This Week in History – May 2-May 8
May 2, 373 – Athanasius, “the father of Orthodoxy,” dies. He attended the Council of Nicea, and after becoming bishop of Alexandria, he fought Arianism and won. More than any other man, he took up the fight for Christ’s divinity in his writings. Five times he had been forced into exile. Slander dogged him. Yet he remained faithful to his vision of an uncreated Christ. He was also the first to list the New Testament canonical books as we know them today.
May 2, 1908 – “Take me out to the Ball Game” is registered for copyright.
May 2, 1918 – GM acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.
May 2, 1992 – The Steger International Polar Expedition, led by Will Steger and Paul Schurke of Ely, reaches the North Pole , and team member Ann Bancroft of St. Paul is the first woman to cross the Arctic to the pole.
May 2, 2011 – U.S. Special Operations Forces kill Osama bin Laden during a raid on his secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
May 3, 1861 – The Southern Congress approves a bill installing chaplains in Confederate armies. The American military did not normally employ chaplains, but they became a permanent fixture during and after the Civil War. Between 100,000 and 200,000 Union soldiers and approximately 150,000 Confederate troops converted to Christianity during wartime revivals.
May 3, 1959 – After passing through the St. Lawrence Seaway, which had opened on April 25, the British freighter Ramon de Larrinaga becomes the first deep draft ocean ship to enter Duluth’s harbor.
May 3, 1989 – Charlotte Day, founder of the Red School House (St. Paul), dies. A member of the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe, Day founded the school to meet the needs of Native American children, teaching Native languages and culture as well as English reading and math skills in Native contexts.
May 3, 2021 – President Joe Biden issues a determination raising the number of additional illegals allowed to gain entry into the U.S. across the southern border, quadrupling the number allowed in under his Feb 4, 2021 executive order.
May 4, 1521 – Traveling home from the Diet of Worms, Martin Luther is taken into protective custody by order of German ruler Frederick the Wise and held at Wartburg, where he will translate the Bible into German.
May 4, 1904 – Construction begins by the U.S. on the Panama Canal.
May 4, 1979 – Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman to be elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
May 4, 2017 – President Donald Trump issues Executive Order 13798 Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty, in contrast to both the preceding and succeeding presidents, to further—and not impede—compliance with the Constitution.
May 5, 1818 – Socialism/communism founder Karl Marx was born in Treves, Germany. He co-authored Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto, advocating the abolition of all private property and state control of land, industry, and all economic operations. Since armed Bolsheviks seized the Winter Palace in Petrograd, Russia—now St. Petersburg—in 1917 to usher in the first communist government, it is estimated that over 1 billion people have been slain worldwide under various socialist and communist regimes. Every country that has tried socialism or communism has failed or extremely worsened both socially and economically.
May 5, 1865 – Decoration Day was first observed in the U.S., with the tradition of decorating soldiers’ graves from the Civil War with flowers. The observance date was later moved to May 30th and included American graves from World War I and World War II, and became known as Memorial Day. In 1971, Congress moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May, thus creating a three-day holiday weekend.
May 5, 1884 – Charles Albert “Chief” Bender is born in Brainerd. The Ojibwe pitcher would be the first Minnesotan inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He would pitch in five World Series for the Philadelphia Athletics, and his career record is 212 wins and 127 losses.
May 5, 1893 – The Wall Street Crash of 1893 and an acute economic depression began under Democrat President Grover Cleveland as stock prices fell dramatically. By the end of the year, 600 banks closed and several big railroads were in receivership. Another 15,000 businesses went bankrupt amid 20 percent unemployment. It was the worst economic crisis in U.S. history up to that time.
May 5, 1961 – Alan Shepard became the first American in space. He piloted the spacecraft Freedom 7 during a 15-minute 28-second suborbital flight that reached an altitude of 116 miles (186 kilometers) above the earth. Shepard’s success occurred 23 days after the Russians had launched the first-ever human in space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, during an era of intense technological competition between the Russians and Americans called the Space Race.
May 5, 1973 – Father Frank F. Perkovich celebrates Minnesota’s first polka mass at Resurrection Catholic Church in Eveleth. Drawing on his Slovenian and Croatian roots, Perkovich had arranged traditional folk music and adapted hymns in English, bringing the polka mass to the Iron Range and later celebrating it in venues around the world.
May 6, 1527 – The Renaissance ended with the sack of Rome by German troops as part of an ongoing conflict between the Hapsburg Empire and the French Monarchy. German troops killed over 4,000 Romans, imprisoned the Pope, and looted works of art and libraries. An entire year passed before order could be restored in Rome.
May 6, 1856 – Explorer Robert E. Peary was born in Cresson, PA. He organized and led eight Arctic expeditions and reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909. He proved Greenland is an island, proved the polar ice cap extends beyond 82° north latitude, and discovered the Melville meteorite.
May 6, 1937 – The German airship Hindenburg burst into flames at 7:20 p.m. as it neared the mooring mast at Lakehurst, NJ, following a trans-Atlantic voyage. Thirty six of the 97 passengers and crew were killed. The inferno was caught on film and also witnessed by a commentator who broke down amid the emotional impact and exclaimed, “Oh, the humanity!” The accident effectively ended commercial airship traffic.
May 7, 1800 – Eastern Minnesota is organized as part of Indiana Territory by an act of Congress.
May 7, 1833 – Composer Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany. He composed over 300 songs and numerous orchestral, choral, piano, and chamber works. Intensely religious, he wrote many works for the church though one never officially employed him. He even compiled the biblical texts for his “German Requiem” himself, commemorating the death of his mother.
May 7, 1839 – Hymnwriter and pastor Elisha A. Hoffman is born in Pennsylvania. His songs include “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.”
May 7, 1867 – The American Medical Association organizes.
May 7, 1867 – Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel patents dynamite in England, the first of three he would receive for the explosive material.
May 7, 1914 – The U.S. Congress establishes Mother’s Day.
May 7, 1915 – The British passenger ship Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland, losing 1,198 of its 1,924 passengers, including 114 Americans. The attack hastened neutral America’s entry into World War I.
May 7, 1945 – In a small red brick schoolhouse in Reims, Germany, General Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender of all German fighting forces thus ending World War II in Europe. Russian, American, British, and French ranking officers observed the signing of the document which became effective at one minute past midnight on May 9th.
May 7, 1952 – The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey Dummer.
May 7, 1992 – The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, prohibiting Congress from giving itself pay raises. Most feel Congress shouldn’t have been allowed to vote themselves money in the first place.
May 7, 2021 – Although so-called “climate change” is not settled science, President Joe Biden issues an executive order creating the largely political Climate Change Support Office.
May 8, 1816 – The American Bible Society (ABS) organizes in New York to distribute the Bible throughout the world. The organization has distributed hundreds of millions of Bibles in thousands of languages worldwide.
May 8, 1828 – Red Cross founder and Nobel Peace Prize winner Henri Dunant was born in Geneva, Switzerland. A Christian, Dunant also a founded the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and organized the Geneva Conventions of 1863 and 1864.
May 8, 1845 – The Southern Baptist Convention, one of the largest denominations in America, organizes in Augusta, GA.
May 8, 1924 – Ice in Duluth’s harbor traps thirteen ships, confining 400 individuals aboard.
May 8, 1962 – Oskar Schindler and his wife Emilie Schindler are honored for saving 1,200 Jews during WWII, in a ceremony on the Avenue of the Righteous, Jerusalem.
May 8, 2018 – President Donald Trump pulls the U.S. out of the ill-conceived Obama-Kerry multilateral Iran nuclear deal which left intact Iran’s nuclear ambitions and led to two cash payments of $1.7 billion in 2016 and $1.3 billion in the last month of Obama’s presidency.
May 8, 2019 – Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi who spent eight years in prison on death row for her Christian faith arrives safely in Canada after worldwide efforts to free her.