The lockout of 800,000 British coal miners began, three days before the nationwide Trades Union Congress strike was to begin.[1]
TheFord Motor Company became the first major American company to introduce the 40-hour workweek and the two-day weekend, giving its workers Saturday off after having reduced the work day to 8 hours for six days a week. The reduction from 48-hours to 40 hours came with no reduction in pay.[2][3]
In Poland, five people were killed and 28 injured in fighting between socialists and communists duringMay Day events inWarsaw.[4]
TheLeopard of Rudraprayag, a man-eating leopard that had killed more than 125 people in British India'sUnited Provinces, was shot by famous big game hunterJim Corbett, who had tracked the big cat for 10 weeks.[7]
At one minute to midnight, the call by Britain'sTrades Union Congress for its members towalk out on strike took effect. An estimated 1.7 million people began would join the strike in support of the locked out miners.[1][9][10][11]
In British India,Miangul Abdul Wadud was recognized by the colonial government as the ruler of the princely state ofSwat, and the successor to the lateSyed Abdul Jabbar Shah. Wadud would rule until 1949, shortly after the princely state was integrated intoPakistan upon the division of British India.[12]
Thousands of shipyard workers walked out on strike in London.Volunteers took over jobs left vacant by the strike, including bus driving.
Britain came to a standstill on the first full day of the general strike, with at least 1,500,000 employees of the railway industry and other public transport not showing up for work. The underground subway lines, rail stations, streetcars and buses were closed and the streets of London were devoid of street cars or buses and most commuters walked to work.[16] Throughout Britain, passenger and freight railway transport were suspended for the duration of the strike.[17] Members of 205 labor and trade unions honored the strike call, including the 750,000 of the Miners' Federation, more than 327,000 of the National Union of Railway Workers, almost 335,000 of the United Textile Workers Association.[18]
June Middleton, Australian polio survivor who spent more than 60 years in aniron lung, contractingpolio at age 22 and remaining in need of the machine for the rest of her life; inMelbourne (d.2009)[22]
Two new newspapers, theBritish Worker (supporting the general strike) and theBritish Gazette (condemning it) appeared in Britain to fill the void left by the other dailies that only published in very limited form during the strike.
Maurice Green, Americanvirologist and founder of the Institute of Molecular Virology at the St. Louis University School of Medicine]]; in New York City (d.2017)[26]
Fyodor Funtikov, 50, Azerbaijan anti-Communist known for ordering the 1918 execution of the "26 Baku Commissars", was executed inBaku after having returned to the Russian SFSR.[29]
Charles S.L. Baker, 66, American inventor known for creating the friction heater (b. 1859)[30]
Germany'sReichstag voted on theFürstenenteignung the proposal toseize the dynastic properties of the former ruling houses of theGerman Empire. The expropriation of properties was scheduled to be voted upon in a public referendum on June 29, and passage of the bill would have made the referendum moot. With bourgeois political parties in the majority, the Reichstag vote failed, with 142 for and 236 against.[32]
Limited services returned around Britain as volunteers and strike-breaking workers stepped in, notably to help distribute food and provide other necessities.[34]
Died:S. I. Smith, 83, Americanzoologist who identified and classified numerous species of crustaceans (primarily crabs and lobsters), includingCardisoma crassum (the "mouthless crab"), andUca pugnax (the "Atlantic marsh fiddler crab")[35]
On the sixth day of the United Kingdom general strike, Liberal Party MPHerbert Samuel, authorized to negotiate on behalf of the British government, met withTrades Union Congress (TUC) leaderWalter Citrine andMiners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) leaderA. J. Cook to tentatively agree to a set of proposals to end the work shutdown. While the TUC members approved the plan, the Miners Federation rejected it.
In the Soviet Union,Léon Theremin demonstrated his experimental television system which electrically transmitted and then projected near-simultaneous moving images on a five-foot square screen as part of his thesis.[38]
The firstfeature film in color[40], the silent movieThe Black Pirate, premiered at both the Selwyn Theatre in New York and at the Tivoli Cinema in London.[41][42] Produced by and starringDouglas Fairbanks,The Black Pirate, the film was one of the highest grossing of the year, but also one of the most expensive up to that time.[43]
Prime MinisterStanley Baldwin addressed the British public about the ongoing strike in an evening radio broadcast. Such a broadcast in a time of emergency was the first of its kind in the United Kingdom.[44]
The prototype of the U.S. Navy's secret weapon, theMark 6 exploder, was given its first test firing, attached to aMark 10 torpedo and aimed at the submarineUSS L-8. On the first try, the torpedo went underneath the target submarine but did not explode. A second test was successful.
ExplorerRichard E. Byrd and co-pilotFloyd Bennett attempted make the first flight over theNorth Pole, taking off fromSpitsbergen in theFokker F.VII monoplaneJosephine Ford in Norway. They returned to Spitzbergen 15 hours and 57 minutes later, claiming that they had flown the 1,535 miles (2,470 km) to the Pole, flying over it, and then circling it "around the world" for 13 minutes.[48] While both men were immediately hailed as national heroes[49], some experts have since been skeptical of the claim, with aviatorBernt Balchen concluding in 1958 that the plane was unlikely to have covered the entire distance and back in that short an amount of time, and an examination of Byrd's diary in 1996 byDennis Rawlins.[50][51] An entry in Byrd's diary discovered in 1996 suggested that the plane actually turned back 150 miles (240 km) short of the North Pole due to an oil leak.[52][53] Another attempt to fly over the Pole would be made three days later by different pilots on the airshipNorge.
After Druze Muslims in Syria killed eight French soldiers in theGreat Syrian Revolt, the French Army used heavy weaponry to shell a Druze neighborhood inDamascus, killing hundreds of civilians along with about 100 rebels.[54] As a result, the area of the old city between the sections ofAl-Hamidiyah Souq andMedhat Pasha Souq was burned to the ground, an event known since then asal-Hariqa ("the fire"). ReporterGeorge Seldes viewed 308 bodies, and suggested there might be more dead under the rubble—and that a maximum might be one thousand. "When the Muslims, who had rebelled, threatened to kill all Christians", he wrote, "General Maurice Sarrail gave the civilian population time to evacuate, then ordered Fort Gouraud to fire some warning shots, then shell the rebel sector."[55]
AstronomersMax Wolf andKarl Wilhelm Reinmuth became the first persons on Earth to observe see thesupernovaSN 1926A, which had taken place in theMessier 61 galaxy more than 50 million years earlier. Seven other supernovae have been observed in Messier 61 since then.[56]
The Flying Scotsman express train, traveling on the route betweenEdinburgh andKing's Cross, London with more than 300 passengers, was derailed inNorthumberland by a group of locked-out miners who pulled up the tracks, after passingCramlington. Because the locomotive was moving slowly and the volunteer engineer spotted the missing rail, only one of the passengers was injured, but two of the train's coaches overturned in the first act ofsabotage during Britain's General Strike.[58][59]
ThePreakness Stakes thoroughbred horse race, at the time the first of the American Triple Crown events, was won by the horseDisplay, ridden by jockeyJohn Maiben. Display won by a head over the pre-race favorite, Blondin.[60]. The Kentucky Derby was held five days later, with six of the 13 Preakness competitors, including Display and Blondin.[61]
France became the first nation to ratify the 1925Geneva Protocol against the use of poison gases and biological weapons in war.[62]
In Britain, Mr.Justice Asbury granted aninjunction to theNational Sailors' and Firemen's Union to enjoin the General-Secretary of itsTower Hill branch from calling its members out on strike. Astbury ruled that the strike was not protected by theTrade Disputes Act 1906 and that the strike in the plaintiff union had been called in contravention of its own rules.[70] The ruling came as a heavy blow to the cause of the firemen and sailors union, as well as other unions.[71]
In one of the most widely-condemnedlynchings in the United States,|Henry Patterson, an African-American, was falsely accused of attacking a white woman, then chased by a mob of more than 40 white men inLaBelle, Florida and shot to death. His body was then paraded down LaBelle's main street and hanged from a tree in front of theHendry County courthouse. The alleged victim later told friends that she was merely frightened when Patterson approached her. Newspaper publisherMary Hayes Davis published the details of the lynching inThe Hendry County News, and the report was republished in theTampa Morning Tribune, then sent to other newspapers by the wire services."[72]
TheMay Coup began in Poland. A state of emergency was declared by Prime Minister Witos as units loyal to MarshalJózef Piłsudski marched onWarsaw and captured bridges over theVistula River. At 5:00 in the afternoon, Marshal Pilsudski met with Poland'sPresidentStanisław Wojciechowski in a discussion on thePoniatowski Bridge and demanded the resignation of the Witos cabinet within two hours. Wojciechowski, in turn, demanded that the Marshal order his troops to surrender as a condition of the Witos resignation, which was declined. Fighting began at 7:00 in the evening.[80]"
Due to worsening weather in the U.S.Alaska Territory, the crew of the airshipNorge decided to land rather than press on to their goal of reachingNome. Pilot Umberto Nobile decided to attempt a landing atTeller, Alaska, on a frozen lagoon, and at 8:30 in the evening local time (14 May at 0730 UTC), in what one author described as "probably one of the most outstanding examples of airmanship of the airship era,"[84] Nobile, Natale Cecioni and Renato Alessandri guided the ship down steadily and held it in place while the crew disembarked, one at a time, to safety.
Britain started to return to normal on the first day back from the general strike, though many transport services were late in their resumption. Voluntary workers were still keeping buses and trains running.[86] Miners remained locked out.
At theBelweder Palace inWarsaw,Poland's, PresidentStanisław Wojciechowski and Prime MinisterWincenty Witos resigned their positions at 7:00 in the evening to prevent the fighting in Warsaw from becoming a country-wide civil war. Along with the rest of their government officials, they escaped toWilanow.[89] Over three days of fighting, 164 civilians were killed, along with 25 officers and 173 soldiers of the Polish Army.[90].Maciej Rataj took over Wojciechowski's office asacting President.
Starting at 8:30 in the evening,Radio station Zagreb (now Croatian Radio), the first broadcast station in Southeast Europe, began broadcasting fromZagreb in Yugoslavia at a wavelength of 350 meters, equivalent to a frequency of 860 kHz on theAM radio band.[91][92]
Bubbling Over won the1926 Kentucky Derby, at the time the second race of the American Triple Crown of thoroughbred horse racing, five days after the running of the Preakness Stakes.
Born:
SirPeter Shaffer, English playwright and screenwriter (d. 2016)
Died:Mehmed VI, 65, the lastSultan of the Ottoman Empire, who reigned from 1918 until being deposed upon the abolition of the monarchy by the Republic of Turkey in 1922. His 13-year-old sonŞehzade Mehmed Ertuğrul made no pretense of claiming the abolished throne.[94]
The nationally famous Christian evangelist preacherAimee Semple McPherson was kidnapped from a beach inVenice, California. At first believed to be the victim of a drowning, McPherson would reappear after a memorial service had been held at theAngelus Temple.[95]
The Mexican government announced the nationalization of minerals and petroleum resources, which clouded the property rights of foreign resource extraction companies and increased tensions between Mexico and the United States.[98]
The opening ceremonies for theSesquicentennial Exposition, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, were held in Philadelphia.
^"Industry Stands Still— Biggest National Strike In History Of Nation Begins; England's Trade Paralysed; Essential Services Carried On To-day By Volunteers",Torbay Herald & Express (Torquay, Devon), May 4, 1926, p.1
^"Men Who Are Affected. By General Strike Order. Over 200 Unions.",Dorset Daily Echo and Weymouth Dispatch, May 4, 1926, p.1, p.3
^McNab, Robert (2004).Ghost Ships: A Surrealist Love Triangle. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. p. 163.ISBN0-300-10431-6.
^Eisenschitz, Bernard (1970).Douglas Fairbanks, 1883-1939: Anthologie du cinéma [Douglas Fairbanks, 1883-1939: Anthology of Cinema] (in French). Vol. 5. Paris: L'Avant-Scène. p. 538.
^Wildenberg, Thomas; Polmar, Norman (2010),Ship Killer: A History of the American Torpedo, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, pp. 65–65,ISBN978-1-59114-688-9
^Rawlins, Dennis (January 2000)."Byrd's Heroic 1926 Flight & Its Faked Last Leg"(PDF).DIO, the International Journal of Scientific History.10: 2–106 [54,69–76,84–88, 99, 105]. RetrievedJuly 13, 2007.
^"Edinburgh to London East Train Wrecked; Authorities State Rail Was Pulled Up",The Ottawa Citizen, May 11, 1926, p.1 ("LONDON, May 11— The first case of serious sabotage since the general strike began was reported today. The famous "Flying Scotsman," running from Edinburgh to London, having on board 400 passengers, was wrecked yesterday...")
^Bronstein, Jon; Harris, Andrew (2012).Empire, State and Society: Britain Since 1830. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 176.ISBN978-1-4051-8180-8.
^"Amundsen's Dirigible Crosses North Pole and Flies on to Alaska; Big Airship Crosses the North Pole, Flags of Three Nations Are Lowered as Sun Breaks through a Thick Fog",The Toronto Daily Star, May 12, 1926, p.1
^"GENERAL STRIKE IN GREAT BRITAIN CALLED OFF— Trades Congress Cancels the Strike and Negotiations Will Be Resumed",The Toronto Daily Star, May 12, 1926, p.1
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
