Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
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May 1 is the 121st day of the year (122nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 244 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1786, Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro premieres in Vienna
By 1786, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was probably the most experienced and accomplished 30-year-old musician the world has ever seen, with dozens of now-canonical symphonies, concertos, sonatas, chamber works and masses already behind him. He also had 18 operas to his name, but none of those that would become his most famous. Over the final five years of his life (he died in 1791), Mozart would compose four operas that are among the most important and popular in the standard repertoire. This remarkably productive period of creative, critical and popular success for Mozart began with Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), which received its world premiere in Vienna, Austria, on May 1, 1786.
305 – Diocletian and Maximian retire from the office of Roman Emperor.
1328 – Wars of Scottish Independence end: Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton – the Kingdom of England recognises the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state.
1707 – The Act of Union joins the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1753 – Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.
1759 – Josiah Wedgwood founds the Wedgwood pottery company in Great Britain.
1776 – Establishment of the Illuminati in Ingolstadt (Upper Bavaria), by Jesuit-taught Adam Weishaupt.
1778 – American Revolution: The Battle of Crooked Billet begins in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.
1785 – Kamehameha I, the king of Hawaii defeats Kalanikupule and establishes the Kingdom of Hawaii.
1786 – Opening night of the opera The Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Vienna, Austria.
1794 – War of the Pyrenees: The Battle of Boulou ends, in which French forces defeat the Spanish and regain nearly all the land they lost to Spain in 1793.
1840 – The Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, is issued in the United Kingdom.
1844 – Hong Kong Police Force, the world’s second, Asia’s first modern police force is established.
1846 – The few remaining Mormons left in Nauvoo, Illinois, formally dedicate the Nauvoo Temple.
1851 – Queen Victoria opens the Great Exhibition in London.
1852 – The Philippine peso is introduced into circulation.
1862 – American Civil War: The Union Army completes the Capture of New Orleans.
1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville begins.
1869 – The Folies Bergere opens in Paris.
1884 – Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States.
1884 – Moses Fleetwood Walker became the first black person to play in a professional baseball game in the United States.
1885 – The original Chicago Board of Trade Building opened for business.
1886 – Rallies were held throughout the United States demanding the eight-hour work day culminating in the Haymarket Affair.
1894 – Coxey’s Army, the first significant American protest march, arrives in Washington, D.C.
1898 – Spanish-American War: The Battle of Manila Bay – the United States Navy destroys the Spanish Pacific fleet in the first battle of the war.
1900 – The Scofield mine disaster kills over 200 men in Scofield, Utah in what is to date the fifth-worst mining accident in United States history.
1901 – The Pan-American Exposition opens in Buffalo, New York.
1915 – The RMS Lusitania departs from New York City on her two hundred and second, and final, crossing of the North Atlantic. Six days later, the ship is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 Americans, rousing American sentiment against Germany.
1927 – The first cooked meals on a scheduled flight are introduced on an Imperial Airways flight from London to Paris.
1927 – The Union Labor Life Insurance Company is founded by the American Federation of Labor.
1930 – The dwarf planet Pluto is officially named.
1931 – The Empire State Building is dedicated in New York City.
1940 – The 1940 Summer Olympics are cancelled due to war.
1941 – World War II: German forces launch
a major attack on Tobruk.
1945 – World War II: A German newsreader officially announces that Adolf Hitler has “fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany”.
1945 – The Yugoslav partisans free Trieste.
1946 – The Paris Peace Conference concludes that the islands of the Dodecanese should be returned to Greece by Italy.
1948 – The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) is established, with Kim Il-sung as leader.
1950 – Guam is organized as a United States commonwealth.
1956 – The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.
1956 – A doctor in Japan reports an “epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system”, marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.
1957 – 34 of 35 people aboard were killed when a Vickers Viking airliner crashed in Hampshire England.
1960 – Formation of the western Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra.
1960 – Cold War: U-2 incident – Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis.
1961 – The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaims Cuba a socialist nation and abolishes elections.
1965 – Battle of Dong-Yin, a naval conflict between ROC and PRC, takes place.
1970 – Protests erupt in Seattle, Washington, following the announcement by U.S. President Richard Nixon that U.S. Forces in Vietnam would pursue enemy troops into Cambodia, a neutral country.
1971 – Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) is formed to take over U.S. passenger rail service.
1977 – 36 people are killed in Taksim Square, Istanbul, during the Labour Day celebrations.
1978 – Japan’s Naomi Uemura, travelling by dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone.
1982 – The 1982 World’s Fair opens in Knoxville, Tennessee.
1982 – Operation Black Buck: The Royal Air Force attacks the Argentine Air Force during Falklands War.
1983 – Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis is awarded the Lenin Peace Prize.
1987 – Pope John Paul II beatifies Edith Stein, a Jewish-born Carmelite nun who was gassed in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
1989 – Disney-MGM Studios opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.
1991 – Rickey Henderson of the Oakland Athletics steals his 939th base, making him the all-time leader in this category. However, his accomplishment is overshadowed later that evening by Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers, when he pitches his seventh career no-hitter, breaking his own record.
1994 – Three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna is killed in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola.
1995 – Croatian forces launch Operation Flash during the Croatian War of Independence.
2001 – Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declares the existence of “a state of rebellion”, hours after thousands of supporters of her arrested predecessor, Joseph Estrada, storm towards the presidential palace at the height of the EDSA III rebellion.
2003 – 2003 invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the “Mission Accomplished” speech, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (off the coast of California), U.S. President George W. Bush declares that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended”.
2004 – Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin.
2006 – The Puerto Rican government closes the Department of Education and 42 other government agencies due to significant shortages in cash flow.
2007 – the Los Angeles May Day melee occurs, in which the Los Angeles Police Department’s response to a May Day pro-immigration rally become a matter of controversy.
2008 – The London Agreement on translation of European patents, concluded in 2000, enters into force in 14 of the 34 Contracting States to the European Patent Convention.
2009 – Same-sex marriage is legalized in Sweden.
2011 – Pope John Paul II is beatified by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.
2011 – Barack Obama announces that Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks is killed by United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Due to the time difference between the United States and Pakistan, bin Laden was actually killed on May 2.
Beginning of Summer observances (see April 30)* :
Beltane (Gaelic floklore, Neopagan Wheel of the Year)
Walpurgis Night, celebrated before dawn (Central and Northern Europe)
* Christian Feast Day:
Augustin Schoeffer
Andeolus
Saint Joseph
Brioc
James the Less
Memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker (Roman Catholic optional feast)
Philip the Apostle
Sigismund of Burgundy
Walpurga (cannonization)
May 1 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
* Constitution Day (Marshall Islands)
* Commemoration of the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat following the foundation of Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti:
Gujarat Day
Maharashtra Day
* Earliest day on which National Day of Prayer can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Thursday in May. (United States)
* Festival in honor of Bona Dea (Roman Empire)
* International Workers’ Day (International), and its related observances:
EuroMayDay (Western Europe)
Labor Day
Law Day, U.S.A., formerly intended to counterbalance the celebration of Labour Day. (United States)
Loyalty Day, formerly intended to counterbalance the celebration of Labour Day. (United States)
May Day, a term also used for the beginning of summer celebration.
* Lei Day (Hawaii)
* Moving Day (New York City, during the colonial period until c.1945)
* National Love Day, couples flock to the memorial of the poet Karel Hynek Macha in Prague and kiss. (Czech Republic)
* The first day of Yotaka Matsuri (Fukuno, Toyama)