May 28

Native American athlete Jim Thorpe born (1887); Volkswagen founded in Germany (1937); HBD singer Gladys Knight (1944); PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, is founded in Jerusalem (1964); RIP poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou (2014).

May 27

Marine biologist and author Rachel Carson born (1907); HBD US statesman Henry Kissinger (1923); Ford ends manufacture of iconic Model T (1927); Golden Gate Bridge opens in California (1937); HBD Outkast rapper André 3000 (1975).

May 26

Dow Jones Industrial Average begins with 12 stocks (1896); Actor John Wayne born (1907); Legendary jazz musician Miles Davis born (1926); First American woman in space, Sally Ride, born (1951); HBD musician Lenny Kravitz (1964).

May 25

Constitutional Convention convenes in Philadelphia (1787); Author Ralph Waldo Emerson born (1803); RIP businesswoman Madam C.J. Walker (1919); "Star Wars" premieres in theaters (1977).

May 24

Samuel Morse sends first commercial telegraph message (1844); The Brooklyn Bridge is opened in NYC (1883); HBD Bob Dylan (1941); HBD musician Patti LaBelle (1944); RIP jazz legend Duke Ellington (1974).

May 21

American Red Cross is founded (1881); Amelia Earhart is first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic (1932); RIP social worker Jane Addams (1935); HBD actor Mr. T (1952); Rapper Notorious B.I.G. born (1972).

May 20

Christopher Columbus dies (1506); Charles Lindbergh makes first nonstop flight across the Atlantic (1927); HBD singer-songwriter Cher (1946); First photograph from space sent from Hubble Space Telescope (1990).

May 19

Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, is beheaded (1536); TE Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, dies (1935); André the Giant born (1946); RIP former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1994); Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle (2018).

May 18

Pope John Paul II is born (1920); Jackie Cochran is first woman to break sound barrier (1953); HBD actress Tina Fey (1970); Mount St. Helens erupts, killing 57 (1980); Facebook raises $16B; largest initial public offering for a tech company at the time (2012).

May 17

Aristides is first winner of Kentucky Derby (1875); Brown v. Board of Education decision outlaws racial segregation in public schools (1954); HBD boxer Sugar Ray Leonard (1956); First same-sex marriages performed in the US (2004); RIP singer Donna Summer (2012).

May 14

Jamestown is settled as first successful permanent English colony in the Americas (1607); Lewis and Clark begin their western expedition (1804); HBD actress Cate Blanchett (1969); First US space station, Skylab, is launched (1973); RIP Frank Sinatra (1998).

Bea Arthur

(born Bernice Frankel; May 13, 1922 – April 25, 2009) was an American actress, comedian and activist.

Arthur began her career on stage in 1947. She won the 1966 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for playing Vera Charles in Mame. She went on to play Maude Findlay on the 1970s sitcoms All in the Family, appearing 1971–1972, and Maude (1972–78), as well as Dorothy Zbornak on the 1980s / 1990s sitcom The Golden Girls (1985–92). She won Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1977 for Maude and 1988 for The Golden Girls. Her film appearances include Lovers and Other Strangers (1970) and Mame (1974). In 2002, she starred in the one-woman show Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends.

From 1947, Beatrice Arthur studied at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York, N.Y. with German director Erwin Piscator. Arthur began her acting career as a member of an off-Broadway theater group at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City in the late 1940s. On stage, her roles included Lucy Brown in the 1954 Off-Broadway premiere of Marc Blitzstein's English-language adaptation of Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, Nadine Fesser in the 1957 premiere of Herman Wouk's Nature's Way at the Coronet Theatre, Yente the Matchmaker in the 1964 premiere of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway.

In 1966, Arthur auditioned for the title role in the musical Mame, which her husband Gene Saks was set to direct, but Angela Lansbury won the role instead.^[3] Arthur accepted the supporting role of Vera Charles, for which she won great acclaim, winning a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical the same year. She reprised the role in the unsuccessful 1974 film version opposite Lucille Ball. In 1981, she appeared in Woody Allen's The Floating Light Bulb.^[6]

She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1994 portraying the Duchess of Krakenthorp, a speaking role, in Gaetano Donizetti's La fille du régiment.^[7] In 1995, she starred opposite Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna in Bermuda Avenue Triangle in Los Angeles.^[8]

TelevisionEdit

Arthur as Maude, c. 1973

In 1971, Arthur was invited by Norman Lear to guest-star on his sitcom All in the Family, as Maude Findlay, the cousin of Edith Bunker. An outspoken liberal feminist, Maude was considered the antithesis role to the caricatured reactionary character Archie Bunker, who described her as a "New Deal fanatic". Nearly 50, Arthur's tart turn on All in the Family impressed viewers as well as executives at CBS who, she would later recall, asked "'Who is that girl? Let's give her her own series.'"^[9]

That series, previewed in her second All in the Family appearance, would be simply titled "Maude". The show, debuting in 1972, found her living in the affluent community of Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York, with her fourth husband Walter (Bill Macy) and divorced daughter Carol (Adrienne Barbeau). Her performance in the role garnered Arthur several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, including her Emmy win in 1977 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Maude would also earn a place for Arthur in the history of the women's liberation movement.^[10]

The series addressed serious sociopolitical topics of the era that were considered taboo for a sitcom, including the Vietnam War, the Nixon Administration, Maude's bid for a Congressional seat, divorce, menopause, drug use, alcoholism, nervous breakdown, mental illness, women's lib, gay rights, abortion, and spousal abuse. A prime example is "Maude's Dilemma", a two-part episode airing near Thanksgiving of 1972 in which Maude's character grapples with a late-life pregnancy, ultimately deciding to have an abortion.^[11] Even though abortion was legal in New York State since 1970, as well as in California since its state's 1969 on-demand ruling, it was illegal in many other regions of the country and, as such, sparked controversy. As a result, dozens of affiliates refused to broadcast the episode when it was originally scheduled, substituting either a repeat from earlier in the season or a Thanksgiving TV special in its place. However, by the time of the summer rerun season six months later all the flak had died down, and the stations that refused to air the episode upon its first run reinstated it for the reruns the following summer. As a result, a reported 65 million viewers watched the two episode arc either in their first run that November or during the following summer as a rerun.^[12] The episode initially aired two months before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the procedure nationwide in the Roe v. Wade outcome in January 1973.^[13]

By 1978, however, Arthur decided to move on from the series. Later the same year (1978), she costarred in Star Wars Holiday Special, in which she had a song and dance routine in the Mos Eisley cantina. She hosted The Beatrice Arthur Special on CBS on January 19, 1980, which paired the star in a musical comedy revue with Rock Hudson, Melba Moore and Wayland Flowers and Madame.^[14]

Arthur returned to television in the short-lived 1983 sitcom Amanda's (an adaptation of the British series Fawlty Towers). Unfortunately, the show was a not a hit with audiences and only 10 of the 13 filmed episodes actually aired.

In 1985, at the age of 63, Arthur was cast in The Golden Girls, in which she played Dorothy Zbornak, a divorced mother and substitute teacher living in a Miami house owned by widow Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan). Her other roommates included widow Rose Nylund (Betty White) and Dorothy's Sicilian mother, Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty). Getty was actually a year younger than Arthur in real life. The series was a hit and remained a top-ten ratings fixture for six of its seven seasons. Arthur's performance as Dorothy Zbornak led to several Emmy nominations over the course of the series and an Emmy win in 1988. Arthur decided to leave the show after seven years, and in 1992 the show was moved from NBC to CBS and retooled as The Golden Palace in which the other three actresses reprised their roles, with Cheech Marin as their new foil. Arthur made a guest appearance in a two-part episode, but the new series lasted only one season.

Film

Arthur sporadically appeared in films, reprising her stage role as Vera Charles in the 1974 film adaption of Mame, opposite Lucille Ball. She portrayed overbearing mother Bea Vecchio in Lovers and Other Strangers (1970), and had a cameo as a Roman unemployment clerk in Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I (1981). She appeared in the 1995 American movie For Better or Worse as Beverly Makeshift.

May 13

The US declares war against Mexico in dispute over Texas (1846); "Golden Girls" actress Bea Arthur born (1922); HBD Stevie Wonder (1950); Pope John Paul II is shot, survives assassination attempt (1981); RIP actress and singer Doris Day (2019).

May 12

Modern nursing innovator Florence Nightingale born (1820); Actress Katharine Hepburn born (1907); Charles Lindbergh’s son found dead two months after being kidnapped (1932); HBD skateboarding legend Tony Hawk (1968); Ex-President Jimmy Carter visits Cuba, the first American president to visit since 1959 revolution (2002).

May 11

Composer and songwriter Irving Berlin born (1888); Salvador Dalí born (1904); Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded (1927); RIP Bob Marley (1981); Deep Blue becomes the first computer to defeat a world champion in chess (1997).

May 10

RIP Paul Revere (1818); First American transcontinental railroad is completed (1869); Winston Churchill becomes prime minister of the UK (1940); RIP actress Joan Crawford (1977); Nelson Mandela inaugurated as president of South Africa (1994).

May 7

German submarine sinks RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 (1915); Eva "Evita" Peron born (1919); Football legend Johnny Unitas born (1933); Germany unconditionally surrenders, ending its participation in WWII (1945); "The Scream" is recovered undamaged after being stolen for three months (1994).

May 6

Famed neurologist Sigmund Freud born (1856); HBD baseball great Willie Mays (1931); Hindenburg disaster kills 36 (1937); Roger Bannister becomes first person to run a mile in under four minutes (1954); RIP actress and singer Marlene Dietrich (1992).

Desmond Mpilo Tutu

 (born 7 October 1931) is a South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. He was the first black South African Archbishop of Cape Town and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa)

Roy T Bennett

Roy T Bennett is the author of the self help book, The Light in the Heart.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens

(November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910) (aged 74) Well known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), which has been called “the Great American Novel”, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Twain was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty

May 5

Napoleon Bonaparte dies while in exile (1821); Cinco de Mayo commemorates Mexican victory in the Battle of Puebla (1862); Alan Shepard becomes first American in outer space (1961); HBD singer-songwriter Adele (1988).

May 3

Philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli born (1469); Boxer Sugar Ray Robinson born (1921); Musician James Brown born (1933); Margaret Mitchell wins Pulitzer for "Gone with the Wind" (1937); First bulk spam email is sent (1978).

May 4

Actress Audrey Hepburn born (1929); First Grammy Awards held (1959); Four killed, nine injured after National Guard opens fire at Kent State University (1970); Margaret Thatcher becomes first female prime minister of the UK (1979); Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat sign peace accord (1994).