Today is May 30 2014

Asparagus Month: More
Couldn't find a strickly food holiday for today, so clean your plate and eat that Asparagus.

• Water a Flower Day: More
  
• Loomis Day: More
• My Bucket's Got A Hole In It Day: More

• In 1783, Benjamin Towne of Philadelphia publishes the first daily newspaper in US.
  From Wikipedia: 'The history of American newspapers begins in the early 18th century with the publication of the first colonial newspapers. American newspapers began as modest affairs--a sideline for printers. They became a political force in the campaign for American independence. Following independence the first article of U.S. Constitution guaranteed freedom of the press and the American press grew rapidly during the First Party System (1790s-1810s) when both parties sponsored papers to reach their loyal partisans. From the 1830s onward the Penny press began to play a major role in American journalism and technological advancements such as the telegraph and faster printing presses in the 1840s helped expand the press of the nation as it experienced rapid economic and demographic growth. Editors typically became the local party spokesman, and hard-hitting editorials were widely reprinted.
  
  Many of the papers, however, which were kept alive or brought to life during the war could not adapt themselves to the new conditions of peace. Perhaps only a dozen of the survivors held their own in the new time, notably the Boston Gazette, which declined rapidly in the following decade, The Connecticut Courant of Hartford, The Providence Gazette, and The Pennsylvania Packet of Philadelphia, to which may be added such representative papers as the Massachusetts Spy, Boston's Independent Chronicle, the New York Journal and Packet, the Newport Mercury, the Maryland Gazette of Annapolis, the Pennsylvania Gazette and The Pennsylvania Journal, both of Philadelphia. Practically all were of four small pages, each of three or four columns, issued weekly. In 1783, the Pennsylvania Evening Post became the first American daily. The next year, the Pennsylvania Packet was published three times a week, and the New York Journal twice a week, as were several of the papers begun in that year. There was a notable extension to new fields. In Vermont, where the first paper, established in 1781, had soon died, another arose in 1783; in Maine, two were started in 1785. In 1786, the first one west of the Alleghenies appeared at Pittsburgh, and following the westward tide of immigration the Kentucky Gazette was begun at Lexington in 1787'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
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• In 1868, Decoration Day, the predecessor of the modern Memorial Day, is observed in the United States for the first time.
  From Wikipedia: 'Copying a practice that began in the Southern states, on May 5, 1868, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, the veterans' organization for Union Civil War veterans, General John A. Logan issued a proclamation calling for "Decoration Day" to be observed annually and nationwide. It was observed for the first time that year on Saturday May 30; the date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of any particular battle. According to the White House, the May 30 date was chosen as the optimal date for flowers to be in bloom.
  
  Memorial events were held in 183 cemeteries in 27 states in 1868, and 336 in 1869. The northern states quickly adopted the holiday. Michigan made "Decoration Day" an official state holiday in 1871 and by 1890, every northern state had followed suit. The ceremonies were sponsored by the Women's Relief Corps, the women's auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), which had 100,000 members. By 1870, the remains of nearly 300,000 Union dead had been reinterred in 73 national cemeteries, located near major battlefields and thus mainly in the South. The most famous are Gettysburg National Cemetery in Pennsylvania and Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C.
  - At Wikipedia: More
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• In 1922, The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C..
  From Wikipedia: 'The Lincoln Memorial is an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is located on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument. The architect was Henry Bacon; the designer of the primary statue – Abraham Lincoln, 1920 – was Daniel Chester French; the Lincoln statue was carved by the Piccirilli Brothers; and the painter of the interior murals was Jules Guerin. Dedicated in 1922, it is one of several monuments built to honor an Americ president. It has always been a major tourist attraction and since the 1930s has been a symbolic center focused on race relations.
  
  The building is in the form of a Greek Doric temple and contains a large seated sculpture of Abraham Lincoln and inscriptions of two well-known speeches by Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address. The memorial has been the site of many famous speeches, including Martin Luther King King's "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered on August 28, 1963, during the rally at the end of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
  
  Like other monuments on the National Mall – including the nearby Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, and National World War II Memorial – the memorial is administered by the National Park Service under its National Mall and Memorial Parks group. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since October 15, 1966. It is open to the public 24 hours a day. In 2007, it was ranked seventh on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. Since 2010, approximately 6 million people visit the memorial annually.
  
  The sixth bill (Senate Bill 9449), introduced on December 13, 1910, passed. The Lincoln Memorial Commission had its first meeting the following year and U.S. President William H. Taft was chosen as the commission's president. Progress continued at a steady pace and by 1913 Congress had approved of the Commission's choice of design and location.
  
  With Congressional approval and a $300,000 allocation, the project got underway. On February 12, 1914, a dedication ceremony was conducted and the following month the actual construction began. Work progressed steadily according to schedule. Some changes were made to the plan. The statue of Lincoln, originally designed to be 10 feet (3.0 m) tall, was enlarged to 19 feet (5.8 m) to prevent it from being overwhelmed by the huge chamber. As late as 1920, the decision was made to substitute an open portal for the bronze and glass grille which was to have guarded the entrance. Despite these changes, the Memorial was finished on schedule. Commission president William H. Taft – who was then Chief Justice of the United States – dedicated the Memorial on May 30, 1922 and presented it to President Warren G Harding, who accepted it on behalf of the American people. Lincoln's only surviving son, 78-year-old Robert Todd Lincoln, was in attendance.
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• In 1958, Memorial Day: The remains of two unidentified American servicemen, killed in action during World War II and the Korean War respectively, are buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
  From Wikipedia: 'On August 3, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill to select and pay the tribute to the Unknowns of World War II and the Korean War. The selection ceremonies and the interment of these Unknowns took place in 1958. The World War II Unknown was selected from remains exhumed from cemeteries in Europe, Africa, Hawaii, and the Philippines.
  
  Two Unknowns from World War II, one from the European Theater and one from the Pacific Theater, were placed in identical caskets and taken aboard the USS Canberra, a guided-missile cruiser resting off the Virginia Capes. Navy Hospital Corpsman 1st Class William R. Charette, then the U.S. Navy's only active-duty Medal of Honor recipient who was an enlisted man, selected the World War II Unknown. The remaining casket received a solemn burial at sea.
  
  Four unknown Americans who died in the Korean War were disinterred from the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. Army Master Sergeant Ned Lyle made the final selection.
  
  Both caskets arrived in Washington on May 28, 1958, where they lay in the Capitol Rotunda until the morning of May 30, when they were carried on caissons to Arlington National Cemetery. President Eisenhower awarded each the Medal of Honor, and the Unknowns of World War II and the Korean War were interred in the plaza beside their World War I comrade.
  - At Wikipedia: More
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• In 1959, World's 1st hovercraft (SR-N1) tested at Cowes, England.
  From Wikipedia: 'The idea of the modern hovercraft is most often associated with a British mechanical engineer Sir Christopher Cockerell. Cockerell's group was the first to develop the use of an annular ring of air for maintaining the cushion, the first to develop a successful skirt, and the first to demonstrate a practical vehicle in continued use.
  
  'Cockerell built several models of his hovercraft design in the early 1950s, featuring an engine mounted to blow from the front of the craft into a space below it, combining both lift and propulsion. He demonstrated the model flying over many Whitehall carpets in front of various government experts and ministers, and the design was subsequently put on the secret list. In spite of tireless efforts to arrange funding, no branch of the military was interested, as he later joked, "the navy said it was a plane not a boat; the air force said it was a boat not a plane; and the army was 'plain not interested'".
  
  This lack of military interest meant that there was no reason to keep the concept secret, and it was declassified. Cockerell was finally able to convince the National Research Development Corporation to fund development of a full-scale model. In 1958, the NRDC placed a contract with Saunders-Roe for the development of what would become the SR.N1, short for "Saunders-Roe, Nautical 1".
  
  The SR.N1 was powered by a 450 hp Alvis Leonides engine powering a vertical fan in the middle of the craft. In addition to providing the lift air, a portion of the airflow was bled off into two channels on either side of the craft, which could be directed to provide thrust. In normal operation this extra airflow was directed rearward for forward thrust, and blew over two large vertical rudders that provided directional control. For low-speed manoeuvrability, the extra thrust could be directed fore or aft, differentially for rotation.
  
  The SR.N1 made its first hover on 11 June 1959, and made its famed successful crossing of the English Channel on 25 July 1959. In December 1959, the Duke of Edinburgh visited Saunders-Roe at East Cowes and persuaded the chief test-pilot, Commander Peter Lamb, to allow him to take over the SR.N1's controls. He flew the SR.N1 so fast that he was asked to slow down a little. On examination of the craft afterwards, it was found that she had been dished in the bow due to excessive speed, damage that was never allowed to be repaired, and was from then on affectionately referred to as the 'Royal Dent'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
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• In 1966, Launch of Surveyor 1, the first US spacecraft to land on an extraterrestrial body.
  From Wikipedia: 'Surveyor 1 was the first lunar soft-lander in the unmanned Surveyor program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, United States). This lunar soft-lander gathered data about the lunar surface that would be needed for the manned Apollo Moon landings that began in 1969. The successful soft landing of Surveyor 1 on the Ocean of Storms was the first one by an American space probe onto any extraterrestrial body, and it occurred just four months after the first Moon landing by the Soviet Union's Luna 9 probe. This was also a success on NASA's first attempt at a soft landing on any astronomical object.
  
  Surveyor 1 was launched May 30, 1966, from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and it landed on the Moon on June 2, 1966. Surveyor 1 transmitted 11,237 still photos of the lunar surface to the Earth by using a television camera and a sophisticated radio-telemetry system.
  
  The Surveyor program was managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Los Angeles County, but the entire Surveyor space probe was designed and built by the Hughes Aircraft Company in El Segundo, California'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
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• In 1971, US Mariner 9, is launched to Mars.
  From Wikipedia: 'Mariner 9 (Mariner Mars '71 / Mariner-I) was an unmanned NASA space probe that contributed greatly to the exploration of Mars and was part of the Mariner program. Mariner 9 was launched toward Mars on May 30, 1971 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and reached the planet on November 14 of the same year, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet – only narrowly beating the Soviets' Mars 2 and Mars 3, which both arrived within a month. After months of dust storms it managed to send back clear pictures of the surface.
  
  Mariner 9 returned 7329 images over the course of its mission, which concluded in October 1972'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
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Nothing. Looks like I was lazy on this day.

No. 1 song

• My Guy - Mary Wells: More
  'Love Me Do' has been displaced by 'My Guy', which will hold the no. 1 spot until June 6, when 'Chapel of Love', takes over.

Top movie

• Viva Las Vegas More
  Having displaced 'Crack in the World', it will be there until the weekend box office of May 31, 1964 when, 'From Russia with Love', takes over.

• FamousBirthdays.com: May 30 Birthdays More
• FamousDaily.com: May 30 History More
• History.com: Historical Events on 30th May More
• HistoryOrb.com: Famous Deaths on 30th May More
• On-This-day.com history 30th May More
• On-This-day.com music history 30th May More
• Wikipedia.com: History May 30 More

National Asparagus Month National Barbeque Month National Chocolate Custard Month National Egg Month National Gazpacho Aficionado Month National Hamburger Month National Salad Month National Strawberry Month

May is:

May origin (from Wikipedia):
The month May was named for the Greek goddess Maia, who was identified with the Roman era goddess of fertility, Bona Dea, whose festival was held in May. Conversely, the Roman poet Ovid provides a second etymology, in which he says that the month of May is named for the maiores, Latin for 'elders,' and that the following month (June) is named for the iuniores, or 'young people'

May ' is the fifth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with the length of 31 days.
May is a month of Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere and spring in the Northern Hemisphere (Summer in Europe). Therefore May in the Southern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent of November in the Northern Hemisphere and vice versa. '

May at Wikipedia: More

If you couldn't afford 90 cents for a movie ticket, 50 years ago, or your 45 RPM record player was broke, you might watch one of these shows on TV.
From this Wikipedia article: More

Best selling books of 1964 More

• Astronomy Picture of the Day: More
• NOAA: - National Hurricane Center - Atlantic Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook: More
• Listen to Old Radio Shows: (streaming mp3 with schedule) More
• NASA TV: (video feed) More
  NASA TV schedule: More
• Public Domain eBook Links

  Sites for downloading or reading free Public Domain eBooks. Available in various formats. More

• Podcast: A Moment of Science. Approximately 1 minute general science facts.
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Podcast: The Naked Scientists. Current science, medicine, space and other science
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Podcast: Quirks & Quarks. Current science news.
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Articles and videos: Universe Today. Current space and astronomy news.
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Old Picture of the Day - "Each day we bring you one stunning little glimpse of history in the form of a historical photograph."
  Home page: More
  RSS: More

Below, are listed several holiday sites that I reference in addition to other holiday researches.

US Government Holidays

• 2014 Postal Holidays More
• 2014 Official Federal Holidays More

Holidays Worldwide

• List of holidays by country More
• Holidays and Observances around the World More