Events in History
- May 1 36 people are killed in Taksim Square, Istanbul, during the Labour Day celebrations.
- May 4 US Catholic bishops rescind automatic excommunications for divorced and remarried Catholics (receiving communion still outlawed if the previous marriages were not annulled by Church tribunals)
- May 9 Hotel Poland in Amsterdam destroyed by fire, 33 killed
- May 9 Mabel Murphy Smythe confirmed as ambassador to Rep of Cameroon
- May 9 Patty Hearst let out of jail
- May 14 English football international Bobby Moore retires
- May 14 Netherlands State Delta Kappa Gamma Society forms
- May 16 5 die as NY Airway helicopter topples on Pan Am building in NYC
Election of Interest
May 17 Menachem Begin's Likoed party wins election in Israel
- May 18 Menachem Begin becomes Prime Minister of Israel
- May 18 US, USSR and other nations sign the Environmental Modification Convention which prohibits weather warfare having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects
- May 21 Albert Innaurato's "Gemini" premieres in NYC
- May 21 Fire in hotel Duc de Brabant Brussels, kills 19
The Orient Express
May 22 Final European scheduled run of the Orient Express (after 94 years)
- May 23 Benin adopts its constitution
- May 23 Moluccan extremists hold 105 schoolchildren & 50 others hostage on a hijacked train in Neth, children released May 27, siege ends June 11
Historic Event
May 23 US Supreme Court refuses to hear appeals of Watergate wrong doers H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman & John Mitchell
- May 24 USSR President Podgorny resigns
- May 25 Dutch social democratic party wins parliamentary election
- May 25 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- May 26 George Willig climbs the South Tower of NYC's World Trade Center, famously fined 1 cent for each of 110 stories he climbed
- May 28 Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Southgate, Kentucky kills 168
- May 29 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- May 31 Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani becomes heir apparent to throne of Qatar
- May 31 Trans-Alaska oil pipeline completed, one of the world's largest pipeline systems
Birthdays in History
- May 2 Fredrik Malm, Swedish politician, Member of Parliament for the Liberal People's Party, born in Stockholm, Sweden
- May 3 Maryam Mirzakhani, Iranian mathematician, born in Tehran, Iran (d. 2017)
- May 3 Mashima Hiro, Japanese Mangaka of Rave Master and Fairy Tail, born in Nagano, Japan
- May 13 Tom Cotton, American politician (Senator-R-Arkansas 2015-), born in Dardanelle, Arkansas
- May 22 Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, Irish hurler
- May 26 Raina Telgemeier, American cartoonist (Smile), born in San Francisco, California
- May 28 Elisabeth Hasselbeck, American television panelist (The View)
- May 31 Joel Ross, British disc jockey
Deaths in History
- May 5 Ludwig Erhard, German minister of Economic Affairs (CDU), dies at 80
- May 9 James Jones, American novelist (Bad Blood, From Here to Eternity), dies at 55
- May 12 Luc van Brabant, Flemish writer and erotic poet, dies at 67
- May 15 Modibo Keïta, 1st President of Mali (1960-68), dies at 61
- May 22 Gijs van Hall, Dutch politician and Mayor of Amsterdam (1957-67), dies at 73
- May 25 Yevgenia Ginzburg, Russian writer, dies at 72
- May 29 Ba Maw, Burmese politician (b. 1893)
- May 30 Claire Goll, German-French writer, dies at 86
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists