On May 22, 1813, German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor Richard Wagner was born. His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration. · http://yovisto.blogspot.de/2013/05/richard-wagner-genius-and-megalomania.html

On May 20, 1799, French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac was born. He is best known for his his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, which is reflected in his opus magnum, the Comédie Humaine, sequence of short stories and novels, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy (1815–1848). · http://yovisto.blogspot.de/2013/05/honore-de-balzac-and-comedie-humaine.html

On May 17, 1749, English physician and scientist Edward Anthony Jenner was born, who was the pioneer of smallpox vaccine. He is often referred to as "the father of immunology". · http://yovisto.blogspot.de/2013/05/edward-jenners-fight-against-smallpox.html

Fast and robust NLP components implemented in Java. · https://code.google.com/p/clearnlp/

On May 14, 1804, American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark departed for the first American expedition to cross what is now the western portion of the United States, departing from St. Louis on the Mississippi River making their way westward through the continental divide to the Pacific coast. · http://yovisto.blogspot.de/2013/05/the-expedition-of-lewis-and-clark.html

On May 12, 1803, German chemist Justus Freiherr von Liebig was born, who made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry. He is probably best known as the "father of the fertilizer industry" for his discovery of nitrogen as an essential plant nutrient. · http://yovisto.blogspot.de/2013/05/justus-von-liebig-and-agricultural.html

On May 9, 1876, German inventor Nikolaus Otto working with Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach started the world's first internal-combustion engine that efficiently burned fuel directly in a piston chamber. However, German courts did not hold his patent to cover all in-cylinder compression engines or even the four-stroke cycle, and after this decision, in-cylinder compression became universal and the principle of Otto's engine still is the general principle for engines today. · http://yovisto.blogspot.de/2013/05/nikolaus-otto-and-four-stroke-engine.html

On May, 6, 1719 (julian calendar, April 25), Daniel Defoe's famous novel 'Robinson Crusoe' was published under the title 'The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pirates.' Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. · http://yovisto.blogspot.de/2013/05/the-incredible-story-of-robinson-crusoe.html

On May 4, 1555, The first edition of Michel de Nostredame's 'Les Propheties', a famous collection of long-term predictions that have since become famous worldwide, was published. · http://yovisto.blogspot.de/2013/05/the-prophecies-of-nostradamus.html

On May, 1st, 1851, Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, which was the first in a series of World's Fair exhibitions of culture and industry. · http://yovisto.blogspot.de/2013/05/the-great-exhibition-and-chrystal-palace.html