- May 1 Bill Elliott sets stock car speed record of 212.229 mph
Pripyat: Nuclear Wasteland
May 1 Russian news agency Tass reports Chernobyl nuclear power plant mishap
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- May 1 Will Stegers expedition reaches North Pole
- May 2 Transportation Expo 86 opens in Vancouver, BC
- May 3 112th Kentucky Derby: Bill Shoemaker aboard Ferdinand wins in 2:02.8
- May 3 Air Lanka crashes, killing 22
- May 3 Cubs 3rd baseman Ron Cey hits his 300th & 301st HR
- May 3 NASA launches Goes-G, it fails to achieve orbit
- May 3 NY Yankee Don Mattingly is 6th to hit 3 sacrifice flies in a game
- May 3 31st Eurovision Song Contest: Sandra Kim for Belgium wins singing "J'aime la vie" in Bergen
- May 4 President Babrak Karmal resigns as party leader of Afghanistan
- May 5 Hall of Fame & Museum announced to be built in Cleveland
- May 6 Donald E Pelotte becomes 1st native American bishop
- May 6 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
- May 7 Phillies outfielder Garry Maddox, retires
- May 7 Iraq bombs a Tehran oil refiner
- May 7 30th European Cup: Steaua Bucuresti beats Barcelona (0-0, 2-0 on penalties) at Seville
- May 9 NHL Prince of Wales Conference Final: Montreal Canadians beat New York Rangers, 4 games to 1
- May 10 "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco hits #1 on UK pop chart
- May 11 Muffin Spencer-Devlin wins LPGA United Virginia Bank Golf Classic
Event of Interest
May 12 President Reagan appoints Dr James C Fletcher NASA Administrator
Ronald Reagan
- May 12 Fred Markham (US), unpaced & unaided by wind, is 1st to pedal 65 mph on a level course, Big Sand Flat, California
Historic Publication
May 14 Netherlands Institute for War Documentation publishes Anne Frank's complete diary
Anne Frank
Event of Interest
May 14 Reggie Jackson hit his 537th HR passing Mickey Mantle into 6th place
Reggie Jackson
Mickey Mantle
Event of Interest
May 16 "Top Gun", directed by Tony Scott and starring Tom Cruise premieres
Tom Cruise
Event of Interest
May 16 South African President P. W. Botha sends Coetsee to visit Mandela
P. W. Botha
- May 16 The Seville Statement on Violence is adopted by an international meeting of scientists, convened by the Spanish National Commission for UNESCO, in Seville, Spain.
- May 17 "Chicken Song" by Spitting Image hits #1 on the UK pop chart
- May 17 111th Preakness: Alex Solis aboard Snow Chief wins in 1:54.8
- May 18 "Singin' in the Rain" closes at Gershwin Theater NYC after 367 performances
- May 18 Becky Pearson wins LPGA Chrysler-Plymouth Golf Classic
- May 18 David Goch finishes swimming 55,682 miles in a 25-yd pool
- May 18 South African army occupies Botswana, Zimbabwe & Zambia
- May 18 Chung Kwung Ying does 2,750 "atomic" hand-stand push-ups
- May 19 Anti-apartheid activist Hélène Pastoors sentenced to 10 yrs in South Africa
- May 19 39th Cannes Film Festival: "The Mission" directed by Roland Joffe wins the Palme d'Or
- May 20 Christy Fichtner, 23, (Texas), crowned 35th Miss USA
- May 20 Flintstones 25th Anniversary Celebration airs on CBS-tv
- May 21 Atlanta Brave Rafael Ramirez hits 4 doubles in a game
- May 21 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Event of Interest
May 22 Cher calls David Letterman an asshole on Late Night on NBC
Cher
David Letterman
- May 23 US & Western Europe veto heavier sanctions against South Africa
Event of Interest
May 24 Margaret Thatcher becomes 1st British Prime Minister to visit Israel
Margaret Thatcher
- May 24 Reginald Huffstetler trod water for 985 hrs
- May 24 Stanley Cup: Montreal Canadiens beat Calgary Flames, 4 games to 1
- May 25 95-year-old woman scores a hole-in-one in Florida
- May 25 Ferry boat Shamia sinks on Maghna River Bangladesh, 600 killed
- May 25 Hands Across America - 6.5 million people hold hands from California to NY
Baseball Record
May 25 KC Royal George Brett gets his 2,000th hit
George Brett
- May 25 Laurie Rinker wins LPGA Corning Golf Classic
- May 25 Virgilio Barco elected president of Colombia
- May 27 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
- May 27 Norway Showcase groundbreaking
- May 27 President Reagan orders 2 Poseidon-class submarines be dismantled
- May 28 Democratic Labor Party wins parliamentary election in Barbados
- May 28 White Sox Joe Cowley sets record striking out 1st 7 Rangers he faces
- May 29 59th National Spelling Bee: Jon Pennington wins spelling odontalgia
- May 30 Ariane-2 (ESA) launched
- May 30 Bobby Rahal is 1st to average over 170 mph in Indianapolis 500
- May 30 France performs nuclear test
Event of Interest
May 30 Barry Bonds makes his MLB debut for the Pittsburgh Pirates
Barry Bonds