What’s Happening Today?

International Midwives Day. Today, the world recognizes and honours midwives, who are, most of the time, the difference between life and death for hundreds of millions of mothers and infants each year. Midwives are the caregivers for mothers and newborns during pregnancy, labour, childbirth and the postnatal period.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization Dr Tedros Adhanom, in a tweet, called on people in all health centres to stop what they are doing at noon and clap for midwives. 

World Asthma Day. It is an annual event organized by the Global Initiative for Asthma to improve asthma awareness and care around the world. It is also to raise care and support for people living with asthma.

Cartoonists Day. When most of us grab a copy of any newspaper, one of the things we check out first are that day’s cartoon. Today is dedicated to the people who make these cartoons and their craft. One interesting fact about cartoons is the world’s longest-running cartoon, to date, which is called “The Katzenjammer Kids” and was first published in 1897 in The American Humorist, and has changed over into the hands of three cartoonists.

What Happened Today?

1. In 2007, Kenya Airways Flight 507 crashed after takeoff from Douala International airport in Douala, Cameroon, killing all 114 people on board. It is the deadliest plane crash in Cameroon’s history.

2. In 1936, Italian troops occupied Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia in the March of the Iron Will, which was aimed at taking Addis Ababa by force during the second Italo-Ethiopian war. Five years later, incidentally also on May 5th, Emperor Haile Selassie returned to Addis Ababa after Italian forces were defeated in a joint international military campaign.

3. In 1988, Adele, a British songwriter, singer and musician was born. Karl Marx, a German philosopher, economist and historian was also born on this day in 1818. In 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte died on the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.