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Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province which was brought into Confederation in 1870 after the Red River Rebellion. The area has been inhabited for thousands of years, with European contact made in the 17th century. The province has over 10,000 lakes, and has a largely continental climate due to its mostly flat topography. Agriculture, found especially in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to its economy; other major industries are transportation, manufacturing, mining, forestry, energy, and tourism. The political and cultural capital, Winnipeg, is home to four of the province's five universities, all four of its major professional sports teams, and most of its cultural events. The city is also a transportation and military hub, hosting a busy international airport and the regional headquarters of NORAD. The province has a population of over one million; its largest ethnic group is English, but it has a significant Franco-Manitoban minority and a growing aboriginal population. The province's name, meaning "strait of the spirit" or "lake of the prairies", is derived from the languages of its early aboriginal inhabitants. (more...)

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May 12: Jerusalem Day (Israel, 2010); International Nurses Day

• 1885 – North-West Rebellion: Louis Riel and the Métis rebels were decisively defeated by Canadian forces under Major-General Frederick Middleton in Batoche, Saskatchewan.
• 1926 – The Trades Union Congress, a federation of British trade unions, announced that it would end its week-long general strike "in defence of [coal] miners' wages and hours".
• 1941 – German engineer Konrad Zuse presented the Z3 (replica pictured), the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, to an audience of scientists in Berlin.
• 1975 – The Cambodian navy seized the American container ship SS Mayaguez in recognized international waters, but claimed as territorial waters by Cambodia.
• 2008 – An earthquake measuring about 8.0 M_s struck the Sichuan province of China, killing at least 69,000 people, injuring at least 374,000, and leaving at least 4.8 million others homeless.

More anniversaries: May 11 – May 12 – May 13