Portal:Belgium/Anniversaries/May

These are the selected anniversaries for May that appear on the Belgium portal. The "edit" links edit the portal subpages that are displayed as sections here.

May 1

Labour Day

1218: birth of John I of Avesnes, Count of Hainaut
1527: birth of Johannes Stadius (pictured), astronomer and mathematician
1904: the Belgium national football team plays its first official match against France, ending in a 3-3 draw

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May 2

1901: birth of Edouard Zeckendorf, mathematician
1942: birth of Jacques Rogge, since 2001 and as of 2006 president of the International Olympic Committee
1947: birth of Philippe Herreweghe, conductor
1976: birth of Jan De Cock, artist

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May 3

1294: death of John I, Duke of Brabant, father-in-law of Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor
1742: birth of Archduchess Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen, Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands
1809: birth of Laurent-Guillaume de Koninck, palentologist and chemist
1915: In Flanders Fields, the famous poem about World War I (Remembrance Poppies pictured), is written by Canadian John McCrae
1929: birth of Berck, comics author
1938: birth of Louis Tobback, former minister in the Belgian federal government and as of 2006 mayor of Leuven
1986: Sandra Kim wins the Eurovision Song Contest held in Bergen, Norway

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May 4

1929: birth of Academy Award-winning actress, fashion model, and humanitarian Audrey Hepburn (pictured) in Brussels, Belgium
1937: birth of Joseph Loeckx, comics artist of Taka Takata and Clifton, working as Jo-El Azara

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May 5

1835: In Belgium, the first railway in continental Europe (depiction shown) opens between Brussels and Mechelen.
1880: birth of Adrian Carton de Wiart, British war hero of World War I, recipient of the Victoria Cross, of Belgian descent and born in Brussels
1931: birth of Michel Regnier, better known as Greg, comics author of Bernard Prince, editor-in-chief of Tintin magazine
1977: birth of Virginie Efira, television actress
1980: birth of Nick Nuyens, professional bicycle road racer, biggest wins to date include the semi-classics Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, Omloop Het Volk and Paris-Brussels

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May 6

1596: death of Giaches de Wert, Reniassance composer
1638: death of Cornelius Jansen, bishop of Ypres and father of the Jansenism
1846: construction starts on the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert in Brussels
1946: Camille Gutt becomes the first managing director of the International Monetary Fund
1949: death of Maurice Maeterlinck (pictured), writer, winner of the 1911 Nobel Prize in Literature
1951: death of Henri Carton de Wiart, Prime Minister of Belgium between 1920 and 1921
1992: death of Gaston Reiff, athlete, gold medalist at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London at the 5,000 m

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May 7

1879: death of Charles De Coster (pictured), author, best known for The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak
1882: birth of Willem Elsschot, writer, best known for Villa des Roses, Lijmen/Het been, and Kaas
1954: birth of Philippe Geluck, comedian and comics artist, best known for Le Chat
1955: birth of Frieda Brepoels, politician and Member of the European Parliament
1999: opening of the SMAK museum in Ghent

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May 8

652: death of Itta, saint, founder of the Abbey of Nivelles, wife of Pippin of Landen, and one of the ancestors of the Carolingian dynasty
1710: birth of Peter Anton von Verschaffelt (pictured), sculptor and architect

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May 9

1810: birth of Louis Gallait, painter
1865: birth of August de Boeck, impressionist composer

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May 10

1910: birth of Bernard Voorhoof, soccer player, record goal scorer for the Belgium national football team with 30 goals in 61 appearances
1940 - World War II: Nazi Germany invades Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
1941 - World War II: A massive strike breaks out against German occupation in Belgium
1979: death of Louis Paul Boon (pictured), writer

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May 11

1828: birth of Alfred Stevens (pictured), painter
1847: birth of Godefroid Kurth, historian
2006: Hans Van Themsche shoots three people in Antwerp for racist reasons, leaving two dead

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May 12

1330: birth of William I, Duke of Bavaria (pictured), Count of Hainaut
1626: birth of Father Louis Hennepin, missionary, the first European to describe the Niagara Falls
1964: birth of Bart Somers, politician, former Minister-President of Flanders between 2003 and 2004, and as of 2006 chairman of the VLD, one of the main Flemish political parties
1978: in Zaïre, rebels occupy the city of Kolwezi, the mining center of the province of Shaba. The government of Zaïre asks the U.S., France and Belgium to restore order.
1983: birth of Axel Hervelle, basketball player with Real Madrid and drafted in the NBA by the Denver Nuggets

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May 13

1536: birth of Pamelius, theologian and bishop
1926: death of Libert H. Boeynaems (episcopal arms pictured), Catholic prelate

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May 14

1943: death of Henri La Fontaine, lawyer, president of the International Peace Bureau, winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1913, between 1907 and 1943
1953: birth of Wim Mertens, composer
1993: death of Patrick Haemers, kidnapper of Prime Minister Paul Vanden Boeynants in 1989

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May 15

1272: death of Thomas of Cantimpré, theologian and writer
1568: death of Anna of Lorraine, wife of Philip II, Duke of Arschot, mother of Charles Philippe, Prince de Croÿ, in Diest
1844: birth of Isidore Jacques Eggermont, photographer and writer
1954: birth of Eric Gerets, soccer player and coach, with 86 appearances the second most capped player of the Belgium national football team, as coach winner of the first division in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Turkey
2003: death of Rik Van Steenbergen (pictured), cyclist, thrice World Champion and winner of many classics

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May 16

1925: birth of Bobbejaan Schoepen (pictured), singer, founder of the Bobbejaanland amusement park
1937: birth of Paul Geerts, comics drawer who succeeded Willy Vandersteen as the main drawer of the Spike and Suzy series
1953: death of Django Reinhardt, very influential Roma jazz guitarist
1957: Paul-Henri Spaak becomes the second Secretary General of NATO
1983: death of Edouard Zeckendorf, mathematician

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May 17

1551: birth of Martin Delrio, theologian, author of a book on magic and the occult
1836: birth of Virginie Loveling, writer
1846: the saxophone (pictured) is patented by Adolphe Sax.
1911: birth of Albéric O'Kelly de Galway, World Champion in correspondence chess between 1959 and 1962
1936: birth of Philippe Boesmans, composer
1940 - World War II: Germany occupies Brussels

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May 18

1897: birth of Edgard Colle, chess player, known for the Colle System opening
1949: birth of Georges Leekens, soccer player and coach, coach of the Belgium national football team between 1997 and 1999

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May 19

1593: birth of Jacob Jordaens (self portrait, with his family, pictured), painter
1946: birth of Claude Lelièvre, Belgian Commissioner for Children's Rights
1971: birth of Ilse De Meulemeester, Miss Belgium 1994, TV presenter
1983: death of Jean Rey, politician, President of the European Commission between 1967 and 1970

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May 20

1912: birth of Chaïm Perelman, philosopher
1920: birth of Marcel Loncin, chemical engineer, food engineer
1954: birth of Robert Van de Walle, judoka, winner of the gold medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and of a bronze medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul

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May 21

1527: birth of Philip II of Spain (pictured), ruler over most of the territory of current Belgium
1855: birth of Emile Verhaeren, early Symbolist poet
1901: birth of Suzanne Lilar, essayist, novelist, and playwright
1949: birth of Arno, musician

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May 22

1604: death of Peter Ernst I von Mansfeld-Vorderort (pictured), Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands
1907: birth of Hergé, comics author of The Adventures of Tintin
1919: birth of Paul Vanden Boeynants, Prime Minister of Belgium between 1966 and 1968, and again between 1978 and 1979
1967: The Innovation department store in the centre of Brussels burns down. It is the most devastating fire in Belgian history, which results in 323 dead and missing and 150 injured
1983: death of Albert Claude, biologist, laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974
1997: death of Herman De Coninck, poet and literary critic

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May 23

1706: the Battle of Ramillies, where the British, Dutch and German troops defeated the French army in the War of the Spanish Succession
1873: death of Pierre-Jean De Smet (pictured), missionary among the Native Americans in the United States
1923: launch of Belgium's Sabena airline
1983: birth of Silvio Proto, football goalkeeper currently playing for R.S.C. Anderlecht
2006: death of Roger Camille, comics artist with pen name Kiko, best known for Foufi

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May 24

1889: birth of Henri Michaux, poet and writer
1936: birth of Roger Camille, comics artist with pen name Kiko, best known for Foufi
1948: death of Jacques Feyder, screenwriter and film director
2005: death of Baron Arthur Haulot, journalist and survivor of the Dachau concentration camp

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May 25

1813: birth of Edmond de Sélys Longchamps (pictured), politician and scientist
1821: birth of Henri Alexis Brialmont, fortification engineer
1904: Land speed record set in Ostend to 156.50 km/h
1939: birth of Ferdinand Bracke, cyclist, winner of the 1971 Vuelta a España and former holder of the World Hour Record
1962: birth of Murat Kaplan, criminal
1967: birth of Luc Nilis, soccer player with 56 appearances for the Belgium national football team
1982: birth of Ellen Petri, Miss Belgium 2004

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May 26

1871: birth of Camille Huysmans, politician, Prime Minister of Belgium between 1946 and 1947
1922: death of Ernest Solvay, chemist and businessman, creator of the Solvay Conferences and the Solvay Business School

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May 27

1521: death of William de Croÿ, marquess of Aerschot, first Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands
1833: birth of Jean-Baptiste Moens, the so-called "Father of Philately"
1854: birth of Georges Eekhoud, novelist
1885: death of Charles Rogier, one of the leaders of the Belgian Revolution and Prime Minister of Belgium for three times between 1832 and 1868
1908: creation of R.S.C. Anderlecht, the most successful Belgian football team with 28 championship wins
1940: the worst day of the Vinkt massacre (25 - 28 May), where German troiops killed at least 86 civilians (memorial pictured)

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May 28

1371: birth of John the Fearless (pictured), Count of Flanders
1804: birth of Charles Frédéric Dubois, naturalist
1940 - World War II: Belgium surrenders to Germany
2003: death of Ilya Prigogine, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977

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May 29

1927: death of Georges Eekhoud, novelist
1945: birth of Jean-Pierre Van Rossem, Stock market guru, economist, econometrician, author, philosopher, Public figure, politician and former member of the Belgian parliament
1979: birth of Salou Ibrahim, Belgian football player of Ghanaian descent, currently playing as a striker for Club Brugge K.V.
1985: at the Heysel Stadium disaster, before the start of the European Champions' Cup soccer final between Liverpool F.C. and Juventus FC, 39 people die.

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May 30

727 or 728: death of Hubertus, first bishop of Liège, the patron saint of hunters
1036: death of Baldwin IV, Count of Flanders
1213: start of the Battle of Damme, where England beat France
1814: birth of Eugène Charles Catalan (pictured), mathematician, stated Catalan's conjecture
1872: birth of Paul-Emile Janson, politician, Prime Minister of Belgium between 1937 and 1938
1901: death of Victor D'Hondt, mathematician and lawyer
1959: birth of Frank Vanhecke, chairman of the Vlaams Belang

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May 31

1417: death of William II, Duke of Bavaria-Straubing, Count of Hainaut
1472: birth of Érard de La Marck (pictured), prince-bishop of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège
1960: death of Willem Elsschot, writer, best known for Villa des Roses, Lijmen/Het been, and Kaas
1973: birth of Dominique Monami, tennis player, winner of the bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney

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