May 1926

May 1, 1926 (Saturday)

• The lockout of 800,000 British coal miners began, three days before the nationwide Trades Union Congress strike was to begin.
• The Ford 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.
• In Poland, five people were killed and 28 injured in fighting between socialists and communists during May Day events in Warsaw.
• Swinton Lions defeated seventh-place Oldham, 9 to 3, to win the Challenge Cup at the Athletic Grounds, Rochdale, before 27,000 spectators.
• Born:
• *Peter Lax, Hungarian-born U.S. mathematician and Abel Prize laureate, known for the Lax conjecture; in Budapest
• *Kenneth W. Ford, American physicist who served as CEO and Executive Director of the American Institute of Physics; in West Palm Beach, Florida
• *Héctor Villa Osorio, Colombian businessman who founded the pharmaceutical conglomerate Dromayor; in Manizales
• *Lev Razumovsky, Soviet Russian sculptor; in Leningrad
• *Marion Wells, American fundraiser and conservative activist; in Brooklyn, New York City

  May 2, 1926 (Sunday)

• The Leopard of Rudraprayag, a man-eating leopard that had killed more than 125 people in British India's United Provinces, was shot by famous big game hunter Jim Corbett, who had tracked the big cat for 10 weeks.
• Civil war broke out in Nicaragua when a group of exiled members of the Partido Liberal, led by José María Moncada, landed at Bluefields. Moncada's objective was to topple the government of President Emiliano Chamorro Vargas of the Partido Conservador, who had overthrown an elected coalition government in March.

  May 3, 1926 (Monday)

• At one minute to midnight, the call by Britain's Trades Union Congress for its members to walk out on strike took effect. An estimated 1.7 million people would join the strike in support of the locked out miners.
• In British India, Miangul Abdul Wadud was recognized by the colonial government as the ruler of the princely state of Swat, and the successor to the late Syed Abdul Jabbar Shah. Wadud would rule until 1949, shortly after the princely state was integrated into Pakistan upon the division of British India.
• Born: Milton Santos, Brazilian geographer and laureate of the 1994 Vautin Lud International Geography Prize; in Brotas de Macaúbas, Bahia state
• Died: Victor, Prince Napoléon, 63, Bonapartist pretender to the throne of France as a descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte, recognized by Bonapartists as the head of the House of Bonaparte since 1879 as "Napoleon V". His successor at the House of Bonaparte, was Victor's 12-year-old son, Louis, Prince Napoleon, who would continue as the pretender until his own death in 1997.

  May 4, 1926 (Tuesday)

• 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. Throughout Britain, passenger and freight railway transport were suspended for the duration of the strike. 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.
• The Ballets Russes staged a production of Romeo and Juliet at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, with sets and costumes designed by Surrealist artists Max Ernst and Joan Miró.
• Stinson Aircraft Corporation was incorporated in the U.S. by Eddie Stinson for the manufacture of single-engine airplanes, the most popular of which were the Stinson 108 and the Stinson V-76 Sentinel.
• Born:
• *Milt Thompson, NASA test pilot and U.S. Navy officer who was the first person to fly the NASA M2-F1, the first "lifting body" wingless aircraft, and one of only 12 pilots to fly the North American X-15 hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft; in Crookston, Minnesota.
• *Peter G. Ossorio, American psychologist known for developing the concept of descriptive psychology; in Los Angeles
• *June Middleton, Australian polio survivor who spent more than 60 years in an iron lung, contracting polio at age 22 and remaining in need of the machine for the rest of her life; in Melbourne

  May 5, 1926 (Wednesday)

• Two new newspapers, the British Worker and the British Gazette appeared in Britain to fill the void left by the other dailies that only published in very limited form during the strike.
• The government of Poland's Prime Minister Aleksander Skrzyński resigned after slightly less than two years in office.
• The Norge airship left Gatchina near Leningrad, bound for Vadsø in preparation to cross the North Pole.
• Born:
• *Ann B. Davis, American TV actress and comedian, winner of two Emmy Awards for The Bob Cummings Show, but remembered best for portraying the housekeeper "Alice" on The Brady Bunch; in Schenectady, New York
• *Maurice Green, American virologist and founder of the Institute of Molecular Virology at the St. Louis University School of Medicine; in New York City
• *Neil "Bing" Russell, American film and TV actor; in Brattleboro, Vermont
• Died:
• *Franz von Soxhlet, 76, German chemist and inventor known for patenting the Soxhlet extractor for extracting lipids from solid material
• *Fyodor Funtikov, 50, Azerbaijan anti-Communist known for ordering the 1918 execution of the "26 Baku Commissars", was executed in Baku after having returned to the Russian SFSR.
• *Charles S.L. Baker, 66, American inventor known for creating the friction heater

  May 6, 1926 (Thursday)

• The first night landing of an airplane on the deck of a ship was accomplished in Britain when Royal Air Force pilot G. H. Boyce landed a Blackburn Dart on the deck of the aircraft carrier HMS Furious.
• Germany's Reichstag voted on the Fürstenenteignung the proposal to seize the dynastic properties of the former ruling houses of the German 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.
• Meeting in Lisbon, the International Olympic Committee awarded the right to host the 1928 Winter Olympics to St. Moritz in Switzerland, where all three bidders were located.
• Limited services returned around Britain as volunteers and strike-breaking workers stepped in, notably to help distribute food and provide other necessities.
• Born: Edward Clark, American painter, in Storyville, New Orleans
• Died: S. I. Smith, 83, American zoologist who identified and classified numerous species of crustaceans, including Cardisoma crassum, and ''Uca pugnax''

  May 7, 1926 (Friday)

• Nicaragua was invaded by a U.S. Navy force of 213 officers and men, brought by the cruiser USS Cleveland at Bluefields, to protect U.S. citizens during the recent renewal of the Nicaraguan Civil War.
• With peace talks having failed, French warplanes bombed Rif Republic positions in Morocco as the Rif War resumed.
• On the sixth day of the United Kingdom general strike, Liberal Party MP Herbert Samuel, authorized to negotiate on behalf of the British government, met with Trades Union Congress leader Walter Citrine and Miners' Federation of Great Britain leader A. 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.
• Born: Jacqueline Moreau, French ballerina and principal dancer for the Paris Opera Ballet; in Bandol, Var département

  May 8, 1926 (Saturday)

• The first feature film in color, the silent movie The Black Pirate, premiered at both the Selwyn Theatre in New York and at the Tivoli Cinema in London. Produced by and starring Douglas 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.
• Prime Minister Stanley 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.
• The prototype of the U.S. Navy's secret weapon, the Mark 6 exploder, was given its first test firing, attached to a Mark 10 torpedo and aimed at the submarine. On the first try, the torpedo went underneath the target submarine but did not explode. A second test was successful.
• Belgium's Prime Minister Prosper Poullet announced his resignation and would be replaced on May 20.
• The American insurance and financial services company American International Underwriters Corporation, later to become AIG and now a part of Corebridge Financial, was founded by Gus S. Wortham.
• Maurice Ravel's composition Chansons madécasses was given its first performance.
• Wigan defeated Warrington 22–10 to win the Northern Rugby Football League championship.
• Born:
• * Sir David Attenborough, English documentary producer and naturalist; in Isleworth, London
• * Don Rickles, American TV and film comedian who specialized in insult comedy; in Queens, New York City