Comments on: May Fifth

By: Deen

Deen — Fri, 06 May 2011 16:35:55 +0000

May 5th is also liberation day in The Netherlands. May 5th 1945 was the date of the German surrender for our country.

By: rodrigo

rodrigo — Thu, 05 May 2011 23:26:25 +0000

@Paul:

Well, the Mexican army defeated the French that day … and lost the city two weeks later. The war continued until right after the US Civil War ended. Overall, it doesn’t seem US history would be very different had we lost that battle.

By: iain

iain — Thu, 05 May 2011 23:14:42 +0000

Don’t want to distract from the interesting discussion of Cinco de Mayo (at least they know the logical order of dates).

The Gemini capsule, presumably more sophisticated than the Mercury one is one of the truly astounding things I have seen (in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum). It is, indeed, a tin can rivetted together in a very bodgy way, but two things amazed me even more. The seats were so poorly designed that they would presumably have cut off the circulation in the thighs of the astronauts. So they used gaffer tape to attach some foam (as in polyurethane, I suspect–at least they would have died of cyanide poisoning in the event of a fire). Unbelievable. The there was a serious danger that they would have tripped over some presumably important wires as they got into the capsule, so these have been tied out of the way with a bit of string. I was so astonished I cannot remember whether they tied the string with a bow or a reef knot.

Ah, the joys of advanced technology.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 05 May 2011 20:58:37 +0000

It happened several (maybe more than several? Not giving a number :-)) years ago at my high school in California, with no major fanfare. At the time I thought it was somewhat of an ironic joke and not meant as intimidation, but I was an idiot at the time and tend to see it differently now. Last year, this circled around the blogosphere; I was assuming you'd be familiar with it, actually.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Thu, 05 May 2011 20:49:27 +0000

Perhaps ironic that this is one day that students wear American flags to intimidate students with Mexican heritage.

Seriously?

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 05 May 2011 20:44:58 +0000

For Mexico, this is the day on which the Mexican army defeated the French army at Puebla in 1862. Strangely, the holiday is celebrated in the United States to a greater degree than in Mexico. Go figure.

Considering the effect on the Civil War that would have occurred if the French had defeated the Mexicans, it’s not surprising that this would be a sizable holiday in the US. Of course, that’s not why it’s celebrated. But perhaps it should be. Perhaps ironic that this is one day that students wear American flags to intimidate students with Mexican heritage.

By: P Smith

P Smith — Thu, 05 May 2011 14:55:39 +0000

It’s also Children’s Day in Japan, a holiday begun after World War II, likely to encourage social and financial investment in youth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Day_(Japan)

By: Birger Johansson

Birger Johansson — Thu, 05 May 2011 14:42:00 +0000

Do not underestimate the influence of good illustrators like Chesley Bonestell with their otherworldly landscapes, or the illustrators that showed how the Apollo missions would play out long before the real thing.
I got hooked on space at Christmas Eve 1966 at the age of four and a half. A book (for grownups) about technology included a series of detailed photograph-quality illustrations of every step of the Apollo journey.