Thursday, May 1, 2008

Happy May Day

It's the first of May. How is your knowledge of history? Did you know that on this day in 1707, the Act of Union joined England and Scotland into Great Britain?

Or that Johann Ludwig Bach died in 1731?

In 1831, Emily Howard Stowe was born. She was the first Canadian woman admitted to practice medicine (in 1880). She was also the first President of the Dominion Women's Enfranchisement Association formed in 1893 to get the vote for women.

The Empire State Building in New York City was dedicated on this day in 1931.

The polio vaccine was made available to the public on this day in 1956.

In 1961, Fidel Castro proclaimed Cuba a socialist nation and abolished elections.

And..... the first computer spam was created in 1978!

Disney World opened in Orlando, Florida in 1989.

And, (saving the best for last) the Bag Lady was reduced to Googling the date in a desperate attempt to find something to post about today!!



Duck, duck....Goose!!



18 comments:

Anonymous said...

AND my MIL birthday....and she's visiting.

:)

Crabby McSlacker said...

So you did much better on May Day celebrations than I did!

Computer spam back in '78? Who knew?

Leah J. Utas said...

Good for you for finding something.
Had no clue about, well, all of these facts.
I'm not quite sure how to go about celebrating the creation of computer spam.

Scrumpy said...

Damn, I should totally be at Disney World right now.

Terrie Farley Moran said...

df Bag Lady,

Very good idea for a post! I love these trivia facts, they are so much fun. I always marvel! Imagine that! And thanks for the info about the Empire State Building, I 'll remember it if I ever do a My Town Monday about the building with a great view of New York and New Jersey.

Terrie

the Bag Lady said...

The Bag lady is only half awake this morning. Has to try this again.

Miz - hope the visit is a good thing.

Crabby - I was surprised, too!

dfLeah - love the new avatar!!! And I'm sure we should be burning something to commemorate spam's birth! Just not our bras - I need mine mowadays!

SB - I included that one just for you 'cause I know you love all things Disney

dfTerrie - and I included that one for you!
When my dad was in the Navy during WWII, he was assigned to a ship doing coastal patrols, and one of their stops was in NYC, so of course he had to see the Empire State Bldg!

Hilary said...

Fun post Baggie. I'm just wondering though, how my ex and I managed to visit Disney World in Orlando back in 1981. We must have gone there via Tomorrowland! ;)

Unknown said...

At first I was going to be all "holy crap someone knows their history!". Love the Google. Thanks for the random trivia!

Anonymous said...

What came first - the computer or the spam???
:-)

Missicat

the Bag Lady said...

Hil - do you think for the life of me I can find the site I was looking at? My hand-written notes say 1989...but I may have written it down wrong...are you sure it was 1981 you were there? Of course, I have never been there, and if you were there in '81, you would know!

Sagan - sorry to disappoint you...gee, almost wish I had just pretended to be that damned smart!!

the Bag Lady said...

Missicat - seems to me it had to be pretty close together, eh?

Emily said...

I didn't realize May 1st was such an important day. When you get a chance, find out cool stuff that happened on November 13th, cuz it's my birthday and all. Wait. I could get off my lazy butt and google it myself. Nevermind.

Cute picture!

the Bag Lady said...

Emily, you crack me up!

Reb said...

Missicat, computers have been around forever actually, but in use since about the '50's. (you have to be a real geek to know that - or a programmer - uh, never mind!)

Sis, it is okay to google for a topic. Love the picture! (turn about is fair play?)

the Bag Lady said...

Reb - yes, yes it is!

Leah J. Utas said...

dfBag Lady - I love my new calfatar.

the Bag Lady said...

dfLeah - I'm so glad - he is adorable!

Hilary said...

Baggie, according to Google, it opened in 1971. Maybe the article was referring to a particular part of Disney World.. like Epcot.. or some hotel resort? I'm just relieved that I didn't dream my visit. ;)