Events in History
- May 1 Messerschmitt Me 262 Sturmvogel, 1st jet bomber, makes 1st flight
- May 1 Pulitzer prize awarded to American Martin Flavin for his novel "Journey in the Dark"
- May 1 Surprise attack on Weteringschans Amsterdam, fails
- May 3 Meat rationing ends in US
Event of Interest
May 5 Mahatma Gandhi freed from prison
- May 5 Soviet offensive against Sebastopol, Crimea
- May 6 KJR-AM in Seattle Washington swaps calls with KOMO
- May 8 33 communist resistance fighter sentenced to death
- May 9 1st eye bank opens in New York
- May 9 Dutch resistance fighter Gerard Musch arrested
- May 9 Russians recapture Crimea by taking Sevastopol
- May 10 Chinese offensive in West-Yunnan
- May 10 Smith v Allwright (excluding Blacks from primary voting) is illegal
- May 11 Opposition group surprise attack post office Washer
- May 12 900+ 8th US Air Force bombers attack Zwikau, Bohlen & Brux
- May 12 Crimea purged of Nazi troops
- May 12 German police arrest Dutch resistance member Gerrit van der Veen and later execute him
- May 14 91 German bombers harass Bristol
- May 14 British troops occupy Kohima
D-Day Planning
May 15 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bernard Montgomery, Winston Churchill and King George VI discuss the plan for D-Day
- May 15 Sergei Aleksi becomes guardian of the Patriarch Throne of the Russian Orthodox Church
- May 16 1st of 180,000+ Hungarian Jews reach Auschwitz
- May 17 -18] Allied air raid on Surabaja, Java
- May 17 Chinese and US armed forces take Myitkyina Airport, Burma
- May 17 Operation Straightline: Allies land in Dutch New Guinea
D-Day Date Set
May 17 US General Dwight Eisenhower sets D-Day for June 5
- May 18 Expulsion of more than 200,000 Tartars from Crimea by Soviet Union begins, they are accused of collaborating with the Germans
- May 18 Polish 2nd Army corps captures convent of Monte Cassino, Italy
- May 19 240 gypsies transported to Auschwitz from Westerbork, Netherlands, including Sinti girl Settela Steinbach famously filmed by Jewish photographer Rudolf Breslauer [1]
- May 19 German defense line in Italy collapses
- May 20 US Communist Party dissolves
- May 21 WWII: West Loch Disaster - explosion during munition loading kills at least 160 sailors, injures nearly 400, destroys six ships and damages 3 piers and several buildings at Pearl Harbor U.S. Naval Base in Oahu, Hawaii; details were kept classified until the early 1960s
- May 23 British and Canadian troops occupy Pontecorvo, Italy
- May 23 Chinese counter offensive at Hunan front
- May 23 Operation Buffalo: Allied break out from Anzio bridgehead
Event of Interest
May 24 Enver Hoxha becomes head of Albania's anti fascists
Event of Interest
May 27 Jean-Paul Sartres' "Huis Clos" premieres in Paris
Birthdays in History
- May 1 Suresh Kalmadi, Indian politician
- May 2 Franz Innerhofer, Austrian writer (Beautiful Days), born in Krimml, Salzberg
- May 2 John Verity, English rocker (Argent), born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England
- May 3 Ian Peter Leslie Smith, British journalist, born in Bristol, England (d. 1997)
- May 9 Don Dannemann, rocker (Cyrkle)
- May 10 Jim Abrahams, Shorewood WI, director (Hot Shots, Top Secret)
- May 12 Eva Demski, German writer, born in Regensburg
- May 13 Armistead Maupin, American author (Tales of the City series), born in Washington D.C.
- May 13 Betsy Finley Ashton, American broadcast journalist, author and lecturer, born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
- May 13 Crispin Agnew of Lochnaw, British explorer and genealogist
- May 15 Bill Alter, Missouri State Senator
- May 17 Canon P B Price, general secretary, USPG
- May 18 Peter Ryan, British national director (Police Training)
- May 18 W. G. Sebald, German-born writer (Austerlitz), born in Wertach, Germany (d. 2001)
- May 20 David M Walker, Capt USN/astron (STS 51-A 30, 53, 69), born in Columbus, Georgia
Dietrich Mateschitz (1944-2022)
May 20 Austrian businessman (founder, owner Red Bull Racing; FC Red Bull Salzburg, RB Leipzig; co-creator Red Bull energy drink), born in Sankt Marein im Mürztal, Austria
- May 21 Janet Dailey, American Romance author, born in Storm Lake, Iowa (d. 2013)
- May 21 Manual Pina, Spanish fashion designer (d. 1994)
- May 21 Mary Robinson, Irish politician, President of the Republic of Ireland (1990-97), born in Ballina, Ireland
- May 23 Giles Smith, TV journalist
- May 25 Bob Payton, American pizza magnate (The Chicago Pizza Pie Factory), born in Miami, Florida (d. 1994)
- May 25 Robert MacPherson, American mathematician (invention of intersection homology with Mark Goresk), born in Lakewood, Ohio
- May 27 Christopher J Dodd, (Gov/Sen-D-CT, 1981- )
- May 28 Adriaan T "Ad" Zuiderent, poet/critic (On the Droge)
Rudy Giuliani (79 years old)
May 28 American Mayor of New York City (Republican: 1994-2001) at the time of the September 11 attacks, born in NYC, New York
- May 29 Quentin Davies, British MP (C & L), born in Oxford, England
Deaths in History
- May 5 Bertha Benz [Cacilie Bertha Ringer], German inventor, automotive pioneer and wife of fellow automotive inventor Karl Benz, dies at 95
- May 11 Henk Hos, Dutch resistance fighter, executed at 37
- May 11 Walter Oesau, German fighter pilot (WWII), dies at 30
- May 12 Arthur Quiller-Couch, Cornish novelist and editor (The Oxford Book Of English Verse 1250–1900), dies at 80
- May 16 Ferdinand Alphons Marie van der Ham, Dutch WW II resistance fighter, dies at 27
- May 16 Max Brand [Frederick Schiller Faust], western author, dies
- May 17 Félix Éboué, French colonial administrator, dies at 60
- May 19 Godfrey Wilson, British Anthropologist of social change and colonial problems in Africa, commits suicide as a conscientious objector in WW II
- May 26 Henricus Verbunt, Dutch civil servant and resistance fighter, executed by German forces at 34
- May 26 Jacob J. Hage, Dutch farmer and WW II resistance fighter, executed at 23
- May 26 Robert van Spaendonck, Dutch resistance fighter, dies at 27
- May 28 Katri Vala, Finnish poet, dies at 42
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists