04
Keith Haring (19159-1990): Gay. Pop artist. Haring created a wide variety of public art, such as subway drawings of animals and human images and murals, including the first mural in a school yard on New York Cityis Lower East Side and a mural on the Berlin Wall. He also created designs for performances and for Swatch watches. In 1987, he used his art to support campaigns for AIDS awareness and created the Keith Haring Foundation to contribute to a wide variety of social concerns.

04
Henryk Sienkiewica (1846-1916): Polish. Writer. Sienkiewiczis best known works are his historical novels, which include Quo Vadis ? set in Rome in the early Christian era, and a trilogy depicting the Polesi struggles against foreign invaders in the seventeenth century. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1905.

05
Childrenis Day (Kodomo No Hi): Japan. Formerly known as Tango No Sekku or Boyis Day, Childrenis Day is celebrated by attaching wind socks in the shape of carp to poles. The carp symbolizes perseverance, power, and strength. A special meal including a rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo leaves is served.

05
Childrenis Day (Tano): Korea. This holiday is celebrated as a day of rest from work. Wrestling matches are held, as are swinging contests in which girls use swing hung from high branched of trees to see who can swing with the widest arc.

05
Cinco de Mayo: Mexico. Mexicans and Mexican Americans celebrate the triumph of Mexican forces over the French army in Mexico on May 5, 1862.

05
Liberation Day: Netherlands. This day marks the end of the World War II Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in 1945.

06
Martin Delany (1812-1885): African American. Physician and anthropologist. Trained as a natural scientist and physician, Delany became an advocate for the abolition of slavery and the emigration of free Negroes to Africa.

06
Amadeo Giannini (1870-1949): Italian American. Banker. One of the most creative and successful financiers of the early twentieth century, Guanine founded the Bank of Italy in San Francisco as a bank for small businessmen. His innovations, which included branch banking and home mortgages with monthly payments, brought him tremendous success, and when he resigned as chairman of the board in 1945, his bank, renamed Bank of America, was the largest commercial bank in the world. Giannini also founded Transamerica Corporation, one of the nationis largest business conglomerates.

06
Edwin H. Land (1909-1991): Jewish American. Inventor. Land invented the iLand Camera,i later called the Polaroid. His Polaroid Company became one of the major enterprises in the creation and production of photographic cameras and processes.

06
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941): Indian. Writer and composer. A prolific and versatile readership and brought him the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. (This date for celebrating his birthday is based on the Bengali calendar.)

06
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882: United States. This federal law prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States and denied Chinese residents the right to become citizens. Extended in 1892 and made permanent in 1902, the law remained in effect until December, 1943, when congress repealed the laws.

07
Visakaha Day: Buddhist. In the Theravada Buddhist tradition that predominates in Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, Buddhais birth, enlightenment, and nirvana are all celebrated on this day.

08
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753-1811): Mexican. Political and military leader. A village priest who helped lead the insurgency against Mexicois Spanish rulers in 1810-1811, Father Hidalgo is best known for ringing the church bell that signaled the beginning of the rebellion. As a revolutionary leader he freed slaves in areas under the control of his army and advocated redistribution of land from Spanish owners to poor Indians and mestizos. After early military successes, his army was defeated by a Spanish military court and executed by a firing squad.

08
Victory Day: France. This holiday commemorates the defeat of the German army in Europe in 1945.

10
Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (1837-1921): African-American. Soldier and legislator. Born free, Pinchback joined the Union Army during the Civil War and raised a company of African American volunteers. After the war he entered politics and served as lieutenant governor and acting governor of Louisiana. Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1872 and to the United States Senate in 1873, he was prevented from taking office by the opposition of Whites who claimed there had been voting irregularities on his election.

10
Inauguration of Nelson Mandela (1994): South Africa. On this day Nelson Mandela became the first Black president of South Africa, after the nationis first elections in which citizens of all race were allowed to vote. The inaugural ceremonies, attended by leaders from around the world, marked the end of South Africais system of white minority rule, which for decades had maintained the brutal system of racial separation and inequality know as apartheid.

11
Irving Berlin (1888-1989): Jewish Russian American. Song writer. Berlin wrote the lyrics and music to some 1500 songs, including the scores for many stage and screen musical comedies. Among the Berlin songs that have become classics of American popular music are his first, iAlexanderis Ragtime Bandi (1911), iWhite Christmas,i Easter Parade,i and iGod Bless America.i

11
William Grant Still (1895-1978): African American. Composer and Conductor. Still was the first African American to compose a symphony and the first to conduct a symphony orchestra, but he made his living playing in orchestras and jazz bands. In his own compositions, the most famous of which are his Afro-American Symphony (1951) and the opera Troubled Island (1949), he often incorporated jazz elements.