Events in History
Great White Fleet
May 5 US Great White Fleet arrives in San Francisco
Getting Married
May 12 George Bernard Shaw's play "Getting Married" premieres in London
- May 12 Wireless Radio Broadcasting is patented by Nathan B. Stubblefield
- May 14 1st passenger flight in an airplane
- May 15 Reich Association Law comes into force
- May 23 Dirigible explodes over San Francisco Bay, 16 passengers fall, none killed
- May 23 Part of Great White Fleet arrives in Puget Sound, Washington
- May 24 Belgium Catholic socialist/liberal parliamentary election
- May 24 John Masefields "Tragedy of Nan" premieres in London
- May 26 At Masjed Soleyman (مسجد سليمان) in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made, rights acquired by the United Kingdom
- May 26 Mr & Mrs Jacob Murdock and their children become 1st family to travel across United States by car: Los Angeles to NYC in a Packard Thirty (32 days, 5 hours and 25 minutes)
- May 27 Maulana Hakeem Noor-ud-Din iss elected the first Khalifa of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
- May 30 1st federal workmen's compensation law approved
- May 30 Aldrich Vineland Currency Act forerunner to Federal Reserve System
- May 30 Paris advocate E Archdeacon is 1st passenger in a airplane
- May 30 US Assay Office in Salt Lake City, Utah authorized
- May 31 Miss Pottelsberghe de la Pottery is 1st airplane passenger (Belgium)
Birthdays in History
- May 1 Giovannino Guareschi, Italian writer (Don Camillo, Peppone), born in Roccabianca, Emilia, Kingdom of Italy (d. 1968)
- May 5 Jacques Massu, French general who led Battle of Algiers, born in Châlons-sur-Marne (d. 2002)
- May 5 Kurt Böhme, German bass, born in Dresden, Germany (d. 1989)
- May 9 Mary Goldsmith, American ceramist (d. 2007)
- May 10 Carl Albert,, American politician, US speaker of the House (1971-77), (Rep-D-OK 1947-77), born in McAlester, Oklahoma (d. 2000)
- May 10 Henry Diamond, Irish Nationalist MP, born in Belfast, Ireland (d. 1996)
- May 16 Mohammed Roem, Indonesian politician (as Foreign Minister negotiated Roem–Van Roijen Agreement that led to independence), born in Parakan, Central Java (d. 1983)
John Bardeen (1908-1991)
May 23 American physicist, electrical engineer and co-inventor of the transistor (Nobel 1956, 1972), born in Madison, Wisconsin
- May 23 Max Abramovitz, American architect (Lincoln Center, UN Building), born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 2004)
- May 24 Michael Roberts, English historian ("The Military Revolution: 1560-1660"), born in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire (d. 1996)
- May 25 Theodore Roethke, American poet (Words for the Wind), born in Saginaw, Michigan (d. 1963)
- May 26 Nguyễn Ngọc Thơ, Prime Minister of South Vietnam, born in Long Xuyên, Annam, French Indochina (d. 1976)
- May 27 Melle Oldeboerrigter, Dutch painter and cartoonist, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands (d. 1976)
Weddings in History
Louis St. Laurent
May 19 Prime Minister of Canada Louis St. Laurent (26) weds Jeanne Renault
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists