| 0 | | International Workers' Day -- Learn More |
| 0 | | Law Day in the United States |
| 0 | | Feast of Saint 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 |
