MAY 1 1898
THE BATTLE OF MANILLA BAY BEGINS:
At Manila Bay in the Philippines, the U.S. Asiatic Squadron destroys the Spanish Pacific fleet in the first battle of the Spanish-American War. Nearly 400 Spanish sailors were killed and 10 Spanish warships wrecked or captured at the cost of only six Americans wounded.
The Spanish-American War had its origins in the rebellion against Spanish rule that began in Cuba in 1895. The repressive measures that Spain took to suppress the guerrilla war, such as herding Cuba’s rural population into disease-ridden garrison towns, were graphically portrayed in U.S. newspapers and inflamed public opinion.
MAY 1 1931
THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING WAS DEDICATED:
On this day in 1931, President Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New York City’s Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White House that turns on the building’s lights. Hoover’s gesture, of course, was symbolic; while the president remained in Washington, D.C., someone else flicked the switches in New York.
The idea for the Empire State Building is said to have been born of a competition between Walter Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation and John Jakob Raskob of General Motors, to see who could erect the taller building. Chrysler had already begun work on the famous Chrysler Building, the gleaming 1,046-foot skyscraper in midtown Manhattan. Not to be bested, Raskob assembled a group of well-known investors, including former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith. The group chose the architecture firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates to design the building. The Art-Deco plans, said to have been based in large part on the look of a pencil, were also builder-friendly: The entire building went up in just over a year, under budget (at $40 million) and well ahead of schedule. During certain periods of building, the frame grew an astonishing four-and-a-half stories a week.
The new building imbued New York City with a deep sense of pride, desperately needed in the depths of the Great Depression, when many city residents were unemployed and prospects looked bleak. The grip of the Depression on New York’s economy was still evident a year later, however, when only 25 percent of the Empire State’s offices had been rented.
In 1972, the Empire State Building lost its title as world’s tallest building to New York’s World Trade Center, which itself was the tallest skyscraper for but a year. Today the honor belongs to Dubai’s Burj Khalifa tower, which soars 2,717 feet into the sky.
MAY 1 1962: The Federal Government of Nigeria declares a state of emergency in the Western Region. The first census in Nigeria since attainment of independence is held, amidst controversy.
MAY 1 1982: President Shagari commissions the N125 million Oshogbo Steel Rolling Mill.
MAY 1 1996: Lagos home of Lt Gen Alani Akinrinade(rtd) is ravaged by fire resulting from a petrol bomb.
MAY 1 1997
LABOUR PARTY RETURNS TO POWER IN BRITAIN:
After 18 years of Conservative rule, British voters give the Labour Party, led by Tony Blair, a landslide victory in British parliamentary elections. In the poorest Conservative Party showing since 1832, Prime Minister John Major was rejected in favor of Scottish-born Blair, who at age 43 became the youngest British prime minister in more than a century.
Blair studied law at Oxford and joined the Labour Party in 1975. In 1983, he was elected to Parliament from Sedgefield and became the party’s spokesperson on treasury affairs in 1985, and trade and industry in 1987. In the next year, he joined the shadow cabinet as energy secretary and in 1993 became shadow home secretary. In 1994, he was elected leader of the Labour Party, and during the next three years he orchestrated Labour’s ideological shift to the middle, borrowing such popular Conservative policies as free-market reforms. In May 1997, his “new” Labour Party won a resounding victory, and he was sworn in as prime minister. With Blair at its helm, the Labour Party went on to win three consecutive general-election victories. Blair was re-elected in 2001 and 2005, despite his support for U.S. President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq, which was unpopular among many Brits. He has now served longer as prime minister than any other Labour Party member in history.
Source: history.com
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