Edward VII, the 68-year-old King of Great Britain and Ireland and its possessions, and Emperor of India, developed a bad cold after spending a cold and rainy weekend at his estate in
Sandringham. Refusing to rest and ignoring medical advice, the popular monarch developed bronchitis, then pneumonia, and was dead by Friday.[1]
Edward Payson Weston walked into
New York City Hall at 3:10 pm, completing a walk across the continent that he had started in
Santa Monica on February 1. The septuagenarian was greeted by
New York MayorWilliam Jay Gaynor, who proclaimed, "Weston, you are a benefactor to the human race, for you have shown people what can be done by a man who lives simply and healthfully in the open air."[4]
The President of the United States returned to his hometown of
Cincinnati, Ohio, for the first time since his inauguration. At his own request, William Howard Taft was treated as an "ordinary" citizen as he renewed acquaintances.[6]
Died: Howard Taylor Ricketts, 38, American biologist for whom bacteria of the genus Rickettsiae are named; of typhus during research on that disease; and
Lottie Collins, 44, English singer and dancer
May 4, 1910 (Wednesday)
The
Royal Canadian Navy came into existence when the Naval Service Act became law,[7] creating a force separate from Britain's
Royal Navy. The first two ships, designated "HMCS" for "His Majesty's Canadian Ship", were the
Rainbow and the
Niobe.[8]
Twelve years after the
USS Maine had exploded and sunk in
Havana Harbor, the U.S. Senate passed legislation to pay for the raising of the ship's remains at "all convenient speed", and the bill was signed into law.[9]
May 5, 1910 (Thursday)
The city of
Cartago, Costa Rica, was destroyed by an earthquake that killed more than 1,500 people.[2][10]
Seventy coal miners were killed in an explosion at the Palos Coal and Coke Company at 1:30 p.m. at
Walker County, Alabama.[11]
The
U.S. Weather Bureau, predecessor to the
National Weather Service, set a record, which still stands, for the highest altitude achieved by a kite. An altitude of 23,826 feet (7,262 m) was reached by the highest of ten kites on an 81⁄2 mile long steel wire.[12]
Dearfield, Colorado, was founded as an all-black community by Oliver Toussaint Jackson. The town made a steady decline after World War I, and the last resident died in 1973.[13]
Former U.S. President
Theodore Roosevelt accepted the
Nobel Peace Prize, for 1909, in Christiana (now
Oslo),
Norway, but pledged to donate the money "as a nucleus for a foundation to forward the cause of industrial peace".[14]
May 6, 1910 (Friday)
King Edward VII of the United Kingdom died at 11:45 p.m. after an illness of six days.[2][15]
USS Cyclops, a U.S. Navy coal hauling ship (
collier), was launched. The ship would become famous in the world of the paranormal after its disappearance in 1918 while sailing, with 306 people on board, into the area known as the
Bermuda Triangle.[17]
A fire at the General Explosives Company near
Hull, Quebec set off a blast that killed fifteen people, and injured more than 100. Most were spectators who ignored warnings to leave the area. The blast shattered windows in neighboring
Ottawa, Ontario.[19]
In elections in Spain, Premier
José Canalejas retained his majority.[2]
For the first time in its history, the United States Supreme Court ordered the release of a convict from his sentence, on grounds that his punishment violated the constitutional prohibition against
cruel and unusual punishment.[20] Paul Weems, who had served at a lighthouse in the Philippines, had been held in heavy chains for malfeasance of office.
A
total eclipse of the Sun was visible in the southernmost portions of the British Empire, including
Tasmania and part of the Australian Antarctic territory.
President Taft approved an act passed by the
United States Congress to remove the wreck of the battleship USS Maine, which had been destroyed 12 years earlier in Havana Harbor.[22]
Glacier National Park (U.S.) was established in
Montana by federal law. The park has an area of 1,584 square miles (4,100 km2), and contains 653 lakes, 175 mountains, and 26 glaciers. After attracting 4,000 visitors in its first full year as a park (1911), the park had more than 2,000,000 visitors in 2009.[25]
Woolworth's became the first large retail chain to sell
ice cream cones, test-marketing the treat at counters at several sites that had been supplied with modern refrigerator-freezers. The idea was successful enough that it would be introduced nationwide by the variety store, and then by other chain stores.[27]
French aviator Gabriel Hauvette-Michelin became only the seventh person in history to be killed in an airplane accident, crashing while attempting a takeoff at a show in
Lyons.[28]
May 14, 1910 (Saturday)
At
Brussels, representatives of
Belgium, Great Britain and Germany signed a border agreement regarding their central African colonies, respectively the
Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of Congo), the British protectorate in
Uganda, and part of
German East Africa now in
Tanzania.[29]
The Reverend
Henry Scott Holland, Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral, delivered a sermon following the death of King Edward VII, entitled "Life Unbroken", but often referred to by its first line, "Death is nothing at all."[31][32] Largely forgotten for nearly 80 years, the words would find new popularity in the late 1980s as part of the consolation of grief.[33][34]
May 16, 1910 (Monday)
While watching a parade of the Barnum and Bailey Circus, several thousand people in
Newark, New Jersey, ran in panic caused by a false rumor. As the animals passed, a calliope had frightened a police horse, spectators scattered, and someone shouted that a lion or lions had broken loose. More than 20 people were injured, and five taken to the city hospital, but none fatally.[35]
In
Missouri, Dr. Bennett Clark Hyde was convicted of murder, by poison, in the
October 3, 1909, death of his patient, Kansas City philanthropist
Thomas H. Swope. However, the conviction would be reversed and two retrials would end in hung juries. State law prohibited Hyde from being tried a fourth time, and he lived until 1934.[36]
Troops from the armies of
Peru and
Ecuador massed on the common border between those two nations.[2]
The case of Liliuokalani v. United States, 45 Ct.Cl 418 (1910) was decided by the
United States Court of Claims, which ruled that the former Queen of Hawai'i was not entitled to compensation for the
"Crown Lands" taken when the monarchy had been overthrown in 1893.[37][38]
The chain reaction explosion of seven boilers at the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company in
Canton, Ohio, killed thirteen employees and seriously injured thirty others.[40]
Halley's Comet made its closest approach to Earth (15 million miles) and passed between the Earth and the Sun.[43]
An explosion of 3,000 pounds of dynamite at
Pinar del Río,
Cuba, destroyed the barracks of the Rural Guards force there, and killed more than 100 soldiers.[2][44]
Died: Pauline Viardot, French mezzo-soprano and composer (born 1821)
May 19, 1910 (Thursday)
The Earth completed its passage through the tail of
Halley's Comet, without any recorded deaths from
cyanogen gas.[45]
France and the
Ottoman Empire signed a convention setting the boundary between their North African possessions, creating what is now the border between
Tunisia and
Libya.[46]
The "
High Treason Incident" began in Japan when, following an anonymous tip, police of the
Nagano Prefecture searched the apartment of anarchist Miyashita Takichi, and uncovered bombmaking materials, along with enough evidence to get an arrest warrant for Takichi and his accomplices on charges of plotting to assassinate the
Emperor Meiji.[48]
Vilhelm Bjerknes oversaw the simultaneous gathering of extensive meteorological data across Western Europe, using balloons in multiple locations.
Lewis Fry Richardson used the data of May 20, 1910, seven years later in attempting to make the first mathematical calculations for
weather forecasting.[49]
Chile accepted a loan of $13 million from the Rothschild family of London.[2]
Died: "Punch", 45, "the oldest horse in the world". Born May 14, 1865, Punch had outlived his original owner, polo player
Woodbury Kane.[50]
May 21, 1910 (Saturday)
The settlement of Ahuzzat Bayit, founded on
April 11, 1909, by Jewish settlers in Palestine, was given the name
Tel Aviv, Hebrew for "spring hill", or more specifically for the newness of springtime built upon a pile of ancient ruins.[51] The name was also used in the book of Ezekiel at 3:15 ("Telabib" in the KJV).
The United States and Canada signed a treaty in Washington to settle the dispute over the coastal boundary between
Maine and
New Brunswick.[52]
Ecuador and
Peru accepted an offer for their boundary dispute to be mediated by
Argentina,
Brazil and the United States[53]
May 22, 1910 (Sunday)
King George V of the United Kingdom issued pardons for many prisoners serving short sentences, and reduced the sentences of others, as part of a nationwide clemency.[54]
Born: Johnny Olson, American game show announcer (The Price Is Right) (died 1985)
On
Lake Huron, 16 men and one woman, all aboard the steamer Frank H. Goodyear, were drowned after the ship was rammed by the steamer James B. Wood.[55]
After a year's delay, a renegotiated loan offer was made to the Imperial Chinese government for construction of railroads in China. Originally financed by British, German and French banks, the terms were renegotiated to include American lenders as well. Dissatisfaction over the loan was considered a major factor in the Chinese revolution of 1911.[56]
In Peking, an edict ordered the use of decimal coinage for China.[53]
Born: Jimmy Demaret, American professional golfer (Masters 1940, 1947, 1950), in
Houston (died 1983)
May 25, 1910 (Wednesday)
Wilbur Wright and
Orville Wright flew on the same plane for the only time, with Orville piloting, at the
Huffman Prairie airfield, near
Dayton. Wilbur also made his last flight as a pilot on this day. Earlier in the day, their 81-year-old father, Bishop
Milton Wright, went up on his only airplane flight, with Orville as pilot.[57]
May 26, 1910 (Thursday)
The French submarine Pluviose was lost with all 27 crewmen in the English Channel after colliding with the steamer Pas de Calais. The lookout on the steamer had seen the sub's periscope, but mistook it for a buoy.[58][59]
Died: U.S. Army 1st Lt. Edward Y. Miller, Governor of
Palawan province in the
Philippine Islands, drowned in the Aborlan River in the province.[61] First Lt. Miller was known as the "King of the Palawans" and idolized by the 28,000 residents of Palawan.[62][63]
Following an all-day battle for control of the coastal town of
Bluefields, Nicaragua, rebels under the command of General Estrada forced the Nicaraguan army to retreat.[65]
The
Union of South Africa was created from a merger of the British
Cape Colony and
Colony of Natal, and the conquered
Afrikaans-speaking republics in the
Transvaal and the
Orange River Colony. At its founding, South Africa had 1,275,000 Whites and 4,000,000 Africans, as well as 500,000 Coloureds and 150,000 Indians, with voting rights limited to the White population.[69]
^"The Maine To Be Raised". The New York Times. May 5, 1910. p. 10.
^"Quake Toll 1,500 Lives", Indianapolis Star, May 8, 1910, p1
^"195 Trapped In Pit Blast", Indianapolis Star, May 6, 1910, p1
^Guinness Book of World Records (Sterling Publishing, 1962), excerpt in Popular Science Magazine (June 1962), p65; "Kite Rises 23,800 Feet", New York Times, May 6, 1910, p1
^"100 Guards Die In Blast", Indianapolis Star, May 19, 1910, p1
^"Earth Passes Through Comet's Tail: All's Well; Earth, Tail-Swept, Emerges Unharmed", Indianapolis Star, May 19, 1910, p1
^"Libya–Tunisia Boundary"Archived 2010-03-26 at the
Wayback Machine, International Boundary Study No. 121 (April 7, 1972), U.S. Department of State; (Florida State University Law School website)
^"Millions Watch King's Funeral" "The Funeral Procession", New York Times, May 21, 1910
^F. G. Notehelfer, Kōtoku Shūsui: Portrait of a Japanese Radical (Cambridge University Press, 1971), p183
^"The Weatherman", by Brian Hayes, American Scientist Magazine (2001)
^"Famous Horse Buried", Washington Post, May 23, 1910, p1
^Werner Levi, Modern China's Foreign Policy (University of Minnesota Press, 2009), pp125–127
^"Wright Flies With Father", New York Times, May 26, 1910, p2
^"French Submarine Sunk With 27 Men", New York Times, May 27, 1910, p1
^"THE WRECKED PLUVIOSE". Observer. Vol. LXVII, no. 5, 285. South Australia. 18 June 1910. p. 34. Retrieved 5 January 2023 – via National Library of Australia.