- 1009 – Lombard Revolt: Lombard forces led by Melus revolt in Bari against the Byzantine Catepanate of Italy.
- 1386 – England and Portugal formally ratify their alliance with the signing of the Treaty of Windsor, making it the oldest diplomatic alliance in the world which is still in force.
- 1450 – ‘Abd al-Latif (Timurid monarch) is assassinated.
- 1540 – Hernando de Alarcón sets sail on an expedition to the Gulf of California.
- 1662 – The figure who later became Mr. Punch makes his first recorded appearance in England.[1]
- 1671 – Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempts to steal England’s Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.
- 1726 – Five men arrested during a raid on Mother Clap‘s molly house in London are executed at Tyburn.
- 1864 – Second Schleswig War: The Danish navy defeats the Austrian and Prussian fleets in the Battle of Heligoland.
- 1865 – American Civil War: Nathan Bedford Forrest surrenders his forces at Gainesville, Alabama.
- 1865 – American Civil War: President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation ending belligerent rights of the rebels and enjoining foreign nations to intern or expel Confederate ships.
- 1873 – Der Krach: Vienna stock market crash heralds the Long Depression.
- 1877 – Mihail Kogălniceanu reads, in the Chamber of Deputies, the Declaration of Independence of Romania. This day became the Independence Day of Romania.
- 1901 – Australia opens its first national parliament in Melbourne.
- 1911 – The works of Gabriele D’Annunzio are placed in the Index of Forbidden Books by the Vatican.
- 1915 – World War I: Second Battle of Artois between German and French forces.
- 1918 – World War I: Germany repels Britain’s second attempt to blockade the port of Ostend, Belgium.
- 1920 – Polish–Soviet War: The Polish army under General Edward Rydz-Śmigły celebrates its capture of Kiev with a victory parade on Khreshchatyk.
- 1926 – Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett claim to have flown over the North Pole (later discovery of Byrd’s diary appears to cast some doubt on the claim.)
- 1927 – Old Parliament House, Canberra officially opens.[2]
- 1936 – Italy formally annexes Ethiopia after taking the capital Addis Ababa on May 5.
- 1941 – World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.
- 1942 – The Holocaust in Ukraine: The SS executes 588 Jewish residents of the Podolian town of Zinkiv (Khmelnytska oblast. The Zoludek Ghetto (in Belarus) is destroyed and all its inhabitants executed or deported.
- 1945 – World War II: The final German Instrument of Surrender is signed at the Soviet headquarters in Berlin-Karlshorst.
- 1946 – King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy abdicates and is succeeded by Umberto II.
- 1948 – Czechoslovakia‘s Ninth-of-May Constitution comes into effect.
- 1950 – Robert Schuman presents the “Schuman Declaration“, is considered by some people to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.
- 1955 – Cold War: West Germany joins NATO.
- 1960 – The Food and Drug Administration announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle‘s Enovid, making Enovid the world’s first approved oral contraceptive pill.
- 1961 – FCC Chairman Newton N. Minow gives his Wasteland Speech.
- 1969 – Carlos Lamarca leads the first urban guerrilla action against the military dictatorship of Brazil in São Paulo, by robbing two banks.
- 1974 – Watergate scandal: The United States House Committee on the Judiciary opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon.
- 1979 – Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is executed by firing squad in Tehran, prompting the mass exodus of the once 100,000-strong Jewish community of Iran.
- 1980 – In Florida, Liberian freighter MV Summit Venture collides with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, making a 1,400-ft. section of the southbound span collapse. Thirty-five people in six cars and a Greyhound bus fall 150 ft. into the water and die.
- 1980 – In Norco, California, five masked gunmen hold up a Security Pacific bank, leading to a violent shoot-out and one of the largest pursuits in California history. Two of the gunmen and one police officer are killed and thirty-three police and civilian vehicles are destroyed in the chase.
- 1987 – LOT Flight 5055 Tadeusz Kościuszko crashes after takeoff in Warsaw, Poland, killing all 183 people on board.
- 1988 – New Parliament House, Canberra officially opens.[2]
- 1992 – Armenian forces capture Shusha, marking a major turning point in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
- 1992 – Westray Mine disaster kills 26 workers in Nova Scotia, Canada.
- 2001 – In Ghana, 129 football fans die in what became known as the Accra Sports Stadium disaster. The deaths are caused by a stampede (caused by the firing of tear gas by police personnel at the stadium) that followed a controversial decision by the referee.
- 2002 – The 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an end when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected terrorists among them deported to several different countries.
- 2015 – Russia stages its biggest ever military parade in Moscow’s Red Square to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Victory Day.
- 2018 – The historic defeat for Barisan Nasional, the governing coalition of Malaysia since the country’s independence in 1957 in 2018 Malaysian general election.
-Source: wikipedia
