Historical Events on this Day in History - per Wikipedia

• June 8

   
• 68 – The Roman Senate proclaims Galba as emperor.
• 218 – Battle of Antioch: Elagabalus defeats with support of the Syrian legions the forces of emperor Macrinus. He flees, but is captured near Chalcedon and later executed in Cappadocia.
• 793 – Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, commonly accepted as the beginning of the Scandinavian invasion of England.
• 1191 – Richard I arrives in Acre (Israel) thus beginning his crusade.
• 1405 – Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York and Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk, are executed in York on Henry IV's orders.
• 1690 – Siddi general Yadi Sakat, razes the Mazagon Fort in Mumbai.
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Trois-Rivières – American attackers are driven back at Trois-Rivières, Quebec.
• 1783 – The volcano Laki, in Iceland, begins an eight-month eruption which kills over 9,000 people and starts a seven-year famine.
• 1789 – James Madison introduces twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in the House of Representatives; by 1791, ten of them are ratified by the state legislatures and become the Bill of Rights; another is eventually ratified in 1992 to become the 27th Amendment.
• 1794 – Robespierre inaugurates the French Revolution's new state religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, with large organized festivals all across France.
• 1856 – A group of 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, arrives at Norfolk Island commencing the Third Settlement of the Island.
• 1861 – American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.
• 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Cross Keys – Confederate forces under General Stonewall Jackson save the Army of Northern Virginia from a Union assault on the James Peninsula led by General George B. McClellan.
• 1887 – Herman Hollerith applies for US patent #395,791 for the 'Art of Applying Statistics' — his punched card calculator.
• 1906 – Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.
• 1912 – Carl Laemmle incorporates Universal Pictures.
• 1928 – Second Northern Expedition: The National Revolutionary Army captures Peking, whose name is changed to Beiping ("Northern peace").
• 1941 – World War II: Allies invade Syria and Lebanon.
• 1942 – World War II: Japanese imperial submarines I-21 and I-24 shell the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle.
• 1948 – Milton Berle hosts the debut of Texaco Star Theater.
• 1949 – Celebrities Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson are named in an FBI report as Communist Party members.
• 1949 – George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is published.
• 1950 – Sir Thomas Blamey becomes the only Australian-born Field Marshal in Australian history.
• 1953 – Flint-Worcester tornado outbreak sequence: A tornado hits Flint, Michigan, and kills 115.
• 1953 – The United States Supreme Court rules that Washington, D.C. restaurants could not refuse to serve black patrons.
• 1959 – The USS Barbero and United States Postal Service attempt the delivery of mail via Missile Mail.
• 1966 – One of the XB-70 Valkyrie prototypes is destroyed in a mid-air collision with a F-104 Starfighter chase plane during a photo shoot. NASA pilot Joseph A. Walker and United States Air Force test pilot Carl Cross are both killed.
• 1966 – Topeka, Kansas is devastated by a tornado that registers as an "F5" on the Fujita Scale: the first to exceed US$100 million in damages. Sixteen people are killed, hundreds more injured, and thousands of homes damaged or destroyed.
• 1967 – Six-Day War: The USS Liberty incident occurs, killing 34 and wounding 171.
• 1968 – Robert F. Kennedy's funeral takes place at the Basilica of St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City.
• 1972 – Vietnam War: Associated Press photographer Nick Ut takes his Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a naked 9-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc running down a road after being burned by napalm.
• 1982 – Bluff Cove Air Attacks during the Falklands War: 56 British servicemen are killed by Argentine air attack on two landing ships : RFA Sir Galahad and RFA Sir Tristram.
• 1984 – Homosexuality is declared legal in the Australian state of New South Wales.
• 1987 – New Zealand's Labour government establishes a national nuclear-free zone under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987
• 1992 – The first World Ocean Day is celebrated, coinciding with the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
• 1995 – Downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.
• 2004 – The first Venus Transit in modern history takes place, the previous one being in 1882.
• 2007 – Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, is hit by the State's worst storms and flooding in 30 years resulting in the death of nine people and the grounding of trade ship, the MV Pasha Bulker.
• 2008 – The Akihabara massacre takes place in the Akihabara shopping quarter in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. Tomohiro Katō drives a two-ton truck into a crowd before leaving the truck and attacking people with a knife.

Historical Events on this Day in History - per Wikipedia

June 4

• 1039 – Henry III becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
• 1411 – King Charles VI granted a monopoly for the ripening of Roquefort cheese to the people of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon as they had been doing for centuries.
• 1615 – Siege of Osaka: Forces under the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu take Osaka Castle in Japan.
• 1760 – Great Upheaval: New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia, Canada taken from the Acadians.
• 1783 – The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon).
• 1792 – Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain.
• 1794 – British troops capture Port-au-Prince in Haiti.
• 1802 – Grieving over the death of his wife, Marie Clotilde of France, King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia abdicates his throne in favor of his brother, Victor Emmanuel.
• 1812 – Following Louisiana's admittance as a U.S. state, the Louisiana Territory is renamed the Missouri Territory.
• 1825 – French American Revolutionary War General Lafayette speaks at what would become Lafayette Square, Buffalo, during his visit to the United States.
• 1859 – Italian Independence wars: In the Battle of Magenta, the French army, under Louis-Napoleon, defeat the Austrian army.
• 1862 – American Civil War: Confederate troops evacuate Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River, leaving the way clear for Union troops to take Memphis, Tennessee.
• 1876 – An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco, California, via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving New York City.
• 1878 – Cyprus Convention: The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to the United Kingdom but retains nominal title.
• 1896 – Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test run.
• 1912 – Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage.
• 1913 – Emily Davison, a suffragette, runs out in front of King George V's horse, Anmer, at the Epsom Derby. She is trampled, never regains consciousness and dies a few days later.
• 1916 – World War I: Russia opens the Brusilov Offensive with an artillery barrage of Austro-Hungarian lines in Galicia.
• 1917 – The first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded: Laura E. Richards, Maude H. Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer for biography (for Julia Ward Howe). Jean Jules Jusserand receives the first Pulitzer for history for his work With Americans of Past and Present Days. Herbert B. Swope receives the first Pulitzer for journalism for his work for the New York World.
• 1919 – Women's rights: The U.S. Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.
• 1920 – Hungary loses 71% of its territory and 63% of its population when the Treaty of Trianon is signed in Paris.
• 1928 – President of the Republic of China Zhang Zuolin is assassinated by Japanese agents.
• 1939 – Holocaust: The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.
• 1940 – World War II: The Dunkirk evacuation ends – British forces complete evacuation of 300,000 troops from Dunkirk in France. To rally the morale of the country, Winston Churchill delivers his famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.
• 1942 – World War II: The Battle of Midway begins. Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo orders a strike on Midway Island by much of the Imperial Japanese navy.
• 1943 – A military coup in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.
• 1944 – World War II: A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures the German submarine U-505 – the first time a U.S. Navy vessel had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century.
• 1944 – World War II: Rome falls to the Allies, the first Axis capital to fall.
• 1957 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous Power of Nonviolence speech at the University of California, Berkeley.
• 1961 – In the Vienna summit, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev sparks the Berlin Crisis by threatening to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and ending American, British and French access to East Berlin.
• 1965 – Duane Earl Pope robbed the Farmers' State Bank of Big Springs, Nebraska, killing three people execution style and severely wounding a fourth. The crime landed Pope on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list.
• 1967 – Stockport Air Disaster: British Midland flight G-ALHG crashes in Hopes Carr, Stockport, killing 72 passengers and crew.
• 1970 – Tonga gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1973 – A patent for the ATM is granted to Donald Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain.
• 1974 – During Ten Cent Beer Night, inebriated Cleveland Indians fans start a riot, causing the game to be forfeited to the Texas Rangers.
• 1975 – Governor of California Jerry Brown signs the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act into law, the first law in the U.S. giving farmworkers collective bargaining rights.
• 1979 – Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings takes power in Ghana after a military coup in which General Fred Akuffo is overthrown.
• 1986 – Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.
• 1988 – Three cars on a train carrying hexogen to Kazakhstan explode in Arzamas, Gorky Oblast, USSR, killing 91 and injuring about 1,500.
• 1989 – Ali Khamenei is elected the new Supreme Leader of Islamic republic of Iran by the Assembly of Experts after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
• 1989 – The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army.
• 1989 – Solidarity's victory in the first (somewhat) free parliamentary elections in post-war Poland sparks off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe, leads to the creation of the so-called Contract Sejm and begins the Autumn of Nations.
• 1989 – Ufa train disaster: A natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russia, kills 575 as two trains passing each other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline.
• 1996 – The first flight of Ariane 5 explodes after roughly 20 seconds. It was a Cluster mission.
• 1998 – Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
• 2001 – Gyanendra, the last King of Nepal, ascends to the throne after the massacre in the Royal Palace.

 

Historical Events on this Day in History - per Wikipedia

June 2

• 455 – Sack of Rome: Vandals enter Rome, and plunder the city for two weeks
• 1098 – First Crusade: The first Siege of Antioch ends as Crusader forces take the city. The second siege would later start on June 7.
• 1615 – First Récollet missionaries arrive at Quebec City, from Rouen, France.
• 1676 – Franco-Dutch War: France ensured the supremacy of its naval fleet for the remainder of the war with its victory in the Battle of Palermo.
• 1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Found guilty, she is hanged on June 10.
• 1763 – Pontiac's Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison's attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.
• 1774 – Intolerable Acts: The Quartering Act is enacted, allowing a governor in colonial America to house British soldiers in uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings if suitable quarters are not provided.
• 1793 – French Revolution: François Hanriot, leader of the Parisian National Guard, arrests 22 Girondists selected by Jean-Paul Marat, setting the stage for the Reign of Terror.
• 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: A Franco-Spanish fleet recaptures Diamond Rock, an uninhabited island at the entrance to the bay leading to Fort-de-France, from the British.
• 1835 – P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States.
• 1848 – The Slavic congress in Prague begins.
• 1855 – The Portland Rum Riot occurs in Portland, Maine.
• 1866 – Fenian raids: Fenians are victorious in both the Battle of Ridgeway and the Battle of Fort Erie.
• 1876 – Hristo Botev, a national revolutionary of Bulgaria, is killed in Stara Planina
• 1886 – U.S. President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom in the White House, becoming the only president to wed in the executive mansion.
• 1896 – Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his newest invention: the radio.
• 1909 – Alfred Deakin becomes Prime Minister of Australia for the third time.
• 1910 – Charles Rolls, co-founder of Rolls-Royce Limited, becomes the first man to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by plane.
• 1919 – Anarchists simultaneously set off bombs in eight separate U.S. cities.
• 1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.
• 1925 – Because of a lineup revision by Miller Huggins, Wally Pipp is replaced by Lou Gehrig at first base for the New York Yankees, beginning a streak of 2,130 consecutive games played, topped only by Cal Ripken, Jr. in 1995. Exactly 16 years later to the day, in 1941, Gehrig dies from Amyotropic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
• 1941 – World War II: German paratoopers murder Greek civilians in the village of Kondomari.
• 1946 – Birth of the Italian Republic: In a referendum, Italians vote to turn Italy from a monarchy into a Republic. After the referendum the king of Italy Umberto II di Savoia is exiled.
• 1953 – The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, who is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth, the first major international event to be televised.
• 1955 – The USSR and Yugoslavia sign the Belgrade declaration and thus normalize relations between both countries, discontinued since 1948.
• 1962 – During the 1962 FIFA World Cup, police had to intervene multiple times in fights between Chilean and Italian players in one of the most violent games in football history.
• 1966 – Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft land on another world.
• 1967 – Luis Monge is executed in Colorado's gas chamber, in the last pre-Furman execution in the United States.
• 1967 – Protests in West Berlin against the arrival of the Shah of Iran turn into riots, during which Benno Ohnesorg is killed by a police officer. His death results in the founding of the terrorist group Movement 2 June.
• 1979 – Pope John Paul II first official visit to his native Poland, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country.
• 1983 – After an emergency landing because of an in-flight fire, twenty-three passengers aboard Air Canada Flight 797 are killed when a flashover occurs as the plane's doors open. Because of this incident, numerous new safety regulations are put in place.
• 1990 – The Lower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak spawns 66 confirmed tornadoes in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, killing 12. Petersburg, Indiana, is the hardest-hit town in the outbreak, with 6 deaths.
• 1995 – United States Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady's F-16 is shot down over Bosnia while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone.
• 1997 – In Denver, Colorado, Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
• 1999 – The Bhutan Broadcasting Service brings television transmissions to the Kingdom for the first time.
• 2003 – Europe launches its first voyage to another planet, Mars. The European Space Agency's Mars Express probe launches from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan.
• 2004 – Ken Jennings begins his 74-game winning streak on the syndicated game show Jeopardy!
• 2008 – Al-Qaeda detonates a suicide car bomb at the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan.
• 2010 – Derrick Bird goes on a killing spree in Cumbria, killing 13 and injuring 11, see Cumbria shootings.

 

Historical Events on this Day in History - per Wikipedia

May 25

• 567 BC – Servius Tullius, king of Rome, celebrates a triumph for his victory over the Etruscans.
• 240 BC – First recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.
• 1085 – Alfonso VI of Castile takes Toledo, Spain back from the Moors.
• 1420 – Henry the Navigator is appointed governor of the Order of Christ.
• 1521 – The Diet of Worms ends when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw.
• 1659 – Richard Cromwell resigns as Lord Protector of England following the restoration of the Long Parliament, beginning a second brief period of the republican government called the Commonwealth of England.
• 1738 – A treaty between Pennsylvania and Maryland ends the Conojocular War with settlement of a boundary dispute and exchange of prisoners.
• 1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: The Carnew massacre, Dunlavin massacre and Carlow massacre takes place.
• 1809 – Chuquisaca Revolution: a group of patriots in Chuquisaca (modern day Sucre) revolt against the Spanish Empire, starting the South American Wars of Independence.
• 1810 – May Revolution: citizens of Buenos Aires expel Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros during the May week, starting the Argentine War of Independence.
• 1819 – The Argentine Constitution of 1819 is promulgated.
• 1833 – The Chilean Constitution of 1833 is promulgated.
• 1837 – The Rebels of Lower Canada (Quebec) rebel against the British for freedom.
• 1865 – In Mobile, Alabama, 300 are killed when an ordnance depot explodes.
• 1878 – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore opens at the Opera Comique in London.
• 1895 – Playwright, poet, and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" and sentenced to serve two years in prison.
• 1895 – The Republic of Formosa is formed, with Tang Ching-sung as its president.
• 1914 – The United Kingdom's House of Commons passes the Home Rule Act for devolution in Ireland.
• 1925 – Scopes Trial: John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
• 1926 – Sholom Schwartzbard assassinates Symon Petliura, the head of the Paris-based government-in-exile of Ukrainian People's Republic.
• 1935 – Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks three world records and ties a fourth at the Big Ten Conference Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
• 1936 – The Remington Rand strike, led by the American Federation of Labor, begins.
• 1938 – Spanish Civil War: The bombing of Alicante takes place, with 313 deaths.
• 1946 – The parliament of Transjordan makes Abdullah I of Jordan their Emir.
• 1953 – Nuclear testing: At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conduct their first and only nuclear artillery test.
• 1953 – The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston.
• 1955 – In the United States, a night time F5 tornado strikes the small city of Udall, Kansas, killing 80 and injuring 273. It is the deadliest tornado to ever occur in the state and the 23rd deadliest in the U.S.
• 1955 – First ascent of Kangchenjunga (8,586 m.), the third highest mountain in the world, by a British expedition led by Joe Brown and George Band.
• 1961 – Apollo program: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of the Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the Moon" before the end of the decade.
• 1962 – The Old Bay Line, the last overnight steamboat service in the United States, goes out of business.
• 1963 – In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Organisation of African Unity is established.
• 1966 – Explorer program: Explorer 32 launches.
• 1966 – The first prominent dàzìbào during the Cultural Revolution in China is posted at Peking University.
• 1967 – Celtic F.C. from Glasgow, Scotland becomes the first ever Northern European team to win the European Cup; with previous winners being from Spain, Italy and Portugal.
• 1973 – HNS Velos (D-16), while participating in a NATO exercise and in order to protest against the dictatorship in Greece, anchored at Fiumicino, Italy, refusing to return to Greece.
• 1977 – Star Wars (retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981) is released in theaters, inspiring the Jediism religion and Geek Pride Day holiday.
• 1979 – American Airlines Flight 191: In Chicago, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 crashes during takeoff at O'Hare International Airport killing 271 on board and two people on the ground.
• 1979 – Six-year-old Etan Patz disappears from the street just two blocks away from his New York City home, prompting an international search for the child, and causing U.S. President Ronald Reagan to designate May 25th as National Missing Children's Day (in 1983).
• 1981 – In Riyadh, the Gulf Cooperation Council is created between Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
• 1982 – HMS Coventry is sunk during the Falklands War.
• 1985 – Bangladesh is hit by a tropical cyclone and storm surge, which kills approximately 10,000 people.
• 1997 – A military coup in Sierra Leone replaces President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah with Major Johnny Paul Koromah.
• 1999 – The United States House of Representatives releases the Cox Report which details the People's Republic of China's nuclear espionage against the U.S. over the prior two decades.
• 2000 – Liberation Day of Lebanon. Israel withdraws its army from most of the Lebanese territory after 22 years of its first invasion in 1978.
• 2001 – 32-year-old Erik Weihenmayer, of Boulder, Colorado, becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
• 2002 – China Airlines Flight 611: A Boeing 747-200 breaks apart in mid-air and plunges into the Taiwan Strait killing 225 people.
• 2002 – A train crash in Tenga, Mozambique kills 197 people.
• 2009 – North Korea allegedly tests its second nuclear device. Following the nuclear test, Pyongyang also conducted several missile tests building tensions in the international community.
• 2011 – Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her twenty five year run of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

 

Historical Events on this Day in History - per Wikipedia

May 24

• 1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt.
• 1276 – Magnus Ladulås is crowned King of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral.
• 1487 – The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel is crowned in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII's reign.
• 1595 – Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library.
• 1621 – The Protestant Union is formally dissolved.
• 1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.
• 1689 – The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration protecting Protestants. Roman Catholics are intentionally excluded.
• 1738 – John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day and a church service is generally held on the preceding Sunday.
• 1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins.
• 1822 – Battle of Pichincha: Antonio José de Sucre secures the independence of the Presidency of Quito.
• 1830 – Mary Had a Little Lamb by Sarah Josepha Hale is published.
• 1830 – The first revenue trains in the United States begin service on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between Baltimore, Maryland and Ellicott's Mills, Maryland.
• 1832 – The First Kingdom of Greece is declared in the London Conference.
• 1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland to inaugurate the first telegraph line.
• 1846 – Mexican-American War: General Zachary Taylor captures Monterrey.
• 1856 – John Brown and his men murder five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas.
• 1861 – American Civil War: Union troops occupy Alexandria, Virginia.
• 1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.
• 1895 – Henry Irving becomes the first person from the theatre to be knighted.
• 1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State.
• 1901 – Seventy-eight miners die in the Caerphilly pit disaster in South Wales.
• 1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary.
• 1921 – The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti opens.
• 1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).
• 1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 at Crosley Field.
• 1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.
• 1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks the then pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen.
• 1943 – Holocaust: Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
• 1948 – Arab–Israeli War: Egypt captures the Israeli kibbutz of Yad Mordechai, but the five-day effort gives Israeli forces time to prepare enough to stop the Egyptian advance a week later.
• 1956 – Conclusion of the Sixth Buddhist Council on Vesak Day, marking the 2,500 year anniversary after the Lord Buddha's Parinibbāna.
• 1956 – The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland
• 1958 – United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.
• 1960 – Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt.
• 1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus.
• 1961 – Cyprus enters the Council of Europe.
• 1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.
• 1967 – Egypt imposes a blockade and siege of the Red Sea coast of Israel.
• 1968 – FLQ separatists bomb the U.S. consulate in Quebec City.
• 1970 – The drilling of the Kola Superdeep Borehole begins in the Soviet Union.
• 1973 – Earl Jellicoe resigns as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords.
• 1976 – The London to Washington, D.C. Concorde service begins.
• 1976 – The Judgement of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine.
• 1980 – The International Court of Justice calls for the release of United States embassy hostages in Tehran, Iran. The hostages would not be freed until the following January.
• 1982 – Liberation of Khorramshahr: Iranians recapture of the port city of Khorramshahr from the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq War.
• 1988 – Section 28 of the United Kingdom's Local Government Act 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, is enacted.
• 1989 – Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, is awarded £600,000 in damages (later reduced to £60,000 on appeal) after winning a libel action against Private Eye.
• 1990 – A car carrying American Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney explodes in Oakland, California, critically injuring both.
• 1991 – Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia.
• 1991 – Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
• 1992 – The last Thai dictator, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, resigns following pro-democracy protests.
• 1994 – Four men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 are each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
• 2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.
• 2001 – Mountain climbing: 15-year-old Sherpa Temba Tsheri becomes the youngest person to climb to the top of Mount Everest.
• 2001 – The Versailles wedding hall disaster in Jerusalem, Israel, kills 23 and injures over 200
• 2002 – Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty.
• 2004 – Communications in North Korea: North Korea bans mobile phones.