May 01:
1941: Citizen Kane premiered in New York.
1960: Soviet Union shot down U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers.
May 02
1863: Confederate General Stonewall Jackson was accidently shot by one of his own men during the battle of Chancellorsville (Virginia). He died eight days later.
1890: Oklahoma Territory was organized.
1972: J. Edgar Hoover died.
May 03
1802: Washington D.C. was incorporated as a city.
1921: West Virginia imposed the first state sales tax.
1937: Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Gone with the Wind.
May 04
1776: Rhode Island declares its freedom from England two months before the Declaration of Independence is signed.
1886: During the Haymarket Square labor demonstration for an eight hour work day in Chicago, a riot ensues after a bomb explodes.
1970: Four people are killed at Kent State.
May 05
1818: Karl Marx is born.
1821: Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile on the island of St. Helena.
1925: John T. Scopes is arrested in Tennessee for teaching evolution.
May 06
1882: Congress overrides President Chester Arthur's veto, and passes the Chinese Exclusion Act, which bans Chinese immigrants from the US for ten years. Similar acts are passed in 1892 and 1902.
1935: The WPA (Works Progress Administration) begins operations.
May 07
1943: The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, published.
1945: War ended with Germany.
May 08
1899: Friedrich August von Hayek born in Vienna, Austria.
May 09
May 10
1818: Paul Revere died in Boston, Mass.
1924: J. Edgar Hoover is given job as director of the FBI.
1940: Neville Chamberlain resigned and Winston Churchill formed a new government.
1968: Preliminary peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam begin in Paris.
May 11
1949: Berlin blockade ended as the Soviet Union announced the reopening of East German land routes.
May 13
1607: The English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, is founded.
May 14
1787: Delegates began gathering in Philadelphia to draw up a Constitution.
1796: Dr. Edward Jenner administered the first small pox vaccine in England.
1887: Lysander Spooner dies at age 79.
May 15
1911: The US Supreme Court orders the dissolution of Standard Oil Company, ruling it was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
May 16
1868: The US Senate, by one vote, fails to impeach President Andrew Johnson.
May 17
1792: The New York Stock Exchange is founded under a tree on what is now Wall Street.
1954: The US Supreme Court issues Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
1973: The Senate Select Committee opens the Watergate Hearings.
May 18
May 19
May 20
1899: First driver is arrested (and jailed) for speeding.
1832: First Democratic National Convention begins in Baltimore. Andrew Jackson is nominated for a second term.
1956: US explodes first airborn hydrogen bomb over the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.
1941: German U-boat sinks the American freighter SS Robin Moore in the South Atlantic.
May 22
1939: Hilter and Mussolini sign Pact of Steel, committing Germany and Italy to a military alliance.
May 23
1788: South Carolina becomes the eighteenth state to ratify the Constitution.
1873: Canada's Northwest Mounted Police Force is established.
1937: John D. Rockefeller dies.
May 24
May 25
1787: The Constitutional Convention convenes in Philadelphia.
1803: Ralph Waldo Emerson born in Boston, Mass.
1925: John T. Scopes is arrested in Tennessee for teaching evolution.
May 26
1521: Martin Luther is banned by the Edict of Worms because of his religious beliefs and writings.
1868: Andrew Johnson is acquitted by the Senate when the vote fee one short of the necessary two-thirds vote.
1940: Allied evacuations from Dunkirk, France, begins.
May 27
1647: This is the first recorded execution of an alleged witch in the Colonies. The accused is hanged, not burned.
1935: US Supreme Court strikes down the National Industrial Recovery Act.
1937: The Golden Gate bridge opens.
1941: The Bismark sinks after a naval engagement that began of May 24th.
May 28
1940: Belgian army surrenders to Nazi Germany.
1987: Mathias Rust, 19 year old German, landed an airplane in the middle of Red Square.
May 29
1736: Patrick Henry born.
1765: Patrick Henry denounces the Stamp Act before Virginia's House of Burgesses. When some of those present cry "Treason, treason," Henry replies: "If this be treason, make the most of it!"
1790: Rhode Island becomes 13th state to ratify the US Constitution.
May 30
1922: The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated by Chief Justice William Howard Taft.
May 31
1790: First US Copyright law is passed.
1962: Adolf Eichmann, Gestapo officer, is hanged in Israel.
Last revised March 5, 2003
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