May 1896 in History

Events in History

Historic Event

May 1 Seven days after parliament was dissolved, Charles Tupper is sworn in as the 6th Prime Minister of Canada

May 4 1st edition of London Daily Mail (halfpenny)
May 4 Grease fire ignites half ton of dynamite at Cripple Creek, Colorado
May 6 Samuel Pierpont Langley flies his unpiloted Number 5 aircraft using a catapult launch from a boat on the Potomac River, USA. The aircraft travels almost 3/4 of a mile - ten times further than any previous heavier-than-air flying machine.
May 9 1st horseless carriage show in London (featured 10 models)
May 14 Lowest US temperature in May recorded (-10°F /-23°C at Climax, Colorado)
May 15 Tornado kills 78 in Texas
May 18 US Supreme court affirms legitimacy of racial separation (Plessy v Ferguson), a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal"

Royal Coronation

May 18 Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field, Moscow, during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, results in the deaths of 1,389 people

Historic Event

May 19 1st auto (Karl Benz) arrives in Netherlands

May 26 Dow Jones index begins with an average of 12 industrial stocks (closing is 40.94)
May 26 Last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, crowned
May 26 James Dunham murders six people in Campbell, California
May 27 Bay District Race Track in San Francisco closes
May 27 Tornado hit St Louis, killing 255, leaving thousands homeless

Birthdays in History

May 1 Herbert Backe, German Nazi politician (Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture), born in Batumi, Kutais Governorate, Russian Empire (d. 1947)
May 1 Mark W. Clark, American general, born in Madison Barracks, Sackets Harbor, New York (d. 1984)
May 1 J. Lawton Collins, American general, born in New Orleans, Louisiana (d. 1987)
May 2 Helen of Greece and Denmark, Queen Mother of Romania, born in Athens, Greece (d. 1982)
May 3 Dodie Smith, English novelist and playwright (101 Dalmatians), born in Whitefield, Lancashire, England (d. 1990)
May 3 Karl Allmenröder, German World War I flying Ace, born in Wald, Rhine Province, Germany (d. 1917)
May 7 Pavel Sergeevich Aleksandrov, Russian mathematician (topology), born in Moscow, Russia (d. 1982)
May 11 Philippo de Pisis, Italian painter
May 17 Hannah Tillich, German-American writer (Harbor Mouse) and wife of Paul Tillich, born in Rotenburg an der Fulda, Germany (d. 1988)
May 19 Michael Balcon, producer/father of Jill Balcon, born in Birmingham, England
May 23 Felix Martin Julius Steiner, German Heer and Waffen-SS officer (d. 1966)

May 25 Jan Nicolaas Bakhuizen van den Brink, Dutch theologist and church historian, born in Joure, Netherlands (d. 1987)
May 29 George L. Funke, Dutch botanist (Flower Physiology), born in The Hague, Netherlands

Deaths in History

May 1 Nasr-ed-Din, shah of Persia (184.-96), murdered at 65
May 5 Silas Adams, American lawyer and politician (b. 1839)

H. H. Holmes

May 7 H. H. Holmes [Herman Webster Mudgett], American serial killer executed by hanging at 34

May 13 Nora Perry, American poet, journalist and children's writer, dies (b. 1831)
May 17 Sophus Tromholt, Norwegian astrophysicist and photographer (photographed Sami people), dies at 45
May 23 Jose Asunción Silva, Colombian poet (Nocturno III), dies at 30
May 27 Allard Pierson, Dutch theologist, philosopher and art historian, dies at 65
May 27 Aleksandr Grigorievich Stoletov, Russian physicist (b. 1839)
May 29 Gabriel Auguste Daubrée, French geologist, dies at 81