally extinguished.

Sicilian revolution of 1848

Rebellion against Bourbon rule in the Kingdom of Sicily

The Sicilian revolution of independence of 1848^[1] was the first of the numerous Revolutions of 1848 which swept across Europe.^[2] It was a popular rebellion against the rule of Ferdinand II of the House of Bourbon, King of the Two Sicilies. Three revolutions against the Bourbon ruled Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had previously occurred on the island of Sicily starting from 1800: this final one, which commenced on 12 January 1848, resulted in an independent state (the self-proclaimed Kingdom of Sicily) which survived for 16 months. The Sicilian Constitution of 1848 which survived the 16 months was advanced for its time in liberal democratic terms, as was the proposal of a unified Italian confederation of states.^[3] It was in effect a curtain-raiser to the end of the Bourbon kingdom of the Two Sicilies, finally completed by Giuseppe Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand in 1860, the Siege of Gaeta of 1860–1861 and the proclamation of the unified Kingdom of Italy.

1. ^ (Sicilian: Rivuluzzioni nnipinnintista siciliana dû 1848; Italian: Rivoluzione siciliana del 1848)
2. ^ La primavera dei popoli. La rivoluzione siciliana del 1848 (in Italian). Retrieved 16 September 2023.
3. ^ "AUTONOMISMO E UNITÀ" (in Italian). Retrieved 16 September 2023.

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16 May 1568 – Mary, Queen of Scots, flees to England.

Mary, Queen of Scots

Queen of Scotland from 1542 to 1567

For other uses, see Mary, Queen of Scots (disambiguation).

Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart^[b] or Mary I of Scotland,^[1] was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication on 24 July 1567.

The only surviving legitimate child of King James V of Scotland, Mary was six days old when her father died, and she inherited the throne. During her childhood, Scotland was governed by regents, first by the heir to the throne, James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, and then by her mother, Mary of Guise. In 1548, she was betrothed to Francis, the Dauphin of France, and was sent to be brought up in France, where she would be safe from invading English forces during the Rough Wooing. Mary married Francis in 1558, becoming queen consort of France from his accession in 1559 until his death in December 1560. Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland in August 1561. The tense religious and political climate following the Scottish Reformation that Mary encountered on her return to Scotland was further agitated by prominent Scots such as John Knox, who openly questioned whether her subjects had a duty to obey her. The early years of her personal rule were marked by pragmatism, tolerance, and moderation. She issued a proclamation accepting the religious settlement in Scotland as she had found it upon her return, retained advisers such as James Stewart, Earl of Moray (her illegitimate half-brother), and William Maitland of Lethington, and governed as the Catholic monarch of a Protestant kingdom.

In 1565, Mary married her half-cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley; they had a son, James. Their marriage soured after Darnley orchestrated the murder of Mary's Italian secretary and close friend David Rizzio. In February 1567, Darnley's residence was destroyed by an explosion, and he was found murdered in the nearby garden. James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, was generally believed to have orchestrated Darnley's death, but he was acquitted of the charge in April 1567 and in the following month, he married Mary. Following an uprising against the couple, Mary was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle. In July 1567, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son James VI. After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, she fled southward seeking the protection of her first cousin once removed, Elizabeth I of England.

As a great-granddaughter of Henry VII of England, Mary had once claimed Elizabeth's throne as her own and was considered the legitimate sovereign of England by many English Catholics, including participants in a rebellion known as the Rising of the North. Perceiving Mary as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England. After eighteen and a half years in captivity, Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth in 1586 and was beheaded the following year at Fotheringhay Castle. Mary's life and execution established her in popular culture as a romanticised historical figure.

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1. ^ "National Records of Scotland; Hall of Fame A-Z – Mary Queen of Scots". NRS. 31 May 2013. Archived from the original on 15 September 2024. Retrieved 30 September 2022.

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17 May 1792 – The New York Stock Exchange is formed under the Buttonwood Agreement.

Buttonwood Agreement

1792 founding document of the New York Stock Exchange

For other uses, see Buttonwood (disambiguation).

The Buttonwood Agreement is the founding document of what is now the New York Stock Exchange and is one of the most important financial documents in U.S. history.^[2] The agreement organized securities trading in New York City and was signed on May 17, 1792 between 24 stockbrokers outside of 68 Wall Street. According to legend the signing took place under a buttonwood tree where their earliest transactions had occurred.^[3] The New York Stock Exchange celebrates the signing of this agreement on May 17, 1792 as its founding.^[2]

1. ^ Hewitt, p. 31
2. ^ ^{a b} Pisani, Bob (17 May 2017). "This single-paged document started the New York Stock Exchange 225 years ago". CNBC. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
3. ^ Banner, Stuart (January 1998). "The Origin of the New York Stock Exchange, 1791–1860". The Journal of Legal Studies. 27 (1). The University of Chicago Press: 113–140. doi:10.1086/468015. JSTOR 10.1086/468015.

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18 May 1096 – First Crusade: Around 800 Jews are massacred in Worms, Germany.

Worms massacre (1096)

Mass murder of Jews in Worms, Holy Roman Empire (now Germany)

The Worms massacre was the murder of at least 800 to 1,000 Jews from Worms, Holy Roman Empire (now Germany), during the events of the First Crusade (More precisely by the People's Crusade) under Count Emicho in May, 18-25 1096.^[a][1] This massacre is a part of series of mass murders of Jews that happen in the Rhineland Jewish communities that known as The Rhineland massacres or Gzerot Tatnó (Hebrew: גזרות תתנ"ו, "Edicts of 4856").^[2][3]

The massacre at Worms was one of a number of attacks against Jewish communities perpetrated during the First Crusade (1096–1099). Followers of Count Emicho arrived at Worms on 18 May 1096. Soon after his arrival, a rumor spread that the Jews had boiled a Christian alive, and used his corpse to contaminate water to poison the town's wells. The local populace later joined forces with Emicho and launched a savage attack on the town's Jews, who had been given sanctuary in Prince-Bishopric of Worms' palace, though others chose to remain outside its walls. They were the first to be massacred.^[4]

After eight days, Emicho's army, assisted by local burghers broke in and slaughtered those seeking asylum there.^[5] The Jews were in the midst of reciting the Hallel prayer for Rosh Chodesh Sivan.^[6]

In all, from 800 to 1,000 Jews were killed, with the exception of some who committed suicide (Martyrdom, known in Judaism as Kiddush Hashem) and a few who were forcibly baptised.^[7] One, Simchah ben Yitzchak ha-Cohen, stabbed the bishop's nephew while being baptised and was consequently killed.^[6] One of the most famous victims was Minna of Worms.^[8] The synagogue was destroyed during the massacre and subsequently rebuilt in 1175.^[9] In the late eleventh or early twelfth century a prayer was written in memory of those killed in the massacre called Av HaRachamim.^[10]

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1. ^ Gabriele, Matthew. “Against the Enemies of Christ: The Role of Count Emicho in the Anti-Jewish Violence of the First Crusade” in Christian Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Middle Ages: a casebook, edited by Michael Frassetto, 61–83, New York: Routledge: Taylor and Francis Group, 2007.
2. ^ David Nirenberg, 'The Rhineland Massacres of Jews in the First Crusade, Memories Medieval and Modern', in Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography, pp. 279–310
3. ^ Shachar, Uri Z. (2013). "The Topography of Sacrifice and Typology of Space in Twelfth-Century Martyrology". Prooftexts. 33 (3): 277–306. doi:10.2979/prooftexts.33.3.277. ISSN 0272-9601. JSTOR 10.2979/prooftexts.33.3.277.
4. ^ Simon Schama, The History of the Jews, 1000 BCE–1492 CE, Vintage Books 2014 pp. 298–299.
5. ^ Runciman, Steven (2004). The First Crusade. Cambridge University Press. p. 65. ISBN 9780521611480.
6. ^ ^{a b} Kantor, Máttis (2005). Codex Judaica: Chronological Index of Jewish History, Covering 5,764 Years of Biblical, Talmudic & Post-Talmudic History. Zichron Press. p. 186. ISBN 9780967037837.
7. ^ "Worms". Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved 7 March 2014.
8. ^ Emily Taitz, Sondra Henry & Cheryl Tallan, The JPS Guide to Jewish Women: 600 B.C.E. to 1900 C.E., 2003
9. ^ "Worms". SchUM Städte e.V. Retrieved 2024-12-19.
10. ^ Eisenberg, Ronald L.; Society, Jewish Publication (2008). Jewish Traditions: A JPS Guide. New Adult Titles. Dulles: Jewish Publication Society. p. 461. ISBN 978-0-8276-1039-2.

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19 May 1802 – Napoleon Bonaparte founds the Legion of Honour.

Legion of Honour

Highest French order of merit

"Legion of Honor", "LoH", and "L.d'H." redirect here. For other uses, see Legion of Honor (disambiguation), Loh, and LDH.

The National Order of the Legion of Honour (French: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur [ɔʁdʁ nɑsjɔnal d(ə) la leʒjɔ̃ dɔnœʁ] ^ⓘ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (Ordre impérial de la Légion d'honneur), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and civil. It consists of five classes and was originally established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte. The order has been retained, with occasional minor alterations, by all subsequent French governments and regimes.^[2]

The order's motto is Honneur et Patrie ("Honour and Fatherland"); its seat is the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur next to the Musée d'Orsay, on the left bank of the Seine in Paris.^[a] Since 1 February 2023, the Order's grand chancellor has been retired general François Lecointre.

The order is divided into five degrees of increasing distinction: Chevalier (Knight), Officier (Officer), Commandeur (Commander), Grand officier (Grand Officer) and Grand-croix (Grand Cross).

While prestigious, the Legion of Honour has sometimes been controversial. The order of merit has been awarded to Harvey Weinstein, Mohammed bin Nayef, Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, and Manuel Noriega. In 2010, the order's rules were changed to revoke Noriega's award after his extradition to France due to his conviction for money laundering. In 2017, further reforms to the award were made.^[3]

Notable individuals who have refused the award include Marjane Satrapi, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre.^[4][5]

1. ^ Le petit Larousse 2013, p.1567.
2. ^ "Founding principles and history". La grande chancellerie. Retrieved 22 October 2025.
3. ^ Henley, Jon (17 April 2018). "France to strip Bashar al-Assad of his Légion d'honneur". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 4 June 2026.
4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ Cite error: The named reference lemonde was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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20 May 1964 – Discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Robert Woodrow Wilson and Arno Penzias.

Cosmic microwave background

Trace radiation from the early universe

"CMB" and "CMBR" redirect here. For the Republic of Cuba radio station, see Radio Enciclopedia. For other uses, see CMB (disambiguation).

The cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR), or relic radiation, is microwave radiation that fills all space in the observable universe. With a standard optical telescope, the background space between stars and galaxies is almost completely dark. However, a sufficiently sensitive radio telescope detects a faint background glow that is almost uniform and is not associated with any star, galaxy, or other object. This glow is strongest in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Its energy density exceeds that of all the photons emitted by all the stars in the history of the universe. The accidental discovery of the CMB in 1964 by American radio astronomers Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson was the culmination of work initiated in the 1940s.

The CMB is the key experimental evidence of the Big Bang theory for the origin of the universe. In the Big Bang cosmological models, during the earliest periods, the universe was filled with an opaque fog of dense, hot plasma of sub-atomic particles. As the universe expanded, this plasma cooled to the point where protons and electrons combined to form neutral atoms of mostly hydrogen. Unlike the plasma, these atoms could not scatter thermal radiation by Thomson scattering, and so the universe became transparent. Known as the recombination epoch, this decoupling event released photons to travel freely through space. However, the photons have grown less energetic due to the cosmological redshift associated with the expansion of the universe. The surface of last scattering refers to a shell at the right distance in space so photons are now received that were originally emitted at the time of decoupling.

The CMB is very smooth and uniform, but maps by sensitive detectors detect small but important temperature variations. Ground and space-based experiments such as COBE, WMAP and Planck have been used to measure these temperature inhomogeneities. The anisotropy structure is influenced by various interactions of matter and photons up to the point of decoupling, which results in a characteristic pattern of tiny ripples that varies with angular scale. The distribution of the anisotropy across the sky has frequency components that can be represented by a power spectrum displaying a sequence of peaks and valleys. The peak values of this spectrum hold important information about the physical properties of the early universe: the first peak determines the overall curvature of the universe, while the second and third peak detail the density of normal matter and so-called dark matter, respectively. Extracting fine details from the CMB data can be challenging, since the emission has undergone modification by foreground features such as galaxy clusters.

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21 May 1988 – Margaret Thatcher holds her controversial Sermon on the Mound before the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Sermon on the Mound

1988 address by Margaret Thatcher to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

For other uses, see Sermon on the Mount (disambiguation).

"Sermon on the Mound" is the name given by the Scottish press to an address made by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on Saturday, 21 May 1988.^[1] This speech, which laid out the relationship between her religious and political thinking, proved highly controversial.

1. ^ Thatcher 1988.

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22 May 1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially begins as the Corps of Discovery departs from St. Charles, Missouri.

Lewis and Clark Expedition

1804–1806 American expedition

"Lewis and Clark" redirects here. For the leaders of the expedition, see Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. For other uses, see Lewis and Clark (disambiguation).

The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select group of U.S. Army and civilian volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark. Clark, along with 30 others, set out from Camp Dubois (Camp Wood), Illinois, on May 14, 1804, met Lewis and ten other members of the group in St. Charles, Missouri, then went up the Missouri River. The expedition crossed the Continental Divide of the Americas near the Lemhi Pass, eventually coming to the Columbia River, and the Pacific Ocean in 1805. The return voyage began on March 23, 1806, at Fort Clatsop, Oregon, ending six months later on September 23.

President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the expedition, shortly after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, to explore and detail as much of the new territory as possible. Furthermore, he wished to find a practical travel route across the western half of the continent—directly avoiding the hot and desolate desert southwest—and to establish an American presence in the new lands before European powers attempted to establish claims of their own. The campaign's secondary objectives were scientific, economical and humanitarian, i.e., to document the West's biodiversity, topography and geography and to establish positive trade relations with (potentially unknown) Native American tribes. The expedition returned to St. Louis to report their findings to President Jefferson via maps, sketches, and various journals.^[1][2]

1. ^ Woodger, Toropov, 2009 p. 150
2. ^ Ambrose, 1996, Chap. VI

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23 May 1911 – The New York Public Library is dedicated.

New York Public Library

Public library system in New York City

For the main branch, see New York Public Library Main Branch.

Not to be confused with New York State Library.

The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a chartered public library system in New York City in New York, United States. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress. It is a private, non-governmental, independently managed, nonprofit corporation operating with both private and public financing.^[5]

The library has branches in the boroughs of the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island and affiliations with academic and professional libraries in the New York metropolitan area. The city's other two boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens, are not served by the New York Public Library system, but rather by their respective borough library systems: the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Public Library. The branch libraries are open to the general public and consist of circulating libraries. The New York Public Library also has four research libraries, which are also open to the general public.

The library, officially chartered as The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, was developed in the 19th century, founded from an amalgamation of grass-roots libraries and social libraries of bibliophiles and the wealthy, aided by the philanthropy of the wealthiest Americans of their age.

The "New York Public Library" name may also refer to its Main Branch, which is easily recognizable by its lion statues named Patience and Fortitude that sit either side of the entrance. The branch was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965,^[6] listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966,^[7] and designated a New York City Landmark in 1967.^[8]

1. ^ "About The New York Public Library". Archived from the original on January 27, 2022. Retrieved March 18, 2018.
2. ^ "New York Public Library General Fact Sheet" (PDF). Nypl.org. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 2, 2014. Retrieved November 24, 2012.
3. ^ ^{a b} "New York Public Library Annual Report 2017" (PDF). Nypl.org. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 20, 2018. Retrieved September 19, 2018.
4. ^ "President and Leadership". Nypl.org. Archived from the original on April 30, 2011. Retrieved September 17, 2024.
5. ^ The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. Financial Statements and Supplemental Schedules, June 2016, p. 8.
6. ^ "New York Public Library". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. September 16, 2007. Archived from the original on December 5, 2007.
7. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007. Archived from the original on October 2, 2007.
8. ^ "New York Public Library" (PDF). New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. January 11, 1967. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 7, 2017. Retrieved June 24, 2016.

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24 May 1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.

Peter Minuit

3rd Director of New Netherland (1626–31)

Peter Minuit (French: Pierre Minuit, Dutch: Peter Minnewit;^[a][1] c. 1580 – August 5, 1638) was a Walloon^[2][3] merchant and politician who was the 3rd director of the Dutch North American colony of New Netherland from 1626 until 1631, and 3rd Governor of New Netherland. He founded the Swedish colony of New Sweden on the Delaware Peninsula in 1638.

Minuit was born in Wesel, in present-day northwestern Germany. He is generally credited with orchestrating the purchase of Manhattan Island for the Dutch West India Company from representatives of the Lenape, the area's indigenous people. Manhattan later became the site of the Dutch city of New Amsterdam, and the borough of Manhattan of modern-day New York City. A letter written by Dutch merchant Peter Schaghen to directors of the Dutch East India Company stated that Manhattan was purchased for "60 guilders worth of trade",^[4] an amount worth ~$1,143 U.S. dollars as of 2020.^[5]

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1. ^ Cite error: The named reference hg was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. ^ "Peter Minuit | Museum of the City of New York". www.mcny.org. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
3. ^ "Germans in America – Chronology". usa.usembassy.de. Archived from the original on January 29, 2023.
4. ^ "New Amsterdam History Center". newamsterdamhistorycenter.org. Retrieved November 28, 2019.
5. ^ "Value of the guilder / euro". www.iisg.nl. April 20, 2023.

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25 May 1966 – Explorer program: Explorer 32 launches.

Explorer 32

NASA satellite of the Explorer program

Explorer 32, also known as Atmosphere Explorer-B (AE-B),^[2] was a NASA satellite launched by the United States to study the Earth's upper atmosphere. It was launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta C1 launch vehicle, on 25 May 1966. It was the second of five "Atmosphere Explorer", the first being Explorer 17. Though it was placed in a higher-than-expected orbit by a malfunctioning second stage on its launch vehicle, Explorer 32 returned data for ten months before failing due to a sudden depressurization. The satellite reentered the Earth's atmosphere on 22 February 1985.^[2]

1. ^ "Trajectory: Explorer 32 (AE-B) 1966-044A". NASA. 28 October 2021. Retrieved 10 November 2021. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
2. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference Display was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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26 May 1967 – The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is released

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

1967 studio album by the Beatles

This article is about the 1967 album. For other uses, see Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (disambiguation).

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (often referred to simply as Sgt. Pepper) is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released in the UK on 26 May 1967,^{[nb 1]} Sgt. Pepper is regarded by musicologists as an early concept album that advanced the roles of sound composition, extended form, psychedelic imagery, record sleeves, and the producer in popular music. The album had an immediate cross-generational impact and was associated with numerous touchstones of the era's youth culture, such as fashion, drugs, mysticism, and a sense of optimism and empowerment. Critics lauded the album for its innovations in songwriting, production and graphic design, for bridging a cultural divide between popular music and high art, and for reflecting the interests of contemporary youth and the counterculture.

At the end of August 1966, the Beatles had permanently retired from touring and pursued individual interests for the next three months. During a return flight to London in November, Paul McCartney had an idea for a song involving an Edwardian military band, forming the impetus of the Sgt. Pepper concept. For this project, they continued the technological experimentation marked by their previous album, Revolver (1966), this time without an absolute deadline for completion. Sessions began on 24 November at EMI Studios with compositions inspired by the Beatles' youth, but after pressure from EMI, the songs "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" were released as a double A-side single in February 1967 and left off the LP. The album was then loosely conceptualised as a performance by the fictional Sgt. Pepper band, an idea that was conceived after the recording of the title track.

A landmark work of British psychedelia, Sgt. Pepper is considered one of the first art rock LPs and a progenitor to progressive rock. It incorporates a range of stylistic influences, including vaudeville, circus, music hall, avant-garde, and Western and Indian classical music. With assistance from producer George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick, many of the recordings were coloured with sound effects and tape manipulation, as exemplified on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" and "A Day in the Life". Recording was completed on 21 April. The cover, which depicts the Beatles posing in front of a tableau of celebrities and historical figures, was designed by the pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth.

Sgt. Pepper's release was a defining moment in pop culture, heralding the album era and the 1967 Summer of Love, while its reception achieved full cultural legitimisation for popular music and recognition for the medium as a genuine art form. The first Beatles album to be released with the same track listing in both the UK and the US, it spent 27 weeks at number one on the Record Retailer chart in the United Kingdom and 15 weeks at number one on the Billboard Top LPs chart in the United States. In 1968, it won four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, the first rock LP to receive this honour; in 2003, it was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It has topped several critics' and listeners' polls for the best album of all time, including those published by Rolling Stone magazine and in the book All Time Top 1000 Albums, and the UK's "Music of the Millennium" poll. More than 32 million copies had been sold worldwide as of 2011. It remains one of the best-selling albums of all time and was, as of 2018, the UK's best-selling studio album. A remixed and expanded edition of the album was released in 2017.

1. ^ Wiener 1992, p. 31.

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27 May 1883 – Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.

Alexander III of Russia

Emperor of Russia from 1881 to 1894

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Alexander III (Russian: Александр III Александрович Романов, romanized: Aleksandr III Aleksandrovich Romanov; 10 March 1845 – 1 November 1894)^[1] was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 13 March 1881 until his death in 1894.^[2] He was highly reactionary in domestic affairs and reversed some of the liberal reforms of his father, Alexander II, a policy of "counter-reforms" (Russian: контрреформы).

During his reign, Russia fought no major wars, and he came to be known as The Peacemaker (Russian: Царь-Миротворец, romanized: Tsar’-Mirotvorets Russian pronunciation: [t͡sarʲ mʲɪrɐˈtvorʲɪt͡s]), a laudatory title enduring into 21st century historiography.^[3] His major foreign policy achievement was the Franco-Russian Alliance, a major shift in international relations that eventually embroiled Russia in World War I. His political legacy represented a direct challenge to the European cultural order set forth by German statesman Otto von Bismarck, intermingling Russian influences with the shifting balances of power.^[4]

1. ^ 10 March [O.S. 26 February] 1845 – 1 November [O.S. 20 October] 1894
2. ^ 13 March [O.S. 1 March] 1881 – 1 November [O.S. 20 October] 1894.
3. ^ Fedyashin, Anton (2023). "Book Review: Istoriia rossiiskogo gosudarstva. Tsar'-osvoboditel' i tsar'-mirotvorets. Lekarstvo dlia imperii [History of the Russian State. The Tsar-Liberator and the Tsar-Peacemaker. Medicine for the Empire] by Boris Akunin". European History Quarterly. 53 (4): 698–700. doi:10.1177/02656914231199945a. S2CID 263705950.
4. ^ Kennan, George F. (1979). The Decline of Bismarck's European Order. Princeton University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv141649s. JSTOR j.ctv141649s. S2CID 241648947.

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28 May 1871 – The Paris Commune falls after two months

Paris Commune

1871 revolutionary city council

For the Paris Commune during the French Revolution, see Paris Commune (1789–1795).

The Paris Commune (French: Commune de Paris, pronounced [kɔ.myn də pa.ʁi]) was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended Paris, and working class radicalism grew among its soldiers. Following the establishment of the French Third Republic in September 1870 (under French chief-executive Adolphe Thiers from February 1871) and the complete defeat of the French Army by the Germans by March 1871, soldiers of the National Guard seized control of the city on 18 March. The Communards killed two French Army generals and refused to accept the authority of the Third Republic; instead, the radicals set about establishing their own independent government.

The Commune governed Paris for two months, promoting policies that tended toward a progressive, anti-religious system, which was an eclectic mix of many 19th-century schools of thought. These policies included the separation of church and state, self-policing, the remission of rent, the abolition of child labor, and the right of employees to take over an enterprise deserted by its owner. The Commune closed all Catholic churches and schools in Paris. Feminist, communist, old-style social democracy (a mix of reformism and revolutionism), and anarchist/Proudhonist currents, among other socialist schools, played important roles in the Commune.

The various Communards had little more than two months to achieve their respective goals before the national French Army suppressed the Commune during the semaine sanglante ("bloody week") beginning on 21 May 1871. The national forces still loyal to the Third Republic government either killed in battle or executed an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Communards, though one unconfirmed estimate from 1876 put the toll as high as 20,000.^[5] In its final days, the Commune executed the Archbishop of Paris, Georges Darboy, and about one hundred hostages, mostly gendarmes and priests.

National army forces took 43,522 Communards as prisoners, including 1,054 women. More than half of the prisoners had not fought, and were released immediately. The Third Republic tried around 15,000 in court, 13,500 of whom were found guilty, 95 were sentenced to death, 251 to forced labor, and 1,169 to deportation (mostly to New Caledonia). Many other Commune supporters, including several of the leaders, fled abroad, mostly to England, Belgium or Switzerland. All the surviving prisoners and exiles received pardons in 1880 and could return home, where some resumed political careers.^[8]

Debates over the policies and result of the Commune had significant influence on the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who described the régime in Paris as the first example of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Engels wrote: "Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat."^[9]

1. ^ "Les aspects militaires de la Commune par le colonel Rol-Tanguy" [The military aspects of the Commune by Colonel Rol-Tanguy] (in French). Association des Amies et Amis de la Commune de Paris 1871. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
2. ^ Milza 2009a, p. 319.
3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Versailles1875 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. ^ Tombs, Robert, "How Bloody was la Semaine sanglante of 1871? A Revision". The Historical Journal, September 2012, vol. 55, issue 03, pp. 619–704.
5. ^ ^{a b} Audin, Michele (2021). La Semaine Sanglante, Mai 1871, Legendes et Conmptes (in French). Libertalia.
6. ^ Rougerie 2014, p. 118.
7. ^ Lissagaray 2000, p. 383.
8. ^ ^{a b} Milza 2009a, pp. 431–432.
9. ^ Rougerie 2004, pp. 264–270, citing remarks by Frederick Engels, London, on the 20th anniversary of the Paris Commune, 18 March 1891.

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29 May 1935 – First flight of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aeroplane.

Messerschmitt Bf 109

German WWII fighter aircraft family

The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a monoplane fighter aircraft that was designed and initially produced by the German aircraft manufacturer Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFW). Together with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the Bf 109 formed the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force during the Second World War.^[3] It was commonly called the Me 109 by Allied aircrew and some German aces/pilots, even though this was not the official model designation.^[4]

The Bf 109 was designed by Willy Messerschmitt and Robert Lusser, who worked at BFW during the early to mid-1930s.^[5] It was conceived as an interceptor. However, later models were developed to fulfill multiple tasks, serving as bomber escort, fighter-bomber, day-, night-, all-weather fighter, ground-attack aircraft, and aerial reconnaissance aircraft. It was one of the most advanced fighters when it first appeared, being furnished with an all-metal monocoque construction, a closed canopy, retractable landing gear, and powered by a liquid-cooled, inverted-V12 aero engine.^[5] First flown on 29 May 1935, the Bf 109 entered operational service during 1937; it first saw combat during the Spanish Civil War.

During the Second World War, the Bf 109 was supplied to several states and was present in quantity on virtually every front in the European theatre; the fighter was still in service at the end of the conflict in 1945.^[3] It continued to be operated by several countries for many years after the conflict. The Bf 109 is the most produced fighter aircraft in history, a total of 34,248 airframes having been produced between 1936 and April 1945.^[1][3] Some of the Bf 109 production took place in Nazi concentration camps through slave labor.

The Bf 109 was flown by the three top-scoring fighter aces of all time, who claimed 928 victories among them while flying with Jagdgeschwader 52, mainly on the Eastern Front. The highest-scoring, Erich Hartmann, was credited with 352 victories. The aircraft was also flown by Hans-Joachim Marseille, the highest-scoring ace in the North African campaign, who shot down 158 enemy aircraft (in about a third of the time). It was also flown by many aces from other countries fighting with Germany, notably the Finn Ilmari Juutilainen, the highest-scoring non-German ace. He scored 58 of his 94 confirmed victories with the Bf 109. Pilots from Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia and Italy also flew the fighter. Through constant development, the Bf 109 remained competitive with the latest Allied fighter aircraft until the end of the war.^[6]

1. ^ ^{a b} U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Aircraft Division Industry Report, Exhibit I – German Airplane Programs vs Actual Production.
2. ^ Forsgren 2017, p. 41.
3. ^ ^{a b c} Nowarra 1993, p. 189.
4. ^ Wagner & Nowarra 1971, p. 229.
5. ^ ^{a b} Green 1980, pp. 7, 13.
6. ^ Radinger & Otto 1999, pp. 35–37.

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30 May 1588 – The last ship of the Spanish Armada sets sail from Lisbon heading for the English Channel.

Spanish Armada

Fleet sailing against England in 1588

This article is about the Spanish fleet that sailed against England in 1588. For the modern navy of Spain, see Spanish Navy.

The Spanish Armada (often known as Invincible Armada, or the Enterprise of England, Spanish: Grande y Felicísima Armada, lit. 'Great and Most Fortunate Navy') was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, and was the largest engagement of the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War. The Armada was commanded by Alonso de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat appointed by Philip II of Spain. His orders were to sail up the English Channel, join with the army of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma in Flanders, and escort an invasion force that would land in England and overthrow Elizabeth I. Its purpose was to reinstate Catholicism in England, end English support for the Dutch Republic in the north and prevent attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas.

The Spanish were opposed by an English fleet based in Plymouth. Faster and more manoeuvrable than the larger Spanish galleons, its ships were able to attack the armada as it sailed up the Channel. Several subordinates advised Medina Sidonia first to enter Plymouth Sound and attack the English fleet before it could leave harbour and then to anchor in the Solent and occupy the Isle of Wight, but he refused to deviate from his instructions to join with Parma. Although the armada reached Calais largely intact, while awaiting communication from Parma, it was attacked at night by English fire ships and forced to scatter. The armada suffered further losses in the ensuing Battle of Gravelines and was in danger of running aground on the Dutch coast when the wind changed, allowing it to escape into the North Sea. Pursued by the English, the Spanish ships returned home via Scotland and Ireland. Up to 24 ships were wrecked along the way before the rest managed to get home. Among the factors contributing to the defeat and withdrawal of the armada were bad weather conditions and the better employment of naval guns and battle tactics by the English.

The following year, England organized a similar large-scale campaign against Spain, known as the "English Armada", and sometimes called the "counter-armada of 1589", which failed. The Spanish Armada was the largest engagement of the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War. Three further Spanish armadas were sent against England and Ireland in 1596, 1597, and 1601,^[22] but these likewise ended in failure.

1. ^ Mattingly 2005, p. 401.
2. ^ Parker & Martin 1999, p. 5. sfn error: no target: CITEREFParkerMartin1999 (help)
3. ^ Vego 2013, p. 148.
4. ^ ^{a b} Martin & Parker 1999, p. 40.
5. ^ ^{a b} Martin & Parker 1999, p. 65.
6. ^ ^{a b c d} Casado Soto 1991, p. 117.
7. ^ Parker 1980, p. 202.
8. ^ Martin & Parker 1999, pp. 60–63.
9. ^ Kamen 2014, p. 123.
10. ^ Martin & Parker 1999, p. 94.
11. ^ Lewis 1960, p. 184.
12. ^ Laughton 1894, pp. 8–9.
13. ^ Bicheno 2012, p. 262.
14. ^ Lewis 1960, p. 182.
15. ^ Aubrey N. Newman, David T. Johnson, P. M. Jones (1985). The Eighteenth Century Annual Bulletin of Historical Literature 69 (1), 108. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8314.1985.tb00698.
16. ^ Casado Soto 1991, p. 122.
17. ^ Mattingly 2005, p. 426.
18. ^ Lewis 1960, p. 208.
19. ^ Gracia Rivas 1991, p. 212.
20. ^ Lewis 1960, pp. 208–209.
21. ^ Hanson 2011, p. 563.
22. ^ Graham 1972, pp. 258–261.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

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31 May 1902 – Second Boer War: The Treaty of Vereeniging ends the war and ensures British control of South Africa.

Treaty of Vereeniging

1902 peace treaty which ended the Second Boer War

See also: Bloemfontein Conference

The Treaty of Vereeniging was a peace treaty, signed on 31 May 1902, that ended the Second Boer War between the South African Republic and the Orange Free State on the one side, and the United Kingdom on the other.

This settlement provided for the end of hostilities and eventual self-government to the Transvaal (South African Republic) and the Orange Free State as British colonies. The Boer republics agreed to come under the sovereignty of the British Crown and the British government agreed on various details.

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1 June 1922 – The Royal Ulster Constabulary is founded.

Royal Ulster Constabulary

Police force of Northern Ireland (1922–2001)

Law enforcement agency

The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)^{[n 1]} was the police force of Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)^[2] following the partition of Ireland. At its peak, the force had around 8,500 officers, with a further 4,500 who were members of the RUC Reserve.

The RUC policed Northern Ireland from the aftermath of the Irish War of Independence until after the turn of the 21st century and played a major role in the Troubles between the 1960s and the 1990s. Due to the threat from the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who saw the RUC as enforcing British rule, the force was heavily armed and militarised. Officers routinely carried submachine guns and assault rifles, travelled in armoured vehicles, and were based in heavily fortified police stations.^[3] It was the first police force to use rubber and plastic bullets for riot control.

The RUC's membership was overwhelmingly Protestant, leading to accusations by sections of the Catholic and Irish nationalist minority of one-sided policing and sectarianism. Officers were also accused of police brutality as well as collusion with loyalist paramilitaries.^[4][5] Conversely, it was praised as one of the most professional police forces in the world by British security forces.^[6] During the Troubles, 319 RUC officers were killed and almost 9,000 injured in paramilitary assassinations or attacks, mostly by the IRA, which made the RUC the most dangerous police force in the world in which to serve by 1983.^[7][8][9] In the same period, the RUC killed 55 people, 28 of whom were civilians.^[10] In 2000, the RUC was awarded the George Cross for bravery.

The RUC was superseded by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in 2001, as mandated by the final version of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000.^[11] Allegations regarding collusion prompted several inquiries, the most recent of which was authored by Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan in 2007. The report identified police, CID and Special Branch collusion with loyalist terrorists, but no member of the RUC has been charged or convicted of any criminal acts as a result of these inquiries. O'Loan stated in her conclusions that there was no reason to believe the findings of the investigation were isolated incidents.^[12]

1. ^ ONS Geography (8 January 2016). "The Countries of the UK". Office for National Statistics. Office for National Statistics (United Kingdom). Archived from the original on 1 January 2016. Retrieved 26 November 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
2. ^ Richard Doherty, The Thin Green Line – The History of the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC, pp. 5, 17, 27, 93, 134, 271; Pen & Sword Books; ISBN 1-84415-058-5
3. ^ Weitzer, Ronald. Policing Under Fire: Ethnic Conflict and Police-Community Relations in Northern Ireland. SUNY Press, 1995. pp.72-73
4. ^ [1] Archived 26 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine, 15 murders linked to police collusion with loyalists.
5. ^ [2] Archived 2 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine, There was collusion between some police officers and loyalist gunmen who killed six Catholics 22 years ago, a report by NI's Police Ombudsman has said.
6. ^ "The RUC: Lauded and condemned". BBC News. bbc.co.uk. 31 October 2001. Archived from the original on 29 August 2017. Retrieved 5 June 2007. Condemned by republicans, nationalists and human rights groups for embodying sectarianism and lauded by British security forces as one of the most professional police operations in the world, the Royal Ulster Constabulary is one of the most controversial police forces in the UK.
7. ^ Number of RUC killed during the Troubles Archived 19 July 2006 at the Wayback Machine, cain.ulst.ac.uk; accessed 22 December 2014.
8. ^ "CNN Specials - Northern Ireland". 29 August 2007. Archived from the original on 29 August 2007. In 1983, Interpol figures showed that Northern Ireland was the most dangerous place in the world to be a police officer, the risk factor being twice as high as in El Salvador, the second most dangerous.
9. ^ "Northern Ireland – Identity Crisis for Police". CNN. Archived from the original on 29 August 2007.
10. ^ Number of people killed by RUC in Northern Ireland Archived 7 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine, cain.ulst.ac.uk; accessed 22 December 2014.
11. ^ Russell, Deacon (2012). Devolution in the United Kingdom. Edinburgh University Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-0748669738.
12. ^ Synopsis of report by Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan, BBC.co.uk; accessed 19 September 2014.

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2 June 1964 – The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is formed.

Palestine Liberation Organization

Official representative of Palestinians

"PLO" redirects here. For other uses, see PLO (disambiguation).

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; Arabic: منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية, romanized: Munaẓẓamat at-Taḥrīr al-Filasṭīniyyah^ⓘ) is a Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories.^[18][19][20] It is currently represented by the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank city of Al-Bireh.

Founded in 1964, it initially sought to establish an Arab state over the entire territory of the former Mandatory Palestine, advocating the elimination of Israel. Mediated talks between the Israeli government and the PLO in 1993 (the Oslo I Accord) resulted in the PLO recognizing Israel's legitimacy and accepting United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which mandated Israel's withdrawal from occupied territories, while Israel recognized the PLO as a legitimate authority representing the Palestinian people.^[21] Despite the Israel–PLO Letters of Mutual Recognition (1993), in which PLO leader Yasser Arafat renounced violence against Israel, the PLO engaged in militant activities during the Second Intifada (2000–2005).^{[citation needed]} On 29 October 2018, the PLO Central Council suspended the Palestinian recognition of Israel.^[22][23]

As the officially recognized government of the State of Palestine, it has enjoyed United Nations observer status since 1974.^[24][25][26] Prior to the Oslo Accords, the PLO's militant wings engaged in acts of violence against both the Israeli military and civilians, within Israel and abroad.^[27][28][29] The United States designated it as a terrorist group in 1987, though a presidential waiver has permitted American–PLO contact since 1988.^[30][31]

1. ^ "Arabs Create Organization For Recovery of Palestine". The New York Times. Reuters. 29 May 1964. Archived from the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 22 July 2018. The creation of Palestine liberation organization was announced today...
2. ^ Sawafta, Ali (30 November 2010). "In West Bank, Ramallah looks ever more like capital". Reuters. Archived from the original on 14 February 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
3. ^ Toameh, Khaled Abu (24 November 2010). "Abbas: Referendum law is 'obstacle to peace'". Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
4. ^ Szekely, Ora (26 November 2016). The Politics of Militant Group Survival in the Middle East: Resources, Relationships, and Resistance. Springer. p. 51. ISBN 978-3-319-40141-6.
5. ^ Spyer, Jonathan (1 January 2011). The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict. A&C Black. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-4411-6663-0.
6. ^ "Quién fue Yasser Arafat?". 17 March 2019. Archived from the original on 30 March 2019. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
7. ^ Grafton, David D. (16 March 2009). Piety, Politics, and Power: Lutherans Encountering Islam in the Middle East. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 222. ISBN 978-1-63087-718-7.
8. ^ Lieber, Dov (15 January 2018). "Rewriting history, Abbas calls Israel a 'colonial project' unrelated to Judaism". The Times of Israel. Archived from the original on 26 June 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
9. ^ ^{a b} "Jailed PFLP Leader: Only a One-state Solution Is Possible". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 23 July 2022. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
10. ^ "Fatah spokesperson talks about the potential for a two-state solution in Palestine". NPR. 22 September 2025. Retrieved 18 October 2025.
11. ^ Ora Szekely, ed. (2016). The Politics of Militant Group Survival in the Middle East: Resources, Relationships, and Resistance. Springer International Publishing. p. 54. To balance against their rivals, the Gulf states tended to back the comparatively conservative Fatah.
12. ^ "The Left Has Played a Key Role in the Palestinian Struggle". Jacobin. 2 July 2024. Retrieved 18 October 2025. Today's absence of a progressive option between two conservative nationalist parties, Fatah and Hamas, contributes to the impasse that Palestinians face in terms of political initiative.
13. ^ Robert O Freedman, ed. (9 July 2019). The Middle East Since Camp David. Taylor & Francis. By 1969 (the year Arafat assumed chairmanship of the PLO/EC and Fatah moved to unite the PLO) the corporate identities of the various groups were already becoming established. Groups like the PFLP and DFLP emerged as independent organizations with revolutionary/internationalist outlooks in contrast to Fatah's more conservative nationalism.
14. ^ ^[11][12][13]
15. ^ ^{a b} Rubenberg, Cheryl (2003). The Palestinians: In Search of a Just Peace. Lynne Rienner Publishers. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-58826-225-7.
16. ^ "fasael – منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية". Palestine Liberation Organization (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 6 August 2024. Retrieved 29 August 2024.
17. ^ "Palestine". National Anthems. Archived from the original on 23 May 2020. Retrieved 15 January 2017.
18. ^ Hilal, Jamil; Hammami, Rema (13 June 2001). "An Uprising at a Crossroads". Middle East Report. Retrieved 26 July 2024. the higher and more encompassing power of the PLO, as the representative of all Palestinians, not just Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, whom the institutions of the PA represent.
19. ^ Al-Madfai, Madiha Rashid (1993). Jordan, the United States and the Middle East Peace Process, 1974–1991. Cambridge Middle East Library, Cambridge University Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-521-41523-1. On 28 October 1974, the seventh Arab summit conference held in Rabat designated the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and reaffirmed their right to establish an independent state of urgency.
20. ^ Geldenhuys, Deon (1990). Isolated states: a comparative analysis. Cambridge University Press. p. 155. ISBN 978-0-521-40268-2. The organisation has also been recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by well over 100 states ...
21. ^ Murphy, Kim (10 September 1993). "Israel and PLO, in Historic Bid for Peace, Agree to Mutual Recognition". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 23 April 2010. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
22. ^ Mustafa, Rami (29 October 2018). المجلس المركزي الفلسطيني يعلن تعليق الاعتراف بدولة إسرائيل [The Palestinian Central Council announces the suspension of recognition of the State of Israel]. El Watan. Archived from the original on 7 November 2018. Retrieved 29 October 2018.
23. ^ "Palestinian Central Council suspends recognition of Israel". www.aa.com.tr. Archived from the original on 2 November 2023. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
24. ^ United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3210. "Invites the Palestine Liberation Organization, the representative of the Palestinian people, to participate in the deliberations of the General Assembly on the question of Palestine in plenary meetings."
25. ^ United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3236. "Having heard the statement of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the representative of the Palestinian people, ..."
26. ^ United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3237. "1. Invites the Palestine Liberation Organization to participate in the sessions and the work of the General Assembly in the capacity of observer; 2. Invites the Palestine Liberation Organization to participate in the sessions and the work of all international conferences convened under the auspices of the General Assembly in the capacity of observer; 3. Considers that the Palestine Liberation Organization is entitled to participate as an observer in the sessions and the work of all international conferences convened under the auspices of other organs of the United Nations;"
27. ^ Beyer, Lisa (12 November 2004). "Arafat: A Life in Retrospect". Time. Archived from the original on 8 October 2022. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
28. ^ "PLO to Limit Attacks, Arafat Says". Los Angeles Times. 17 October 2000. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
29. ^ "Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 17 June 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
30. ^ 22 U.S.C. § 5201: Findings; determinations
31. ^ Ehrenfeld, Rachel (2003). "The Palestinians". Funding Evil, How Terrorism Is Financed – and How to Stop It (PDF) (preview chapter). Bonus Books. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 April 2011. Retrieved 27 October 2023 – via Funding for Peace Coalition.

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3 June 1844 – The last pair of great auks is killed.

Great auk

Extinct flightless seabird from the North Atlantic

The great auk (Pinguinus impennis), also known as the garefowl or penguin, is an extinct species of flightless alcid that first appeared around 400,000 years ago and was driven to extinction by human exploitation in the mid-19th century. It was the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus. It was not closely related to the penguins of the Southern Hemisphere, which were named for their resemblance to this species.

It bred on rocky, remote islands with easy access to the ocean and a plentiful food supply, a rarity in nature that provided only a few breeding sites for the great auks. During the non-breeding season, the auk foraged in the waters of the North Atlantic, ranging as far south as northern Spain and along the coastlines of Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Norway, Ireland, and Great Britain.

The bird was about 75 centimetres (29.5 inches) tall and weighed about 5 kilograms (11 pounds), making it the largest alcid to survive into the modern era, and the second-largest member of the alcid family overall (the prehistoric Miomancalla was larger).^[3] It had a black back and a white belly. The black beak was heavy and hooked, with grooves on its surface. During summer, great auk plumage showed a white patch over each eye. During winter, the great auk lost these patches, instead developing a white band stretching between the eyes. The wings were only 15 cm (6 in) long, rendering the bird flightless. Instead, the great auk was a powerful swimmer, a trait that it used in hunting. Its favourite prey were fish, including Atlantic menhaden and capelin, and crustaceans. Although agile in the water, it was clumsy on land. Great auk pairs mated for life. They nested in extremely dense and social colonies, laying one egg on bare rock. The egg was white with variable brown marbling. Both parents participated in the incubation of the egg for around six weeks before the young hatched. The young left the nest site after two to three weeks, although the parents continued to care for it.

The great auk was an important part of many Native American cultures, both as a food source and as a symbolic item. Many Maritime Archaic people were buried with great auk bones. One burial discovered included a corpse covered by more than 200 great auk beaks, which are presumed to be the remnants of a cloak made of great auks' skins. Early European explorers to the Americas used the great auk as a convenient food source or as fishing bait, reducing its numbers. The bird's down was in high demand in Europe, a factor that largely eliminated the European populations by the mid-16th century. Around the same time, nations such as Great Britain began to realize that the great auk was disappearing, and it became the beneficiary of many early protection laws but despite them was still hunted.

Its growing rarity increased interest from European museums and private collectors in obtaining skins and eggs of the bird. On 3 June 1844, the last two confirmed specimens were killed on Eldey, off the coast of Iceland, ending the last known breeding attempt.^[4] Later reports of roaming individuals being seen or caught are unconfirmed. A report of one great auk in 1852 is considered by some to be the last sighting of a member of the species. The great auk is mentioned in several novels, and the scientific journal of the American Ornithological Society (now Ornithology) was named The Auk in honour of the bird until 2021.

1. ^ BirdLife International (2021). "Pinguinus impennis". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2021 e.T22694856A205919631. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2021-3.RLTS.T22694856A205919631.en. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
2. ^ "NatureServe Explorer 2.0". explorer.natureserve.org. Retrieved 31 March 2022.
3. ^ Smith, N (2015). "Evolution of body mass in the Pan-Alcidae (Aves, Charadriiformes): the effects of combining neontological and paleontological data". Paleobiology. 42 (1): 8–26. Bibcode:2016Pbio...42....8S. doi:10.1017/pab.2015.24. S2CID 83934750.
4. ^ Pálsson, Gísli (2026). The Last of Its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction. Princeton University Press.

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4 June 1920 – Hungary loses 71% of its territory and 63% of its population when the Treaty of Trianon is signed in Paris.

Treaty of Trianon

1920 peace treaty on Hungary after World War I

The Treaty of Trianon (French: Traité de Trianon; Hungarian: Trianoni békediktátum; Italian: Trattato del Trianon; Romanian: Tratatul de la Trianon), often referred to in Hungary as the Peace Dictate of Trianon^{[1][2][3][4][5]} or Dictate of Trianon,^[6][7] was prepared at the Paris Peace Conference. It was signed on the one side by Hungary and, on the other, by the Allied and Associated Powers, in the Grand Trianon at Versailles on 4 June 1920. It formally terminated the state of war issued from World War I between most of the Allies of World War I^[a] and the Kingdom of Hungary.^{[8][9][10][11]} The treaty is famous primarily due to the territorial changes imposed on Hungary and recognition of its new international borders after the First World War.

As part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hungary had been involved in the First World War since August 1914. After its allies signed armistices with the Entente, the political elite in Budapest also opted to end the war. On 31 October 1918, the Budapest government declared independence of Hungary from Austria and immediately began peace talks with the Allies which led to an armistice on 13 November 1918: Hungary demobilised its army and granted the Allies the right to occupy the country's south and east until a peace treaty was signed. In December 1918, Budapest allowed Czechoslovak troops to occupy the country's north as well. In exchange, Budapest hoped to reopen foreign trade and a supply of coal.^[12]

Despite the end of hostilities, Hungary's neighbours Czechoslovakia, Romania, and The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes blockaded the country, preventing it from importing food, fuel, and other important goods. Succeeding Hungarian governments pleaded with the Entente to lift the blockade.^[13] In April 1919, Romania and Czechoslovakia moved their armies further into Hungary, provoking a renewal of hostilities. In June, the Entente ordered them to cease fighting and accept new demarcation lines that would be guaranteed as the future borders of Hungary. Romania ignored the order and installed a pro-Romanian government, but the Entente opposed this and orchestrated the formation of a new government which was then invited to attend the Paris Peace Conference. The treaty, received in January 1920, stipulated the legalization of the existing demarcation lines as the new borders and guaranteed the end of the blockade and the restoration of free trade between the former Habsburg lands, as well as importing of coal into Hungary.

The treaty was dictated by the Allies rather than negotiated, and the Hungarians faced an option only to accept or reject its terms in full. The Hungarian delegation signed the treaty under protest; agitation for its revision began immediately.^[14][15] While the new government in Budapest welcomed the restoration of peace and trade, it continued to protest the cession of its former territories without plebiscites. The treaty was signed on 4 June 1920, ratified by Hungary on 16 November 1920 and came into force on 26 July 1921. The boundaries of Hungary have remained mostly the same since the treaty was signed, with minor modifications in 1921–1924 and 1947 following World War II and aggrandizement that Hungary undertook in 1938–1941.^[16][17]

One of the treaty's main elements was the "self-determination of peoples" doctrine, an attempt to give the non-Hungarians of the former empire their own states.^[18] However, the Allies refused to organise plebiscites as the basis for drawing new borders which they explained in a cover letter accompanying the text of the treaty. The letter that the lack of plebiscites was due to their belief that "a popular consultation ... would not produce significantly different results". At the same time, the letter suggested that the Council of the League of Nations might offer its mediation to rectify the new borders amicably if suggested by the delimitation commission.^[19] Hungarian diplomats later appealed to the Millerand letter as a Great Powers promise of future territorial revisions in favour of Hungary. In 1921, one plebiscite was permitted settling a smaller territorial dispute between the First Austrian Republic and the Kingdom of Hungary.^[20][21]

The post-1920 Hungary became a landlocked state that included 93,073 square kilometres (35,936 sq mi) and 7.6 million people, 28% of the land and 36% of the population in the pre-war Kingdom of Hungary.^{[citation needed]} The areas allocated to neighbouring countries had 3.3 million Hungarians living there which became minorities in the new jurisdictions.^{[22][14][23][24]} The treaty limited Hungary's army to 35,000 officers and men, and the Austro-Hungarian Navy ceased to exist. It also required Hungary to pay war reparations to its neighbours. These decisions and their consequences have been the cause of deep resentment in Hungary ever since.^[25] Hungary's neighbours were the treaty's primary beneficiaries. The treaty led to international recognition of Hungary and of its sovereignty and canceled the earlier armistice while also granting Hungarian citizens abroad right of protection of their property from nationalization.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ "Hungarian President János Áder's Speech on the Day of National Unity". Consulate General of Hungary Manchester.
2. ^ Dobó, Attila; Kollár, Ferenc; Zsoldos, Sándor; Kohári, Nándor (2021). A trianoni békediktátum [The Peace Dictate of Trianon] (PDF) (in Hungarian) (2nd ed.). Magyar Kultúra Emlékívek Kiadó. ISBN 978-615-81078-9-1.
3. ^ Gulyás, László (2021). Trianoni kiskáté – 101 kérdés és 101 válasz a békediktátumról (in Hungarian).
4. ^ Makkai, Béla (2019). "Chopping Hungary Up by the 1920 Peace Dictate of Trianon. Causes, Events and Consequences". Polgári Szemle: Gazdasági És Társadalmi Folyóirat. 15 (Spec): 204–225.
5. ^ Gulyás, László; Anka, László; Arday, Lajos; Csüllög, Gábor; Gecse, Géza; Hajdú, Zoltán; Hamerli, Petra; Heka, László; Jeszenszky, Géza; Kaposi, Zoltán; Kolontári, Attila; Köő, Artúr; Kurdi, Krisztina; Ligeti, Dávid; Majoros, István; Maruzsa, Zoltán; Miklós, Péter; Nánay, Mihály; Olasz, Lajos; Ördögh, Tibor; Pelles, Márton; Popély, Gyula; Sokcsevits, Dénes; Suba, János; Szávai, Ferenc; Tefner, Zoltán; Tóth, Andrej; Tóth, Imre; Vincze, Gábor; Vizi, László Tamás (2019–2020). A trianoni békediktátum története hét kötetben [The history of the Peace Dictate of Trianon in seven volumes] (in Hungarian). Egyesület Közép-Európa Kutatására. ISBN 978-615-80462-9-9.
6. ^ Bank, Barbara; Kovács, Attila Zoltán (2022). Trianon – A diktátum teljes szövege [Trianon – Full text of the dictate] (in Hungarian). Erdélyi Szalon. ISBN 978-615-6502-24-7.
7. ^ Raffay, Ernő; Szabó, Pál Csaba. A Trianoni diktátum története és következményei [The history and consequences of the Dictate of Trianon] (in Hungarian). Trianon Museum.
8. ^ Craig, G. A. (1966). Europe since 1914. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
9. ^ Grenville, J. A. S. (1974). The Major International Treaties 1914–1973. A history and guides with texts. London: Methnen.
10. ^ Lichtheim, G. (1974). Europe in the Twentieth Century. New York: Praeger.
11. ^ "Text of the Treaty, Treaty of Peace Between The Allied and Associated Powers and Hungary And Protocol and Declaration, Signed at Trianon June 4, 1920".
12. ^ Piahanau, Aliaksandr (2023). "'Each Wagon of Coal Should be Paid for with Territorial concessions.' Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Coal Shortage in 1918–21". Diplomacy & Statecraft. 34 (1): 86–116. doi:10.1080/09592296.2023.2188795.
13. ^ Krizman, Bogdan (1970). "The Belgrade Armistice of 13 November 1918" (PDF). The Slavonic and East European Review. 48 (110): 67–87. JSTOR 4206164.
14. ^ ^{a b} "Trianon, Treaty of". The Columbia Encyclopedia. 2009.
15. ^ Tucker & Roberts 2005, p. 1183: "Virtually the entire population of what remained of Hungary regarded the Treaty of Trianon as manifestly unfair, and agitation for revision began immediately."
16. ^ Botlik, József (June 2008). "AZ ŐRVIDÉKI (BURGENLANDI) MAGYARSÁG SORSA". vasiszemle.hu. VASI SZEMLE.
17. ^ "Pozsonyi hídfő". Szlovákiai Magyar Adatbank.
18. ^ van den Heuvel, Martin P.; Siccama, J. G. (1992). The Disintegration of Yugoslavia. Rodopi. p. 126. ISBN 90-5183-349-0.
19. ^ Documents diplomatiques français. 1920–1932. 1920, Tome I, 10 janvier-18 mai / Ministère des affaires étrangères, Commission de publication des documents diplomatiques français; [réd. Par Anne Hogenhuis-Seliverstoff, Corine Defrance, Traian Sandu]; [sous la dir. De Jacques Bariéty]. 1997.
20. ^ Richard C. Hall (2014). War in the Balkans: An Encyclopedic History from the Fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Breakup of Yugoslavia. ABC-CLIO. p. 309. ISBN 978-1-61069-031-7.
21. ^ Irredentist and National Questions in Central Europe, 1913–1939: Hungary. Irredentist and National Questions in Central Europe, 1913–1939 Seeds of conflict. Vol. 5, Part 1. Kraus Reprint. 1973. p. 69.
22. ^ Frucht 2004, p. 360.
23. ^ Macartney, C. A. (1937). Hungary and her successors: The Treaty of Trianon and Its Consequences 1919–1937. Oxford University Press.
24. ^ Bernstein, Richard (9 August 2003). "East on the Danube: Hungary's Tragic Century". The New York Times.
25. ^ Toomey, Michael (2018). "History, Nationalism and Democracy: Myth and Narrative in Viktor Orbán's 'Illiberal Hungary'". New Perspectives. 26 (1): 87–108. doi:10.1177/2336825x1802600110. S2CID 158970490.

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5 June 1968 – Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan.

Robert F. Kennedy

American politician and lawyer (1925–1968)

"RFK", "Robert Kennedy", and "Bobby Kennedy" redirect here. For other uses, see RFK (disambiguation) and Robert Kennedy (disambiguation).

Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK, was an American politician and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy served as the 64th United States attorney general from 1961 to 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New York from 1965 until his assassination in 1968. Like his brothers John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, he is considered an icon of modern American liberalism in the 21st century.^[1]

Born into the prominent Kennedy family in Brookline, Massachusetts, Kennedy attended Harvard University, and later received his law degree from the University of Virginia. He began his career as a correspondent for The Boston Post and as a lawyer at the Justice Department, but later resigned to manage his brother John's successful campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1952. The following year, Kennedy worked as an assistant counsel to the Senate committee chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy. He gained national attention as the chief counsel of the Senate Labor Rackets Committee from 1957 to 1959, where he publicly challenged Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa over the union's corrupt practices. Kennedy resigned from the committee to conduct his brother's successful campaign in the 1960 presidential election. He was appointed United States attorney general at the age of 35, one of the youngest cabinet members in American history.^[2] Kennedy served as John's closest advisor until the latter's assassination in 1963.^[3]

Kennedy's tenure is known for advocating for the civil rights movement, the fight against organized crime, and involvement in U.S. foreign policy related to Cuba.^[4] He authored his account of the Cuban Missile Crisis in a book titled Thirteen Days. As attorney general, Kennedy authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on a limited basis.^[5] After his brother John was assassinated, he remained in office during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson for several months. Kennedy left to run for the U.S. Senate from New York in 1964 and defeated Republican incumbent Kenneth Keating, overcoming criticism that he was a "carpetbagger" from Massachusetts.^[6][7] In office, he opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and raised awareness of poverty by sponsoring legislation designed to lure private business to blighted communities (i.e., Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration project). Kennedy was an advocate for issues related to human rights and social justice by traveling abroad to eastern Europe, Latin America, and South Africa, and formed working relationships with Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, and Walter Reuther.

During the 1968 presidential election, Kennedy became a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency by appealing to poor, African American, Hispanic, Catholic, and young voters.^[8] His main challenger in the race was Senator Eugene McCarthy. Shortly after winning the California primary around midnight on June 5, 1968, Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, in retaliation for his support of Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War. Kennedy died 25 hours later. The following year, Sirhan was convicted and sentenced to death by gas chamber for Kennedy's assassination, but was later commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 1972. Like his brother, Kennedy's assassination continues to be the subject of widespread analysis and numerous conspiracy theories.^[9]

1. ^ Tye, Larry (2017). Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-8129-8350-0. OCLC 935987185.
2. ^ "Robert Kennedy's Attorney General Office". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved February 17, 2021.
3. ^ "Bobby Kennedy: Is He The Assistant President?". U.S. News & World Report. June 5, 2015. Archived from the original on December 25, 2025.
4. ^ "Declassified Papers Provide New Window into RFK's Role As JFK's Closest Adviser". WBUR-FM. October 11, 2012. Archived from the original on December 29, 2025.
5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Herst was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
6. ^ Nelson, Michael (1998). The Presidency A to Z. Congressional Quarterly. p. 284.
7. ^ "From the archives: Bobby claims victory over Keating". New York Daily News. November 4, 1964. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
8. ^ Kahlenberg, Richard (March 16, 2018). "The Inclusive Populism of Robert F. Kennedy". The Century Foundation. Retrieved September 19, 2018.
9. ^ Arango, Tim (June 5, 2018). "A Campaign, a Murder, a Legacy: Robert F. Kennedy's California Story". The New York Times. Retrieved September 19, 2018.

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5 June 1968 – Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan.

Robert F. Kennedy

American politician and lawyer (1925–1968)

"RFK", "Robert Kennedy", and "Bobby Kennedy" redirect here. For other uses, see RFK (disambiguation) and Robert Kennedy (disambiguation).

Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK, was an American politician and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy served as the 64th United States attorney general from 1961 to 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New York from 1965 until his assassination in 1968. Like his brothers John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, he is considered an icon of modern American liberalism in the 21st century.^[1]

Born into the prominent Kennedy family in Brookline, Massachusetts, Kennedy attended Harvard University, and later received his law degree from the University of Virginia. He began his career as a correspondent for The Boston Post and as a lawyer at the Justice Department, but later resigned to manage his brother John's successful campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1952. The following year, Kennedy worked as an assistant counsel to the Senate committee chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy. He gained national attention as the chief counsel of the Senate Labor Rackets Committee from 1957 to 1959, where he publicly challenged Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa over the union's corrupt practices. Kennedy resigned from the committee to conduct his brother's successful campaign in the 1960 presidential election. He was appointed United States attorney general at the age of 35, one of the youngest cabinet members in American history.^[2] Kennedy served as John's closest advisor until the latter's assassination in 1963.^[3]

Kennedy's tenure is known for advocating for the civil rights movement, the fight against organized crime, and involvement in U.S. foreign policy related to Cuba.^[4] He authored his account of the Cuban Missile Crisis in a book titled Thirteen Days. As attorney general, Kennedy authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on a limited basis.^[5] After his brother John was assassinated, he remained in office during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson for several months. Kennedy left to run for the U.S. Senate from New York in 1964 and defeated Republican incumbent Kenneth Keating, overcoming criticism that he was a "carpetbagger" from Massachusetts.^[6][7] In office, he opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and raised awareness of poverty by sponsoring legislation designed to lure private business to blighted communities (i.e., Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration project). Kennedy was an advocate for issues related to human rights and social justice by traveling abroad to eastern Europe, Latin America, and South Africa, and formed working relationships with Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, and Walter Reuther.

During the 1968 presidential election, Kennedy became a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency by appealing to poor, African American, Hispanic, Catholic, and young voters.^[8] His main challenger in the race was Senator Eugene McCarthy. Shortly after winning the California primary around midnight on June 5, 1968, Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, in retaliation for his support of Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War. Kennedy died 25 hours later. The following year, Sirhan was convicted and sentenced to death by gas chamber for Kennedy's assassination, but was later commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 1972. Like his brother, Kennedy's assassination continues to be the subject of widespread analysis and numerous conspiracy theories.^[9]

1. ^ Tye, Larry (2017). Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-8129-8350-0. OCLC 935987185.
2. ^ "Robert Kennedy's Attorney General Office". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved February 17, 2021.
3. ^ "Bobby Kennedy: Is He The Assistant President?". U.S. News & World Report. June 5, 2015. Archived from the original on December 25, 2025.
4. ^ "Declassified Papers Provide New Window into RFK's Role As JFK's Closest Adviser". WBUR-FM. October 11, 2012. Archived from the original on December 29, 2025.
5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Herst was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
6. ^ Nelson, Michael (1998). The Presidency A to Z. Congressional Quarterly. p. 284.
7. ^ "From the archives: Bobby claims victory over Keating". New York Daily News. November 4, 1964. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
8. ^ Kahlenberg, Richard (March 16, 2018). "The Inclusive Populism of Robert F. Kennedy". The Century Foundation. Retrieved September 19, 2018.
9. ^ Arango, Tim (June 5, 2018). "A Campaign, a Murder, a Legacy: Robert F. Kennedy's California Story". The New York Times. Retrieved September 19, 2018.

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6 June 1933 – The first drive-in theater opens in Camden, New Jersey.

Drive-in theater

Cinema format

A drive-in theater/theatre or drive-in cinema is a form of cinema structure consisting of a large outdoor movie screen, a projection booth, a concession stand, and a large parking area for automobiles. Within this enclosed area, customers can view movies from the privacy and comfort of their cars. Some drive-ins have small playgrounds for children and a few picnic tables or benches.

The screen can be as simple as a painted white wall, or it can be a steel truss structure with a complex finish. Originally, the movie's sound was provided by speakers on the screen and later by individual speakers hung from the window of each car, which was attached to a small pole by a wire. These speaker systems were superseded by the more practical method of microbroadcasting the soundtrack to car radios. This also has two advantages: 1. the film soundtrack to be heard in stereo on car stereo systems, which are typically of much higher quality and fidelity than the basic small mono speakers used in the old systems. 2. Drivers would frequently forget the speaker was attached to their window and would drive off, breaking the cable connecting the speaker to the sound system, the driver's side window, or even pulling the entire pole connected to the speaker, out of the ground.

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7 June 1938 – The Douglas DC-4E makes its first test flight.

Douglas DC-4E

US airliner prototype with 4 piston engines, 1938

The Douglas DC-4E was an American experimental airliner that was developed before World War II. The DC-4E never entered production due to being superseded by an entirely new design, the Douglas DC-4/C-54, which proved very successful.

Many of the aircraft's innovative design features found their way into the Nakajima G5N bomber after the single DC-4E prototype was sold to a Japanese airline and clandestinely dismantled for study by Nakajima at the behest of the Imperial Japanese Navy.^[2]

1. ^ Francillon 1988, pp. 266, 268.
2. ^ ^{a b} Francillon 1988, p. 268.
3. ^ Francillon 1988, p. 267.

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8 June 1949 – George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published in the United States

Nineteen Eighty-Four

1949 dystopian novel by George Orwell

This article is about the novel by George Orwell. For the year, see 1984. For other uses, see 1984 (disambiguation).

Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984) is a dystopian speculative fiction novel by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final completed book. Thematically, it centres on totalitarianism, mass surveillance and repressive regimentation of people and behaviours.^[3][4] Nineteen Eighty-Four has been often regarded as a classic and has been acknowledged for its impact on twentieth-century literature.

The story takes place in a fictional future. The year is believed to be 1984, but this is uncertain. Much of the world is in perpetual war. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, has become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, which is led by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by the Party's Thought Police. The Party engages in omnipresent government surveillance and, through the Ministry of Truth, historical negationism and constant propaganda to persecute individuality and independent thinking.^[5] Orwell described his book as a "satire",^[6] and a display of the "perversions to which a centralised economy is liable", while also stating he believed "that something resembling it could arrive".^[6] The novel examines the role of truth and facts within societies and the ways in which they can be manipulated. Parallels have been drawn between the novel and real-world totalitarianism, mass surveillance and violations of freedom of expression, among other themes.^[7][8][9]

Nineteen Eighty-Four has become a classic literary example of dystopian and political fiction. It popularised "Orwellian" as an adjective, and many terms used in it have entered common usage, including "Big Brother", "doublethink", "Thought Police", "thoughtcrime", and "Newspeak", as well as the expression "2 + 2 = 5". Time magazine included it on its list of the 100 best English-language novels published from 1923 to 2005,^[10] and it was placed on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list, reaching number 13 on the editors' list and number 6 on the readers' list.^[11] In 2003 it was listed at number 8 on The Big Read survey by the BBC.^[12] It has been adapted across media, most famously as a film in 1984 starring John Hurt, Suzanna Hamilton and Richard Burton.

1. ^ "Nineteen Eighty-Four". knowthyshelf.com. 13 August 2015. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
2. ^ "Classify". OCLC. Archived from the original on 2 February 2019. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
3. ^ Murphy, Bruce (1996). Benét's reader's encyclopedia. New York: Harper Collins. p. 734. ISBN 978-0-06-181088-6. OCLC 35572906.
4. ^ Aaronovitch, David (8 February 2013). "1984: George Orwell's road to dystopia". BBC News. Archived from the original on 24 January 2018. Retrieved 8 February 2013.
5. ^ Chernow, Barbara; Vallasi, George (1993). The Columbia Encyclopedia (5th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 2030. OCLC 334011745.
6. ^ ^{a b} "The savage satire of '1984' still speaks to us today". The Independent. 7 June 1999. Archived from the original on 7 January 2023. Retrieved 7 January 2023. Orwell said that his book was a satire – a warning certainly, but in the form of satire.
7. ^ Crouch, Ian (11 June 2013). "So Are We Living in 1984?". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 10 September 2023. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
8. ^ Seaton, Jean (7 May 2018). "Why Orwell's 1984 could be about now". BBC. Archived from the original on 10 May 2020. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
9. ^ Leetaru, Kalev. "As Orwell's 1984 Turns 70 It Predicted Much of Today's Surveillance Society". Forbes. Archived from the original on 27 March 2023. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
10. ^ Grossman, Lev (8 January 2010). "Is 1984 one of the All-TIME 100 Best Novels?". Time. Archived from the original on 20 August 2017. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
11. ^ "100 Best Novels". Modern Library. Archived from the original on 2 October 2010. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
12. ^ "The Big Read – Top 100 Books". BBC. Archived from the original on 31 October 2012. Retrieved 29 December 2022.

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9 June 1856 – Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa for the Mormon Trail.

Mormon Trail

Migrant route from Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah

The Mormon Trail is the 1,300-mile (2,100 km) route from Illinois to Utah on which Mormon pioneers (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) traveled from 1846 to 1869. The Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail.

The Mormon Trail extends from Nauvoo, Illinois, which was the principal settlement of the Latter Day Saints from 1839 to 1846, to Salt Lake City, Utah, which was settled by Brigham Young and his followers beginning in 1847. From Council Bluffs, Iowa to Fort Bridger in Wyoming, the trail follows much the same route as the Oregon Trail and the California Trail; these trails are collectively known as the Emigrant Trail.

The Mormon pioneer run began in 1846 after Young and his followers were driven from Nauvoo. They left with the aim of establishing a new home for the church in the Great Basin and crossed Iowa. Along their way, some were assigned to establish settlements and to plant and harvest crops for later emigrants. During the winter of 1846–47, the emigrants wintered in Iowa, other nearby states, and the unorganized territory that later became Nebraska, with the largest group residing in Winter Quarters, Nebraska. In the spring of 1847, Young led the vanguard company to the Salt Lake Valley, which was then outside the boundaries of the United States and later became Utah.

During the first few years, the emigrants were mostly former occupants of Nauvoo who were following Young to Utah. Later, the emigrants increasingly included converts from the British Isles and Europe. The trail was used for more than 20 years, until the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869. Among the emigrants were the Mormon handcart pioneers of 1856–60. Two of the handcart companies, led by James G. Willie and Edward Martin, met disaster on the trail when they departed late and were caught by heavy snowstorms in Wyoming.

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10 June 1967 – The Six-Day War ends: Israel and Syria agree to a cease-fire.

Six-Day War

1967 war between Israel and Arab states

For other uses, see Six Day War (disambiguation).

The Six-Day War,^[a] or the 1967 Arab–Israeli war (5–10 June 1967), was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, in the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict. In the war, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria.

Military hostilities broke out amid poor relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, who had been observing the 1949 Armistice Agreements signed at the end of the First Arab–Israeli War. In 1956, regional tensions over the Straits of Tiran (giving access to Eilat, a port on Israel's southeastern tip) escalated in what became known as the Suez Crisis, when Israel invaded Egypt over the Egyptian closure of maritime passageways to Israeli shipping, ultimately resulting in the reopening of the Straits of Tiran to Israel and the deployment of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) along the Egypt–Israel border.^[44]

In the months before June 1967, tensions again became dangerously heightened: Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli. In May, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel^[45] and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.^[46][38]

The war began on 5 June 1967 with Operation Focus, an Israeli surprise attack consisting of a series of airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities as the UNEF was leaving the zone.^[38] Israel caught Egyptian forces by surprise and destroyed nearly all of Egypt's air force, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the fourth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula.^[47] Jordan, which had entered into a defense pact with Egypt a week before the war began, did not take on an all-out offensive role against Israel, but launched attacks against Israeli forces to slow their advance.^[48] On the fifth day, Syria joined the war by shelling Israeli positions in the north.^[49]

Egypt and Jordan agreed to a ceasefire on 8 June, and Syria on 9 June, and it was signed with Israel on 11 June. The Six-Day War resulted in more than 15,000 Arab fatalities; Israel suffered fewer than 1,000. Alongside the combatant casualties were the deaths of 20 Israeli civilians killed in Arab forces air strikes on Jerusalem, 15 UN peacekeepers killed by Israeli strikes in the Sinai at the outset of the war, and 34 US personnel killed in the USS Liberty incident, in which Israeli air and naval forces assaulted a United States Navy spy ship.

When hostilities ceased, Israel had occupied the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank including East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. The displacement of civilian populations as a result of the Six-Day War had long-term consequences, as around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians and 100,000 Syrians fled or were expelled from the West Bank^[50] and the Golan Heights, respectively.^[51] Nasser resigned in shame after Israel's victory, but was reinstated after a series of protests across Egypt. In the aftermath of the conflict, Egypt closed the Suez Canal from 1967 to 1975.^[52]

1. ^ Krauthammer, Charles (18 May 2007). "Prelude to the Six Days". The Washington Post. p. A23. ISSN 0740-5421. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 20 June 2008.
2. ^ ^{a b} Oren (2002), p. 237.
3. ^ Arnold, Guy (2016). Wars in the Third World Since 1945. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 299. ISBN 9781474291019.
4. ^ "Milestones: 1961–1968". Office of the Historian. Archived from the original on 23 October 2018. Retrieved 30 November 2018. Between June 5 and June 10, Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria and occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights
5. ^ Weill, Sharon (2007). "The judicial arm of the occupation: the Israeli military courts in the occupied territories". International Review of the Red Cross. 89 (866): 401. doi:10.1017/s1816383107001142. On 7 June 1967, the day the occupation started, Military Proclamation No. 2 was issued, endowing the area commander with full legislative, executive, and judicial authorities over the West Bank and declaring that the law in force prior to the occupation remained in force as long as it did not contradict new military orders.
6. ^ Stone (2004), p. 217.
7. ^ Oren (2002), p. 171.
8. ^ Tucker (2015), pp. 540–541.
9. ^ ^{a b} Tucker (2004), p. 176.
10. ^ ^{a b c} Pollack (2004), p. 59.
11. ^ Morris (2001), p. 318.
12. ^ Oren (2002), p. 176.
13. ^ Ehteshami & Hinnebusch (1997), p. 76.
14. ^ Mutawi (2002), p. 42.
15. ^ ^{a b c} Segev (1967), pp. 82, 175–191.
16. ^ ^{a b} Herzog, Chaim (1 January 1984). The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East from the War of Independence through Lebanon (Revised ed.). Vintage Books. p. 149. ISBN 978-0394717463.
17. ^ ^{a b c d} Gawrych (2000), p. 3.
18. ^ Cite error: The named reference Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
19. ^ Zaloga, Steven (1981). Armour of the Middle East Wars 1948–78 (Vanguard). Osprey Publishing.
20. ^ "The CIA's overlooked intelligence victory in the 1967 War". Brookings. 30 June 2017. Retrieved 23 May 2026.
21. ^ "מלחמת ששת-הימים". Israeli Air Force. 3 October 2010. Archived from the original on 12 June 2019.
22. ^ "Six-Day War - Full Article". Elton B. Stephens Company (EBSCO). 2023. Retrieved 23 May 2026.
23. ^ "Israeli Air Strikes, Six-Day War". WarHistory.org. 21 May 2020. Retrieved 23 May 2026.
24. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gammasy p.79 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
25. ^ Herzog (1982), p. 165.
26. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference Israel Ministry 2004 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
27. ^ Tucker (2010), p. 1198.
28. ^ Woolf, Alex (2012). Arab–Israeli War Since 1948. Heinemann-Raintree. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-4329-6004-9.
29. ^ Sachar (2013), p. [1]^{[page needed]}
30. ^ Dunstan (2013a), p. [2]
31. ^ Warfare since the Second World War, By Klaus Jürgen Gantzel, Torsten Schwinghammer, p. 253
32. ^ Guy Arnold (1991) Wars in the Third World since 1945.^{[page needed][full citation needed]}
33. ^ Six-Day War 1967, Operation Focus and the 12 hours that changed the Middle East. Shlomo Aloni. Osprey Publishing. 2019. P.92
34. ^ Simon Dunstan. The Six Day War 1967: Sinai. Osprey Publishing, 2009. P. 88.
35. ^ Cite error: The named reference ReferenceA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
36. ^ Hawker Hunters at War. Iraq and Jordan, 1958-1967. Tom Cooper, Patricia Salti. Helion & Company. 2016. P.45.59
37. ^ Hawker Hunters at War. Iraq and Jordan, 1958-1967. Tom Cooper, Patricia Salti. Helion & Company. 2016. P.46-53
38. ^ ^{a b c} "UNEF I withdrawal (16 May - 17 June 1967) - SecGen report, addenda, corrigendum". Question of Palestine. Archived from the original on 11 July 2020. Retrieved 19 May 2022.
39. ^ Oren (2002), p. 187: Over 1,000 civilians were wounded, 150 seriously, 20 of them died.
40. ^ Gerhard, William D.; Millington, Henry W. (1981). "Attack on a SIGINT Collector, the USS Liberty" (PDF). NSA History Report, U.S. Cryptologic History series. National Security Agency. partially declassified 1999, 2003.
41. ^ Both USA and Israel officially attributed the USS Liberty incident as being due to mistaken identification.
42. ^ Cite error: The named reference ginor was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
43. ^ Jeremy Bowen (2003). Six Days: How the 1967 War Shaped the Middle East. Simon and Schuster, 2012. ISBN 978-1-4711-1475-5. UNRWA put the figure at 413,000
44. ^ Major General Indar Jit Rikhye (28 October 2013). The Sinai Blunder: Withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Force Leading... Taylor & Francis. pp. 8–. ISBN 978-1-136-27985-0.
45. ^ Quigley (2013), p. 32.
46. ^ Mendoza, Terry; Hart, Rona; Herlitz, Lewis; Stone, John; Oboler, Andre (2007). "Six Day War Comprehensive Timeline". sixdaywar. Archived from the original on 18 May 2007. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
47. ^ Cite error: The named reference BBC Panorama was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
48. ^ Mutawi (2002), p. 183: "It is clear that King Hussein joined forces with Egypt in the knowledge that there was no possibility of overrunning Israel. Instead, he sought to preserve the status quo. He believed that he could not stand aside at a time when Arab co-operation and solidarity were vital and he was convinced that any Arab confrontation with Israel would be greatly enhanced if the Arabs fought as a unified body. The plan of action devised at his meeting with Nasser in Cairo on 30 May was established on this basis. It was envisaged that Jordan would not take an offensive role but would tie down a proportion of Israel's forces and so prevent it from using its full weight against Egypt and Syria. By forcing Israel to fight a war on three fronts simultaneously King Hussein believed that the Arabs stood a chance of preventing it from making any territorial gains while allowing the Arabs a chance of gaining a political victory, which may, eventually, lead to peace. King Hussein was also convinced that even if Jordan did not participate in the war Israel would take the opportunity to seize the West Bank once it had dealt with Syria and Egypt. He decided that for this reason, the wisest course of action was to bring Jordan into the total Arab effort. This would provide his army with two elements that were essential for its efficient operation – additional troops and air cover. When King Hussein met Nasser in Cairo it was agreed that these requirements would be met."
49. ^ Dunstan (2013), p. 65.
50. ^ Bowker (2003), p. 81.
51. ^ McDowall (1991), p. 84: 116,000 had fled from the Golan further into Syria, ...
52. ^ "Suez Canal". 30 March 2021. Archived from the original on 8 September 2023. Retrieved 27 August 2022.

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11 June 1429 – Hundred Years' War: Start of the Battle of Jargeau.

Battle of Jargeau

1429 battle of the Hundred Years' War

The Battle of Jargeau took place on 11–12 June 1429. It was part of the Loire Campaign during the Hundred Years' War, where the forces of Charles VII of France successfully recaptured much of the region, following their victory at the Siege of Orléans. The battle ended in victory for Charles VII and is notable as Joan of Arc's first offensive battle.

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