May 11



Events

Up to 1900 
 330 – Byzantium is renamed Nova Roma during a dedication ceremony, but is more popularly referred to as Constantinople.
 868 - A copy of the Diamond Sutra is printed in China, making it the oldest-known dated printed book.
 1502 – Christopher Columbus leaves for his fourth and final voyage to the West Indies.
 1647 - Peter Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of New Netherland, the Dutch colonial settlement in present-day New York City.
 1672 - Franco-Dutch War: Louis XIV of France invades the Netherlands.
 1745 – War of Austrian Succession: Battle of Fontenoy – At Fontenoy, French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army.
 1792 – Captain Robert Gray becomes the first documented Caucasian to visit the Columbia River.
 1812 – British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is shot and killed by John Bellingham in the lobby of the British House of Commons.
 1813 - In Australia, William Lawson, Gregory B. Laxland and William Wentworth lead an expedition westward from Sydney.
 1818 – Charles XIV of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Sweden.
 1820 - The HMS Beagle has its official launch. Later, one of its most famous passengers would be Charles Darwin.
 1846 - President of the United States James K. Polk asks for a declaration of war against Mexico, starting the Mexican-American War.
 1857 – Indian Mutiny: Indian rebels seize Delhi from the British.
 1858 – Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.
 1862 – American Civil War: The ironclad CSS Virginia is scuttled in the James River northwest of Norfolk, Virginia.
 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Yellow Tavern – Confederate General JEB Stuart is mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern, Virginia.
 1867 – Luxembourg gains its independence.
 1880 - Seven people are killed in the Mussel Slough tragedy, a gun battle in California.
 1892 – Johan Petter Johansson of Sweden is granted a patent for the Monkey wrench.
 1894 – Pullman Strike: Three thousand Pullman Palace Car Company workers go on a wildcat strike in Illinois.

1901  2000 
 1907 - 32 Shriners are killed when their chartered train derails at a switch near Surf Depot in California.
 1910 – An act of the U.S. Congress establishes Glacier National Park in Montana.
 1911 – The United States becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires Convention.
 1918 - The Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus is created.
 1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.
 1928 – The first analog TV service is inaugurated by WGY, Schenectady, New York.
 1934 – Dust Bowl: A strong two-day dust storm removes massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst dust storms of the Dust Bowl in North America.
 1942 – William Faulkner's collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, is published.
 1943 – World War II: American troops invade Attu in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
 1944 – World War II: The Allies start a major offensive against the Axis Powers on the Gustav Line.
 1949 – Siam changes its name to Thailand.
 1949 – Israel joins the United Nations.
 1953 – The Waco Tornado: An F5 tornado hits downtown Waco, Texas, killing 114.
 1960 – In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents capture fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann, living under the assumed name Ricardo Klement.
 1960 – The first contraceptive pill is made available on the market.
 1967 - Andreas Papandreou, Greek economist and socialist, is imprisoned in Athens by the Greek military junta.
 1969 – Vietnam War: Operation Apache Snow – Near the Laos border, American and South Vietnamese forces fight North Vietnamese troops for Ap Bia Mountain (aka Hill 937 or "Hamburger Hill").
 1970 – Henry "Dickie" Marrow" is murdered in a violent racially-motivated crime in Oxford, N.C..
 1970 – The Lubbock Tornado: An F5 tornado hits downtown Lubbock, Texas, killing 26.
 1973 – Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg has his charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times dismissed.
 1974 – An earthquake in Sichuan and Yunnan in China kills 20,000 people.
 1976 – The last episode of the TV medical drama Marcus Welby, M.D. is aired.
 1983 - Aberdeen F.C. defeats Real Madrid 2-1 to win the European Cup Winners' Cup in Gothenburg, Sweden.
 1984 – A transit of Earth from Mars takes place; no one is there to observe it.
 1985 – 56 spectators die when a flash fire strikes a football ground during a match in Bradford, England.
 1987 – Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II.
 1987 – The first heart-lung transplant takes place (Baltimore, Maryland).
 1995 – In New York City, more than 170 countries decide to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.
 1996 – On what was until that point the deadliest day on Mt. Everest, 8 climbers are killed in a snowstorm.
 1996 – After taking-off from Miami, a fire started by improperly handled oxygen canisters in the cargo hold of Atlanta-bound ValuJet Flight 592 causes the Douglas DC-9 to crash in the Florida Everglades killing all 110 on board.
 1997 – IBM's Deep Blue chess-playing supercomputer defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player.
 1998 – Nuclear testing: In the Rajasthan Desert, India conducts its first underground nuclear tests violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and inflaming its rival neighbor Pakistan (who already has nuclear weapons).
 1998 – ZDTV, "the official technology television network", starts broadcasting. It lasted six years until the G4techTV Merger and it turned into a gaming channel.
 2000 – India announces that it's reached the population of 1 billion.

From 2001 
 2003 – Rafael Palmeiro becomes the 19th member of the 500 home run club with a home run at The Ballpark in Arlington, Texas.
 2004 – The Stockline Plastics factory explosion in Glasgow kills nine people.
 2005 – The eleventh edition of the International Trade Fair KOSOVA opens in Gjakova, Kosovo.
 2010 – David Cameron becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
 2011 – Two earthquakes in southern Spain kill at least 10 people.
 2013 - Over 40 people are killed in a bomb attack in Turkey's Hatay province, near the Syrian border.
 2013 - A parliamentary election is held in Pakistan, with a record voter turnout. This leads to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returning as Prime Minister on June 5.
 2013 - Wigan Athletic F.C. wins its first FA Cup after a surprise win over Manchester City in the final, as the first surprise result in the final for a number of years.
 2015 - Pablo Picasso's Women of Algiers becomes the most expensive painting to sell at auction, being bought for $179.3 million.
 2016 - Italy legalizes same-sex civil partnerships.
 2016 - A series of bomb attacks in Baghdad kills around 90 people.
 2016 - President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff is impeached.

Births

Up to 1900 
 478 – Justinian I, Byzantine Emperor (d. 565)
 1366 - Anne of Bohemia, Queen Consort of Richard II of England (d. 1394)
 1568 - Christian I, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg (d. 1630)
 1571 – Niwa Nagashige, Japanese daimyo and retainer (d. 1637)
 1715 – Johann Gottfried Bernhard Bach, son of Johann Sebastian Bach (d. 1739)
 1720 – Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen, officer and adventurer (d. 1797)
 1722 - Petrus Camper, Dutch anatomist (d. 1789)
 1733 - Princess Victoire of France (d. 1799)
 1752 – Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, German anthropologist (d. 1840)
 1763 – János Bacsanyi, Hungarian poet (d. 1845)
 1801 – Henri Labrouste, French architect (d. 1875)
 1811 – Chang and Eng Bunker, famous Siamese twins (d. 1874)
 1811 - Jean-Jacques Challet-Venel, Swiss politician (d. 1951)
 1815 - Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville, British statesman (d. 1891)
 1817 - Fanny Cerrito, Italian ballet dancer (d. 1909)
 1827 – Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, French sculptor and painter (d. 1875)
 1835 – Karlis Baumanis, Latvian composer and poet (d. 1905)
 1852 – Charles W. Fairbanks, 26th Vice President of the United States (d. 1918)
 1854 - Jack Blackham, Australian cricketer (d. 1932)
 1855 - Anatoly Lyadov, Russian composer (d. 1914)
 1862 - Franklin S. Billings, Governor of Vermont (d. 1935)
 1871 – Stjepan Radic, Croatian politician (d. 1928)
 1874 – Einar Jonsson, Icelandic sculptor (d. 1954)
 1875 – Harriet Quimby, American pilot (d. 1912)
 1881 – Al Cabrera, Spanish-born Cuban baseball player (d. 1964)
 1881 - Jan van Gilse, Dutch composer and conductor (d. 1944)
 1885 – Joe "King" Oliver, American cornet player and bandleader (d. 1938)
 1887 – Paul Wittgenstein, Austrian-born pianist (d. 1961)
 1888 – Irving Berlin, Russian-American composer (d. 1989)
 1890 - Woodall Rodgers, American attorney, businessman and politician (d. 1961)
 1891 – Henry Morgenthau, American politician (d. 1967)
 1892 – Margaret Rutherford, English actress (d. 1972)
 1894 – Martha Graham, American dancer and choreographer (d. 1991)
 1895 – Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher (d. 1986)
 1896 – Josip Štolcer-Slavenski Croatian composer (d. 1955)
 1897 – Kurt Gerron German movie director (d. 1944)
 1897 - George Murdock, American anthropologist (d. 1985)
 1899 - Paulino Masip, Spanish playwright (d. 1963)
 1900 - Pridi Phanomyong, Prime Minister of Siam (d. 1983)

1901  1950 
 1903 – Charlie Gehringer, American Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1993)
 1904 – Salvador Dalí, Spanish painter (d. 1989)
 1907 – Rose Ausländer, German poet (d. 1988)
 1907 - Rip Sewell, American baseball player (d. 1989)
 1911 – Phil Silvers, American actor and comedian (d. 1985)
 1912 – Saadat Hasan Manto, Pakistani short story writer of the Urdu language (d. 1955)
 1912 – Foster Brooks, American actor and comedian (d. 2001)
 1913 – Robert Jungk, Austrian publicist (d. 1994)
 1914 - Haroun Tazieff, French volcanologist and geologist (d. 1998)
 1916 – Camilo José Cela, Spanish writer (d. 2002)
 1918 – Richard Feynman, American physicist (d. 1988)
 1921 – Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, German politician (d. 2016)
 1924 – Antony Hewish, British radio astronomer
 1924 - Eugene Dynkin, Russian-born American mathematician (d. 2014)
 1924 - Jackie Milburn, English footballer (d. 1988)
 1925 – Max Morlock, German footballer (d. 1994)
 1925 – Edward J. King, 66th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 2006)
 1927 – Mort Sahl, Canadian comedian and political commentator
 1927 - Bernard Fox, Welsh-American actor (d. 2016)
 1927 - Gene Savoy, American explorer, writer and scholar (d. 2007)
 1928 – Marco Ferreri, Italian director and screenwriter (d. 1997)
 1930 – Edsger W. Dijkstra, Dutch computer scientist (d. 2002)
 1930 – William P. Carey, American investment banker and philanthropist (d. 2012)
 1932 - Mustafa Tlass, Syrian military officer and politician (d. 2017)
 1932 - John Vasconcellos, American politician (d. 2014)
 1932 - Valentino Garavani, Italian fashion designer
 1933 – Louis Farrakhan, American Black Muslim leader
 1934 - Jim Jeffords, American politician, United States Senator from Vermont (d. 2014)
 1935 - Dick Leitsch, American LGBT rights activist (d. 2018)
 1936 - Tony Barrow, British press officer (d. 2016)
 1936 – Carla Bley, American musician and composer
 1939 - Frank Quilici, American baseball player (d. 2018)
 1940 – Juan Downey, Chilean video artist (d. 1993)
 1941 – Graham Miles, English snooker player
 1941 - Ian Redpath, Australian cricketer
 1943 – Les Chadwick, English musician (Gerry and the Pacemakers)
 1945 - Floyd Adams, Jr., American politician (d. 2014)
 1946 – Robert Jarvik, American physicist and inventor
 1947 - Butch Trucks, American musician
 1948 – Shigeru Izumiya, Japanese folk musician
 1950 – Jeremy Paxman, British journalist and writer
 1950 - John F. Kelly, 28th White House Chief of Staff
 1950 - Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Indian actor (d. 2014)

1951  1975 
 1951 – Ed Stelmach, Canadian politician, former Premier of Alberta
 1951 - Johnny Doyle, Scottish footballer (d. 1981)
 1952 – Renaud Séchan, French composer
 1952 – Mike Lupica, sports journalist
 1952 – Shohreh Aghdashloo, Iranian actress
 1952 – Frances Fisher, British-American actress
 1953 – Boyd Gaines, actor
 1953 – David Gest, American television producer (d. 2016)
 1956 – Theresa Burke, Canadian journalist
 1956 – Alex Lester, British broadcaster
 1957 - Peter North, Canadian pornographic actor, director, producer and dancer
 1958 - Peter Antonie, Australian rower
 1959 - Silvio Barbato, Italian-Brazilian opera conductor and composer (d. 2009)
 1959 – Martha Quinn, American television personality
 1960 - Jürgen Schult, German athlete 
 1963 - Gunilla Carlsson, Swedish politician
 1963 - Masatoshi Hamada, Japanese comedian
 1963 – Natasha Richardson, English actress (d. 2009)
 1964 – John Parrott, English snooker player
 1965 – Stefano Domenicali, Italian Formula One team principal
 1966 – Christoph Schneider, German drummer (Rammstein)
 1966 – Nancy Hower, American actress, sceenwriter, director, and producer
 1968 - Jeffrey Donovan, American actor
 1968 - Ana Jara, Peruvian lawyer and politician, former Prime Minister of Peru
 1973 - James Haven, American actor
 1973 - Tsuyoshi Ogata, Japanese marathon runner
 1974 - DJ Zany, Dutch DJ
 1975 - Coby Bell, American actor and producer

From 1976 
 1977 – Janne Ahonen, Finnish ski jumper
 1977 - Victor Matfield, South African rugby player
 1978 – Laetitia Casta, French model and actress
 1978 - Perttu Kivilaakso, Finnish cellist and composer (Apocalyptica)
 1979 – Gonzalo Colsa, Spanish footballer
 1979 - Tim Baillie, Scottish slalom canoeist
 1980 – Björgólfur Hideaki Takefusa, Icelandic footballer
 1980 - Ernest Vardanean, Armenian-Moldovan political scientist and journalist
 1981 – Lauren Jackson, Australian basketball player
 1982 – Cory Monteith, Canadian actor and musician (d. 2013)
 1982 – Jonathan Jackson, actor
 1983 – Matt Leinart, American football player
 1983 – Holly Valance, Australian actress and singer
 1983 - Steven Sotloff, American journalist (d. 2014)
 1984 – Andrés Iniesta, Spanish footballer
 1984 - Arttu Lappi, Finnish ski jumper
 1986 – Abou Diaby, French footballer
 1988 - Ace Hood, American rapper
 1988 - Marcel Kittel, German cyclist
 1988 - Brad Marchand, Canadian ice hockey player
 1988 - Severin Freund, German ski jumper
 1989 – Giovani dos Santos, Mexican footballer
 1989 - Prince Royce, American singer and songwriter
 1989 - Cam Newton, American football player
 1991 - Mohammad Reza Khanzadeh, Iranian footballer
 1992 - Thibaut Courtois, Belgian footballer
 1993 - Jirapong Meenapra, Thai sprinter
 1993 - Maurice Harkless, American basketball player
 1994 - Hagos Gebrhiwet, Ethiopian long-distance runner
 1995 - Yassi Pressman, Filipina actress and dancer
 1999 - Sabrina Carpenter, American actress and singer
 1999 - Madison Lintz, American actress

Deaths

Up to 1975 
 912 – Leo VI, Byzantine Emperor (b. 866)
 1304 – Mahmud Ghazan, Mongol ruler (b. 1271)
 1610 - Matteo Ricci, Italian missionary (b. 1552)
 1642 – Safi of Persia (b. 1611)
 1686 - Otto von Guericke, German physicist and politician (b. 1602)
 1760 – Alaungpaya, Burmese ruler (b. 1714)
 1778 – William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, Prime Minister of Great Britain (b. 1708)
 1812 – Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1762).
 1848 - Tom Cribb, English boxer (b. 1781)
 1849 – Otto Nicolai, German composer (b. 1810)
 1871 – John Herschel, British mathematician and astronomer (b. 1792)
 1883 - Julie Drouet, French actress (b. 1806)
 1887 - Ion Keith-Falconer, Scottish missionary (b. 1856)
 1889 - John Cadbury, English businessman (b. 1801)
 1891 – A. E. Becquerel, French physicist (b. 1820)
 1915 - Arthur Hussey, American golfer (b. 1882)
 1916 - Max Reger, German pianist, composer and conductor (b. 1873)
 1916 - Karl Schwarzschild, German astronomer and physicist (b. 1873)
 1927 – Juan Gris, Spanish Cubist painter (b. 1887)
 1929 - Jozef Murgas, Slovakian inventor, architect, botanist, painter, patriot and priest (b. 1864)
 1934 - Blaise Diagne, Senegalese politician (b. 1872)
 1937 - Afonso Costa, Portuguese politician (b. 1871)
 1952 - Alessio Ascalesi, Italian cardinal (b. 1872)
 1955 - Gilbert Jessop, English cricketer (b. 1874)
 1956 - Walter Sydney Adams, American astronomer (b. 1876)
 1960 – John D. Rockefeller, Jr., American philanthropist (b. 1874)
 1962 - Hans Luther, Chancellor of Germany in the Weimar Republic (b. 1879)
 1963 – Herbert Gasser, American doctor, won the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1888)
 1966 - Henry S. Caulfield, 31st Governor of Missouri (b. 1873)
 1971 - Seán Lamass, Irish Taoiseach (b. 1902)
 1973 - Lex Barker, American actor (b. 1919)

1976  2010 
 1976 – Alvar Aalto, Finnish architect (b. 1898)
 1981 – Odd Hassel, Norwegian chemist (b. 1897)
 1981 – Bob Marley, Jamaican reggae musician (b. 1945)
 1984 – Toni Turek, German footballer (b. 1919)
 1986 - Alexander Akimov, Ukrainian Chernobyl worker (b. 1953)
 1988 – Kim Philby, British agent and spy (b. 1912)
 1994 - Timothy Carey, American actor (b. 1928)
 1996 - Yasuko Namba, Japanese mountaineer (b. 1949)
 1996 – Ademir Marques de Menezes, Brazilian footballer (b. 1922)
 1996 – Nnamdi Azikiwe, first President of Nigeria (b. 1904)
 1996 - Rob Hall, New Zealand mountaineer (b. 1961)
 1998 – Ernst Ising, German mathematician (b. 1900)
 2000 - Paula Wessely, Austrian actress (b. 1907)
 2001 – Douglas Adams, English writer (b. 1952)
 2002 - Joseph Bonanno, Italian mob boss (b. 1905)
 2002 - Bill Peet, American screenwriter and animator (b. 1915)
 2003 – Noel Redding, English musician (b. 1945)
 2006 – Floyd Patterson, American boxer (b. 1935)
 2007 – Malietoa Tanumafili II, Samoan Head of State (b. 1913)
 2008 – Bruno Neves, Portuguese cyclist (b. 1981)

From 2011 
 2011 - Maurice Goldhaber, physicist (b. 1911)
 2014 - Francisco Sobrino, Mexican-Spanish sculptor (b. 1932)
 2014 - Barbara Knudson, American actress (b. 1927)
 2014 - Reg Gasnier, Australian rugby league player (b. 1939)
 2015 - Jef Geeraerts, Belgian writer (b. 1930)
 2015 - Stan Cornyn, American record label executive (b. 1933)
 2015 - John Hewie, South African-Scottish footballer (b. 1927)
 2015 - John Watts, Grenadian politician (b. 1921)
 2016 - Motiur Rahman Nizami, Bangladeshi politician (b. 1943)
 2016 - Peter Behrens, German musician (b. 1947)
 2016 - Tony Cozier, Barbadian cricket writer and commentator (b. 1940)
 2016 - Katherine Dunn, American writer (b. 1945)
 2016 - Michael Ratner, American lawyer (b. 1943)
 2016 - Joe Temperley, Scottish saxophonist (b. 1929)
 2017 - Gabriel Chiramel, Indian Roman Catholic priest, educator, zoologist and writer (b. 1914)
 2017 - Mark Colvin, British-born Australian journalist and radio presenter (b. 1952)
 2017 - Clelio Darida, Italian politician, former Mayor of Rome (b. 1927)
 2018 - Mikhail Alperin, Ukrainian-Norwegian jazz pianist (b. 1956)
 2018 - Gérard Genette, French literary theorist (b. 1930)
 2018 - Hugo Guerra, Uruguayan footballer (b. 1966)
 2018 - Peter Mayer, British-American publisher (b. 1936)
 2018 - Bengt Nilsson, Swedish high jumper (b. 1934)
 2018 - Ulla Sallert, Swedish actress (b. 1923)
 2019 - Gianni De Michelis, Italian politician (b. 1940)
 2019 - Silver King, Mexican wrestler and actor (b. 1968)
 2019 - Peggy Lipton, American actress and model (b. 1946)
 2019 - Pua Magasiva, New Zealand actor (b. 1980)
 2019 - Jon Gittens, English footballer (b. 1964)
 2019 - Robert D. Maxwell, American colonel (b. 1920)
 2019 - Thomas Silverstein, American murderer (b. 1952)

Observances 
 National Technology Day (India)
 Statehood Day (Minnesota)

Days of the year