On This Day in History - May 26

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

Some fascinating events occurred on this day, including the sale of Bram Stoker's infamous novel, Dracula. The last czar of Russia was crowned. On the same day, though on two different continents, Napoleon was crowned King of Italy, while Lewis and Clark spotted the Rocky Mountains for the first time. President Andrew Johnson narrowly avoided being impeached. The first major oil strike in the Middle East took place. Lenin suffered a stroke. Jews in Belgium were forced to wear the Star of David. The United States firebombed Tokyo on this day in 1945. In South Africa in 1948, the Afrikaners managed to vote in their own National Party into power in a surprise win, and that was the true beginning of apartheid. A Buddhist set himself on fire in protest in Vietnam. John and Yoko Ono had another bed in in Montreal. The Apollo 10 astronauts landed back on Earth safely. Atlantic City opened it's first casino. Olympique Marseille won the Europe Cup I. Ellis Island was officially recognized as belonging to New Jersey, rather than New York. And the New York Times acknowledged that there had been some serious journalistic failures up to and after the Iraq invasion.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

May 26, 1897: Dracula goes on sale in London

The first copies of the classic vampire novel Dracula, by Irish writer Bram Stoker, appear in London bookshops on this day in 1897.  

A childhood invalid, Stoker grew up to become a football (soccer) star at Trinity College, Dublin. After graduation, he got a job in civil service at Dublin Castle, where he worked for the next 10 years while writing drama reviews for the Dublin Mail on the side. In this way, Stoker met the well-respected actor Sir Henry Irving, who hired him as his manager. Stoker stayed in the post for most of the next three decades, writing Irving's voluminous correspondence for him and accompanying him on tours in the United States. Over the years, Stoker began writing a number of horror stories for magazines, and in 1890 he published his first novel, The Snake's Pass.  

Stoker would go on to publish 17 novels in all, but it was his 1897 novel Dracula that eventually earned him literary fame and became known as a masterpiece of Victorian-era Gothic literature. Written in the form of diaries and journals of its main characters, Dracula is the story of a vampire who makes his way from Transylvania--a region of Eastern Europe now in Romania--to Yorkshire, England, and preys on innocents there to get the blood he needs to live. Stoker had originally named the vampire "Count Wampyr." He found the name Dracula in a book on Wallachia and Moldavia written by retired diplomat William Wilkinson, which he borrowed from a Yorkshire public library during his family's vacations there.  

Vampires--who left their burial places at night to drink the blood of humans--were popular figures in folk tales from ancient times, but Stoker's novel catapulted them into the mainstream of 20th-century literature. Upon its release, Dracula enjoyed moderate success, though when Stoker died in 1912 none of his obituaries even mentioned Dracula by name. Sales began to take off in the 1920s, when the novel was adapted for Broadway. Dracula mania kicked into even higher gear with Universal's blockbuster 1931 film, directed by Tod Browning and starring the Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi. Dozens of vampire-themed movies, television shows and literature followed, though Lugosi, with his exotic accent, remains the quintessential Count Dracula. Late 20th-century examples of the vampire craze include the bestselling novels of American writer Anne Rice and the cult hit TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

0017 - Germanicus of Rome celebrated his victory over the Germans.  

451 - The Battle of Avarayr between Armenian rebels and the Sassanid Empire takes place. The Armenians are defeated militarily but are guaranteed freedom to openly practice Christianity.

961 - German King Otto II crowned

1328 - William of Ockham was forced to flee from Avignon by Pope John XXII.

1521 - Martin Luther was banned by the Edict of Worms because of his religious beliefs and writings.

1538 - Geneva expels John Calvin and his followers from the city. Calvin lives in exile in Strasbourg for the next three years.

1596 - England, France and; Netherlands signed Drievoudig Covenant against Spain

1637 - First battle of Pequot at Mystic Ct kills 500 indians

1647 - A new law banned Catholic priests from the colony of Massachusetts. The penalty was banishment or death for a second offense.  

1647 - Alse Young becomes the first person executed as a witch in the American colonies, when she is hanged in Hartford, Connecticut.

1660 - King Charles II of England landed at Dover after being exiled for nine years.

1670 - A treaty was signed in secret in Dover, England, between Charles II and Louis XIV ending the hostilities between them.

1691 - Jacob Leiser, leader of the popular uprising in support of William and Mary’s accession to the English throne, was executed for treason.

1736 - The British and Chickasaw Indians defeated the French at the Battle of Ackia in Louisiana.

1770 - The Orlov Revolt, a first attempt to revolt against the Turks before the Greek War of Independence ends in disaster for the Greeks.

1781 - Bank of North America incorporates in Philadelphia

1790 - Territory South of River Ohio created by Congress

1791 - French Revolution - The French Assembly forced King Louis XVI to hand over the crown and state assets.

1798 - British kill about 500 Irish insurgents at the Battle of Tara

1805 - Lewis and Clark see the Rocky Mountains for the first time.

1805 - Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned King of Italy in Milan Cathedral.

1831 - Russians defeated the Poles at battle of Ostrolenska.

1824 - Brazil is recognized by US

1828 - Mysterious feral child Kaspar Hauser is discovered wandering the streets of Nuremberg.

1834 - Portuguese Civil war ends, Dom Miguel capitulates

1835 - A resolution was passed in the U.S. Congress stating that Congress has no authority over state slavery laws.

1836 - The U.S. House of Representatives adopted what has been called the Gag Rule.

1860 - Garibaldi occupies Palermo Italy

1861 - Postmaster General Blair announces end of postal connection with South

1861 - Union blockades New Orleans LA & Mobile AL

1864 - -30] Skirmish along the Totopotomoy Creek, Virginia

1864 - The Territory of Montana was organized.

1865 - Arrangements were made in New Orleans for the surrender of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi.

1865 - Battle of Galveston TX, surrender of Edmund Kirby Smith

1868 - President Andrew Johnson avoided conviction for impeachment charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors" by one vote.

1869 - Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

1874 - 2nd Preakness: William Donohue aboard Culpepper wins in 2:56.5

1876 - HMS Challenger returns from 128,000-km oceanographic exploration

1883 - 11th Preakness: G Barbee aboard Jacobus wins in 2:42.5

1884 - Fred Spofforth takes 7-34 & 7-3 v England XI in 4 hours

1887 - Racetrack betting becomes legal in NY state

1894 - Emanuel Lasker (26) becomes World Champion chess player

1896 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average appeared for the first time in the "Wall Street Journal."   Dow Jones begins an index of 12 industrial stocks (closing is 40.94)

1896 - The last czar of Russia, Nicholas II, was crowned.  

1896 - First American intercollegiate bicycle race, Manhattan Beach NY

1896 - James Dunham murders six people in Campbell, California.

1898 - 32nd Belmont: F Littlefield aboard Bowling Brook wins in 2:32

1898 - SF approves City Charter, allows Municipal ownership of utilities

1900 - British troops under Ian Hamilton attack the Vaal in South Africa

1903 - Start of Sherlock Holmes "Adventure of 3 Gables" (BG)

1905 - A pogrom against Jews in Minsk Belorussia

1906 - Archaeological Institute of America forms

1906 - Vauxhall Bridge is opened in London.

1907 - Chicago White Sox Ed Walsh no-hits NY Highlanders, 8-1 in 5 inning game

1908 - At Masjed Soleyman (مسجد سليمان) in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom.

1911 - First Indianapolis 500 auto race is run

1913 - Actors’ Equity Association was organized in New York City.

1913 - Emily Duncan becomes Great Britain's first woman magistrate.

1915 - H H Asquith forms a coalition government in England

1917 - Walt Cruise hit 1st HR out of Braves Field

1918 - Georgian Social Democratic Republic declares independence from Russia

1918 - Armenia defeats the Ottoman Army in the Battle of Sardarapat.

1922 - Lenin suffers a stroke 1923 - 1st Le Mans Grand Prix d'Endurance is run

1923 - Socialist Workers Youth International forms in Hamburg

1924 - German government of Marx resigns

1924 - President Calvin Coolidge signs Immigration law: restricting immigration

1925 - Babe Ruth is finally out of bed, 5 weeks after ulcer surgery

1925 - Tigers' Ty Cobb is 1st to collect 1,000 extra-base hits (ends 1,139)

1926 - In Morocco, rebel leader Abd el Krim surrendered.

1926 - Lebanon adopted constitution

1930 - Joe Sewell, strikes out twice of his 3 times in 1930, by Pat Caraway

1930 - Supreme Court rules buying liquor does not violate the Constitution

1932 - Admiral Makoto Saito forms parliament in Tokyo

1933 - Second emergency Dutch government of Colijn forms

1933 - Phillies Chuck Klein hits for cycle vs St Louis Cards

1934 - Century of Progress Exposition reopens in Chicago

1936 - First government of Zealand in Belgium ends

1937 - Dutch Rail NV at law forms

1937 - San Francisco Bay's Golden Gate Bridge opens

1938 - The House Committee on Un-American Activities began its work of searching for subversives in the United States.

1940 - First successful helicopter flight in US: Vought-Sikorsky US-300 designed by Igor Sikorsky

1940 - Operation Dynamo - Allied troops began the massive naval evacuation of troops from Dunkirk, France, during World War II.

1941 - American Flag House (Betsy Ross' Home) given to city of Phila

1941 - Ark Royal airplane sights German battleship Bismarck

1941 - German occupiers begin youth labor

1942 - Anglo-Soviet Treaty signed in London

1942 - Belgium Jews are required by Nazis to wear a Jewish star

1942 - Tank battle at Bir Hakeim: African corps vs British army

1943 - First president of a black country to visit US (Edwin Barclay, Liberia)

1943 - Jews riot against Germany in Amsterdam

1943 - Premier Churchill & General Marshall fly from US to North Africa

1944 - 82nd Airborne div D-day-landing at La Haye du Puits to Ste Mere Eglise

1945 - US drop fire bombs on Tokyo

1946 - 2-for-42 & hitting .048 for 1946, Mel Ott stops playing baseball

1946 - Darius Milhauds 3rd Concert for piano/orchestra premieres in Prague

1946 - Klement Gottwald becomes premier of Czechoslovakia

1946 - A patent was filed in the United States for an H-bomb.

1946 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed a military pact with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin promised a "close collaboration after the war."

1948 - The U.S. Congress passed Public Law 557 which permanently established the Civil Air Patrol as the Auxiliary of the new U.S. Air Force.

1948 - Entire Hagana-arm forces sworn-in as Israeli soldiers

1948 - South Africa elects a nationalist government with apartheid policy

1951 - Vaughan Williams "Pilgrim's Progress," premieres in London

1953 - Dutch Convair crashes at Schipholweg, 2 die

1955 - "7th Heaven" opens at ANTA Theater NYC for 44 performances

1955 - Conservatives win British parliamentary election

1955 - Khrushchev arrives in Belgrade

1956 - The first trailer bank opened for business in Locust Grove, Long Island, NY. The 46-foot-long trailer took in $100,000 in deposits its first day.  

1956 - Aircraft carrier "Bennington" burns off RI, killing 103

1956 - Reds' John Klippstein, Hershel Freemman and Joe Blacks no-hitter, broken up with 2 outs in 10th and lose to Braves in 11th, 2-1

1958 - Ceylon emergency crisis proclaimed

1958 - US performs nuclear test at Enwetak (atmospheric tests)

1958 - Union Square, San Francisco became a state historical landmark.

1959 - Pittsburgh Pirates’ Harvey Haddix pitched 12 perfect innings against the Milwaukee Braves before losing, 1–0, in the 13th.

1959 - The word "Frisbee" became a registered trademark of Wham-O.

1961 - Civil rights activist group Freedom Ride Coordinating Committee was established in Atlanta, GA.

1961 - A U.S. Air Force bomber flew across the Atlantic in a record time of just over three hours.

1962 - "All American" closes at Winter Garden Theater NYC after 80 perfs

1963 - 15th Emmy Awards: Dick Van Dyke Show, E G Marshall & Shirley Booth

1963 - Organization of African Unity formed

1963 - Wes Stock becomes only Balt Oriole to win a doubleheader

1964 - "Fade Out-Fade In" opens at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC for 199 perfs

1965 - Dutch Voting Rights Bill passes

1965 - Revised Intl Convention on Safety of Life at Sea takes effect

1966 - Buddhist sets self on fire at US consulate in Hué South-Vietnam

1966 - Guyana (formerly British Guiana) declares independence from UK

1967 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1969 - The Apollo 10 astronauts returned to Earth after a successful eight-day dress rehearsal for the first manned moon landing.

1969 - John and Yoko begin their second bed-in (Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal)

1970 - The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2.

1971 - Soviet Union's Concorde, TU-144, makes its first appearance

1972 - Joe Frazier TKOs Ron Stander in 5 for heavyweight boxing title

1972 - The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) was signed by the U.S. and USSR. The short-term agreement put a freeze on the testing and deployment of intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles for a 5-year period.

1972 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1972 - The British state-owned travel firm Thomas Cook & Son is sold to a consortium of private businesses headed by the Midland Bank.

1973 - Bahrain adopts it's constitution

1973 - Beatles' "Beatles 1967-1970," album goes #1

1973 - Chicago White Sox beat Cleve Indians, 6-3, in 21 inn (game complete 5/28)

1973 - Funky Worm by Ohio Players hits #15

1973 - Super Fly Meets Shaft by John & Ernest hits #31

1973 - Kathy Schmidt set an American women’s javelin record with a throw of 207 feet, 10 inches.

1973 - Tippett's 3rd Piano sonata, premieres

1974 - During a David Cassidy concert in London a 14 year old is trampled

1975 - Tennis game in Surrey championships lasts 31 minutes

1975 - American stuntman Evel Knievel suffered severe spinal injuries in Britain when he crashed while attempting to jump 13 buses in his car.

1977 - George Willig, "the human fly," scaled the Souht Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City by attaching himself to the window washer mechanism and walking straight up until falling into police custody when he reached the top. It took Willig three and a half hours to make the climb, and 1.10 in fines—a penny per floor.

1978 - The first legal casino to be operated in the United States outside of Nevada was opened in Atlantic City.

1979 - Dancin' Fool by Frank Zappa hits #45

1980 - Dietmar Mogenburg of West Germany ties high jump record at 7'8"

1980 - Phillie Steve Carlton is 1st NLer to record 6, 1-hitters

1980 - Soyuz 36 carries 2 cosmonauts (1 Hungarian) to Salyut 6

1981 - Marine jet crashes on flight deck of USS Nimitz, killing 14

1981 - The Italian Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani and his coalition cabinet resign following a scandal over membership of the pseudo-masonic lodge P2 (Propaganda Due).

1982 - Aston Villa wins 27th Europe Cup 1 of Rotterdam

1982 - British ship Atlantic Conveyor & Coventry were hit in Falkland war

1983 - 29th Walker Cup: US, 13½ - 10½

1983 - Challenger moves to launch pad for STS-7

1983 - LA Lakers set NBA playoff game record of fewest free throws

1983 - NASA launches Exosat

1983 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1984 - Frisbee is kept aloft for 1,672 seconds in Philadelphia

1984 - Tulsa Oklahoma gets 13" of rain, 14 die

1985 - Danny Sullivan wins Indy 500 by 24 seconds following a spin

1985 - Explosions destroys 2 tankers off of Gibraltar, 30 die

1987 - Supreme Court ruled dangerous defendants could be held without bail

1987 - William H Webster replaces Robert M Gates as 14th director of CIA

1987 - Sri Lanka launched Operation Liberation. It was an offensive against the Tamil rebellion in Jaffra.

1988 - The Edmonton Oilers won their fourth NHL Stanley Cup in five seasons. They swept the series 4 games to 0 against the Boston Bruins.

1989 - At 7:42 AM, radio has a 30 2nd silence, honoring radio

1989 - Danish parliament allows legal marriage among homosexuals

1989 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1990 - China PR performs nuclear test at Lop Nor PRC

1990 - Philadelphia Phillies retire Mike Schmidt's uniform #20

1991 - A Lauda Air Boeing 767 crashed in Thailand, killing all 223 people aboard.

1992 - Carlos Martinez hits a ball off Jose Canseco's head for a HR

1992 - Weird Al Yankovic begins his Off The Deep End tour

1993 - Emmy 20th Daytime Award presentation - Susan Lucci loses for 14th time

1993 - Olympique Marseille wins 38th Europe Cup I at Munich

1994 - U.S. President Clinton renewed trade privileges for China, and announced that his administration would no longer link China's trade status with its human rights record.

1993 - Long fly ball by Indians' Carlos Martinez bounces off Jose Canseco's head & goes over fence for a home run

1996 - "Midsummer Night's Dream" closes at Lunt-Fontanne NYC after 66 perfs

1996 - Indianapolis 500 race

1997 - Sammy Sosa (Cubs) & Tony Womack (Pirates) hit inside the park HRs

1998 - Date for Paula Jones sex harassment trial vs Pres Clinton

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police officers in high-speed chases are liable for bystander injuries only if their "actions shock the conscience."

1998 - The Grand Princess cruise ship made its inaugural cruise. The ship measured 109,000 tons and cost approximately $450 million, making it the largest and most expensive cruise ship ever built.

1998 - The United States Supreme Court rules that Ellis Island, the historic gateway for millions of immigrants, is mainly in the state of New Jersey, not New York.

2002 - The Mars Odyssey finds signs of large ice deposits on the planet Mars.

2002 - Álvaro Uribe becomes President of Colombia.

2003 - Rwandans voted to approve a new constitution that instituted a balance of power between Hutu and Tutsi.

2003 - Only three days after a previous record, Sherpa Lakpa Gelu climbs Mount Everest in 10 hours 56 minutes. The tourism ministry of Nepal confirms this record in July that year.

2004 - The New York Times publishes an admission of journalistic failings, claiming that its flawed reporting and lack of skeptism towards sources during the buildup to the 2003 war in Iraq helped promote the belief that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

2004 - The United States Army veteran Terry Nichols is found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the Oklahoma City bombing.

2006 - The May 2006 Java earthquake kills over 5,700 people, leaves 200,000 homeless.

2011 - Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general responsible for the massacre of over 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995, is found and arrested in Lazarevo, a farming town north of Belgrade, Serbia.

2012 - A gunman in the Finnish town of Hyvink killed two and wounded seven.

2012 - Pope Benedict XVI's butler is arrested for allegedly leaking confidential documents




The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:

http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/may26.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory