May 15, 1896: An F5 tornado hits Sherman, Texas. At least 73 are killed and over 200 injured.
May 15, 1836: Francis Baily observes “Baily’s beads” during an annular eclipse.
May 16, 1938: 35 are killed in the Terminal Hotel Fire in Atlanta.
May 16, 1770: 14-year-old Marie Antoinette marries 15-year-old Prince Louis-Auguste, who later becomes King Louis XVI of France.
May 17, 1990: The General Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) eliminates homosexuality from the list of psychiatric diseases.
May 19, 1928: The Mather Mine Disaster in Pennsylvania kills 195.
May 19, 1962: A birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, New York City. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe’s rendition of “Happy Birthday”.
May 21, 1792: Mt Unzen in Japan erupts.
This volcanic eruption and accompanying earthquakes cause a large portion of the mountain to slide off into Ariake Bay, creating a megatsunami. 15,000 die.
May 22, 1960: The Valdivian Earthquake occurs in Chile.
At 9.5 on the Richter Scale, this is the strongest earthquake ever measured. Up to 6000 were killed, many by tsunamis. 12 hours after the quake, resulting tsunamis killed 60 people in Hawaii. Almost 12 hours after that the tsunamis hit Japan killing over 100 people.
22 May 1960: Ted Kaczynski born.
May 23, 1939: The USS Squalus submarine sinks off New Hampshire with 59 aboard. Amazingly, 33 were rescued by lowering a diving bell several times and filling it to capacity. At 240 feet down, no submarine rescue of this kind had ever been successfully done before.
May 23, 1934: Infamous bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
May 24, 1881: The Steamboat Victoria overturns on the Thames River near London, Ontario. 200 die. The boat has been overcrowded, and when many passengers together rushed to one side to see a rowboat race, the ship unbalanced and the boiler on board broke away from its mounting. This led to the collapse of the crowded upper tier of the boat which crashed onto the crowded lower tier, and the entire steamship capsized.
May 25, 1955: An F5 Wedge tornado strikes Udall, Kansas. 80 people are killed and over 200 injured. This is the deadliest tornado ever in Kansas.
May 25, 1955: First ascent of Kangchenjunga, the third-highest mountain in the world, by a British expedition led by Charles Evans. Joe Brown and George Band reached the summit on May 25, followed by Norman Hardie and Tony Streather the next day.
May 25, 1961: Apollo program: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of the Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a “man on the Moon” before the end of the decade.
May 25, 1977: Star Wars is released in theaters, and the Chinese government removes a decade old ban on William Shakespeare’s work, effectively ending the Cultural Revolution started in 1966.
Surprisingly big day for science and culture.
May 26, 1917: The Matoon/Charleston tornado kills 103 in Illinois.
May 26, 1293: An earthquake strikes Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan, killing about 23,000.
May 27, 1896: The Great St. Louis Tornado kills at least 255 and injures over a thousand. This is the third deadliest single tornado in U.S. history.
May 27, 1933: The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon Three Little Pigs, with its hit song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”