Erstwhile – former, previous; long ago; formerly; of times past.
It does not mean respected, as Adolf Fiinkensein found out, and I too have erred in thinking.
Erstwhile – former, previous; long ago; formerly; of times past.
It does not mean respected, as Adolf Fiinkensein found out, and I too have erred in thinking.
I still remember asking my high school guidance teacher for permission to take a second year of algebra instead of a fifth year of Latin. She looked down her nose at me and sneered, ‘What lady would take mathematics instead of Latin?’ – Nancy Roman who celebrates her 92nd birthday today.
218 – Julia Maesa, aunt of the assassinated Caracalla, was banished to her home in Syria by the self-proclaimed emperor Macrinus and declared her 14-year old grandson Elagabalus, emperor of Rome.
1204 Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders was crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin Empire.
1527 The Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and Florencere-established itself as a republic.
1532 Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor of England.
1568 Mary, Queen of Scots, fled to England.
1770 14-year old Marie Antoinette married 15-year-old Louis-Auguste.
1771 The Battle of Alamance between local militia and a group of rebels called “The Regulators.
1777 Lachlan McIntosh and Button Gwinnett shot each other during a duel.
1811 Peninsular War – The allies Spain, Portugal and Britain, defeated the French at the Battle of Albuera.
1815 The Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, officially named the town of Blackheath in the upper Blue Mountains.
1822 Greek War of Independence: The Turks captured the Greek town of Souli.
1836 Edgar Allan Poe married his 13-year-old cousin Virginia.
1843 The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest set out on the Oregon Trail with one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri.
1846 – Six soldiers were killed and two more Europeans were mortally wounded when Ngāti Haua-te-rangi leader Te Mamaku attacked the British post at Boulcott’s Farm in the Hutt Valley.
1866 The U.S. Congress eliminated the half dime coin and replaces it with the five cent piece, or nickel.
1866 Charles Elmer Hires invented root beer.
1868 President Andrew Johnson was acquitted in his impeachment trial by one vote in the United States Senate.
1874 A flood on the Mill River in Massachusetts destroyed much of four villages and kills 139 people.
1877 May 16, 187 political crisis in France.
1905 Henry Fonda, American actor, was born (d. 1982).
1910 The United States Congress authorised the creation of the United States Bureau of Mines.
1914 The first ever Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup final wass played. Brooklyn Field Club defeated Brooklyn Celtic 2-1.
1916 Ephraim Katzir, 4th President of Israel, was born (d. 2009.
1918 The Sedition Act of 1918 was passed by the U.S. Congress, making criticism of the government an imprisonable offense.
1919 Liberace, American pianist,was born (d. 1987).
1919 A naval Curtiss aircraft NC-4 commanded by Albert Cushing Read left Trepassey, Newfoundland, for Lisbon via the Azores on the first transatlantic flight.
1920 Pope Benedict XV canonised Joan of Arc.
1925 – Nancy Roman, American astronomer, was born.
1929 The first Academy Awards were handed out.
1943 Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ended.
1948 Chaim Weizmann was elected the first President of Israel.
1951 Christian Lacroix, French fashion designer, was born.
1951 The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights began between John F Kennedy International Airport and Heathrow operated by El Al Israel Airlines.
1953 Pierce Brosnan, Irish actor, was born.
1960 Nikita Khrushchev demanded an apology from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower for U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union, ending a Big Four summit in Paris.
1960 Theodore Maiman operated the first optical laser, at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu.
1965 The Campbell Soup Company introduced SpaghettiOs under its Franco-American brand.
1966 Janet Jackson, American singer, was born.
1966 The Communist Party of China issued the ‘May 16 Notice‘, marking the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
1969 Venera program: Venera 5, a Soviet space probe, landed on Venus.
1970 Gabriela Sabatini, Argentine tennis player, was born.
1970 Danielle Spencer, Australian singer and actress, was born.
1974 Josip Broz Tito was re-elected president of Yugoslavia.
1975 India annexed Sikkim after the mountain state holds a referendum in which the popular vote was in favour of merging with India.
1975 Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
1982 The All Whites won 2-0 against Australia on the way to the World Cup in Spain.
1983 Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement rebelled against the Sudanese government.
1986 The Seville Statement on Violence was adopted by an international meeting of scientists, convened by the Spanish National Commission for UNESCO.
1988 A report by United States’ Surgeon General C. Everett Koop stated that the addictive properties of nicotine were similar to those of heroin and cocaine.
1992 STS-49: Space Shuttle Endeavour lands safely after a successful maiden voyage.
2003 Casablanca terrorist attacks: 33 civilians killed and more than 100 people injured.
2004 The Day of Mourning at Bykivnia forest, just outside of Kiev to commemorate that here during 1930s and early 1940s communist Bolsheviks executed over 100,000 Ukrainian civilians.
2005 Kuwait permitted women’s suffrage in a 35-23 National Assemblyvote.
2007 – Nicolas Sarkozy took office as President of France.
2011 – STS-134 (ISS assembly flight ULF6), launched from the Kennedy Space Centre on the 25th and final flight for Space Shuttle Endeavour.
2014 – Twelve people were killed in two explosions in the Gikomba market area of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
2015 – A passenger train collided with a tractor and trailer on a level crossing at Ibbenbüren, Germany. Two people were killed and 40 were injured.
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia