Historical Events
- May 1 World Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago
- May 4 Cowboy Bill Pickett invents bulldogging, the skill of grabbing cattle by the horns and wrestling them to the ground
- May 5 Panic of 1893: Great crash on NY Stock Exchange
- May 10 19th Kentucky Derby: Eddie Kunze aboard Lookout wins in 2:39.25
- May 10 Imperial Institute in London opens
- May 11 Henri Desgrange establishes 1st bicycle-world record (35.325 km)
- May 19 Heavy rain washes "quick clay" into a deep valley killing 111 in Norway
- May 22 Montreal Athletic Association beat Ottawa Generals 2-1, in 1st Cup Game
- May 27 Audath Yisroel forms at Kattowitz (Katowice) Poland
- May 31 Whitcomb Judson, Chicago, patents a hookless fastening (zipper)
Famous Birthdays
- May 2 Assen Karastoyanov, composer
- May 3 Hope Landin, American actress (I Remember Mama, Sugarfoot), born in Minneapolis, Minnesota (d. 1973)
- May 3 Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian writer and public benefactor (d. 1975)
- May 4 Edgar Dearing, American actor (Pollyanna, Abraham Lincoln, Free & Easy), born in Ceres, California (d. 1947)
- May 4 Royal Butler [Edwin Richey], American actor (Zenobia), born in Atlanta, Georgia (d. 1973)
- May 7 Frank J. Selke, Canadian ice hockey manager (d. 1985)
- May 8 Francis Quimet, Mass shop asst who won golf's US Open (1913)
- May 8 Edd Roush, baseball player (d. 1988)
- May 8 Teddy Wakelam, English sports broadcaster and rugby union player (d. 1963)
- May 9 William Moulton Marston, American psychologist, writer (co-creator, Wonder Woman) (d. 1947)
- May 14 Ivan Alexandrovich Vishnegradsky, composer
- May 14 Louis Verneuil, French playwright (d. 1952)
- May 15 Michel Gusikoff, composer
- May 15 Stanley Lupino, English comic (Cheer Up, Over She Goes), born in London (d. 1942)
- May 16 Jose Calvo Sotelo, Spanish minister of Finance (1925-30)
- May 16 Paul Amadeus Pisk, composer
- May 17 Frederick McKinley Jones, American inventor (developments in refrigeration), born in Cincinnati, Ohio (d. 1961)
- May 21 Arthur Carr, cricket captain (England v Australia 1926)
- May 23 Ulysses S. Grant IV, American geologist and paleontologist (d. 1977)
- May 24 W H Walter Baade, German/US astronomer (Andromeda)
- May 26 Eugene Goossens, conductor/composer (Perseus), born in London, England
- May 26 Norma Talmadge, American actress (Sign on Door, Camille), born in Jersey City, New Jersey (d. 1957)
- May 27 Hermann Dörnemann, German supercentarian (d. 2005)