Events in History
- May 1 Construction begins on Chicago's 1st skyscraper (10 stories)
- May 1 Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States.
- May 13 Institute for Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) forms in New York
- May 14 Anti-Monopoly party forms in US
- May 16 Italian inventor Angelo Moriondo receives patent for 1st espresso machine
- May 17 Alaska becomes a US territory
- May 19 Ringling Brothers circus premieres
- May 24 Anti-Monopoly party & Greenback Party forms People's Party in US
- May 29 Europe's first steam cable trams start in Highgate, London
Birthdays in History
Harry Truman (1884-1972)
May 8 33rd US President (Democrat: 1945-53), born in Lamar, Missouri
Edvard Beneš (1884-1948)
May 28 Czech politician, statesman, and 2nd President of Czechoslovakia (1935-38, 1945-48), born in Kožlany, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary
- May 28 Theo van Reijn, Dutch sculptor and lithographer, born in Breda, Netherlands (d. 1954)
Weddings in History
- May 1 "Poems of Passion" author Ella Wheeler Wilcox (33) weds Robert M. Wilcox in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Frederick Winslow Taylor
May 3 American mechanical engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor (28) weds Louise M. Spooner in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Oscar Wilde
May 29 Irish writer Oscar Wilde marries Constance Lloyd at St. James Church, Paddington, London
Deaths in History
- May 4 Maria Anna of Savoy, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, dies at 80
- May 7 Judah P. Benjamin, American politician (1st practicing Jew to be elected to US Senate, Confederate Secretary of State and Secretary of War), dies at 72
- May 9 Hermanus Willem Witteveen, Dutch theologist, dies at 69
Cyrus McCormick (1809-1884)
May 13 American inventor and businessman (mechanical reaper), dies at 75
- May 22 William T. Wofford, Brigadier General (Confederate Army-American Civil War), dies at 59
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists