10th May — World Lupus Day
Welcome to 10th May! It's World Lupus Day. Explore 55 historical events, birthdays, deaths, and milestones that shaped this day. From remarkable moments in local and world history to the people who left their mark — find out what makes today special. Tonight's moon is in its first quarter phase, and the zodiac sign of the day is Taurus. If you're curious about the history of a day — this page brings together everything worth knowing about this 10th May.
10 May falls under the Taurus zodiac sign, a period associated with practicality and stability. The moon is in its first quarter phase, a time traditionally linked to growth and forward momentum. Astrologically, this positioning occurs midway through the spring season in the Northern Hemisphere.
On this day
On 10 May 1940, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned and formally recommended Winston Churchill as his successor, marking a significant turning point in British leadership during the Second World War. Churchill would go on to lead the country through the remainder of the conflict, becoming one of the most significant political figures of the twentieth century. This transition occurred as German forces simultaneously commenced their invasion of Belgium, intensifying pressure on British military and political leadership.
Over two decades later, on 10 May 1961, Rudolf Hess, the German Deputy Führer, parachuted into Scotland in an attempted peace negotiation with the British government. Hess's unauthorized mission reflected internal tensions within Nazi Germany and his personal belief that he could broker an armistice. His arrival in Scotland led to his immediate capture and subsequent trial as a war criminal, resulting in a life sentence.
World Lupus Day
World Lupus Day is observed annually on 10 May to raise awareness of systemic lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disease that predominantly affects women. The date was selected to coincide with the birth month of the disease's first documented cases. The day has been recognised internationally since 2004, when lupus organisations began coordinating global awareness campaigns. Health organisations and patient advocates use the occasion to improve understanding of the condition's symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment options.
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Explore everything about today 1st June.
Attraction finds those who've stopped chasing it with hunger.
Fortune of the Day
10th May in the Stars – Star Sign Taurus
Personality Profile
Personality People born on May 10th embody classic Taurus with a pronounced sensual dimension. They're grounded, reliable, and drawn to life's pleasures and beauty. Their calm steadiness makes them naturally trusted companions.
Strengths & Weaknesses Their greatest asset is unwavering endurance and practical skill. However, stubbornness can breed inflexibility, and they sometimes prioritize material security over flexibility and growth.
Love These individuals crave deep, stable partnerships and need physical closeness alongside emotional safety. Loyal and devoted, they build lasting relationships, though possessiveness can occasionally surface.
Caree & Finance Stable, well-compensated positions appeal naturally to them. They thrive in banking, skilled trades, and agriculture. Financial security matters greatly; they save prudently and build wealth systematically.
Health Their solid constitution is advantageous, but sedentary habits pose risks. Stress relief through nature and sensual practices like yoga or massage supports their wellbeing effectively.
That night, the moon was in its first quarter phase.
Chinese year of the Horse (Fire).
Fun Facts About 10th May
Name Days in Your Language: Cormac, Cormick, Gordon, Job, Jobina, Joby, Max, Maximilian, Maximus, Maxine, Maxwell
Someone born on this day would be just 22 days old today — roughly 540 hours, 32,450 minutes, or 1,947,018 seconds spent on Earth so far.
It's the 130. day of the year. In 2026, 10th May falls on a Sunday.
There are 235 days still to come.
We’re currently in Week 19 — the year marches on.
Famous Birthdays on 10th May
On this day, 121 notable people were born on 10th May — spanning from 874 to 2000. From world leaders to artists and scientists, discover who shares this birthday.
10/05/2000
Bae Jin-young, South Korean singer
Bae Jin-young is a South Korean singer and actor. He is a former member of South Korean boy groups CIX and Wanna One, after finishing tenth in the final rankings of Produce 101 season 2. Following Wanna One's disbandment, Bae Jinyoung debuted in CIX in July 2019 and departed from the group after his contract expired in August 2024.
10/05/1997
Brittany Broski, American comedian and singer
Brittany Alexis Tomlinson, known professionally as Brittany Broski, is an American influencer, podcaster, YouTuber, singer and comedian. She initially gained fame after a video of her tasting kombucha for the first time went viral on TikTok in 2019. She signed to United Talent Agency later that year and has since hosted the TikTok-produced podcast For You (2021), the pop culture-focused podcasts Violating Community Guidelines (2022–2023) with Sarah Schauer and The Broski Report (2023–present), and the YouTube talk show Royal Court (2023–present).
Richarlison, Brazilian footballer
Richarlison de Andrade, known simply as Richarlison, is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and the Brazil national team.
10/05/1996
Nicolas Aubé-Kubel, Canadian ice hockey player
Nicolas Aubé-Kubel is a Canadian professional ice hockey player. He is a right winger for the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League (AHL) while under contract to the Minnesota Wild of the National Hockey League (NHL). He previously played for the Philadelphia Flyers, Colorado Avalanche, Toronto Maple Leafs, Washington Capitals, Buffalo Sabres, and the New York Rangers. The Flyers selected him in the second round, 48th overall, of the 2014 NHL entry draft.
Tyus Jones, American basketball player
Tyus Robert Jones is an American professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Duke Blue Devils in his freshman season as part of the 2014–15 National Championship team. He is the older brother of NBA player Tre Jones.
Kateřina Siniaková, Czech tennis player
Kateřina Siniaková is a Czech professional tennis player. She is the world No. 1 in women's doubles, and has a career-best best singles ranking of world No. 27 by the WTA, achieved in June 2024.
Alex Tuch, American ice hockey player
Alex Daniel Tuch is an American professional ice hockey player who is a forward and alternate captain for the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was selected in the first round, 18th overall, by the Minnesota Wild in the 2014 NHL entry draft. Tuch has also previously played for the Vegas Golden Knights.
10/05/1995
Andrew Anderson, American bowler
Andrew Anderson of Holly, Michigan is a right-handed American professional ten-pin bowler known for winning the 2018 USBC Masters. He competes in events on the PBA Tour, and also bowls in global events as a multi-year and current member of Team USA. In his second full season on the PBA Tour (2018), Anderson won the Chris Schenkel PBA Player of the Year Award.
Missy Franklin, American swimmer
Melissa Franklin Johnson is an American former competitive swimmer and five-time Olympic gold medalist. She held the world record in the 200-meter backstroke from 2012 to 2019. As a member of the U.S. national swim team, she also held the world records in the 4×100-meter medley relay.
Gabriella Papadakis, French ice dancer
Gabriella Marie-Hélène Papadakis is a French retired ice dancer. With former partner Guillaume Cizeron, she is a 2022 Olympic champion, 2018 Olympic silver medalist, a five-time World champion, a five-time consecutive European champion (2015–2019), the 2017 and 2019 Grand Prix Final champion, and a seven-time French national champion. They have won ten gold medals on the Grand Prix series. Earlier in their career, they won silver at the 2012 Junior Grand Prix Final and at the 2013 World Junior Championships.
10/05/1993
Jake Zyrus, Filipino singer
Jake Zyrus, formerly known professionally as Charice Pempengco and under the mononym Charice, is a Filipino singer and television personality.
10/05/1990
Salvador Pérez, Venezuelan baseball player
Salvador Johan Perez Diaz, nicknamed "El Niño" and "Salvy", is a Venezuelan-American professional baseball catcher, designated hitter, and first baseman for the Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball (MLB). He is a nine-time MLB All-Star, five-time Gold Glove Award winner, five-time Silver Slugger Award winner, three-time All-MLB selection, Roberto Clemente Award winner, and received the World Series Most Valuable Player Award when the Royals won the 2015 World Series. Perez has played his entire career with the Royals, and was named the teams' captain in 2023.
Ivana Španović, Serbian long jumper
Ivana Španović is a Serbian long jumper and triple jumper. She is the 2023 World champion, a two-time World indoor champion, a two-time European champion, a three-time European indoor champion and a five-time Diamond League Trophy Winner. Considering her achievements and longevity, Ivana Španović is regarded as one of the greatest female long jumpers of all time, with her indoor 7.24m jump ranked 3rd in all-time records.
10/05/1988
Adam Lallana, English footballer
Adam David Lallana is an English professional football coach and former player who played as an attacking midfielder. He is currently manager of Southampton Under-21s.
10/05/1985
Ryan Getzlaf, Canadian ice hockey player
Ryan Getzlaf is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. Getzlaf played his entire NHL career with the Anaheim Ducks and is the franchise's all-time leading scorer. A first-round selection, 19th overall, at the 2003 NHL entry draft, he played in three NHL All-Star Games and was a member of the Ducks' 2007 Stanley Cup championship team. A playmaker and power forward, Getzlaf is the Ducks' all-time leader in games played, assists, and points and the all-time playoff leader in goals, assists and points. He led the Ducks in assists twelve times, including a franchise record of 66 in 2008–09, and in points eight times. Getzlaf joined the NHL's Department of Player Safety in 2024.
Farah Jacquet, Belgian politician
Farah Jacquet is a Belgian politician and member of the Chamber of Representatives. A member of the Workers' Party of Belgium, she has represented Namur since June 2024.
Jon Schofield, English canoe racer
Jon Schofield is a British canoeist. He partnered with Liam Heath in the men's kayak double 200m sprint event, and they have won a bronze in K-2 200 at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and a silver at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the same event. They have also won gold at the European Championships three times as well as silver and bronze medals at the World Championships.
10/05/1984
Edward Mujica, Venezuelan baseball player
Edward José Mujica is a Venezuelan former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Cleveland Indians, San Diego Padres, Florida/Miami Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, Oakland Athletics, and Detroit Tigers.
10/05/1982
Adebayo Akinfenwa, English footballer
Saheed Adebayo Akinfenwa is an English former professional footballer who played as a striker. Nicknamed "The Beast", he was renowned for his huge physical prowess and goalscoring ability, in a career where he amassed more than 200 goals.
10/05/1981
Humberto Suazo, Chilean footballer
Humberto Andrés Suazo Pontivo, nicknamed Chupete (Lollipop) or El hombre venido del planeta gol, is a Chilean football manager and former footballer who played as a striker. He is the head coach San Luis de Quillota.
10/05/1978
Kenan Thompson, American actor and comedian
Kenan Thompson is an American actor and comedian. He has been a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live since 2003, making him the longest-tenured cast member in the show's history. He was also the first regular cast member born after the show's premiere in 1975. Outside of SNL, Thompson starred on NBC's sitcom Kenan from 2021 to 2022.
10/05/1977
Adrian Morley, English rugby league player
Adrian Paul Morley is an English former professional rugby league footballer who played as a prop or second-row forward. With a reputation as a tough, uncompromising competitor, Morley was the first British player to become a Grand Final winner in both the National Rugby League (NRL) and Super League.
10/05/1975
Hazem Emam, Egyptian footballer and politician
Hazem Mohamed Yehia El Horria Mohamed Emam is an Egyptian retired professional footballer who played as an attacking midfielder. He is member in House of Representatives and former board member of Egyptian Football Association and Zamalek SC.
Hélio Castroneves, Brazilian race car driver
Hélio Castroneves is a Brazilian auto racing driver. He currently competes in the Stock Car Pro Series for Mercado Livre Racing and competes part-time in the IndyCar Series, driving the No. 06 Dallara-Honda for Meyer Shank Racing.
Ueli Kestenholz, Swiss snowboarder (died 2026)
Ueli Kestenholz was a Swiss snowboarder and speed riding pioneer.
10/05/1974
Sylvain Wiltord, French footballer
Sylvain Claude Wiltord is a French former professional footballer. Mainly a right winger, he also played as a centre-forward, second striker and on the left wing.
10/05/1970
David Weir, Scottish footballer
David Gillespie Weir is a Scottish football coach and former professional player who was most recently the technical director of Premier League club Brighton & Hove Albion.
10/05/1969
Dennis Bergkamp, Dutch footballer and manager
Dennis Nicolaas Maria Bergkamp is a Dutch professional football coach and former player. Originally a wide midfielder, Bergkamp was moved to main striker while still a teenager and then played as a deeper lying forward for the remainder of his career.
John Scalzi, American author and blogger
John Michael Scalzi II is an American science fiction author and former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his Old Man's War series, three novels of which have been nominated for the Hugo Award, and for his blog Whatever, where he has written on a number of topics since 1998. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2008 based predominantly on that blog, which he has also used for several charity drives. He has written non-fiction books and columns on diverse topics such as finance, video games, films, astronomy, writing and politics, and served as a creative consultant for the TV series Stargate Universe.
10/05/1968
Al Murray, English comedian and television host
Alastair James Hay Murray is an English comedian.
William Regal, English wrestler
Darren Kenneth Matthews, better known by the ring name William Regal, is an English retired professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he serves as the vice-president of Global Talent Development. He is also known for his tenures in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and All Elite Wrestling (AEW), having served as a manager in the latter promotion.
10/05/1967
Eion Crossan, New Zealand rugby player
Eion Crossan is a New Zealand former Rugby Footballer who played Rugby Union for Southland and Bay of Plenty between 1987 and 1996, and Rugby League for the South Sydney Rabbitohs and Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks between 1992 and 1995.
10/05/1966
Jonathan Edwards, English triple jumper
Jonathan David Edwards is an English former triple jumper. He is an Olympic, double World, European, European indoor and Commonwealth champion, and has held the world record in the event since 1995. Edwards is widely regarded as the greatest triple-jumper in history.
10/05/1965
Linda Evangelista, Canadian model
Linda Evangelista is a Canadian fashion model. She is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential models of all time, and has been featured on over 700 magazine covers. Evangelista is primarily known for being the longtime muse of photographer Steven Meisel, as well as for the phrase: "We don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day."
Greg Fasala, Australian swimmer
Gregory John Fasala is an Australian former sprint freestyle swimmer of the 1980s, who won a silver medal in the 4×100-metre freestyle relay at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Paul Langmack, Australian rugby league player and coach
Paul Langmack is an Australian former rugby league coach and representative and premiership-winning player. Langmack won three premierships with the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs in the mid-eighties. He later joined the Western Suburbs Magpies to become just the fifth player to play 100 games with two different teams. He played 314 first grade games of NRL. Langmack is the younger brother of former Parramatta and Penrith footballer Peter Langmack.
10/05/1963
Lisa Nowak, American commander and astronaut
Lisa Marie Nowak is an American aeronautical engineer, former NASA astronaut, and retired United States Navy officer. Nowak served as naval flight officer and test pilot in the Navy, and was selected by NASA for NASA Astronaut Group 16 in 1996, qualifying as a mission specialist in robotics. She flew in space aboard Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-121 mission in July 2006, when she was responsible for operating the robotic arms of the shuttle and the International Space Station. In 2007, Nowak was involved in a highly publicized incident of criminal misconduct for which she eventually pleaded guilty to felony burglary and misdemeanor battery charges, resulting in her demotion from captain to commander, termination by NASA, and forced retirement from the Navy.
10/05/1962
Robby Thompson, American baseball player and coach
Robert Randall Thompson is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played his entire career in Major League Baseball (1986–1996) with the San Francisco Giants where he was their starting second baseman for eleven straight years. Although he was often overshadowed by his contemporary, Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg, Thompson was a two-time All-Star player who served as a catalyst for the powerful Giants offense led by Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell during the team's resurgence in the late 1980s.
10/05/1960
Bono, Irish singer-songwriter, musician and activist
Paul David Hewson, known by the nickname Bono, is an Irish singer-songwriter and activist. He is a founding member, the lead vocalist, and primary lyricist of the rock band U2. Bono is known for his impassioned vocal style as well as his grandiose songwriting and performance style. His lyrics frequently include social and political themes, and religious imagery inspired by his Christian faith.
Dean Heller, American lawyer and politician, United States Senator from Nevada
Dean Arthur Heller is an American businessman and politician who served as a United States senator representing Nevada from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 15th secretary of state of Nevada from 1995 to 2007 and U.S. representative for Nevada's 2nd congressional district from 2007 to 2011. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Governor Brian Sandoval and elected to a full term in the 2012 election. Heller was defeated in the 2018 election, losing to Democrat Jacky Rosen, and was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Nevada in 2022. As of 2025, he is the last Republican to have won a U.S. Senate race in Nevada.
Kerry Hemsley, Australian rugby league player
Kerry Hemsley is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1970s and 1980s. He played for the Balmain Tigers in the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) competition, primarily as a prop.
Merlene Ottey, Jamaican-Slovenian runner
Merlene Joyce Ottey is a Jamaican-Slovenian former track and field sprinter. She began her career representing Jamaica in 1978 and continued to do so for 24 years before representing Slovenia from 2002 to 2012. She is ranked sixth on the all-time list over 60 metres (indoor), eleventh on the all-time list over 100 metres and seventh on the all-time list over 200 metres. She is the current world indoor record holder for 200 metres with 21.87 seconds, set in 1993. She was named Jamaican Sportswoman of the Year 13 times between 1979 and 1995.
10/05/1959
Victoria Rowell, American actress
Victoria Lynn Rowell is an American actress, screenwriter, director, and producer. She began her career as a ballet dancer and model before making her acting debut in the 1987 comedy film Leonard Part 6. In 1990, Rowell joined the cast of the CBS daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless as Drucilla Winters, her signature and longest role on television, for which she was nominated for three Daytime Emmy Awards. She departed from the show in 2007. Rowell is also well known for her role as Dr. Amanda Bentley in the CBS medical crime drama Diagnosis: Murder (1993–2001). From 1993 to 2000, she appeared on both series simultaneously.
Cindy Hyde-Smith, American politician, United States Senator from Mississippi
Cindy Hyde-Smith is an American politician and lobbyist serving since 2018 as the junior United States senator from Mississippi. A member of the Republican Party, she served from 2012 to 2018 as the Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce and from 2000 to 2012 in the Mississippi State Senate.
10/05/1958
Rick Santorum, American lawyer and politician, United States Senator from Pennsylvania
Richard John Santorum is an American politician, attorney, author, and former CNN political commentator, who represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1995 to 2007. He was the Senate's third-ranking Republican during the final six years of his tenure. He also ran unsuccessfully for president of the United States in the 2012 Republican primaries, finishing second to Mitt Romney.
10/05/1957
Sid Vicious, English singer and bass player (died 1979)
John Simon Ritchie, better known by his stage name Sid Vicious, was an English musician, best known as the second bassist for the punk rock band Sex Pistols. After his death in 1979 at the age of 21, he remained an icon of the punk subculture; one of his friends noted that he embodied "everything in punk that was dark, decadent and nihilistic".
10/05/1956
Mickey Faerch, Danish-Canadian burlesque dancer and actress
Mickey Mae Faerch, also known as Mickey Mae and Yung Mae, is a Danish-Canadian burlesque dancer, actress, and rapper who appeared in the films Sincerely Saul (2024), Josie (2018), Run! Bitch Run! (2009), and was inducted into the Burlesque Hall of Fame.
Vladislav Listyev, Russian journalist (died 1995)
Vladislav Nikolayevich Listyev was a Soviet, later Russian journalist and head of the ORT TV Channel.
10/05/1955
Chris Berman, American sportscaster
Christopher James Berman, nicknamed "Boomer", is an American sportscaster. He has been an anchor for SportsCenter on ESPN for decades starting a month after its initial launch in 1979 and joined ABC in 2020. He hosted ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown program from 1985 to 2016 and NFL Primetime from 1987 to 2005 and since 2019. He has also anchored Monday Night Countdown, U.S. Open golf, the Stanley Cup Final, and other programming on ESPN and ABC Sports. Berman calls play-by-play of select Major League Baseball games for ESPN, which included the Home Run Derby until 2016.
Mark David Chapman, American murderer
Mark David Chapman is an American man who murdered musician John Lennon in New York City on December 8, 1980. As Lennon walked into the archway of the Dakota, his apartment building on the Upper West Side, Chapman fired five shots at him from a few yards away with a Charter Arms Undercover .38 Special revolver; Lennon was hit four times from the back. He was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival. Chapman remained at the scene following the shooting and made no attempt to flee or resist arrest.
10/05/1954
Mike Hagerty, American actor (died 2022)
Michael Gerard Hagerty was an American actor. He was known for playing comedic blue-collar workers, including his recurring roles as Mr. Treeger, the building superintendent, on Friends and the manager of a muffler shop on HBO's Lucky Louie.
10/05/1952
Sly Dunbar, Jamaican musician (died 2026)
Lowell Fillmore "Sly" Dunbar was a Jamaican drummer, best known as one half of the prolific Jamaican rhythm section and reggae production duo Sly and Robbie.
10/05/1949
Miuccia Prada, Italian fashion designer
Miuccia Bianchi Prada is an Italian billionaire fashion designer and businesswoman. She is the head designer of Prada and the founder of its subsidiary Miu Miu. As of October 2021, Forbes estimated her net worth at US$4.8 billion. In August 2021, Bloomberg estimated her net worth to be $6.6 billion, ranking 430th in the world.
10/05/1946
Donovan, Scottish singer-songwriter
Donovan Phillips Leitch is a Scottish musician, songwriter and record producer. He emerged from the British folk scene in early 1965 and subsequently scored numerous international hit singles and albums during the late 1960s. His work became emblematic of the flower power era with its blend of folk, pop, psychedelia and jazz stylings.
Biruté Galdikas, Canadian primatologist and conservationist (died 2026)
Birutė Marija Filomena Galdikas or Biruté Mary Galdikas was a Canadian anthropologist, primatologist, conservationist, ethologist and author. She was a professor at Simon Fraser University. In the field of primatology, Galdikas was recognized as a leading authority on orangutans. Prior to her field study of orangutans, scientists knew little about the species.
Graham Gouldman, English guitarist and songwriter
Graham Keith Gouldman is an English musician. He is best known as the co-lead singer and bassist of the art rock band 10cc. He has been the band's only constant member since its formation in 1972. Before 10cc, Gouldman worked as a freelance songwriter and penned many hits for major rock and pop groups, including the Yardbirds, the Hollies, Herman's Hermits and Ohio Express.
Dave Mason, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2026)
David Thomas Mason was an English singer-songwriter and guitarist who came to prominence in 1967 as a founding member of the rock band Traffic. He wrote and sang lead vocals on two of the band's best known songs, "Hole in My Shoe" and "Feelin' Alright?" His song "Only You Know and I Know" became a signature song for Delaney & Bonnie, and his 1977 solo hit, "We Just Disagree", has become a staple of U.S. classic hits and adult contemporary radio playlists.
10/05/1944
Marie-France Pisier, French actress, director, and screenwriter (died 2011)
Marie-France Pisier was a French actress, screenwriter, and director. She appeared in numerous films of the French New Wave, and twice earned the national César Award for Best Supporting Actress.
10/05/1943
Raquel Blandón, Guatemalan lawyer and activist, First Lady of Guatemala (died 2024)
Haydee Raquel Blandón Sandoval was a Guatemalan lawyer, activist, and political leader who served as the first lady of Guatemala from 1986 to 1991, as the wife of President Vinicio Cerezo. She was the nominee for the Renewed Democratic Liberty party for vice president of Guatemala in the 2011 election as Manuel Baldizón's running mate.
Judith Jamison, American dancer and choreographer (died 2024)
Judith Ann Jamison was an American dancer and choreographer. She danced with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater from 1965 to 1980 and was Ailey's muse. She later returned to be the company's artistic director from 1989 until 2011, and then its artistic director emerita. She received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001, and the Handel Medallion, New York City's highest cultural honor, in 2010.
10/05/1942
Jim Calhoun, American basketball player and coach
James A. Calhoun is an American former college basketball coach. He is best known for his tenure as head coach of the University of Connecticut (UConn) men's basketball team. His teams won three NCAA national championships, played in four Final Fours, won the 1988 NIT title, and won seventeen Big East Championships, which include 7 Big East tournament championships and 10 Big East regular season. With his team's 2011 NCAA title win, the 68-year-old Calhoun became the oldest coach to win a Division I men's basketball title. He won his 800th game in 2009 and finished his NCAA Division I career with 873 victories, ranking 11th all time as of February 2019. From 2018 to 2021, he served as head coach of the University of Saint Joseph men's basketball team. Calhoun is one of only six coaches in NCAA Division I history to win three or more championships, and he is widely considered one of the greatest coaches of all time. In 2005, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
10/05/1940
Arthur Alexander, American country-soul singer-songwriter (died 1993)
Arthur Alexander was an American country-soul songwriter and singer. Jason Ankeny, music critic for AllMusic, said Alexander was a "country-soul pioneer" and that, though largely unknown, "his music is the stuff of genius, a poignant and deeply intimate body of work on par with the best of his contemporaries." Alexander's songs were covered by such stars as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Otis Redding, Tina Turner, Pearl Jam, Rick Nelson and Jerry Lee Lewis.
10/05/1938
Manuel Santana, Spanish tennis player (died 2021)
Manuel Santana Martínez, also known as Manolo Santana, was a Spanish tennis player. He was ranked as amateur world No. 1 in 1965 by Ned Potter and in 1966 by Lance Tingay and Sport In The USSR.
10/05/1935
Larry Williams, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer (died 1980)
Lawrence Eugene Williams was an American rhythm and blues and rock and roll singer, songwriter, and pianist from New Orleans. He is most notable for writing and recording some rock and roll classics from 1957 to 1959 for Specialty Records, including "Bony Moronie", "Short Fat Fannie", "Slow Down", "Dizzy, Miss Lizzy" (1958), "Bad Boy" and "She Said Yeah" (1959). John Lennon was an admirer, and the Beatles and several other British Invasion groups recorded several of his songs.
10/05/1933
Barbara Taylor Bradford, British novelist (died 2024)
Barbara Taylor Bradford was a British-American best-selling novelist. Her debut novel, A Woman of Substance, was published in 1979 and sold over 30 million copies worldwide. She wrote 40 novels, often about young women of humble beginnings who rise through their hard work in business. Her books were translated into 40 languages and sold more than 90 million copies; ten of her books were also adapted as television miniseries and television movies. Her commercial success amassed a large fortune and she was awarded several honorary degrees and made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her literary contributions.
10/05/1931
Ettore Scola, Italian director and screenwriter (died 2016)
Ettore Scola was an Italian screenwriter and film director. He received a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film in 1978 for his film A Special Day and over the course of his film career was nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.
10/05/1930
George E. Smith, American physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2025)
George Elwood Smith was an American applied physicist and a co-inventor of the charge-coupled device (CCD). Smith shared one half of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics with Willard Boyle "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor."
10/05/1929
George Coe, American actor and producer (died 2015)
George Coe was an American actor.
Antonine Maillet, Canadian writer and scholar (died 2025)
Antonine Maillet was an Acadian novelist, playwright and scholar.
10/05/1928
Arnold Rüütel, Estonian agronomist and politician, President of Estonia (died 2024)
Arnold Rüütel was an Estonian politician. He was the third President of Estonia from 8 October 2001 to 9 October 2006. Rüütel was the second president of the country after the end of the 1944–1991 Soviet occupation, and the restoration of the independent Republic of Estonia on 20 August 1991.
Lothar Schmid, German chess player (died 2013)
Lothar Maximilian Lorenz Schmid was a German chess grandmaster. He was born in Radebeul in Saxony into a family who were the co-owners of the Karl May Press, which published the German Karl May adventure novels.
10/05/1926
Hugo Banzer, Bolivian general and politician, President of Bolivia (died 2002)
Hugo Banzer Suárez was a Bolivian politician and military officer who served as the 51st president of Bolivia. He held the Bolivian presidency twice: from 1971 to 1978 as a military dictator; and then again from 1997 to 2001, as a democratically elected president.
10/05/1923
Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan general and politician, President of Azerbaijan (died 2003)
Heydar Alirza oghlu Aliyev was an Azerbaijani politician who was a Soviet party boss in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic from 1969 to 1982, and the third president of Azerbaijan from 1993 to 2003.
10/05/1922
David Azrieli, Polish-Canadian businessman and philanthropist (died 2014)
David Joshua Azrieli was an Israeli-Canadian tycoon, real estate developer, architect, and philanthropist. With an estimated net worth of US$3.1 billion in March 2013, he was ranked by Forbes as the ninth-wealthiest Canadian and the 401st wealthiest person overall.
Nancy Walker, American actress, singer, and director (died 1992)
Nancy Walker was an American actress of stage, screen, and television. She was also an occasional film and television director. During her five-decade-long career, she had long-running roles as Mildred on McMillan & Wife and as Ida Morgenstern on several episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and on the spinoff series Rhoda as a prominent recurring character.
10/05/1920
Bert Weedon, English guitarist (died 2012)
Herbert Maurice William Weedon was an English guitarist whose style of playing was popular and influential during the 1950s and 1960s. He was the first British guitarist to have a hit record in the UK singles chart, in 1959, and his best-selling tutorial, Play in a Day, was a major influence on many leading British musicians, such as Eric Clapton, Brian May and Paul McCartney. He was awarded an OBE in 2001 for services to music.
10/05/1919
Ella T. Grasso, Governor of Connecticut (died 1981)
Ella Rosa Giovianna Oliva Grasso was an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the 83rd governor of Connecticut from January 8, 1975, to December 31, 1980, after rejecting past offers of candidacies for Senate and governor. She was the first woman elected governor in Connecticut and the fourth woman to be elected governor of a U.S. state. She is also the first female governor to not be the spouse or widow of a former governor. She resigned as governor due to her battle with ovarian cancer.
10/05/1915
Denis Thatcher, English businessman, Spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 2003)
Sir Denis Thatcher, 1st Baronet, was an English businessman and the husband of Margaret Thatcher, who served as the first female British prime minister from 1979 to 1990; thus, he became the first male prime ministerial spouse.
10/05/1909
Maybelle Carter, American autoharp player (died 1978)
"Mother" Maybelle Carter was an American country musician and "among the first" to use the Carter scratch, with which she "helped to turn the guitar into a lead instrument." It was named after her. She was a member of the original Carter Family act from the late 1920s until the early 1940s and a member of the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle group.
10/05/1908
Carl Albert, American lawyer and politician, 54th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (died 2000)
Carl Bert Albert was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 46th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977 and represented Oklahoma's 3rd congressional district as a Democrat from 1947 to 1977.
10/05/1905
Alex Schomburg, Puerto Rican artist and illustrator (died 1998)
Alexander A. Schomburg, born Alejandro Schomburg y Rosa, was a Puerto Rican commercial artist and comic-book artist and painter whose career lasted over 70 years.
10/05/1904
Frieda Belinfante, Dutch musician and LGBT member of the Dutch resistance (died 1995)
Frieda Belinfante was a Dutch cellist, philharmonic conductor, a prominent lesbian, and a member of the Dutch resistance during World War II. After the war, Belinfante emigrated to the United States and continued her career in music. She was the founding artistic director and conductor of the Orange County Philharmonic.
10/05/1903
Otto Bradfisch, German economist, jurist, and SS officer (died 1994)
Otto Bradfisch was an economist, a jurist, an SS-Obersturmbannführer, leader of Einsatzkommando 8 of Einsatzgruppe B of the Security Police and the SD, and Commander of the Security Police in Litzmannstadt (Łódź) and Potsdam.
10/05/1902
David O. Selznick, American producer and screenwriter (died 1965)
David O. Selznick was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive who produced Gone with the Wind (1939) and Rebecca (1940), both of which earned him an Academy Award for Best Picture. He also won the Irving Thalberg Award at the 12th Academy Awards, Hollywood's top honor for a producer, in recognition of his shepherding Gone with the Wind through a long and troubled production and into a record-breaking blockbuster.
10/05/1901
John Desmond Bernal, Irish-English crystallographer and physicist (died 1971)
John Desmond Bernal was an Irish scientist who pioneered the use of X-ray crystallography in molecular biology. He published extensively on the history of science. In addition, Bernal wrote popular books on science and society. He was a communist activist and a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).
10/05/1900
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, English-American astronomer and astrophysicist (died 1979)
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist. Her work on the cosmic makeup of the universe and the nature of variable stars was foundational to modern astrophysics.
10/05/1899
Fred Astaire, American actor, singer, and dancer (died 1987)
Fred Astaire was an American dancer, actor, singer, musician, choreographer, and presenter, whose career in stage, film, and television spanned 76 years. He is widely regarded as the "greatest popular-music dancer of all time". He received an Honorary Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Grammy Award.
10/05/1898
Ariel Durant, American historian and author (died 1981)
Ariel Durant was a Ukrainian-born American researcher and writer. She was the coauthor of The Story of Civilization with her husband, Will Durant. They were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
10/05/1897
Einar Gerhardsen, Norwegian politician, Prime Minister of Norway (died 1987)
Einar Henry Gerhardsen was a Norwegian politician who served as the prime minister of Norway from 1945 to 1951, 1955 to 1963 and 1963 to 1965. With a total of 17 years in office, he is the longest-serving prime minister in Norway since the introduction of parliamentarism. He was the leader of the Labour Party from 1945 to 1965.
10/05/1895
Joe Murphy, (Irish-American), died during the 1920 Cork hunger strike (died 1920)
Joseph Patrick Murphy was an Irish militant and Republican activist who was one of 22 Irish Republicans who died on hunger strike in the 20th century. He was an officer in the Irish Republican Army who died as a result of his participation in the 1920 Cork hunger strike at Cork Gaol.
10/05/1894
Dimitri Tiomkin, Ukrainian-American composer and conductor (died 1979)
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian and American film composer and conductor. Classically trained in Saint Petersburg before the Bolshevik Revolution, he moved to Berlin and then New York City after the Russian Revolution. In 1929, after the stock market crash, he moved to Hollywood, where he became best known for his scores for Western films, including Duel in the Sun, Red River, High Noon, The Big Sky, 55 Days at Peking, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Rio Bravo, and Last Train from Gun Hill.
10/05/1893
Tonita Peña, San Ildefonso Pueblo (Native American) artist (died 1949)
Tonita Peña born as Quah Ah and also known as Tonita Vigil Peña and María Antonia Tonita Peña, was a renowned Pueblo artist, specializing in pen and ink on paper embellished with watercolor. She was a well-known and influential Native American artist and art teacher of the early 1920s and 1930s.
10/05/1891
Mahmoud Mokhtar, Egyptian sculptor and academic (died 1934)
Mahmoud Mukhtar was an Egyptian sculptor. He attended the College of Fine Arts in Cairo upon its opening in 1908 by Prince Yusuf Kamal, and was part of the original "Pioneers" of the Egyptian Art movement. Despite his early death, he greatly impacted the realization and formation of contemporary Egyptian art. His work is credited with signaling the beginning of the Egyptian modernist movement, and he is often referred to as the father of modern Egyptian sculpture.
10/05/1890
Alfred Jodl, German general (died 1946)
Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl was a German military officer and convicted war criminal who served as the Chief of the Operations Staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht – the German Armed Forces High Command – throughout World War II.
10/05/1888
Max Steiner, Austrian-American composer and conductor (died 1971)
Maximilian Raoul Steiner was an Austrian composer and conductor who emigrated to America and became one of Hollywood's greatest musical composers.
10/05/1886
Karl Barth, Swiss theologian and author (died 1968)
Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian. Barth is best known for his commentary The Epistle to the Romans, his involvement in the Confessing Church, including his authorship of the Barmen Declaration, and especially his unfinished multi-volume theological summa the Church Dogmatics. Barth's influence expanded well beyond the academic realm to mainstream culture, leading him to be featured on the cover of Time on 20 April 1962.
Olaf Stapledon, English novelist and philosopher (died 1950)
William Olaf Stapledon was an English philosopher and author of science fiction. In 2014, he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
10/05/1879
Symon Petliura, Ukrainian journalist and politician (died 1926)
Symon Vasyliovych Petliura was a Ukrainian revolutionary, politician and journalist. He was the Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian People's Army (UNA) and led the Ukrainian People's Republic during the Ukrainian War of Independence, a part of the wider Russian Civil War.
10/05/1878
Konstantinos Parthenis, Greek painter (died 1967)
Konstantinos Parthenis was a Greek painter. Born in Alexandria, part of the Greek community in Egypt, Parthenis broke with the Greek academic tradition of the 19th century and introduced modern elements together with traditional themes, like the figure of Christ, in his art.
Gustav Stresemann, German journalist and politician, Chancellor of Germany, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1929)
Gustav Ernst Stresemann was a German statesman during the Weimar Republic who served as chancellor of Germany from August to November 1923 and as foreign minister from 1923 to 1929. His most notable achievement was the reconciliation between Germany and France, for which he and French Prime Minister Aristide Briand received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926. During a period of political instability and fragile, short-lived governments, Stresemann was seen at his death as "the person who maintained the precarious balance of the political system."
10/05/1876
Ivan Cankar, Slovenian poet and playwright (died 1918)
Ivan Cankar was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, poet, and political activist. Together with Oton Župančič, Dragotin Kette, and Josip Murn, he is considered as the beginner of modernism in Slovene literature. He is regarded as the greatest writer in Slovene, and has sometimes been compared to Franz Kafka and James Joyce.
10/05/1872
Marcel Mauss, French sociologist and anthropologist (died 1950)
Marcel Israël Mauss was a French sociologist and anthropologist known as the "father of French ethnology". The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss, in his academic work, crossed the boundaries between sociology and anthropology. Today, he is perhaps better recognised for his influence on the latter discipline, particularly with respect to his analyses of topics such as magic, sacrifice and gift exchange in different cultures around the world. Mauss had a significant influence upon Claude Lévi-Strauss, the founder of structural anthropology. His most famous work is The Gift (1925).
10/05/1855
Yukteswar Giri, Indian guru and educator (died 1936)
Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri is the monastic name of Priya Nath Karar, an Indian monk and yogi, and the guru of Paramahansa Yogananda and Swami Satyananda Giri. Born in Serampore, West Bengal, Sri Yukteswar was a Kriya yogi, a Jyotishi, a scholar of the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, an educator, author, and astronomer. He was a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya of Varanasi and a member of the Giri branch of the Swami order. As a guru, he had two ashrams, one in Serampore and another in Puri, Odisha, between which he alternated his residence throughout the year as he trained disciples.
10/05/1847
Wilhelm Killing, German mathematician and academic (died 1923)
Wilhelm Karl Joseph Killing was a German mathematician who made important contributions to the theories of Lie algebras, Lie groups, and non-Euclidean geometry.
10/05/1843
Benito Pérez Galdós, Spanish author and playwright (died 1920)
Benito María de los Dolores Pérez Galdós was a Spanish realist novelist and politician. He was a leading literary figure in 19th-century Spain, and some scholars consider him second only to Miguel de Cervantes in stature as a Spanish novelist.
10/05/1841
James Gordon Bennett Jr., American publisher and broadcaster (died 1918)
James Gordon Bennett Jr. was an American publisher. He was the publisher of the New York Herald, founded by his father, James Gordon Bennett Sr. (1795–1872), who emigrated from Scotland. He was generally known as Gordon Bennett to distinguish him from his father. Among his many sports-related accomplishments he organized both the first polo match and the first tennis match in the United States, and he won the first trans-oceanic yacht race. He sponsored explorers including Henry Morton Stanley's trip to Africa to find David Livingstone, and the ill-fated USS Jeannette attempt on the North Pole.
10/05/1838
John Wilkes Booth, American actor, assassin of Abraham Lincoln (died 1865)
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated United States president Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. A member of the prominent 19th-century Booth theatrical family from Maryland, he was a noted actor who was also a Confederate sympathizer; denouncing Lincoln, he lamented the then-recent abolition of slavery in the United States.
10/05/1813
Montgomery Blair, American lieutenant and politician, 20th United States Postmaster General (died 1883)
Montgomery Blair was an American politician and lawyer from Maryland. He served in the Lincoln administration cabinet as Postmaster-General from 1861 to 1864, during the Civil War. He was the son of Francis Preston Blair, elder brother of Francis Preston Blair Jr. and cousin of B. Gratz Brown.
10/05/1812
William Henry Barlow, English engineer (died 1902)
William Henry Barlow was an English civil engineer of the 19th century, particularly associated with railway engineering projects. Barlow was involved in many engineering enterprises. He was engineer for the Midland Railway on its London extension and designed the company's London terminus at St Pancras.
10/05/1793
R. E. B. Baylor, American politician and jurist (died 1873)
Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor was an American statesman, jurist, ordained Baptist minister, war veteran, slave owner, and a co-founder and the namesake of Baylor University. According to Thomas R. Phillips and James W. Paulsen, he was one of the most productive justices on the Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas.
10/05/1788
Augustin-Jean Fresnel, French physicist and engineer (died 1827)
Augustin-Jean Fresnel was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, fully supplanting Newton's corpuscular theory, from the late 1830s until the end of the 19th century. He is perhaps better known for inventing the catadioptric (reflective/refractive) Fresnel lens and for pioneering the use of "stepped" lenses to extend the visibility of lighthouses, saving countless lives at sea. The simpler dioptric stepped lens, first proposed by Count Buffon and independently reinvented by Fresnel, is used in screen magnifiers and in condenser lenses for overhead projectors.
10/05/1770
Louis-Nicolas Davout, French general and politician, French Minister of War (died 1823)
Louis-Nicolas d'Avout, better known as Davout, 1st Prince of Eckmühl, 1st Duke of Auerstaedt, was a French military commander and Marshal of the Empire who served during both the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. His talent for war, along with his reputation as a stern disciplinarian, earned him the nickname "The Iron Marshal". He is ranked as one of Napoleon's finest commanders, and also stands among the most outstanding military commanders of the modern era.
10/05/1760
Johann Peter Hebel, German author and poet (died 1826)
Johann Peter Hebel was a German short story writer, dialectal poet, Lutheran theologian and pedagogue, most famous for a collection of Alemannic lyric poems and one of German tales.
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, French captain, engineer, and composer (died 1836)
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle was a French army officer of the French Revolutionary Wars. Lisle is known for writing La Marseillaise and it became the French national anthem.
10/05/1755
Robert Gray, American captain and explorer (died 1806)
Robert Gray was an American merchant sea captain who is known for his achievements in connection with two trading voyages to the northern Pacific coast of North America, between 1787 and 1793, which pioneered the American maritime fur trade in that region. In the course of those voyages, Gray explored portions of that coast and in the year 1790 he completed the first American circumnavigation of the world. He was also noted for coming upon and naming the Columbia River, in 1792, while on his second voyage.
10/05/1727
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune, French economist and politician (died 1781)
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de l'Aulne, commonly known as Turgot, was a French economist and statesman. Sometimes considered a physiocrat, he is today best remembered as an early advocate for economic liberalism. He is thought to have been the first political economist to have postulated something like the law of diminishing marginal returns in agriculture.
10/05/1697
Jean-Marie Leclair, French violinist and composer (died 1764)
Jean-Marie Leclair l'aîné was a French Baroque violinist and composer. He is considered to have founded the French violin school. His brothers, the lesser-known Jean-Marie Leclair the younger (1703–77) as well as Pierre Leclair (1709–84) and Jean-Benoît Leclair, were also musicians.
10/05/1604
Jean Mairet, French author and playwright (died 1686)
Jean (de) Mairet was a classical French dramatist who wrote both tragedies and comedies.
10/05/1491
Suzanne, Duchess of Bourbon (died 1521)
Suzanne de Bourbon was suo jure Duchess of Bourbon and Auvergne from 1503 to her death alongside her husband Charles III.
10/05/0955
Al-Aziz Billah, Fatimid caliph (died 996)
Abu Mansur Nizar, known by his regnal name as al-Aziz Billah, was the fifth caliph of the Fatimid dynasty, from 975 to his death in 996. His reign saw the capture of Damascus and the Fatimid expansion into the Levant, which brought al-Aziz into conflict with the Byzantine emperor Basil II over control of Aleppo. During the course of this expansion, al-Aziz took into his service large numbers of Turkic and Daylamite slave-soldiers, thereby breaking the near-monopoly on Fatimid military power held until then by the Kutama Berbers.
10/05/0874
Meng Zhixiang, Chinese general and emperor (died 934)
Meng Zhixiang, courtesy name Baoyin (保胤), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Gaozu of Later Shu (後蜀高祖), was the founding emperor of the Chinese Later Shu dynasty during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.
Lives Remembered on 10th May
On 10th May, 62 remarkable people passed away — from 1299 to 2024. Remember the lives and legacies of those we lost on this day.
10/05/2024
Sam Rubin, American journalist (born 1960)
Sam Rubin was an American journalist who served as the entertainment reporter for the KTLA Morning News and as a television host of entertainment talk shows and specials. He reported on the entertainment industry for over thirty years and interviewed many Hollywood stars. He was also the co-author of two biographies, one on the former first lady Jacqueline Onassis and another about actress Mia Farrow.
Jim Simons, American hedge fund manager, mathematician, and philanthropist (born 1938)
James Harris Simons was an American hedge fund manager, investor, mathematician, and philanthropist. At the time of his death, Simons's net worth was estimated to be $31.4 billion, making him the 55th-richest person in the world. He was the founder of Renaissance Technologies, a quantitative hedge fund based in East Setauket, New York. He and his fund are known to be quantitative investors, using mathematical models and algorithms to make investment gains from market inefficiencies. Due to the long-term aggregate investment returns of Renaissance and its Medallion Fund, Simons was called the "greatest investor on Wall Street" and more specifically "the most successful hedge fund manager of all time".
10/05/2022
Bob Lanier, American professional basketball player (born 1948)
Robert Jerry Lanier Jr. was an American professional basketball player. He played center for the Detroit Pistons and the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Lanier was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.
Leonid Kravchuk, Ukrainian politician (born 1934)
Leonid Makarovych Kravchuk was a Ukrainian politician who served as the first president of Ukraine from 5 December 1991 to 19 July 1994. Kravchuk's presidency was marked by Ukraine achieving independence from the Soviet Union, the handover of its post-Soviet nuclear arsenal and an economic crisis that ultimately resulted in him losing re-election. Prior to his presidency, he was Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. After leaving office, he served as a People's Deputy of Ukraine for the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united).
10/05/2021
Pauline Tinsley, British soprano (born 1928)
Pauline Cecilia Tinsley was a British soprano, notable for her performances for the Welsh National Opera and the English National Opera (1963–1974).
10/05/2020
Betty Wright, American soul singer (born 1953)
Bessie Regina Norris, better known by her stage name Betty Wright, was an American soul and R&B singer, songwriter and background vocalist. Beginning her professional career in the late 1960s as a teenager, Wright rose to fame in the 1970s with hits such as "Clean Up Woman" and "Tonight Is the Night". Wright was also prominent in her use of whistle register.
10/05/2019
Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, Spanish politician and chemist (born 1951)
Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba was a Spanish statesman, politician and chemist who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Spain from 2010 to 2011, and previously as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993, as Minister of the Presidency from 1993 to 1996, as Minister of the Interior from 2006 to 2011 and as acting Minister of Defence between May and June 2008.
10/05/2018
David Goodall, Australian botanist and ecologist (born 1914)
David William Goodall was an English-born Australian botanist and ecologist. He was influential in the early development of statistical methods in plant communities. He worked as researcher and professor in England, Australia, Ghana and the United States. He was editor-in-chief of the 30-volume Ecosystems of the World series of books, and author of over 100 publications. He was known as Australia's oldest working scientist, still editing ecology papers at age 103. Long an advocate of voluntary euthanasia legalisation, he ended his own life in Switzerland via physician-assisted suicide aged 104.
10/05/2015
Chris Burden, American sculptor, illustrator, and academic (born 1946)
Christopher Lee Burden was an American artist working in performance art, sculpture, and installation art. Burden became known in the 1970s for his performance art works, including Shoot (1971), where he arranged for a friend to shoot him in the arm with a small-caliber rifle. A prolific artist, Burden created many well-known installations, public artworks, and sculptures before his death in 2015.
10/05/2012
Horst Faas, German photographer and journalist (born 1933)
Horst Faas was a German photo-journalist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. He is best known for his images of the Vietnam War.
Carroll Shelby, American race car driver and designer (born 1923)
Carroll Hall Shelby was an American automotive designer, racing driver, and entrepreneur.
Gunnar Sønsteby, Norwegian captain and author (born 1918)
Gunnar Fridtjof Thurmann Sønsteby DSO was a member of the Norwegian resistance movement during the German occupation of Norway in World War II. Known by the nickname "Kjakan" and as "Agent No. 24", he was the most highly decorated citizen in Norway, including being the only person to have been awarded the War Cross with three swords, Norway's highest military decoration.
10/05/2010
Frank Frazetta, American illustrator and painter (born 1928)
Frank Frazetta was an American artist known for themes of fantasy and science fiction, noted for comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers, and other media. He is often referred to as the "Godfather of fantasy art", and one of the most renowned illustrators of the 20th century. He was also the subject of a 2003 documentary Painting with Fire.
10/05/2008
Leyla Gencer, Turkish soprano (born 1928)
Leyla Gencer also known as La Diva Turca was a Turkish operatic soprano.
10/05/2006
Soraya, Colombian-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (born 1969)
Soraya Raquel Lamilla Cuevas was a Colombian-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, arranger and record producer.
10/05/2003
Milan Vukcevich, Serbian-American chemist and chess player (born 1937)
Milan R. Vukcevich was a Serbian-American chemist, a grandmaster of chess problem composition and writer.
10/05/2002
Kaifi Azmi, Indian poet and songwriter (born 1919)
Kaifi Azmi was an Indian Urdu poet. He is remembered as the one who brought Urdu literature to Indian motion pictures. Together with Pirzada Qasim, Jaun Elia and others he participated in many memorable Mushaira gatherings of the twentieth century. He was also a communist who wanted to see India one day become a socialist state. His wife was theatre and film actress Shaukat Kaifi.
Yves Robert, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1920)
Yves Robert was a French actor, screenwriter, director, and producer.
10/05/2001
Sudhakarrao Naik, Indian politician, Governor of Himachal Pradesh (born 1934)
Sudhakarrao Rajusing Naik was an Indian politician from Indian National Congress party who served as Chief Minister of Maharashtra from 25 June 1991 until 22 February 1993 following the communal riots. He also served as Governor of Himachal Pradesh from 1994 to 1995 He had given the new shape to the Panchayat Raj, started the continuous election process in Panchayat Raj systems all over the state, as desired by the former Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi, decentralisation of power and faster decision making process being motive of bringing back the Panchayat Raj in full-fledged functioning. He is called as the hero of Jalkranti, who started the irrigation revolution in the State of Maharashtra.
10/05/2000
Jules Deschênes, Canadian lawyer and judge (born 1923)
Jules Deschênes, was a Canadian Quebec Superior Court judge.
Dick Sprang, American illustrator (born 1915)
Richard W. Sprang was an American comic book artist and penciller, best known for his work on the superhero Batman during the period fans and historians call Golden Age of Comic Books. Sprang was responsible for the 1950 redesign of the Batmobile and the original design of the Riddler, who has appeared in film, television and other media adaptations. Sprang's Batman was notable for his square chin, expressive face and barrel chest.
10/05/1999
Shel Silverstein, American poet, author, and illustrator (born 1930)
Sheldon Allan Silverstein was an American writer, cartoonist, songwriter, and musician. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Silverstein briefly attended college before being drafted into the United States Army. During his rise to prominence in the 1950s, his illustrations were published in various newspapers and magazines, including the adult-oriented Playboy. He also wrote a satirical, adult-oriented alphabet book, Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book.
10/05/1994
John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer (born 1942)
John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer and sex offender who raped, tortured and murdered at least thirty-three young men and boys between 1972 and 1978 in Norwood Park Township, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. He became known as the "Killer Clown" due to his public performances as a clown prior to the discovery of his crimes.
10/05/1990
Walker Percy, American novelist and essayist (born 1916)
Walker Percy, OblSB was an American writer whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is noted for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans; his first, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction.
10/05/1989
Dominik Tatarka, Slovak writer (born 1913)
Dominik Tatarka was a Slovak writer famous for his 1956 satirical text The Demon of Consent condemning Stalinism.
10/05/1988
Shen Congwen, Chinese author and academic (born 1902)
Shen Congwen, formerly romanized as Shen Ts'ung-wen, was a Chinese writer who is considered one of the greatest modern Chinese writers, on par with Lu Xun. Regional culture and identity plays a much bigger role in his writing than that of other major early modern Chinese writers. He was known for combining the vernacular style with classical Chinese writing techniques. Shen is the most important of the "native soil" writers in modern Chinese literature. Shen Congwen published many excellent compositions in his life, the most famous of which is the novella Border Town. This story is about the old ferryman and his granddaughter Cuicui's love story. Shen Congwen and his wife Zhang Zhaohe were married in 1933, Shen Congwen and Zhang Zhaohe had two sons and one daughter after their marriage.
10/05/1982
Peter Weiss, German playwright and painter (born 1916)
Peter Ulrich Weiss was a German writer, painter, graphic artist, and experimental filmmaker of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance.
10/05/1977
Joan Crawford, American actress (year of birth disputed)
Joan Crawford was an American actress. She began her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion-picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her roles, Crawford launched a publicity campaign and built an image as a nationally known flapper by the end of the 1920s. By the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hardworking young women who manage to find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money. By the end of the 1930s, she was labeled "box office poison".
10/05/1974
Hal Mohr, American director and cinematographer (born 1894)
Harold Leon "Hal" Mohr, A.S.C. was a famed movie cinematographer, noted for shooting The Jazz Singer, Hollywood's landmark semi-talkie. Mohr won an Oscar for his work on the 1935 film, A Midsummer Night's Dream, another for the 1943 version of The Phantom of the Opera, and received an Oscar nomination for lensing the 1952 film of Jan de Hartog's The Fourposter.
10/05/1968
Scotty Beckett, American actor and singer (born 1929)
Scott Hastings Beckett was an American actor. He began his career as a child actor in the Our Gang shorts and later costarred on Rocky Jones, Space Ranger.
10/05/1965
Hubertus van Mook, Dutch politician, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (born 1894)
Hubertus Johannes "Huib" van Mook was a Dutch administrator in the East Indies. During the Indonesian National Revolution, he served as the lieutenant governor-general of the Dutch East Indies from 1942 to 1948. Van Mook also had a son named Cornelius van Mook who studied marine engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also wrote about Java - and his work on Kota Gede is a good example of a colonial bureaucrat capable of examining and writing about local folklore.
10/05/1964
Mikhail Larionov, Russian painter, illustrator, and set designer (born 1881)
Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov was a Russian avant-garde painter who worked with radical exhibitors and pioneered the first approach to abstract Russian art. He was founding member of two important artistic groups Knave of Diamonds and the more radical Donkey's Tail. His lifelong partner was fellow avant-garde artist, Natalia Goncharova, with whom they worked on Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in France and Switzerland.
10/05/1960
Yury Olesha, Russian author, poet, and playwright (born 1899)
Yury Karlovich Olesha was a Russian and Soviet novelist. He is considered one of the greatest Russian novelists of the 20th century, one of the few to have succeeded in writing works of lasting artistic value despite the stifling censorship of the era. His works are delicate balancing acts that superficially send pro-Communist messages but reveal far greater subtlety and richness upon a deeper reading. Sometimes, he is grouped with his friends Ilf and Petrov, Isaac Babel, and Sigismund Krzhizhanovsky into the Odessa School of Writers.
10/05/1950
Belle da Costa Greene, American librarian and bibliographer (born 1883)
Belle da Costa Greene was an American librarian who managed and developed the personal library of J. P. Morgan. After Morgan died in 1913, Greene continued as librarian for his son, Jack Morgan, and in 1924 was named the first director of the Pierpont Morgan Library. Despite being born to black parents, Greene spent her professional career passing for white.
10/05/1945
Richard Glücks, German SS officer (born 1889)
Richard Glücks was a high-ranking German SS functionary during the Nazi era. From November 1939 until the end of World War II, he commanded the Concentration Camps Inspectorate, later integrated into the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office as "Amt D". Reporting first to Theodor Eicke, then to SS chief Heinrich Himmler and finally to Oswald Pohl, he became Inspector of Concentration Camps. He retained this position despite Himmler, in whose presence Glücks would panic, having little confidence in him. Glücks was responsible for the forced labour of camp inmates and was the supervisor for the medical practices in the camps, ranging from Nazi human experimentation to the implementation of the "Final Solution", in particular the mass murder of inmates with Zyklon B gas. After Germany capitulated, Glücks committed suicide by swallowing a potassium cyanide capsule.
Konrad Henlein, Czech soldier and politician (born 1898)
Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein was a Sudeten German politician in Czechoslovakia, before World War II. After Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia, he became the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Reichsgau Sudetenland.
10/05/1910
Stanislao Cannizzaro, Italian chemist and academic (born 1826)
Stanislao Cannizzaro was an Italian chemist. He is famous for the Cannizzaro reaction and for his influential role in the atomic-weight deliberations of the Karlsruhe Congress in 1860.
10/05/1897
Andrés Bonifacio, Filipino soldier and politician, President of the Philippines (born 1863)
Andrés Bonifacio was a Filipino revolutionary leader. He is often called "The Father of the Philippine Revolution", considered a national hero of the Philippines.
10/05/1891
Carl Nägeli, Swiss botanist and mycologist (born 1817)
Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli was a Swiss botanist. He studied cell division and pollination but became known as the man who discouraged Gregor Mendel from further work on genetics. He rejected natural selection as a mechanism of evolution, favouring orthogenesis, though the term was only coined in 1893, two years after his death, driven by a supposed "inner perfecting principle".
Peter Ward, New York politician (born 1827)
Peter Ward was a New York businessman and politician. From 1851–1859, Ward was the superintendent of the Newburgh Branch of the Erie Railroad. He also worked for the New York, Ontario and Western Railway and the New Jersey Southern Railroad. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the mayor of Newburgh, New York, from March 13, 1882, to March 11, 1884. In 1889, Ward was elected in a special election to represent the 13th district in the New York State Senate following the death of Senator Henry R. Low. He was sworn in on February 11, 1889, and served until the completion of the 112th New York State Legislature on December 31, 1889. Ward died on May 10, 1891, aged 63, just months after having his tongue removed in surgery.
10/05/1889
Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Russian journalist, author, and playwright (born 1826)
Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin, born Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov and known during his lifetime by the pen name Nikolai Shchedrin, was a major Russian writer and satirist of the 19th century. He spent most of his life working as a civil servant in various capacities. After the death of poet Nikolay Nekrasov, he acted as editor of a Russian literary magazine Otechestvenniye Zapiski until the Tsarist government banned it in 1884. In his works Saltykov mastered both stark realism and satirical grotesque merged with fantasy. His most famous works, the family chronicle novel The Golovlyov Family (1880) and the novel The History of a Town (1870), also translated as Foolsburg, became important works of 19th-century fiction, and Saltykov is regarded as a major figure of Russian literary Realism.
10/05/1868
Henry Bennett, American lawyer and politician (born 1808)
Henry Bennett was an American lawyer and politician who served five terms as a United States representative from New York from 1849 to 1859.
10/05/1865
William Armstrong, American lawyer, civil servant, politician, and businessperson (born 1782)
William Armstrong was an American lawyer, civil servant, politician, and businessperson. He represented Hampshire County in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1818 to 1820, and Virginia's 16th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1825 to 1833.
10/05/1863
Stonewall Jackson, American general (born 1824)
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was a Confederate general and military officer who served during the American Civil War. He played a prominent role in nearly all military engagements in the eastern theater of the war until his death. Military historians regard him as one of the most gifted tactical commanders in U.S. history.
10/05/1849
Hokusai, Japanese painter and illustrator (born 1760)
Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. His woodblock print series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji includes the iconic print The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Hokusai was instrumental in developing ukiyo-e from a style of portraiture largely focused on courtesans and actors into a much broader style of art that focused on landscapes, plants, and animals. His works had a significant influence on Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet during the wave of Japonisme that spread across Europe in the late 19th century.
10/05/1829
Thomas Young, English physician and linguist (born 1773)
Thomas Young was a British polymath who made notable contributions to the fields of vision, light, solid mechanics, energy, physiology, language, musical harmony, and Egyptology. He was instrumental in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs, specifically the Rosetta Stone.
10/05/1818
Paul Revere, American engraver and soldier (born 1735)
Paul Revere was an American silversmith, military officer and industrialist who played a major role during the opening months of the American Revolutionary War in Massachusetts, engaging in a midnight ride in 1775 to alert nearby minutemen of the approach of British troops prior to the battles of Lexington and Concord.
10/05/1807
Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, French general (born 1725)
Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau was a French Royal Army officer who played a critical role in the American victory at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 during the American Revolutionary War. He was commander-in-chief of the Expédition Particulière, the French expeditionary force sent to North America during the conflict. He worked closely and well with George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.
10/05/1798
George Vancouver, English navigator and explorer (born 1757)
Captain George Vancouver was an English Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for leading the Vancouver Expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what became the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California. The expedition also explored the Hawaiian Islands and the southwest coast of Australia.
10/05/1794
Élisabeth of France, French princess and youngest sibling of Louis XVI (born 1764)
Élisabeth of France, also known as Madame Élisabeth, was a French princess. She was the youngest child of Louis, Dauphin of France, and Duchess Maria Josepha of Saxony, and she was a sister of King Louis XVI. Élisabeth's father, the Dauphin, was the son and heir of King Louis XV and his popular wife, Queen Marie Leszczyńska. Élisabeth remained beside her brother and his family during the French Revolution, and she was executed during the Reign of Terror at the Place de la Révolution. The cause for her beatification and canonization has been introduced by the Catholic Church, and she has been declared a Servant of God by Pope Pius XII.
10/05/1787
William Watson, English physician, physicist, and botanist (born 1715)
Sir William Watson, FRS was a British physician and scientist who was born and died in London. His early work was in botany, and he helped to introduce the work of Carl Linnaeus into England. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1741 and vice president in 1772. He was knighted in 1786.
10/05/1774
Louis XV, King of France (born 1710)
Louis XV, known as Louis the Beloved, was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity in 1723, the kingdom was ruled by his grand-uncle Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, as Regent of France. Cardinal Fleury was chief minister from 1726 until his death in 1743, at which time the king took sole control of the kingdom.
10/05/1726
Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans, English soldier and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire (born 1670)
Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St. Albans, KG was an illegitimate son of King Charles II of England by his mistress Nell Gwyn.
10/05/1717
John Hathorne, American merchant and politician (born 1641)
John Hathorne was a merchant and magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Salem, Massachusetts. He is best known for his early and vocal role as one of the leading judges in the Salem witch trials.
10/05/1641
Johan Banér, Swedish field marshal (born 1596)
Johan Banér was a Swedish field marshal in the Thirty Years' War.
10/05/1569
John of Ávila, Spanish mystic and saint (born 1500)
John of Ávila was a Spanish priest, preacher, scholastic author, and religious mystic, who has been declared a saint and Doctor of the Church by the Catholic Church. He is called the "Apostle of Andalusia", for his extensive ministry in that region.
10/05/1566
Leonhart Fuchs, German physician and botanist (born 1501)
Leonhart Fuchs, sometimes spelled Leonhard Fuchs and cited in Latin as Leonhartus Fuchsius, was a German physician and botanist. His chief notability is as the author of a large book about plants and their uses as medicines, a herbal, which was first published in 1542 in Latin. It has about 500 accurate and detailed drawings of plants, which were printed from woodcuts. The drawings are the book's most notable advance on its predecessors. Although drawings had been used in other herbal books, Fuchs's book proved and emphasized high-quality drawings as the most telling way to specify what a plant name stands for.
10/05/1521
Sebastian Brant, German author (born 1457)
Sebastian Brant was a German humanist and satirist. He is best known for his satire Das Narrenschiff.
10/05/1493
Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll, Scottish politician, Lord Chancellor of Scotland (born 1433)
Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll was a medieval Scottish nobleman, peer, and politician. He was the son of Archibald Campbell, Master of Campbell and Elizabeth Somerville, daughter of John Somerville, 3rd Lord Somerville. He had the sobriquet Colin Mulle, Bold Earl Colin.
10/05/1482
Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, Italian mathematician and astronomer (born 1397)
Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli was an Italian mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer. Born in Florence, he was a notable local Renaissance figure. Christopher Columbus carried his map on his first voyage to the New World.
10/05/1403
Katherine Swynford, widow of John of Gaunt
Katherine, Duchess of Lancaster was the third wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of King Edward III. From her earlier marriage, she is known as Katherine Swynford.
10/05/1299
Theingapati, heir to the Pagan Kingdom
Theingapati was heir-apparent of the Pagan Dynasty of Burma (Myanmar) from 1289 to 1297. The crown prince is known for his mission to Beijing in which he sought and received the Mongol Empire's recognition of his father, Kyawswa, as King of Pagan in March 1297. The prince was arrested after his father was overthrown in December 1297 by the three brothers of Myinsaing. The brothers branded the father-son duo as traitors and executed them in May 1299.
Celebrations & Special Days Worldwide on 10th May
Children's Day (Maldives)
Children's Day is a commemorative date celebrated annually in honour of children, whose date of observance varies by country. In 1925, International Children's Day was first proclaimed in Geneva during the World Conference on Child Welfare. Since 1950, it is celebrated on 1 June in many countries that were part of the Eastern Bloc and Non-Aligned Movement, which follow the suggestion from Women's International Democratic Federation. World Children's Day is celebrated on 20 November to commemorate the issuance of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child by the UN General Assembly on 20 November 1959, along with the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on that date in 1989. In some countries, it is Children's Week and not Children's Day.
Christian feast day: Alphius, Philadelphus and Cyrinus
Saints Alphius, Philadelphus and Cyrinus, martyrs in the Byzantine traditions of southern Italy, were three brothers from Vaste, in the diocese of Otranto, who died with their mother, Benedicta, during the persecution of Decius, ca 251 AD. The details concerning these martyrdoms are traditional, drawn up at a later date in the Benedictine Acta of Saint Alphius.
Christian feast day: Blessed Beatrice d'Este
Blessed Beatrice d'Este was the daughter of Azzo VI of the Este family by his second wife, Sophia Eleanor, daughter of Humbert III, Count of Savoy. She was the aunt of Saint Beatrice d'Este.
Christian feast day: Calepodius
Saint Calepodius was a priest who was killed during the persecutions of Christians by the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus. One of the catacombs of Rome, the cemetery of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way, was named after him.
Christian feast day: Catald
Catald of Taranto was an Irish monk.
Christian feast day: Comgall
Saint Comgall, an early Irish saint, was the founder and abbot of the influential abbey at Bangor in the north of Ireland.
Christian feast day: Damien of Molokai
Damien De Veuster, popularly known as Father Damien or Saint Damien of Molokai, was a Belgian Catholic priest in the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. He ministered to a leper colony in Molokaʻi, Kingdom of Hawaii, from 1873 until his death in 1889.
Christian feast day: Blessed Ivan Merz
Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their name. Beati is the plural form, referring to those who have undergone the process of beatification; they possess the title of "Blessed" before their names and are often referred to in English as "a Blessed" or, plurally, "Blesseds".
Christian feast day: Job (Roman Catholic Church)
Job is the central figure of the Book of Job in the Bible. In Islam, Job is also considered a prophet.
Christian feast day: John of Ávila
John of Ávila was a Spanish priest, preacher, scholastic author, and religious mystic, who has been declared a saint and Doctor of the Church by the Catholic Church. He is called the "Apostle of Andalusia", for his extensive ministry in that region.
Christian feast day: Solange of Bourges
Solange was a Frankish shepherdess and a locally venerated Christian saint and cephalophore, whose cult is restricted to Sainte-Solange, Cher. Saint Solange was the patron of the traditional Province of Berry, of which Cher is a part.
Christian feast day: May 10 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
May 9 - Eastern Orthodox Church calendar - May 11
Confederate Memorial Day (North Carolina and South Carolina)
Confederate Memorial Day is a holiday observed in several Southern U.S. states on various dates since the end of the American Civil War. The holiday was originally publicly presented as a day to remember the estimated 258,000 Confederate soldiers who died during the American Civil War.
Constitution Day (Micronesia)
Constitution Day is a holiday to honour the constitution of a country. Constitution Day is often celebrated on the anniversary of the signing, promulgation or adoption of the constitution, or in some cases, to commemorate the change to constitutional monarchy.
Earliest possible day on which Pentecost can fall, while June 13 is the latest; celebrated 50 days after Easter Day. (Christianity)
Pentecost is a Christian holiday that takes place on the 49th day after Easter. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles of Jesus, Mary, and other followers of Christ, while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles. Pentecost marks the "Birthday of the Church".
Golden Spike Day (Promontory, Utah)
The golden spike is the ceremonial 17.6-karat gold spike driven to mark the completion of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States. It was driven by Leland Stanford to connect the Central Pacific Railroad from Sacramento and the Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The spike is now displayed in the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.
Mother's Day (Guatemala, and Mexico)
Mother's Day is a celebration honoring the mother of the family or individual, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. It is celebrated on different days in many parts of the world, most commonly in March or May. It complements similar celebrations honoring family members, such as Father's Day, Siblings Day, and Grandparents' Day.
What Happened on 10th May?
55 significant events took place on Wednesday, 10th May — stretching from -28 to 2024. Explore the moments that shaped history on this day.
10/05/2024
Start of the May 2024 solar storms, the most powerful set of geomagnetic storms since the 2003 Halloween solar storms.
The solar storms of May 2024 were a series of powerful solar storms with extreme solar flares and geomagnetic storm components that occurred from 10 to 13 May 2024 during solar cycle 25. They are also known as the 2024 Mother's Day solar storm or the Gannon storm. The geomagnetic storm was the most powerful to affect Earth since March 1989, and produced aurorae at far lower latitudes than usual.
10/05/2022
Queen Elizabeth II misses the State Opening of Parliament for the first time in 59 years. It was the first time that a new session of Parliament was opened by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge acting as Counsellors of State.
Elizabeth II was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during her lifetime and was the monarch of 15 realms at her death. Her reign of 70 years, 214 days, is the longest of any British monarch, the second-longest of any sovereign state, and the longest of any queen regnant in history.
10/05/2017
Syrian civil war: The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) capture the last footholds of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Al-Tabqah, bringing the Battle of Tabqa to an end.
The Syrian civil war was an armed conflict that began with the Syrian revolution in March 2011, when popular discontent with the Ba'athist regime ruled by Bashar al-Assad triggered large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across Syria, as part of the wider Arab Spring. The Assad regime responded to the protests with lethal force, which led to a series of defections, the emergence of armed opposition groups, and the civilian uprising descending into a civil war. The war lasted almost 14 years and culminated in the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. Many sources regard this as the end of the civil war even though clashes have continued into 2026.
10/05/2013
One World Trade Center becomes the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.
One World Trade Center, also known as One WTC and the Freedom Tower, is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, One World Trade Center is the tallest building in the United States, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and the seventh-tallest in the world. The supertall structure has the same name as the North Tower of the original World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The skyscraper stands on the northwest corner of the 16-acre (6.5 ha) World Trade Center site, on the site of the original 6 World Trade Center. It is bounded by West Street to the west, Vesey Street to the north, Fulton Street to the south, and Washington Street to the east.
10/05/2012
The Damascus bombings are carried out using a pair of car bombs detonated by suicide bombers outside a military intelligence complex in Damascus, Syria, killing 55 people.
A pair of car bombs, allegedly detonated by suicide bombers, exploded outside a military intelligence complex in Damascus, Syria, on 10 May 2012. Combined, the perpetrators detonated more than 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb) of explosives, tearing the facade off of a 10-story building. With 55 people confirmed dead and almost 400 others injured, the attack was the deadliest bombing until then in the Syrian Civil War, though later outpaced by other events.
10/05/2005
A hand grenade thrown by Vladimir Arutyunian lands about 20 m from U.S. President George W. Bush while he is giving a speech to a crowd in Tbilisi, Georgia, but it malfunctions and does not detonate.
A grenade is a small explosive projectile. It can be thrown by hand, launched by a rifle attachment, or launched by a dedicated launcher. A modern hand grenade generally consists of an explosive charge ("filler"), a detonator mechanism, an internal striker to trigger the detonator, an arming safety secured by a transport safety. The user removes the transport safety pins before throwing, and once the grenade leaves the hand the arming safety gets released, allowing the striker to trigger a primer that ignites a fuze, which burns down to the detonator and explodes the main charge.
10/05/2002
FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling United States secrets to Russia for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.
Robert Philip Hanssen was an American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services off and on against the United States from 1979 to 2001. His espionage was described by the United States Department of Justice as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history".
10/05/1997
The 7.3 Mw Qayen earthquake strikes Iran's Khorasan Province killing 1,567 people.
The moment magnitude scale is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude based on its seismic moment. Mw was defined in a 1979 paper by Thomas C. Hanks and Hiroo Kanamori. Similar to the local magnitude/Richter scale (ML ) defined by Charles Francis Richter in 1935, it uses a logarithmic scale; small earthquakes have approximately the same magnitudes on both scales. Despite the difference, news media often use the term "Richter scale" when referring to the moment magnitude scale.
10/05/1996
A blizzard strikes Mount Everest, killing eight climbers by the next day.
Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at its summit. Its height was most recently measured in 2020 through a joint survey by Nepalese and Chinese authorities as 8,848.86 m.
10/05/1994
Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid activist and statesman who was the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first Black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His administration focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation, a national peace accord and eventual multiracial democracy. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.
10/05/1993
In Thailand, a fire at the Kader Toy Factory kills over 200 workers.
Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand, and formerly known as Siam until 1939, is a country located in Mainland Southeast Asia. It shares land borders with Myanmar to the west and northwest, Laos to the east and northeast, Cambodia to the southeast, and Malaysia to the south. Its maritime boundaries include the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea, as well as maritime borders with Vietnam, Indonesia, and India. Thailand has a population of nearly 66 million people and covers an area of approximately 513,115 km2. The country's capital and largest city is Bangkok.
10/05/1975
Sony introduces the Betamax videocassette recorder.
Sony Group Corporation, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including electronics, imaging and sensing, film and television, music, video games, and others.
10/05/1969
Vietnam War: The Battle of Dong Ap Bia begins with an assault on Hill 937. It will ultimately become known as Hamburger Hill.
The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.
10/05/1967
The Northrop M2-F2 crashes on landing, becoming the inspiration for the novel Cyborg and TV series The Six Million Dollar Man.
The Northrop M2-F2 was a heavyweight lifting body based on studies at NASA's Ames and Langley research centers and built by the Northrop Corporation in 1966.
10/05/1962
Marvel Comics publishes the first issue of The Incredible Hulk.
Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher, a property of the Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide since March 2023. Marvel was founded in 1939 by Martin Goodman as Timely Comics, and by 1951 had generally become known as Atlas Comics. The Marvel era began in August 1961 with the launch of The Fantastic Four and other superhero titles created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and numerous others. The Marvel brand, which had been used over the years and decades, was solidified as the company's primary brand.
10/05/1961
Air France Flight 406 is destroyed by a bomb over the Sahara, killing 78.
Air France Flight 406 was a Lockheed L-1649 Starliner that crashed in French Algeria on May 10, 1961, after a bomb exploded on board. All 78 passengers and crew on board were killed. It was the deadliest aviation disaster involving a Lockheed Starliner.
10/05/1946
First successful launch of an American V-2 rocket at White Sands Proving Ground.
The V-2 rocket, with the development name Aggregat-4 (A4), was the world's first practical, modern ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany as a "vengeance weapon" and assigned to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings of German cities. After an altitude of 100km was selected to define the edge of space, the V2 rocket also became retroactively the first artificial object to travel into space with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944.
10/05/1942
World War II: The Thai Phayap Army invades the Shan States during the Burma Campaign.
Phayap Army was the hastily combined forces between the Royal Thai Army (RTA) and the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) that invaded the Siamese Shan States of Burma on 10 May 1942 during the Burma campaign of World War II.
10/05/1941
World War II: The House of Commons in London is damaged by the Luftwaffe in an air raid.
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs), who are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved.
World War II: Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland to try to negotiate a peace deal between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany.
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a German politician, convicted war criminal, and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Germany. Appointed Deputy to the Führer in 1933, Hess held that position until 1941, when he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate the United Kingdom's exit from the Second World War. He was taken prisoner and eventually convicted of crimes against peace. He was still serving his life sentence and 93 years old at the time of his suicide in 1987.
10/05/1940
World War II: German fighters accidentally bomb the German city of Freiburg.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.
World War II: Winston Churchill is appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain. On the same day, Germany invades France, The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom occupies Iceland.
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. For some 62 of the years between 1900 and 1964, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) and represented a total of five constituencies over that time. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.
10/05/1933
Censorship: In Germany, the Nazis stage massive public book burnings.
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments and private institutions. When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, it is referred to as self-censorship. General censorship occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, the press, radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security, to control obscenity, pornography, and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote or restrict political or religious views, and to prevent slander and libel. Specific rules and regulations regarding censorship vary between legal jurisdictions and/or private organizations.
10/05/1924
J. Edgar Hoover is appointed first Director of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and remains so until his death in 1972.
John Edgar Hoover was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the fifth and final director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) and the first director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). President Calvin Coolidge first appointed Hoover as director of the BOI, the predecessor to the FBI, in 1924. After 11 years in the post, Hoover became instrumental in founding the FBI in June 1935, where he remained as director for an additional 37 years until his death in May 1972 – serving a total of 48 years leading both the BOI and the FBI under eight presidents.
10/05/1922
The United States annexes the Kingman Reef.
Kingman Reef is a largely submerged, uninhabited, triangle-shaped reef, geologically an atoll, 9.0 nmi (20 km) east-west and 4.5 nmi (8 km) north-south, in the North Pacific Ocean, roughly halfway between the Hawaiian Islands and American Samoa. It has an area of 3 hectares and is an unincorporated territory of the United States in Oceania. The reef is administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as the Kingman Reef National Wildlife Refuge. It was claimed by the United States in 1859 and later used briefly as a stopover for commercial Pacific flying boat routes in the 1930s going to New Zealand; however, the route was changed with a different stopover. It was administered by the Navy from 1934 to 2000 and thereafter by the Fish and Wildlife Service. It has since become a marine protected area. In the 19th century, it was noted as a maritime hazard, earning the name Hazard Rocks, and is known to have been hit once in 1876. In the 21st century, it has been noted for its marine biodiversity and remote nature. Hundreds of fish and coral species are on and around the reef.
10/05/1916
Sailing in the lifeboat James Caird, Ernest Shackleton arrives at South Georgia after a journey of 800 nautical miles from Elephant Island.
The voyage of the James Caird was a journey of 1,300 kilometres (700 nmi) from Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands through the Southern Ocean to South Georgia, undertaken by Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions to obtain rescue for the main body of the stranded Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. Many historians regard the voyage of the crew in a 22.5-foot (6.9 m) ship's boat through the "Furious Fifties" as the greatest small-boat journey ever completed.
10/05/1908
Mother's Day is observed for the first time in the United States, in Grafton, West Virginia.
Mother's Day is a celebration honoring the mother of the family or individual, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. It is celebrated on different days in many parts of the world, most commonly in March or May. It complements similar celebrations honoring family members, such as Father's Day, Siblings Day, and Grandparents' Day.
10/05/1904
The Horch & Cir. Motorwagenwerke AG is founded. It would eventually become the Audi company.
Horch was a German car manufacturer, which traced its roots to several companies founded in the late 19th and early 20th century by August Horch.
10/05/1899
Finnish farmworker Karl Emil Malmelin kills seven people with an axe at the Simola croft in the village of Klaukkala.
Karl Emil Malmelin was a Finnish farmworker and mass murderer.
10/05/1881
Carol I is crowned the King of the Romanian Kingdom.
Carol I or Charles I of Romania, nicknamed the King of Independence ; was the monarch of Romania from 1866 to his death in 1914, ruling as Prince (Domnitor) from 1866 to 1881, and as King from 1881 to 1914. He was elected Prince of the Romanian United Principalities on 20 April 1866 after the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup d'état. In May 1877, Romania was proclaimed an independent and sovereign nation. The defeat of the Ottoman Empire (1878) in the Russo-Turkish War secured Romanian independence, and he was proclaimed King on 26 March [O.S. 14 March] 1881. He was the first ruler of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen dynasty, which ruled the country until the proclamation of a socialist republic in 1947.
10/05/1876
The Centennial Exposition is opened in Philadelphia.
The Centennial International Exhibition, officially the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876. It was the first official world's fair to be held in the United States and coincided with the centennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence's adoption in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.
10/05/1872
Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for President of the United States.
Victoria Claflin Woodhull, later Victoria Woodhull Martin, was an American leader of the women's suffrage movement who ran for president of the United States in the 1872 election. While many historians and authors agree that Woodhull was the first woman to run for the presidency, some disagree with classifying it as a true candidacy because according to the Constitution she would have been too young to be president if elected.
10/05/1869
The First transcontinental railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory with the golden spike.
America's first transcontinental railroad was a 1,911-mile (3,075 km) continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive U.S. land grants. Building was financed by both state and U.S. government subsidy bonds as well as by company-issued mortgage bonds. The Western Pacific Railroad Company built 132 miles (212 km) of track from the road's western terminus at Alameda/Oakland to Sacramento, California. The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (CPRR) constructed 690 miles (1,110 km) east from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) built 1,085 miles (1,746 km) from the road's eastern terminus at the Missouri River settlements of Council Bluffs and Omaha, Nebraska, westward to Promontory Summit.
10/05/1865
American Civil War: In Kentucky, Union soldiers ambush and mortally wound Confederate raider William Quantrill, who lingers until his death on June 6.
Kentucky, officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the northeast, Virginia to the east, Tennessee to the south, and Missouri to the west. Its northern border is defined by the Ohio River. Its capital is Frankfort and its most populous city is Louisville. As of 2024, the state's population was approximately 4.6 million.
10/05/1857
Indian Rebellion of 1857: In India, the first war of Independence begins. Sepoys mutiny against their commanding officers at Meerut.
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. 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, though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a military threat to British power in that region, and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858. 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.
10/05/1849
Astor Place Riot: A riot breaks out at the Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City over a dispute between actors Edwin Forrest and William Charles Macready, killing at least 22 and injuring over 120.
The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849, at the now-demolished Astor Opera House in Manhattan and left between 22 and 31 rioters dead, and more than 120 people injured. It was the deadliest to that date of a number of civic disturbances in Manhattan, which generally pitted immigrants and nativists against each other, or together against the wealthy who controlled the city's police and the state militia.
10/05/1837
Panic of 1837: New York City banks suspend the payment of specie, triggering a national banking crisis and an economic depression whose severity was not surpassed until the Great Depression.
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that began a major depression which lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages dropped, westward expansion was stalled, unemployment rose, and pessimism abounded.
10/05/1833
A revolt broke out in southern Vietnam against Emperor Minh Mang, who had desecrated the deceased mandarin Le Van Duyet.
The Lê Văn Khôi revolt was an important revolt in 19th-century Vietnam, in which southern Vietnamese, Vietnamese Catholics, French Catholic missionaries and Chinese settlers under the leadership of Lê Văn Khôi opposed the rule of Emperor Minh Mạng.
10/05/1824
The National Gallery in London opens to the public.
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. The current director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi.
10/05/1801
First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America.
The First Barbary War (1801–1805), also known as the Tripolitan War and the Barbary Coast War, was a conflict during the 1801–1815 Barbary Wars, in which the United States fought against Ottoman Tripolitania. Tripolitania had declared war against the United States over disputes regarding tributary payments in exchange for a cessation of Tripolitanian commerce raiding at sea. United States president Thomas Jefferson refused to pay this tribute. The First Barbary War was the first major American war fought outside the New World, and in the Arab world, besides the smaller American–Algerian War (1785–1795).
10/05/1796
War of the First Coalition: Napoleon wins a victory against Austrian forces at Lodi bridge over the Adda River in Italy. The Austrians lose some 2,000 men.
The War of the First Coalition was a set of wars between a coalition of several European powers and France fought between 1792 and 1797. The coalition was only loosely allied and fought without much coordination; each power wanted to annex a different part of France should they defeat the French, something that never occurred.
10/05/1775
American Revolutionary War: A small Colonial militia led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold captures Fort Ticonderoga.
The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence or simply the American Revolution, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.
American Revolutionary War: The Second Continental Congress takes place in Philadelphia.
The Second Continental Congress (1775–1781) was the meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolution and Revolutionary War, which established American independence from the British Empire. The Congress constituted a new federation that it first named the United Colonies of North America, and in 1776, renamed the United States of America. The Congress began convening in present-day Independence Hall in Philadelphia, on May 10, 1775, with representatives from 12 of the 13 colonies, following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the Revolutionary War, which were fought on April 19, 1775.
10/05/1774
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette become King and Queen of France.
Louis XVI was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France, and Maria Josepha of Saxony, Louis became the new Dauphin when his father died in 1765. In 1770, he married Marie Antoinette. He became King of France and Navarre on his paternal grandfather's death on 10 May 1774, and reigned until the abolition of the monarchy on 21 September 1792. From 1791 onwards, he used the style of king of the French.
10/05/1773
The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by reducing taxes on its tea and granting it the right to sell tea directly to North America. The legislation leads to the Boston Tea Party.
The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdom of Great Britain and created the parliament of Great Britain located in the former home of the English parliament in the Palace of Westminster, near the City of London. This lasted nearly a century, until the Acts of Union 1800 merged the separate British and Irish Parliaments into a single Parliament of the United Kingdom with effect from 1 January 1801.
10/05/1768
Rioting occurs in London after John Wilkes is imprisoned for writing an article for The North Briton severely criticising King George III.
John Wilkes was a British radical, journalist, politician, magistrate and writer. He was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he fought for the right of his voters – rather than the House of Commons – to determine their representatives. In 1768, angry protests of his supporters were suppressed in the Massacre of St George's Fields. In 1771, he was instrumental in obliging the government to concede the right of printers to publish verbatim accounts of parliamentary debates. In 1776, he introduced the first bill for parliamentary reform in the British Parliament.
10/05/1713
Great Northern War: The Russian Navy led by Admiral Fyodor Apraksin land both at Katajanokka and Hietalahti during the Battle of Helsinki.
In the Great Northern War (1700–1721) a coalition led by Russia successfully contested the supremacy of Sweden in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I of Russia, Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway and Augustus II the Strong of Saxony-Poland-Lithuania. Frederick IV and Augustus II were defeated by Sweden, under Charles XII, and forced out of the alliance in 1700 and 1706, respectively, but rejoined it in 1709 after the defeat of Charles XII at the Battle of Poltava. George I of Great Britain and the Electorate of Hanover joined the coalition in 1714 for Hanover and in 1717 for Britain, and Frederick William I of Brandenburg-Prussia joined it in 1715.
10/05/1688
King Narai nominates Phetracha as regent, leading to the revolution of 1688 in which Phetracha becomes king of the Ayutthaya Kingdom.
King Narai the Great, or Ramathibodi III, was the 27th monarch of Ayutthaya Kingdom, the 4th and last monarch of the Prasat Thong dynasty. He was the king of Ayutthaya Kingdom from 1656 to 1688 and arguably the most famous king of the Prasat Thong dynasty.
10/05/1534
Jacques Cartier visits Newfoundland.
Jacques Cartier was a French maritime explorer from Brittany. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "Canada" after the Iroquoian names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona and at Hochelaga.
10/05/1503
Christopher Columbus visits the Cayman Islands and names them Las Tortugas after the numerous turtles there.
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed four Spanish transatlantic voyages in the name of the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America.
10/05/1497
Amerigo Vespucci allegedly leaves Cádiz for his first voyage to the New World.
Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Florence after whom America is named.
10/05/1294
Temür, Khagan of the Mongols, is enthroned as Emperor of the Yuan dynasty.
Öljeyitü Khan, born Temür, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Chengzong of Yuan, was the second emperor of the Yuan dynasty of China, ruling from 10 May 1294 to 10 February 1307. Apart from being the Emperor of China, he is considered as the sixth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, although it was only nominal due to the division of the empire. He was an able ruler of the Yuan dynasty, and his reign established the patterns of power for the next few decades.
10/05/1291
Scottish nobles recognize the authority of Edward I of England pending the selection of a king.
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally appointed by and ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteristics associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles or simply formal functions, and vary by country and by era. Membership in the nobility, including rights and responsibilities, is typically hereditary and patrilineal.
10/05/0946
Alberic II of Spoleto arranges the election of pope Agapetus II following the death of Pope Marinus II.
Alberic II was princeps of Rome from 932 to 954. He controlled the papacy during his reign and the five popes after Pope John XI were appointed by him. A member of the House of Theophylact, Alberic was the father of Pope John XII and multiple other popes were descended from Alberic.
01/01/1970
A sunspot is observed by Han dynasty astronomers during the reign of Emperor Cheng of Han, one of the earliest dated sunspot observations in China.
Sunspots are temporary spots on the Sun's surface that are darker than the surrounding area. They are regions of reduced surface temperature caused by concentrations of magnetic flux that inhibit convection. Sunspots appear within active regions, usually in pairs of opposite magnetic polarity. Their number varies according to the approximately 11-year solar cycle.