Event of Interest
May 1 Seven days after parliament was dissolved, Charles Tupper is sworn in as the 6th Prime Minister of Canada
Charles Tupper
- May 4 1st edition of London Daily Mail (halfpenny)
- May 4 Grease fire ignites half ton of dynamite at Cripple Creek, Colorado
- May 6 22nd Kentucky Derby: Willie Simms aboard Ben Brush wins in 2:07.75
- May 6 Samuel Pierpont Langley flies his unpiloted Number 5 aircraft using a catapult launch from a boat on the Potomac River, USA. The aircraft travels almost 3/4 of a mile - ten times further than any previous heavier-than-air flying machine.
- May 8 Yorkshire Cricket all out for 887 against Warwickshire
- May 9 1st horseless carriage show in London (featured 10 models)
- May 14 Lowest US temperature in May recorded (-10°F /-23°C at Climax, Colorado)
- May 15 Tornado kills 78 in Texas
- May 18 US Supreme court affirms legitimacy of racial separation (Plessy v Ferguson)
Royal Coronation
May 18 Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field, Moscow, during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, results in the deaths of 1,389 people
Nicholas II
- May 20 The six ton chandelier of the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris falls on the crowd resulting in the death of one and the injury of many others
- May 26 1st American intercollegiate bicycle race, Manhattan Beach, NY
- May 26 Dow Jones begins an index of 12 industrial stocks (closing is 40.94)
- May 26 Last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, crowned
- May 26 Dow Jones starts reporting an average of selected industrial stocks
- May 26 James Dunham murders six people in Campbell, California
- May 27 Bay District Race Track in San Francisco closes
- May 27 Tornado hit St Louis, killing 255, leaving thousands homeless
- May 30 1st car accident occurs, Henry Wells hits a cyclist in NYC