| 0 | | International Workers' Day -- Learn More |
| 0 | | Law Day in the United States |
| 0 | | Feast of St. Richard Pampuri, Patron of Military Chaplains |
| 73 | | The Romans breach the final defenses at Masada |
| 305 | | Roman Emperor Diocletian (284-305) retires to grow cabbages at Spoletum, while his partner Maximian (286-305) retires too, under protest -- Learn More |
| 1006 | | Supernova in Lupus |
| 1045 | | Giovanni Graziani elected Pope as Gregory VI (1045-1046; abdicated, d. 1048) |
| 1654 | | England's Protestant Parliament imposed the Pale on Ireland forcing Catholics west of the Shannon |
| 1703 | | Battle at Pultusk: Swedes defeat the Russians & Saxons |
| 1707 | | Parliament forms the United Kingdom of Great Britain |
| 1759 | | British fleet captures Guadeloupe from the France |
| 1857 | | Filibuster William Walker surrenders to USN to avoid execution by the Nicaraguans |
| 1862 | | David Farragut captures New Orleans |
| 1863 | | Battle of Chancellorsville beings (ends on the 4th) |
| 1863 | | Confederate Congress urges the killing of black men captured in the military service of the United States |
| 1863 | | Grant's Vicksburg Campaign: Battle of Port Gibson, Mississippi |
| 1865 | | Some 10,000 black citizens of Charleston, SC, dedicate a cemetery to 267 Union soldiers who died as Confederate prisoners-of-war |
| 1865 | | The U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps numbered 1,000,516 -- Learn More (scroll down) |
| 1866 | | Memphis Race Rioting: Whites begin attacking blacks until federal troops arrive on the 3rd, 46 blacks, 2 whites die, black women are raped, much African American property destroyed |
| 1866 | | The Fenian armed schooner 'Friend' takes a British ship off Canada |
| 1869 | | The Folies-Bergere opens in Paris, a beacon for soldiers in three Franco-German wars |
| 1893 | | World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago opens for 18 months -- Learn More |
| 1898 | | Commo George Dewey's USsquadron defeated the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay -- Learn More |
| 1915 | | A German U-boat sinks the American tanker 'Gulflight', 3 killed |
| 1917 | | German torpedo plane sinks the British steamer 'Gena' |
| 1919 | | Eruption of Mount Kelud, Indonesia, c. 5,000 die |
| 1919 | | U.S. anti-radical "May Day Raids" |
| 1929 | | Berlin: May Day demonstrators shot by police, 19 killed & injured |
| 1931 | | The Empire State Building opens |
| 1936 | | Emperor Haile Selassie leaves Ethiopia as the Italians rout his army |
| 1937 | | FDR signs the Second Neutrality Act |
| 1941 | | German assault on Tobruk |
| 1942 | | Japanese troops occupy Mandalay, Burma, and press on westwards. |
| 1943 | | Wartime food rationing begins in US |
| 1944 | | U.S. Navy bombards Ponape, in the Carolines. |
| 1945 | | Australians land on Tarakan, Borneo. |
| 1947 | | Vice Adm Roscoe Hillenkoeter becomes 1st CIA director |
| 1948 | | Democratic People's Republic of [North] Korea established |
| 1954 | | Puerto Rican radicals shoot up the House of Representatives, 4 injured |
| 1960 | | Francis Gary Powers' U-2 spy plane is shot down over Sverdlovsk |
| 1961 | | Fidel Castro announces there will be no more elections in Cuba |
| 1961 | | First hijack of an American commercial airliner, to Cuba |
| 1962 | | First French underground nuclear blast, in the Sahara |
| 1992 | | Rioting in Los Angeles over the Rodney King verdict |
| 1201 | | Thibaud "the Troubadour" or "the Chansonnier" or "the Posthumous" - Count Thibaud IV of Champagne from birth and King Thibaud I of Navarre (1234-1253), d. 1253 |
| 1238 | | King Magnus VI of Norway (1263-80) |
| 1245 | | King Philippe III of France (1270-85) |
| 1501 | | Marcello Cervini degli Spannochi - Pope Marcellus II (7 Apr-6 May 1555) |
| 1764 | | Benjamin Henry Latrobe, designer of the U.S. Capital, d. 1820 |
| 1769 | | Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, d. 1852 -- Learn More |
| 1800 | | Thomas Aloysius Dornin, naval officer, U.S., d. 1874 |
| 1807 | | John Bankhead "Prince John" Magruder, Maj Gen, C.S.A., d. 1871 |
| 1819 | | William Steele, Brig Gen, C.S.A., d. 1885 |
| 1835 | | Alfred Napoleon Alexander Duffie, Brig Gen, U.S., d. 1880 |
| 1868 | | Prince Frederick Charles Louis Constantine von Hesse, German officer, titular Landgrave of Hesse (1925-1940), King-Elect of Finland (Oct 9-December14, 1918) |
| 1881 | | Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, sometime stretcher-bearer, 8th Moroccan Rifles (Médaille Militaire & Legion of Honor), Jesuit theologian, paleontologist, d. 1955 |
| 1909 | | Kathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith, singer ("God Bless America"), d. 1986 -- Learn More |
| 1923 | | Joseph Heller, veteran, novelist ("Catch-22"), d. 1999 |
| 1932 | | John Woodward, later Admiral, RN, who led the liberation of the Falklands in 1982, d. 2013 |
| 408 | | Roman Emperor Arcadius (395-408), at c. 30 |
| 1118 | | Queen Maud of England, c. 40, wife to Henry I |
| 1171 | | King Dermot MacMurrough, c. 70, last Irish King of Leinster (1126-1171) |
| 1277 | | King Stefan Uros I of Serbia (1243-76), deposed 1276 |
| 1281 | | Ugolino Manfredi, condottiero, kia at Forli |
| 1282 | | Count Taddeo of Montefeltro (1266-1282), kia against his brother Guido I, from whom he had usurpsed the title in 1266 |
| 1308 | | Holy Roman Emperor Albrecht I von Hapsburg (1298-1308), c. 53, assassinated by his nephew |
| 1447 | | Duke Ludwig VII of Bavaria (1413-43), c. 80 |
| 1555 | | Pope Marcellus II - Marcello Cervini degli Spannochi (Apr 7-May 1, 1555), 53 |
| 1572 | | Pope St. Pius V - Michele Ghisleri (1566-1572) |
| 1877 | | Yakub Bey, c. 57, Emir of Kashgar & Eastern Turkestan, assassinated |
| 1888 | | Erstwhile Confederate brigadier William Wirt Adams at 69 and Mississippi journalist John H. Martin at 64, the former having ambushed the latter, putting three bullets into him, but receiving one through the heart in return |
| 1896 | | Shah Naser ed-Din of Persia (1848-96), murdered at 65 |
| 1933 | | Calvin Coolidge, 60, President (1923-1929) |
| 1993 | | Pres. Ranasinghe Premadasa of Sri Lanka (1989-1993), 68, & his bodyguards, murdered by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber |
| 2011 | | Osama bin Laden, 54, international terrorist, shot in his lair by US Navy SEALs |
| 2016 | | Madeleine Lebeau, 92, French actress, last surviving "Casablanca" cast member, who sang "La Marseillaise" -- Learn More |