Timeline May 1926

Events in May 1926 9

• 1926 Meets C.S. Lewis — the Inklings form Tolkien meets C.S. Lewis at an Oxford faculty meeting in May 1926. Lewis, an atheist at the time, finds Tolkien 'a smooth, pale, fluent little chap.' The friendship that develops between them becomes one of the most famous in literary history. Together with Charles Williams, Owen Barfield and others, they form the Inklings — an informal group that meets weekly at the Eagle and Child pub (nicknamed 'The Bird and Baby') to read and discuss their work in progress. Tolkien reads chapters of The Silmarillion and The Hobbit to the Inklings for years before publication.
• 1926 Sherborne School Cycling sixty miles to start term Turing arrives at Sherborne on the first day of the General Strike, cycling around sixty miles from Southampton and staying overnight at an inn rather than miss the start of term. The school, devoted to the classics, finds him a problem: brilliant at mathematics, indifferent to everything else, and untidy about it.
• 1926 – 2025 Peter Lax (1926-2025) Died 16 May 2025, aged 99 Hungarian-born American mathematician awarded the 2005 Abel Prize for his contributions to the theory and applications of partial differential equations.
• 1926 The General Strike Britain's only nationwide general strike From 3 to 12 May 1926, roughly 1.7 million British workers, led by the Trades Union Congress, struck in support of coal miners facing pay cuts and longer hours. The strike collapsed after nine days without gains for the miners, who stayed out alone for several more months.
• 1926 – 2017 Don Rickles (1926-2017) Died 6 April 2017, aged 90 American comedian and actor famous for his insult comedy and decades of performances in Las Vegas and on television. He was a frequent guest on late-night talk shows and appeared in films including the Toy Story series as the voice of Mr. Potato Head. He died of kidney failure.
• 1926 Airship Norge crosses the North Pole First confirmed flight over the North Pole The Italian-built airship Norge, carrying Roald Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth and Umberto Nobile, flew from Svalbard across the North Pole to Alaska between 11 and 13 May 1926. It provided the first flight over the pole that was independently verified.
• 1926 – 1991 Miles Davis (1926-1991) Died 28 September 1991, aged 65 Miles Davis, one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century, died of pneumonia, a stroke, and respiratory failure. His trumpet playing and restless reinvention shaped bebop, cool jazz, modal jazz, and jazz fusion across a five-decade career. Albums such as Kind of Blue remain among the best-selling and most acclaimed jazz recordings ever made.
• 1926 Miles Davis born in Alton, Illinois Raised in East St. Louis The son of a dentist, gets his first trumpet at 13.
• 1926 28 May coup ends Portugal's First Republic Military coup installs the Ditadura Nacional On 28 May 1926, a military coup led by General Manuel Gomes da Costa overthrew Portugal's parliamentary government, ending the unstable First Republic. It established the National Dictatorship that would evolve into the long Estado Novo regime.