What Happened in May 1878

Historical Events

  • May 2 US stops minting 20 cent coin

Carbon Microphone

May 8 David Edward Hughes' paper on the idea for a microphone is read before the Royal Society of London by Thomas Henry Huxley

  • May 13 Danvers State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts, opens—later serves as inspiration for Arkham Sanitorium in the work of H.P. Lovecraft, which in turn inspired Arkham Asylum of the D.C. Batman universe
  • May 14 Vaseline is granted a patent (U.S. Patent 127,568)
  • May 19 Blanche Kelso Bruce appointed register of treasury by President Garfield
  • May 21 4th Kentucky Derby: Jimmy Carter aboard Day Star wins in 2:37.25
  • May 23 Attorney John Henry Smyth named US minister to Liberia
  • May 24 CA Parker (Harvard) wins 1st American bike race at Beacon Park in Boston

H.M.S. Pinafore

May 25 W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's comic opera "H.M.S. Pinafore" premieres in London, their first international success

  • May 27 6th Preakness: C Holloway aboard Duke of Magenta wins in 2:41.75

Spofforth's 10-20

May 27 Australian cricket fast bowler Fred Spofforth takes 10-20 (6-4 and 4-16) in quick-fire 9 wicket tour match win over the MCC in London

  • May 31 German battleship SMS Grosser Kurfürst sinks, 284 killed
  • May 31 US Congress accepts decrease in dollar circulation
1878 History

Famous Birthdays

Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929)

May 10 German chancellor (1923) who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926, born in Berlin, Germany

  • May 11 Jan Machiel Reyskens, oldest male resident of the Netherlands, (d. 1990 aged 111)
  • May 13 Muriel Robb, British tennis player (Wimbledon 1902), born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England (d. 1907)
  • May 14 J. L. Wilkinson, American Baseball HOF executive (founder All Nations Baseball club 1912 & NgL Kansas City Monarchs 1920), born in Algona, Iowa (d. 1964)
  • May 15 Francisco Pujol, Catalan singer, choirmaster (Orfeó Català), composer, and musicologist, born in Barcelona, Spain (d. 1945)
  • May 16 Taylor Holmes, American actor (Sleeping Beauty, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), born in Newark, New Jersey (d. 1959)
  • May 19 Adam Carse, English composer and instrument collector, born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England (d. 1958)
  • May 20 Karel Komzák III, Austrian conductor and composer, born in Vienna, Austria (d. 1924) [1]
  • May 21 Glenn Hammond Curtiss, American inventor (hydroplane) and founder of the US aviation industry, born in Hammondsport, New York (d. 1930)
  • May 21 Louis de Visser, Dutch Communist politician (CPN), born in Rotterdam, Netherlands (d. 1945)
  • May 24 Lillian Moller Gilbreth, American psychologist and industrial engineer (CIOS Gold Medal-1954), born in Oakland, California (d. 1972)

Bill Robinson (1878-1949)

May 25 American actor and tap dancer (Stormy Weather; The Little Colonel), born in Richmond, Virginia

  • May 28 Paul Pelliot, French Sinologist and Orientalist best known for his explorations of Central Asia and his rediscovery of many important Chinese texts among the Dunhuang manuscripts, born in Paris (d. 1945)
  • May 30 Mike Donlin, American baseball player (NY Giants), born in Peoria, Illinois (d. 1933)
Born in 1878

Famous Deaths

  • May 12 Catherine Beecher, American educator (championed higher education for women), dies at 77
  • May 13 Joseph Henry, American scientist and pioneer of electromagnetism, dies at 80
  • May 14 Ookubo Toshimichi, Japanese statesman, samurai, and one of the three great nobles who led the Meiji Restoration (b. 1830)
  • May 22 Franz von Holstein, German composer, dies at 52
  • May 27 Carlo Marsili, Italian composer, dies at 49

John Russell (1792-1878)

May 28 1st Earl Russell, British Prime Minister (Whig: 1846-52 and 1865-66), dies at 85