April 7th
 

1652 ~ The Dutch established a settlement at Cape Town, South Africa.

1770 ~ Birthday of William Wordsworth, one of the 'Lake Poets'.

1795 ~ France adopted the meter as the unit of length and the base of the metric system.

1860 ~ Birthday of W.K. Kellog, who started a business named ‘Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company’.

1908 ~ Birthday of Percy Faith, Composer.

1915 ~ Birthday of Billie Holiday, Jazz Singer

1920 ~ Birthday of Ravi Shankar, Sitar player & Composer.

1945 ~ The Japanese battleship ‘Yamato’, the world’s largest battleship, was sunk during the battle for Okinawa.

1949 ~ The musical ‘South Pacific’ by Rogers and Hammerstein opened on Broadway.

1975 ~ Beverly Sills made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in Gioacchino Rossini's "Siege of Corinth". What a voice!

April 8th
 

1513 ~ Juan Ponce de Leon claimed Florida for Spain.

1692 ~ Birthday of Giuseppe Tartini, Voilinist & Composer.

1730 ~ 1st Jewish congregation in US forms synagogue, "Shearith Israel, NYC"

1850 ~ Birthday of William Henry Welch, who, as the first dean of the medical school at Johns Hopkins University, played a major role in the introduction of modern medical practice to the U.S.

1939 ~ Italy invaded Albania. King Zog I flees.

1953 ~ Dag Hammarskjold chosen as Secretary-General of UN

1963 ~ At the 35th Academy Awards, "Lawrence of Arabia", Anne Bancroft & Gregory Peck win.

1966 ~ Leonid Brezhnev elected Secretary-General of USSR Communist Party.

1974 ~ Hank Aaron hits 715th home run breaking Babe Ruth's record.

1975 ~ Frank Robinson became first black manager of a major league baseball team.

April 9th
 

193 ~ Lucius Septimius Severus proclaimed Roman emperor. April was a good month for him.

1682 ~ Robert La Salle claimed the lower Mississippi River and all lands that touch it for France.

1865 ~ General Robert E. Lee and his 26,765 troops surrendered to Union General Grant. This event was effectively the end of the U.S. Civil War.

1906 ~ Birthday of Antal Dorati, Conductor.

1919 ~ Birthday of John Presper Eckert, who worked with John Mauchly to build what many think was the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, ENIAC. (J.A.).

1926 ~ Birthday of Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy magazine.

1928 ~ Birthday of Tom Lehrer, one of comedy's great paradoxes: a respected Harvard mathematics professor by day, at night he was among the foremost song satirists of the postwar era.

1933 ~ Birthday of Jean-Paul Belmondo, France's most popular male film star throughout the 1960s.

1940 ~ Germany invaded Norway and Denmark.

1966 ~ Percy Sledge's "When A Man Loves A Woman" was released.

April 10th
 

1633 ~ Bananas appeared on sale in Britain for the first time, in the shop window of Thomas Johnson of Snow Hill, London.

1794 ~ Birthday of Matthew Perry, American Commodore who forced the opening of Japan to the West.

1814 ~ Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Toulouse by the British and the Spanish. The defeat led to his abdication and exile to Elba.

1865 ~ Birthday of Jack Miner, Naturalist, Author, and bird Conservationist.

1912 ~ RMS Titanic departs Southampton, England on its maiden voyage.

1932 ~ Birthday of Omar Sharif, Actor (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Funny Girl ).

1963 ~ The submarine USS Thresher lost at sea, with all hands (129 officers, crewmen and civilian technicians).

1967 ~ The song "Somethin' Stupid" became the first father-daughter song to hit No. 1. The song was performed by Nancy and Frank Sinatra.

1970 ~ Paul McCartney announces that The Beatles have broken up.

1972 ~ United States and the Soviet Union joined some 70 nations in signing an agreement banning biological warfare.

April 11th
 

146 ~ Birthday of Lucius Septimius Severus, Roman emperor. April was a good month for him.

1689 ~ William III and Mary II were crowned as joint sovereigns of Britain.

1775 ~ Last execution for witchcraft in Germany.

1945 ~ American soldiers liberated the notorious Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald, in Germany.

1947 ~ Jackie Robinson made his major-league debut, playing in an exhibition between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees.

1961 ~ The trial began in Israel of Adolf Eichmann, the man accused of helping Hitler in his plan to exterminate the Jews.

1968 ~ The Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

1970 ~ Apollo 13 was launched on a mission to the moon that was disrupted when an explosion crippled the spacecraft. Cmdr Swigert reported: "Houston, we've had a problem". The astronauts managed to return safely.

1991 ~ The U.N. Security Council announced a formal end to the Persian Gulf War.

1992 ~ The musical "Miss Saigon," denounced by detractors as racist and sexist, opened on Broadway. Sound familiar?

April 12th
 

65 ~ Death of Lucius Seneca, Philosopher & Statesman.

1204 ~ The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople.

1606 ~ England adopts the Union Jack as its flag.

1633 ~ Galileo is convicted of heresy.

1857 ~ Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" published.

1861 ~ The American Civil War begins with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

1877 ~ British annex Transvaal, South Africa.

1954 ~ The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) began hearings to revoke Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance.

1961 ~ Yuri Gagarin is the first man in space.

1984 ~ Arthur Scargill vetoes national ballot on NUM strike. This brought about the destruction of his union.

April 14th
 

1205 ~ Battle of Adrianople between Bulgars and Crusaders. Ever notice how large the Balkans figure in European history?

1629 ~ Birthday of Christiaan Huygens, Mathematician.

1828 ~ Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.

1865 ~ Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.

1866 ~ Birthday of Anne Sullivan, special educator (Hellen Keller).

1899 ~ Birthday of Arnold Toynbee, Historian.

1904 ~ Birthday of Sir John Gielgud, Actor.

1940 ~ Birthday of Loretta Lynn, Singer.

1962 ~ Georges Pompidou becomes PM of France.

2000 ~ Kenneth Noye, who carried out a "road rage" killing just off M25, received a life sentence.

April 15th
 

1452 ~ Birthday of Leonardo da Vinci, Renaissance Man.

1688 ~ Birthday of Johann Friedrich Fasch, Composer.

1843 ~ Birthday of Henry James, Author.

1871 ~ "Wild Bill" Hickok became the marshal of Abilene, Kansas.

1880 ~ William Gladstone became PM of England.

1912 ~ The RMS Titanic sank at 2:27 AM.

1924 ~ Rand McNally published its first road atlas.

1955 ~ Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois.

1989 ~ 96 people die and more than 200 injured at Hillsborough, in Britain's worst-ever sporting disaster.

1998 ~ Pol Pot died, and thereby evaded prosecution for the deaths of 2 million Cambodians.

April 16th
 

1705 ~ Queen Anne of England knighted Isaac Newton.

1746 ~ Battle of Culloden, in Scotland, the last battle fought on British soil.

1889 ~ Birthday of Charlie Chaplin, Actor, Writer.

1917 ~ Vladmir Lenin returns from exile.

1921 ~ Birthday of Peter Ustinov, Actor, Writer.

1924 ~ Birthday of Henry Mancini, film and TV Composer.

1927 ~ Birthday of Joseph Ratzinger, Cardinal.

1943 ~ Dr. Albert Hofmann discovers the psychic effects of LSD.

1947 ~ Birthday of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Athlete.

2002 ~ Sony Music Entertainment filed a complaint against the Dixie Chicks for breach of contract.

April 17th
 

1524 ~ Giovanni da Verrazano discovered New York harbor.

1622 ~ Birthday of Henry Vaughan, Metaphysical Poet.

1837 ~ Birthday of J.P. Morgan, Financier.

1861 ~ Virginia secedes from the U.S.

1894 ~ Birthday of Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet Leader.

1903 ~ Birthday of Gregor Piatigorsky, Cellist.

1924 ~ Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios is formed.

1961 ~ Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba begins.

1969 ~ Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubcek is deposed, bringing to and end the “Prague Spring”.

1984 ~ Yvonne Fletcher is killed by gunfire from Libyan embassy in London. Ten other people were wounded.

April 18th
 

1521 ~ Martin Luther confronted the emperor Charles V in the Diet of Worms and refused to retract his views that led to his excommunication.

1775 ~ American revolutionaries Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott rode though the towns of Massachusetts giving the warning that "the British are coming."

1819 ~ Birthday of Franz von Suppe, Composer.

1857 ~ Birthday of Clarence Darrow, Lawyer.

1882 ~ Birthday of Leopold Stokowski, one of the greatest conductors of all time.

1946 ~ Birthday of Hayley Mills, Actress.

1949 ~ The Republic of Ireland was established.

1954 ~ Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power in Egypt.

1980 ~ Rhodesia became in independent nation of Zimbabwe.

1984 ~ Michael Jackson went into surgery to repair damage done after his hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial.

April 19th
 

1587 ~ Sir Francis Drake sinks the Spanish fleet in Cadiz Harbor.

1770 ~ Captain James Cook first spots Australia.

1772 ~ Birthday of David Ricardo, Economist.

1861 ~ A clash between pro-South civilians and Union troops in Baltimore, Maryland resulted in what is commonly accepted to be the first bloodshed of the American Civil War.

1927 ~ Birthday of Erma Bombeck, humorist.

1943 ~ German troops enter the Warsaw ghetto to round up the remaining Jews, starting the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

1956 ~ Grace Kelly marries Rainier III of Monaco.

1993 ~ A 50-day siege of the Branch Davidian complex outside Waco, Texas ends when a fire broke out. Eighty-one people died.

1995 ~ In retaliation for the deaths of the Branch Davidians in 1993, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is bombed, killing 168.

1999 ~ The German Parliament returns to Berlin.

Today is Primrose Day in England. Primroses are placed on the statue of Benjamin Disraeli in Parliament Square, London on the anniversary of his death in1881.

April 20th
 

1139 ~ The Second Lateran Council opens. It was at this council that the prohibition of marriage by religious was formalized.

1745 ~ Birthday of Phillip Pinel, French physician who pioneered in the humane treatment of the mentally ill.

1889 ~ Birthday of Adolf Hitler, Dictator.

1908 ~ Birthday of Lionel Hampton, Musician.

1928 ~ Birthday of Gerald S. Hawkins, Astronomer and Mathematician who identified Stonehenge to be a prehistoric astronomical observatory.

1951 ~ General MacArthur addressed the joint session of Congress after being relieved by U.S. President Truman.

1968 ~ English politician Enoch Powell makes controversial “Rivers of Blood Speech”.

1983 ~ Korean Airlines Flight 007 was shot down over Soviet airspace.

1984 ~ Britain announced that its administration of Hong Kong would cease in 1997.

1999 ~ Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold open fire in their high school leaving 15 dead and 23 wounded.

April 21st
 

1816 ~ Birthday of Charlotte Brontë, Author.

1838 ~ Birthday of John Muir, Naturalist.

1899 ~ Birthday of Randall Thompson, Composer.

1912 ~ The New York Giants and New York Yankees play an exhibition game to benefit survivors of the Titanic.

1915 ~ Birthday of Anthony Quinn, Actor

1918 ~ Manfred von Richthofen, the “Red Barron” lost in action.

1926 ~ Birthday of Elizabeth Windsor, Queen of England.

1960 ~ Brazil inaugurated its new capital, Brasilia, transferring the seat of national government from Rio de Janeiro.

1970 ~ Hutt River Province secedes from the Commonwealth of Australia.

1994 ~ The first discovery of extrasolar planets are announced by astronomer Alexander Wolszczan.

April 22nd
 

1529 ~ Spain and Portugal divided the eastern hemisphere in Treaty of Saragosa.

1658 ~ Birthday of Giuseppe Torelli, Composer.

1724 ~ Birthday of Immanuel Kant, Philosopher.

1864 ~ The U.S. Congress mandated that coins minted as U.S. currency bear the inscription "In God We Trust".

1870 ~ Birthday of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), Dictator.

1904 ~ Birthday of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Physicist.

1915 ~ At the Second Battle Ypres the Germans introduced the use of poison gas.

1916 ~ Birthday of Yehudi Menuhin, Musician.

1970 ~ First Earth Day led to many apocalyptic predictions.

2000 ~ Elian Gonzalez was reunited with his father. He had to be taken from his Miami relatives by U.S. agents in a predawn raid.

April 23rd
 

1348 ~ King Edward the Third of England established the Order of the Garter.

1564 ~ Traditional birthday of William Shakespeare, Playwright.

1772 ~ Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle wrote the French National Anthem, "La Marseillaise".

1858 ~ Birthday of Max Planck, Physicist. (1918 Nobel Prize)

1891 ~ Birthday of Sergei Prokofiev, Composer.

1933 ~ The Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) established.

1936 ~ Birthday of Roy Orbison, Musician.

1948 ~ Birthday of Bernadette Devlin, MP.

1954 ~ Hank Aaron hit his first major league home run.

2003 ~ Beijing closed all schools for two weeks due to the SARS virus.

April 24th
 

1800 ~ The United States Library of Congress established.

1814 ~ British troops burn Washington, DC.

1856 ~ Birthday of Philippe Pétain, General.

1905 ~ Birthday of Robert Penn Warren, Author.

1916 ~ Easter Uprising in Ireland.

1934 ~ Birthday of Shirley MacLaine, Actress & Author.

1942 ~ Birthday of Barbra Streisand, Entertainer.

1953 ~ Winston Churchill knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

1967 ~ Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died in Soyuz 1.

1990 ~ The Hubble Space Telescope launched aboard Space Shuttle “Discovery”.

April 25th
 

1599 ~ Birthday of Oliver Cromwell, Protector.

1719 ~ ”Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe is published.

1840 ~ Birthday of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer.

1859 ~ Ground is broken for the Suez Canal.

1874 ~ Birthday of Guglielmo Marconi, Electrical engineer and Nobel Prize laureate.

1900 ~ Birthday of Wolfgang Pauli, physicist and Nobel Prize laureate.

1953 ~ In an article in "Nature", James Watson and Francis Crick described the structure of a chemical called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.

1917 ~ Birthday of Ella Fitzgerald, Jazz Singer.

1959 ~ The St. Lawrence Seaway linking the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean officially opened.

1961 ~ Robert Noyce is granted the first patent for an integrated circuit.


ANZAC Day (Australia, New Zealand)

April 26th
 

1607 ~ An expedition of English colonists, including Captain John Smith, went ashore at Cape Henry, Virginia, to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.

1787 ~ Birthday of John Audubon, Naturalist.

1865 ~ John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln, was surrounded and killed by federal troops near Bowling Green, Virginia.

1895 ~ Birthday of Rudolf Hess, Reichsminister/SS-Obergruppenführer

1900 ~ Birthday of Charles Richter, Seismologist.

1937 ~ Planes from Nazi Germany raided the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. Pablo Picasso used this event for his tour de force “Guernica”.

1964 ~ The African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania.

1986 ~ The world's worst nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union.

1992 ~ Christians officially celebrated the first Russian Orthodox Easter in Moscow in 74 years.

1994 ~ Voting began in South Africa's first all-race elections.

April 27th
 

1667 ~ The blind, impoverished John Milton sold the copyright of “Paradise Lost” for £10.

1737 ~ Birthday of Edward Gibbon, Historian.

1773 ~ The British Parliament passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.

1791 ~ Birthday of Samuel Morse, Inventor.

1820 ~ Birthday of Herbert Spencer, Philosopher, editor of “The Economist”, who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest".

1822 ~ Birthday of Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. General & President.

1908 ~ The 1908 Summer Olympics opened in London.

1960 ~ Togo gains independence from French-administered UN trusteeship.

1961 ~ Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom.

1981 ~ Xerox PARC introduced the computer mouse.

April 28th

1442 ~ Birthday of King Edward IV of England.

1788 ~ Maryland became the 7th state to ratify the Constitution of the United States.

1889 ~ Birthday of António de Oliveira Salazar, Dictator.

1920 ~ Azerbaijan was added to the Soviet Union.

1906 ~ Birthday of Kurt Gödel, Mathematician.

1952 ~ The United States occupation of Japan ended.

1908 ~ Birthday of Oskar Schindler, Businessman.

1969 ~ Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of France.

1937 ~ Birthday of Saddam Hussein, Dictator.

2003 ~ Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store released, sells 1,000,000 songs in first week.

April 29th
 

1429 ~ Joan of Arc relieved Orleans from English siege.

1770 ~ James Cook discovered Botany Bay, Australia.

1863 ~ Birthday of William Randolph Hearst, Publisher.

1879 ~ Birthday of Sir Thomas Beecham, Conductor.

1899 ~ Birthday of Edward "Duke" Ellington, Jazz Pianist, Bandleader.

1901 ~ Birthday of Michinomiya Hirohito, Emperor

1936 ~ Birthday of Zubin Mehta, Conductor.

1945 ~ Adolf Hitler married his long-time partner Eva Braun and designated Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor.

1946 ~ Former Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tojo and 28 former Japanese leaders were indicted for war crimes.

1988 ~ Glasnost: Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev promised increased religious freedoms.

April 30th
 

313 ~ Roman emperor Licinius unified the entire Eastern Roman Empire under his rule.

1777 ~ Birthday of Carl Friedrich Gauss, Mathematician, Astronomer and Physicist.

1803 ~ Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation overnight.

1870 ~ Birthday of Franz Lehár, Composer.

1877 ~ Birthday of Alice B. Toklas, Muse.

1893 ~ Birthday of Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi Foreign Minister.

1938 ~ Birthday of Larry Niven, Science Fiction Author.

1945 ~ Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commited suicide after being married for one day.

1948 ~ The Land Rover unveiled at the Amsterdam Auto Show.

1975 ~ Vietnam War: North Vietnamese troops occupied Saigon, ending the war.

May 1st
 

305 ~ Diocletian and Maximian retired from the office of Roman Emperor.

1707 ~ The Act of Union joined England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1786 ~ Premier night of the opera “The Marriage of Figaro” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

1830 ~ Birthday of Mother Jones, Labor Activist.

1852 ~ Birthday of Calamity Jane, Riflewoman.

1840 ~ The Penny Black, the world's first official adhesive postage stamp went on sale

1923 ~ Birthday of Shimon Peres, Israeli Statesman.

1932 ~ Birthday of Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League.

1944 ~ Birthday of Rita Coolidge, singer

2004 ~ Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the European Union.



Day of the International Solidarity of Workers (particularly in Communist countries).

May 2nd
 

1660 ~ Birthday of Alessandro Scarlatti, Composer.

1670 ~ The Hudson's Bay Company formed in England.

1729 ~ Birthday of Empress Catherine II of Russia.

1892 ~ Birthday of Manfred von Richthofen, Pilot.

1903 ~ Birthday of Dr. Benjamin Spock, pediatrician, Olympic gold medalist, Author.

1904 ~ Birthday of Bing Crosby, Actor and Singer.

1933 ~ The first modern sighting of the Loch Ness monster reported.

1939 ~ Lou Gehrig's streak of 2,130 consecutive baseball games played came to an end. The record stood for 57 years before Cal Ripken, Jr. broke it.

1952 ~ The first commercial jet plane, the BOAC Comet, entered service.

1997 ~ Tony Blair became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, ending 18 years of Conservative Party rule. At 44, he was the youngest prime minister in 185 years.

May 3rd
 

612 ~ Birthday of Constantine III, Byzantine Emperor.

1469 ~ Birthday of Nicolò Machiavelli, Historian and Political Author.

1810 ~ Lord Byron swims the Hellespont. It was one of those things that couldn’t be done.

1889 ~ Birthday of Golda Meir, PM of Israel.

1906 ~ Birthday of Mary Astor, Actress.

1912 ~ The first victims of the RMS Titanic are buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

1951 ~ London's Royal Festival Hall opens.

1959 ~ Birthday of Ben Elton, Comedian & Author.

1982 ~ Falklands War: The HMS Sheffield is hit by an Exocet missile and sinks.

2000 ~ Datapoint, the company that commissioned the Intel 8008 microprocessor, declares bankruptcy.


Today is World Press Freedom Day.

May 4th
 

1825 ~ Birthday of Thomas Henry Huxley, Scientist and staunch defender of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

1928 ~ Birthday of Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt.

1936 ~ Birthday of El Cordobes, Bullfighter.

1930 ~ British police arrest Mahatma Gandhi.

1941 ~ Birthday of George Will, Writer.

1942 ~ Battle of the Coral Sea began.

1942 ~ Birthday of Tammy Wynette, Country Musician.

1961 ~ American civil rights movement: The "Freedom Riders" began a bus trip through the South.

1970 ~ Kent State massacre: The Ohio National Guard opened fire on students protesting the United States' invasion of Cambodia. Four students are killed, 9 wounded.

1979 ~ Margaret Thatcher appointed PM of the United Kingdom.

May 5th
 

1809 ~ Mary Kies became the first woman to be awarded a US patent.

1813 ~ Birthday of Søren Kierkegaard, Philosopher.

1818 ~ Birthday of Karl Marx, Political philosopher.

1821 ~ Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor.

1891 ~ Carnegie Hall had its grand opening and first public performance (Tchaikovsky was the guest conductor).

1843 ~ Birthday of Michael Palin, comedian ("Monty Python").

1925 ~ Biology teacher John Scopes arrested for teaching Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

1961 ~ Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into space. He made a space flight of 15 minutes, making less than one complete orbit.

1980 ~ The Special Air Service stormed the Iranian embassy in London after a time of siege.

1995 ~ Death of Mikhail Botvinnik, world chess champion.

May 6th
 

1758 ~ Birthday of Maximilian Robespierre, Revolutionary.

1856 ~ Birthday of Sigmund Freud, Psychiatrist.

1889 ~ The Eiffel Tower officially opened to the public.

1915 ~ Birthday of Orson Welles, Director.

1915 ~ Birthday of Theodore H. White, Writer.

1931 ~ Birthday of Willie Mays, Athlete.

1937 ~ The German zeppelin “Hindenburg” caught fire and was destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

1954 ~ Roger Bannister became the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.

1994 ~ Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand officially opened the Chunnel.

2004 ~ The last episode of the television sitcom Friends aired.

May 7th
 

558 ~ In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapsed. Justinian immediately ordered the dome rebuilt.

1812 ~ Birthday of Robert Browning, Poet.

1832 ~ Greece became independent.

1833 ~ Birthday of Johannes Brahms, Composer.

1840 ~ Birthday of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer.

1909 ~ Birthday of Edwin H. Land, inventor and founder of Polaroid.

1915 ~ The RMS “Lusitania” is sunk by a German U-boat killing 1,198.

1919 ~ Birthday of Eva Peron, wife of Argentina's President Juan Peron.

1945 ~ General Alfred Jodl signed unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document took effect the next day.

1998 ~ Apple Computer unveiled the iMac.

May 8th
 

1794 ~ French chemist Antoine Lavoisier was executed by guillotine.

1821 ~ Birthday of Jean Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross and recipient of the 1901 Nobel Peace Prize.

1895 ~ Birthday of Fulton J. Sheen, Bishop, television personality.

1902 ~ In Martinique, Mount Pelee erupted, destroying the town of St. Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a small handful of St. Pierre's residents survived the blast.

1926 ~ Birthday of Sir David Attenborough, pioneering television presenter and producer.

1933 ~ Mahatma Gandhi began a 21 day fast in protest of British oppression in India.

1937 ~ Birthday of Thomas Pynchon, Novelist.

1945 ~ Birthday of Keith Jarrett, Jazz Musician.

1984 ~ The Soviet Union announced that it would boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.

1999 ~ Nancy Mace became the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel military college.

May 9th
 

1429 ~ Joan of Arc defeated the English troops besieging Orleans.

1800 ~ Birthday of John Brown, American abolitionist.

1873 ~ Birthday of Howard Carter, British archaeologist.

1892 ~ Birthday of Zita of Bourbon-Parma, last empress of Austria-Hungary.

1901 ~ Australia opened its first parliament in Melbourne.

1920 ~ Birthday of Richard Adams, Author.

1927 ~ The Australian Parliament first convened in Canberra.

1950 ~ Robert Schuman presented his proposal on the creation of an organized Europe. This proposal, known as the "Schuman declaration", is considered to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.

1986 ~ Death of Tenzing Norgay, Mountaineer.

1994 ~ Nelson Mandela inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.

May 10th
 

1534 ~ Jacques Cartier discovered Newfoundland.

1774 ~ Louis XVI became King of France.

1801 ~ The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declared war on the United States.

1838 ~ Birthday of John Wilkes Booth, Actor & Assassin.

1863 ~ Death of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Confederate general.

1899 ~ Birthday of Fred Astaire, Singer, Dancer, Actor.

1902 ~ Birthday of David O. Selznick, Hollywood film producer.

1924 ~ J. Edgar Hoover appointed head the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

1940 ~ Winston Churchill appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1960 ~ The nuclear submarine USS Nautilus completed the first under water circumnavigation of the earth.

May 11th
 

330 ~ Byzantium was renamed Constantinople.

1812 ~ Prime Minster Spencer Perceval was assassinated in the lobby of the British House of Commons.

1857 ~ Indian Mutiny: Indian rebels seized Delhi.

1888 ~ Birthday of Irving Berlin, composer.

1895 ~ Birthday of Jiddu Krishnamurti, Philosopher

1904 ~ Birthday of Salvador Dalí, Painter.

1918 ~ Birthday of Richard Feynman, Physicist.

1927 ~ The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the "Academy" in "Academy Awards," was founded.

1933 ~ Birthday of Louis Farrakhan, Black Muslim leader

1997 ~ IBM's Deep Blue chess-playing supercomputer defeated Garry Kasparov to become the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player.

May 12th
 

1820 ~ Birthday of Florence Nightingale, Nurse.

1870 ~ Manitoba became a province of Canada.

1845 ~ Birthday of Gabriel Fauré, Composer.

1885 ~ The four day Battle of Batoche, pitting rebel French Canadians against the Canadian government, came to an end with a decisive rebel defeat.

1914 ~ Birthday of Howard K. Smith, Journalist.

1918 ~ Birthday of Julius Rosenberg, Spy.

1928 ~ Birthday of Burt Bacharach, Composer.

1949 ~ The Soviet Union lifted its Blockade of Berlin.

1958 ~ A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command agreement was signed between the United States and Canada.

2000 ~ The Tate Modern opened in London.

May 13th
 

1607 ~ Jamestown, Virginia was settled as an English colony.

1787 ~ Captain Arthur Phillip left England with eleven ships full of convicts to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1842 ~ Birthday of Sir Arthur Sullivan, of Gilbert and Sullivan, Composer.

1888 ~ Brazil abolished slavery.

1907 ~ Birthday of Dame Daphne du Maurier, Author.

1917 ~ Three peasant children claimed to see the Blessed Virgin Mary near Fatima, Portugal.

1931 ~ Birthday of Jim Jones, Cult leader.

1937 ~ Birthday of Roger Zelazny, Author.

1950 ~ Birthday of Stevie Wonder, Singer.

1981 ~ Mehemet Ali Agca attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II at St. Peter's Square in Rome.

May 14th
 

1727 ~ Birthday of Thomas Gainsborough, Artist.

1796 ~ Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox vaccination.

1870 ~ The first game of rugby in New Zealand was played in Nelson between Nelson College and the Nelson Rugby Football Club.

1884 ~ Birthday of Claude Dornier, Aircraft Designer.

1885 ~ Birthday of Otto Klemperer, Conductor.

1912 ~ Birthday of Ben Hogan, Golfer.

1925 ~ Death of H. Rider Haggard, Author.

1940 ~ World War II: The Netherlands surrendered to Germany.

1948 ~ Israel declared itself to be an independent state and a provisional government was established.

1955 ~ Eight communist bloc countries including the Soviet Union signed a mutual-defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

May 15th
 

1048 ~ Birthday of Omar Khayyam, Poet.

1567 ~ Birthday of Claudio Monteverdi, Composer.

1811 ~ Paraguay gained independence from Spain.

1859 ~ Birthday of Pierre Curie, Physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics.

1869 ~ Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association.

1911 ~ The United States Supreme Court declared Standard Oil to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

1915 ~ Birthday of Paul Samuelson, Economist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics.

1948 ~ Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia attacked Israel.

1970 ~ The Beatles' last LP, “Let It Be”, was released in the United States.

1986 ~ Death of Theodore H. White, Writer.

May 16th
 

1204 ~ Baldwin, Count of Flanders crowned first Latin Emperor of Byzantium.

1532 ~ Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor of England.

1568 ~ Mary Queen of Scots fled to England.

1718 ~ Birthday of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Mathematician.

1866 ~ Charles Elmer Hires invented root beer.

1905 ~ Birthday of Henry Fonda, Actor.

1919 ~ Birthday of Liberace, Pianist.

1966 ~ Birthday of Janet Jackson, Entertainer.

1969 ~ Venera 5, a Soviet space probe, landed on Venus.

1975 ~ India annexed Sikkim.

May 17th
 

1653 ~ Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette began exploring the Mississippi River.

1749 ~ Birthday of Edward Jenner, inventor of vaccine.

1846 ~ The Saxophone was patented by Adolphe Sax.

1866 ~ Birthday of Erik Satie, Composer.

1900 ~ During the Boer War, British troops relieved Mafeking.

1900 ~ Birthday of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

1943 ~ The US Army contracted with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.

1954 ~ The United States Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas”.

1966 ~ Birthday of Qusay Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein.

1995 ~ Jacques Chirac assumed the presidency of France.