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
World Record
May 11 Henri Desgrange establishes world's 1st bicycle world record, travelling 35.325 km (21.95 miles) an hour
Henri Desgrange
Famous Birthdays
- 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, born in Abasha, Kutais Governorate, Russian Empire (d. 1975)
- May 4 Edgar Dearing, American actor (Pollyanna, Abraham Lincoln, Free & Easy), born in Ceres, California (d. 1974)
- May 4 Royal Butler [Edwin Richey], American actor (Zenobia), born in Atlanta, Georgia (d. 1973)
- May 7 Frank J. Selke, Canadian ice hockey manager, born in Berlin, Ontario, Canada (d. 1985)
- May 8 Francis Ouimet, American golfer (US Open 1913, US Amateur 1914, 31), born in Brookline, Massachusetts (d. 1967)
- 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 (inventor of an early prototype of the lie detector) and writer (co-creator, Wonder Woman), born in Saugus, Massachusetts (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 Walter Baade, German-American astronomer (Andromeda), born in Schröttinghausen, German Empire (d. 1960)
- May 26 Eugene Goossens, British conductor and composer (Perseus), born in London, England (d. 1962)
- May 27 Hermann Dörnemann, German supercentarian, born in Essen, Germany (d. 2005)
Famous Deaths
- May 3 Josef Rudolf Zavrtal, Czech composer, dies at 73
- May 4 George Washington Hewitt, American composer, dies at 82
- May 14 Earnest E Kummer, German mathematician (surface of Kummer), dies at 83
- May 14 Johan T Buys, Dutch lawyer, dies at 65
- May 23 Anton von Schmerling, Austrian statesman, dies at 87
