May 26

• May 26, 451
  Army of Sassanid Empire defeat united Armenian forces at the Battle of Avarair with strategic victory for Armenians
• May 26, 1637
  150 Puritans lead by Captain John Mason with 60 Mohegan warriors attack fortified Pequot village at Mystic, in Connecticut River Valley, North America and burn the entire village, shoot fleeing escapers, killing about 700 men, women, children in under hour
• May 26, 1736
  British and Chickasaw Indians, supported by the British, defeat a combined force of French soldiers and Chocktaw Indians at the Battle of Ackia, thus opening the region to English settlement
• May 26, 1798
  British kill about 500 Irish insurgents at the Battle of Tara
• May 26, 1805
  Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned king of Italy
• May 26, 1805
  Lewis and Clark first see the Rocky Mountains
• May 26, 1834
  Portuguese Civil war between progressive constitutionalists and authoritarian absolutists ends with restore of constitutional monarchy and exile of absolutist Miguel I
• May 26, 1860
  Giuseppe Garibaldi occupies Palermo, Italy during Expedition of the Thousand
• May 26, 1868
  Michael Barrett, Irish nationalist, is executed for his part in the Clerkenwell bombing, which becomes the last British public execution
• May 26, 1868
  The United States Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ends with his acquittal as the Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction
• May 26, 1879
  Treaty of Gandermack is signed between Great Britain and Afghanistan and cedes various frontier areas to Britain
• May 26, 1894
  Emanuel Lasker, a German mathematician and World Chess Champion for 27 years, becomes World Champion chess player for the first time
• May 26, 1896
  The Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index of 12 industrial companies, is first published
• May 26, 1918
  Democratic Republic of Georgia declares independence from Russia
• May 26, 1924
  United States President Calvin Coolidge signs Immigration Act of 1924, significantly restricting immigration from Easter and Southern Europe and prohibiting the immigration of Arabs, East Asians, and Indians
• May 26, 1948
  South Africa elects a nationalist government in the parliamentary election, which begin system of racial segregation policy known as apartheid
• May 26, 1965
  Revised International Convention on Safety of Life at Sea takes effect
• May 26, 1966
  Guyana, formerly British Guiana, declares independence from United Kingdom
• May 26, 1971
  Soviet Union's Concorde, TU-144, makes its first appearance
• May 26, 1972
  US President Richard Nixon and Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev signs Strategic Arms Limitation Talks accord
• May 26, 1981
  The Italian government resigns over its links to the fascist Masonic cell Propaganda Due
• May 26, 1986
  The European Community adopts the European flag
• May 26, 2010
  Market capitalization of Apple, US$222 billion, passes Microsoft for the first time since December 19,1989, making Apple stock more than 10 times worth what they were 10 years ago, whereas Microsoft stock is down 20 percent over the same time period
• May 26, 2011
  Former Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladic, wanted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, is arrested in Serbia

May 17

• May 17, 1630
  Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi, becomes the first who see two belts on Jupiter surface
• May 17, 1642
  Paul de Chomedey, a French military officer, founds the Canadian city of Montreal
• May 17, 1673
  Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette, a French explores, begin exploring Mississippi
• May 17, 1733
  England passes Molasses Act, putting high tariffs on rum and molasses imported to the colonies from a country other than British possessions
• May 17, 1742
  The Prussian victory in the Battle of Chotusitz ends the First Silesian War
• May 17, 1756
  After a year and a half of undeclared war in North America Britain declares war on France with purpose to conquer Canada, beginning the Seven Years' War in which France, Russia, Austria, Saxony, Sweden and Spain stand against Britain, Prussia and Hanover
• May 17, 1792
  24 merchants form New York Stock Exchange at Wall Street where they fix rates on commissions on stocks and bonds
• May 17, 1805
  Mohammed Ali, an Ottoman Albanian commander in the Ottoman army, becomes the new ruler of Egypt starting modernization of the country
• May 17, 1809
  The Papal States are annexed by France, Pope Pius VII responds by excommunicating Napoleon
• May 17, 1814
  Norwegian constitution is signed by constituent assembly at Eidsvoll, providing for a limited monarchy
• May 17, 1845
  The rubber band is patented by British inventor Stephen Perry
• May 17, 1846
  Saxophone is patents by Belgian musical instrument designer and musician Adolphe Sax
• May 17, 1865
  International Telecommunication Union established
• May 17, 1920
  First flight by Dutch airlines Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij, or simply KLM, the oldest airline in the world still operating, takes place
• May 17, 1983
  Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon ending 1982 Lebanon War begun after repeated actions between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Israel Defense Forces
• May 17, 1987
  37 crewmen are killed when Iraqi Exocet missile hits American Destroyer USS Stark during the Iran–Iraq War
• May 17, 1990
  The World Health Organization removes homosexuality from its list of diseases which marks the beginning of a slow change towards public acceptance of homosexuality
• May 17, 2007
  The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate re-unite after eighty years of schism

May 15

• May 15, 392
  Valentinian II, emperor of Rome, is found hanged in his residence in Vienne at age 21, in south-eastern France
• May 15, 756
  The Umayyad Abd al-Rahman I establishes the government in the regions of Iberia and proclaims himself the emir of Cordoba representing a branch from the rest of the Islamic Empire
• May 15, 1213
  Stephen Langton is chosen Archbishop of Canterbury after some disputes between King John of England and Pope Innocent III
• May 15, 1525
  A German army under Landgrave Philip I of Hesse surround and slaughter 8,000 peasants at the battle of Frankenhausen ending a peasant revolt led by German theologian Thomas Müntzer
• May 15, 1602
  Bartholomew Gosnold, English navigator, discovers Cape Cod in modern-day Northeastern United States
• May 15, 1620
  The Plaza Mayor, a central plaza in the city of Madrid, Spain is opened
• May 15, 1648
  Spain and Netherlands ratify Peace of Münster, ending Eighty Years' War and recognizing the independence of the Netherlands
• May 15, 1665
  Pope Alexander VII convicts Jansenism, a Christian theological movement that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination
• May 15, 1668
  A private bank is taken over by the Swedish State Government, becoming the Riksbank, the first national bank in the world
• May 15, 1679
  The Earl of Shaftesbury introduces his Exclusion Bill into Parliament proposing that James, the Catholic brother of King Charles II, be permanently barred from the line of succession to the English throne
• May 15, 1681
  Canal du Midi, a long canal connecting joining the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, is completed by French engineer Pierre-Paul Riquet
• May 15, 1718
  James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents world's first machine gun that utilize a revolving block for firing square bullets
• May 15, 1768
  France purchases Corsica from Genoa by the Treaty of Versailles
• May 15, 1796
  Napoleon enter the Lombardian capital of Milan in triumph
• May 15, 1811
  Paraguay gains independence from Spain
• May 15, 1836
  Francis Baily, an English astronomer, observes "Baily's Beads", a diamond ring effect during annular solar eclipse
• May 15, 1855
  Paris holds the Exposition Universelle, the second world exposition
• May 15, 1878
  The Tokyo Stock Exchange, Japan's first public trading institution and the second largest stock exchange in the world now, is formed under the direction of then-Finance Minister Okuma Shigenobu and capitalist advocate Shibusawa Eiichi
• May 15, 1882
  Emperor Alexander III enacts May Laws, which ban Jews to settle anew outside of towns and boroughs
• May 15, 1902
  Portugal declares bankrupt causing revolt in Angola, social turmoil and economic disturbances
• May 15, 1905
  Las Vegas is founded at auctioned land adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks
• May 15, 1905
  Las Vegas is founded at auctioned land, adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks
• May 15, 1905
  Las Vegas is founded at auctioned land adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks
• May 15, 1918
  Finnish Civil War between the forces of the Social Democratic Party commonly called the "Reds", and the forces of the non-socialist, conservative-led Senate, commonly called the "Whites", ends with victory of the latter
• May 15, 1932
  Inukai Tsuyoshi, premier of Japan, is murdered by reactionary elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy
• May 15, 1934
  Kārlis Ulmanis, closes all newspapers owned by political parties and suspends civil liberties, making himself fascist dictator of Latvia
• May 15, 1940
  McDonald's opens its first restaurant, in San Bernardino, California
• May 15, 1948
  Forces from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invade and attack Israel, territory in the former British Mandate, beginning First Arab-Israeli War
• May 15, 1953
  "The Destroyed City", a memorial to the destruction of the center of the Dutch city of Rotterdam in 1940, made by a Belarusian-born artist Ossip Zadkine, is unveiled
• May 15, 1955
  Britain, France, United States and USSR sign the Austrian State Treaty restore Austria's independence
• May 15, 1963
  The final Mercury mission is launched, with astronaut Gordon Cooper - who becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space
• May 15, 1988
  Soviets begin withdrawal from Afghanistan

March 1

• March 1, 293
  Roman emperor Diocletian introduces tetrarchy, dividing power among four individuals and marking the end of the Crisis of the Third Century and the recovery of the Roman Empire
• March 1, 1260
  Hulagu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, conquers Damascus
• March 1, 1562
  Over 80 Huguenots, members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France, are massacred by the ultra-Catholic Duke of Guise Francis in Wassy-sur-Blaise, marking the start of the First War of Religion in France
• March 1, 1565
  Estácio de Sá, a Portuguese soldier and officer, founds Rio de Janeiro in Brazil as the basis of military operations against the France Antarctique colony
• March 1, 1579
  Sir Francis Drake waylaid a Spanish treasure galleon, the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, off the coast of Panama
• March 1, 1801
  The London stock exchange is founded, with still the only British government debt traded
• March 1, 1811
  In Egypt the Ottoman viceroy Muhammad Ali Pasha massacres the Mameluke leaders of Egypt, invited to a banquet at the citadel of Cairo in honor of his son, for plotting against him
• March 1, 1864
  Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron patents a movie machine that was never built
• March 1, 1872
  Yellowstone National Park, the world's first national park, is established under the act signed into law by President Ulysses Grant
• March 1, 1896
  Ethiopia defeats Italy at the Battle of Adwa during the First Italo-Ethiopian War and ensures the first victory of an African state over a European colonial power
• March 1, 1910
  An avalanche of snow hits two trains stranded for seven days outside the Cascade Tunnel below Stevens Pass, near Wellington, Washington, USA, killing 96 and becomes the deadliest one in United States history
• March 1, 1934
  Puyi, the last Emperor of China, is crowned emperor of Manchuria
• March 1, 1936
  Hoover Dam, a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, is completed
• March 1, 1938
  Detective Comics pays Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster $130 to transfer exclusive rights to the use of the comic character "Superman", who has its first appearance in comics
• March 1, 1995
  Yahoo! web site is founded in Santa Clara, California
• March 1, 2007
  International Polar Year, a US$1.5 billion research program to study both the North Pole and South Pole, is launched in Paris, France