Historical Events in May, Month of May Events
Here is a list of some historical events in May. You can learn What major event happened in May?
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| May 5, 1877 | American Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles. |
| May 28, 1948 | Daniel François Malan is elected as Prime Minister of South Africa. He later goes on to implement Apartheid. |
| May 14, 1940 | World War II: Rotterdam, Netherlands is bombed by the Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany despite a ceasefire, killing about 900 people and destroying the historic city center. |
| May 16, 1943 | Operation Chastise is undertaken by RAF Bomber Command with specially equipped Avro Lancasters to destroy the Mohne, Sorpe, and Eder dams in the Ruhr valley. |
| May 15, 1252 | Pope Innocent IV issues the papal bull ad extirpanda, which authorizes, but also limits, the torture of heretics in the Medieval Inquisition. |
| May 10, 2002 | FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling United States secrets to Russia for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds. |
| May 20, 1996 | Civil rights: The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Romer v. Evans against a law that would have prevented any city, town or county in the state of Colorado from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect the rights of gays and lesbians. |
| May 28, 2011 | Malta votes on the introduction of divorce; the proposal was approved by 53% of voters, resulting in a law allowing divorce under certain conditions being enacted later in the year. |
| May 17, 1902 | Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer. |
| May 16, 1204 | Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders is crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin Empire. |
| May 6, 1757 | English poet Christopher Smart is admitted into St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in London, beginning his six-year confinement to mental asylums. |
| May 31, 1884 | The arrival at Plymouth of Tāwhiao, King of Maoris, to claim the protection of Queen Victoria. |
| May 27, 1975 | Dibbles Bridge coach crash near Grassington, in North Yorkshire, England, kills 33 – the highest ever death toll in a road accident in the United Kingdom. |
| May 2, 1995 | During the Croatian War of Independence, the Army of the Republic of Serb Krajina fires cluster bombs at Zagreb, killing seven and wounding over 175 civilians. |
| May 31, 1955 | The U.S. Supreme Court expands on its Brown v. Board of Education decision by ordering district courts and school districts to enforce educational desegregation "at all deliberate speed." |
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