May in History

Historical Events on May

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.

2011 Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI's most wanted man, is killed by the United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

1494 Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica and claims it for Spain.

1927 To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf is first published.

2001 During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque.

1797 War of the First Coalition: Napoleon I of France conquers Venice.

1937 The Duke and Duchess of York are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Westminster Abbey.

1985 Police release a bomb on MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia to end a stand-off, killing six adults and five children, and destroying the homes of 250 city residents.

1996 Severe thunderstorms and a tornado in Bangladesh kill 600 people.

1800 The process of the U.S. Government moving the United States capital city from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. begins.

1915 The last British Liberal Party government (led by Herbert Henry Asquith) falls.

1940 World War II: Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium.

1989 The Chinese authorities declare martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations, setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square massacre.

1990 The first post-Communist presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Romania.

1851 Slavery is abolished in Colombia, South America.

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.

1988 The U.S. President Ronald Reagan begins his first visit to the Soviet Union when he arrives in Moscow for a superpower summit with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

1999 Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.

Famous Birthdays on May

1758 Maximilien Robespierre

1987 Andy Murray

1969 Tucker Carlson

1920 Pope John Paul II

1987 Novak Djokovic

1949 Jeremy Corbyn

1944 Rudy Giuliani

Famous Deaths on May

1994 Ayrton Senna

2009 Jack Kemp

1821 Napoleon

1998 Frank Sinatra

2017 Chris Cornell

1964 Jawaharlal Nehru

2004 Archibald Cox

1431 Joan of Arc

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