Born on this day

Wednesday, May 10, 1899. :   Singer, dancer and actor Fred Astaire is born.

Fred Astaire was born Frederick Austerlitz in Nebraska on 10 May 1899. Astaire’s mother took him to New York for professional dance training in 1906, with the intent to train him for a career in vaudeville. A Paramount Pictures screen test report on Astaire read simply: “Can’t sing. Can’t act. Slightly balding. Also dances.” Astaire went on to become a film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor.

Astaire was awarded an honorary Oscar for his “unique artistry and his contributions to the techniques of musical pictures” in 1948. He won nine Emmys for a series of TV specials in the 1950s and 60s and in 1978, he was among the first recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement. He was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1981 by the American Film Institute. Physically active right into old age, Astaire died from pneumonia on 22 June 1987.

World History

Sunday, May 10, 1908. :   The first Mothers’ Day is celebrated.

The concept of Mothers’ Day (now usually known as Mother’s Day) is believed to have had its origins in an idea by a young Appalachian homemaker, Anna Jarvis, who from 1858 had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called Mothers’ Work Days. She organised women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbours.

Jarvis’s ideas influenced suffragette Julia Ward Howe to call for Pacifism and Disarmament by mothers. Ward Howe proclaimed the first Mothers’ Day in Boston in 1870, calling for it to be celebrated annually from 1872. Commonly, early activities involved groups of mothers meeting, whose common factor was that their sons had fought or died on opposite sides of the American Civil War. Julia Ward Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mothers’ Day for Peace.

Anna Jarvis’ daughter, also named Anna Jarvis, was influenced by both her own mother’s work, and the work of Julia Ward Howe. After her mother died, the younger Anna Jarvis started her own crusade to establish a memorial day for women. The first Mothers’ Day was celebrated as a memorial to mothers in Grafton, West Virginia, on 10 May 1908, in the church where the elder Anna Jarvis had taught Sunday School. After this, the custom caught on, spreading eventually to 45 states (and later other nations). Finally, the holiday was declared officially by states beginning in 1912, and on 9 May 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother’s Day.

Although Mothers’ Day is celebrated by most countries on the second Sunday in May, much of South America, Bahrain, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates uphold the tradition on May 10th annually. Various other countries honour their mothers at other set dates through the year.

World History

Friday, May 10, 1940. :   Germany invades Holland and Belgium, whilst Winston Churchill is elected Prime Minister in Britain.

World War II, fought from 1939 to 1945, originated as a conflict between Germany and the combined forces of France and Great Britain, and eventually included most of the nations of the world. The war in Europe was largely caused by the rise of totalitarian regimes in Germany and Italy. In Germany, Adolf Hitler had become Chancellor in 1933, and immediately set out to regain the power lost with the Treaty of Versailles following World War I. The Treaty had required that Germany claim full responsibility for causing the war and that it substantially reduce its military. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria followed by Czechoslovakia; it then invaded Poland in September 1939.

On 10 May 1940, Germany began its Western offensive with the radio code word “Danzig,” launching its “Sichelschnitt”, an invasion of Belgium and Holland. British and French Allied forces attempted to stop the German offensive on the ground, while 2500 German aircraft bombed airfields in Belgium, Holland, France, and Luxembourg, and 16000 German troops parachuted into Rotterdam, Leiden, and The Hague.

Ironically, it was also on 10 May 1940 that Britain’s great wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was elected. Churchill served as Prime Minister of Britain from 1940-45, entirely during WWII. His powerful oratory and refusal to make peace with Hitler were instrumental in rallying and maintaining British resistance to Germany. This was particularly so during the first two years of the war and the onslaught of the Blitz by the German Luftwaffe, which was aimed at crushing British morale. Initially, with Europe falling around it, Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany, but Churchill promised his country and the world that the British people would “never surrender”.

World History

Tuesday, May 10, 1994. :   Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa’s first black President.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on 18 July 1918. Rolihlahla Mandela was seven years old when he became the first member of his family to attend school: it was there that he was given the English name “Nelson” by a Methodist teacher. In his university days, Mandela became a political activist against the white minority government’s denial of political, social, and economic rights to South Africa’s black majority. He became a prominent anti-apartheid activist of the country, and was involved in underground resistance activities. Although interred in jail from 1962 to 1990 for his resistance activities, including sabotage, Mandela continued to fight for the rights of the South African blacks.

Mandela was eventually freed, thanks to sustained campaigning by the African National Congress, and subsequent international pressure. He and State President F W de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. The following year, Mandela was elected to the Presidency of South Africa, the first black to achieve this position. He was inaugurated into this position on 10 May 1994. Mandela retired in 1999 but maintained a high international profile as an advocate for a variety of social and human rights organisations until his death in 2013.