Tuesday, 28 May 2013

May 20, 1979

Elton John performed in Leningrad, the first Western solo artist to tour the Soviet Union.

May 20, 1961

The Orient Express, once the epitome of luxury travel, set off from Paris on its final journey to istanbul.

May 20, 1873

Levi Strauss began making Levi's denim jeans, now a staple of wardrobes worldwide but originally designed for miners in the California Gold Rush.

May 13, 2003

Four near-simultaneous suicide bombings killed 35 people in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh.

May 13, 1998

Despite sanctions, India carried out a fifth underground nuclear test in the rajasthan desert.

May 13, 1981

Pope John Paul II was shot as he drove through a crowd of 20,000 in St Peter's Square in Rome.

May 13, 1940

Wiston Churchill told Britain's wartime coalition he could offer"nothing but blood, toil, tears & sweat.

May 13, 2008

A life-sized Lucian Freud portrait of a naked woman, "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping", sold for $33.6m, then a record for a work by a living artist.

May 19, 2008

The European Commission granted the first vaccine licence to prepare for a H5N1 bird flu pandemic.

May 19, 1994

Malawi's President Hastings Banda was ousted from power after over 30 years of iron-fisted rule.

May 19, 1988

Sikh rebels holding out in the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, surrendered to government forces.

May 19, 1643

Connecticut, Plymouth and New Haven formed the Confederation of new England during the Indian wars.

May 19, 1588

The Spanish Armada, then the largest fleet ever assembled, set sail ffrom Lisbon on an ill-fated attempt to invade England and overthrow Queen Elizabeth 1.

May 28, 2008

A 380m-year-old fossil fish provided the oldest-known example of a mother giving birth to live young.

May 28, 2000

Alberto Fujimori was relected president of Peru amid claims that the voting had been rigged.

May 28, 1998

Pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope Revealed a planet outside our own solar system.

May 28, 1991

Rebels entered the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, ending the 17-year rule of the Marxist government.

May, 28 2004

The last span of the Millau viaduct in France, the world's highest road bridge, was completed. It soars 270m above the River Tarn

Monday, 27 May 2013

May 21, 2003

An earthquake claimed more than 2,260 lives in Algiers.

May 21, 1995

Two paintings purchased in a flea market in Barcelona, Spain, were authenticated as genuine Picassos.

May 21, 1993

Octavio Lepage was sworn in as the acting leader of Venezuela after President Carlos Andres Perez was suspended for corruption.

May 21,1973

A British gunboat chased an Icelandic frigate in the first Royal Navy action of the "Cod War".

May 22, 2003

A manuscript of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with handwritten revisions, sold for 2.133m pound.

May 22, 1996

Japan settled lawsuits after hundreds died in Minamata from eating mercury-trainted seafood from 1953-60

May 22, 1981

British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, was jailed for life on 13 counts of murder

May 23, 1888

Edgar Rice Burroughts chose this day as the birth date of his fictional character, Tarzan.

May 22, 1813

Richard Wagner, influential German composer whose works include the Ring cycle and Lohengrin, was born. His music was admired by Adolf Hitler