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San Francisco History Calendar for MAY

San Francisco History web links

Alcatraz History
Asian Art Museum
Barbary Coast Vigilance Committee
Black Bart
Butcher Town San Francisco on Islais Creek
First Atomic Bomb (Hiroshima) in San Francisco
San Francisco Cable Car Museum
California As I Saw It (1849-1900)
California Historical Society
San Francisco Cemeteries
Cliff House Historical Page
EMPEROR NORTON
Golden Gate Railroad Museum
Gold Rush Chronicles
History of Golden Gate Park
San Francisco Museum & Historical Society
San Francisco / History / Time / Place
Lola Montez
Mark Twain in San Francisco
MECHANICS' INSTITUTE
Pier 70 San Francisco
SF Museum Online
The Mexican Museum
Museum of City of San Francisco
Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of San Francisco
Notable Jailbirds of San Francisco
S.F. history
Sex, Vigilantism, and San Francisco in 1856
Women's History in San Francisco
Playland at the Beach
History of The Palace of Fine Arts
Seventy-five Years in San Francisco
San Francisco 1906 Earthquake Marriage Project
Telegraph Hill History The Story of Dogpatch
Pier 70 History
Timeline of San Francisco History
Wagon Master Bill Roddy
Western Neighborhoods Project
San Francisco - The Early Years CD 1897 - 1916 (2-CD Set)
San Francisco Call
Kenneth Rexroth San Francisco 1975

Legends of San Francisco
1914 Poem
by George W. Caldwell, M.D

The Seven Hills of San Francisco

San Francisco Books
Films,  Novels,  Sixties,
Guides,  History
Cookbooks   Photography

This monthly San Francisco Calendar is where I get to share my interest in our city's fascinating history.
Wolfgang's VaultAnd I hope that you
will enjoy revisiting the art and remembering the music from the dancehall concerts of the late 60's and early 70's. The posters are diplayed here for the enjoyment of those of us lucky to have been here and for those who wish they had been. ~ nicole, sfheart

San Francisco CablecarMay 1, 1850
The "Panama " sailed from San Francisco with $1,500,156 in gold dust destined for the East.

May 1, 1998
Eldridge Cleaver, the fiery Black Panther leader who later renounced his past and became a Republican, died in Pomona, Calif., at age 62.

May 2, 1968
icon Moby Grape
Hour Glass
The United States of America
@ Fillmore Auditorium
Artist: Mari Tepper




May 3,1966
California legislation passes to outlaw possession of marijuana for sale or giving away, not simple possession itself.

May 3, 1968
poster border= Junior Wells
Canned Heat
Crome Syrcus
@ Avalon Ballroom (San Francisco
Artist: Carl Lundgren





Thelonious Monk and Dr. John the Night Tripper
played the same night at the Carousel Ballroom.

May 4, 1850
A second Great Fire broke out in the United States Exchange, a saloon and gambling house. The fire burned 300 buildings and caused $4,000,000 damage.

It is interesting that on the same date, one year later, the 5th Great Fire almost destroyed San Francisco. The entire business district was destroyed in 10 hours. 18 Blocks,2,000 buildings

May 5, 1979 Fifteen hundred gather in Livermore, Calif. to protest nuclear research laboratory run by the Univ. of California. Livermore becomes and continues to be the focus of numerous rallies and direct actions in subsequent years. Timeline of Nuclear Technology from PBS

May 5, every year
Cinco de Mayo Day. It is the celebration honororing the Mexican forces that defeated Napoleon 111's army. There is always a parade,wonderful costumes, hot salsa music fills the air. It is a most enjoyable festival.

May 5,1966
Our own Willie Mays hit home run number 512 of his career. The San Francisco Giants' superstar became the greatest home run hitter in the National League to that time.

May 5, 1967
Big Brother and the Holding Company w/ The Sir Douglas Quintet Orkestra @Avalon Ballroom.
 view the original Stanley Mouse Poster for this event @ Wolfgang's Vault

May 7, 1907
Bloody Tuesday in San Francisco. The Street Car-men were among the most militant of San Francisco workers as they struck in five of the six years from 1902 to 1907, leading to the violent gunfight that erupted on this day, with two deaths.

May 7, 1968
SF Free City Poetry Bust. After a month of noontime poetry readings on the steps of City Hall, the San Francisco police arrested five of the participlants. One of the Diggers began reading a poem on America while wearing an American flag shirt. The police arrested him for violating a law against defiling the flag. A second man was arrested for profanity after shouting "Fuck" (the newspaper account described it as "a four-letter word meaning to make love." Ron Thelin was arrested for wearing a mask after Judge Albert Axelrod informed that it was a violation of the Penal Code. A fourth man was arrested while trying to prevent Ron's arrest. A woman was also arrested, but no reason indicated. Terrence Hallinan, the Diggers' lawyer, charged that talks with the Mayor's Office had produced no results except for pressure from The City on produce market vendors to discontinue supplying free fruits and vegetables to the Diggers. He also said that the police had ordered the noon poetry events off the Polk street steps of City Hall. The Diggers provided free apples to the crowds. Other days they had provided free oranges and strawberries.
source:Jerry Burns, SF Chronicle, May 8, 1968, p. 1.

May 7, 1969
Another beautiful day in the park. Grateful Dead and the Airplane performed at the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park .

May 7, 1984
American veterans of the Vietnam War reached an out-of-court settlement with seven chemical companies in their class-action suit relating to use of herbicide "Agent Orange."

May 9, 1934
West Coast longshoremen (ILA) go out on strike to gain control of hiring.

May 9, 1968
poster The Loading Zone
Crome Syrcus
H.P. Lovecraft
@ Fillmore Auditorium
Artist: Wilfred Weisser

featuring special guest Tiny Tim

 

May 9, 1969
New York Times reveals the United States has been secretly bombing Cambodia--officially a noncombatant, neutral country.

May 9, 1974
Congress begins impeachment hearings of President Richard M. Nixon.

May 10, 1968
icon Steve Miller Band
Kaleidoscope
The Youngbloods
@ Carousel Ballroom
Artist: Alton Kelley

May 10, 1968
postcard Quicksilver Messenger Service
Ace of Cups
The Flamin' Groovies
@ Avalon Ballroom
Artist: Bob Schnepf
postcard

May 11, 1855
The oldest gambling house in San Francisco, the El Dorado closed forever because of a new state anti-gambling law.

May 11, 1975
Eighty thousand turn out in New York's Central Park to celebrate the end of the Vietnam War.

May 12,1820
Florence Nightengale born. Read Country Joe Mc Donald's tribute to Florence Nightingale

May 12, 1948
Gold Fever was begun by Sam Brannan in San Francisco when he waved a bottle of gold dust and shouted "Gold! Gold! He went on to recieve Gold as payment for goods that he sold in his store at Sutter's fort. during its period asIn the the elegant 1860s, Calistoga Hot Springs resort was developed by then successful pioneer, promoter, publisher, entrepreneur, and California's first millionaire, Sam Brannan.

May 12, 1965
"Boss of the Bay," KYA presents the Rolling Stones, the Byrds, Beau Brummels, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and the Vejtables, at Civic Auditorium.

May 12, 1972
Police clash with 3,000 anti-war protesters in San Francisco.

May 13,1960
San Francisco police attack students (including a young Abbie Hoffman) protesting a local hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

May 13,1967
Blacks riot in San Francisco's Playland by the Pacific, while the Diggers host a "love feast" in Haight-Ashbury.

May 14, 1856:
The editor of the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin was assassinated by a rival newspaper owner. A vigilante group seized the assassin from the sheriff, then tried, convicted, and executed him.

May 14, 1945:
Plutonium is injected intravenously into a human subject in an experiment carried out by the Los Alamos scientific laboratory. In all, 18 people were similarly tested between 1945 and 1946.
List of Experiments
Plutonium Injection

May 15, 1872
Julia Ward Howe declares the first Mother's Day as an anti-war holiday.
Julia Ward Howe's ' MOTHER'S DAY PROCLAMATION' and more about her

May 15, 1969
Governor Ronald Reagan sends in National Guard to reclaim People's Park from 6,000 protesters in Berkeley, California. Police gunfire kills a bystander, James Rector, blinds another, injures dozens.

May 16, 1969
The U.S.S. Guitarro, a $50 million nuclear submarine undergoing final fitting in San Francisco Bay, sank to the bottom as water poured into a forward compartment. A House Armed Services subcommittee later found the Navy guilty of "inexcusable carelessness" in connection with the event.

May 18, 1849
Sailing ship "Grey Eagle" arrived with 34 passengers from the East in 113 days, a record at that time.

May 18, 1966
PH Phactor Jug Band opened at 40 Cedar Alley near Polk and Geary. Does anyone e,lse remember Cedar Alley. I remember seeing art films there.

May 20, 1966
poster Love
Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
Big Brother and the Holding Company
Tour/Show: Hupmobile 8
@ Avalon Ballroom
Artist: Wes Wilson

 

May 21, 1916
Clocks go forward for the first Daylight Saving Day, originally sold to the public as a wartime emergency measure to conserve evening use of electricity.

May 21, 1968
Police in helicopters drop tear gas on a University of California campus rally in Berkeley.

May 21, 1979
An all-straight jury convicts former San Francisco city supervisor Dan White of the lightest charge possible in the assassination of S.F. city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone. White's defense argued that White was depressed because of overconsumption of junk food, the so-called "Twinkie defense." Thousands march on city hall in response, provoking a police riot.

May 22,1930
Harvey Milk, gay rights activist and San Francisco city Supervisor, born as Glimpy Milch. Woodmere, Long Island, New York.

May 22,1989
Univ. of Calif.-Berkeley chancellor calls People’s Park a “vacuum for anarchy” after riot three days previous.

May 24, 1941
Birth of songwriter and anti-war folk singer Robert Zimmerman.

May 24, 1990
Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney are seriously injured when a car bomb explodes under Bari's seat as they drive through Oakland. The FBI and Oakland Police immediately arrest the two and charge them with bombing themselves; the charges are later dropped, and the perpetrator is never found.


May 24, 1968
poster Big Brother and the Holding Company
Clara Ward Singers
H.P. Lovecraft
@ Carousel Ballroom
Artist: Crazy Arab

 


May 24, 1969
The Haight-Ashbury Festival in the Golden Gate Park Panhandle.

May 9, 1934
San Francisco Stevedores & Longshoreman's strike.

May 26, 1967
poster The Charlatans
Salvation Army Banned
Blue Cheer
@ Avalon Ballroom
Artist: Rick Griffin
Herb Greene

May 26, 1975
Alaska legalizes home use of marijuana.

May 27, 1848
Crewmen on ships in San Francisco deserted and rushed to the gold fields. There was a major population drop in the coastal cities as the people rushed off to the Sierra foothills

May 27, 1906
Bubonic plague in San Francisco for the first time in the United States in 1900, at San Francisco, and shown to be present among rats in that city in 1902. At first business interests, in collusion with conservative politicians in both the city and the state, resisted official acknowledgment of plague as well as all official efforts to control its spread. This refusal to address the problem for fear of hurting business led to a far worse outbreak than would otherwise have occurred. Eventually, other states quarantined California, and forced them to deal with the plague after all.

May 27,1937
The opening of the Golden Gate Bridge were held in San Francisco with much ceramony and celebration.The bridge has been called one of the greatest engineering marvels in the world.

May 27, 1966
handbillAndy Warhol and His Plastic Inevitable
The Velvet Underground
Nico
Mothers of Invention
@ Fillmore Auditorium
Artist: Wes Wilson

Handbill


May 28,1957
The National Leagurer voted to allow the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants baseball teams to move to California. . The Dodgers to Los Angeles and the Giants to San Francisco.

May 28, 1969
posterAum
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Elvin Bishop Group
Grateful Dead
Jefferson Airplane
Santana
Tour/Show: People's Park Benefit
@ Winterland

People's Park Bail Ball benefit.

May 29, 1848
The "Californian" complained: "The whole country from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and from the sea shore to the base of the Sierra Nevadas, resounds with the sordid cry of gold, GOLD, GOLD! while the field is left half- planted, the house half built, and everything neglected but the manufacture of shovels and pickaxes." "The Californian" also announced suspension of publication because of staff leaving for the diggings.

May 29,1968
The Chambers Brothers appearing at Fillmore Auditorium
 Hear this concert @Wolfgamg's Vault

May 30, 1966
Benefit for the Haight- Ashbury Legal Organization (HALO) at Winterland.
The Jefferson Airplane performed.

May 30, 1967   Same place , same date, same cause, one year later.
posterJefferson Airplane
Big Brother and the Holding Company
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Tour/Show: HALO
@ Winterland

Benefit for the Haight-Ashbury Legal Organization

May 31,1819:
Birth of Walt Whitman, "To states everywhere, resist much; obey little.

 

Some of these history items were found at the online Virtual San Francisco Museum,
the http://timelines.ws/cities/SF_G_1996_1997(no longer available),
This Day in Radical History, by Geov Parrish, (no longer available),
Wilson's Book of Days, and The Diggers Archives.
Other dates and information are bits and pieces of San Francisco history I have collected during my ongoing
interest and research into all things San Francisco over the many years I have lived and loved here. ..nicole, sfheart.com

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