7th May, 1928. The age at which British women could vote was lowered from 30 to 21 (finally).

8th May, 1902. Mt Pell, Martinique, erupts in the Caribbean and wipes out St Pierre, killing all but two of its 30,000 inhabitants. (How awful and peculiar it must feel to be one of those two. Presumably there were also some usual inhabitants out of the city at the time, too.) I have now read some more about this and there were people who left when the volcano's eruption became imminent. One of the survivors was a man who just got lucky (though badly burnt); the other one was in a dungeon for a crime and later joined a circus as an exhibit, stabbed someone and ended in jail again, then disappeared from view. I am surprised anyone actually found him in a dungeon two storeys down.

13 May 1865; the last major battle of the American Civil War takes place at Palmito Ranch, Texas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmito_Ranch

Monday, 15th May 1536.

Anne Boleyn is tried in the King's Hall in the Tower of London. There are 2000 spectators (they had to erect special stands to accommodate them all). She is found guilty.

"Because thou hast offended our sovereign the King's Grace," declared her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, tears in his eyes (probably of relief rather than of sympathy) as he pronounced sentence, "in committing treason against his person and here attainted of the same, the law of the realm is this, that thou hast deserved death, and thy judgement is this: that thou shalt be burned here within the Tower of London, on the Green, else to have thy head smitten off, as the King's pleasure shall be further known of the same."

There was at this a minor flurry - the Earl of Northumberland, Harry Percy, who had given his "Guilty" verdict along with the rest against the woman whom he had once loved, collapsed and had to helped out.

Anne's reaction to Percy's distress - if indeed she noticed it - is not recorded.

That exact same day saw another young lady's execution, in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Maartje Medinx was publicly incinerated alive by "officers" of the Dutch Reformed Church for having stated to her sister that the bread and wine used in church were very unlikely to become the flesh and blood of a man, as was then believed, even by the Reformists. Her sister had inadvisedly referred Maartje's question to their local Reformist priest in Alkmaar for clarification, who realised at once the huge danger this fifteen year old represented to the principles of Christianity, so dangerous indeed that she deserved a slow and agonising death over a bonfire.

Two years later the Reformed Church in Holland dropped the notion of actual transubstantiation as just plain silly.

Temperance wrote:

Monday, 15th May 1536.

Anne Boleyn is tried in the King's Hall in the Tower of London. There are 2000 spectators (they had to erect special stands to accommodate them all). She is found guilty.

"Because thou hast offended our sovereign the King's Grace," declared her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, tears in his eyes (probably of relief rather than of sympathy) as he pronounced sentence,

Huh the hypocrite, as if he didn't profit from either of his nieces in Horrible Henry's bed.

Missed this one yesterday, 17th May 1943, the Dambusters Raid takes place;

18 May 1969, Apollo 10 blasts off for a moon flypast.

May 19th 1536.

Death of Anne Boleyn.

"The execution of the Concubine took place at nine o' clock this morning in the Tower," reported the Spanish Ambassador, Chapuys, to the Emperor.

John Husee wrote just hours afterwards: "The Queen suffered with a sword this day...and died boldly."

And referring to all who had died during the week ending May 19th (it was a Friday) he added, "Jesu take them to His mercy."

23rd May, and we've got another two executions;

1498, Girolama Savonarola is executed in Florence,



1701, Captain William Kidd ends his days at Execution Dock,

In the same vein, in 1934 a couple of pretty lookin' people met their end too.

24th May, 1882: first shipment of frozen meat arrived in Britain from NZ, and was an instant hit (which rather surprised me; I might have expected people to feel suspicious about it). But apparently food at the time, and meat especially, was very expensive in Britain and poor people were near the starvation line. It sold for twice as much as it would in NZ, but presumably brought down the price in Britain.

And kick-started an industry here responsible for farmers in NZ being generally considered wealthy - and for endless jokes.

24th May 1941;

Battle of the Denmark Strait, results in HMS Hood being sunk with the loss of all but three of her crew.

24th May 1956

The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Switzerland. THe Swiss win with this entry;

24th May 1819, birthday of Queen Victoria;



a more flattering picture than the "Widow of Windsor" pictures we're used to.

May 25 1878 - Gilbert and Sullivan's opera "HMS Pinafore" opened at the Opera Comique in London, featuring good old 19th century jingoistic xenophobia (but set to rollicking good music):

EDIT : I'm sure the nationalistic tone was very deliberate. Just 4 months before the opening performance of Pinafore, Disraeli had ordered a British fleet to Constantinople in response to the Russia invasion of Turkish Balkan territory. In early 1878 conflict between British and Russian fleets had been a distinct possibility. As a popular British music-hall song at the time had as the chorus:

"We don't want to fight but by Jingo if we do, we've got got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too"




It is also May Revolution Day in Argentina - a national holiday commemorating the events of the previous week in 1810 which culminated in the creation of the first independent Argentine Government on the 25th.

And it is also my birthday! So by coincidence I have always conceitedly claimed that the Argentine aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (ex HMS Venerable) was named in my honour. That's one up on Queen Liz who's unlikely to see "her" aircraft carrier finished for a good few years yet.

25th May 1982, HMS Coventry is bombed and sunk during the Falklands War.

Well at least you could say HMS Coventry went down fighting - the Veinticinco de Mayo spent nearly the whole of the Falklands War moored in port for safety.

27th May 1905;

The Battle of Tsushima takes place during the Russo-Japanese War.

Ah yes, the Battle of Tsushima... one of the more iconic (and ironic) events of the Russo-Japanese war.

Having lost their eastern naval squadron in round one to the Japanese, the Russians decided to send part of the mighty Baltic Fleet round to reinforce Russian territories. Leaving the Baltic in October 1904, the Russian fleet had to sail firstly down the North Sea and through the English Channel. Perhaps overestimating the Japanese threat just a tad, the Russians mistook the Hull fishing fleet for a force of Japanese torpedo boats (in the North Sea!) and opened fire... creating a diplomatic incident and causing the Royal Navy to shadow the Russians until a diplomatic solution was reached.

Barred by Britain from using the Suez Canal the Russians had to sail all the way around Africa. Somewhere off Madagascar the Russian Admiral, Zinovy Rozhestvensky, thought it time that they should start battle training ... and in a bit of confusion one Russian battleship fired live ammo at another... with the tragic loss of several crewmen.

By May 1905 after travelling 33,000 km (more than halfway round the world) the fleet arrived in the far East but they were too late to break the blockade of Port Arthur which had already fallen. So they were ordered on to support Vladivostok. In the Tsushima straits they finally encountered the Japanese fleet and battle commenced.

And within a just a few hours most of the Russian fleet was at the bottom of the sea!

Forgot this one for the 27th, KMS Bismarck sunk, 27/05/1941;

In a less belligerent note, today has been a good day for 'firsts'.

1742 - first indoor swimming pool in England opened in London.
1842 - first public library opened in Salford.
1907 - first TT race
1934 - first Glyndebourne season.
1951 - first Goon Show broadcast.

Something there for just about everyone, I think.

I'm intrigued by the first indoor swimming pool, ferval, was it at a private residence, a club, or was it open to the general (but gentil, of course) public?

Here you are MM,

Quote :

Thus it was that the Bagnio, opened on May 28 1742 in Lemon Street, Goodman’s Fields, was a business idea whose time had come. For the subscription of a guinea gentlemen (and only gentlemen, ladies were not to be countenanced) could use the 43 foot long pool, advertised as being warmed and kept fresh every day. As this was indoors the prying eyes of lesser mortals would be kept from the wealthy users – at the price of a guinea the lower rungs of society were unlikely to be interested in the pool.

The facilities of the Bagnio included a cold pool as well as the warmed one, and what were described as waiters were available to teach the art of swimming to those who had not yet mastered it.

Hmmm, Gentlemen only you say ... well of course it would be for propriety's sake. And, "away from prying eyes of lesser mortals", and with "waiters" to give every assistance.... sorry it all sounds a bit like a very sophisticated Molly-House to me... for those gentlemen of the, er-hmm, how shall I put it? err other persuasion. Where is Goodman's Fields - I'll look it up.

Sorry I think I've just lowered the tone... but all in the sake of historical enquiry you understand!

Did that person who opened the first public library get a knighthood? I hope so, and every other honour going.

Another sort of first I read: 1920 the first person convicted by fingerprinting evidence was NZer Dennis Gunn. When I checked on this more, he wasn't the first person convicted using it, but it was the first time a case was based on nothing other than a fingerprint. May have the first capital crime using fingerprints, I'm not sure about that. He was hanged anyway.

I really don't know much about the Salford library Caro and I suspect that there were libraries that the public, or some of them, could use before then in England. Up here is what is said to be the oldest free public library in the world, Innerpeffray Library in Perthshire, which started off in about 1680 with a bequest by one of the Drummond family. Originally in a church, the present building dates from about the mid 18th c. and very bonnie it is too and with a very welcome tea room.

Yes, 1842 did sound late. We very much appreciated how most of your public places had cafes or tearooms attached! We went to some museum or country house in Scotland (Scone?) and arrived half an hour before they were closing, and the staff very nicely let us in for free since we really only wanted something to eat. (Mostly we got into places for free anyway since we pay $45 for QUII Trust membership here and that allowed us entry into all National Trust places (maybe not in Scotland) - made on the deal after about 2 visits. And no one ever checked them much, so when our membership ran out (because we were away when its renewal came up), we still waltzed in.

Tend to agree about the pool MM, that women were not to be countenanced suggests something else. It would have been considered improper for women to use the same facilities as the men but a women only pool and section? Or would that have been too scandalous for 1742?

It is well before Victorian silliness took hold and women had been "taking the water" at Bath since Thomas Guidott bought the curative properties of the springs to the attention of the public in 1676. Or, I should say, re-introducted the curative properties of the water, the Romans knew of the benefits long before.

Islanddawn wrote:

It would have been considered improper for women to use the same facilities as the men but a women only pool and section?

Or separate specific times for men and for women, which I believe was the usual practice in Georgian Bath.

Do you think that the difference here might be that this was a swimming pool, not just an immersion facility for its heath benefits? Did women at this time actually swim and do so communally? Somehow the idea of a large pool full of women in enveloping drapery thrashing about or gently sinking as they attempted to do a couple of lengths doesn't seem quite right. Mind you, they could probably have sold tickets for the viewing gallery!

The Bagnio was famous. For a long time all indoor swimming pools in London and beyond were called bagnios by the great unwashed (who couldn't afford to get in - they used the lidos).

Swimming was seen as a very peasant activity prior to this - the Bagnio made it fashionable. Proper swimming, I mean - not just bathing. Diving boards and all.

Interesting evolution of the word bagnio, originally from Italian/Latin from the Greek bagno meaning to bath or a bath. But it came to mean a prison for slaves and later a house of prostitution.

This from Wiki,

A Bagnio (from Italian: bagno) was originally a bath or bath-house.




The Bagnio (1743), fifth in the Marriage à-la-mode series of satirical paintings by William Hogarth: The Earl catches his wife in the Turk's Head Bagnio with her lover, who makes his escape through the window.
The term was then used to name the prison for hostages in Istanbul, which was near the bath-house, and thereafter all the slave prisons in the Ottoman Empire and the Barbary regencies. In the Barbary prisons, the hostages of the pirates spent their nights there, leaving during the day to work as laborers, galley slaves, or domestic servants. Bagne became the French word for the prisons of the galley slaves^{[citation needed]} in the French Navy, and later a generic term in French for any hard labour prison.

The last one in European France (Toulon) was closed in 1873.^{[citation needed]} The communication between master and slave and between slaves of different origins was made in Lingua Franca (also known as Sabir), a Mediterranean pidgin with Romance and Arabic lexicon. The French penal colony on the Îles_du_Salut was also called a Bagne, and features in the famous bestseller Papillon.




A well-known English brothel, the Turk's Head, labelled Bagnio (1787).
In England, it was originally used to name coffee houses which offered Turkish baths, but by 1740^[1] it signified a place where rooms could be hired with no questions asked, later a house of prostitution.^[2]

The notorious brothels on London's South Bank were called "the stews" in Shakespeare's time because the houses originally had heated rooms with vapour baths - a remedy (used in conjunction with doses of mercury) which was supposed to cure syphilis.

Most of these properties were owned by the Bishop of Winchester - the ladies who ran the bathhouses were called "Winchester Geese".

30th May, 1536

Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour.

A week later a river pageant was held and one wonders how the happy couple felt as their barge passed by the Tower.

"...all the Tower walls towards the water side were set with great streamers and banners...So the King passed through London Bridge, with his trumpets blowing before him, and shawms and sackbuts and drumslades playing also in the barges going before him. Which was a goodly sight."

31 May 1916, the Battle of Jutland takes place.

http://www.battle-of-jutland.com/

Blimey Trike, I trust the ships weren't actually as close as all that!

June 1, 1962: (Maybe - Samoa changed its time recently, I think - maybe it is now the 31st May or 2nd June.) Samoa gains independence from New Zealand (they are having great fun celebrating this jubilee this week). NZ didn't cover itself in glory as a colonial power, treating major chiefs with contempt, bringing influenza which killed lots of people, and shooting its citizens when they tried to protest.

But all is forgiven and we steal most of their good rugby players now. Someone said on the radio that our PM apologized in 2002 but she didn't need to as they were a Christian country and therefore forgiving.

Artistic convention, I think, Meles, although at one point the range between the opposing battleships was only about 8,000 yards.

No question this was a close combat action, 1st June 1794, "The Glorious First of June"

Brunswick in the centre engages Achille on the left and Le Vengeur du People on the right

On this day in 2012 the queen got wet.

4 June 1942, the Battle of Midway begins;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway

1944 June 6: D-Day - the invasion of Normandy/France/Continental Europe.

Need one say more?

June 8th, 1987: New Zealand declared itself nuclear free. This policy occasionally get criticised as nuclear power might be useful (though what ugly buildings were needed in Britain for it), however no government goes near it with a barge pole. Or any legislation. It has been a no-go area for them and the electorate has always loved it. Cocking a snook at the Americans is probably the main reason for this popularity, I suppose. (What is a snook?) We couldn't have their ships in our ports, but nobody cared about that. Military people care about the Anzus alliance, but since ordinary people don't really see the effects of that, that isn't a general worry either. We might have had to go to Iraq if we still allies instead of very, very good friends with the USA.

June 8, 632

The Prophet Muhammad dies, in present day Saudi Arabia.

8 June 1949, Orwell's 1984 is published;

9 June 1928, the Southern Cross, captained by Charles Kingsford Smith arrives in Brisbane after completing the first Trans-Pacific flight;

13 June 1944, the first V-1 rockets are fired at London;

Ah yes, I remember them well. Count to 10 when the sound cut and you had made it. My neighbour's house still has problems with cracks caused by one that fell in our town. I recall the crash sound - we children had got to 7 in the count. Not us then - back to the game.

14 June 1940 : Surrender of Paris

When the German forces entered Paris, they found the lift cables to the Eiffel Tower had been sabotaged and so a squad of German soldiers had to clamber up the staircases (well over 1000 steps - it usually takes at least an hour) to reach the summit in order to hoist the swastika. But the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later. It was replaced by a much smaller one. When Hitler visited Paris the lifts were still out of action and he chose to stay on the ground. It was said that Hitler conquered France, but did not conquer the Eiffel Tower.

The lifts remained out of action throughout the occupation because the necessary parts remained impossible to obtain “because of the war”. However, almost miraculously, within just hours of the Liberation of Paris in 1944 the lifts were working normally again!

14 June 1789, William Bligh and non mutineers from the Bounty arrive in Timor after 47 days in an open boat.

http://www.tallshipbounty.org/the-history/captain-bligh.php

18 June 1972

Britain's worst air disaster prior to Lockerbie, and still its worst air accident in terms of loss of life, BEA Flight 548 crashed two and a half minutes after taking off at Heathrow Airport. An uncontrollable stall caused by premature retraction of the leading edge controls caused "Papa India" - a HS Trident 1C aircraft - to plummet to earth like a stone, just missing the A30 and a residential area in Staines. All 118 on board died. In an era before cockpit voice recorders (which the crash proved a catalyst in at last implementing) the actual cause of the tragedy has never been fully resolved, though the list of potential causes identified did much to undermine public confidence in the standards which applied at the time regarding cockpit behaviour and procedure.

The crash held a particular sadness for many in Ireland - on board the plane were Ireland's 12 leading business and industrial leaders, heading to Brussels as a deputation prior to Ireland's accession to the then EEC. Many of these were near neighbours of mine at the time and their children were amongst my friends and schoolmates.



RIP

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 19th 1905 Harry Davis opened (almost*) the world's first purpose-built cinema. The entry charge of five cents inspired Davis to christen his auditorium "The Nickelodeon" and its 96 strong audience could delight in watching a mixture of short one-reel "movies" interspersed with vaudeville acts such as Henry Walte, the world's foremost "trick violinist", one Naomi Ethardo, the "famous European Equilibrist", and a certain Marvelous LePage, the "skilful novelty jumper".

Davis was emboldened to embark on his venture after a rather short-sighted strike by Vaudeville performers two years before had meant that theatres around the USA had switched to showing short (one minute) films then beginning to emanate from an obscure piece of real estate outside Los Angeles in California. By the time the strike was over this increased demand had effectively launched the Hollywood film industry, and within ten years of The Nickelodeon opening vaudeville was all but dead. By 1915 however the number of nickelodeons in the USA was estimated at 17,000.




(* the world's first purpose-built cinema had actually opened two months beforehand - the Biografteatret in Copenhagen, brainchild of one
Ole Olsen)