May 18 is Armed Forces Day, International Museum Day

Saturday, May 18 is Armed Forces Day. We remember our veterans in November; we will remember those who have fallen in service to our nation on Memorial Day. Saturday is a day to salute all the men and women who now serve our country in any branch of the military. We are grateful for your service.

Saturday is also International Museum Day, celebrating museums as "an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples." And you thought museums were just a place for musty, dusty old artifacts: For shame!

May 18 is also Visit Your Relatives Day. Some of them are probably musty, dusty old artifacts, too.

Usual Suspect History.com reminds us that Mt. St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980.

Frank Capra, the most American of movie-makers, the man who gave the world Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It's a Wonderful Life and so many other classics, was born -- in Sicily -- on May 18, 1897. (He came to America when he was six years old.) Ironically, in the 1950s, Capra would come under suspicion by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC).

Civil War photographer Mathew Brady was born on May 18, 1822.