Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/May

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May 1: Beltane and Samhain in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, respectively; Maharashtra Day in Maharashtra, India (1960); International Workers' Day, Law Day and Loyalty Day in the United States

• 305 – Diocletian and Maximian retired as co-rulers of the Roman Empire, being succeeded by Galerius and Constantius Chlorus.
• 1794 – War of the Pyrenees: France regained nearly all the land it lost to Spain the previous year with its victory in the Second Battle of Boulou.
• 1931 – New York City's Empire State Building (pictured), at the time the tallest building in the world, opened.
• 1974 – Argentine president Juan Perón expelled Montoneros from a demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, forcing the group to become a clandestine organization.

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May 2: National Day of Prayer in the United States (2024); Flag Day in Poland

• 1559 – Presbyterian clergyman John Knox returned from exile to lead the Scottish Reformation.
• 1889 – The Treaty of Wuchale was signed, ending the Italo-Ethiopian War, but differences in translation later led to another war.
• 1964 – Vietnam War: An explosion attributed to Viet Cong commandos caused the escort carrier USNS Card to sink in the port of Saigon.
• 1999 – Mireya Moscoso (pictured) became the first woman to be elected President of Panama.
• 2014 – Two mudslides in Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan, killed at least 350 people.

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May 3: World Press Freedom Day; Constitution Memorial Day in Japan (1947); Constitution Day in Poland (1791)

• 1481 – The largest of a series of earthquakes struck the island of Rhodes, causing an estimated 30,000 casualties.
• 1848 – The Benty Grange helmet (pictured), a boar-crested Anglo-Saxon helmet similar to those mentioned in the contemporary epic poem Beowulf, was discovered in Derbyshire, England.
• 1939 – Subhas Chandra Bose formed the All India Forward Bloc, a faction within the Indian National Congress, in opposition to Gandhi's tactics of nonviolence.
• 1999 – A Doppler on Wheels team measured the fastest winds recorded on Earth, at 135 m/s (302 mph; 486 km/h), in a tornado near Bridge Creek, Oklahoma.

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May 4: Youth Day in China; Literary Day in Taiwan; Star Wars Day

• 1493 – Pope Alexander VI (pictured) issued the papal bull Inter caetera, establishing a line of demarcation dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal.
• 1776 – American Revolution: The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations became the first of the Thirteen Colonies to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown.
• 1942 – World War II: Aircraft from Imperial Japanese Navy vessels attacked Allied naval forces, beginning the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval action in which the participating ships never sighted or fired directly at each other.
• 1974 – An all-female Japanese team reached the summit of Manaslu in the Himalayas, becoming the first women to climb a peak higher than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) above sea level.
• 1979 – Margaret Thatcher became the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom.

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May 5: Easter (Eastern Christianity, 2024); Lixia begins in China (2024); Children's Day in Japan; Cinco de Mayo in Mexico and the United States

• 1646 – First English Civil War: Charles I surrendered himself to Scottish Covenanter leader David Leslie near Newark, England.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign in Virginia began with the inconclusive Battle of the Wilderness in Spotsylvania County.
• 1891 – Carnegie Hall (interior pictured) in New York City, built by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, officially opened with a concert conducted by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
• 1980 – The British Special Air Service recaptured the Iranian embassy in London following a six-day siege after Iranian Arab separatists had seized it.
• 2007 – Kenya Airways Flight 507 crashed immediately after takeoff from Douala International Airport in Cameroon, resulting in the deaths of all 114 people aboard.

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May 6

• 1536 – Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire: Sapa Inca emperor Manco Inca Yupanqui's army began a ten-month siege of Cusco against a garrison of Spanish conquistadors and Indian auxiliaries led by Hernando Pizarro.
• 1782 – Construction began on the Grand Palace (pictured) in Bangkok, the official residence of the king of Thailand.
• 1915 – Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition: SY Aurora, anchored in McMurdo Sound, broke loose during a gale, beginning a 312-day ordeal in the Ross Sea and Southern Ocean for her 18-man crew.
• 2004 – The final episode of the television sitcom Friends was aired.
• 2013 – Amanda Berry escaped from the Cleveland, Ohio, home of her captor, Ariel Castro, having been held there with two other women for ten years.

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May 7

• 1487 – Granada War: Forces of Aragon and Castile began a siege of Málaga, a Muslim city in the south of the Iberian Peninsula.
• 1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre (pictured) established the Cult of the Supreme Being as the new state religion of the French First Republic.
• 1798 – War of the First Coalition: A British garrison repelled a French attack on the Îles Saint-Marcouf off the Normandy coast, inflicting heavy losses.
• 1937 – Employees at Fleischer Studios in New York City went on strike in the animation industry's first major labor strike.
• 1946 – Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita founded the telecommunications corporation Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, later renamed Sony.

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May 8: Anniversary of the birth of Miguel Hidalgo in Mexico (1753); Victory in Europe Day (1945)

• 1643 – First English Civil War: The first siege of Wardour Castle ended after six days with the surrender of the Royalist garrison under Lady Blanche Arundell (pictured).
• 1842 – A train derailed and caught fire near Versailles, France, killing at least 52 people.
• 1927 – French aviators Charles Nungesser and François Coli aboard the biplane L'Oiseau Blanc took off from Paris, attempting to make the first non-stop flight to New York, only to disappear before arrival.
• 1963 – In Huế, South Vietnam, soldiers opened fire into a crowd of Buddhists protesting against a government ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Phật Đản, killing nine and sparking the Buddhist crisis.
• 1972 – Four members of Black September hijacked Sabena Flight 571 to demand the release of 315 Palestinians convicted on terrorism charges.

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May 9: Europe Day in the European Union; Liberation Day in the Channel Islands (1945)

• 1877 – An earthquake struck northern Chile, leading to the deaths of 2,385 people, mostly victims of the ensuing tsunami, as far away as Hawaii and Fiji.
• 1944 – World War II: The Japanese Take Ichi convoy arrived at Halmahera in the Dutch East Indies after losing many ships and thousands of troops to Allied attacks while attempting to carry two divisions of troops from China to New Guinea.
• 1977 – The Hotel Polen in Amsterdam was destroyed by fire (pictured), leaving 33 people dead.
• 1980 – Part of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida collapsed after a pier was struck by the MV Summit Venture, killing 35 people.
• 2001 – Police at the Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra, Ghana, fired tear gas to quell unrest at a football match, leading to a stampede that killed 126 people.

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May 10

• 28 BC – Chinese astronomers during the Han dynasty made the first precisely dated observation of a sunspot.
• 1833 – Siamese–Vietnamese wars: Lê Văn Khôi escaped from prison to begin a revolt against Emperor Minh Mạng, primarily to avenge his adoptive father, Vietnamese general Lê Văn Duyệt.
• 1916 – Ernest Shackleton and five companions arrived at South Georgia, completing a 1,300 km (800 mi) lifeboat voyage over 16 days to obtain rescue for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.
• 1940 – World War II: German forces commenced their invasion of Belgium.
• 2013 – One World Trade Center (pictured) in New York City, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, was topped out at a height of 1,776 feet (541 m).

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May 11

• 868 – A copy of the Diamond Sutra was printed in Tang-dynasty China, making it the world's oldest dated printed book (frontispiece pictured).
• 1889 – Bandits attacked a U.S. Army paymaster's escort in the Arizona Territory, stealing more than $28,000.
• 1970 – Lubbock, Texas, was struck by a tornado that left 26 people dead.
• 2010 – Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party after failing to strike a coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats.
• 2022 – Myanmar civil war: Government troops killed 37 unarmed civilians in Mondaingbin.

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May 12

• 1743 – War of the Austrian Succession: Habsburg ruler Maria Theresa was crowned Queen of Bohemia after Austrian forces drove French troops from the territory.
• 1938 – During an exercise to demonstrate air power, United States Army Air Corps bomber aircraft intercepted the Italian ocean liner SS Rex (pictured) 620 nautical miles (1,100 km) off the US Atlantic coast.
• 1948 – The United Kingdom publicly announced that it was independently developing nuclear weapons, after the US Atomic Energy Act of 1946 ended cooperation on the matter.
• 1968 – Vietnam War: The 1st Australian Task Force began the defence of Fire Support Base Coral in the largest unit-level action of the war for the Australian Army.
• 1998 – Four students were shot and killed by Indonesian soldiers at Trisakti University in Jakarta, which led to widespread riots and the resignation of President Suharto nine days later.

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May 13: Yom HaZikaron in Israel (2024)

• 1909 – The inaugural edition of the Giro d'Italia, a long-distance multiple-stage bicycle race, began in Milan; the Italian cyclist Luigi Ganna was the eventual winner.
• 1958 – US vice president Richard Nixon's motorcade was attacked by a mob in Caracas, Venezuela.
• 2000 – An explosion (aftermath pictured) at a fireworks factory in Enschede, Netherlands, resulted in 23 deaths and approximately €450 million in damage.
• 2008 – Nine bombs placed by the Indian Mujahideen, then an unknown terrorist group, exploded in a 15-minute period in Jaipur, India, killing 80 people and injuring more than 200 others.

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May 14: Feast day of Saint Matthias (Catholicism); Independence Day in Israel (2024)

• 1264 – Second Barons' War: King Henry III was defeated at the Battle of Lewes (monument pictured) and forced to sign the Mise of Lewes, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.
• 1857 – Mindon Min was crowned as King of Burma.
• 1863 – American Civil War: Union troops captured Jackson, the capital of Mississippi.
• 1931 – Five people were killed in Ådalen, Sweden, as soldiers opened fire on an unarmed trade union demonstration.
• 1948 – David Ben-Gurion publicly read the Israeli Declaration of Independence at Independence Hall in Tel Aviv.

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May 15: Feast day of Saint Carthage (Catholicism); Nakba Day in Palestinian communities

• 392 – Roman emperor Valentinian II (pictured) was found hanged in his residence in Vienne, in present-day France.
• 1855 – Thieves stole 224 pounds (102 kg) of gold from a train travelling from London to Folkestone, England.
• 1864 – American Civil War: A small Confederate force, which included cadets from the Virginia Military Institute, forced the Union Army out of the Shenandoah Valley.
• 1904 – Russo-Japanese War: The Japanese battleships Hatsuse and Yashima sank after striking several mines off Port Arthur, China.
• 1916 – Jesse Washington, a teenage African-American farmhand, was lynched in Waco, Texas.

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May 16: Global Accessibility Awareness Day (2024)

• 1426 – Mohnyin Thado captured Sagaing to become the king of Ava, in present-day Myanmar.
• 1605 – After a scuffle in which one cardinal received broken bones, a papal conclave convened in Rome elected Camillo Borghese as Pope Paul V.
• 1929 – The first Academy Awards ceremony was held at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
• 1975 – Japanese climber Junko Tabei (pictured) became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

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May 17: International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia

• 1590 – Anne of Denmark (pictured) was crowned the queen consort of Scotland in a ceremony at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.
• 1863 – American Civil War: At the Battle of Big Black River Bridge in Mississippi, Union forces under John A. McClernand defeated a Confederate rearguard and captured around 1,700 men.
• 1900 – The first copies of the children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum were printed.
• 1954 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, outlawing racial segregation in public schools because "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" and therefore unconstitutional.
• 1987 – An Iraqi jet fired two Exocet missiles at the American frigate USS Stark, killing 37 personnel and injuring 21 others.

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May 18: Haitian Flag Day in Haiti (1803); Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Crimean Tatar Genocide in Ukraine

• 1302 – Armed insurrectionists massacred the occupying French garrison in Bruges, Flanders, killing approximately 2,000 people.
• 1695 – An earthquake measuring M_s7.8 struck Shanxi Province in northern China, resulting in at least 52,600 deaths.
• 1927 – Disgruntled school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe set off explosives with timers and a rifle (aftermath pictured), causing the Bath School disaster in the Bath Consolidated School in Michigan, killing 44 people in the deadliest mass murder in a school in United States history.
• 2009 – The Sri Lanka Army killed Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader and founder of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to bring an end to the 26-year Sri Lankan Civil War.

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May 19: Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day in Turkey (1919)

• 1655 – Anglo-Spanish War: England invaded Spanish Jamaica, capturing it a week later.
• 1743 – French physicist Jean-Pierre Christin published the design of a mercury thermometer using the centigrade scale, with 0 representing the melting point of water and 100 its boiling point.
• 1828 – The United States Congress passed the largest tariff in the nation's history, which resulted in severe economic hardship in the American South.
• 1915 – First World War: Australian and New Zealand troops repelled the third attack on Anzac Cove, inflicting heavy casualties on the attacking Ottoman forces.
• 2018 – The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (both pictured) took place at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, England.

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May 20: National Day of Remembrance in Cambodia (1975); National Awakening Day in Indonesia (1908); Victoria Day in Canada (2024)

• 794 – According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, King Æthelberht II of East Anglia was beheaded on the orders of Offa of Mercia.
• 1714 – Johann Sebastian Bach directed the first performance of his Pentecost cantata Erschallet, ihr Lieder at the chapel of Schloss Weimar (pictured).
• 1927 – With the signing of the Treaty of Jeddah, the United Kingdom recognized the sovereignty of Ibn Saud over Hejaz and Nejd, which later merged to become Saudi Arabia.
• 1941 – World War II: German paratroopers began the Battle of Heraklion on the island of Crete, capturing the airfield and port in Heraklion ten days later.

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May 21: World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development

• 1138 – The Crusades: The siege of Shaizar ended, and the Emir of Shaizar became a vassal of the Byzantine Empire.
• 1864 – American Civil War: The inconclusive Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia ended with combined Union and Confederate casualties totaling around 31,000.
• 1894 – The Manchester Ship Canal, linking Manchester in North West England to the Irish Sea, officially opened, becoming the world's largest navigation canal at the time.
• 1924 – University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb (both pictured) murdered a 14-year-old boy in a thrill killing out of a desire to commit a "perfect crime".
• 2014 – A Taiwanese man carried out a stabbing spree on a Taipei Metro train, killing four people and injuring 24 others.

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May 22: National Maritime Day in the United States

• 1766 – A magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck Constantinople and was followed by a tsunami that caused significant damage.
• 1874 – Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem was first performed in the San Marco church in Milan to commemorate the first anniversary of Alessandro Manzoni's death.
• 1998 – In Public Prosecutor v Taw Cheng Kong, the Court of Appeal of Singapore overruled a High Court decision in the only time a statute in Singapore had been ruled unconstitutional.
• 2014 – Prayut Chan-o-cha (pictured), the commander-in-chief of the Royal Thai Army, launched a coup d'état against the caretaker government following six months of political crisis.

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May 23: Aromanian National Day

• 1568 – The Dutch Revolt broke out when rebels led by Louis of Nassau (pictured) invaded Friesland at the Battle of Heiligerlee.
• 1873 – The North-West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was established to bring law and order to and assert Canadian sovereignty over the Northwest Territories.
• 1934 – During a strike against the Electric Auto-Lite company in Toledo, a fight began between nearly 10,000 American strikers and sheriff's deputies, later involving the Ohio National Guard.
• 1999 – Professional wrestler Owen Hart died immediately before a World Wrestling Federation match after dropping 70 feet (21 m) onto the ring during a botched entrance.

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May 24: Aldersgate Day (Methodism)

• 1567 – The mentally ill King Eric XIV of Sweden (pictured) and his guards murdered five incarcerated nobles, including some members of the influential Sture family.
• 1689 – The Act of Toleration became law, granting freedom of worship to English nonconformists under certain circumstances, but deliberately excluding Catholics.
• 1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 began, with battles beginning in County Kildare and fighting later spreading across the country.
• 1963 – United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy met with African American author James Baldwin in an unsuccessful attempt to improve race relations.
• 2014 – A gunman involved in Islamic extremism opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people.

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May 25: Africa Day (1963); Independence Day in Jordan (1946)

• 1816 – The poems Kubla Khan and Christabel by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (pictured) were published.
• 1944 – The Wehrmacht and their collaborationist allies launched Operation Rösselsprung, a failed attempt to assassinate the Yugoslav Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito.
• 1961 – A fire broke out at a squatter settlement in Bukit Ho Swee, Singapore, rendering approximately 16,000 people homeless.
• 1979 – During takeoff from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, an engine detached from American Airlines Flight 191, causing a crash that killed 273 people in the deadliest aviation accident in United States history.
• 2009 – North Korea conducted a nuclear test and several other missile tests that were widely condemned internationally and led to sanctions from the United Nations Security Council.

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May 26: National Sorry Day in Australia; Independence Day in Georgia (1918), Lag BaOmer (Judaism, 2024)

• 1644 – Portuguese Restoration War: Portuguese and Spanish forces both claimed victory at the Battle of Montijo.
• 1894 – Germany's Emanuel Lasker defeated Wilhelm Steinitz to become the world chess champion, beginning a record 27-year reign.
• 1999 – Manchester United won the UEFA Champions League final to become the first English football club to win three major championships in the same season.
• 2002 – Barges being towed destroyed part of a bridge (aftermath pictured) near Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, causing vehicles to fall into the Robert S. Kerr Reservoir on the Arkansas River.

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May 27: Memorial Day in the United States

• 1644 – Manchu regent Dorgon (depicted) defeated rebel leader Li Zicheng of the Shun dynasty at the Battle of Shanhai Pass, allowing the Manchus to enter and conquer the capital city of Beijing.
• 1799 – War of the Second Coalition: Austrian forces defeated the French Army of the Danube, capturing the strategically important Swiss town of Winterthur.
• 1954 – The security clearance of American nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, head of Project Y, was revoked.
• 1967 – Australians voted overwhelmingly to include Indigenous Australians in population counts for constitutional purposes and to allow the federal government to make special laws affecting them in states.
• 1997 – A destructive F5 tornado moved through Jarrell, Texas, killing 27 people and injuring a further 12.

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May 28: Republic Day in Armenia (1918); Independence Day in Azerbaijan (1918)

• 585 BC – According to the Greek historian Herodotus, a solar eclipse, accurately predicted by Thales of Miletus, abruptly ended the Battle of Halys between the Lydians and the Medes.
• 1644 – English Civil War: Royalist troops stormed and captured the Parliamentarian stronghold of Bolton, leading to a massacre of defenders and local residents.
• 1754 – French and Indian War: Led by 22-year-old George Washington, a company of Virginia colonial militiamen ambushed a force of 35 Canadiens at the Battle of Jumonville Glen.
• 1901 – Mozaffar ad-Din (pictured), Shah of Persia, granted exclusive rights to prospect for oil in the country to William Knox D'Arcy.
• 1937 – The rise of Neville Chamberlain culminated with his accession as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, being summoned to Buckingham Palace to "kiss hands".
• 2002 – An independent commission appointed by the Football Association voted two-to-one to allow Wimbledon F.C. to relocate from London to Milton Keynes.

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May 29: Feast day of Saint Paul VI (Catholicism)

• 1233 – Mongol–Jin War: The Mongols entered and began looting Kaifeng, the capital of the Jin dynasty of China, after a 13-month siege.
• 1416 – A squadron of the Venetian navy captured many Ottoman ships at the Battle of Gallipoli, confirming Venetian naval superiority in the Aegean Sea for the next few decades.
• 1913 – During the premiere of the ballet The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a near-riot in the audience.
• 1999 – Charlotte Perrelli, representing Sweden, won the Eurovision Song Contest, the first edition not to feature an orchestra or live accompaniment.
• 2011 – Residents of Portland, Oregon, held a rally called Hands Across Hawthorne in response to an attack against a gay couple holding hands while crossing the Hawthorne Bridge (pictured).

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May 30: Statehood Day in Croatia (1990)

• 1431 – Hundred Years' War: After being convicted of heresy, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen, France.
• 1723 – Johann Sebastian Bach (pictured) assumed the office of Thomaskantor in Leipzig, presenting the cantata Die Elenden sollen essen in St. Nicholas Church.
• 1922 – The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., featuring a sculpture of the sixteenth U.S. president Abraham Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, opened.
• 1963 – Buddhist crisis: A protest against pro-Catholic discrimination was held outside the National Assembly of South Vietnam in Saigon, the first open demonstration against President Ngô Đình Diệm.
• 2008 – The Convention on Cluster Munitions, prohibiting the use, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster bombs, was adopted.

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May 31: World No Tobacco Day

• 455 – Petronius Maximus, ruler of the Western Roman Empire, was stoned to death by a mob as he fled Rome ahead of the arrival of a Vandal force that sacked the city.
• 1223 – Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus': Mongol forces defeated a Kievan Rus' army at the Kalka River in present-day Ukraine.
• 1468 – Cardinal Bessarion (pictured) announced his donation of 746 Greek and Latin codices to the Republic of Venice, forming the Biblioteca Marciana.
• 1935 – An earthquake registering 7.7 M_w struck Balochistan in British India, now part of Pakistan, killing between 30,000 and 60,000 people.
• 2013 – A tornado struck Central Oklahoma, killing 8 people and injuring more than 150.

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