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
Panic of 1893
May 5 Panic of 1893 causes a large crash on the NY Stock Exchange
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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. 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, 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 26 Norma Talmadge, American actress (Sign on Door, Camille), born in Jersey City, New Jersey (d. 1957)
- May 27 Hermann Dörnemann, German supercentarian, born in Essen, Germany (d. 2005)
