What’s Happening Today?

International Clinical Trials Day. It is celebrated around the world to recognize the day that James Lind started what is often considered the first randomized clinical trial aboard a ship on May 20, 1747.

The objective is to make this day a focal point for international communication events, meetings, debates and celebrations of clinical research. 

Probably one of the most-needed clinical trials in history is currently going on all over the world to get a vaccine for COVID-19, which has put more than two-thirds of humanity under some form of lockdown.

World Bee Day. World Bee Day is celebrated to commemorate the birthday of Anton Jansa, the pioneer of beekeeping, and its purpose is to acknowledge the role of bees and other pollinators for the world’s ecosystem.

National Day (Cameroon). Cameroon celebrates the day in 1972 when Cameroonians voted in a national referendum to have a unitary state instead of the federal state that existed at that time.

The French Cameroun and British Southern Cameroons merged after President Ahmadou Ahidjo abolished the federal state, effectively uniting the two states to form a single government presided over by the head of state in Yaounde.

What Happened Today?

1. In 1902, Cuba gained independence from the United States of America, with Tomas Estrada Palma becoming the country’s first president. The two countries have since been embroiled in one of the most bitter rivalries, with the US imposing an arms embargo on Cuba in 1958, which the Cuban government retaliated to by nationalizing all three American-owned refineries in Cuba.

2. In 1967, Joseph Desire Mobutu formed the Popular Movement of the Revolution (MPR) political party in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), which he later made the sole permitted political faction in the country’s one-party state. Mobutu led one of the most enduring dictatorships in Africa and amassed a personal fortune estimated to be over $5 billion, by selling his nation’s rich natural resources while the people lived in poverty.

3. In 1996, the Supreme Court of the United States of America ruled that it was illegal for any town, city or county in the state of Colorado to take any preventive, executive or judicial action to protect the rights of gays and lesbians. 

Sources: Wikipedia and checkiday.com