May 10 in Pop Culture History

Mother’s Day in Mexico is a set date of May 10th every year, unlike most other countries where it lands on a Sunday.

1503 – Columbus stumbled across the Cayman Islands and dubbed them Las Tortugas, after the numerous sea turtles.

1860 – The discovery of two new elements – cesium (Cs) and rubidium (Rb), was announced by German chemists Robert Bunsen and Gustav Robert Kirchhoff to the Berlin Academy of Scientists.

1869 – Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads completed the Transcontinental Railroad.

1877 – US President Rutherford B. Hayes installed the White House’s first telephone in the ‘telegraph room.’

1879 – America’s first archaeological society was formed in Boston, Mass., the Archaeological Institute of America.

1893 – The United States Supreme Court ruled in Nix v. Hedden that a tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit, under the Tariff Act of 1883. Scientifically, it is a fruit.

1924 – J. Edgar Hoover was named acting director of the Bureau of Investigation (now the FBI).

1975 – Sony’s Betamax, the first home videocassette recorder, went on sale in Japan

1980 – The US Government gave Chrysler a $1.5 billion loan.

1986 # 1 Hit May 10, 1986 – May 16, 1986: Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls

1994 – Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was sworn in as the first black president of South Africa.

2003 # 1 Hit May 10, 2003 – May 30, 2003: Sean Paul – Get Busy

2013 – One World Trade Center became the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, at 1,776 feet.