On May 11, 973, a landmark event in English history unfolded at Bath Abbey: the formal coronation of King Edgar, known to posterity as Edgar the Peaceful. Though he had already ruled England since 959, this ceremony was not simply a public confirmation of…
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On May 10, 1775, delegates from across the American colonies gathered in Philadelphia for the opening of the Second Continental Congress, a meeting that began as an emergency response to war and soon became the central political body of the American Revolution. The Congress…
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May 10 should be considered a special day for everyone. It was that day, in the little town of Grafton, West Virginia, that Mother’s Day was first established as an official holiday. WBOY in West Virginia explains the history of the holiday that has made the…
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On May 10, 1869, in the arid expanse of Utah Territory at a place called Promontory Summit, two locomotives faced each other across a polished laurel tie as dignitaries and railroad workers looked on. Then, with the ceremonial tapping of a golden spike into…
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On May 9, 1926, American aviator Richard E. Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett returned to Spitsbergen, Norway, with one of the most dramatic claims in the history of polar exploration: they had flown over the North Pole. The flight, made in a three-engine Fokker…
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The passage of the Tea Act by the British Parliament on May 9, 1773, served as a pivotal moment in American history, providing a catalyst for the American Revolution. The Tea Act was essentially designed to bail out the struggling British East India Company by granting it a monopoly…
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On the morning of May 9, 1671, the Tower of London played host to one of the most improbable crimes in British history—a heist so brazen, so theatrical, it defied the line between treason and performance. Colonel Thomas Blood, an Irishman of Protestant birth…
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On May 8, 1980, the World Health Organization made one of the most extraordinary announcements in the history of medicine: smallpox, a disease that had killed hundreds of millions of people across centuries, had been eradicated. The declaration did not mean that smallpox had…
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Joan of Arc’s pivotal role in lifting the Siege of Orléans during the Hundred Years’ War marked a turning point in the conflict and solidified her as a legendary figure in French history. Born into a peasant family in Domrémy in 1412, Joan experienced divine…
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It didn’t start as a soft drink. On May 8, 1886, in the heart of Atlanta, a morphine-addicted Confederate veteran turned pharmacist poured the first glass of what he claimed could cure headaches, exhaustion, indigestion—even impotence. His name was Dr. John Stith Pemberton, and…
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