May 31

• May 31, 1223
  A coalition of several Rus' principalities is decisively defeated by the Mongol invaders under the command of generals Jebe and Subutai near the Kalka River in modern-day Ukraine
• May 31, 1433
  Sigismund is crowned Holy Roman Emperor of Rome
• May 31, 1469
  Manuel I of Portugal, king of Portugal, is born
• May 31, 1495
  Emperor Maximilian, Pope Alexander VI, Milan, King Ferdinand, Isabella and Venice sign anti-French Saint League
• May 31, 1564
  Lübeck and Denmark beat Sweden at Gotland during Northern Seven Years' War
• May 31, 1659
  Dutch Republic, England and France sign Treaty of The Hague during Second Northern War
• May 31, 1740
  Frederick William I of Prussia, king of Prussia, dies at age 51, and his son Frederick the Great comes to power in Prussia
• May 31, 1831
  Captain John Ross, an English explorer, identifies the magnetic north pole on the west coast of the Boothia Peninsula, Netsilik territory
• May 31, 1832
  Évariste Galois, a French mathematician and radical Republican, who developed a general theory of equations, dies from wounds suffered in a duel at age 20
• May 31, 1838
  The Federal Republic of Central America federation is dissolved as the congress meets to declare that the provinces were free to create their own independent republics
• May 31, 1859
  The tower clock known as Big Ben, located at the top of Elizabeth Tower at the north end of the Palace of Westminster, rings out over the Houses of Parliament in London for the first time
• May 31, 1862
  At the Battle of Seven Pines, McClellan defeat the Confederates outside of Richmond
• May 31, 1879
  First electric railway opens at Berlin Trades Exposition, Germany
• May 31, 1889
  Johnstown, Pennsylvania is destroyed by a massive flood after the South Fork Dam across a tributary of the Little Conemaugh River collapsed under pressure from the rain-swollen Lake Conemaugh killing 2,209 people in a flood and related fire
• May 31, 1889
  Johnstown, Pennsylvania is destroyed by a massive flood after the South Fork Dam across a tributary of the Little Conemaugh River collapsed under pressure from the rain-swollen Lake Conemaugh killing 2,209 people in a flood and related fire
• May 31, 1891
  Work on Trans-Siberian Railway, the longest railway line in the world, connecting Moscow with the Sea of Japan, begins
• May 31, 1902
  Second Boer War between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers, which has cost around 75,000 lives, ends leaving the Transvaal and the Orange Free State as colonies of the British Empire
• May 31, 1910
  The Union of South Africa is formed, incorporating Cape Colony, Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal
• May 31, 1915
  An LZ-38 Zeppelin makes first zeppelin air raid on London, England, killing 7 and injuring 35 people during the first bombing raid
• May 31, 1937
  German cruiser Deutschland bomb Almería, Spain during Spanish Civil War
• May 31, 1943
  Japanese forces are driven from Aleutian Islands, Alaska
• May 31, 1961
  South Africa becomes a republic following a referendum in which white voters narrowly voted in favour thereof
• May 31, 1970
  A kilometer wide avalanche mass of ice, mud and rock, triggered by an earthquake in Peru, advances about 18 km and leads to more than 20,000 death
• May 31, 1988
  U.S. President Ronald Reagan addresses 600 Moscow State University students, during his visit to the Soviet Union
• May 31, 1997
  Official opening of the Confederation Bridge, between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, Canada, the world's longest bridge spanning ice covered waters

May 30

• May 30, 1381
  Peasants' Revolt begins in Essex, England due to the high taxes resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years War
• May 30, 1416
  Jerome of Prague, a Czech church reformer and one of the chief followers of Jan Hus, is burned as a heretic at the Council of Constance
• May 30, 1431
  Joan of Arc, the leader of the French army during Hundred Years War, condemned as a heretic by an English-backed church court, is burned at the stake in Rouen, France, at age 19
• May 30, 1434
  An army of Utraquists and Catholics, called the Bohemian League, defeat the radical Taborites and Orphans, led by Prokop the Great and Prokop the Lesser, who both fell in the battle of of Lipany, which marks the end of the Hussite wars
• May 30, 1498
  Columbus departs with six ships for third trip to America
• May 30, 1536
  English king Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour
• May 30, 1588
  The Spanish Armada of 130 ships with 30,000 men under Alonso Pérez de Guzmán leaves Lisbon for England
• May 30, 1635
  Emperor Ferdinand II and Electorate of Saxony representing most of the Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire sign Peace of Prague, which effectively beings to an end the civil war aspect of the Thirty Years' War
• May 30, 1814
  In Paris, France, the Treaty of Paris is signed, bringing peace between Great Britain and her allies and France and returning France to its 1792 borders
• May 30, 1848
  Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending Mexican–American War and giving US New Mexico, California and parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Colorado in return for $15 million
• May 30, 1854
  The Kansas-Nebraska Act, passed by the US Congress, repeals the Missouri Compromise and allows people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders, opens north slavery
• May 30, 1866
  The Bartered Bride, the comic opera written by Bedřich Smetana, the father of Czech national music, is first performed at the Provisional Theatre, Prague
• May 30, 1868
  The United States establish Memorial Day, initially Decoration Day, to honor Union soldiers killed in the Civil War, later expanded to honor all soldiers killed in the service of the country
• May 30, 1896
  1,389 people die during a human stampede on Khodynka Field in Moscow, Russia during the festivities following the coronation of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II
• May 30, 1942
  1047 bombers attack Cologne, dropping 915 tons of incendiaries and 840 tons of high explosives during Operation Millennium with 41 aircraft as total loss of British planes
• May 30, 1968
  French president Charles de Gaulle dissolves the National Assembly and calls for new parliamentary elections as a result of May 1968 protests in France
• May 30, 1975
  European Space Agency, an intergovernmental organization dedicated to the exploration of space, forms

May 29

• May 29, 1176
  At the Battle of Legnano, the cavalry of Frederick Barbarossa is defeated by the infantry of the Lombard League
• May 29, 1453
  Constantinople falls to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II and the last reigning Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos is killed, marking end of the Byzantine Empire
• May 29, 1555
  Peace of Amasya, singed between Shah Tahmasp and Suleiman the Magnificent, ends Ottoman–Safavid War and gives most of Iraq, including Baghdad, to the Ottoman Empire, while the Persians retain north-western territories in the Caucasus
• May 29, 1652
  English Admiral Robert Blake drives out Dutch fleet under Lieutenant-Admiral Tromp during the First Anglo-Dutch War
• May 29, 1660
  English King Charles II, returning from exile, lands at Dover ending the Puritan Commonwealth of England and bringing the monarchy back, which becomes known as the English Restoration
• May 29, 1677
  King Charles II and 12 Virginia Indian chiefs sign a treaty that establish a 3-mile non-encroachment zone around Indian land
• May 29, 1692
  An English and Dutch fleet beat France near Barfleur
• May 29, 1765
  Patrick Henry, an American attorney, denounces the Stamp Act before Virginia's House of Burgesses during his speech "Give me liberty, or give me death!"
• May 29, 1790
  Rhode Island, the state largely founded by Baptists fleeing persecution in Massachusetts, becomes the last of the 13 original colonies to ratify the United States Constitution
• May 29, 1831
  Great Bosnian uprising against Ottoman rule occurs
• May 29, 1851
  Freed slave and abolitionist Sojourner Truth attends a national women's convention in Akron, Ohio, where she makes her famous anti-slavery speech "Ain't I a Woman?"
• May 29, 1874
  The present constitution of Switzerland, which introduces the facultative referendum for laws at the federal level, takes effect
• May 29, 1919
  Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity is tested and confirmed by Arthur Eddington's observation of a total solar eclipse in Principe and by Andrew Crommelin in Sobral, Brazil
• May 29, 1953
  Edmund Hillary, a New Zealand mountaineer, and Tenzing Norgay from Nepal become first to reach peak of Mount Everest in Nepal, the highest mountain on earth
• May 29, 1982
  In the Battle of Goose Green, British paratroopers defeat a larger force of Argentine troops in the first land battle of the Falklands War
• May 29, 1990
  Boris Yeltsin is elected Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR
• May 29, 1999
  Nigeria terminates military rule, and the Nigerian Fourth Republic is established with Olusegun Obasanjo as president
• May 29, 2005
  A French referendum on the draft European Union constitution votes 55 percent to reject it

May 28

• May 28, 1156
  King of Sicily William I beats Byzantine fleet in the Battle at Brindisi
• May 28, 1539
  Hernando de Soto sails from Cuba to Florida with 13 pigs to help sustain his 700 men on his gold-hunting expedition
• May 28, 1608
  L'Arianna, one of the earliest operas of the Baroque period written by Italian composer and singer Claudio Monteverdi, is performed as part of the musical festivities for a royal wedding at the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga in Mantua
• May 28, 1825
  Coronation of French king Charles X, the surviving brother of guillotined Louis XVI, occurs in Reims
• May 28, 1830
  United States Congress passes Indian Removal Act, which authorizes Indian removal from all states to western prairie and authorizes President Andrew Jackson to negotiate with Indian tribes
• May 28, 1871
  Paris Commune is put down after the last French communards of the Paris commune are shot against the Mur des Federes in Pere Lachaise cemetery by troops from Versailles
• May 28, 1905
  Japanese fleet destroys Russian East Sea fleet in Straits of Tushima, which becomes decisive sea battle of Russo-Japanese War
• May 28, 1926
  Military coup by General Manuel Gomes da Costa installs dictatorship in Portugal
• May 28, 1937
  Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• May 28, 1964
  Palestine National Congress forms the Palestine Liberation Organization in Jerusalem, with purpose to create an independent State of Palestine
• May 28, 1987
  A 19-year-old German, Mathias Rust, is immediately detained after he flies a small private plane through Russian security without clearance and lands on Red Square in Moscow
• May 28, 1995
  Neftegorsk, Russia is hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake, killing at least 2000 people and nearly completely destroying the city

May 27

• May 27, 1564
  John Calvin, one of the dominant figures of the Protestant Reformation, dies in Geneva
• May 27, 1629
  The Treaty of Lübeck is signed between Denmark and the Holy Roman Empire
• May 27, 1644
  After decisive victory at the Shanhai Pass, the Manchu, the people from Northeastern China, conquer China ending the Ming Dynasty and establish subsequent Qing Dynasty, which rule until 1912
• May 27, 1647
  Alse Young becomes first woman known to be executed as a witch in the thirteen American colonies
• May 27, 1679
  Habeas Corpus Act, a procedural device to force the courts to examine the lawfulness of a prisoner's detention, passes in England
• May 27, 1703
  Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg, the capital of Russia until 1918, on small Hare Island by the north bank of the Neva River ceded by Sweden during the Great Northern War
• May 27, 1738
  Turkish troops occupy city of Ochakiv
• May 27, 1895
  British inventor Birt Acres patents the first British 35 mm moving picture camera
• May 27, 1930
  The Chrysler Building, 319 meters tall skyscraper on the east side of Manhattan, opens to the public and becomes the tallest man-made structure in the world
• May 27, 1931
  Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer make first flight into stratosphere, by balloon and gather substantial data on the upper atmosphere, as well as measure cosmic rays
• May 27, 1937
  In California, USA, the Golden Gate Bridge officially opens to pedestrian traffic, becoming the world's longest span
• May 27, 1939
  DC Comics publishes its second superhero, "Batman"
• May 27, 1940
  Belgium surrenders to Germany
• May 27, 1942
  Jan Kubiš and Josef Gabcik, part of a Czechoslovak commando team from England, make an assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich, who is wounded by grenade shrapnel, and later dies of the wound, in Prague
• May 27, 1949
  Chinese Red army occupies Shanghai during Chinese Civil War
• May 27, 1952
  European Defense Community, an international organization to form a pan-European defense force, is formed
• May 27, 1952
  The first effective vaccine against poliomyelitis, an viral infectious disease, is developed by Jonas Salk
• May 27, 1969
  Walt Disney World construction begins in Bay Lake, Florida, United States
• May 27, 1977
  Two Boeing 747 passenger aircrafts collide on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, becoming the deadliest accident in aviation history with a number of 583 fatalities
• May 27, 1994
  Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Russian novelist, returns to Russia after 20 years in exile
• May 27, 1996
  Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechnyan rebels for the first time and negotiates a cease-fire in the war, marking end of First Chechen War
• May 27, 1999
  The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milosevic and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo
• May 27, 2008
  Nepal's constituent assembly in Kathmandu, mostly consisting of communist parties, votes 597 to 4 to abolish 240 years of royal rule, becoming a democratic republic nation

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 25

• May 25, 1521
  Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, officially declares Martin Luther a criminal and heretic for refusing to recant at the Diet of Worms
• May 25, 1624
  The Parliament of England issues Statute of Monopolies, the first statutory expression of English patent law
• May 25, 1659
  Richard Cromwell resigns as English Lord Protector
• May 25, 1720
  Great Plague of Marseille, which kills 100,000 people in the city, begins
• May 25, 1810
  Argentina declares independence from Napoleonic Spain
• May 25, 1812
  92 miners are killed during a series of coal mine explosions, which take place around the Felling Colliery in Durhamshire, England
• May 25, 1844
  The first telegraphed news dispatch, sent from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, appears in the Baltimore "Patriot"
• May 25, 1887
  In France, a gas lamp at the Paris Opera catches fir; 200 die
• May 25, 1895
  Playwright Oscar Wilde is convicted of a morals charge in London and is sentenced to two years in prison
• May 25, 1911
  Revolution in Mexico overthrows President Porfirio Díaz
• May 25, 1915
  Second Battle of Ypres ends leaving 105,000 casualties
• May 25, 1945
  Arther C Clark, a British science fiction writer, proposes relay satellites in geosynchronous orbit
• May 25, 1946
  The United Nations approve the end of the British Mandate and recognize Transjordan as an independent sovereign kingdom Jordan
• May 25, 1961
  United States President John Kennedy appeals to Congress that the nation should commit to "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth" by the end of the decade
• May 25, 1963
  Organization for African Unity is formed by Chad, Mauritania, and Zambia
• May 25, 1977
  "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope", the first release in the Star Wars saga created by American filmmaker George Lucas, is released
• May 25, 2000
  Israel withdraws military forces from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation
• May 25, 2002
  China Airlines Flight 611 breaks up near the Penghu Islands at Taiwan Strait, killing all 225 people on board

May 24

• May 24, 1153
  Malcolm IV, also known as Malcolm the Maiden, becomes king of Scotland
• May 24, 1300
  King Philip IV of France occupies Flanders. Guy, Count of Flanders is captured
• May 24, 1370
  Hanseatic League and Danish king Valdemar IV sign peace treaty ending the war and giving an effective trade and political monopoly in Scandinavia to the League
• May 24, 1543
  Nicolaus Copernicus, a mathematician and astronomer, dies in Poland
• May 24, 1658
  Battle of the Dunes ends with a victory of the French army and their Commonwealth of England allies over the Spanish army and their English Royalist and French Fronde rebels
• May 24, 1667
  French troops invade the Southern Netherlands beginning the War of Devolution between France and Spain as a result of the claim by Louis XIV that the ownership of the Spanish Netherlands devolved to his wife upon the death of her father, Philip IV of Spain
• May 24, 1689
  English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration, protecting Protestants, but Roman Catholics are specifically excluded from exemption
• May 24, 1798
  Believing that a French invasion of Ireland is imminent, Irish nationalists rise up against the British occupation
• May 24, 1822
  At Battle of Pichincha in Ecuador General Antonio José de Sucre win a decisive victory against Spanish forces
• May 24, 1823
  The Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company is founded to build a railway between the North West England towns of Liverpool and Manchester in the United Kingdom, the first railway to rely exclusively on steam power
• May 24, 1844
  Samuel Morse sends the first telegraphic message via publicly funded telegraph line in the world between Washington, DC and Baltimore ushering in the age of the telegraph
• May 24, 1856
  The Pottawatomie Massacre takes place in Kansas when John Brown, American abolitionist and horse thief, preside over the hacking to death with machetes of five unarmed pro-slavery Border Ruffians in Potawatomi, Kansas
• May 24, 1883
  The Brooklyn Bridge, one of the oldest suspension bridges, is dedicated by President Chester Arthur and New York Govener Grover Cleveland, and officially opened to traffic linking the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn
• May 24, 1923
  Irish Civil War ends with victory of Pro-Treaty
• May 24, 1993
  Eritrea gains independence from Ethiopia
• May 24, 2006
  East Timor's Foreign Minister José Ramos-Horta officially requests military assistance from the governments of Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal

May 23

• May 23, 1430
  Joan of Arc is captured at Compiegne, France by the Burgundians, who sell her to the English
• May 23, 1493
  King Charles VIII and Maximilian I of Austria signs Peace of Senlis, by which Duchy of Burgundy remains in French hands
• May 23, 1498
  Girolamo Savonarola, dictator of Florence, is tortured and burned by enraged crowd in Florence at age 45
• May 23, 1524
  Ismail I, the founder of Safavid dynasty, dies and Tahmasp I becomes king
• May 23, 1536
  Pope Paul III installs Portuguese inquisition
• May 23, 1568
  Dutch rebels beat Spanish at the Battle at Heiligerlee
• May 23, 1618
  The Bohemian Revolt and Thirty Years' War begin after Second Prague Defenestration when three opponents of the Reformation are thrown through a window of Prague Castle into the moat
• May 23, 1667
  King Afonso VI of Portugal flees
• May 23, 1701
  New York sea captain William Kidd is hanged on the banks of the Thames after being found guilty of piracy and murder
• May 23, 1706
  At the battle of Ramillies Duke of Marlborough defeats French and 17,000 are killed
• May 23, 1774
  Chestertown tea party occurs when tea is dumped into Chester River
• May 23, 1785
  Benjamin Franklin in Paris speaks of his invention of bifocals in a letter to friend and philanthropist George Whatley
• May 23, 1844
  Persian Prophet the Báb announces his revelation, founding Bábísm and announces to the world of the coming of "He whom God shall make manifest"
• May 23, 1853
  Buenos Aires gains independence from Argentina
• May 23, 1871
  In France extremists burn the Tuileries Palace
• May 23, 1915
  Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary and Germany
• May 23, 1949
  The Federal Republic of Germany is established on the territory of the Western occupied zones, with Bonn as its capital
• May 23, 1951
  Seventeen Point Agreement, which incorporates Tibet into People's Republic of China is signed
• May 23, 1958
  Mao Zedong starts Great Leap Forward movement in China, an economic campaign to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern communist society through the process of industrialization and collectivization
• May 23, 1960
  Israel announces capture of German Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, in Argentina
• May 23, 1977
  Moluccan extremists hold 105 schoolchildren and 50 others hostage on a hijacked train in Netherlands; children released May 27, siege ends June 11
• May 23, 1995
  At the Sun World conference in San Francisco, California, Sun Microsystems introduces the Java interactive programming language, named as Oak during development

May 22

• May 22, 337
  Emperor of Rome Constantine dies in villa Achyron near Nicomedia, so three his sons Constantine II, Constantius II and Constans, succeed
• May 22, 1200
  Philip II of France recognizes John's possession of the continental Angevin lands at the peace treaty of Le Goulet
• May 22, 1246
  Henry Raspe, promoted by Archbishop of Cologne Konrad von Hochstaden, is elected antiking in opposition to Conrad IV of Germany by the Rhenish prelates in France
• May 22, 1370
  Jews are massacred and expelled from Brussels, Belgium
• May 22, 1455
  King Henry VI is taken prisoner by the Yorkists, a cadet branch of the English royal House of Plantagenet, at the Battle of St. Albans, the first battle in the 30-year War of the Roses
• May 22, 1526
  Pope Clement VII, France, Genoa, Venice, Florence and Milan form League of Cognac against Emperor Charles V
• May 22, 1712
  Emperor Charles VI is crowned king of Hungary
• May 22, 1762
  Trevi Fountain, one of the most famous fountains in the world, completed by Italian sculptor Pietro Bracci, is officially inaugurated by Pope Clement XIII
• May 22, 1843
  The first wagon train with over 1,000 settlers and 1,000 head of cattle sets out from Missouri down the Oregon Trail, an east-west wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon
• May 22, 1860
  In Lebanon a small group of Maronites fire on a group of Druzes at the entrance to Beirut, killing one and wounding two, which sparks off a torrent of violence which swept through Lebanon
• May 22, 1888
  Leroy Buffington, an architect from Minnesota, patents a system to build skyscrapers using load-bearing iron frames
• May 22, 1939
  At the Reich Chancellory in Berlin, Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop sign a ten-year political and military alliance, dubbed the Pact of Steel
• May 22, 1943
  Stalin disbands Communist International
• May 22, 1957
  South Africa Government approves race separation in universities
• May 22, 1960
  A 9.5-magnitude earthquake occurs off the coast of Chile, killing about 1700 and leaving 2 million homeless and becomes the largest earthquake recorded to date
• May 22, 1973
  At Xerox PARC, Bob Metcalfe invents the Ethernet computer connectivity system, taking the name "Ethernet" based on a discredited physical theory of an existing "ether" in space allowing transmission of light rays from the sun to the Earth
• May 22, 2001
  The Terraces of the Baha'i Faith, garden terraces around the Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel officially open
• May 22, 2012
  Tokyo Skytree, the tallest self-supporting tower in the world at 634 metres high, is opened to the public
• May 22, 2014
  The Royal Thai Army overthrows the caretaker government of Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan after a failure to resolve the political unrest in Thailand

May 21

• May 21, 987
  French King Louis V dies from a fall while hunting, terminating the Carolingian period of Frankish rule
• May 21, 996
  Otto III is crowned the Roman Emperor by his cousin Pope Gregory V
• May 21, 1420
  King Charles VI of France signs the Treaty of Troyes that recognizes all the territorial gains of King Henry V of England, gives Henry the daughter of Charles in marriage, and acknowledges Henry as the legitimate heir to the French throne
• May 21, 1471
  Henry VI, king of England and France, is killed in the tower of London and Edward IV takes the throne
• May 21, 1535
  Imperial authorities in Antwerp capture and imprison William Tyndale for heresy over his translation of the Bible into English
• May 21, 1542
  Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto dies while searching for gold along the Mississippi River and is buried by his men in the Mississippi River in what is now Louisiana in order that Indians would not learn of his death, and thus disprove de Soto's claims of divinity
• May 21, 1674
  General John Sobieski is chosen King of Poland
• May 21, 1683
  The Society of Suriname, a Dutch private company, is founded by the city of Amsterdam, the Van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck family, and the Dutch West India Company
• May 21, 1809
  Austrian archduke Charles beats Napoleon at Battle of Aspern-Essling when he was crossing the Danube near Vienna, which becomes the first personally defeat of Napoleon over a decade
• May 21, 1840
  New Zealand is founded as a British colony since the Treaty of Waitangi is signed by Māori chiefs of New Zealand and representatives of Queen Victoria
• May 21, 1871
  French government troops enter in Paris and attack the Commune of Paris
• May 21, 1881
  Clara Barton, a hospital nurse, founds American Red Cross
• May 21, 1881
  Standard Oil, an American oil producing founded by John D. Rockefeller, becomes the world's first trust, after thirty-seven stockholders convey their shares
• May 21, 1916
  Britain begins "Summer Time", which becomes the implementation of daylight saving time
• May 21, 1927
  Charles Lindbergh, an American aviator, becomes the first person who makes solo non-stop transatlantic flight, from New York's Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris
• May 21, 1945
  German war criminal Heinrich Himmler is captured
• May 21, 1998
  Suharto forced to resign as president of Indonesia after 31-year reign

May 20

• May 20, 526
  An earthquake kills 250,000 in Syria and the city of Antioch in the Byzantine Empire and causes severe damage to many of the buildings
• May 20, 685
  Picts, a tribal confederation of Celtic tribes, defeat forces of Northumbria at the Battle of Dun Nechtain ending the dominance of Angles in Northern Britain
• May 20, 1303
  Treaty of Paris restores Gascony to British setting the stage for the Hundred Years' War
• May 20, 1347
  Cola di Rienzo, an Italian politician and popular leader, takes the title of tribune in Rome
• May 20, 1498
  Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese explorer, reaches Kozhikode, India by sea completing his journey that took him around South Africa and opens the Far East to European trade and colonial expansion
• May 20, 1506
  Christopher Columbus, explorer, dies in poverty in Valladolid, Spain at age 55
• May 20, 1571
  Pope Pius V completes the Holy League as a united front against the Ottoman Turks
• May 20, 1631
  Forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic League under earl Johann Tilly conquer Magdeburg, beginning the subsequent plundering, and the massacre of the inhabitants of the largely Protestant city
• May 20, 1648
  In Poland King Władysław IV Vasa dies at age 55 and his Jesuit brother takes rule as John II Casimir
• May 20, 1774
  Britain set procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec by Quebec Act
• May 20, 1775
  Mecklenburg County, North Carolina becomes the first part of the Thirteen Colonies to declare independence from Great Britain
• May 20, 1784
  Preliminary signed 2 September 1783 Peace of Paris ends the war between England and Netherlands and ends Fourth Anglo-Dutch War
• May 20, 1799
  Napoleon Bonaparte orders a withdrawal from his siege of city of Acre in Ottoman Empire due to plague which run through besieging French forces
• May 20, 1862
  President Lincoln signs the Homestead Act, providing 1 million km of free land to settlers in the West, which officially opens the Nebraska territory for settlement, leading to statehood in 1867
• May 20, 1867
  Foundation of Royal Albert Hall, a concert hall in London, is laid by Queen Victoria
• May 20, 1873
  Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a US patent for "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings", work pants reinforced with metal rivets, marking the birth of blue jeans
• May 20, 1875
  International Bureau of Weights and Measures, an international standards organisation, is established by treaty among 17 nations
• May 20, 1882
  Triple Alliance between Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary forms
• May 20, 1902
  Cuba gains independence from the United States after United States military occupation of Cuba ends
• May 20, 1927
  Kingdom of Nejd and Hejaz, modern Saudi Arabia, becomes independent of Great Britain by Treaty of Jeddah between King Abdul Aziz, usually known as Ibn Saud, and the United Kingdom
• May 20, 1940
  Igor Sikorsky, a Russian American aviation engineer, unveils his helicopter invention
• May 20, 1941
  Operation Mercury is launched, as German gliders and 7th Airborne Division paratroopers land near principal airports on Crete, with the mission of securing them for transport of 5th Division troops, however many gliders crash, and many paratroopers are shot in the air
• May 20, 2002
  East Timor regains its independence
• May 20, 2007
  The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum makes the largest single charitable donation in modern history, committing 7.41 billion euros to an educational foundation in the Middle East

May 19

• May 19, 1536
  Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII, being convicted of adultery and incest with her brother, Lord Rochford, is beheaded on Tower Green, the day before Henry VIII's marriage to Jane Seymour
• May 19, 1565
  The Turkish army of 40,000 men under Suleyman the Magnificent begin 5-month siege of the Knights of Malta, led by Grand Master Jean de la Valette with 2,500 troops at their garrison Fort Saint Elmo
• May 19, 1568
  Defeated by the Scottish Protestants and escaped to England, Queen of Scotland Mary is imprisoned by English Queen Elizabeth I, who perceives her as a threat
• May 19, 1608
  The Protestant states form the Evangelical Union of Lutherans and Calvinists under the direction of the elector of Brandenburg
• May 19, 1635
  Cardinal Richelieu of France declares war on the Hapsburgs in Spain and enters Thirty Years' War as an active combatant
• May 19, 1643
  A French army destroy Spanish army at the Battle at Rocroi in France during Thirty Years' War, which becomes the turning point of the perceived invincibility of the Spanish Empire
• May 19, 1643
  Delegates from four New England colonies, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Harbor, meet in Boston to form New England Confederation
• May 19, 1690
  English troops of William Phips conquer Port Royal in Acadia near Canada from the French, which becomes the first major engagement of King William's War
• May 19, 1749
  George II grants a charter to the Ohio Company to settle Ohio Valley
• May 19, 1792
  Russian army enters Poland
• May 19, 1793
  Netherlands captures French island of Saint Maarten
• May 19, 1798
  A French armada of 335 ships carrying nearly 40,000 men set sail for Alexandria, Egypt, which Napoleon plans to conquer
• May 19, 1919
  Turkish War of Independence begins between the Turkish nationalists and the proxies of the Allies, namely Greece on the Western front and Armenia on the Eastern
• May 19, 1919
  Mount Kelud in Indonesia erupts, boiling crater lake which breaks through crater wall killing 5,000 people in 104 small villages
• May 19, 1988
  Carlos Lehder, of Colombia's Medellín drug cartel, is convicted in Florida for smuggling more than three tons of cocaine into US
• May 19, 2010
  Protests in Bangkok, Thailand end with a bloody military crackdown, killing 91 and leaving more than 2,100 injured

May 18

• May 18, 1096
  Peasant crusaders from France and Germany begin Pogroms of 1096, the first instance of an antisemitism in Europe touched by the First Crusade, murdering thousands of Jews in Germany
• May 18, 1160
  Eric IX, a King of Sweden, is killed by the Danish lord Magnus Henriksson
• May 18, 1291
  Egyptian Mamluks destroy Acre after a siege of 43 days ending the existence of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem
• May 18, 1604
  England and Spain agree sign the Treaty of London ending the 19 year Anglo-Spanish war
• May 18, 1619
  Hugo Grotius, a Dutch jurist who laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law, is sentenced to life in prison
• May 18, 1652
  Rhode Island try to enact first law declaring slavery illegal
• May 18, 1727
  Peter II Alekseyevich is proclaimed Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias after death of Catherine I
• May 18, 1803
  Britain declares war on France after General Napoleon Bonaparte continues interfering in Italy and Switzerland, ending Peace of Amiens and starting the Napoleonic Wars and War of the Third Coalition
• May 18, 1804
  The French Senate adopted new national constitution of France, establishing the First French Empire and proclaiming Napoleon Bonaparte emperor
• May 18, 1810
  May Revolution as part of Latin American wars of independence against Napoleonic Spain begins in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which lead to the establishment of a local government, the Primera Junta
• May 18, 1830
  Edwin Beard Budding of England signs an agreement for the manufacture of his invention, the lawn mower, in which he adopts the rotary blade in the cloth industry to grass
• May 18, 1896
  The United States Supreme Court upholds the State of Louisiana Separate Car Act in Plessy vs. Ferguson, and affirms that segregation does not constitute discrimination, establishing the doctrine of "separate but equal"
• May 18, 1899
  The First Hague Peace Conference, proposed by Nicholas II of Russia, is opened in the Netherlands as 26 nations met to ban the destruction or seizure of enemy property with no military value
• May 18, 1900
  Tonga becomes a protected state under a Treaty of Friendship with Britain, when European settlers and rival Tongan chiefs tried to oust the second king
• May 18, 1954
  Supreme Court of the United States unanimously decides the case of Brown v. Board of Education, ordering an end to racial segregation in public schools
• May 18, 1994
  Food and Drug Administration concludes that Flavr Savr, a genetically modified tomato, is safe for food use, making it the first commercially grown genetically engineered food
• May 18, 2000
  Boo.com, one of the greatest dot-com busts in history collapses in London after six months, due to lack of funds

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 16

• May 16, 1648
  Khmelnytsky's Cossacks beat John II Casimir Vasa at the Battle of Zhovti Vody during Khmelnytsky Uprising
• May 16, 1795
  The French-backed Batavian Republic in present-day Netherlands is established by treaty of The Hague and cedes to France the territories of Maastricht, Venlo, and Flanders
• May 16, 1811
  Both Allies and French suffer heavily at Battle of Albuera, which ends with indecisive result
• May 16, 1833
  Antonio López de Santa Anna, a Mexican politician and general, becomes President of Mexico for the first of eleven non-consecutive occasions
• May 16, 1862
  Étienne Lenoir, a Belgian engineer, builds first automobile, with a hydrogen gas fuelled one cylinder internal combustion engine
• May 16, 1881
  World's first electric tram, invented and made of two-decker horse tramway by Ukrainian-born Russian engineer Fyodor Pirotsky, goes into service in Saint Petersburg, Russia
• May 16, 1884
  Italian inventor Angelo Moriondo is granted the patent of the first espresso coffee machine
• May 16, 1920
  Spanish bullfighter Joselito, the most famous bullfighters, is fatally gored fighting his last bull
• May 16, 1929
  The first Academy Awards are presented at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
• May 16, 1940
  German troops enter The Hague and Amsterdam, Netherlands
• May 16, 1960
  Theodore Maiman, an American engineer, operates the first optical laser, a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification, in Malibu, California, United States
• May 16, 1985
  Group of British scientists, Jonathan Shanklin, Joe Farman and Brian G. Gardiner, publish a paper in journal Nature dedicated to the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, the first report about ozone depletion
• May 16, 1989
  Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping end a 30-year rift when they formally meet in Beijing
• May 16, 2011
  The European Union agree to a 78-billion euro rescue deal for Portugal, which will be equally split between the European Financial Stabilization Mechanism, the European Financial Stability Facility, and the International Monetary Fund

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