Today in History

1877
The 1st Westminster Dog Show was held with 1,200 dogs and 35 different breeds
1912
film, TV production& distribution company, Paramount Pictures founded
1962
industralist, Oskar Schindler& his wife, Emille are honored for saving 1200 Jews during WWII in a ceremony on Avenue of Righteous in Jerusalem
1976
the 1st steel rollercoaster with a vertical flip 'Revolution' opens at Six Flags Magic Mountain
1999
Nancy Mace becomes the 1st female cadet to graduate from The Citadel, military college in South Carolina. She graduate magna cum laude with business adminstation degree. She became a U.S. Congresswoman in 2020.She's a member of House&Arm Services,Veterans Affairs&Oversight committees
2013
former Prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud sentenced to prison. His sentence was reduced,never went to prison due to his age at the time,76. He served 1 yr of community service at a nursing home in 2014
 
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May 9th





Tintern Abbey was founded on 9th May 1131 by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow.
Tintern Abbey is situated on the Welsh bank of the River Wye in the village of Tintern, Monmouthshire. It was the first Cistercian Abbey in Wales and was run by monks from L'Aumône, in the diocese of Blois in France. It provided work for local people who provided it with services and worked on its agricultural land.




That's the way to do it!!
On 9th May 1662, the diarist Samuel Pepys noted seeing a Punch and Judy puppet show in Covent Garden, London. It is Mr Punch's first recorded appearance and is now recognised as his birthday in the UK.
Wales' connection with Punch and Judy,
Llandudno is home to Britain's longest-running Punch & Judy puppet show, founded by Richard Codman in 1860.



On May 9, 1812, Britain’s only Prime Minister to ever be assassinated, Spencer Perceval, died.While Perceval’s shooting took place outside the official context of May 9, the day he died remains significant in British history. Perceval was shot by John Bellingham, a merchant who had a personal grievance with the government.


1896The first 'Horseless Carriage' Show opened at the Imperial Institute in London, when ten engine-powered models went on show to the public. The car was built in Coventry in Britain's first ever car factory.1904The steam locomotive City of Truro (engine number 3440), designed by G .Jackson Churchward and built at the GWR Swindon Works, became the first steam engine in Europe to exceed 100 mph.


1965: All four members of The Beatles are in the audience when Bob Dylan plays the first of two sold out nights at London's Royal Albert Hall at the end of his first headline UK tour. The short tour is noted as being his last ever solo acoustic tour.

2013: A video for David Bowie's song 'The Next Day' is pulled off YouTube just two hours after its release for its graphic content. The video shows actress Marion Cotillard bleeding from gruesome stigmata marks and actor Gary Oldman dressed as a bishop punching a beggar. It would be later reinstated with an adult content warning.
 
May 10th



On 10th May 1372 Owain Lawgoch announced in Paris his intention of claiming the throne of Wales.
Owain Lawgoch (Owain ap Thomas ap Rhodri), the grandson of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd's brother Rhodri, was directly descended from the Royal House of Gwynedd. In 1370, Owain declared himself Prince of Gwynedd, and with the help of the French assembled a fleet with the intention of sailing for Wales. The ships were split up in bad weather and the invasion was abandoned.
Two years later he tried again, but again the weather turned against him and the fleet reached no further than Guernsey. At this point the English despatched a Scot by the name of Jon Lamb to assassinate Owain and, having infiltrated Owain's band of men, he succeeded in killing him during the siege of Mortagne in 1378. So ended the entire line of Wales’s most illustrious royal house.


1768John Wilkes (English radical, journalist, and politician) was imprisoned for writing an article for the North Briton newspaper severely criticizing King George III. This action provoked rioting in London.1773The British Parliament passed the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.1804William Pitt the younger, British prime minister, returned to office.



On 10th May 1837, 21 men and boys were killed when the Plas yr Argoed Colliery near Mold flooded. Among those killed were the father and two brothers of the novelist Daniel Owen, who is generally regarded as the foremost Welsh-language novelist of the 19th century




On 10th May 1852 tragedy fell on the village of Pontyberem when the Gwendraeth Colliery flooded killing all 26 men and boys on the night shift. It is said that it took 18 months to recover the bodies.




1916Explorer Ernest Shackleton and companions reached the Falkland island of South Georgia after sailing 800 miles in 16 days in an open boat. They were looking for help for the remaining members of their party marooned on Elephant island, Antarctica.



….1954: Bill Haley & His Comets release "Rock Around the Clock", the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the Billboard charts. However its recording almost fails to take place due to the band's ferry being stuck on a sandbar en route to New York from Philadelphia.

1971: Jethro Tull play a gig in Denver in a cloud of tear gas after police fire canisters of the gas in an attempt to prevent those without tickets invading the Red Rocks Park amphitheater.
 
May 11th




1685 The death of 18 year old Margaret Wilson, executed by drowning for refusing to swear an oath declaring James VII (James II of England) as head of the church. She died along with Margaret McLachlan. Known as the Wigtown Martyrs they are buried in Wigtown Churchyard.




On May 11, 1713, Finnish residents of Helsinki burned their own capital city to the ground rather than allow the Russian invaders to possess their city during the Great Northern War.


1964 Interior designer and businessman Terence Conran opened his first Habitat Shop in London's Fulham Road.


1967 Britain Ireland and Denmark officially applied to join the EEC.


1971The Daily Sketch newspaper, which was founded in 1909, was published for the last time. It was Britain's oldest 'tabloid' newspaper.

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On this day in 1963, Welshman Greville Wynne, an MI5 agent, was found guilty by a Moscow tribunal of spying for the West. He was sentenced to three years in prison and five in a labour camp. His co-accused, 43-year-old Soviet official Oleg Penkovsky, was given the death sentence and executed by firing squad one week after the trial. This came at the height of the Cold War when relations between the superpowers were particularly strained.

Wynne, from Ystrad Mynach, had acted as a go-between passing on information about Soviet rockets' provided for him by Penkovsky during secret meetings in London, Paris and Moscow. 17 months into his sentence he was exchanged for Soviet spy Gordon Lonsdale. On his release, Wynne was in a poor state of health. He had lost a lot of weight and doctors said his time in prison had left him "emotionally and mentally exhausted".
Wynne went on to write about his time as a spy in a book entitled The Man from Odessa, which was one of the early examples of a book being published about secret work that the government never expected to be made public.
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1964: The Rolling Stones are refused lunch at The Grand Hotel, Bristol, where they were staying because are not wearing jackets and ties.



1974
Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin meet Elvis Presley backstage after The King's performance at the Forum in Los Angeles. After hearing that the trio was in the audience, Presley was overheard telling his band, "Wait a minute... if we can start together, fellas, because we've got Led Zeppelin out there... Let's try to look like we know what we're doing, whether we do or not."
 
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