National Limerick Day, is held each year on May 12. A day to pay homage to Lear, a poet who made short poems widespread. To mark this day, take a poetry class today!
Also, explore these highlighted major events that happened on this day, May 12 in history.
- 1534-Wurttenburg became Lutheran.
- 1847-William Clayton invented the odometer.
- 1888-Crouching start, 1st used in track and field by Charles Sherrill of Yale.
- 1926-The airship “Norge” became the first vessel to fly over the North Pole.
- 1937-Britain’s King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
- 1940-Germany’s revolutionary blitzkrieg and conquest of France began with the crossing of the Muese River.
- 1941-Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world’s first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.
- 1943-Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.
- 1949-The Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin Blockade.
- 1957-A.J. Foyt won his first auto racing victory in Kansas City, MO.
- 1963-There was a race riot in Birmingham, Alabama.
- 1965-West Germany and Israel exchanged letters establishing diplomatic relations.
- 1975-U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez was seized by Cambodian forces in international waters.
- 1978-The US Commerce Department said hurricanes would no longer be named exclusively after women.
- 1982-South Africa unveiled a plan that would give voting rights to citizens of Asian and mixed-race descent, but not to blacks.
- 1984-South African prisoner Nelson Mandela saw his wife for the first time in 22 years.
- 2002-Former U.S. President Carter arrived in Cuba for a visit with Fidel Castro.
- 2008-In the U.S., the price for a one-ounce First-Class stamp increased from 41 to 42 cents.
- 2008-Wenchuan earthquake, measuring 7.8 in magnitude occurs in Sichuan, China, killed thousands, and rendered millions homeless.
- 2015-It was announced that Verizon would be acquiring AOL.