- May 4 Peter Minuit becomes director-general of New Netherlands
- May 6 Dutch colonist Peter Minuit organizes the purchase of Manhattan Island from Native Americans for 60 guilders worth of goods, believed to have been Canarsee Indians of the Lenape
- May 30 An explosion at the Wanggongchang Gunpowder Factory in Beijing destroys part of the city and kills 20,000 people