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May 1 in History

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Historical Events on May 1

475 BC

Roman consul Publius Valerius Poplicola celebrates a Roman triumph for his victory over Veii and the Sabines.
305

Diocletian and Maximian retire from the office of Roman emperor.
524

King Sigismund of Burgundy is executed at Orléans after an 8-year reign and is succeeded by his brother Godomar.
880

The Nea Ekklesia is inaugurated in Constantinople, setting the model for all later cross-in-square Orthodox churches.
1169

Norman mercenaries land at Bannow Bay in Leinster, marking the beginning of the Norman invasion of Ireland.
1328

Wars of Scottish Independence end: By the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton the Kingdom of England recognises the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state.
1455

Battle of Arkinholm, Royal forces end the Black Douglas hegemony in Scotland.
1576

Stephen Báthory, the reigning Prince of Transylvania, marries Anna Jagiellon and they become co-rulers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1707

The Act of Union joins the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1753

Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.
1759

Josiah Wedgwood founds the Wedgwood pottery company in Great Britain.
1776

Establishment of the Illuminati in Ingolstadt (Upper Bavaria), by Jesuit-taught Adam Weishaupt.
1778

American Revolution: The Battle of Crooked Billet begins in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.
1785

Kamehameha I, the king of Hawaiʻi, defeats Kalanikūpule and establishes the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.
1786

In Vienna, Austria, Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro is performed for the first time.
1794

War of the Pyrenees: The Battle of Boulou ends, in which French forces defeat the Spanish and regain nearly all the land they lost to Spain in 1793.
1820

Execution of the Cato Street Conspirators
1840

The Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, is issued in the United Kingdom.
1844

Hong Kong Police Force, the world's second modern police force and Asia's first, is established.
1846

The few remaining Mormons left in Nauvoo, Illinois, formally dedicate the Nauvoo Temple.
1851

Queen Victoria opens The Great Exhibition at The Crystal Palace in London.
1856

The Province of Isabela was created in the Philippines in honor of Queen Isabela II.
1862

American Civil War: The Union Army completes its capture of New Orleans.
1863

American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville begins.
1865

The Empire of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay sign the Treaty of the Triple Alliance.
1866

The Memphis Race Riots begin. In three days time, 46 blacks and two whites were killed. Reports of the atrocities influenced passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1869

The Folies Bergère opens in Paris.
1875

Alexandra Palace reopens after being burned down in a fire in 1873.
1884

Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States.
1884

Moses Fleetwood Walker becomes the first black person to play in a professional baseball game in the United States.
1885

The original Chicago Board of Trade Building opens for business.
1886

Rallies are held throughout the United States demanding the eight-hour work day, culminating in the Haymarket affair in Chicago, in commemoration of which May 1 is celebrated as International Workers' Day in many countries.
1893

The World's Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago.
1894

Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, arrives in Washington, D.C.
1898

Spanish-American War: Battle of Manila Bay: The United States Navy destroys the Spanish Pacific fleet in the first major battle of the war.
1900

The Scofield Mine disaster kills over 200 men in Scofield, Utah in what is to date the fifth-worst mining accident in United States history.
1915

The RMS Lusitania departs from New York City on her 202nd, and final, crossing of the North Atlantic. Six days later, the ship is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,198 lives.
1919

German troops enter Munich to squash the Bavarian Soviet Republic.
1925

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is officially founded. Today it is the largest trade union in the world, with 134 million members.
1927

The Union Labor Life Insurance Company is founded by the American Federation of Labor.
1929

The 7.2 Mw Kopet Dag earthquake shakes the Iran-Turkmenistan border region with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing up to 3,800 and injuring 1,121.
1930

The dwarf planet Pluto is officially named.
1931

The Empire State Building is dedicated in New York City.
1941

World War II: German forces launch a major attack on Tobruk.
1944

World War II: Two hundred Communist prisoners are shot by the Germans at Kaisariani, Athens in reprisal for the killing of General Franz Krech by partisans at Molaoi.
1945

World War II: A German newsreader officially announces that Adolf Hitler has "fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany". The Soviet flag is raised over the Reich Chancellery, by order of Stalin.
1945

World War II: Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda commit suicide in the Reich Garden outside the Führerbunker. Their children are also killed by having cyanide pills inserted into their mouths by their mother, Magda.
1945

World War II: Forces of the Soviet Red Army liberate Allied prisoners of war imprisoned at Stalag Luft I near Barth, Germany.
1945

World War II: Up to 2,500 people die in a mass suicide in Demmin following the advance of the Red Army.
1945

World War II: Yugoslav Partisans liberate Trieste.
1946

Start of three-year Pilbara strike of Indigenous Australians.
1946

The Paris Peace Conference concludes that the islands of the Dodecanese should be returned to Greece by Italy.
1947

Portella della Ginestra massacre against May Day celebrations in Sicily by the bandit and separatist leader Salvatore Giuliano where 11 persons are killed and 33 wounded.
1950

Guam is organized as a United States commonwealth.
1956

The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.
1956

A doctor in Japan reports an "epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system", marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.
1957

Thirty-four people are killed when a Vickers Viking airliner crashes in Hampshire, England.
1960

Formation of the western Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra; also known as "Maharashtra Day".
1960

Cold War: U-2 incident: Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis.
1961

The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaims Cuba a socialist nation and abolishes elections.
1965

Battle of Dong-Yin, a naval conflict between ROC and PRC, takes place.
1970

Protests erupt following the announcement by Richard Nixon that American and South Vietnamese forces would attack Vietnamese communists in a Cambodian Campaign.
1971

Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) takes over operation of U.S. passenger rail service.
1974

The Argentine terrorist organization Montoneros is expelled from Plaza de Mayo by president Juan Perón.
1977

Thirty-six people are killed in Taksim Square, Istanbul, during the Labour Day celebrations.
1978

Japan's Naomi Uemura, travelling by dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone.
1982

Operation Black Buck: The Royal Air Force attacks the Argentine Air Force during Falklands War.
1983

The Sydney Entertainment Centre is opened.
1987

Pope John Paul II beatifies Edith Stein, a Jewish-born Carmelite nun who was gassed in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
1989

Disney-MGM Studios opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.
1990

The former Philippine Episcopal Church (supervised by the Episcopal Church of the United States of America) is granted full autonomy and raised to the status of an Autocephalous Anglican Province and renamed the Episcopal Church in the Philippines.
1993

Dingiri Banda Wijetunga became president of Sri Lanka automatically after killing of R Premadasa in LTTE bomb explosion
1994

Three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna is killed in an accident whilst leading the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola.
1995

Croatian forces launch Operation Flash during the Croatian War of Independence.
1999

The body of British climber George Mallory is found on Mount Everest, 75 years after his disappearance in 1924.
1999

SpongeBob SquarePants premieres on Nickelodeon after the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards.
2001

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declares the existence of "a state of rebellion", hours after thousands of supporters of her arrested predecessor, Joseph Estrada, storm towards the presidential palace at the height of the EDSA III rebellion.
2002

OpenOffice.org released version 1.0, the first stable version of the software.
2003

Invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (off the coast of California), U.S. President George W. Bush declares that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended".
2004

Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin.
2009

Same-sex marriage is legalized in Sweden.
2011

Pope John Paul II is beatified by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.

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