May 9 in History

Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, befriended the elderly Keeper of the Jewels, Talbot Edwards, over several weeks before attacking him with a mallet on May 9, 1671, and attempting to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Blood flattened St. Edward's Crown with a mallet to fit it under his cloak, and an accomplice filed the Sovereign's Sceptre in half to conceal it in a bag. Edwards' son arrived unexpectedly, raising the alarm. The gang fled but was caught at the Tower wharf. Blood famously demanded to speak only to King Charles II. In a baffling turn, the king pardoned Blood, restored his Irish lands, and granted him a pension of 500 pounds a year. No convincing explanation for the pardon has ever been established.

The Red Brigades, Italy's most feared left-wing terrorist group, murdered former Prime Minister Aldo Moro on May 9, 1978, after holding him captive for 55 days. Moro had been kidnapped on March 16 in Rome when his five bodyguards were killed in an ambush. During his captivity, Moro wrote dozens of letters pleading for the government to negotiate. Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti and the Christian Democrats refused, following a "no negotiation" policy supported by both the Communist Party and the United States. Moro's bullet-riddled body was found in the trunk of a red Renault 4 parked on Via Caetani, symbolically equidistant between the DC and Communist Party headquarters. The murder ended any possibility of the "Historic Compromise" between the two parties that Moro had championed.

South Africa's newly elected parliament unanimously chose Nelson Mandela as president on May 9, 1994, completing the transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy. Mandela had been released from prison just four years earlier after 27 years of imprisonment, 18 of them on Robben Island. His inauguration at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on May 10 was attended by heads of state from around the world, including those whose governments had previously maintained close ties with the apartheid regime. Mandela's decision to pursue reconciliation rather than retribution through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, became a global model for transitional justice. He served one term and voluntarily stepped down in 1999, a rarity among African leaders.

Columbus departed Cadiz, Spain, on May 9, 1502, with four caravels and 150 men on his fourth and final voyage. He was 51, arthritic, and partially blind. The voyage was a disaster: he was denied entry to Santo Domingo, survived a hurricane that destroyed a rival fleet, explored the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, and was shipwrecked on Jamaica for a year when his worm-eaten ships became unseaworthy. Columbus was rescued in June 1504 and returned to Spain in November. He spent his remaining years petitioning King Ferdinand for the titles and revenues he believed he was owed. He died on May 20, 1506, in Valladolid, still believing he had reached the outskirts of Asia rather than a continent unknown to Europeans.

French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed pooling French and German coal and steel production under a joint high authority on May 9, 1950, in a declaration drafted largely by Jean Monnet. The idea was radical: coal and steel were the raw materials of war, and placing them under supranational control would make conflict between France and Germany "not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible." West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg joined France in creating the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951. The ECSC evolved into the European Economic Community (1957), the European Community (1967), and finally the European Union (1993). May 9 is now celebrated as Europe Day. The EU now encompasses 27 member states and 450 million citizens.

L. Ron Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health on May 9, 1950, presenting a self-help system that claimed to cure psychosomatic illnesses through a process called "auditing," where a practitioner guides a subject to re-experience traumatic memories stored in a "reactive mind." The book spent 28 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. The American Psychological Association condemned it as scientifically unfounded. Dianetics groups sprang up across the United States, but interest waned by 1952. Hubbard then repackaged the concepts as a religion, founding the Church of Scientology in 1953. The organization claimed tax-exempt status, which the IRS initially denied, then granted in 1993 after years of litigation. Scientology now claims millions of members, though independent estimates put the number far lower.

Romania's Chamber of Deputies declared independence from the Ottoman Empire on May 9, 1877, with Foreign Minister Mihail Kogalniceanu reading the declaration during a heated parliamentary session. The timing was strategic: Russia had just entered the Russo-Turkish War and was marching through Romania toward the Danube. Romania's independence declaration allowed it to join the war as a belligerent rather than a mere transit corridor. Romanian troops played a crucial role in the Siege of Plevna, suffering 10,000 casualties. The Treaty of Berlin in 1878 recognized Romanian independence but forced it to cede southern Bessarabia to Russia in exchange for Northern Dobruja. Romania was proclaimed a kingdom in 1881 under Carol I of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen dynasty.