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Today (May 4)
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May 4  Dorothy Olsen (1916–2019) was an American aircraft pilot and member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II. She developed an interest in aviation at a young age and earned her private pilot's license in 1939, when it was unusual for women to be pilots. In 1943, Olsen joined the newly formed WASPs as a civil service employee. After training in Texas, she was assigned to the Sixth Ferrying Group in Long Beach, California, where she worked ferrying new aircraft from the factories where they were built to U.S. airbases. She flew more than 20 types of military airplanes, including high-performance fighters – such as the P-51 and the twin-engine P-38 – which she favored over larger aircraft such as bombers. After the war, Olsen retired from flying and moved to the state of Washington, where she married, raised a family, and lived for the rest of her life. In 2009, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal honoring her service during the war. (Full article...)
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On this day
May 4: Youth Day in China; Literary Day in Taiwan; Star Wars Day  Pope Alexander VI
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May 4
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Tomorrow (May 5)
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May 5  Adele "Can I Get It" is a song by English singer Adele from her fourth studio album, 30 (2021). Adele wrote the song with its producers, Max Martin and Shellback. It was released by Columbia Records as the album's sixth track on 19 November 2021. A pop song with pop rock and country pop influences, "Can I Get It" has acoustic guitar, drum, and horn instrumentation and a whistled hook. The song is about moving on from a breakup and desiring a committed relationship, exploring Adele's search for true love and a new relationship. Music critics were generally positive about its acoustic portion and lyrics but highly criticised its whistled hook. They thought the brazen pop production of "Can I Get It" catered to the tastes of mainstream radio, which made it an outlier on 30, and compared it to Flo Rida's single "Whistle" (2012). The song reached the top 20 in Sweden, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, Finland, and Norway and entered the top 40 in some other countries. (This article is part of a featured topic: 30 (album).)
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On this day
May 5: Lixia begins in China (2024); Children's Day in Japan; Cinco de Mayo in Mexico and the United States  Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall
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May 5
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In two days (May 6)
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May 6  Kajioka Sadamichi, commander of the convoy The Take Ichi convoy was a Imperial Japanese Navy convoy of World War II. Under the command of Rear Admiral Sadamichi Kajioka (pictured), the convoy left Shanghai on 17 April 1944, carrying two infantry divisions to reinforce Japan's defensive positions in the Philippines and western New Guinea. United States Navy submarines attacked the convoy on 26 April and 6 May, sinking four transports and killing more than 4,000 soldiers. These losses caused the convoy to be diverted to Halmahera, where the surviving soldiers and their equipment were unloaded. The failure to bring the two divisions to their destination without loss contributed to the Imperial General Headquarters' decision to move Japan's defensive perimeter back by 1,000 km (600 mi). The divisions' combat power was also blunted by their losses, and while they both saw action against United States Army forces, they contributed little to Japan's attempt to defend its empire. (Full article...)
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On this day
 The Grand Palace in the 1860s
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May 6  Jennifer Aniston, who played Rachel The American sitcom Friends has earned many awards and nominations. The show aired on NBC from September 22, 1994, to May 6, 2004. During its run, it won six Primetime Emmy Awards from sixty-two nominations, including the Outstanding Comedy Series award in 2002 and acting wins for cast members Jennifer Aniston (pictured) and Lisa Kudrow. Friends was also nominated five times for the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy; Aniston won a Golden Globe in 2003 for her performance. In industry awards, it won two Screen Actors Guild Awards and earned nominations for awards from the Directors, Producers, and Writers Guilds of America. The show was a major popular success and received eleven People's Choice Awards and twelve Teen Choice Awards from audiences. After the show ended, it received the TCA Heritage Award in 2018 and four Emmy nominations for its 2021 reunion special. (Full list...) | |||
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May 6
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In three days (May 7)
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May 7  Front cover of the first edition The Structure of Literature is a 1954 book of literary criticism by Paul Goodman, the published version of his doctoral dissertation. It proposes a mode of formal literary analysis in which Goodman defines a formal structure within an isolated literary work, finds how parts of the work interact with each other to form a whole, and uses those definitions to study other works. He analyzes multiple literary works as examples with close reading and genre discussion. Goodman finished his dissertation in 1940, but took 14 years to publish it. In mixed reviews, critics described the book as falling short of its aims; engaging psychological insight and incisive asides were mired in glaring style issues and jargon that made passages impenetrable or obscured his argument. Though Goodman contributed to the development of the Chicago School of Aristotelian formal literary criticism, he neither received wide academic recognition for his dissertation nor was his method accepted by his field. (Full article...)
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On this day
 Maximilien Robespierre
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May 7
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In four days (May 8)
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May 8  Silhouette of Anna Blackburne Anna Blackburne (1726–1793) was an English botanist and collector. She was born at Orford Hall in Lancashire into a family of landowners and after her mother's death she remained there with her father, John Blackburne, who had hothouses for exotic plants and an extensive library. Blackburne taught herself Latin so she could read the Systema Naturae of Carl Linnaeus, and created a natural history museum where she collected insects, shells, minerals and birds. She knew the naturalist Johann Reinhold Forster, who instructed her in entomology, and corresponded with other naturalists including Linnaeus. Her brother Ashton, who lived in New York, sent her specimens of North American birds, which were described by the naturalist Thomas Pennant in his Arctic Zoology. After her father's death, Blackburne and her museum moved to nearby Fairfield Hall. After her death, her nephew John Blackburne inherited her collection. Several species are named for her, including the Blackburnian warbler. (Full article...)
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On this day
May 8: Anniversary of the birth of Miguel Hidalgo in Mexico (1753); Victory in Europe Day (1945)  Lady Blanche Arundell
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May 8
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In five days (May 9)
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May 9 .jpg) The horned sungem (Heliactin bilophus) is a species of hummingbird native to Brazil, Bolivia and Suriname. It prefers open habitats such as savanna, grassland and garden, and expanded its range into southern Amazonas and Espírito Santo, probably due to deforestation. It is a small hummingbird with a long tail and a short, black bill. The sexes differ in appearance, with males having two shiny red, golden, and green feather "horns" above the eyes, a shiny blue head crest and a black throat with a pointed "beard". The female is plainer, with a brown or yellow–buff throat. It is a nomadic species, responding to the seasonal flowering of its food plants. If a flower's shape is unsuited to the bird's short bill, it may rob nectar through a hole at its base. It also eats small insects. Only the female builds the small cup nest, incubates the two white eggs, and rears the chicks. The species is currently classified as least concern, and its population is thought to be increasing. (Full article...)
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On this day
May 9: Europe Day in the European Union; Liberation Day in the Channel Islands (1945)  Hotel Polen fire
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May 9
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In six days (May 10)
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May 10 .jpg) Jewish Museum in 2021 The Felix M. Warburg House is a mansion at 1109 Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was built from 1907 to 1908 for the German-American Jewish financier Felix M. Warburg, in the Châteauesque style, and designed by C. P. H. Gilbert. After Warburg's death in 1937, his widow sold it to a real estate developer. When plans to replace it with luxury apartments fell through, ownership reverted to the Warburgs, who donated it in 1944 to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. In 1947, the Seminary opened the Jewish Museum in the mansion. The house was named a New York City designated landmark in 1981 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. In 1993, Kevin Roche constructed an annex to the house in Gilbert's style, built with stone from the same quarry that supplied the original mansion. Critical reviews of the original house's architecture have generally been positive while the extension received a mixed reception. (Full article...)
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On this day
 One World Trade Center
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May 10  Pat Riley The 1970 NBA expansion draft was the fifth expansion draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on May 11, 1970, so that the newly founded Buffalo Braves, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Portland Trail Blazers could acquire players for the 1970–71 season. Buffalo, Cleveland, and Portland were awarded the expansion teams on February 6, 1970. The Braves' selections included six-time All-Star Bailey Howell, the Cavaliers' selections included All-Stars Don Ohl and Len Chappell, and the Blazers' selections included former first overall pick Fred Hetzel and former third pick Larry Siegfried. The Blazers also selected Pat Riley (pictured), who never played for the team, but went on to have a Hall of Fame coaching career, enshrined in 2008. (Full list...) | |||
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May 10
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In seven days (May 11)
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May 11  Leucippus was a Greek philosopher of the 5th century BCE. He is credited with founding atomism, with his student Democritus. Leucippus divided the world into two entities: atoms, indivisible particles that make up all things, and the void, the nothingness between the atoms. Leucippus's ideas were influential in ancient and Renaissance philosophy. They were a precursor to modern atomic theory, but the two are only superficially similar. Leucippus's atoms come in infinitely many forms, all in constant motion, creating a deterministic world created by the collisions of atoms. The soul is viewed as an arrangement of spherical atoms, cycled through the body by respiration and creating thought and sensory input. Little is known of his life, with a few scholars doubting that he existed, attributing his ideas purely to Democritus. Two works are attributed to Leucippus, The Great World System and On Mind, but all of his writing has been lost except for one sentence. (Full article...)
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 Frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra
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May 11
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