Events in History
- May 2 US stops minting 20 cent coin
Carbon Microphone
May 8 David Edward Hughes' paper on the idea for a microphone is read before the Royal Society of London by Thomas Henry Huxley
- May 14 Vaseline is granted a patent (U.S. Patent 127,568)
- May 19 Blanche Kelso Bruce appointed register of treasury by President Garfield
- May 23 Attorney John Henry Smyth named US minister to Liberia
- May 24 CA Parker (Harvard) wins 1st American bike race at Beacon Park in Boston
- May 31 German battleship SMS Grosser Kurfürst sinks, 284 killed
- May 31 US Congress accepts decrease in dollar circulation
Birthdays in History
Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929)
May 10 German chancellor (1923) who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926, born in Berlin, Germany
- May 11 Jan Machiel Reyskens, oldest male resident of the Netherlands, (d. 1990 aged 111)
- May 21 Glenn Hammond Curtiss, American inventor (hydroplane) and founder of the US aviation industry, born in Hammondsport, New York (d. 1930)
- May 21 Louis de Visser, Dutch Communist politician (CPN), born in Rotterdam, Netherlands (d. 1945)
- May 24 Lillian Moller Gilbreth, American psychologist and industrial engineer (CIOS Gold Medal-1954), born in Oakland, California (d. 1972)
- May 28 Paul Pelliot, French Sinologist and Orientalist best known for his explorations of Central Asia and his discovery of many important Chinese texts among the Dunhuang manuscripts, born in Paris (d. 1945)
Deaths in History
- May 12 Catherine Beecher, American educator (championed higher education for women), dies at 77
- May 13 Joseph Henry, American scientist and pioneer of electromagnetism, dies at 80
- May 14 Ookubo Toshimichi, Japanese statesman, samurai, and one of the three great nobles who led the Meiji Restoration (b. 1830)
John Russell (1792-1878)
May 28 1st Earl Russell, British Prime Minister (Whig: 1846-52 and 1865-66), dies at 85
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists