On This Day - What happened 10 May

In May 238, soldiers of the II Parthica in his camp assassinated him, his son, and his chief ministers. Their heads were cut off, placed on poles, and carried to Rome by cavalrymen.

The 1777 resolution was most probably meant to define a naval ensign. In the late 18th century, the notion of a national flag did not yet exist, or was only nascent. The flag resolution appears between other resolutions from the Marine Committee. On May 10, 1779, Secretary of the Board of War Richard Peters expressed concern "it is not yet settled what is the Standard of the United States." However, the term "Standard" referred to a national standard for the Army of the United States. Each regiment was to carry the national standard in addition to its regimental standard. The national standard was not a reference to the national or naval flag.

On 10 May 1779, a letter from the War Board to George Washington stated that there was still no design established for a national standard, on which to base regimental standards, but also referenced flag requirements given to the board by General von Steuben.

Washington arrived in Philadelphia on May 9, 1787, though a quorum was not attained until Friday, May 25. Benjamin Franklin nominated Washington to preside over the convention, and he was unanimously elected to serve as president general. The convention's state-mandated purpose was to revise the Articles of Confederation with "all such alterations and further provisions" required to improve them, and the new government would be established when the resulting document was "duly confirmed by the several states".

In a new plebiscite during the spring of 1802, the French public came out in huge numbers to approve a constitution that made the Consulate permanent, essentially elevating Napoleon to dictator for life.

Frederick Engels took part in the uprising in Baden and the Palatinate. On May 10, 1848, he and Karl Marx traveled from Cologne, Germany, to observe the events of the region.

On May 9–10, 1860, the Illinois Republican State Convention was held in Decatur. Lincoln's followers organized a campaign team led by David Davis, Norman Judd, Leonard Swett, and Jesse DuBois, and Lincoln received his first endorsement.

Stresemann was born on 10 May 1878 in 66 Köpenicker Straße in Southeast Berlin, the youngest of seven children. His father worked as a beer bottler and distributor, and also ran a small bar out of the family home, as well as renting rooms for extra money.

In 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating Mother's Day, held on the second Sunday in May, as a national holiday to honor mothers.

The Charleston riot resulted in the injury of 5 white and 18 black men, along with the death of 3 others: Isaac Doctor, William Brown, and James Talbot, all black. Following the riot, the city of Charleston, South Carolina imposed martial law. A Naval investigation found that four U.S. sailors and one civilian—all white men—initiated the riot.

Under the command of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, Bolshevik Soviet Russian troops gathered along the Dniester River in preparation for a large attack on Bessarabia on 10 May.

Less than two weeks later, he gave a speech at the Nazi book burning in Berlin on 10 May.

In May 1940, Germany attacked France. and conquered Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

On 10 May, Neville Chamberlain resigned as prime minister.

Winston Churchill appointed the prime minster of the United Kingdom.

Germany launched an offensive against France. To circumvent the strong Maginot Line fortifications on the Franco-German border, Germany directed its attack at the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

Hess was concerned that Germany would face a war on two fronts as plans progressed for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union scheduled to take place later that year. He flew solo to Britain on 10 May 1941 to seek peace negotiations with the British government. He was arrested on arrival and spent the rest of the war as a British prisoner.

The worst raid took place in the night of 10–11 May 1941, when the Palace took at least twelve hits and three people (two policemen and the Resident Superintendent of the House of Lords, Edward Elliott) were killed.

A general election was held in the South on 10 May 1948.

While he was at Cambridge, the Pilot ACE was being built in his absence. It executed its first program on 10 May 1950, and a number of later computers around the world owe much to it, including the English Electric DEUCE and the American Bendix G-15. The full version of Turing's ACE was not built until after his death.

On 10 May 1968, peace talks began between the United States and North Vietnam in Paris. Negotiations stagnated for five months, until Johnson gave orders to halt the bombing of North Vietnam. At the same time, Hanoi realized it could not achieve a "total victory" and employed a strategy known as "talking while fighting, fighting while talking", in which military offensives would occur concurrently with negotiations.

The company launched the Betamax videocassette recording format in 1975. Sony was involved in the videotape format war of the early 1980s, when they were marketing the Betamax system for video cassette recorders against the VHS format developed by JVC. In the end, VHS gained critical mass in the marketbase and became the worldwide standard for consumer VCRs.

In 1975, it released the first Betamax home video recorder, a year before VHS format came out.

The fire inside reactor No. 4 continued to burn until 10 May 1986; it is possible that well over half of the graphite burned out. The fires were extinguished but many firefighters received high doses of radiation.

Six youths were indicted with attempted murder and other charges in the attack on and rape of the female jogger, and additional charges related to the attack of David Lewis, the attack and robbery of John Loughlin, and riot: Steve Lopez, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise.

The newly elected National Assembly's first act was to formally elect Mandela as South Africa's first black chief executive. His inauguration took place in Pretoria on 10 May 1994, televised to a billion viewers globally. The event was attended by four thousand guests, including world leaders from a wide range of geographic and ideological backgrounds. Mandela headed a Government of National Unity dominated by the ANC—which had no experience of governing by itself—but containing representatives from the National Party and Inkatha.

Jolie took a starring role in the modern-day Romeo and Juliet adaptation Love Is All There Is, released on 10 May 1996.

On May 10, 2005, Vladimir Arutyunian, a native Georgian who was born to a family of ethnic Armenians, threw a live hand grenade toward a podium where Bush was speaking at Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was seated nearby. It landed in the crowd about 65 feet (20 m) from the podium after hitting a girl, but it did not detonate. Arutyunian was arrested in July 2005, confessed, was convicted and was given a life sentence in January 2006.

In Europe, Riot Games initially signed an international licensing partnership with GOA, the video games department of Orange's Content Division, and Europe's largest gaming portal. On October 13, 2009, GOA and Riot announced that they would start channeling server access for players located in Europe to GOA's dedicated servers. This partnership did not last; on May 10, 2010, Riot Games announced that they would take over the distribution and operation of the game in Europe. To do so, Riot Games established a European HQ in Dublin.

In May 2013, Pope Francis met with Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria in the Vatican. The meeting coincided with the 40th anniversary of the first visit by a Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria to the Vatican; when Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria met with Pope Paul VI on 10 May 1973.

Uber raises $8.1 billion at $45 per share in its IPO, valuing the company at $82 billion.

The Green Mountain Boys captured Fort Ticonderoga, New York in the American Revolution.

Johann Peter Hebel was a German writer who was born in 1760.

The author and composer Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle was born in France in 1760.