Events1491 -
Kongo monarch Nkuwu Nzinga is baptised by
Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of
João I.1494 -
Christopher Columbus first sights land that will be called
Jamaica.
1715 - "
Edmund Halley's" total solar eclipse (the last one visible in
London, UK for almost 900 years).
1791 - The
May Constitution of Poland (first modern
constitution in
Europe) is proclaimed by the
Polish Sejm.
1802 -
Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city.
1808 -
Finnish War:
Sweden loses the fortress of
Sveaborg to
Russia.
1808 -
Peninsular War: The
Madrid rebels who rose up on
May 2 are fired upon near
Príncipe Pío hill.
1815 -
Neapolitan War:
Joachim Murat, King of
Naples is defeated by the Austrians at the
Battle of Tolentino, the decisive engagement of the war.
1837 - The
University of Athens is founded. It is the oldest university in the eastern Mediterranean.
1849 - The
May Uprising in Dresden begins - the last of the
German revolutions of 1848.
1860 -
Charles XV of
Sweden-Norway is crowned king of
Sweden.
1867 - The
Hudson's Bay Company gives up all claims to
Vancouver Island.
1901 -
Great Fire of 1901 begins in
Jacksonville, FL.
1916 -
Easter Rising leaders are executed in Dublin.
1921 -
West Virginia imposes the first state
sales tax.
1923 - Lieutenants John Macready and Oakley Kelly land their
Fokker T-2 aircraft in
San Diego,
California. This is the first non-stop transcontinental flight. It took nearly 27 hrs.
1924 -
Aleph Zadik Aleph is formed in Omaha, Nebraska by Sam Beber
1928 -
Japanese atrocities in
Jinan,
China.
1933 -
Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first woman to head the
United States Mint.
1937 -
Gone with the Wind, a
novel by
Margaret Mitchell, wins the
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
1939 - The
All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji
Subhash Chandra Bose.
1942 -
Japanese naval troops
invade Tulagi Island in the
Solomon Islands during the first part of
Operation Mo that resulted in the
Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the
United States and
Australia.
1945 -
World War II: Sinking of the
prison ships Cap Arcona,
Thielbek and
Deutschland by the
RAF in Lübeck Bay.
1946 - World War II: The
International Military Tribunal for the Far East begins in
Tokyo against 28
Japanese military and government officials accused of
war crimes and
crimes against humanity.
1947 - New post-war
Japanese constitution goes into effect.
1948 -
U.S. Supreme Court rules that covenants prohibiting the sale of
real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.
1951 -
London's
Royal Festival Hall opens.1951 - The
Festival of Britain opens.1951 - The
United States Senate Armed Services and
Foreign Relations Committees begin their closed door hearings into the dismissal of
General Douglas MacArthur by
U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
1952 -
U.S. Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and
William P. Benedict land a plane at the
North Pole.
1956 - The
judo World Championships are first held.
1957 -
Walter O'Malley, the owner of the
Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from
Brooklyn, New York, to
Los Angeles, California.
1959 - The first
Grammy Awards are announced.
1960 - The
Off-Broadway musical comedy,
The Fantasticks, opens in
New York City's
Greenwich Village, eventually becoming the longest-running
musical of all time.
1960 - The
Anne Frank House opened in
Amsterdam,
The Netherlands.
1971 - Anti-war protesters calling themselves the Mayday Tribe begin four days of demonstrations in
Washington, D.C., aimed at shutting down the nation's capital.
1973 - The
Sears Tower in
Chicago is topped out as the world's tallest building.
1979 - Conservative Party leader
Margaret Thatcher to become
United Kingdom's first female
prime minister as the Labour government is ousted in
parliamentary elections.
1986 - Twenty-one people are killed and 41 injured after a bomb explodes in an airliner (Flight UL512) at
Colombo airport in
Sri Lanka.
1987 - A crash by
Bobby Allison at the
Talladega Superspeedway,
Alabama fencing at the start-finish line would lead
NASCAR to develop
restrictor plate racing the following season both at
Daytona International Speedway and Talladega.
1989 -
Fenerbahce beats
Galatasaray 4-3 coming back from 3-0.
1991 - The Declaration of Windhoek is signed.
1999 -
Oklahoma City is slammed by an
F5 tornado killing 42 people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado was one of 66 from the
Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak. 1999 - The
Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,000 for the first time in its history at 11,014.70.1999 -
Stephen Hendry defeats
Mark Williams 18-11 to win the
World Snooker Championship for a record seventh time.
2000 - The sport of
Geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a
GPS posted on
Usenet.
2001 - The
United States loses its seat on the
U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in
1947.
2002 - A military
MiG-21 aircraft crashes into the Bank of
Rajasthan in
India, killing eight.
2003 -
New Hampshire's famous
Old Man of the Mountain collapses.
2005 - The first elected government in the history of
Iraq is sworn in.
2006 -
Armavia Flight 967 crashes into the
Black Sea, killing 113 people on board, with no survivors.2006 -
Zacarias Moussaoui is sentenced to life in prison in
Alexandria, Virginia.
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