May 2010 was the fifth month of that year. It began on a Saturday and ended after 31 days on a Monday.

International holidays[link]

(See Holidays and observances, on sidebar at right, below)

[edit] Portal:Current events

This is an archived version of Wikipedia's Current events Portal from May 2010.

See also[link]

• List of months by year: 2000–2050

References[link]

Template:Portal:Current events/Events by month

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: May 2010

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: 2010

2010 (MMX) was a common year that started on a Friday in the Gregorian calendar. It was the 2010th year of Anno Domini or the Common Era designation; the 10th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 1st of the 2010s.

2010 was designated the:

• International Year of Biodiversity
• International Year of Youth.

Pronouncing 2010 and subsequent years[link]

Among experts and the general public, there is a debate as to how specific years of the 21st century should be pronounced in English. The year 2010 is pronounced either "two thousand (and) ten",^[1] or "two thousand ten" or "twenty ten". 2010 was the first year to have a wide variation in pronunciation, as the years 2000–09 were generally pronounced "two thousand (and one, two, three, etc....") or "two thousand (one, two, three, etc.") as opposed to the less common "twenty oh...."

Events[link]

Damaged buildings in Jacmel as a result of the Haiti Earthquake.

January[link]

• January 3 – The United States and the United Kingdom close their embassies in Yemen due to the ongoing security threat by Al Qaeda.
• January 4 – The tallest man-made structure to date, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is officially opened.^[2][3][4]
• January 8 – The Togo national football team is involved in an attack in Angola, and as a result withdraws from the Africa Cup of Nations.^[5]
• January 12 – A 7.0-magnitude earthquake occurs in Haiti, devastating the nation's capital, Port-au-Prince. With a confirmed death toll over 230,000^[6][7][8] it is one of the deadliest on record.
• January 15 – The longest annular solar eclipse of the 3rd millennium occurs.
• January 25 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport, killing all 90 people on board.

The clock counting down to the opening of Olympics Games in Downtown Vancouver.

February[link]

• February 3 – The sculpture L'Homme qui marche I by Alberto Giacometti sells in London for £65 million (US$103.7 million), setting a new world record for a work of art sold at auction.^[9][10][11]
• February 12 – February 28 – The 2010 Winter Olympics are held in Vancouver and Whistler, Canada.
• February 18 – The President of Niger, Tandja Mamadou, is overthrown after a group of soldiers storms the presidential palace^[12] and form a ruling junta, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy headed by chef d'escadron Salou Djibo.^[13]
• February 27 – An 8.8-magnitude earthquake occurs in Chile, triggering a tsunami over the Pacific and killing at least 525.^[14] The earthquake is one of the largest in recorded history.

March[link]

• March 16 – The Kasubi Tombs, Uganda's only cultural World Heritage Site, are destroyed by fire.^[15]
• March 26 – The ROKS Cheonan, a South Korean Navy ship carrying 104 personnel, sinks off the country's west coast, killing 46. In May, an independent investigation blames North Korea, which denies the allegations.^[16][17]

Volcano plume from on Eyjafjallajokull 17 April 2010.

April[link]

• April 7 – Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev flees Bishkek amid fierce rioting, sparking a sociopolitical crisis. Former foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva is placed at the head of an interim government as the opposition seizes control.^[18]
• April 10 – The President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, is among 96 killed when their airplane crashes in western Russia.^[19][20]
• April 13 – A 6.9-magnitude earthquake occurs in Qinghai, China, killing at least 2,000 and injuring more than 10,000.^[21]
• April 14 – Volcanic ash from one of several eruptions beneath Eyjafjallajökull, an ice cap in Iceland, begins to disrupt air traffic across northern and western Europe.^[22][23][24]
• April 20 – The Deepwater Horizon oil platform explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers. The resulting Horizon oil spill, one of the largest in history, spreads for several months, damaging the waters and the United States coastline, and prompting international debate and doubt about the practice and procedures of offshore drilling.^[25][26]
• April 27 – Standard & Poor's downgrades Greece's sovereign credit rating to junk four days after the activation of a €45-billion EU–IMF bailout, triggering the decline of stock markets worldwide and of the euro's value,^[27][27][28] and furthering a European sovereign debt crisis.

May[link]

• May 2 – The eurozone and the International Monetary Fund agree to a €110 billion bailout package for Greece. The package involves sharp Greek austerity measures.^[29]
• May 4 – Nude, Green Leaves and Bust by Pablo Picasso sells in New York for US$106.5 million, setting another new world record for a work of art sold at auction.^[30][31][32]
• May 7 – Scientists conducting the Neanderthal genome project announce that they have sequenced enough of the Neanderthal genome to suggest that Neanderthals and humans may have interbred.^[33][34]
• May 12 – Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 crashes at runway at Tripoli International Airport in Libya, killing 103 of the 104 people on board.^[35]
• May 19 – Protests in Bangkok, Thailand, end with a bloody military crackdown, killing 91 and injuring more than 2,100.^[36][37]
• May 20
  • Scientists announce that they have created a functional synthetic genome.^[38]
  • Five paintings worth €100 million are stolen from the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.^[39][40]
• May 22 – Air India Express Flight 812 overshoots the runway at Mangalore International Airport in India, killing 158 and leaving 8 survivors.^[41]
• May 31 – Nine activists are killed in a clash with soldiers when Israeli Navy forces raid and capture a flotilla of ships attempting to break the Gaza blockade.^[42][43]

June[link]

• June 9 – Ethnic riots in Kyrgyzstan between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks results in the deaths of hundreds.^[44]
• June 11 – July 11 – The 2010 FIFA World Cup is held in South Africa, and is won by Spain.

Satellite images of the upper Indus River valley comparing water-levels on 1 August 2009 (top) and 31 July 2010 (bottom) during the flooding in Pakistan

July[link]

• July 8 – The first 24-hour flight by a solar-powered plane is completed by the Solar Impulse.^[45]
• July 25 – Wikileaks, an online publisher of anonymous, covert, and classified material, leaks to the public over 90,000 internal reports about the United States-led involvement in the War in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.^[46]
• July 29 – Heavy monsoon rains begin to cause widespread flooding (pictured) in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Over 1,600 are killed, and more than one million are displaced by the floods.^[47]

August[link]

• August 10 – The World Health Organization declares the H1N1 influenza pandemic over, saying worldwide flu activity has returned to typical seasonal patterns.^[48]

Luis Urzúa, the leader of the trapped miners and the last of the 33 to be lifted to freedom, celebrates with President Piñera at San José Mine, during "Operación San Lorenzo".

October[link]

• October 10 – The Netherlands Antilles are dissolved, with the islands being split up and given a new constitutional status.^[49]
• October 13 – Thirty-three miners near Copiapó, Chile, trapped 700 metres underground in a mining accident in San José Mine, are brought back to the surface after surviving for a record 69 days.^[50]
• October 22 – The International Space Station surpasses the record for the longest continuous human occupation of space, having been continuously inhabited since November 2, 2000 (3641 days).^[51][52]
• October 23 – In preparation for the Seoul summit, finance ministers of the G-20 agree to reform the International Monetary Fund and shift 6% of the voting shares to developing nations and countries with emerging markets.^[53]
• October 25 – An earthquake and consequent tsunami off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, kills over 400 people and leaves hundreds missing.^[54]
• October 26 – ongoing^[when?] – Repeated eruptions of Mount Merapi volcano in Central Java, Indonesia, and accompanying pyroclastic flows of scalding gas, pumice, and volcanic ash descending the erupting volcano kill three hundred people and force hundreds of thousands of residents to evacuate.^[55][56][57]

November[link]

• November 4 – Aero Caribbean Flight 883 crashes in central Cuba, killing all 68 people on board.^[58]
• November 11 – November 12 – The G-20 summit is held in Seoul, South Korea. Korea becomes the first non-G8 nation to host a G-20 leaders summit.^[59]
• November 13 – Burmese opposition politician Aung San Suu Kyi is released from her house arrest.^[60]
• November 17 – Researchers at CERN trap 38 antihydrogen atoms for a sixth of a second, marking the first time in history that humans have trapped antimatter.^[61]
• November 20 – Participants of the 2010 NATO Lisbon summit issued the Lisbon Summit Declaration.
• November 21 – Eurozone countries agree to a rescue package for the Republic of Ireland from the European Financial Stability Facility in response to the country's financial crisis.^[62][63][64]
• November 22 – A stampede during Bon Om Thook (Khmer Water Festival) celebrations in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, kills 347.^[65]
• November 23 – North Korea shells Yeonpyeong Island, prompting a military response by South Korea. The incident caused an escalation of tension on the Korean Peninsula and prompted widespread international condemnation. The United Nations declared it to be one of the most serious incidents since the end of the Korean War.^[66][67][68]
• November 28 – WikiLeaks releases a collection of more than 250,000 American diplomatic cables, including 100,000 marked "secret" or "confidential".^[69][70]
• November 29 – The European Union agree to an €85 billion rescue deal for Ireland from the European Financial Stability Facility, the International Monetary Fund and bilateral loans from the United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden.^[71]
• November 29 – December 10 – The 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference is held in Cancún, Mexico. Also referred to as the 16th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 16), it served too as the 6th meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 6).^[72][73]

December[link]

• December 21 – The first total lunar eclipse to occur on the day of the Northern winter solstice and Southern summer solstice since 1638 takes place.^[74][75]

Deaths[link]

January[link]

Jean Simmons

• January 4
  • Johan Ferrier, 1st President of Suriname (b. 1910)
  • Tsutomu Yamaguchi, Japanese dual atomic bomb survivor (b. 1916)
• January 9 – Armand Razafindratandra, Malagasy cardinal (b. 1925)
• January 11
  • Miep Gies, Dutch humanitarian (b. 1909)
  • Éric Rohmer, French film director (b. 1920)
• January 12 – Zilda Arns, Brazilian pediatrician and aid worker (b. 1934)
• January 13 – Teddy Pendergrass, American R&B and soul singer (b. 1950)
• January 15 – Marshall Warren Nirenberg, American biologist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1927)
• January 17
  • Jyoti Basu, Indian politician (b. 1914)
  • Erich Segal, American author, screenwriter, and educator (b. 1937)
• January 18 – Kate McGarrigle, Canadian folk singer (b. 1946)
• January 19 – Panajot Pano, Albanian footballer (b. 1939)
• January 22
  • Iskandar of Johor, 8th King of Malaysia (b. 1932)
  • Jean Simmons, British actress (b. 1929)
• January 25 – Ali Hassan al-Majid, Iraqi politician and military commander (b. 1941)
• January 27
  • Zelda Rubinstein, American actress and human rights activist (b. 1933)
  • J. D. Salinger, American author (b. 1919)
  • Howard Zinn, American historian (b. 1922)

February[link]

Alexander Haig

• February 1 – Steingrímur Hermannsson, 19th Prime Minister of Iceland (b. 1928)
• February 6 – John Dankworth, British jazz musician and composer (b. 1927)
• February 7 – André Kolingba, 4th President of the Central African Republic (b. 1936)
• February 10 – Charlie Wilson, American politician (b. 1933)
• February 11 – Alexander McQueen, British fashion designer (b. 1969)
• February 14 – Dick Francis, British author and jockey (b. 1920)
• February 17 – Kathryn Grayson, American singer (b. 1922)
• February 18 – Ariel Ramírez, Argentine composer (b. 1921)
• February 20 – Alexander Haig, 59th United States Secretary of State (b. 1924)

March[link]

Robert Culp

• March 3 – Michael Foot, British politician (b. 1913)
• March 4 – Vladislav Ardzinba, Soviet-born politician (b. 1945)
• March 10
  • Corey Haim, Canadian actor (b. 1971)
  • Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, Egyptian Muslim cleric (b. 1928)
• March 12 – Miguel Delibes, Spanish author and journalist (b. 1920)
• March 14 – Peter Graves, American actor (b. 1926)
• March 20 – Girija Prasad Koirala, Nepalese politician (b. 1925)
• March 21 – Wolfgang Wagner, German festival director (b. 1919)
• March 22
  • James Black, British pharmacologist and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1924)
  • Valentina Tolkunova, Soviet and Russian singer (b. 1946)
• March 24 – Robert Culp, American actor, screenwriter and director (b. 1930)
• March 27 – Vasily Smyslov, Soviet-Russian chess grandmaster (b. 1921)
• March 28
  • Herb Ellis, American jazz guitarist (b. 1921)
  • June Havoc, Canadian-born American actress (b. 1912)
• March 30 – Martin Sandberger, German army officer (b. 1911)

April[link]

Lech Kaczyński

Juan Antonio Samaranch

Lena Horne

Dennis Hopper

• April 1 – John Forsythe, American actor (b. 1918)
• April 3 – Eugene Terre'Blanche, South African politician and white supremacist (b. 1941)
• April 5 – Vitali Sevastyanov, Soviet cosmonaut (b. 1935)
• April 6 – Corin Redgrave, British actor and political activist (b. 1939)
• April 8
  • Malcolm McLaren, British musician and manager (b. 1946)
  • Abel Muzorewa, Zimbabwean politician (b. 1925)
• April 10
  • Ryszard Kaczorowski, Polish statesman (b. 1919)
  • Lech Kaczyński, President of Poland (b. 1949)
• April 14 – Peter Steele, American musician (b. 1962)
• April 16 – Tomáš Špidlík, Czech cardinal (b. 1919)
• April 19 – Guru, American rapper (b. 1966)
• April 21 – Juan Antonio Samaranch, Spanish sports official (b. 1920)
• April 25 – Alan Sillitoe, British writer (b. 1928)
• April 30 – Paul Mayer, German cardinal (b. 1911)

May[link]

• May 2 – Lynn Redgrave, British actress (b. 1943)
• May 4 – Luigi Poggi, Italian cardinal (b. 1917)
• May 5
  • Giulietta Simionato, Italian opera singer (b. 1910)
  • Umaru Yar'Adua, President of Nigeria (b. 1951)
• May 8 – Andor Lilienthal, Hungarian chess grandmaster (b. 1911)
• May 9 – Lena Horne, American singer and actress (b. 1917)
• May 10 – Frank Frazetta, American artist (b. 1928)
• May 15 – Besian Idrizaj, Austrian footballer (b. 1987)
• May 16
  • Ronnie James Dio, American musician (b. 1942)
  • Oswaldo López Arellano, Honduran two-time former president (b. 1921)
  • Hank Jones, American pianist (b. 1918)
• May 17
  • Bobbejaan Schoepen, Belgian singer (b. 1925)
  • Khattiya Sawasdipol, Thai army general (b. 1951)
  • Yvonne Loriod, French pianist (b. 1924)
• May 18 – Edoardo Sanguineti, Italian writer (b. 1930)
• May 22 – Martin Gardner, American science author (b. 1914)
• May 24 – Paul Gray, American musician (b. 1972)
• May 28 – Gary Coleman, American actor (b. 1968)
• May 29 – Dennis Hopper, American actor and film director (b. 1936)
• May 31 – Louise Bourgeois, French-born American sculptor (b. 1911)

June[link]

Andrey Voznesensky

• June 1 – Andrey Voznesensky, Soviet-Russian poet (b. 1933)
• June 2 – Giuseppe Taddei, Italian baritone (b. 1916)
• June 3
  • Vladimir Arnold, Soviet-Russian mathematician (b. 1937)
  • Rue McClanahan, American actress (b. 1934)
• June 9 – Marina Semyonova, Russian ballerina (b. 1908)
• June 10 – Sigmar Polke, German painter and photographer (b. 1941)
• June 14 – Leonid Kizim, Soviet-Ukrainian cosmonaut (b. 1941)
• June 16 – Ronald Neame, British cinematographer, producer and director (b. 1911)
• June 18
  • Marcel Bigeard, French military officer (b. 1916)
  • José Saramago, Portuguese writer and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1922)
• June 19 – Manute Bol, Sudanese basketball player (b. 1962)
• June 23 – Mohammed Mzali, former Prime Minister of Tunisia (b. 1925)
• June 26 – Algirdas Brazauskas, 9th President of Lithuania (b. 1932)
• June 28 – Robert Byrd, American politician (b. 1917)

July[link]

Harvey Pekar

• July 2 – Beryl Bainbridge, British novelist (b. 1934)
• July 3 – Abu Daoud, Palestinian militia commander (b. 1937)
• July 4 – Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanese spiritual leader (b. 1935)
• July 5
  • Cesare Siepi, Italian opera singer (b. 1923)
  • Nasr Abu Zayd, Egyptian Qur'anic theologian (b. 1943)
• July 12 – Harvey Pekar, American comic book writer (b. 1939)
• July 14 – Charles Mackerras, Australian conductor (b. 1925)
• July 17 – Bernard Giraudeau, French actor and film director (b. 1947)
• July 21 – Luis Corvalán, Chilean politician (b. 1916)
• July 24 – Alex Higgins, Northern Irish snooker player (b. 1949)

August[link]

Patricia Neal

Francisco Varallo

• August 5 – Godfrey Binaisa, 5th President of Uganda (b. 1920)
• August 6 – Tony Judt, British historian (b. 1948)
• August 7 – Bruno Cremer, French actor (b. 1929)
• August 8 – Patricia Neal, American actress (b. 1926)
• August 9 – Ted Stevens, American politician (b. 1923)
• August 10 – Antonio Pettigrew, American athlete (b. 1967)
• August 12 – Guido de Marco, 6th President of Malta (b. 1931)
• August 16 – Nicola Cabibbo, Italian physicist (b. 1935)
• August 17 – Francesco Cossiga, 63rd Prime Minister and 8th President of Italy (b. 1928)
• August 18 – Carlos Hugo of Bourbon-Parma, Spanish aristrocrat (b. 1930)
• August 22 – Stjepan Bobek, Yugoslav footballer (b. 1923)
• August 23 – Satoshi Kon, Japanese anime film director (b. 1963)
• August 26 – Raimon Panikkar, Spanish theologian (b. 1918)
• August 27 – Anton Geesink, Dutch judoka (b. 1934)
• August 28 – Sinan Hasani, 10th President of Yugoslavia (b. 1922)
• August 30
  • Alain Corneau, French filmmaker (b. 1943)
  • Francisco Varallo, Argentine footballer (b. 1910)
• August 31 – Laurent Fignon, French road bicycle racer (b. 1960)

September[link]

Tony Curtis

• September 5 – Shoya Tomizawa, MotoGP racer (b. 1990)
• September 9 – Bent Larsen, Danish chess grandmaster (b. 1935)
• September 11 – Kevin McCarthy, American actor (b. 1914)
• September 12 – Claude Chabrol, French film director (b. 1930)
• September 22 – Eddie Fisher, American entertainer and singer (b. 1928)
• September 24 – Gennady Yanayev, Soviet politician (b. 1937)
• September 26 – Gloria Stuart, American actress (b. 1910)
• September 28 – Arthur Penn, American film director (b. 1922)
• September 29
  • Georges Charpak, French physicist (b. 1924)
  • Tony Curtis, American actor (b. 1925)
• September 30 – Stephen J. Cannell, American writer and television producer (b. 1941)

October[link]

Benoit Mandelbrot

Néstor Kirchner

• October 4 – Norman Wisdom, British actor and comedian (b. 1915)
• October 7 – Milka Planinc, former Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (b. 1924)
• October 9 – Maurice Allais, French economist (b. 1911)
• October 10
  • Solomon Burke, American soul musician (b. 1940)
  • Hwang Jang-yop, North Korean politician and defector (b. 1923)
• October 11 – Joan Sutherland, Australian opera singer (b. 1926)
• October 14 – Benoît Mandelbrot, French-American mathematician (b. 1924)
• October 19 – Tom Bosley, American actor (b. 1927)
• October 20 – Farooq Leghari, 9th President of Pakistan (b. 1940)
• October 23 – David Thompson, 6th Prime Minister of Barbados (b. 1961)
• October 25 – Gregory Issacs, Jamaican musician (b. 1951)
• October 27 – Néstor Kirchner, 54th President of Argentina (b. 1950)
• October 28 – Jonathan Motzfeldt, 1st Prime Minister of Greenland (b. 1938)
• October 30 – Harry Mulisch, Dutch writer (b. 1927)

November[link]

Leslie Nielsen

• November 2 – Rudolf Barshai, Soviet-Russian conductor and violist (b. 1924)
• November 3 – Viktor Chernomyrdin, 31st Prime Minister of Russia (b. 1938)
• November 5
  • Jill Clayburgh, American actress (b. 1944)
  • Hajo Herrmann, German fighter pilot and lawyer (b. 1913)
• November 10 – Dino De Laurentiis, Italian film producer (b. 1919)
• November 12 – Henryk Górecki, Polish composer (b. 1933)
• November 13 – Luis García Berlanga, Spanish film director (b. 1921)
• November 27 – Irvin Kershner, American film director (b. 1923)
• November 28 – Leslie Nielsen, Canadian-American actor (b. 1926)
• November 29 – Bella Akhmadulina, Soviet-Russian poet (b. 1937)

December[link]

Richard Holbrooke

• December 12 – Tom Walkinshaw, British racing car driver and team owner (b. 1946)
• December 13 – Richard Holbrooke, American diplomat (b. 1941)
• December 15 – Blake Edwards, American film director (b. 1922)
• December 17 – Captain Beefheart, American musician (b. 1941)
• December 21 – Enzo Bearzot, Italian footballer and coach (b. 1927)
• December 25 – Carlos Andrés Pérez, 55th President of Venezuela (b. 1922)
• December 26
  • Salvador Jorge Blanco, 48th President of the Dominican Republic (b. 1926)
  • Teena Marie, American singer-songwriter (b. 1956)

Nobel Prizes[link]

• Chemistry – Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki
• Economics – Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides
• Literature – Mario Vargas Llosa
• Peace – Liu Xiaobo
• Physics – Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov
• Physiology or Medicine – Robert G. Edwards

Major religious holidays[link]

• January 7 (January 6 in Armenia) – Orthodox Christmas.
• February 1 – Imbolc, a Cross-quarter day (Celebrated on February 2 in some places).
• February 2 – Candlemas commemorating the Purification of the Virgin. It marks the liturgical end of the Christmas season.
• February 16 – Shrove Tuesday / Mardi Gras, end of Mardi Gras / Carnival season.
• February 17 – Ash Wednesday (first day of Lent).
• March 1 – Holi.
• March 20 (March 21 in the Far East) – Vernal Equinox, also known as Nowruz.
• March 24 – Rama Navami.
• March 29 (evening) – Passover.
• March 30 – Hanuman Jayanti.
• April 4 – Easter (Western and Orthodox).
• May 1 – Beltane, a Cross-quarter day.
• May 18–May 19 – Shavuot.
• August 1 – Lammas, a Cross-quarter day.
• August 11 – Ramadan begins.
• August 24 – Raksha Bandhan.
• September 2 – Krishna Janmashtami.
• September 8–September 10 – Rosh Hashanah.
• September 10 – Eid ul-Fitr.
• September 17–September 18 – Yom Kippur.
• September 22–September 29/September 30 – Sukkot.
• September 23 – Autumnal Equinox, also known as Mabon.
• November 5 – Diwali.
• November 16–November 19 – Eid al-Adha.
• December 25 – Western Christmas.

In fiction[link]

References[link]

2010s portal

Brian May
Brian May in 2010
Background information
Birth name	Brian Harold May
Born	(1947-07-19) 19 July 1947 (age 64) Hampton, London, England, UK
Genres	Rock, hard rock[1]
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, producer, astrophysicist, author, contributor (The Sky at Night)
Instruments	Guitar, vocals, piano
Years active	1965–present
Labels	Hollywood, Parlophone
Associated acts	Smile, Queen, Phenomena, G3, Queen + Paul Rodgers, Kerry Ellis, Dappy, Irene Fornaciari
Website	brianmay.com
Notable instruments
Red Special Fender Telecaster

Brian Harold May, CBE (born 19 July 1947) is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist, songwriter and occasional singer of the rock band Queen. As a guitarist he uses his home-built guitar, "Red Special", and has composed hits such as "Tie Your Mother Down", "I Want It All", "We Will Rock You", "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Who Wants to Live Forever".

He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for "services to the music industry and his charity work".^[2] May earned a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College in 2007 and is currently the Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University.^[3] May currently resides in Surrey.^[4]

In 2005, a Planet Rock poll saw May voted the 7th greatest guitarist of all time.^[5] He was ranked at No. 26 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".^[6]

Early life[link]

Brian May, the only child of Harold and Ruth May, was born in Hampton, London and attended Hampton Grammar School (now Hampton School).^[7] During this time he formed his first band with vocalist and bassist Tim Staffell, named Nineteen Eighty-Four after George Orwell's novel of the same name.^[8] He left Hampton Grammar School with ten GCE Ordinary Levels and three Advanced Levels in Physics, Mathematics and Applied Mathematics.^[8] He studied Mathematics and Physics at Imperial College London, graduating with B.Sc. degree with honours.^[9]

Career[link]

Smile[link]

Brian May formed the band Smile in 1968. The group included Tim Staffell as singer and bassist, and later, drummer Roger Taylor, who also went on to play for Queen. The band lasted for only two years from 1968 to 1970, as Staffell left in 1970, leaving the band with a catalogue of only nine songs. Smile would reunite for several songs on 22 December 1992. Taylor's band The Cross were headliners and he brought May and Staffell on to play "Earth" and "If I Were a Carpenter".^[10] May also performed several other songs that night.

Queen[link]

May (right) on stage with Queen in 1979.