- May 1 600,000 march for peace & freedom in Germany
- May 1 Dutch Reformed Church introduces new church choir
Baseball Record
May 1 Future Baseball Hall of Fame slugger Mickey Mantle hits first career home run in 8-3 win v White Sox in Chicago; Minnie Minoso homers in Sox debut
Mickey Mantle
- May 3 Gil McDougald ties major league record with 6 RBIs in 1 inning
- May 3 NY Yankee Gil McDougald is 5th to get 6 RBIs in an inning (9th)
- May 3 Royal Festival Hall opens in London
- May 3 The Festival of Britain opens
- May 5 "Out of This World" closes at New Century Theater NYC after 157 performances
- May 5 77th Kentucky Derby: Conn McCreary aboard Count Turf wins in 2:02.6
- May 6 Pitts Pirate Cliff Chambers no-hits Boston Brave, 3-0
- May 7 International Olympic committee allows Russia to participate in 1952 Olympics
- May 7 Pulitzer prize awarded to Conrad Richter (The Town)
- May 8 Dacron men's suits introduced
- May 8 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak
- May 9 Air raid on Chinese positions at Yalu River
- May 10 Z Alexander Looby elected to Nashville City Council
- May 11 American engineer Jay Forrester applies for patent for computer core memory
- May 12 1st H Bomb test, on Enewetak Atoll
- May 14 Sammy Fain and Yip Harburg's musical "Flahooley" opens at Broadhurst Theater NYC for 40 performances
- May 14 Ernie Kovacs Show, TV Variety debut on NBC
- May 15 AT&T becomes the 1st US corporation to have a million stockholders after young car salesman Brady Denton purchases 7 shares worth $1,078
- May 15 Polish cultural attache in Paris, Czesław Miłosz, asks the French government for political asylum
- May 16 The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights begin between Idlewild Airport (New York International Airport) and Heathrow Airport (London), operated by El Al Israel Airlines
- May 18 US General Collins predicts use of atom bomb in Korea
Event of Interest
May 19 76th Preakness: Eddie Arcaro aboard Bold wins in 1:56.4
Eddie Arcaro
- May 21 The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known as the 9th Street Art Exhibition - a gathering of a number of notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post war New York avant-garde, collectively know as the New York School.
- May 23 Peter Ustinov's "Love of Four Colonels" premieres in London
- May 23 Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet signed in Beijing, formally establishes Chinese sovereignty over Tibet
- May 24 Racial segregation in Washington, D.C. restaurants ruled illegal
- May 24 US performs nuclear test at Enwetak (atmospheric tests)
Event of Interest
May 25 NY Giant Willie Mays 1st major league game (goes 0 for 5)
Willie Mays
- May 26 Vaughan Williams' "Pilgrim's Progress" premieres in London
Event of Interest
May 27 Chinese Communists force Dalai Lama to surrender his army to Beijing
Tenzin Gyatso
- May 28 After going 0-for-12, Willie Mays connects for his 1st major league home run
- May 28 Bernardus J Alfrink appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Utrecht and Titular Archbishop of Tyana
- May 28 The Jerry Colonna Show debuts on ABC-TV
Event of Interest
May 28 Radio programme "Crazy People" (later titled The Goon Show) premieres on the BBC, created by Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan
- May 29 1st North Pole flight in single engine plane-CF Blair
Boxing Title Fight
May 30 Ezzard Charles beats Joey Maxim in 15 for heavyweight boxing title
Ezzard Charles