Historic Event
May 1 Seven days after parliament was dissolved, Charles Tupper is sworn in as the 6th Prime Minister of Canada
- 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 first Derby held at the current distance of 1.25 miles (2.0km)
- 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 Bobby Peel scores 210 not out as Yorkshire is dismissed for 887 in drawn County Cricket match against Warwickshire in Birmingham
- 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), a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal"
Royal Coronation
May 26 Last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, crowned
- 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 First car accident occurs; Henry Wells hits a cyclist in NYC
- May 30 Khodynka Tragedy: Stampeding crowd on Khodynka Field, Moscow, during the festivities for coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, results in the deaths of about 1,300 people