Events

Up to 1900 
 1497 – Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola.
 1515 - Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk are officially marry at Greenwich.
 1568 – Battle of Langside: the forces of Mary, Queen of Scots, are defeated by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, Earl of Moray, her half-brother.
 1572 - Pope Gregory XIII is elected. During his time, some countries in Europe would become the first to use the Gregorian calendar, which is named after him.
 1607 – Jamestown, Virginia, is settled as an English colony.
 1619 – Dutch statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt is executed in The Hague after having been accused of treason.
 1647 – 12,000 people are killed in an earthquake in Santiago, Chile.
 1648 - Building work on the Red Fort in Delhi, India, is completed.
 1779 – War of Bavarian Succession: Russian and French mediators at the Congress of Teschen negotiate an end to the war. In the agreement Austria receives the part of its territory that was taken from them (the Inn District).
 1787 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England with the First Fleet, 11 ships full of convicts to establish a penal colony in Australia.
 1830 – Ecuador gains its independence.
 1846 – Mexican-American War: The United States declares war on Mexico.
 1848 – First performance of Finland's national anthem.
 1861 – American Civil War: Queen Victoria of Britain issues a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognizes the breakaway states as having belligerent rights.
 1861 - The Great Comet of 1861 is discovered by John Tebbutt of Windsor, New South Wales, Australia.
 1861 - The first railway line in present-day Pakistan, then-part of British India, is opened between Karachi and Kotri.
 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Resaca – the battle begins with Union General Sherman fighting toward Atlanta.
 1865 – American Civil War: Battle of Palmito Ranch – In far south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the Civil War ends with a Confederate victory.
 1880 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway.
 1888 – With the passage of the Lei Áurea ("Golden Law"), Brazil abolishes slavery.

1901  2000 
 1909 – The first Giro d'Italia took place in Milan. Italian cyclist Luigi Ganna was the winner.
 1912 – In the United Kingdom, the Royal Flying Corps (now the Royal Air Force) was established.
 1913 – Igor Sikorsky becomes the first man to pilot a four-engine aircraft.
 1917 – Three peasant children claim to see the Blessed Virgin Mary above a holmoak tree in Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal.
 1940 – World War II: Germany's conquest of France begins as the German army crosses the Meuse River. Churchill makes his "blood, tears, toil and sweat" speech to the House of Commons.
 1940 – Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands flees the Nazi invasion in the Netherlands to Britain. Princess Juliana takes her children to Canada for their safety.
 1943 – World War II: German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces.
 1948 – First Kashmir War between India and Pakistan
 1948 – 1948 Arab-Israeli War: The Kfar Etzion massacre is committed by Arab irregulars, the day before the declaration of independence of the state of Israel on May 14.
 1950 - The first round of the Formula One World Championship is held at Silverstone racecourse in Northamptonshire.
 1952 - The Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, holds it first sitting. 
 1958 - Ben Carlin becomes the first, and only, person to circumnavigate (travel round) the world in an amphibious vehicle, a vehicle that can travel both in water and on land.
 1958 - May 1958 crisis: A group of French military officers lead a coup in Algiers, demanding a government of national unity be formed with Charles de Gaulle as its head, in order to defend French control in Algeria.
 1958 – During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice President Richard M. Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.
 1958 – Pierre Pflimlin becomes Prime Minister of France
 1958 – Velcro's trade mark is registered.
 1960 – First ascent of Dhaulagiri, world's seventh-highest mountain.
 1967 - Zakir Hussain becomes President of India, as the first person of Islamic faith to hold the post of President in India.
 1969 – Race riots in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, later known as the 13 May Incident.
 1972 – A nightclub fire in Osaka kills 119 people.
 1972 - The Troubles: A car bombing outside a crowded pub in Belfast, Northern Ireland, sparks a two-day gun battle involving the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the British Army, killing 7 people and injuring 66.
 1976 – The New York Nets defeat the Denver Nuggets and win the American Basketball Association championship, 112-106, in the final ABA game ever played.
 1980 - A Force-2 tornado hits Kalamazoo County, Michigan.
 1981 – Mehmet Ali Ağca attempts to assassinate Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square in Rome.
 1985 – The mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, orders police to storm the radical group's MOVE headquarters to end a stand-off. The police drop an explosive device into the headquarters, killing 11 MOVE members and destroying the homes of 250 city residents in the resulting fire.
 1989 - Large groups of students occupy Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, and begin a hunger strike.
 1994 - Johnny Carson makes his last television appearance.
 1995 – In Dublin, Ireland, Secret Garden win the fortieth Eurovision Song Contest for Norway performing "Nocturne".
 1996 – Severe thunderstorms and a tornado in Bangladesh kill 600 people.
 1997 – Storms in Yunnan and Guangdong kill 290 people.
 1998 – Following India's second round of nuclear tests the United States and Japan impose economic sanctions.
 1998 - Race riots break out in Jakarta, Indonesia, where shops owned by Indonesians of Chinese descent are looted and women raped. The country's President, Suharto, resigns a week later. 
 2000 – In Stockholm, Sweden, the Olsen Brothers win the forty-fifth Eurovision Song Contest for Denmark singing "Fly On The Wings of Love".
 2000 – In Enschede, the Netherlands, a fireworks factory explodes, killing 22 people, wounding 950, and resulting in approximately f 1,000,000,000 (€450,000,000) damage.

From 2001 
 2005 - The Binh Bridge opens to traffic in Hai Phong, Vietnam.
 2005 – The final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise airs in the United States, bringing to a close an 18-year uninterrupted television franchise.
 2005 – The Andijan Massacre occurs in Uzbekistan.
 2008 - Bombings in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India, kill dozens of people.
 2011 - The Charsadda bombing in Pakistan occur, as two bombs explode, killing 98 people, and injuring 140.
 2012 – Pastor Maldonado becomes the first Venezuelan to win a Formula One Grand Prix, in Spain.
 2014 - A mine explosion in Soma, Western Turkey, kills around 300 people.
2015 - Discord releases, a instant messaging software.
 2016 - President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro declares a 60-day state of emergency.
 2017 - Salvador Sobral wins the 62nd Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv for Portugal, with the song "Amar Pelos Dois".
 2018 - Manchester City F.C. becomes the first team in the English Premier League to achieve 100 points in a single league season.

Births

Up to 1900 
 1024 - Hugh of Cluny, French saint (d. 1109)
 1221 - Alexander Nevsky, Russian prince and saint (d. 1263)
 1254 – Maria of Brabant, Queen of France (d. 1321)
 1588 – Ole Worm, Danish physician and archaeologist (d. 1654)
 1655 – Pope Innocent XIII (d. 1724)
 1699 - Sebastiao Jose de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquess of Pombal, Portuguese statesman (d. 1782)
 1713 - Alexis Clairault, French mathematician, astronomer and geophysicist (d. 1765)
 1717 – Empress Maria Theresa of Austria (d. 1780)
 1730 – Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, Prime Minister of Great Britain (d. 1782)
 1742 – Archduchess Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen (d. 1798)
 1750 - Lorenzo Mascheroni, Italian mathematician (d. 1800)
 1753 - Lazare Carnot, French general, mathematician and politician (d. 1823)
 1767 – John VI of Portugal (d. 1826)
 1778 - Honoré V, Prince of Monaco (d. 1841)
 1785 – Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, German historian and statesman (d. 1860)
 1792 – Pope Pius IX (d. 1878)
 1795 - Gerard Paul Deshayes, French geologist (d. 1875)
 1822 – Francis of Assisi of Bourbon, King Consort of Spain (d. 1902)
 1830 – Zebulon Baird Vance, three-time Governor of North Carolina (d. 1894)
 1840 - Alphonse Daudet, French novelist (d. 1897)
 1842 - Arthur Sullivan, English composer (d. 1900)
 1850 - Modest Tchaikovsky, Russian dramatist, librettist and translator (d. 1916)
 1851 - Laza Lazarevic, Serbian writer, psychiatrist and neurologist (d. 1891)
 1857 – Ronald Ross, English doctor, won the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1932)
 1868 - Sumner Paine, American sports shooter (d. 1904)
 1878 - Muriel Robb, British tennis player (d. 1907)
 1881 - Lima Barreto, Brazilian writer (d. 1922)
 1882 – Georges Braque, French painter (d. 1963)
 1883 – Georgios Papanikolaou, Greek doctor and inventor (d. 1962)
 1885 - Mikiel Gonzi, Maltese archbishop (d. 1984)
 1888 - Inge Lehmann, Danish seismologist and geophysicist (d. 1993)
 1894 – Asgeir Asgeirsson, second President of Iceland (d. 1972)
 1898 – Justin Tuveri, Italian-French World War I veteran (d. 2007)

1901  1950 
 1901 - Witold Pilecki, Polish general and Resistance activist (d. 1948)
 1901 - William S. Beardsley, 31st Governor of Iowa (d. 1954)
 1901 - Murilo Mendes, Brazilian poet (d. 1975)
 1903 - Lennox Berkeley, English composer (d. 1989)
 1905 - Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, President of India (d. 1977)
 1907 – Daphne du Maurier, British writer (d. 1989)
 1908 - Eugen Kapp, Estonian composer (d. 1996)
 1909 - Ken Darby, American composer, songwriter and conductor (d. 1992)
 1912 - Gil Evans, Canadian pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader (d. 1988)
 1913 – William Tolbert, President of Liberia (d. 1980)
 1914 – Joe Louis, American boxer (d. 1981)
 1922 – Bea Arthur, American actress (d. 2009)
 1924 – Harry Schwarz, South African lawyer and politician (d. 2010)
 1927 - Herbert Ross, American choreographer and movie director (d. 2001)
 1928 - Enrique Bolaños, former President of Nicaragua (d. 2021) 
 1928 - Theo Saat, Dutch sprinter (d. 2015)
 1928 - Edouard Molinaro, French actor, director, producer and screenwriter (d. 2013)
 1929 - John Galvin, American general (d. 2015)
 1929 - Fred Martin, Scottish footballer (d. 2013)
 1930 - Sammy Baird, Scottish footballer (d. 2010)
 1930 – Vernon Shaw, former President of Dominica (d. 2013)
 1930 – Mike Gravel, United States Senator (d. 2021)
 1930 - José Jiménez Lozano, Spanish writer
 1931 – Jim Jones, American religious cult leader (d. 1978)
 1934 - Adolf Muschg, Swiss writer
 1935 - Jan Saudek, Czech photographer and painter
 1935 - Kaja Saudek, Czech author and illustrator (d. 2015)
 1937 - Trevor Baylis, English stuntman and inventor (d. 2018)
 1939 – Harvey Keitel, American actor
 1940 - Bruce Chatwin, British writer (d. 1989)
 1941 – Ritchie Valens, American musician (d. 1959)
 1941 – Senta Berger, Austrian actress
 1942 - Pal Schmitt, Hungarian fencer and politician, former President of Hungary
 1944 – Uwe Barschel, German politician (d. 1987)
 1944 - Sir Crispin Agnew, 11th Baronet, Scottish judge and explorer
 1945 - Sam Anderson, American actor
 1945 - Lasse Berghagen, Swedish singer-songwriter, guitarist and actor
 1945 - Lou Marini, American saxophonist and composer
 1946 - Tim Pigott-Smith, British actor (d. 2017)
 1949 - Jane Glover, British conductor
 1949 – Zoe Wanamaker, American-British actress
 1950 – Stevie Wonder, American singer
 1950 – Danny Kirwan, British musician (Fleetwood Mac) (d. 2018)

1951  1975 
 1951 – Paul Thompson, British musician (Roxy Music)
 1951 – Selina Scott, British broadcast journalist
 1952 – Wang Xiaobo, Chinese writer
 1952 - John Kasich, 69th Governor of Ohio
 1954 - Johnny Logan, Irish singer-songwriter, guitarist and composer
 1956 – Richard Madeley, British TV presenter
 1956 - Sri Sri Ravishankar, Indian spiritual leader
 1957 – Alan Ball, American screenwriter
 1957 – Andrea Klump, former Red Army Faction member
 1957 - Carrie Lam, 4th Chief Executive of Hong Kong
 1957 - Koji Suzuki, Japanese writer
 1958 – Frances Barber, British actress
 1961 - Danny Leiner, American actor (d. 2018)
 1961 – Dennis Rodman, American basketball player
 1962 - Roxana Baldetti, Guatemalan Vice President
 1963 - Wally Masur, Australian tennis player, coach and sportscaster
 1963 - Andrea Leadsom, English politician
 1964 – Stephen Colbert, American comedian
 1964 – Ronnie Coleman, American bodybuilder
 1964 - Masha Rasputina, Russian pop singer
 1965 - Hikari Ota, Japanese writer
 1966 – Alison Goldfrapp, English musician
 1966 - Staffan Hellstrand, Swedish singer
 1967 - Chuck Schuldinger, American singer-songwriter and musician
 1967 - Melanie Thornton, American-German singer (d. 2001)
 1968 – Miguel Angel Blanco, Spanish politician (d. 1997)
 1968 - Scott Morrison, Australian politician, 30th Prime Minister of Australia
 1968 - Dmitriy Shevchenko, Russian discus thrower
 1968 - Sonja Zietlow, German television host
 1969 - Buckethead, American musician
 1972 - Darryl Sydor, Canadian ice hockey player
 1975 - Brian Geraghty, American actor

From 1976 
 1976 - Ana Popovic, Serbian singer-songwriter and guitarist
 1977 - Samantha Morton, English actress
 1977 - Ilse DeLange, Dutch singer (The Common Linnets)
 1977 - Neil Hopkins, American actor
 1977 - Aleksei Terentjev, Estonian ice hockey player
 1978 - Mike Bibby, American basketball player
 1979 – Prince Carl Philip of Sweden
 1979 - Michael Madden, American musician (Maroon 5)
 1979 - Lauren Phoenix, Canadian pornographic actress
 1981 - Luciana Berger, English politician
 1982 - Albert Crusat, Spanish footballer
 1982 – Oguchi Onyewu, American soccer player
 1982 - Casey Stoney, English footballer
 1983 – Grégory Lemarchal, French singer (d. 2007)
 1983 – Yaya Touré, Ivorian footballer
 1983 - Johnny Hoogerland, Dutch cyclist
 1983 - Anita Gorbicz, Hungarian handball player
 1985 – Jaroslav Halak, Slovakian ice hockey player
 1985 - Iwan Rheon, Welsh actor and singer
 1986 – Robert Pattinson, English actor
 1986 – Alexander Rybak, Norwegian singer, fiddler and composer
 1986 - Lena Dunham, American movie maker and actress
 1987 - Candice Accola, American actress and musician
 1987 - Hunter Parrish, American actor and singer
 1987 - Laura Izibor, Irish singer-songwriter, pianist and producer
 1987 - Marianne Vos, Dutch cyclist
 1988 – Casey Donovan, Australian singer
 1993 – Romelu Lukaku, Belgian footballer
 1993 - Debby Ryan, American actress

Deaths

Up to 1950 
 1176 – Matthias I, Duke of Lorraine (b. 1119)
 1312 – Theobald II, Duke of Lorraine (b. 1263)
 1573 - Takeda Shingen, Japanese warlord (b. 1521)
 1619 – Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, Dutch statesman (b. 1547)
 1646 - Maria Anna of Spain (b. 1606)
 1742 - Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (b. 1719)
 1759 - Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, French sculptor (b. 1700)
 1782 - Daniel Solander, Swedish botanist (b. 1736)
 1832 - Georges Cuvier, French zoologist (b. 1769)
 1835 – John Nash, architect (b. 1752)
 1884 – Cyrus McCormick, American inventor (b. 1809)
 1885 - Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle, German physician (b. 1809)
 1901 - Leopoldo Alas, Spanish novelist (b. 1851)
 1903 – Apolinario Mabini, Filipino political theoretician and Prime Minister of the Philippines (b. 1864)
 1916 – Sholom Aleichem, writer (b. 1859)
 1921 - Jean Aicard, French author, poet and playwright (b. 1848)
 1926 – Libert H. Boeynaems, ss.cc., Roman Catholic prelate
 1930 – Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian explorer and diplomat (b. 1861)
 1937 – Ekaterina Geladze, mother of Joseph Stalin (b. 1858)
 1938 – Charles Edouard Guillaume, Swiss physicist (b. 1861)
 1941 – Onishiki Uichiro, Japanese sumo wrestler (b. 1891)
 1945 – Tubby Hall, American jazz musician (b. 1895)
 1947 - Sukanta Bhattacharya, Indian-Bengali poet and playwright (b. 1926)

From 1951 
 1957 - Michael Fikete, Hungarian-Israeli mathematician (b. 1886)
 1961 – Gary Cooper, American actor (b. 1901)
 1963 – Alois Hudal, Austrian Roman Catholic bishop, helped Nazi war criminals escape (b. 1885)
 1972 – Dan Blocker, actor (b. 1928)
 1975 – Bob Wills, American country musician (b. 1905)
 1977 – Mickey Spillane, gangster (b. 1934)
 1982 - Billy Steel, Scottish footballer (b. 1923)
 1988 – Chet Baker, American jazz trumpeter (b. 1929)
 1999 – Gene Sarazen, American golfer (b. 1902)
 2001 – R.K. Narayan, Indian novelist (b. 1906)
 2002 – Valeriy Lobanovskiy, Ukrainian footballer and coach (b. 1939)
 2003 – John Savage, former Premier of Nova Scotia
 2005 – George Dantzig, American mathematician
 2008 – Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah, Sheikh of Kuwait (b. 1930)
 2009 – Achille Compagnoni, Italian mountain climber (b. 1914)
 2009 - Monica Bleibtreu, German actress (b. 1944)
 2011 – Derek Boogaard, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1982)
 2011 – Bernard Greenhouse, American cellist (b. 1916)
 2012 - Nguyen Van Thien, Vietnamese bishop (b. 1906)
 2012 – Donald "Duck" Dunn, American musician (b. 1941)
 2013 - Kenneth Waltz, American political scientist (b. 1924)
 2013 - Joyce Brothers, American psychologist and TV personality (b. 1927)
 2014 - David Malet Armstrong, Australian philosopher (b. 1926)
 2014 - Malik Bendjelloul, Swedish moviemaker and actor (b. 1977)
 2015 - Derek Davis, Irish broadcaster (b. 1948)
 2015 - Gainan Saidkhuzhin, Russian cyclist (b. 1937)
 2015 - Anna Levinson, German zoologist (b. 1939)
 2016 - Sammy Ellis, American baseball player (b. 1941)
 2016 - David McNiven Gardner, New Zealand oceanographer (b. 1928)
 2016 - Baba Hardev Singh, Indian spiritual guru (b. 1954)
 2017 - John Cygan, American actor (b. 1954)
 2017 - Yanko Daucik, Czech footballer (b. 1957)
 2017 - Alain Delfossé, French novelist and translator (b. 1957)
 2017 - Marcel Pelletier, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1927)
 2018 - Edgardo Angara, Filipino politician (b. 1934)
 2018 - Glenn Branca, American composer and guitarist (b. 1948)
 2018 - Steve Hogan, American politician (b. 1948)
 2018 - Margot Kidder, Canadian-American actress (b. 1948)
 2018 - Baadur Tsuladze, Georgian actor, film director and screenwriter (b. 1935)
 2018 - Balkavi Bairagi, Indian poet and politician (b. 1931)
 2018 - Epitácio Cafeteira, Brazilian politician (b. 1924)
 2019 - Unita Blackwell, American civil rights activist (b. 1933)
 2019 - Doris Day, American actress and singer (b. 1922)
 2019 - Lajos Faragó, Hungarian footballer (b. 1932)
 2019 - Jörg Kastendiek, German politician (b. 1964)
 2019 - Hayat Saif, Bangladeshi poet and literary critic (b. 1942)

Observances 
 Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima (Roman Catholicism)

Days of the year