- 919 – The nobles of Franconia and Saxony elect Henry the Fowler at the Imperial Diet in Fritzlar as king of the East Frankish Kingdom.
- 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, Dublin, Ireland, with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII‘s reign.
- 1567 – Erik XIV of Sweden and his guards murder five incarcerated Swedish nobles.
- 1595 – Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library.
- 1607 – One hundred English settlers disembark in Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in America.
- 1621 – The Protestant Union is formally dissolved.
- 1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.
- 1667 – The French Royal Army crosses the border into the Spanish Netherlands, starting the War of Devolution opposing France to the Spanish Empire and the Triple Alliance.
- 1683 – The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world’s first university museum.
- 1689 – The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration protecting dissenting Protestants but excluding Roman Catholics.
- 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.
- 1813 – South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador (“The Liberator”).
- 1822 – Battle of Pichincha: Antonio José de Sucre secures the independence of the Presidency of Quito.
- 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 a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C.
- 1856 – John Brown and his men kill 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.
- 1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State.
- 1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the conflict on the side of the Allies.
- 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.
- 1940 – Acting on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, NKVD agent Iosif Grigulevich orchestrates an unsuccessful assassination attempt on exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Coyoacán, Mexico.
- 1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks then-pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen.
- 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 – 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.
- 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.
- 1976 – The Judgment of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine.
- 1981 – Ecuadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera, his wife, and his presidential committee die in an aircraft accident while travelling from Quito to Zapotillo minutes after the president gave a famous speech regarding the 24 de mayo anniversary of the Battle of Pichincha.
- 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.
- 1991 – Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
- 1992 – The last Thai dictator, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, resigns following pro-democracy protests.
- 1992 – The ethnic cleansing in Kozarac, Bosnia and Herzegovina begins when Serbian militia and police forces enter the town.
- 1993 – Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia.
- 1993 – Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo and five other people are assassinated in a shootout at Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla Guadalajara International Airport in Mexico.[1]
- 1994 – Four men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 are each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
- 1995 – While attempting to return to Leeds Bradford Airport in the United Kingdom, Knight Air Flight 816 crashes in Harewood, North Yorkshire, killing all 12 people on board.[2]
- 1999 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
- 2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.
- 2002 – Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty.
- 2014 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake occurs in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, injuring 324 people.
- 2014 – At least three people are killed in a shooting at Brussels’ Jewish Museum of Belgium.
- 2019 – Twenty-two students die in a fire in Surat (India).[3]
- 2019 – Under pressure over her handling of Brexit, British Prime Minister Theresa May announces her resignation as Leader of the Conservative Party, effective as of June 7.
-Source: wikipedia
