1862 – The Battle of Puebla took place. It is celebrated as Cinco de Mayo Day. While it is a relatively minor holiday in Mexico, in the United States, Cinco de Mayo has evolved into a commemoration of Mexican culture and heritage, particularly in areas with large Mexican American populations.
1260 – Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.
1430 – Jews are expelled from Speyer, Germany
1494 – Christopher Columbus sighted Jamaica on his second trip to the Western Hemisphere. He named the island Santa Gloria.
1646 – King Charles I surrenders in Scotland
1762 – Russia and Prussia sign the Treaty of St. Petersburg.
1795 – Great Britain passes a tax on hair powder – a fee of 1 guinea a year, leading to a decline in its use
1798 – U.S. Secretary of War William McHenry ordered that the USS Constitution be made ready for sea. The frigate was launched on October 21, 1797, but had never been put to sea.
1809 – Mary Kies was awarded the first patent to go to a woman. It was for technique for weaving straw with silk and thread.
1814 – The British attacked the American forces at Ft. Ontario, Oswego, NY.
1862 – The Battle of Puebla took place. It is celebrated as Cinco de Mayo Day. https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/cinco-de-mayo
1865 – In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the first train robbery in the United States takes place
1870 – The British and Foreign Society for Improving the Embossed Literature of the Blind adopts Braille as best format for blind people
1877 – Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
1881 – Anit-Jewish rioting in Kiev Ukraine
1886 – The Bay View Tragedy occurs, militia fire upon a crowd of protesters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin killing seven.
1892 – The U.S. Congress extended the Geary Chinese Exclusion Act for 10 more years. The act required Chinese in the U.S. to be registered or face deportation.
1893 – Panic of 1893 causes a large crash on the NY Stock Exchange
1901 – The first Catholic mass for night workers was held at the Church of St. Andrew in New York City.
1908 – US Great White Fleet arrives in San Francisco
1912 – Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda began publishing.
1916 – U.S. Marines invaded the Dominican Republic.
1917 – Eugene Jacques Bullard becomes the first African-American aviator when he earned his flying certificate with the French Air Service.
1920 – US President Wilson makes Communist Labor Party illegal
1925 – John T. Scopes, a biology teacher in Dayton, TN, was arrested for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. After being found guilty his conviction was later set aside.
1926 – Eisenstein’s film “Battleship Potemkin” was shown in Germany for the first time.
1934 – The first Three Stooges film is released – The comedy trio soon became famous, especially in the U.S., for their short films featuring slapstick humor.
1936 – Edward Ravenscroft received a patent for the screw-on bottle cap with a pour lip.
1942 – In the U.S., wartime sugar rationing began.
1943 – Postmaster General Frank C Walker invents Postal Zone System
1944 – Mohandas Gandhi is freed from prison.
1945 – A Japanese balloon bomb exploded on Gearhart Mountain in Oregon. A pregnant woman and five children were killed.
1949 – The Council of Europe is founded – The organization was the first to work for European integration. It has 47 member countries and is a completely separate entity from the European Union (EU).
1950 – Bhumibol Adulyadej crowned King Rama IX of Thailand in the Royal Palace in Bangkok
1954 – A coup d’tat carries General Alfredo Stroessner to power in Paraguay.
1955 – West Germany regains full sovereignty after World War II
1961 – Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., aboard Mercury capsule Freedom 7, became the first American in space when he made a 15 minute suborbital flight.
1971 – Race riot in Brownsville section of Brooklyn (NYC)
1979 – Voyager 1 passes Jupiter
1980 – Operation Nimrod: The Special Air Service storm the Iranian embassy in London after a six day siege.
1981 – After 66 days on hunger strike, 26-year-old Provisional IRA member and British MP Bobby Sands dies in Prison Maze. Nine more hunger strikers die in the next 3 months.
1984 – The Itaipu Dam opened on the Paraná River between Brazil and Paraguay.
1987 – The U.S. congressional Iran-Contra hearings opened.
1991 – A riot breaks out in the Mt. Pleasant section of Washington, DC after a Salvadoran man is shot by police.
1997 – “Married With Children” final episode on Fox TV
2000 – Conjunction of Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon
2012 – Japan shuts down its nuclear reactors leaving the country without nuclear power for the first time since 1970
2013 – 10 people are killed in a church attack in Njilan, Nigeria
2014 – The U.S. Supreme court upheld Christian prayers at the start of local council meetings.
2015 – Scientists announce the discovery of the oldest & most distant galaxy known to man, EGS-zs8-1
2019 – King Vajiralongkorn is crowned King of Thailand, first monarch to be crowned in nearly seven decades during a three-day celebration in Bangkok
2020 – Global confirmed cases of COVID-19 reach 3.65 million, US cases pass 70,000 while the UK becomes the most affected in Europe with 29,427 known deaths
2021 – A week of mass protests and demonstrations against government tax reform and poverty in Colombia leaves 24 dead
2022 – Zimbabwe is in the midst of a severe economic crisis with unemployment at 90%, hyperinflation and a falling Zimbabwe dollar, according to economic experts
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
