Today in history

May 14

The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel , was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar 5708) by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization, Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and soon to be first Prime Minister of Israel. It declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, which would come into effect on termination of the British Mandate at midnight that day. The event is celebrated annually in Israel as Independence Day, a national holiday on 5 Iyar of every year according to the Hebrew calendar.

Background
The possibility of a Jewish homeland in Palestine had been a goal of Zionist organizations since the late 19th century. In 1917 British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour stated in a letter to British Jewish community leader Walter, Lord Rothschild that:

His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Declaration_of_Independence

15th May 1793. Diego Marín Aguilera (1757–1799) was a Spanish inventor who was an early aviation pioneer.

On the night of 15 May 1793, accompanied by the blacksmith Barbero and one of Marín's sisters, Marín placed his glider on the highest part of the castle of Coruña del Conde. In the light of the full moon, he remarked (roughly): "I'm going to Burgo de Osma, and from there to Soria, and I'll be back in a couple of days."

Flapping the wings of the glider, he reached a height of "six or seven varas" (approximately 5 or 6 m) and according to his companions, glided for "431 Castilian varas" or approximately 300 to 400 metres. The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics writes that he flew for “about 360 meters.” Marín managed to cross the river Arandilla and reached the area known as Heras, where he crash-landed after one of the metal joints broke. Fearing the worst, his companions ran to the spot. Marín was only scratched and bruised, but angry at the blacksmith for failing to weld the joint properly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Mar%C3%ADn_Aguilera

May 17, 1861

Maybe the first colour photograph, of a tartan ribbon is shown by Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell to the Royal Institution in London



https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-worlds-first-color-photograph

18 th May 1812


         John Bellingham:
                                  John Bellingham is found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging for the assassination of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.

                            On 11 May 1812, at about 5:15 pm, Spencer Perceval, the prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was shot dead in the lobby of the House of Commons by John Bellingham, a Liverpool merchant with a grievance against the government. Bellingham was detained; four days after the murder, he was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. He was hanged at Newgate Prison on 18 May, one week after the assassination and one month before the start of the War of 1812. Perceval remains the sole British prime minister to have been assassinated.

                              Execution
Bellingham's execution was fixed for the morning of Monday 18 May. The day before, he was visited by the Revd Daniel Wilson, curate at St John's Chapel, Bedford Row, a future Bishop of Calcutta who hoped that Bellingham would show true repentance for his act. The clergyman was disappointed, concluding that "a more dreadful instance of depravity and hardness of heart has surely never occurred". Late on Sunday, Bellingham wrote a last letter to his wife, in which he appeared confident of his soul's destination: "Nine hours more will waft me to those happy shores where bliss is without alloy".

Large crowds gathered outside Newgate Prison on 18 May; a force of troops stood by, since warnings had been received of a "Rescue Bellingham" movement. The crowd was calm and restrained, as was Bellingham when he appeared at the scaffold shortly before 8 o'clock. Hodgson records that Bellingham mounted the steps "with the utmost celerity ... his tread was bold and firm ... no indication of trembling, faltering, or irresolution appeared". Bellingham was then blindfolded, the rope fastened, and a final prayer was said by the chaplain. As the clock struck eight the trap door was released, and Bellingham dropped to his death. Cobbett, still incarcerated in Newgate, observed the crowd's reactions: "anxious looks ... half-horrified countenances ... mournful tears ... unanimous blessings". In accordance with the court's sentence, the body was cut down and sent to St Bartholomew's Hospital for dissection. In what the press described as "morbid sensationalism", Bellingham's clothes were sold for high prices to members of the public.

19 th May 1536

Anne Boleyn:
Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, is beheaded for adultery, treason, and incest.

How Anne Boleyn Lost Her Head
Found guilty of charges including adultery, incest and conspiracy against the king, on May 19, 1536 Anne Boleyn was beheaded by a French swordsman.

In 1536, England’s King Henry VIII accused his second wife Anne Boleyn, who had been crowned queen in 1533, of charges including adultery, incest and conspiracy against the king. At her trial, she was found guilty, and on May 19, 1536 she was taken to Tower Green in London, where she was beheaded by a French swordsman, rather than the standard axe-wielding executioner.

Historians believe the charges against her were false, issued by Henry VIII to remove Boleyn as his wife and enable him to marry his third wife, Jane Seymour, in hopes of producing a male heir.


Who was Anne Boleyn before she became Queen?
Boleyn was a member of Henry VIII’s court, serving as a maid of honor to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to whom he was married from 1509 to 1533. The king became smitten with Boleyn and pursued her, but she refused to become his mistress.

Anne Boleyn, who came from an aristocratic family, had served in the courts of other European royals. She was educated and skilled at the diversions expected of a charming member of court, such as dancing, singing and the game-like art of flirting. But she also had political functions at court. Like her father, a diplomat, Anne played a role in greeting foreign dignitaries and had some influence on matters of international affairs. In that capacity, she engaged with political leaders, including Thomas Cromwell, a politician who rose to become Henry VIII’s chief minister in 1532.

Anne Boleyn played an important part in English history and the creation of the Church of England.
In order for Henry VIII to marry Anne Boleyn, his marriage to Catherine of Aragon needed to end. The king had found a new favorite in Anne, who he hoped would provide a son. (Catherine had not.) But Anne refused to be his mistress and held out for marriage.

Though divorce was not allowed under the Catholic church, Henry VIII persisted in seeking one. First, he argued to Pope Clement VII that his marriage to Catherine could be annulled because she had been married to his brother Arthur, who died shortly after their marriage. Henry based this argument on a Biblical passage in Leviticus that condemns marriage between a man and his brother’s wife. Therefore, Henry claimed, the Pope who granted the marriage had been wrong do so in the first place.

When Pope Clement VII refused to annul the marriage, Henry VIII took a step that would change the course of world history and religion. With the help and maneuvering of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII broke ties with the Catholic church in Rome, affirming the king’s view that the church should not have power over England’s sovereignty.

The king and Anne Boleyn were secretly married in January 1533, causing Henry and the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, Thomas Cranmer, to be excommunicated from the Catholic church. This in turn led to the establishment of the Church of England, a major step in the Reformation that added England to the list of Protestant nations.


THOMAS CROMWELL
Did Thomas Cromwell lead a conspiracy against Anne Boleyn?
Anne Boleyn fell from Henry VIII’s favor when she failed to give birth to a male heir. In 1533, she bore a female child, who would grow up to be Queen Elizabeth I. But Anne suffered miscarriages and her only male child was stillborn in January 1536.

At that point, Henry decided to make a change. He had been having adulterous relationships with two of the Queen’s maids-of-honor, Madge Shelton and Jane Seymour. The latter was fast gaining the king’s esteem.

Meanwhile, Boleyn and Cromwell were clashing on matters of foreign policy and the king’s finances. Historians are divided on the extent of Cromwell’s motives behind facilitating Boleyn’s demise, but in setting up the charges against her, he was certainly carrying out the king’s wishes.

Cromwell was part of a secret commission, one that included Boleyn’s father, to investigate her wrongdoing. Historians speculate that her father probably tried to warn her of the situation. But there was little she could do. Boleyn was accused of sexual affairs with male members of her court, who in some cases were tortured into making confessions. In addition, she was accused of incest with her own brother and of using sorcery to bewitch the king.

Boleyn was sent to confinement in the Tower of London and her trial took place on May 15, 1536. She was found guilty by a jury that included her own uncle and a former fiancé. By sending Anne to her death, Henry VIII cleared the way to marry Seymour, which he did on May 30, just a few days after Boleyn’s beheading.

Manchester City won the Premier League title for a history making fourth time in a row.

20 th May 1943

    Luttra woman:
                        The Luttra Woman, a bog body from the Early Neolithic period (radiocarbon-dated c. 3928–3651 BC), was discovered near Luttra, Sweden.

The Luttra Woman is a bog body that was found near Luttra, Sweden, on 20 May 1943. The body has been dated to the Early Neolithic period, of about 3800-3600 BC. In Swedish, the body is called Hallonflickan, in Danish, she is called Hindbærpigen. Both names are translated as Raspberry Girl. This name comes from the fact that when she was found, her stomach showed that raspberries had likely been her last meal. At the time of her death, she was a teenager, or a young adult. There are no traces of injuries or fatal diseases on her body. She was likely tied up before her death, and drowned on purpose. Axel Bagge, an archeolgoist who assisted in the first investigation, said that she had either been a human sacrifice, or she had been executed.The Luttra Woman's skull has a hole below the left eye socket, likely due to a long-term infection of the bone tissue; otherwise no trace of injuries or diseases was found on her remains.

Since 1994, her body has been on permanent display at a museum in Falköping.

As of 2017, she was the earliest-known Neolithic person from Western Sweden.

Looking at the body
When experts looked at the body, they concluded that she must have been a pretty girl or young woman. She was was a little smaller than other women her age. She was 145 centimetres (57 in) tall. Other women of her age, in the region usualy were beteen 152 centimetres (60 in) and 163 centimetres (64 in) tall. In the area where her stomach must have been, a large number of raspberry seeds were found. In the stone age, there were no technologies that would allow to keep raspberries for a longer time period. For this reason, her death must have been in summer, likely in July or August. This makes her a special case, as the other bog bodies found in Sweden all died during the winter months. In the 1990s, scientists tried to determine her age. They found that she must have been at least eighteen years old, more likely 20-25 years. Radiocarbon dating found that the woman had died about 1000 years later than first thought, between 3105 and 2935 BC. When looking at the surrounding soil, remains of freshwater snails were found. Likely, the woman was drowned in open water. Later, the area became a bog.


Arrowhead found near the woman
Three years before the body of the woman was found, people had found an arrowhead, made of flintstone, about 6 metres (20 ft) away. People thought, the arrow had missed the woman, and that she had been hit by another arrow. Later her body moved into the water. Further excavations were done, but they neither found another arrowhead, nor any wounds that would explain that an arrow had hit her. Therefore, the arrowhead is likely unrelated to the woman.

Reconstruction and exhibition

As of January 2023, her body has been on a permanent exhibition titled Forntid på Falbygden (lit. 'Prehistory in Falbygden') at the Falbygdens Museum, Falköping, since 1994. There is also a bust of what she might have looked like, displayed at the museum. Stockholm-based model-maker Oscar Nilsson created it

21 st may 1894

  The Manchester ship canal:

                  The Manchester Ship Canal in the United Kingdom is officially opened by Queen Victoria, who later knights its designer Sir Edward Leader Williams.

                     
The Lancashire hills that surround Manchester are coloured vivid green for a reason, and it was this ever so slightly damp climate that provided the area with the optimum conditions for the processing of cotton. The moist conditions prevented the cotton fibres from splitting and the resulting streams and rivers powered the water mills that ran the factories.

Raw cotton was imported into the country, mainly from the American cotton fields. Factories in the south of Lancashire spun the threads and the weaving of vast cloths occurred in the towns to the north.

Water power alone however was no longer proving sufficient to keep the wheels of the Industrial Revolution turning. When in 1761 the Duke of Bridgewater opened his now famous canal, coal from the Duke’s mines at the Worsley Collieries could be transported much more easily to Manchester, thus providing a cheap source of power to feed the new-fangled steam engines.
   The Bridgewater Canal was quickly extended, and by 1776 it had reached the River Mersey, thereby providing easier access to the port of Liverpool. The cost of transporting raw cotton from the port to Manchester halved almost overnight, as did the cost of shipping out the finished cloth.

Before Richard Arkwright built his first cotton mill in 1780, Manchester was barely keeping pace with the needs of the expanding British Empire, particularly the enormous demand of the Indian population for the “dhootie”, a cheap cotton loincloth which clothed the nation. The increased levels of production achieved by the new mills earned Lancashire the title of the “Workshop of the World”, with Manchester becoming known as “Cottonopolis”.

               Manchester was expanding at a phenomenal rate and by the mid 1830’s it was widely recognised as the greatest industrial city in the world. In addition to making the machines required for the cotton mills, Manchester’s engineering firms diversified into general manufacturing. The bleaches and dyes required by the cotton industry spawned a substantial chemical industry that would gradually spread across the entire region. Industry requires financing, and so banks and insurance companies flocked to the city to provide the necessary services.

Despite the opening of the world’s first inter-city railway (the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) in 1830), by the mid 1870’s Manchester’s supply lines were being stretched to their limits. In addition, the dues being charged by their ‘friends’ at the Port of Liverpool were considered by Manchester’s business community as being a tad excessive …they pointed out that goods could often be imported and bought from the Port of Hull, on other side of country, at a cheaper rate than via Liverpool!

Whilst the idea of linking Manchester with the sea by a navigable canal and river route can be traced back as early as 1660, it was not until 1882 that Manchester manufacturer Daniel Adamson brought together the men who could actually make it happen. In June of that year, he met with several other leaders from the Manchester business community, representatives and politicians from local Lancashire towns and two civil engineers to form the basis of a bill that would be submitted to Parliament later that year for approval.

A meticulously organised campaign was launched in order to gain public support for the venture, which pointed out that reduced transport costs to the city and surrounding region would make local industries more competitive and thus help to create new jobs.

Surprisingly, the bill failed to gain any support at all from those ‘friends’ in the Port of Liverpool and as a consequence, was rejected by Parliament on two separate occasions thanks to their objections. The bill was finally passed in May 1885, becoming The Manchester Ship Canal Act 1885. Conditions of the act stipulated that the Manchester Ship Canal Company needed to raise £8 million in share capital to cover the estimated cost of construction of just over £5 million.

With Thomas Walker appointed as lead contractor and Edward Leader Williams as chief engineer, the first sod was cut on 11th November 1887 by Lord Egerton of Tatton, who had taken over the role of chairman of the company following Daniel Adamson’s resignation earlier that year. Adamson had wanted to encourage the widest possible share ownership of the company by raising the necessary funds from ordinary working folk, but resigned after failing to gain support for his plans.

     The 36 mile route of the canal was subdivided into eight separate sections, with a civil engineer being made responsible for each stretch. Initially the construction work went well and all schedules were met, but in November 1889 Walker died and after this, further delays due to bad weather and repeated flooding caused serious setbacks.

By early 1891, the canal company had run out of money and with only half the construction work completed, they were forced to seek financial help from the Manchester Corporation in order to avoid bankruptcy. The required funds were approved and released by the Corporation in March that year, in order to ‘preserve the city’s prestige’.

The ship canal was finally flooded in November 1893, and opened for traffic from 1st January 1894. After six years in the making, with an average workforce of 12,000 navvies and almost 200 steam trains hauling 6,000 wagons, the final cost of the project totalled more than £15 million, equivalent today to approximately £1½ billion. Queen Victoria officially opened the canal on 21st May 1894.

     Despite being some 40 miles from the sea, the Manchester Ship Canal allowed the newly-founded Port of Manchester to establish itself as the third busiest port in Britain. At its peak in 1958, the amount of freight carried by the canal was almost 20,000,000 tons.

Since then, the traffic on the canal has slowly decreased year on year as the size of modern ocean-going ships has increased. Plans are now afoot however, to revive the fortunes of both the canal and the port, ironically in conjunction with the now ‘old friends’ at the Port of Liverpool through the Atlantic Gateway scheme.

Does anyone actually read all this? I don’t but I am sure some people do. I learned history ( unfortunately) at school and not once did anyone ask me in my working life what year was the Battle of Hastings.

Gassey makes a good contribution to the site, his history thread has been going for a long time. Personally I like to read about history, as I'm sure others do.  Before you know it today will be history, and our kids can read about the stuff they missed when they were at school.

I am sure he makes a very good contribution. Maybe it is just me but even if I read something that long I could not retain the knowledge.

Keep them coming Gassey
We don't need negatives.

21st May 2024.

Death of free speech.

On May 21st, 1877, the Wigan Market Hall was officially opened by Alderman Walter Mayhew, who served as the Mayor of Wigan during that time1. The Market Hall was a significant addition to the town and played a central role in local commerce and trade. It stood proudly in the heart of Wigan, providing a bustling hub for vendors, shoppers, and community members.

The Market Hall was constructed during a period of transformation for Wigan. In the late 19th century, the town experienced rapid growth due to industrialization and economic development. Coal mining, cotton weaving, and other industries flourished, contributing to the town’s prosperity. The opening of the Market Hall further enhanced Wigan’s status as a vibrant market town.

Unfortunately, the original Market Hall was demolished in 1988 after serving the community for over a century.

And the rest is........

On the 21st May 1956 the US dropped a hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll.

Broady wrote:21st May 2024.

Death of free speech.

NOT FREE speech Broady, speech FREE from unnecessary and undeserved criticism of one of our really good posters, who does a brilliant job of entertaining and informing us on here.
Gassey posts don't warrant your harshness.
This is NOT 'the other place' !!!!!!

Who decides what is unnecessary and undeserved criticism? I still see nothing wrong with what I said. As for referring to elsewhere that was certainly unnecessary. I shall make no further comment as I have tasks to complete.

Gentlemen, may I suggest that you agree to disagree. Draw a line under it and let gasseys thread return to what it was intended to be, Today in history. Thanks

22nd May 1915

Quintinshill rail disaster:
Three trains collide in the Quintinshill rail disaster near Gretna Green, Scotland, killing 227 people and injuring 246.

The Quintinshill rail disaster was a multi-train rail crash which occurred on 22 May 1915 outside the Quintinshill signal box near Gretna Green in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. It resulted in the deaths of over 200 people and remains the worst rail disaster in British history.

The Quintinshill signal box controlled two passing loops, one on each side of the double-track Caledonian Main Line linking Glasgow and Carlisle (part of the West Coast Main Line). At the time of the accident, both passing loops were occupied with goods trains, and a northbound local passenger train was standing on the southbound main line.

The first collision occurred when a southbound troop train travelling from Larbert to Liverpool collided with the stationary local train. A minute later the wreckage was struck by a northbound sleeping car express train travelling from London Euston to Glasgow Central. Gas from the Pintsch gas lighting system of the old wooden carriages of the troop train ignited, starting a fire which soon engulfed all five trains.

Only half the soldiers on the troop train survived. Those killed were mainly Territorial soldiers from the 1/7th (Leith) Battalion, the Royal Scots heading for Gallipoli. The precise death toll was never established with confidence as some bodies were never recovered, having been wholly consumed by the fire, and the roll list of the regiment was also destroyed in the fire. The official death toll was 227 (215 soldiers, nine other passengers and three railway employees), but the Army later reduced their 215 figure by one. Not counted in the 227 were four victims thought to be children, but whose remains were never claimed or identified. The soldiers were buried together in a mass grave in Edinburgh's Rosebank Cemetery, where an annual remembrance is held.

An official inquiry, completed on 17 June 1915 for the Board of Trade, found the cause of the collision to be neglect of the rules by two signalmen. With the northbound loop occupied, the northbound local train had been reversed onto the southbound line to allow passage of two late-running northbound sleepers. Its presence was then overlooked, and the southbound troop train was cleared for passage. As a result, both signalmen were charged with manslaughter in England, then convicted of culpable homicide after a trial in Scotland; the two terms are broadly equivalent. After they were released from a Scottish jail in 1916, they were re-employed by the railway company, although not as signalmen.

Interesting stuff Gassey. Thanks

23 rd May 1934

Bonnie 'n' Clyde:
American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

Police kill famous outlaws Bonnie and Clyde

On May 23, 1934, notorious criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are shot to death by Texas and Louisiana state police near Sailes, Louisiana.

Bonnie Parker met the charismatic Clyde Barrow in Texas when she was 19 years old and her husband (she married when she was 16) was serving time in jail for murder. Shortly after they met, Barrow was imprisoned for robbery. Parker visited him every day, and smuggled a gun into prison to help him escape, but he was soon caught in Ohio and sent back to jail. When Barrow was paroled in 1932, he immediately hooked up with Parker, and the couple began a life of crime together.

After they stole a car and committed several robberies, Parker was caught by police and sent to jail for two months. Released in mid-1932, she rejoined Barrow. Over the next two years, the couple teamed with various accomplices to rob a string of banks and stores across five states—Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, New Mexico and Louisiana. To law enforcement agents, the Barrow Gang—including Barrow’s childhood friend, Raymond Hamilton, W.D. Jones, Henry Methvin, Barrow’s brother Buck and his wife Blanche, among others—were cold-blooded criminals who didn’t hesitate to kill anyone who got in their way, especially police or sheriff’s deputies. Among the public, however, Parker and Barrow’s reputation as dangerous outlaws was mixed with a romantic view of the couple as “Robin Hood”-like folk heroes.

Their fame was increased by the fact that Bonnie was a woman—an unlikely criminal—and by the fact that the couple posed for playful photographs together, which were later found by police and released to the media. Police almost captured the famous duo twice in the spring of 1933, with surprise raids on their hideouts in Joplin and Platte City, Missouri. Buck Barrow was killed in the second raid, and Blanche was arrested, but Bonnie and Clyde escaped once again. In January 1934, they attacked the Eastham Prison Farm in Texas to help Hamilton break out of jail, shooting several guards with machine guns and killing one.

Texan prison officials hired a retired Texas Ranger, Captain Frank Hamer, as a special investigator to track down Parker and Barrow. After a three-month search, Hamer traced the couple to Louisiana, where Henry Methvin’s family lived. Before dawn on May 23, Hamer and a group of Louisiana and Texas lawmen hid in the bushes along a country road outside Sailes. When Parker and Barrow appeared, the officers opened fire, killing the couple in a hail of bullets.

All told, the Barrow Gang was believed responsible for the deaths of 13 people, including nine police officers. Parker and Barrow are still seen by many as romantic figures, however, especially after the success of the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.

Good stuff Gassey, of which I didn’t know anything about.
They were immortalised in a 1967 film starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.
I think the film somewhat glamourised them, here is a piece of the promotional text that went with the trailer.
When Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow meet, they get attracted to each other.
Together, they choose the path of crime to earn easy money.
But they refuse to hurt people while going about their business.
A bit different to reality.

24 th May 1941

              World War 11, Battle of the Atlantic:
                                                                  World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German battleship Bismarck sinks the pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen.

On February 14, 1939, the 823-foot Bismarck was launched at Hamburg. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler hoped that the state-of-the-art battleship would herald the rebirth of the German surface battle fleet. However, after the outbreak of war, Britain closely guarded ocean routes from Germany to the Atlantic Ocean, and only U-boats moved freely through the war zone.

In May 1941, the order was given for the Bismarck to break out into the Atlantic. Once in the safety of the open ocean, the battleship would be almost impossible to track down, all the while wreaking havoc on Allied convoys to Britain. Learning of its movement, Britain sent almost the entire British Home Fleet in pursuit. On May 24, the British battle cruiser Hood and battleship Prince of Wales intercepted it near Iceland. In a ferocious battle, the Hood exploded and sank, and all but three of the 1,421 crewmen were killed. The Bismarck escaped, but because it was leaking fuel it fled for occupied France.

On May 26, the ship was sighted and crippled by British aircraft, and on May 27 three British warships descended on the Bismarck, inflicting heavy damage. By mid-morning, the pride of the German navy had become a floating wreck with numerous fires aboard, unable to steer and with her guns almost useless because she was listing badly to port. Soon, the command went out to scuttle the ship, and the Bismarck quickly sank. Of a 2,221-man crew, only 115 survived.

25 th May 2001

Blind man reaches summit of Everest:
Erik Weihenmayer becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in the Himalayas, with Dr. Sherman Bull.

Weihenmayer Reaches the Top

At 10:00 a.m. Nepal time on May 25, 2001, Erik Weihenmayer became the only blind man ever to stand on the summit of Mt. Everest. He was part of an incredibly strong, talented, and cohesive team, almost all of whom summited Everest that day and all of whom had worked hard for years to make the fulfillment of this dream possible.

The actual climbers were not the only ones to share the victory. A large base camp support team, loved ones at home, members of the National Federation of the Blind, and the other corporate sponsors and individual supporters and thousands of watchers around the world rejoiced in the triumph and kept right on worrying and praying that the weather would hold and that all the climbers would return safely to camp 4 at the end of the day and to base camp in two more days.

The base camp staff were an essential part of this amazingly cohesive team: Kevin Cherilla, base camp manager; Kim Johnson, film-crew base camp manager and photographer; and Maurice Peret, NFB communications manager. Special note must be made of Maurice's contribution. Blind Industries and Services of Maryland (BISM) released Maurice from his usual duties to take this assignment, which was to represent the NFB onsite and generate dispatches for the Web site that reflected the NFB's perspective on the expedition. All of these members of the team exhibited the same professionalism as did the eleven members of the climbing team and the two men charged with recording the event on film as they climbed alongside the team.

Four Everest records were set by our climbers on May 25: Erik Weihenmayer was the first blind man to summit Mt. Everest. Sherman Bull, a sixty-four-year-old surgeon, was the oldest person ever to reach the top. He and his son Bradford were the first father-son team to summit in the same climb. And our team of eleven Americans and eight Sherpas was the largest team to reach the top on the same day.

Two years ago Erik Weihenmayer, his father and business manager Ed, team leader Pasquale Scaturro, and President Maurer agreed that the NFB would sponsor a training expedition to Ama Dablam in the spring of 2000 and the 2001 expedition to Mt. Everest. Erik's determination to achieve his dreams and his refusal to let blindness stand in his way provided a powerful vehicle for the Federation's message that blind people can compete and can be adventurers in everything we undertake. We decided that giving Erik the opportunity to climb Mt. Everest would provide important name recognition for the NFB and call public attention to our positive philosophy of blindness.

26 May 946

Edmund 1 murder:

King Edmund I of England is murdered by a thief whom he personally attacks while celebrating St Augustine's Mass Day.

On May 26, 946, King Edmund was celebrating the feast of Saint Augustine at his estate in Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire. The king had guests over for the event, but one particular attendee present for the festivities had not been invited. His name was Liofa or Leofa, and he had been outlawed or exiled by the king at some time in the past. For unknown reasons, the outlaw decided to crash King Edmund’s party. The medieval sources gave little information as to why he was there and it is vague whether or not Liofa’s actions that day were premeditated or spontaneous. Whatever the case, the king and the outlaw fatefully crossed paths during the celebration. After being discovered, Liofa pulled out a blade and attacked King Edmund. Despite having won many battles and conquered several kingdoms, Edmund could not win in his final struggle against the single outlaw, Liofa. At only twenty-five years of age, King Edmund I was randomly stabbed to death and the crown passed to his brother, Eadred.