Happy May Day! Today’s roundup is early because I have a personal commitment this evening. We’ll catch up on anything I miss on Sunday.
TODAY IN HISTORY
May 1, 1707: The Acts of Union, separately passed by the English and Scottish parliaments, go into effect, merging the two kingdoms into the newly christened Great Britain. The Scottish Stuart dynasty had been ruling both kingdoms (the “Glorious Revolution” notwithstanding) since James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth I as James I of England, but the crowns had been held in personal union only. The Acts of Union made it a legal union and thereby completed the Scottish takeover of England. Or at least that’s how I like to think about it.
May 1, 1977: Unidentified gunmen open fire on a May Day labor rally in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, massacring somewhere around 40 people. To this day speculation remains high that a right-wing paramilitary group called Kontrgerilla, part of a US-backed network of anti-communist groups across Europe better known under the name of its Italian branch—Gladio—was responsible for the shooting with support from both the US and Turkish governments.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
The imam of Damascus’s Sayyida Zaynab Mosque, Farham al-Mansour, was killed in a grenade attack on Friday. There’s no indication as to responsibility but given that he was one of Syria’s most prominent Shiʿa religious figures some suspicion presumably has to fall on Islamic State.
LEBANON
The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least four people across southern Lebanon on Friday, one day after it killed at least 28 in its biggest one day spree since the “ceasefire” began on April 16. Emergency workers are still recovering bodies from Thursday’s attacks so that death toll may rise.
