WikiPedia:Selected anniversaries/May

• 1776 - The Order of the Illuminati, a secret society, was founded in Bavaria, Germany.
• 1840 - The Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, was issued in the United Kingdom.
• 1893 - The World Columbian Exposition, a World's Fair to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus, opened in Chicago, United States.
• 1941 - Citizen Kane, a widely acclaimed film by Orson Welles, premiered.
• 1960 - In India, the state of Bombay was partitioned into Gujarat and Maharashtra along linguistic lines.

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• 1670 - A Royal Charter granted the Hudson's Bay Company a monopoly in the fur trade in Rupert's Land.
• 1933 - The first modern sighting of the Loch Ness Monster was reported.
• 1945 - World War II: General Helmuth Weidling, defence commandant of Berlin, surrendered the city to Soviet forces, ending the Battle of Berlin.
• 1982 - Falklands War: The HMS Conqueror sank the ARA General Belgrano.
• 1999 - Mireya Moscoso became the first woman to be elected President of Panama.

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• 1808 - The Swedish fortress Sveaborg was lost to Russia during the Finnish War.
• 1937 - Gone With the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, won the Pulitzer Prize.
• 1945 - World War II: German ocean liner SS Cap Arcona, loaded with prisoners from concentration camps and left to float defenselessly, was attacked and sunk by RAF Typhoons.
• 1947 - A new Constitution of Japan went into effect.
• 1991 - The last episode of the television soap opera Dallas was broadcast.

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• 1471 - Wars of the Roses: Yorkist Edward IV defeated a Lancastrian army in the Battle of Tewkesbury.
• 1855 - William Walker and group of mercenaries sailed from San Francisco to conquer Nicaragua.
• 1919 - The May Fourth Movement began with large-scale student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Peking, China against the Paris Peace Conference and Japan's Twenty-One Demands.
• 1953 - Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
• 1970 - The Ohio National Guard shot at students in Kent State University protesting the American invasion of Cambodia.

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• 1862 - Cinco de Mayo in Mexico: Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halted a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign began with the Battle of the Wilderness.
• 1904 - Cy Young of the Boston Americans pitched the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball.
• 1949 - The Council of Europe was formed.
• 1950 - Prince Bhumibol Adulyadej was crowned in Bangkok as King Rama IX of Thailand, currently the world's longest-serving head of state.
• 1992 - After pending before America's state legislatures for 202 years, the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution is finally ratified when the Legislature of the State of Alabama furnishes the pivotal 38th approval of it.

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Stonewall Jackson

• 1527 - Spanish and German troops sacked Rome, marking the symbolic end of Italian Renaissance.
• 1682 - King Louis XIV of France took up residence in the Château de Versailles.
• 1863 - American Civil War: The Army of Northern Virginia led by Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson scored a decisive Confederate victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville.
• 1937 - The German zeppelin Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36.
• 1994 - The Channel Tunnel, a 50-km long rail tunnel beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover, was officially opened.

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• 1824 - Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor premiered in Vienna.
• 1915 - World War I: The ocean liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine Unterseeboot 20, killing 1,198 on board.
• 1920 - Polish-Soviet War: Polish-Ukrainian troops led by Józef Piłsudski and Edward Rydz-Śmigły carried out the Kiev Offensive to capture Kyiv, Ukraine.
• 1945 - End of World War II in Europe: In Reims, France, General Alfred Jodl signed and submitted the capitulation documents to the Allies on behalf of Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz.
• 1992 - The Space Shuttle Endeavour was launched for its first mission.

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• 1541 - The expedition led by Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River.
• 1794 - French chemist and economist Antoine Lavoisier, a former royal tax collector with the Ferme Générale, was tried, convicted, and guillotined on the same day during the Reign of Terror.
• 1846 - The first major battle in the Mexican-American War was fought in the Battle of Palo Alto.
• 1902 - The volcanic eruption of Mount Pelée destroyed the town of St. Pierre, Martinique, killing over 30,000 people.
• 1945 - Most armed forces under German control ceased active operations by 23:01 hours CET at the end of World War II in Europe, in accordance with the capitulation documents signed the day before.

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• 328 - Athanasius became the Patriarch of Alexandria.
• 1092 - Lincoln Cathedral in England was consecrated.
• 1671 - Thomas Blood was caught trying to steal the British Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.
• 1901 - The first Parliament of Australia opened in the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne.
• 1945 - Vidkun Quisling, Minister-President of the puppet government in Norway during the Nazi occupation, was arrested in Oslo.

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• 1503 - Christopher Columbus and his crew became the first Europeans to visit the Cayman Islands.
• 1768 - John Wilkes was imprisoned for criticising King George III, sparking riots in London.
• 1857 - The Sepoy Rebellion broke out in colonial India, threatening the rule of the British East India Company.
• 1869 - The First Transcontinental Railroad of North America was completed with a golden spike ceremony.
• 1941 - World War II: Nazi leader Rudolf Hess parachuted into Scotland, claiming to be on a peace mission.

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• 330 - Byzantium became Constantinople, the new capital of the Roman Empire under Constantine I.
• 1792 - Explorer Robert Gray first sighted the Columbia River, the largest river flowing into the Pacific Ocean from North America.
• 1812 - British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons.
• 1894 - The "wildcat" Pullman Strike began in Illinois.
• 1960 - Mossad agents captured Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi leader and fugitive war criminal hiding in Argentina.

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• 1551 - National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in South America, was founded in Lima, Peru.
• 1881 - Tunisia became a French protectorate.
• 1937 - King George VI of the United Kingdom was crowned at the Westminster Abbey.
• 1958 - A formal agreement on the North American Aerospace Defense Command was signed.

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• 1497 - Girolamo Savonarola of Florence was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI.
• 1848 - Maamme, the national anthem of Finland, was performed for the first time.
• 1888 - The Lei Áurea (Golden Law) was passed, legally ending slavery in Brazil.
• 1969 - The May 13 Incident: Chinese-Malay race riots left at least 184 people dead in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
• 1981 - Mehmet Ali Ağca shot and critically wounded Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City.

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• 1264 - King Henry III was captured in the Battle of Lewes, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.
• 1796 - Edward Jenner began testing cowpox as a vaccine for protection against smallpox.
• 1804 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition departed from Camp Dubois and began traveling up the Missouri River.
• 1948 - Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion publicly read the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel in Tel Aviv.
• 1973 - The NASA space station Skylab was launched from Cape Canaveral.

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Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet

• 1756 - Seven Years' War: Britain declared war on France, two years after fighting began in Ohio.
• 1928 - Cartoon characters Mickey and Minnie Mouse made their movie debut in Plane Crazy.
• 1934 - Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis dissolved the Saeima and established an authoritarian rule in Latvia.
• 1990 - The Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh was sold for US$82.5 million, at the time the world's most expensive painting.

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• 1204 - Fourth Crusade: Count Baldwin IX of Flanders was crowned the first Latin Emperor in Constantinople.
• 1527 - The Medici were driven from Florence and a republic was re-established.
• 1866 - Root beer was first prepared commercially.
• 1929 - The first Academy Awards were handed out at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles.
• 1943 - World War II: SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop put an end to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the first mass uprising in Poland against the Nazi occupation during the Holocaust.

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Jacques Chirac (Photo credit: Marcello Casal Jr/Agência Brasil)

• 1792 - The New York Stock Exchange was formed.
• 1846 - Adolphe Sax patented the saxophone.
• 1902 - The Antikythera mechanism, the oldest known surviving geared mechanism, was discovered in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera.
• 1943 - World War II: RAF Dam Busters successfully deployed bouncing bombs in Operation Chastise.
• 1995 - After 18 years as Mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac was inaugurated as President of the French Republic.

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• 1268 - Baibars and his Mamluk forces captured Antioch, capital of the crusader state, the Principality of Antioch.
• 1896 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson, upholding the legality of racial segregation in public transportation.
• 1944 - World War II: The Battle of Monte Cassino ended with a German evacuation of Monte Cassino.
• 1958 - A supersonic interceptor aircraft, F-104 Starfighter, set a world speed record of 1,404.19 mph.
• 1980 - Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington, killing 57 people and causing over a billion U.S. dollars in damages.

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• 1536 - Anne Boleyn, the second wife and queen consort of Henry VIII of England, was beheaded for adultery.
• 1649 - The Rump Parliament passed an act to formally establish the Commonwealth of England.
• 1802 - The Légion d'honneur was first instituted by Napoléon Bonaparte, First Consul of the French Republic.
• 1921 - The U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, establishing national quotas on immigration to the United States.
• 1922 - The Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union was founded.

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• 325 - The First Council of Nicaea was formally opened.
• 1498 - Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut, India.
• 1570 - Abraham Ortelius issued the first modern atlas.
• 1862 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law.
• 1927 - By the Treaty of Jedda, the United Kingdom recognized the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud in the Kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd, which later merged to become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

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• 1674 - John Sobieski was elected by the szlachta to be King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
• 1881 - The American Red Cross was established by Clara Barton.
• 1894 - The Manchester Ship Canal was officially opened, linking the city of Manchester to the Irish Sea.
• 1927 - Aboard the Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight.
• 1991 - Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a female suicide bomber.

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• 1176 - Saladin survived an assassination by the Hashshashin near Aleppo.
• 1455 - The Wars of the Roses opened with a Yorkist victory in the First Battle of St Albans.
• 1807 - Former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr was indicted for treason by a grand jury.
• 1960 - Valdivia, Chile was devastated as the epicenter of the 9.5-magnitude Great Chilean Earthquake, with destructive tsunamis reaching Hilo, Hawaii the following day.
• 1990 - The Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen merged to become the Republic of Yemen.

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• 1533 - The marriage of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII of England was annulled.
• 1568 - The Eighty Years' War broke out when Dutch rebels led by Louis of Nassau invaded Friesland in the Battle of Heiligerlee.
• 1873 - The North West Mounted Police was established in the Northwest Territories, Canada.
• 1934 - American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana.
• 1969 - British rock band The Who released the rock opera Tommy.

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• 1487 - Impostor Lambert Simnel was crowned in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland as "King Edward VI".
• 1626 - Peter Minuit bought Manhattan in exchange for trade goods valued at 60 guilders.
• 1822 - Troops led by Antonio José de Sucre secured the independence of Quito from Spain.
• 1911 - The New York Public Library opened.
• 1941 - World War II: The German battleship Bismarck sank the British battlecruiser HMS Hood in the Battle of the Denmark Strait.

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• 1420 - Henry the Navigator became Grandmaster of the Order of Christ, the Portuguese successor to the Knights Templar.
• 1521 - Martin Luther was declared an outlaw and a heretic by the Diet of Worms.
• 1810 - May Revolution: Citizens of Buenos Aires ousted the Spanish viceroy and established the first independent local government in Argentina.
• 1895 - The Republic of Formosa was inaugurated in Taiwan, proclaiming independence from Qing China.
• 1961 - Project Apollo, with the goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth before the decade is out" was announced by President John F. Kennedy.

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European flag

• 1805 - Napoléon Bonaparte was crowned King of Italy in Milan with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.
• 1896 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average was first published by Charles Dow as a stock market index.
• 1918 - The Democratic Republic of Georgia was proclaimed.
• 1972 – Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in Moscow, concluding SALT I.
• 1986 – The European Community adopted the European flag.

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• 1328 - Philip VI of France was crowned at Notre-Dame de Reims, beginning the Valois Dynasty.
• 1860 - Italian unification: Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Redshirts launched their attack on Palermo, capital of the Two Sicilies.
• 1919 - The flying boat NC-4 arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, becoming the first aircraft to complete a transatlantic flight.
• 1923 - The first 24 heures du Mans sports car endurance race was held in Le Mans, France.
• 1999 - Slobodan Milošević was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.

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• 1588 - The Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon for the English Channel.
• 1892 - The Sierra Club was founded in San Francisco by environmentalist John Muir.
• 1905 - Japanese forces led by Admiral Togo Heihachiro destroyed the Russian Baltic Fleet and won the Battle of Tsushima, the decisive naval battle in the Russo-Japanese War.
• 1936 - Alan Turing submitted "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem" for publication.
• 1961 - A newspaper article by Peter Benenson started a letter-writing campaign that grew and became Amnesty Internati