Browsing: May

A Brief History On May 8, 1877, the first of what has become perhaps the best known dog show in the world took place in New York City’s Gilmore Garden (later to become Madison Square Garden).  A group of hunters and dog enthusiasts had gotten together at the Westminster Hotel to form the Westminster Kennel Club, with the primary purpose of holding a dog show. Digging Deeper The Westminster Kennel Club is actually older than the American Kennel Club (AKC), and was the first club admitted to the AKC for membership.  Back then for the first 20 years of the…

A Brief History On May 4, 1959, the first ever Grammy music awards were held, with no category for rock and roll despite the fact that this new type of music had already long taken the country by storm.  Digging Deeper The big winners with 2 Grammys apiece were: Ella Fitzgerald (Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Female and Best Jazz Performance by an Individual, for compilations of the Irving Berlin songbook and the Duke Ellington songbook, respectively); Henri Mancini (Best Arrangement and Album of the Year, both for The Music from Peter Gunn); Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., better known by his stage persona…

A Brief History Today, on May 2, 2015, to much jubilation and fanfare, the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a baby girl at 8:34 a.m. following a seemingly short labor as “Kate” had only been admitted to the hospital about 2 and 1/2 hours before.  Digging Deeper Though her birth was not as eagerly anticipated as that of her brother who will one day be king was, her mother’s second pregnancy still made the headlines, and people were beginning to get impatient as the expected mid to late April due date had come and passed.  So, what does this British princess have to look forward…

A Brief History On May 30, 1914, the British ocean liner RMS Aquitania made her maiden voyage.  Larger than the Titanic, this giant was known as “Ship Beautiful” for self-descriptive reasons.  Serving in both World Wars, she was the last of the great 4-funnel (as smokestacks were called) liners and was the longest serving liner in history until surpassed by the Queen Elizabeth II.  Obviously famous in her day, the Aquitania is not well remembered, unlike the other 10 ships we list here whose fame has stood the test of time.  Apologies to the HMS Victory, the USS Arizona, the USS Missouri, the USS…

A Brief History On May 28, 1934, outside the village of Corbeil, Ontario, the first human quintuplets known to have survived past infancy were born.  The Dionne Quints, as they were called, became an international sensation. Digging Deeper In today’s world of fertility drugs and treatments that doctors and clinics specifically created to enhance fertility, we are no longer impressed with multiple births.  (Okay, we were impressed by “Octomom,” but in more of a horrified way.)  Triplets, quadruplets and quintuplets induced by fertility treatments and by the artificial implanting of fertilized human egg cells has made the multiple birth phenomena…