Edward VII, the 68-year-old King of Great Britain and Ireland and its possessions, and Emperor of India, developed a bad cold after spending a cold and rainy weekend at his estate in Sandringham. Refusing to rest and ignoring medical advice, the popular monarch developed bronchitis, then pneumonia, and was dead by Friday.[1]
Edward Payson Weston walked into New York City Hallat3:10 pm, completing a walk across the continent that he had started in Santa Monica on February 1. The septuagenarian was greeted by New York MayorWilliam Jay Gaynor, who proclaimed, "Weston, you are a benefactor to the human race, for you have shown people what can be done by a man who lives simply and healthfully in the open air."[4]
The President of the United States returned to his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio, for the first time since his inauguration. At his own request, William Howard Taft was treated as an "ordinary" citizen as he renewed acquaintances.[6]
Died: Howard Taylor Ricketts, 38, American biologist for whom bacteria of the genus Rickettsiae are named; of typhus during research on that disease; and Lottie Collins, 44, English singer and dancer
The Royal Canadian Navy came into existence when the Naval Service Act became law,[7] creating a force separate from Britain's Royal Navy. The first two ships, designated "HMCS" for "His Majesty's Canadian Ship", were the Rainbow and the Niobe.[8]
Twelve years after the USS Maine had exploded and sunk in Havana Harbor, the U.S. Senate passed legislation to pay for the raising of the ship's remains at "all convenient speed", and the bill was signed into law.[9]
The U.S. Weather Bureau, predecessor to the National Weather Service, set a record, which still stands, for the highest altitude achieved by a kite. An altitude of 23,826 feet (7,262 m) was reached by the highest of ten kites on an 81⁄2 mile long steel wire.[12]
Dearfield, Colorado, was founded as an all-black community by Oliver Toussaint Jackson. The town made a steady decline after World War I, and the last resident died in 1973.[13]
Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, for 1909, in Christiana (now Oslo), Norway, but pledged to donate the money "as a nucleus for a foundation to forward the cause of industrial peace".[14]
USS Cyclops, a U.S. Navy coal hauling ship (collier), was launched. The ship would become famous in the world of the paranormal after its disappearance in 1918 while sailing, with 306 people on board, into the area known as the Bermuda Triangle.[17]
A fire at the General Explosives Company near Hull, Quebec set off a blast that killed fifteen people, and injured more than 100. Most were spectators who ignored warnings to leave the area. The blast shattered windows in neighboring Ottawa, Ontario.[19]
In elections in Spain, Premier José Canalejas retained his majority.[2]
For the first time in its history, the United States Supreme Court ordered the release of a convict from his sentence, on grounds that his punishment violated the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.[20] Paul Weems, who had served at a lighthouse in the Philippines, had been held in heavy chains for malfeasance of office.
Atotal eclipse of the Sun was visible in the southernmost portions of the British Empire, including Tasmania and part of the Australian Antarctic territory.
President Taft approved an act passed by the United States Congress to remove the wreck of the battleship USS Maine, which had been destroyed 12 years earlier in Havana Harbor.[22]
Glacier National Park (U.S.) was established in Montana by federal law. The park has an area of 1,584 square miles (4,100 km2), and contains 653 lakes, 175 mountains, and 26 glaciers. After attracting 4,000 visitors in its first full year as a park (1911), the park had more than 2,000,000 visitors in 2009.[25]
Woolworth's became the first large retail chain to sell ice cream cones, test-marketing the treat at counters at several sites that had been supplied with modern refrigerator-freezers. The idea was successful enough that it would be introduced nationwide by the variety store, and then by other chain stores.[27]
French aviator Gabriel Hauvette-Michelin became only the seventh person in history to be killed in an airplane accident, crashing while attempting a takeoff at a show in Lyons.[28]
AtBrussels, representatives of Belgium, Great Britain and Germany signed a border agreement regarding their central African colonies, respectively the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of Congo), the British protectorate in Uganda, and part of German East Africa now in Tanzania.[29]
The Reverend Henry Scott Holland, Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral, delivered a sermon following the death of King Edward VII, entitled "Life Unbroken", but often referred to by its first line, "Death is nothing at all."[31][32] Largely forgotten for nearly 80 years, the words would find new popularity in the late 1980s as part of the consolation of grief.[33][34]
While watching a parade of the Barnum and Bailey Circus, several thousand people in Newark, New Jersey, ran in panic caused by a false rumor. As the animals passed, a calliope had frightened a police horse, spectators scattered, and someone shouted that a lion or lions had broken loose. More than 20 people were injured, and five taken to the city hospital, but none fatally.[35]
InMissouri, Dr. Bennett Clark Hyde was convicted of murder, by poison, in the October 3, 1909, death of his patient, Kansas City philanthropist Thomas H. Swope. However, the conviction would be reversed and two retrials would end in hung juries. State law prohibited Hyde from being tried a fourth time, and he lived until 1934.[36]
Troops from the armies of Peru and Ecuador massed on the common border between those two nations.[2]
The case of Liliuokalani v. United States, 45 Ct.Cl 418 (1910) was decided by the United States Court of Claims, which ruled that the former Queen of Hawai'i was not entitled to compensation for the "Crown Lands" taken when the monarchy had been overthrown in 1893.[37][38]
The chain reaction explosion of seven boilers at the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company in Canton, Ohio, killed thirteen employees and seriously injured thirty others.[40]
Halley's Comet made its closest approach to Earth (15 million miles) and passed between the Earth and the Sun.[43]
An explosion of 3,000 pounds of dynamite at Pinar del Río, Cuba, destroyed the barracks of the Rural Guards force there, and killed more than 100 soldiers.[2][44]
Died: Pauline Viardot, French mezzo-soprano and composer (born 1821)
France and the Ottoman Empire signed a convention setting the boundary between their North African possessions, creating what is now the border between Tunisia and Libya.[46]
The "High Treason Incident" began in Japan when, following an anonymous tip, police of the Nagano Prefecture searched the apartment of anarchist Miyashita Takichi, and uncovered bombmaking materials, along with enough evidence to get an arrest warrant for Takichi and his accomplices on charges of plotting to assassinate the Emperor Meiji.[48]
Vilhelm Bjerknes oversaw the simultaneous gathering of extensive meteorological data across Western Europe, using balloons in multiple locations. Lewis Fry Richardson used the data of May 20, 1910, seven years later in attempting to make the first mathematical calculations for weather forecasting.[49]
Chile accepted a loan of $13 million from the Rothschild family of London.[2]
Died: "Punch", 45, "the oldest horse in the world". Born May 14, 1865, Punch had outlived his original owner, polo player Woodbury Kane.[50]
The settlement of Ahuzzat Bayit, founded on April 11, 1909, by Jewish settlers in Palestine, was given the name Tel Aviv, Hebrew for "spring hill", or more specifically for the newness of springtime built upon a pile of ancient ruins.[51] The name was also used in the book of Ezekiel at 3:15 ("Telabib" in the KJV).
The United States and Canada signed a treaty in Washington to settle the dispute over the coastal boundary between Maine and New Brunswick.[52]
Ecuador and Peru accepted an offer for their boundary dispute to be mediated by Argentina, Brazil and the United States[53]
King George V of the United Kingdom issued pardons for many prisoners serving short sentences, and reduced the sentences of others, as part of a nationwide clemency.[54]
Born: Johnny Olson, American game show announcer (The Price Is Right) (died 1985)
After a year's delay, a renegotiated loan offer was made to the Imperial Chinese government for construction of railroads in China. Originally financed by British, German and French banks, the terms were renegotiated to include American lenders as well. Dissatisfaction over the loan was considered a major factor in the Chinese revolution of 1911.[56]
In Peking, an edict ordered the use of decimal coinage for China.[53]
Born: Jimmy Demaret, American professional golfer (Masters 1940, 1947, 1950), in Houston (died 1983)
Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright flew on the same plane for the only time, with Orville piloting, at the Huffman Prairie airfield, near Dayton. Wilbur also made his last flight as a pilot on this day. Earlier in the day, their 81-year-old father, Bishop Milton Wright, went up on his only airplane flight, with Orville as pilot.[57]
The French submarine Pluviose was lost with all 27 crewmen in the English Channel after colliding with the steamer Pas de Calais. The lookout on the steamer had seen the sub's periscope, but mistook it for a buoy.[58][59]
Died: U.S. Army 1st Lt. Edward Y. Miller, Governor of Palawan province in the Philippine Islands, drowned in the Aborlan River in the province.[61] First Lt. Miller was known as the "King of the Palawans" and idolized by the 28,000 residents of Palawan.[62][63]
Following an all-day battle for control of the coastal town of Bluefields, Nicaragua, rebels under the command of General Estrada forced the Nicaraguan army to retreat.[65]
The Union of South Africa was created from a merger of the British Cape Colony and Colony of Natal, and the conquered Afrikaans-speaking republics in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony. At its founding, South Africa had 1,275,000 Whites and 4,000,000 Africans, as well as 500,000 Coloureds and 150,000 Indians, with voting rights limited to the White population.[69]
^"The Maine To Be Raised". The New York Times. May 5, 1910. p. 10.
^"Quake Toll 1,500 Lives", Indianapolis Star, May 8, 1910, p1
^"195 Trapped In Pit Blast", Indianapolis Star, May 6, 1910, p1
^Guinness Book of World Records (Sterling Publishing, 1962), excerpt in Popular Science Magazine (June 1962), p65; "Kite Rises 23,800 Feet", New York Times, May 6, 1910, p1
^"100 Guards Die In Blast", Indianapolis Star, May 19, 1910, p1
^"Earth Passes Through Comet's Tail: All's Well; Earth, Tail-Swept, Emerges Unharmed", Indianapolis Star, May 19, 1910, p1
^"Libya–Tunisia Boundary"Archived 2010-03-26 at the Wayback Machine, International Boundary Study No. 121 (April 7, 1972), U.S. Department of State; (Florida State University Law School website)
^"Millions Watch King's Funeral" "The Funeral Procession", New York Times, May 21, 1910
^F. G. Notehelfer, Kōtoku Shūsui: Portrait of a Japanese Radical (Cambridge University Press, 1971), p183
^"The Weatherman", by Brian Hayes, American Scientist Magazine (2001)
^"Famous Horse Buried", Washington Post, May 23, 1910, p1
^Werner Levi, Modern China's Foreign Policy (University of Minnesota Press, 2009), pp125–127
^"Wright Flies With Father", New York Times, May 26, 1910, p2
^"French Submarine Sunk With 27 Men", New York Times, May 27, 1910, p1
^"THE WRECKED PLUVIOSE". Observer. Vol. LXVII, no. 5, 285. South Australia. 18 June 1910. p. 34. Retrieved 5 January 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
