Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/May
Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2024 day arrangement | ||||||
May 1: Beltane and Samhain in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, respectively; Maharashtra Day in Maharashtra, India (1960); Loyalty Day in the United States
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Empire State Building
- 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.
- Alexander William Williamson (b. 1824)
- Anna Jarvis (b. 1864)
- Eldridge Cleaver (d. 1998)
May 2: National Day of Prayer in the United States (2024); Flag Day in Poland
Mireya Moscoso in 2012
- 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.
- Marutha of Tikrit (d. 649)
- Mary Moser (d. 1819)
- Giacomo Meyerbeer (d. 1864)
- Engelbert Humperdinck (b. 1936)
May 3: World Press Freedom Day; Constitution Memorial Day in Japan (1947); Constitution Day in Poland (1791)
Benty Grange helmet
- 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 301 ± 20 mph (484 ± 32 km/h), in a tornado near Bridge Creek, Oklahoma.
- Elizabeth Bacon (d. 1621)
- Jacob Riis (b. 1849)
- Bob McCallister (b. 1934)
- Ron Hextall (b. 1964)
May 4: Youth Day in China; Literary Day in Taiwan; Star Wars Day
Pope Alexander VI
- 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.
- John Nevison (d. 1684)
- Nettie Stevens (d. 1912)
- Audrey Hepburn (b. 1929)
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
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall
- 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.
- Samuel Cooper (d. 1672)
- William George Beers (b. 1841)
- Irene Gut Opdyke (b. 1918)
The Grand Palace in the 1860s
- 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.
- Henry David Thoreau (d. 1862)
- Martin Brodeur (b. 1972)
- Reg Grundy (d. 2016)
Maximilien Robespierre
- 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.
- Mary of Modena (d. 1718)
- Tore Wretman (b. 1916)
- Willard Boyle (d. 2011)
May 8: Anniversary of the birth of Miguel Hidalgo in Mexico (1753); Victory in Europe Day (1945)
Lady Blanche Arundell
- 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.
- Thomas Drury (b. 1551)
- Helena Blavatsky (d. 1891)
- Beatrice Worsley (d. 1972)
May 9: Europe Day in the European Union; Liberation Day in the Channel Islands (1945)
Hotel Polen fire
- 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.
- Al-Adid (b. 1151)
- John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair (d. 1747)
- Yukiya Amano (b. 1947)
One World Trade Center
- 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).
- Leonhart Fuchs (d. 1566)
- Karl Barth (b. 1886)
- Arthur Kopit (b. 1937)
Frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra
- 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.
- Richard Feynman (b. 1918)
- Judy Ann Santos (b. 1978)
- Zenna Henderson (d. 1983)
B-17 bombers intercepting the Rex
- 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.
- Thomas Palaiologos (d. 1465)
- Otto Frank (b. 1889)
- Moto Hagio (b. 1949)
May 13: Yom HaZikaron in Israel (2024)
Aftermath of the Enschede explosion
- 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.
- Maria Theresa (b. 1717)
- John Littlejohn (d. 1836)
- Alicja Iwańska (b. 1918)
- Gary Cooper (d. 1961)
May 14: Feast day of Saint Matthias (Catholicism); Independence Day in Israel (2024)
Monument to the Battle of Lewes
- 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.
- Fanny Imlay (b. 1794)
- Mary Seacole (d. 1881)
- Miranda Cosgrove (b. 1993)
- Taruni Sachdev (b. 1998; d. 2012)
May 15: Feast day of Saint Carthage (Catholicism); Nakba Day in Palestinian communities
Statue of Valentinian II
- 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.
- Hilary of Galeata (d. 558)
- Emily Dickinson (d. 1886)
- K. M. Cariappa (d. 1993)
May 16: Global Accessibility Awareness Day (2024)
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Junko Tabei
- 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.
- Pietro da Cortona (d. 1669)
- William H. Seward (b. 1801)
- Amanda Asay (b. 1988)
May 17: International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia; Sanja Matsuri begins in Tokyo, Japan (2024)
Anne of Denmark
- 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.
- Caroline of Brunswick (b. 1768)
- Little Gerhard (b. 1934)
- Maggie Laubser (d. 1973)
May 18: Haitian Flag Day in Haiti (1803); Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Crimean Tatar Genocide in Ukraine
The Bath School after the explosions
- 1302 – Armed insurrectionists massacred the occupying French garrison in Bruges, Flanders, killing approximately 2,000 people.
- 1695 – An earthquake measuring Ms7.8 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.
- 1952 – First Indochina War: Viet Minh forces overran a French and Laotian garrison at Muong Khoua, leaving only four survivors.
- 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.
- Thomas Midgley Jr. (b. 1889)
- Ester Boserup (b. 1910)
- Jean-François Théodore (d. 2015)
May 19: Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day in Turkey (1919)
John Franklin
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: A Continental Army garrison west of Montreal surrendered to British troops at the Battle of the Cedars.
- 1845 – Captain John Franklin (pictured) departed Greenhithe, England, on an expedition to the Canadian Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage; all 129 men were later lost when their ships became icebound in Victoria Strait.
- 1915 – First World War: Australian and New Zealand troops repelled the third attack on Anzac Cove, inflicting heavy casualties on the attacking Ottoman forces.
- 1991 – Breakup of Yugoslavia: With the local Serb population boycotting the referendum, Croatians voted in favour of independence from Yugoslavia.
- 2015 – A corroded pipeline near Refugio State Beach, California, spilled 142,800 gallons (3,400 barrels) of crude oil onto the Gaviota Coast.
- Dunstan (d. 988)
- Mariam-uz-Zamani (d. 1623)
- Erin Phillips (b. 1985)
May 20: National Day of Remembrance in Cambodia (1975); National Awakening Day in Indonesia (1908); Victoria Day in Canada (2024)
Schlosskirche Weimar, 1660
- 1714 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performance of his cantata for Pentecost, Erschallet, ihr Lieder, BWV 172, at the chapel of Schloss Weimar (depiction pictured).
- 1927 – By the Treaty of Jeddah, the United Kingdom recognized the sovereignty of King Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia (pictured) over Hejaz and Nejd, which later merged to become Saudi Arabia.
- 1943 – The Luttra Woman, a bog body from the Early Neolithic period, was discovered near Luttra, Sweden.
- 1947 – The first session of the National Diet opened in Tokyo, Japan.
- 2013 – A tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma, United States, killing 24 people and causing an estimated $2 billion of damage.
- Honoré de Balzac (b. 1799)
- Fritz Koenig (b. 1924)
- Cher (b. 1946)
May 21: World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development
Capture of Syracuse
- 878 – Arab–Byzantine wars: The city of Syracuse was captured by the Aghlabids (pictured) as part of the Muslim conquest of Sicily.
- 1703 – English writer Daniel Defoe was imprisoned for seditious libel after publishing a pamphlet that was perceived to satirise the Tory publications about Dissenters.
- 1864 – American Civil War: The inconclusive Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia ended with combined Union and Confederate casualties totaling around 31,000.
- 1991 – Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.
- 1998 – Indonesian president Suharto resigned after a collapse of support for his presidency amid economic and political crises, ending 32 years in power.
- Feng Dao (d. 954)
- Tommaso Campanella (d. 1639)
- Linda Laubenstein (b. 1947)
Preston Brooks caning Charles Sumner
- 1629 – Albrecht von Wallenstein and King Christian IV of Denmark signed the Treaty of Lübeck to end Danish intervention in the Thirty Years' War.
- 1816 – A riot broke out in Littleport, England, over high unemployment and rising grain costs, spreading to Ely the next day before being quelled by troops.
- 1856 – Senator Charles Sumner (pictured) was assaulted by Representative Preston Brooks in the United States Senate chamber in retaliation for a speech in which Sumner fiercely criticized slaveholders.
- 1939 – Germany and Italy signed the Pact of Steel, a military and political alliance.
- 2010 – Upon landing in Mangalore, Air India Express Flight 812 overshot the runway and fell down a hillside, killing 158 of the 166 people on board.
- T. Boone Pickens (b. 1928)
- Lady Gregory (d. 1932)
- Myrtle Bachelder (d. 1997)
May 23: Aromanian National Day
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Catherine of Aragon
- 1533 – Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, annulled Henry VIII's marriage to his first wife Catherine of Aragon (pictured), beginning events that would culminate in the English Reformation.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Confederate troops under Stonewall Jackson defeated a Union force at the Battle of Front Royal in Virginia, taking around 700 prisoners.
- 1895 – Backed by Samuel J. Tilden, the Astor Library and the Lenox Library agreed to merge and form the New York Public Library.
- 1939 – The U.S. Navy submarine Squalus sank off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, during tests, causing 26 men to drown.
- 1974 – The Airbus A300, the first twin-engined wide-body airliner, went into service with Air France.
- C. R. M. F. Cruttwell (b. 1887)
- Ruth Fernández (b. 1919)
- Florence Violet McKenzie (d. 1982)
May 24: Aldersgate Day (Methodism)
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Operation Solomon evacuees arriving in Israel
- 1667 – Led by King Louis XIV, the French army invaded the Spanish Netherlands, beginning the War of Devolution.
- 1883 – New York City's Brooklyn Bridge opened as the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time.
- 1913 – Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia married Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover; the occasion was one of the last great social events of European royalty before World War I began.
- 1986 – A stationary front began over the central Caribbean Sea, leading to severe floods that over two weeks killed dozens of people in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.
- 1991 – The Israel Defense Forces began Operation Solomon, a covert operation to bring thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel (evacuees pictured).
- Cathinka Buchwieser (b. 1789)
- Henry Sandham (b. 1842)
- Fanny Searls (d. 1939)
May 25: Africa Day (1963); Independence Day in Jordan (1946)
1878 poster for H.M.S. Pinafore
- 1782 – American Revolutionary War: US Colonel William Crawford began a failed expedition to destroy British-allied American Indian towns along the Sandusky River in the Ohio Country.
- 1878 – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore (poster featured) premiered at the Opera Comique in London.
- 1955 – Joe Brown and George Band, members of the British Kangchenjunga expedition, made the first ascent of the world's third-highest mountain but deliberately did not set foot on the summit.
- 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, the deadliest aviation accident in United States history.
- 2013 – Naxalite insurgents of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) attacked a convoy of Indian National Congress leaders in the state of Chhattisgarh, causing at least 27 deaths.
- Flann Sinna (d. 916)
- Naim Frashëri (b. 1846)
- Elisabeth Geleerd (d. 1969)
May 26: National Sorry Day in Australia; Independence Day in Georgia (1918), Lag BaOmer (Judaism, 2024)
Jimmie Rodgers
- 946 – King Edmund I of England was murdered at Pucklechurch on the feast day of St Augustine.
- 1933 – American singer Jimmie Rodgers (pictured) died at the Taft Hotel in New York City.
- 1967 – The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, one of the first progressive rock albums, was released.
- 1989 – Tropical Storm Cecil dissipated over Laos after devastating Quảng Nam province, Vietnam, and causing the deaths of 751 people.
- Edmond de Goncourt (b. 1822)
- Jyoti Gogte (b. 1956)
- Mufti Abdul Razzaq (d. 2021)
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Bob Dylan
- 1923 – French drivers André Lagache and René Léonard completed the most laps during the first edition of the sports car race the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
- 1963 – American singer Bob Dylan (pictured) released The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, his first album to include a significant number of original songs.
- 1983 – An explosion at an illegal fireworks factory near Benton, Tennessee, killed eleven people.
- 1995 – Bosnian War: Forces of the Army of Republika Srpska captured a United Nations post at Vrbanja Bridge in Sarajevo; six soldiers of both sides were killed when French forces retook the post later in the day.
- 2001 – Twenty tourists were kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf militants in Palawan, Philippines, triggering a hostage crisis that lasted for more than a year.
- Diego Ramírez de Arellano (d. 1624)
- John Cockcroft (b. 1897)
- Henry Kissinger (b. 1923)
- Abram Hoffer (d. 2009)
May 28: Republic Day in Armenia (1918); Independence Day in Azerbaijan (1918)
John Muir
- 621 – Tang forces led by Li Shimin defeated and captured Dou Jiande at the Battle of Hulao in the civil war that followed the collapse of the Sui dynasty.
- 1892 – Scottish-American preservationist John Muir (pictured) founded the environmental organization Sierra Club in California.
- 1940 – Second World War: Belgium surrendered to Nazi Germany, ending the Battle of Belgium.
- 1987 – Mathias Rust, a West German aviator, flew his Cessna 172 from Helsinki, Finland, through Soviet air defences, landing illegally near Red Square in Moscow.
- 2010 – A train derailment and collision in the West Midnapore district of West Bengal, India, caused the deaths of at least 148 passengers.
- Wulfstan (d. 1023)
- Carl Larsson (b. 1853)
- Maeve Binchy (b. 1939)
May 29: Feast day of Saint Paul VI (Catholicism); Memorial Day in the United States
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay
- 1176 – Wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines: Troops of the Lombard League defeated forces of the Holy Roman Empire near Legnano in present-day Italy.
- 1792 – The Great Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was disbanded following the Russian invasion of Poland.
- 1935 – A strike by copper miners in Northern Rhodesia ended after six workers were shot and killed by police.
- 1953 – The mountaineers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay (both pictured) became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
- 1954 – Diane Leather became the first woman to run a mile in less than five minutes.
- Louise-Adéone Drölling (b. 1797)
- Erich Wolfgang Korngold (b. 1897)
- John Barrymore (d. 1942)
May 30: Statehood Day in Croatia (1990)
Johann Sebastian Bach
- 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, BWV 75, in the St. Nicholas Church.
- 1943 – The first game of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the forerunner of women's professional league sports in the United States, was played.
- 1963 – Buddhist crisis: A protest against pro-Catholic discrimination was held outside South Vietnam's National Assembly, the first open demonstration against President Ngô Đình Diệm.
- 1998 – An earthquake registering 6.5 Mw struck northern Afghanistan, killing at least 4,000 people, destroying more than 30 villages, and leaving 45,000 people homeless.
- Antonina Houbraken (b. 1686)
- Wyndham Halswelle (b. 1882)
- Marcel Bich (d. 1994)
Bessarion
- 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 Mw 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.
- Géza II of Hungary (d. 1162)
- Walter Sickert (b. 1860)
- Jørgen Jensen (d. 1922)
Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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