1433 – Sigismund was crowned emperor of Rome.

1854 – The Kansas-Nebraska Act passed by the U.S. Congress.

1859 – The Philadelphia Athletics were formally organized to play the game of Town Ball.

1859 – In London, Big Ben went into operation.

1870 – E.J. DeSemdt patented asphalt.

1879 – New York’s Madison Square Garden opened.

1880 – The first U.S. national bicycle society was formed in Newport, RI. It was known as the League of American Wheelman.

1884 – Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patented “flaked cereal.”

1889 – In Johnstown, PA, more than 2,200 people died after the South Fork Dam collapsed.

1900 – U.S. troops arrived in Peking to help put down the Boxer Rebellion.

1902 – The Boer War ended between the Boers of South Africa and Great Britain with the Treaty of Vereeniging.

1907 – The first taxis arrived in New York City. They were the first in the United States.

1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) held its first conference.

1910 – The Union of South Africa was founded.

1913 – The 17th Amendment went into effect. It provided for popular election of U.S. senators.

1915 – A German zeppelin made an air raid on London.

1927 – Ford Motor Company produced the last “Tin Lizzie” in order to begin production of the Model A.

1929 – In Beverly, MA, the first U.S. born reindeer were born.

1941 – The first issue of “Parade: The Weekly Picture Newspaper” went on sale.

1943 – “Archie” was aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System for the first time.

1947 – Communists seized control of Hungary.

1955 – The U.S. Supreme Court ordered that all states must end racial segregation “with all deliberate speed.”

1961 – South Africa became an independent republic.

1962 – Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel. Eichmann was a Gestapo official and was executed for his actions in the Nazi Holocaust.

1970 – An earthquake in Peru killed tens of thousands of people.

1974 – Israel and Syria signed an agreement on the Golan Heights.

1977 – The trans-Alaska oil pipeline was finished after 3 years of construction.

1979 – Zimbabwe proclaimed its independence.

1994 – The U.S. announced it was no longer aiming long-range nuclear missiles at targets in the former Soviet Union.

1995 – Bob Dole singled out Time Warner for “the marketing of evil” in movies and music. Dole later admitted that he had not seen or heard much of what he had been criticizing.

2003 – In North Carolina, Eric Robert Rudolph was captured. He had been on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list for five years for several bombings including the 1996 Olympic bombing.

 

John A. Logan

The First Official Memorial Day May 1868 Do you celebrate Memorial Day? In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the grand Army of the Republic issued what was called General Order Number 11, designating May 30 as a memorial day. He declared it to be “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.” Where do you suppose that first Memorial Day took place? The first national celebration of Memorial Day (originally Decoration Day) took place May 1868, at Arlington National Cemetery. The national observance of Memorial Day still takes place there today, with the placing of a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the decoration of each grave with a small American flag. The holiday has changed a bit since it first began, which some argue was even earlier than Logan’s dedication. Southern women decorated the graves of soldiers even before the end of the Civil War. After the war, a women’s memorial association in Columbus, Mississippi, put flowers on the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers in 1866, an act of generosity that inspired the poem by Francis Miles Finch, “The Blue and the Grey,” published in the Atlantic Monthly. In 1971, federal law changed the observance of the holiday to the last Monday in May and extended it to honor all those who died in American wars. People pay tribute not only with flowers but also with speeches and parades. Whom do you honor on Memorial Day? americaslibrary.gov/jb/recon/

So, #DedicationDay seems to have been swept under a rug… the fact is, African Americans created Memorial Day

While not in China itself, the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed by the U.S. Congress on May 6, 1882 and signed by President Chester A. Arthur, was a landmark event tied to Chinese–American relations Britannica+1.

It was the first major U.S. law to explicitly ban immigration for a specific nationality — Chinese laborers — and prohibited them from entering the United States for ten years. The act also barred Chinese immigrants from naturalization and imposed strict requirements for those already in the country National Archives+1.

Background

• Economic and racial tensions: Anti-Chinese sentiment in the U.S., especially in California, was fueled by competition for jobs, resentment over wages, and cultural stereotypes Office of the Historian.
• Historical context: Chinese laborers had migrated to the U.S. since the 1848 California Gold Rush, working in mining, railroads, and agriculture. Many sent remittances back to China, but faced discrimination and legal restrictions History+1.
• Diplomatic impact: The exclusion act strained U.S.–China relations, as it was the first time federal law targeted an ethnic group for immigration control Office of the Historian.

Effects

• On Chinese communities: Families were separated, businesses closed, and Chinatowns became centers of cultural preservation Britannica.
• On U.S. immigration policy: It marked a shift from open immigration to restrictive quotas, later extended by the Geary Act (1892) and made permanent in 1902 National Archives.
• Long-term: The act was repealed in 1943 with the Magnuson Act, allowing an annual quota of 105 Chinese immigrants, but quotas for other nationalities had already been established Britannica+1.

Summary

In 1882, China saw diplomatic moves like the China–Korea Treaty, while the United States enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act — a pivotal moment in U.S. immigration history and a turning point in Sino–American relations. Both events reflected the broader 19th-century tensions between economic competition, racial prejudice, and the limits of immigration policy.

Stop AAPI Hate, nonprofit organization that works to protect the civil and human rights of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) in the United States. It tracks and analyzes acts of violence and discrimination against the AAPI community to understand where disturbances are occurring and who is being targeted. This analysis helps to raise national awareness about racism.

Source: Britannica

So, on May 1, 1865

A day that has been skipped in Black History finally comes to light! Decoration Day, some say Dedication Day … both are right, and while it is an interesting look at history… it is also a solemn reminder of how patriotic African Americans are still shut out

~ Nativegrl