May 26 Birthday
On May 26, 1940, the evacuation of Dunkirk began. The British Expeditionary Force and French troops had been pushed to the Channel coast by the German Blitzkrieg. Admiral Ramsay organized Operation Dynamo, a plan to evacuate 45,000 troops. Small boats — fishing vessels, pleasure craft, lifeboats — were called up to ferry soldiers from the beaches to destroyers waiting offshore. Over nine days, 338,000 soldiers were evacuated. 40,000 were left behind and captured. Every boat was voluntary — civilians crossed the Channel under German air attack. The evacuation was a military defeat presented as a miracle. "Wars are not won by evacuations," Churchill told the House of Commons, but the event unified the nation. Dunkirk is the origin of the "Dunkirk spirit" — the British talent for turning defeat into defiance. Bram Stoker published Dracula on May 26, 1897. Stoker was the business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London and had spent seven years researching the novel. He based Count Dracula on Vlad the Impaler, a 15th-century Wallachian prince who had impaled 20,000 prisoners. Stoker had never visited Transylvania — he researched it at the library. The novel was told in letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings, and phonograph recordings — an innovative structure for its time. The book sold poorly. Stoker died in 1912 and was nearly forgotten until the 1922 film Nosferatu, which was made without permission and led to a lawsuit that bankrupted the production company. John Wayne, born this day in 1907 as Marion Morrison, was discovered by John Ford and became the embodiment of American masculinity. He appeared in 169 films. He was a conservative who supported the Vietnam War and the House Un-American Activities Committee. When Jane Fonda visited Hanoi in 1972, Wayne reportedly said he would have shot her. He died of cancer in 1979. His real name was not Wayne — a director named him after the Revolutionary War general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. People born on May 26 fall under the zodiac sign of Gemini. The birthstone is Emerald and the birth flower is Lily of the Valley. Historical events on May 26 include 1897: Bram Stoker's novel Dracula published in London, 1940: Dunkirk evacuation begins (Operation Dynamo rescues 338,000 troops), 1972: US and Soviet Union sign SALT I strategic arms limitation treaty. Famous people born on May 26 include John Wayne (1907), Peggy Lee (1920), Pam Grier (1949).