Events in History
Deutsches Wörterbuch
May 1 Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm publish the first part of their German Dictionary "Deutsches Wörterbuch" (fully completed 1961)
Birthdays in History
Calamity Jane (1852-1903)
May 1 American frontierswoman, born in Princeton, Missouri
- May 1 Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish histologist (central nervous system) and neuroscientist (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1906), born in Petilla de Aragón, Navarre, Spain (d. 1934)
- May 11 Charles W. Fairbanks, 26th Vice President of the United States (Republican: 1905-09) and Senator, born in Unionville Center, Ohio (d. 1918)
- May 18 Gertrude Käsebier, American pioneering photographer, born in Des Moines, Iowa (d. 1934)
- May 24 Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, Scottish politician, born in London (d. 1936)
- May 31 Francisco Moreno, Argentine explorer, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina (d. 1919)
- May 31 Julius Richard Petri, German microbiologist generally credited with inventing the device known as the Petri dish, born in Barmen, Kingdom of Prussia (now part of Wuppertal, Germany) (d. 1921)
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists