Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/May
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May 1: May Day; International Workers' Day; Beltane in Ireland and Scotland; Yom HaShoah (Israel and Judaism, 2011) begins at sunset
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- 880 – The Nea Ekklesia church in Constantinople was consecrated, and would go on to set the model for all later cross-in-square Orthodox churches.
- 1707 – Under the terms of the Acts of Union, the Kingdoms of England and Scotland merged to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, a single kingdom encompassing the entire island of Great Britain with a single parliament and government based in Westminster.
- 1753 – Carl Linnaeus (pictured) published his Species Plantarum, which, with his earlier work Systema Naturae, is considered the beginning of modern botanical nomenclature.
- 1786 – The Marriage of Figaro, an opera buffa composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
- 1947 – Italian separatist Salvatore Giuliano and his gang fired into a crowd of May Day marchers near Piana degli Albanesi, Sicily, killing 11 and wounding 33.
More anniversaries: April 30 – May 1 – May 2
May 2: Yom HaShoah (Israel and Judaism, 2011); Teachers' Day in Iran; Flag Day in Poland
- 1611 – Robert Barker, the King's Printer, made the first printing of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible (title page pictured).
- 1757 – Konbaung forces captured the city of Bago, Burma, to end the Konbaung-Hanthawaddy War.
- 1866 – Chincha Islands War: Both Spanish and Peruvian forces claimed victory in the Battle of Callao.
- 1946 – The Alcatraz Island United States Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay was taken over by six inmates following their failed escape attempt.
- 1952 – The world's first ever jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet 1, made its first commercial flight, from London to Johannesburg.
- 2011 – Osama bin Laden was shot and killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
More anniversaries: May 1 – May 2 – May 3
May 3: Constitution Day in Poland and Japan, World Press Freedom Day
- 1791 – The Polish Constitution of May 3, one of the earliest codified national constitutions in the world, was adopted by the Sejm.
- 1915 – Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields, later considered one of the most notable poems written during the First World War.
- 1939 – Subhas Chandra Bose (pictured) formed the All India Forward Bloc of the Indian National Congress in opposition to Gandhi's tactics of nonviolence.
- 1945 – Second World War: German ocean liner Cap Arcona, left to float defencelessly in the Bay of Lübeck with thousands of prisoners from various concentration camps on board, was attacked and sunk by RAF Typhoons.
- 1951 – The Royal Festival Hall, the first post-war building to become listed Grade I, opened as the venue for the Festival of Britain.
- 1963 – Police in Birmingham, Alabama, used high-pressure water hoses and dogs on civil rights protesters, bringing intense scrutiny on racial segregation in the Southern US.
More anniversaries: May 2 – May 3 – May 4
May 4: Declaration of Independence Day in Latvia (1990); Star Wars Day
- 1471 – Wars of the Roses: Yorkist Edward IV defeated a Lancastrian army in the Battle of Tewkesbury.
- 1910 – The Royal Canadian Navy was created as the Naval Service of Canada.
- 1942 – Second World War: The Imperial Japanese Navy engaged Allied naval forces at the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other.
- 1971 – The Don't Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada, officially changed its name to the Greenpeace Foundation.
- 1979 – Margaret Thatcher (pictured) became the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, following the defeat of James Callaghan's incumbent Labour government in the previous day's general election.
More anniversaries: May 3 – May 4 – May 5
May 5: Cinco de Mayo; Liberation Day in Denmark, Ethiopia, and the Netherlands; Children's Day in Japan and South Korea; National Day of Prayer in United States
- 1260 – Kublai Khan (pictured) claimed the title of Khagan of the Mongol Empire after the death of his older brother Möngke in the previous year.
- 1860 – Led by Italian general Giuseppe Garibaldi, the volunteer Expedition of the Thousand set sail from Genoa on a campaign to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
- 1891 – New York City's Carnegie Hall, built by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, officially opened with a concert conducted by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
- 1940 – World War II: A squad of 250 Norwegian volunteers in Hegra Fortress finally surrendered to a vastly superior Nazi force after a 25-day siege.
- 1981 – After sixty-six days without food, Irish republican Bobby Sands died of starvation in HM Prison Maze.
More anniversaries: May 4 – May 5 – May 6
May 6: St George's Day in Bulgaria; Đurđevdan in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia; Yuri's Day in Russia
- 1527 – Spanish and German troops sacked Rome, marking the symbolic end of the Italian Renaissance.
- 1882 – Irish Under-Secretary Thomas Henry Burke and Irish Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish were stabbed to death by members of the radical group Irish National Invincibles as they walked through the Phoenix Park in Dublin.
- 1937 – The German zeppelin Hindenburg (pictured) caught fire and was destroyed while trying to land at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, killing over 30 people on board.
- 1991 – Time magazine published "The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power", an article highly critical of the Scientology organization, leading to years of legal conflict which ended when the Church of Scientology's petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States in the case was denied in 2001.
- 2002 – Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated by animal rights and environmental activist Volkert van der Graaf in Hilversum.
More anniversaries: May 5 – May 6 – May 7
May 7: Radio Day in Russia and Bulgaria
- 1763 – Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa Native American tribe led an attempt to seize Fort Detroit and drive out the British settlers, marking the start of Pontiac's War.
- 1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre (pictured) established the Cult of the Supreme Being as the new state religion of the French First Republic.
- 1915 – First World War: The German submarine Unterseeboot 20 torpedoed and sank the ocean liner RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 on board.
- 1952 – The concept for the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, was first published by Geoffrey Dummer.
- 1960 – Cold War: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced that his country was holding American pilot Francis Gary Powers, whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union six days earlier.
More anniversaries: May 6 – May 7 – May 8
- 1541 – Spanish conquistadors led by Hernando de Soto (pictured) became the first documented Europeans to reach the Mississippi River.
- 1882 – U.S. President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act into law, implementing a ban on Chinese immigration to the United States that eventually lasted for over 60 years until the 1943 Magnuson Act.
- 1886 – In Atlanta, American pharmacist John Pemberton first sold his carbonated beverage Coca-Cola as a patent medicine, claiming that it cured a number of diseases.
- 1927 – French aviators Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli aboard The White Bird biplane, attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, disappeared after takeoff.
- 1963 – In Huế, South Vietnam, soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam opened fire into a crowd of Buddhist protestors against a government ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesākha, killing nine and sparking the Buddhist crisis.
More anniversaries: May 7 – May 8 – May 9
May 9: Yom Hazikaron (Israel, 2011); Victory Day in various Eastern European countries; Europe Day/Schuman Day in the European Union; Independence Day in Romania (1877)
- 1873 – Panic of 1873: The Vienna Stock Exchange crashed, following two years of overexpansion in the German and Austro-Hungarian economies.
- 1955 – Jim Henson's most famous Muppet Kermit the Frog made his debut on the television show Sam and Friends.
- 1964 – Ngô Đình Cẩn, de facto ruler of central Vietnam under his brother President Ngo Dinh Diem before the family's toppling, was executed.
- 2004 – Akhmad Kadyrov, the first President of the Chechen Republic, and about 30 others were killed by a bomb during a World War II memorial victory parade in Grozny.
- 2005 – Pope Benedict XVI began the beatification process for his predecessor Pope John Paul II (pictured), waiving the standard five years required after the nominee's death.
More anniversaries: May 8 – May 9 – May 10
May 10: Mother's Day in El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico; Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israel, 2011); Constitution Day in the Federated States of Micronesia
- 1824 – The National Gallery in London opened to the public, in the former townhouse of the collector John Julius Angerstein.
- 1869 – The golden spike (replica pictured) ceremony was held at Promontory Summit, Utah, celebrating the completion of North America's First Transcontinental Railroad between the Missouri and Sacramento Rivers.
- 1940 – Second World War: A British force of 746 troops invaded and captured Iceland without opposition.
- 1997 – A 7.3 Mw earthquake struck Iran's Khorasan Province, killing 1,567, injuring over 2,300, leaving 50,000 homeless, and damaging or destroying over 15,000 homes.
- 2005 – Ethnic Armenian Vladimir Arutyunian attempted to assassinate U.S. President George W. Bush in Tbilisi, Georgia, using a hand grenade, which failed to detonate.
More anniversaries: May 9 – May 10 – May 11
- 330 – The city of Byzantium was consecrated as Constantinople, the new capital of the Roman Empire under Emperor Constantine the Great (bust pictured).
- 1813 – William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth departed westward from Sydney on an expedition to become the first Europeans confirmed to cross the Blue Mountains.
- 1880 – A land dispute between the Southern Pacific Railroad and settlers in Hanford, California, turned deadly when a gun battle broke out, leaving seven dead.
- 1946 – The United Malays National Organisation, today Malaysia's largest political party, was founded, originally to oppose the constitutional framework of the Malayan Union.
- 1997 – Deep Blue became the first computer to win a match against a world chess champion, when it defeated Garry Kasparov in six games.
More anniversaries: May 10 – May 11 – May 12
May 12: International Nurses Day
- 1364 – King of Poland Casimir III issued a royal charter to establish Jagiellonian University, the nation's oldest university.
- 1881 – Under the threat of invasion, the Bey of Tunis Muhammad III as-Sadiq (pictured) signed the Treaty of Bardo to make Tunisia a French protectorate.
- 1885 – North-West Rebellion: Louis Riel and the Métis rebels were decisively defeated by Canadian forces under Major-General Frederick Middleton in Batoche, Saskatchewan.
- 1968 – The 1st Australian Task Force began the defence of Fire Support Base Coral in the largest unit-level action of the Vietnam War for the Australian Army.
- 2006 – A cartoon that allegedly compared Iranian Azeris to cockroaches was published in an Iranian magazine, sparking riots throughout the country.
- 2008 – In Postville, Iowa, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted the largest-ever raid of a workplace and arrested nearly 400 immigrants for identity theft and document fraud.
More anniversaries: May 11 – May 12 – May 13
May 13: Mother's Day in several countries (2012); Rotuma Day in Fiji
- 1373 – English mystic Julian of Norwich recovered from a severe illness, during which she experienced a series of intense visions of Jesus Christ; later she would describe them in Revelations of Divine Love, the first known English language book written by a woman.
- 1779 – Russian and French mediators negotiated the Treaty of Teschen to end the War of the Bavarian Succession.
- 1981 – Mehmet Ali Ağca shot and critically wounded Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City.
- 1985 – Eleven members of the black liberation group MOVE were killed when a police helicopter dropped a bomb on their house during a raid in Philadelphia.
- 2008 – Nine bombs placed by the heretofore-unknown terrorist group Indian Mujahideen exploded in 15 minutes in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India.
More anniversaries: May 12 – May 13 – May 14
May 14: Feast day of Saint Matthias and Saint Mo Chutu (Roman Catholic Church); Sanja Matsuri begins in Tokyo
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- 1264 – Second Barons' War: King Henry III was defeated at the Battle of Lewes and forced to sign the Mise of Lewes, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.
- 1868 – Boshin War: Troops of the Tokugawa shogunate withdrew from the Battle of Utsunomiya Castle and retreated north towards Nikkō and Aizu.
- 1939 – In Lima, Peru, Lina Medina became the youngest confirmed mother in history, giving birth at the age of five years, seven months and 17 days.
- 1943 – Second World War: The Australian Hospital Ship Centaur was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland, killing 268 people aboard.
- 1955 – Cold War: Eight Eastern Bloc countries signed a mutual defense treaty to establish the Warsaw Pact.
- 1973 – The NASA space station Skylab (pictured) was launched from Cape Canaveral.
More anniversaries: May 13 – May 14 – May 15
May 15: Teachers' Day in Mexico and South Korea; Nakba Day in Palestinian communities; Constituent Assembly Day in Lithuania
- 1869 – Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, breaking away from the American Equal Rights Association which they had also previously founded.
- 1928 – Mickey and Minnie Mouse made their film debut in the animated cartoon Plane Crazy.
- 1974 – A unit of the Golani Brigade assaulted an elementary school in Ma'alot, Israel, where three armed members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine had taken 115 people hostage, resulting in 28 deaths.
- 1990 – Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet (pictured) was sold at auction in Christie's New York office for a total of US$82.5 million, at the time the world's most expensive painting.
- 1997 – During the dedication of the Laos Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, the United States first publicly acknowledged its role in the Laotian Civil War, which had ended twenty-two years earlier.
More anniversaries: May 14 – May 15 – May 16
May 16: Teacher's Day in Malaysia
- 1204 – Fourth Crusade: Count Baldwin IX of Flanders was crowned the first Latin Emperor in Constantinople.
- 1811 – Peninsular War: An allied force of British, Spanish, and Portuguese troops clashed with the French at the Battle of Albuera south of Badajoz, Spain.
- 1943 – Second World War: Royal Air Force Dambusters embarked on a raid to deploy bouncing bombs on German dams in Operation Chastise.
- 1966 – Chinese leader Mao Zedong (pictured) launched the Cultural Revolution officially as a campaign to rid China of its liberal bourgeois elements and to continue revolutionary class struggle.
- 1975 – Based on the results of a referendum held about one month earlier, Sikkim abolished its monarchy and was annexed by India, becoming its 22nd state.
More anniversaries: May 15 – May 16 – May 17
May 17: Constitution Day in Norway (1814); Galician Literature Day in Galicia, Spain
- 1642 – The Société Notre-Dame de Montréal founded a permanent mission known as Ville-Marie, which eventually grew into the city of Montreal.
- 1902 – The Antikythera mechanism, the oldest known surviving geared mechanism, was discovered among artifacts retrieved from a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera.
- 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".
- 1980 – On the eve of the Peruvian general election, the Maoist guerrilla group Shining Path attacked a polling location in the town of Chuschi, Ayacucho, starting the internal conflict in Peru.
- 2009 – Dalia Grybauskaitė (pictured) was elected the first female President of Lithuania, receiving 68.18 percent of the vote.
More anniversaries: May 16 – May 17 – May 18
May 18: Flag and Universities Day in Haiti; Day of Revival, Unity, and the Poetry of Magtymguly in Turkmenistan
- 1652 – Rhode Island passed the first law in North America making slavery illegal.
- 1936 – In a crime that shocked Japan, Sada Abe strangled her lover Kichizo Ishida, cut off his genitals, and carried them around with her for several days until her arrest.
- 1944 – The Soviet Union forcibly deported the entire population of Crimean Tatars as special settlers to Uzbek SSR and elsewhere in the country.
- 1980 – A popular uprising against the nationwide martial law imposed by South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan's government began in Gwangju, but it was ultimately crushed by the South Korean army about nine days later.
- 1991 – The Somali National Movement declared the independence of Somaliland (flag pictured), a de facto state that is internationally recognised as an autonomous region of Somalia, following the collapse of central government during the Somali Civil War.
More anniversaries: May 17 – May 18 – May 19
May 19: Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day in Turkey; Ho Chi Minh's birthday in Vietnam; Greek Genocide Remembrance Day in Greece
- 1780 – A combination of thick smoke, fog, and heavy cloud cover caused darkness to fall on parts of Canada and the New England area of the United States by noon.
- 1845 – Captain Sir John Franklin and his ill-fated Arctic expedition departed from Greenhithe, England; the entire 129-man complement would be lost.
- 1911 – Parks Canada, the world's first national park service, was established as the Dominion Parks Branch under the Department of the Interior.
- 1997 – The Sierra Gorda Biosphere, which encompasses the most ecologically diverse region in Mexico, was established as a result of grassroots efforts.
- 2010 – In Bangkok, the Thai military concluded a week-long crackdown (soldiers pictured) on widespread protests by forcing the surrender of opposition leaders.
More anniversaries: May 18 – May 19 – May 20
May 20: National Day in Cameroon (1972); Independence Day in East Timor (2002); Day of Remembrance in Cambodia; National Awakening Day in Indonesia (1908)
- 325 – The First Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council of the Christian Church, was formally opened in present-day Iznik, Turkey.
- 1609 – Thomas Thorpe published the first copies of Shakespeare's sonnets, which may have been without William Shakespeare's consent.
- 1862 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law, which gave the right to claim freehold title to about 160 acres (0.65 km2) of undeveloped land in the American West.
- 1927 – By the Treaty of Jeddah, the United Kingdom recognized the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud (pictured) over Hejaz and Nejd, which later merged to become Saudi Arabia.
- 1983 – A team of researchers led by French virologist Luc Montagnier published their discovery of HIV, although they did yet not know if caused AIDS.
More anniversaries: May 19 – May 20 – May 21
May 21: Armed Forces Day in the United States (2011); Navy Day in Chile
- 879 – Pope John VIII officially recognised Croatia as an independent state, and Branimir as its Duke.
- 1674 – John III Sobieski (pictured), elected by the szlachta, became the King of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
- 1881 – Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.
- 1911 – Mexican President Porfirio Díaz and the revolutionary Francisco Madero signed the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez to put an end to the fighting between the forces of both men, and thus concluding the initial phase of the Mexican Revolution.
- 1946 – Manhattan Project physicist Louis Slotin accidentally triggered a fission reaction at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and gave himself a lethal dose of hard radiation, making him the second victim of a criticality accident in history.
- 1998 – Indonesian President Suharto resigned following the collapse of support for his three-decade-long reign.
More anniversaries: May 20 – May 21 – May 22
May 22: Unity Day in Yemen (1990); Lag BaOmer (Judaism, 2011)
- 1826 – HMS Beagle departed on its first voyage from Plymouth for a hydrographic survey of the Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego regions of South America.
- 1915 – Lassen Peak in the Shasta Cascade region of Northern California violently erupted (pictured), the only volcanic eruption in the continental U.S. in the 20th century until Mount St. Helens in 1980.
- 1958 – Ethnic rioting broke out in Ceylon, targeted mostly at the minority Sri Lankan Tamils, resulting in up to 300 deaths over the next five days.
- 1987 – During Hindu–Muslim rioting in Meerut, India, 19 members of the Provincial Armed Constabulary allegedly massacred 42 Muslims and dumped the bodies in water canals.
- 2003 – Swedish golfer Annika Sörenstam became the first woman to play in a PGA Tour event in 58 years.
More anniversaries: May 21 – May 22 – May 23
May 23: Victoria Day in Canada (2011)
- 1618 – In the Second Defenestration of Prague, Protestant members of the Bohemian aristocracy threw Catholic regents of Emperor Ferdinand II out the third-storey window of Prague Castle, precipitating the Thirty Years' War.
- 1701 – Scottish privateer William Kidd was executed for piracy.
- 1844 – Siyyid `Alí-Muhammad Shírází proclaimed that he was "the Báb", after a Shi`a religious concept, marking the beginning of the Bábí movement, the forerunner of the Bahá'í Faith.
- 1934 – American criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow (pictured) were ambushed and killed by police on a desolate road near their hideout in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
- 1945 – End of World War II in Europe: Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz was captured and his Flensburg Government was dissolved.
- 2008 – To resolve a 29-year-old territorial dispute, the International Court of Justice awarded Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca to Singapore.
More anniversaries: May 22 – May 23 – May 24
May 24: Independence Day in Eritrea; Saints Cyril and Methodius Day in Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia
- 1883 – New York City's Brooklyn Bridge, at the time the longest suspension bridge in the world, was opened.
- 1930 – English aviatrix Amy Johnson landed in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to successfully fly from England to Australia.
- 1948 – Arab–Israeli War: After five days of fighting, Egyptian forces finally captured the Israeli kibbutz Yad Mordechai after the defenders had abandoned it.
- 1960 – Cordón Caulle in the Andes of Ranco Province, Chile, began to erupt, less than two days after the Valdivia earthquake struck the region.
- 1976 – In a wine competition in Paris, French judges shocked the wine industry by rating California wines higher than French ones (bottle of winning vintage pictured).
More anniversaries: May 23 – May 24 – May 25
May 25: National Day in Argentina (1810); Independence Day in Jordan (1946); Liberation Day in Lebanon (2000) and in various African countries (1963)
- 1810 – The Primera Junta, the first independent government in Argentina, was established in an open cabildo in Buenos Aires (pictured), marking the end of the May Revolution.
- 1910 - Construction began on Argentina's first dreadnought battleship, marking the first reply in a developing naval arms race between Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.
- 1977 – Star Wars, a science fantasy film written and directed by George Lucas, was released, eventually becoming one of the most successful films of all time.
- 2000 – Israel withdrew its army from most of Lebanese territory, 22 years after its first invasion in 1978.
- 2002 – China Airlines Flight 611 crashed in the Taiwan Strait after breaking up in mid-air, killing all 225 people on board.
More anniversaries: May 24 – May 25 – May 26
May 26: Independence Day in Georgia (1918); Mother's Day in Poland
- 1328 – William of Ockham, an English friar who originated the methodological principle Occam's razor, secretly left Avignon under threat from Pope John XXII.
- 1857 – American slave Dred Scott (pictured), who had previously unsuccessfully sued for his freedom, was emancipated by Henry Taylor Blow, his original owner.
- 1897 – Irish author Bram Stoker's most famous novel Dracula was first published.
- 1938 – The House Un-American Activities Committee was established to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities by people or organizations suspected of having communist or fascist ties.
- 1940 – Second World War: A flotilla of "little ships" began a mass evacuation of British, French and Belgian troops cut off by the German army during the Battle of Dunkirk.
More anniversaries: May 25 – May 26 – May 27
May 27: Children's Day in Nigeria
- 1153 – Malcolm IV became King of Scotland at the age of twelve.
- 1799 – War of the Second Coalition: Austrian forces defeated the French and captured the strategically important town of Winterthur, Switzerland.
- 1930 – Standing at 319 metres (1,047 ft), New York City's Chrysler Building (pictured) opened as the world's tallest building before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building 11 months later.
- 1967 – Australians overwhelmingly approved two amendments to the Constitution granting the government the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and to count them in the national census.
- 2006 – An earthquake measuring about 6.3 Mw struck near the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta on the southern side of the island of Java, killing at least 5,700 people, injuring at least 36,000, and leaving at least 1.5 million homeless.
More anniversaries: May 26 – May 27 – May 28
May 28: Memorial Day in the United States (2012); Republic Day in Armenia and Azerbaijan
- 1754 – French and Indian War: Led by 22-year-old George Washington, a company of colonial militia from Virginia ambushed a force of 35 Canadiens in the Battle of Jumonville Glen.
- 1974 – After widespread loyalist opposition and a two-week general strike, the power-sharing Sunningdale Agreement between Northern Ireland and a cross-border Council of Ireland collapsed.
- 1987 – West German Mathias Rust flew his Cessna 172 through the supposedly impregnable Soviet air defense system and landed in Red Square in Moscow.
- 1998 – The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission carried out five underground nuclear tests, becoming the seventh country in the world to successfully develop and publicly test nuclear weapons.
- 1999 – After 21 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper (pictured) was put back on display in Milan, Italy.
More anniversaries: May 27 – May 28 – May 29
May 29: International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers; Democracy Day in Nigeria
- 1176 – Wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines: The Lombard League defeated the forces of the Holy Roman Empire in Legnano, Lombardy, present-day Italy.
- 1453 – Constantinople fell to the besieging Ottoman army led by Sultan Mehmed II, ending the Byzantine Empire.
- 1911 – English dramatist W. S. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan died while saving a young woman from drowning in his lake.
- 1913 – The Rite of Spring, a ballet with music by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, was first performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.
- 1918 – World War I: Armenian forces defeated Turkish troops near Sardarapat, Armenia, not only stopping the Turkish advance into the rest of Armenia but also preventing the complete destruction of the Armenian nation.
- 1953 – New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary and Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest (pictured).
More anniversaries: May 28 – May 29 – May 30
May 30: Indian Arrival Day in Trinidad and Tobago; Lod Massacre Remembrance Day in Puerto Rico
- 1431 – Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc (pictured) was burned at the stake in Rouen, France, after being convicted of heresy in a politically motivated trial.
- 1593 – English playwright Christopher Marlowe was stabbed to death by Ingram Frizer under mysterious circumstances.
- 1815 – The East Indiaman ship Arniston was wrecked during a storm at Waenhuiskrans, near Cape Agulhas, present-day South Africa, with the loss of 372 lives.
- 1899 - Female Old West outlaw Pearl Hart performed one of the last recorded stagecoach robberies 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Globe, Arizona.
- 1967 – Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu announced the establishment of Biafra, a secessionist state in southeastern Nigeria, an event that sparked the Nigerian Civil War one week later.
More anniversaries: May 29 – May 30 – May 31
May 31: World No Tobacco Day; Feast of the Visitation in Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism
- 1279 BC – According to estimates accepted by most Egyptologists today, Ramesses II became Pharaoh of Egypt.
- 1223 – Mongol invasions: Mongol forces defeated a combined army of Kiev, Galich, and the Cumans on the banks of the Kalchik River in present-day Ukraine.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Confederate forces under Joseph E. Johnston and G. W. Smith engaged Union forces under George B. McClellan at the Battle of Seven Pines outside Richmond, Virginia.
- 1981 – An organized mob of police and government-sponsored paramilitias began burning the public library in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, destroying over 97,000 items in one of the most violent examples of ethnic biblioclasm of the 20th century.
- 2010 – During an attempt to break the ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Navy engaged in armed conflict with the crew of the MV Mavi Marmara (pictured), resulting in nine civilian deaths.
More anniversaries: May 30 – May 31 – June 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
January – February – March – April – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – December
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