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May 15

The Merchant's House Museum is a historic house museum at 29 East Fourth Street in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The four-story edifice, built by the hatter Joseph Brewster between 1831 and 1832 as a speculative development, was sold in 1835 to the merchant Seabury Tredwell. It was the Tredwell family's residence for almost a century, with the structure remaining in the family until the death of the youngest child in 1933. A distant relative purchased the building and in 1936 transformed it into a museum. It is the only 19th-century residence in Manhattan with its original exterior and interior intact. The museum's collection has more than 4,500 items owned by the Tredwell family, including pieces of furniture, clothing, household items, and personal items. The building's facade and interior are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is a National Historic Landmark. (Full article...)

May 15: Feast day of Saint Carthage (Catholicism); Nakba Day in Palestinian communities; Peace Officers Memorial Day in the United States

Statue of Valentinian II

• 392 – Roman emperor Valentinian II (pictured) was found hanged in his residence in Vienne, in present-day France.
• 1725 – Bach led the first performance of his cantata Ich bin ein guter Hirt, BWV 85, about Jesus as the Good Shepherd.
• 1855 – Thieves stole 224 pounds (102 kg) of gold from a train travelling from London to Folkestone, England.
• 1864 – American Civil War: A small Confederate force, which included cadets from the Virginia Military Institute, forced the Union army out of the Shenandoah Valley.
• 1916 – Jesse Washington, a teenage African-American farmhand, was lynched in Waco, Texas.

May 15

Kiwifruit is the edible berry of several species of woody vines in the genus Actinidia. The most common cultivar group of kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis var. deliciosa 'Hayward') is oval, 5–8 centimetres (2–3 inches) in length and 4.5–5.5 cm (1+3⁄4–2+1⁄4 in) in diameter. Kiwifruit has a thin, fuzzy, fibrous, tart but edible, light brown skin and light green or golden flesh with rows of tiny, black, edible seeds. Kiwifruit is native to central and eastern China, with the first recorded description dating back to the 12th century during the Song dynasty. In 2023, world kiwifruit production was 4.4 million tonnes, led by China with 55% of the total. This focus-stacked photograph shows the cross-section of a kiwifruit grown in Portugal. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus Recently featured: Lysander Spooner Cape Barren goose Xbox 360 Archive More featured pictures

May 16

iMac G4 with external peripherals

The iMac G4 is an all-in-one personal computer produced by Apple Computer from January 2002 to August 2004. It comprises a hemispheric base that holds the computer components and a flatscreen liquid-crystal display (LCD) mounted above. The computer, first released in 1998, helped save Apple from bankruptcy. Development of the iMac G4 took roughly two years, with Apple's designers exploring multiple ways of marrying the display screen with the computer components. Its shape was inspired by a sunflower, with the display connected to the base via an adjustable stainless-steel arm that allows the monitor to be freely tilted and swiveled. The product was a critical and commercial success for Apple, selling more than 1.3 million units in its first year, and it was updated with faster components and larger displays before being replaced by the iMac G5 in September 2004. The machine is held in the collections of multiple museums, including the Museum of Modern Art and Museums Victoria. (Full article...)

May 16: Global Accessibility Awareness Day (2024); Malcolm X Day in some parts of the United States (2025)

Junko Tabei

• 1426 – Mohnyin Thado captured Sagaing to become the king of Ava, in present-day Myanmar.
• 1605 – After a scuffle in which one cardinal received broken bones, a papal conclave convened in Rome elected Camillo Borghese as Pope Paul V.
• 1929 – The first Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
• 1975 – Japanese climber Junko Tabei (pictured) became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

May 16

The Church of the Good Shepherd, a Category 1 Historic Place at Lake Tekapo

There are thirty listed sites located in the Mackenzie District, a territorial authority in the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand. A large inland plain at the foothills of the Southern Alps, it was frequently visited by Māori hunting parties, but sparsely populated. European settlers established sheep runs in the area by the 1850s. Heritage New Zealand classifies sites on the New Zealand Heritage List / Rārangi Kōrero in accordance with the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014. It distinguishes between Category 1 ("places of special or outstanding historical or cultural significance") and Category 2 ("places of historic or cultural significance"). The Mackenzie District has three Category 1 sites, one historic area, and twenty-six Category 2 sites. An additional Category 2 site—the War Memorial in Fairlie—was demolished in 1999 and delisted. (Full list...)

May 16

Margaret Hamilton (December 9, 1902 – May 16, 1985) was an American entertainer and educator, with a fifty-year career in entertainment spanning theater, film, radio and television. She was best known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West and her Kansas counterpart Almira Gulch in the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film The Wizard of Oz. A former schoolteacher, she worked as a character actress in films for seven years before she was offered the role that defined her public image. In later years, Hamilton appeared in films and made frequent cameo appearances on television sitcoms and commercials. She also gained recognition for her work as an advocate of causes designed to benefit children and animals and retained a lifelong commitment to public education. This photograph shows Hamilton as Miss Eddels in Sid and Marty Krofft's Sigmund and the Sea Monsters c. 1973. Photograph credit: NBC Television Network; restored by Adam Cuerden Recently featured: Kiwifruit Lysander Spooner Cape Barren goose Archive More featured pictures

May 17

Habitable zones of TRAPPIST-1 and the Solar System

TRAPPIST-1 is a cool red dwarf star with seven known exoplanets. It lies in the constellation Aquarius about 40.66 light-years away from Earth. It has a mass of about 9% of the Sun and is estimated to be 7.6 billion years old, making it older than the Solar System. The discovery of the star was first published in 2000. Observations in 2016 from the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) led to the discovery of two orbiting terrestrial planets, and five more were found in 2017. It takes the seven planets between about 1.5 and 19 days to orbit around the star. They are likely tidally locked to TRAPPIST-1, leading to permanent day on one side and night on the other. Their masses are comparable to that of Earth. Up to four of the planets orbit at distances where temperatures are suitable for the existence of liquid water (diagram pictured), and are thus potentially hospitable to life. This has drawn interest from both researchers and popular culture. (Full article...)

May 17: International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia

Anne of Denmark

• 1590 – Anne of Denmark (pictured) was crowned the queen consort of Scotland in a ceremony at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.
• 1863 – American Civil War: At the Battle of Big Black River Bridge in Mississippi, Union forces under John A. McClernand defeated a Confederate rearguard and captured around 1,700 men.
• 1900 – The first copies of the children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum were printed.
• 1954 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, outlawing racial segregation in public schools because "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" and therefore unconstitutional.
• 1987 – An Iraqi jet fired two Exocet missiles at the American frigate USS Stark, killing 37 personnel and injuring 21 others.

May 17

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May 18

Margaret Sanger (September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, sex educator, and nurse. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, founded Planned Parenthood, and was instrumental in the development of the first birth control pill. She was an important first-wave feminist and believed that women should be able to decide if and when to have children. Sanger campaigned for the legalization of contraceptives by giving speeches, writing books, and breaking laws – leading to eight arrests. She endorsed both the Malthusianism and eugenics movements, believing that they would generate support for birth control. She established a network of dozens of birth control clinics, which provided services to hundreds of thousands of patients. She discouraged abortion, and her clinics never offered abortion services during her lifetime. Her activism led to the Griswold v. Connecticut decision, which legalized contraception. (Full article...)

May 18: Haitian Flag Day in Haiti (1803); Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Crimean Tatar Genocide in Ukraine

The Bath School after the explosions

• 1302 – Armed insurrectionists massacred the occupying French garrison in Bruges, Flanders, killing approximately 2,000 people.
• 1695 – An earthquake measuring M_s7.8 struck Shanxi Province in northern China, resulting in at least 52,600 deaths.
• 1927 – Disgruntled school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe set off explosives with timers and a rifle (aftermath pictured), causing the Bath School disaster in the Bath Consolidated School in Michigan, killing 44 people in the deadliest mass murder in a school in United States history.
• 2009 – The Sri Lanka Army killed Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader and founder of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to bring an end to the 26-year Sri Lankan civil war.

May 18

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May 19

Malcolm X (May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an African American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist. To his admirers, he advocated for the rights of African Americans and indicted white America for their actions against black Americans. His detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. After living in foster homes, Malcolm X was involved in criminal activity in Boston and New York. In 1945, he was sentenced to prison where he became a member of the Nation of Islam. After his parole, he became one of the Nation's leaders, its chief spokesmen, and its public face. Tension between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam, led to Malcolm X's departure from the organization in March 1964. Afterwards, he became a Sunni Muslim and made a pilgrimage to Mecca. He founded Muslim Mosque, Inc., a religious organization, and the secular, black nationalist Organization of Afro-American Unity. He was assassinated while giving a speech in New York. (Full article...)

May 19: Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day in Turkey (1919); Victoria Day in Canada (2025)

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

• 1655 – Anglo-Spanish War: England invaded Spanish Jamaica, capturing it a week later.
• 1743 – French physicist Jean-Pierre Christin published the design of a mercury thermometer using the centigrade scale, with 0 representing the melting point of water and 100 its boiling point.
• 1828 – The United States Congress passed the largest tariff in the nation's history, which resulted in severe economic hardship in the American South.
• 1915 – First World War: Australian and New Zealand troops repelled the third attack on Anzac Cove, inflicting heavy casualties on the attacking Ottoman forces.
• 2018 – The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (both pictured) took place at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, England.

May 19

Jeremy Allen White, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series winner

The 76th Primetime Emmy Awards honored the best in American prime time television programming from June 1, 2023, until May 31, 2024, as chosen by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The awards ceremony was held live on September 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Downtown Los Angeles, California, and was preceded by the 76th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards on September 7 and 8. During the ceremony, Emmy Awards were handed out in 25 different categories. At the main ceremony, Baby Reindeer, The Bear, and Shōgun tied for the most wins at four apiece, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series for Baby Reindeer and Outstanding Drama Series for Shōgun. Including Creative Arts Emmys, Shōgun led all programs with 18 wins, a record for a show in one year; FX led all networks and platforms with 36 total wins. (Full list...)

May 19

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May 20

Cher in 2019

Cher (born May 20, 1946) is an American singer and actress. Dubbed the "Goddess of Pop", she gained fame in 1965 as part of the folk duo Sonny & Cher, early exponents of 1960s counterculture. She became a TV star in the 1970s, with The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour drawing over 30 million viewers weekly, and topped the Billboard Hot 100 with narrative pop songs including "Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves" and "Half-Breed". Transitioning to film, she earned two Academy Awards nominations—for Silkwood (1983) and Moonstruck (1987), winning Best Actress for the latter—and received the Cannes Film Festival's Best Actress Award for Mask (1985). Her dance-pop comeback album Believe (1998) introduced the "Cher effect", a stylized use of Auto-Tune to distort vocals. Her 2002–2005 Farewell Tour grossed $250 million, the highest ever by a female artist at the time. A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Cher is the only solo artist with Billboard number-one singles in each of seven decades. (Full article...)

May 20: National Day of Remembrance in Cambodia (1975); National Awakening Day in Indonesia (1908)

• 325 – The First Council of Nicaea (depicted), the first ecumenical council of the Christian Church, was formally opened by Constantine the Great.
• 794 – According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, King Æthelberht II of East Anglia was beheaded on the orders of Offa of Mercia.
• 1714 – J. S. Bach led the first performance of his Pentecost cantata Erschallet, ihr Lieder at the chapel of Schloss Weimar.
• 1927 – With the signing of the Treaty of Jeddah, the United Kingdom recognized the sovereignty of Ibn Saud over Hejaz and Nejd, which later merged to become Saudi Arabia.
• 1941 – World War II: German paratroopers began the Battle of Heraklion on the island of Crete, capturing the airfield and port in Heraklion ten days later.

May 20

Rhina Aguirre Amézaga (20 May 1939 – 30 October 2021) was a Bolivian disability activist, politician, and sociologist who served as senator for Tarija from 2010 to 2015. An opponent of the military dictatorships of the 1970s and '80s, Aguirre was an early activist in the country's human rights movement. Exiled to Ecuador by the García Meza regime, she collaborated with Leonidas Proaño's Indigenous Ministry and worked closely with the country's peasant and social organizations. Blinded in both eyes by toxoplasmosis, Aguirre took up the cause of disability rights, joining the Departmental Council for Disabled Persons upon her return to Bolivia. In 2009, she joined the Movement for Socialism and was elected to represent Tarija in the Senate, becoming the first blind person in Bolivian history to assume a parliamentary seat. This photograph shows Aguirre in 2014. Photograph credit: Chamber of Senators Recently featured: Archive More featured pictures

May 21

The red-capped parrot (Purpureicephalus spurius) is a species of broad-tailed parrot native to southwest Western Australia. Described by Heinrich Kuhl in 1820, it is classified in its own genus owing to its distinctive elongated beak. Its closest relative is the mulga parrot. It is not easily confused with other parrot species; both adult sexes have a bright crimson crown, green-yellow cheeks, and a distinctive long bill. The wings, back, and long tail are dark green, and the underparts are purple-blue. Found in woodland and open savanna country, the red-capped parrot consumes seeds (particularly of eucalypts), flowers, berries, and occasionally insects. Nesting takes place in tree hollows. Although the red-capped parrot has been shot as a pest, and affected by land clearing, the population is growing and the species is not threatened. It has a reputation of being both anxious and difficult to breed in captivity. (Full article...)

May 21: World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development

Busoni c. 1897

• 1138 – The Crusades: The siege of Shaizar ended, and the Emir of Shaizar became a vassal of the Byzantine Empire.
• 1864 – American Civil War: The inconclusive Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia ended with combined Union and Confederate casualties totaling around 31,000.
• 1894 – The Manchester Ship Canal, linking Manchester in North West England to the Irish Sea, officially opened, becoming the world's largest navigation canal at the time.
• 1925 – The opera Doktor Faust, unfinished when composer Ferruccio Busoni (pictured) died, was premiered in Dresden.
• 2014 – A Taiwanese man carried out a stabbing spree on a Taipei Metro train, killing four people and injuring 24 others.

May 21

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May 22

Dracunculiasis, also called Guinea-worm disease, is a parasitic infection by the Guinea worm, Dracunculus medinensis. A person becomes infected by drinking water contaminated with Guinea-worm larvae, which penetrate the digestive tract and escape into the body. Around a year later, the adult female migrates to an exit site – usually the lower leg – and induces an intensely painful blister on the skin. Eventually, the blister bursts, creating a painful wound from which the worm gradually emerges. The wound remains painful throughout the worm's emergence, disabling the affected person for the three to ten weeks it takes the worm to emerge. There is no medication to treat or prevent dracunculiasis. Instead, the mainstay of treatment is the careful wrapping of the emerging worm around a small stick or gauze to encourage and speed up its exit. A disease of extreme poverty, there were 14 cases reported worldwide in 2023, as efforts continue to eradicate it. (Full article...)

May 22: National Maritime Day in the United States

Prayut Chan-o-cha

• 1766 – A magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck Constantinople and was followed by a tsunami that caused significant damage.
• 1874 – Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem was first performed in the San Marco church in Milan to commemorate the first anniversary of Alessandro Manzoni's death.
• 1998 – In Public Prosecutor v Taw Cheng Kong, the Court of Appeal of Singapore overruled a High Court decision in the only time a statute in Singapore had been ruled unconstitutional.
• 2014 – Prayut Chan-o-cha (pictured), the commander-in-chief of the Royal Thai Army, launched a coup d'état against the caretaker government following six months of political crisis.

May 22

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