#TodayInHistory – May 5

May 5 – Some important events on this day

1260 👉🏼 Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.
As Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, Kublai reigned from 1260 to 1294 over one fifth of the world’s inhabited land area. He was the grandson of Genghis Khan, the founder and first great leader of the Mongol Empire.
If one counts the Mongol Empire at that time as a whole, his realm reached from the Pacific to the Black Sea, from Siberia to modern day Afghanistan.
In 1271, Kublai founded the Yuan dynasty in modern day Beijing, which ruled over present-day Mongolia, China, Korea, and some adjacent areas, and assumed the role of Emperor of China.
By 1279, the Yuan forces had overcome the last resistance of the Southern Song dynasty, making Kublai the first foreign conqueror to rule all of China. As the first Yuan emperor he ruled until his death in 1294. His dynasty, the “Great Yuan” would last until 1368.
The West knew Genghis Khan through the writing of the Venetian merchant Marco Polo who visited his court in about 1274.

1430 👉🏼 Jews are expelled from Speyer, Germany
1494 👉🏼 On 2nd voyage to New World Christopher Columbus sights Jamaica, landing at Discovery Bay.
1789 👉🏼 French Estates-General meets for the first time since 1614 at Versailles, summoned King Louis XVI

1792 👉🏼 Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre commissioned to measure the meridian between Dunkerque to Rodez to calculate accurate length of the metre.
He was influential French mathematician and astronomer and a major figure int he establishment of the new metric system in France.
On this day he was commissioned to measure part of the meridian, to discover a more accurate measurement of the metre after the French had decided on a new metric system of weights and measures in 1790. Despite delays because of the French revolution, and being mistaken for a spy, Delambre finished his part in 1797 and reported his findings in 1799.
In 1801 he was appointed secretary to the Académie des Sciences. He was also director of the Paris Observatory, and wrote a number of well-known books on the history of astronomy.

1809 👉🏼 Mary Kies is 1st woman issued a US patent for weaving straw
1821 👉🏼 Napoleon dies in exile, as a British prisoner on the remote island of Saint Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean.
1842 👉🏼 City-wide fire burns for over 100 hours in Hamburg, Germany
1865 👉🏼 1st US train robbery (North Bend, Ohio)

1893 👉🏼 Panic of 1893 causes a large crash on the NY Stock Exchange.
The was the scene the day after the collapse of the National Cordage Company on 4 May. It was part of the then largest economic crisis to hit America that triggered a depression that lasted until 1897.
Loans were called in across the country 600 banks failed, 15,000 companies collapsed and unemployment soared to 25%.

1908 👉🏼 Great White Fleet arrives in San Francisco.
In the last years of his administration, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered a massive US Navy fleet to circumnavigate the globe to project American naval power. The fleet, their hulls painted white, was meant as a showpiece of American goodwill and was to make courtesy calls at a number of ports globally.
Great excitement followed the arrivals of the White Fleet. In Australia, when the fleet arrived in 1908, they were greeted with huge receptions of people: they too liked Australia, and over 200 of them deserted while in Australian ports.
The fleet returned to the United States in 1909. Apart from displaying to the world the rising naval and military power of America, the visits led to improvements in formation steaming, coal economy and morale aboard ships in the naval fleets.

1925 👉🏼 Afrikaans is established as an official language in South Africa.
1941 👉🏼 Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa
1941 👉🏼 First modern perfume Chanel No. 5 released by fashion designer Coco Chanel
1945 👉🏼 World War II: Admiral Karl Dönitz, leader of Germany after Hitler’s death, orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases
1955 👉🏼 West Germany is granted full sovereignty by its three occupying powers
1962 👉🏼 West Side Story soundtrack album goes #1 & stays #1 for 54 weeks which is more than 20 weeks longer than any other album
1965 👉🏼 First large-scale US Army ground units arrive in South Vietnam
1967 👉🏼 Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s Cien años de soledad, or One Hundred Years of Solitude, is first published.
1980 👉🏼 Siege at Iranian Embassy in London ends as the SAS and police storm the building
1981 👉🏼 After 66 days on hunger strike, 26 year old Provisional IRA member and British MP Bobby Sands dies in the Maze Prision. Nine more hunger strikers die in the next 3 months.

2004 👉🏼 Human remains found in suitcase near Virginia Beach. ✔️ READ THE ARTICLE !