Historical Events on May 1

Events 1 - 200 of 344

• 1006 Supernova observed by Chinese and Egyptians in constellation Lupus

• 1048 Bishop Bernold flees St Pieterskerk for Utrecht, Netherlands
• 1328 Wars of Scottish Independence end: Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton - the Kingdom of England recognises the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state.
• 1394 Ekiho exorcised the Zen temple and its surroundings of an old badger

• 1544 Turkish troops occupy Hungary
• 1551 Council of Trente resumes
• 1598 Jacob van Neck's merchant fleet departs for Java, modern day Indonesia
• 1625 Portuguese & Spanish expedition recaptures Salvador (Bahia)

• 1682 Louis XIV & his court inaugurate Paris Observatory
• 1703 Battle at Rultusk: Swedish army beats Russians
• 1704 Boston Newsletter publishes 1st newspaper advertisement
• 1707 Acts of Union comes into force, uniting England and Scotland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain


• 1711 Archduke Karel of Austria/Hungarian rebellion sign Peace of Szatmar
• 1715 Prussia declares war on Sweden
• 1725 Spain and Austria sign trade treaty
• 1751 The New York Gazette carries the first public report of a cricket match played in America (New York)

• 1756 France and Austria sign alliance
• 1757 Austria and France divide Prussia
• 1759 British fleet occupies Guadeloupe, West Indies, capturing it from France
• 1776 Adam Weishaupt founds secret society of Illuminati
• 1777 RB Sheridan's "School for Scandal" premieres in London
• 1778 American Revolution: The Battle of Crooked Billet begins in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.

• 1822 John Phillips becomes 1st mayor of Boston
• 1834 Belgian parliament accepts railway laws

• 1841 First emigrant wagon train leaves Independence, Missouri, for California

• 1846 Ida Pfeiffer (48) begins trip around world
• 1848 The Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta is founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania


• 1850 John Geary becomes 1st mayor of San Francisco
• 1851 Great Exhibition opens in the Crystal Palace, London
• 1852 The Philippine peso is introduced into circulation

• 1853 Argentina adopts its constitution
• 1854 Amsterdam begins transferring drinking water out of the dunes
• 1857 William Walker, conqueror of Nicaragua, surrenders to US Navy
• 1861 Lee orders Confederate troops under T J Jackson to Harper's Ferry
• 1862 Major General Benjamin Butler's Union forces occupy New Orleans (US Civil War)
• 1863 Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled first opens its doors in New York City, oldest orthopaedic hospital in the United States
• 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, 29,000 injured or died
• 1863 Battle of Port Gibson, Mississippi
• 1863 Confederate "National Flag" replaces "Stars & Bars"
• 1863 Confederate congress passes resolution to kill black soldiers
• 1864 -8] Battle at Alexandria, Louisiana (Red River Campaign)
• 1864 Atlanta campaign, Georgia begins
• 1866 American Equal Rights Association forms
• 1867 Howard University chartered
• 1867 Reconstruction of South begins, black voter registration
• 1869 Folies Bergère opens in Paris
• 1873 1st US postal card issued
• 1873 Emperor Franz Joseph opens 5th World's Exposition in Vienna
• 1875 238 members of "Whiskey Ring" accused of anti-US activities
• 1875 Alexandra Palace, London, reopens after being burnt down in 1873
• 1883 Amsterdam World's Fair opens
• 1883 First National League baseball game in Philadelphia since 1876, Providence Greys beat Philadelphia Quakers, 4-3
• 1883 Bob Rogers is acknowledged as the first American pro sports trainer when he is hired by the NY Athletic Club
• 1884 Construction begins on Chicago's 1st skyscraper (10 stories)
• 1884 Catcher Moses Walker is acknowledged as the first African-American to play major league baseball joining the Toledo Blue Stockings
• 1884 Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States.
• 1885 Maria "Goeie Mie" Swanenburg sentence to life for killing 27 in Netherlands
• 1886 US general strike for 8-hour working day begins
• 1889 2nd International Congress calls for 1st International Workers Day 1st May 1890 to mark protests in Chicago in 1886

• 1892 US Quarantine Station opens on Angel Island, San Francisco Bay
• 1893 World Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago

• 1900 Premature blast collapses mine tunnel killing 200 at Scofield, Utah
• 1901 Chicago White Sox outfielder Herm McFarland hits first grand slam in American League history in 19-9 win at home against Detroit; Tigers commit 12 errors
• 1901 Pan-American Exposition opens in Buffalo

• 1906 Philadelphia Athletics pitcher John Lush no-hits the Brooklyn Superbas, 6-0
• 1907 Belgium government of De Trooz forms
• 1907 Indian Mine Laws passes (concessions from Neth-Indies)
• 1908 World's most intense shower (2.47" in 3 minutes) at Portobelo, Panama
• 1909 Netherlands begins unity with Belgium
• 1912 Beverly Hills Hotel opens
• 1913 Longacre Theater opens at 220 W 48th St NYC
• 1914 China's 1st president Yuan Shikai wins dictatorial qualification
• 1915 British liner Lusitania leaves NY for Liverpool
• 1915 German submarine torpedoes US tanker Gulflight
• 1919 Mount Kelud (Indonesia) erupts, boiling crater lake which broke through crater wall killing 5,000 people in 104 small villages

• 1920 Roermond Football Club (1936 KNVB Cup) is established in Netherlands

• 1920 Belgium-Luxembourg toll tunnel opens
• 1920 Longest MLB game by innings - Brooklyn Robins tie the Boston Braves, 1-1, in 26 innings
• 1921 Drusian sultan Pasja al-Atrasj elected governor of Suwayda
• 1922 Charlie Robertson of Chicago pitches a perfect no-hit, no-run game

• 1924 Admiral Paul Koundouriotis becomes President of Greece

• 1925 Cyprus becomes a British Crown Colony
• 1926 British coal miners go on strike
• 1926 Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige (19) debuts in the Negro Southern League for Chattanooga
• 1927 1st British airliner to serve cooked meals (Imperial Airways)
• 1928 6 children die and 10 injured by hailstones in Klausenburg, Romania
• 1928 Drunken fascist Erich Wichman attacks VARA-radio transmitter
• 1928 Lei Day begun (a Hawaiian celebration)
• 1928 Pitcairn Airlines (later Eastern) begins service
• 1928 Rotterdam soccer club Black White '28 is established (2000 Women's KNVB Cup); declared bankrupt 2004
• 1929 Farm workers strike begins in East-Groningen
• 1929 Police kill 19 Mayday demonstrators in Berlin
• 1930 The planet Pluto is officially named by 11 year-old Venetia Burney

• 1931 Empire State Building opens in New York City
• 1931 Norway claims Peter I Island
• 1931 Singer Kate Smith begins her long-running radio program on CBS
• 1932 1st Suriname union congress at Paramaribo
• 1934 Austria signs pact with Vatican
• 1934 Philippine legislature accepts US proposal for independence
• 1934 Water state kingdom dismisses NSB-leader Anton Mussert
• 1935 Canada's 1st silver dollar is circulated

• 1939 Pulitzer Prize awarded to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Yearling)
• 1940 140 Palestinian Jews die as German planes bomb their ship
• 1940 Summer Olympics (scheduled for Helsinki) are cancelled by the Finnish OC because of WWII

• 1941 General Mills introduces CheeriOats (renamed Cheerios in 1945) an oat-based, ready-to-eat cold cereal
• 1941 German assault on Tobruk
• 1941 US savings bonds go on sale to help finance the war effort
• 1942 Radio Orange calls to defy order to wear "Jewish star"
• 1943 1st edition of illegal "The Free Artist" appears in Amsterdam
• 1943 69th Kentucky Derby: Johnny Longden wins aboard heavy favourite Count Fleet in the 'street car Derby'
• 1943 Food rationing begins in the United States during World War II
• 1943 German Wehrmacht deployed in order to break Dutch strikes
• 1943 German plane sinks the British ship SS Erinpura in the Mediterranean with the loss of 799 lives
• 1943 SS General Hanns Albin Rauter announces that all Jews will be 'removed' from the occupied Netherlands
• 1944 Messerschmitt Me 262 Sturmvogel, 1st jet bomber, makes 1st flight
• 1944 Pulitzer prize awarded to American Martin Flavin for his novel "Journey in the Dark"
• 1944 Surprise attack on Weteringschans Amsterdam, fails
• 1945 About 1,000 citizens of Demmin in Germany, commit suicide provoked by occupation by Soviet Red Army
• 1945 Admiral Karl Doenitz forms German government
• 1945 Australian & Dutch troops land on Tarakan
• 1945 General Belgian Labor Union (ABVV) party forms
• 1945 Radio Budapest, Hungary re-enters shortwave broadcasting after WW II
• 1945 Seys-Inquart flees to Flensburg
• 1945 Soviet army reaches Rostock

• 1946 Mrs Emma Clarissa Clement named "American Mother of Year"


• 1946 Start of 3 year Pilbara strike of Indigenous Australians.
• 1946 The Paris Peace Conference concludes that the islands of the Dodecanese should be returned to Greece by Italy
• 1947 Cleveland Indians abandon League Park (venue for weekday games) to play all MLB games at Municipal Stadium
• 1947 Lt General Hoyt S Vandenberg, USA, ends term as 2nd head of CIA
• 1947 Radar for commercial & private planes 1st demonstrated
• 1947 Rear Admiral Roscoe H Hillenkoetter, USN, becomes 3th director of CIA
• 1948 74th Kentucky Derby: Eddie Arcaro wins aboard Citation to become first 4-time Derby winning jockey
• 1948 North Korea proclaims itself Democratic People's Republic of Korea

• 1948 Glenn Taylor, Idaho Senator, arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, for trying to enter a meeting through a door marked "for Negroes"
• 1949 A's Elmer Valo is 1st AL'er to hit 2 bases-loaded triples in a game
• 1949 Gerard Kuiper discovers Nereid, (2nd satellite of Neptune)
• 1950 Gwendolyn Brooks is 1st African American awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry
• 1950 Mayor of Brussels reluctantly bans May Day parade
• 1950 New marriage laws enforced in People's Republic of China
• 1950 Pulitzer prize awarded to Rodgers & Hammerstein for musical "South Pacific"
• 1950 WJIM (now WLNS) TV channel 6 in Lansing, MI (CBS) begins broadcasting
• 1951 600,000 march for peace & freedom in Germany
• 1951 Dutch Reformed Church introduces new church choir

• 1952 US Marines take part in an atomic explosion training in Nevada
• 1952 Mr Potato Head introduced
• 1952 TWA introduces tourist class
• 1954 80th Kentucky Derby: Raymond York wins aboard Determine, his only Derby success
• 1954 Bishops publish Mandement (member socialist org forbidden)
• 1954 HSA-UWC Forms (Unification Church) (Moonies)
• 1954 WAPA TV channel 4 in San Juan, PR (NBC/SFN) begins broadcasting
• 1954 Preston North End defender Joe Marston becomes the first Australian to play in an FA Cup Final, a 3-2 loss to WBA
• 1955 American golfer Babe Didrikson-Zaharias wins the Peach Blossom LPGA Tournament in Spartanburg, South Carolina, her final victory before her death the following year
• 1955 Future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller tosses his record 12th 1-hitter in Indians' 2-0 win v Boston Red Sox at Cleveland Stadium

• 1956 A doctor in Japan reports an "epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system", marking the official discovery of Minamata disease
• 1957 Flevo Boys Football Club is established in Emmeloord, the Netherlands

• 1957 US gives Poland credit of $95 million
• 1957 Vanguard TV-1 booster test reaches 195 km
• 1958 Ambonese rebellion bombs Ambon, conquers Morotai
• 1958 Arturo Frondizi sworn in as President of Argentina

• 1959 West Germany introduces 5 day work week
• 1960 India's Bombay state split into Gujarat & Maharashtra states
• 1960 Russia shoots down Francis Gary Powers' U-2 spy plane over Sverdlovsk
• 1960 7th National Film Awards (India): "Apur Sansar" wins the Golden Lotus
• 1961 1st US airplane hijacked to Cuba

• 1961 Tanganyika granted full internal self-government by Britain
• 1962 1st French underground nuclear experiment in the Sahara
• 1962 France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria

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