- 363 Roman Emperor Julian defeats the Sassanid army in the Battle of Ctesiphon, under the walls of the Sassanid capital, but is unable to take the city
- 757 St Paul I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
- 1138 Anti-Pope Victor IV (Gregorio) submits himself to Pope Innocentius II
- 1167 Battle of Monte Porzio - A Roman army supporting Pope Alexander III is defeated by Christian of Buch and Rainald of Dassel
Victory in Battle
1176 Battle at Legnano: Lombard League beats Frederick Barbarossa and the Holy Roman Empire
Frederick Barbarossa
- 1328 French King Philip VI Valois crowned at the Cathedral in Reims, France
- 1414 Council of Constance deposes Pope John XXIII
- 1453 Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire falls to the Turks under Muhammad II; ends the Byzantine Empire
- 1453 French banker Jacques Coeur's possessions confiscated
- 1576 Spanish army under Mondragon conquers Zierik sea
- 1592 Battle of Sacheon: Korean navy led by Admiral Yi Sun Shin repels a Japanese fleet - first use of Korean Turtle ship
Event of Interest
1630 John Winthrop begins "History of New England"
John Winthrop
- 1652 Battle of Goodwin Sands, off Folkestone, Kent: English 'General at Sea' Robert Blake drives out Dutch fleet under Lieutenant Admiral Maarten Tromp
Event of Interest
1660 On his 30th birthday Charles II returns to London from exile in the Netherlands to claim the English throne after the Puritan Commonwealth comes to an end
Charles II
- 1677 Treaty of Middle Plantation establishes peace between the Virginia colonists and local Native American
- 1692 Battle at La Hogue: English and Dutch fleet beat France
- 1692 Royal Hospital Chelsea Founder's Day first celebrated
- 1721 South Carolina formally incorporated as a royal colony
- 1727 Peter II becomes Tsar of Russia aged 11
- 1733 The right of Canadians to keep Indian slaves is upheld in Quebec City
- 1753 Joseph Haydn's "Krumme Teufel" premieres
Event of Interest
1765 Patrick Henry's historic speech against the Stamp Act, answering a cry of "Treason!" with, "If this be treason, make the most of it!"
Patrick Henry
Constitution of the United States
1790 Rhode Island becomes last of original 13 colonies ratifying US Constitution
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Conference of Interest
1851 Sojourner Truth addresses 1st Black Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio
Sojourner Truth
Event of Interest
1861 Dorothea Dix offers help in setting up hospitals for the Union Army
Dorothea Dix
Event of Interest
1886 American chemist John Pemberton begins to advertise Coca-Cola
John Pemberton
- 1889 August Strindberg's "Hemsoborna" premieres in Copenhagen
- 1900 Trademark "Escalator" registered by Otis Elevator Co
- 1902 Dutch State Mine law forms
- 1903 May coup d'etat: Alexander Obrenovich, King of Serbia, and Queen Draga, are assassinated in Belgrade by the Black Hand (Crna Ruka) organization
- 1905 Pogrom against Jewish community in Brisk Lithuania
- 1909 Frank "Home Run" Baker's 1st career home run
- 1910 Pope's encyclical on Editae Saepe, against church reformers
- 1912 15 young women are fired by Curtis Publishing in Philadelphia for dancing the "Turkey Trot" during their lunch break
- 1912 Ballets Russes premieres their ballet L'après-midi d'un faune (The Afternoon of a Faun) in Paris, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky
- 1914 Ship rams Canadian ship Empress of Ireland on St Lawrence River; 1,024 die
- 1916 Official flag of President of the United States adopted
- 1916 US forces invade Dominican Republic, stay until 1924
- 1919 Charles Strite files patent for the pop-up toaster
Event of Interest
1919 Albert Einstein's light-bending prediction confirmed by Arthur Eddington
Albert Einstein
- 1919 The Republic of Prekmurje founded - a short-lived, unrecognised state, which on June 6, 1919 was incorporated into the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed "Yugoslavia" in 1929)
- 1919 An expedition sponsored by the Royal Society of London observes a total eclipse of the sun in the Gulf of Guinea, off the African continent
- 1922 Ecuador becomes independent
- 1924 AEK Athens FC is established on the anniversary of the siege of Constantinople by the Turks
- 1928 Fritz von Opel reaches 200 kph in experimental rocket car
- 1932 The Bonus Army of World War I veterans begins to assemble in Washington, D.C. to request cash bonuses promised to them to be paid in 1945.
- 1935 French liner Normandie begins its maiden voyage, arrived in NYC on June 3rd
- 1935 Hague local museum opens
- 1940 Arthur Seyss-Inquart installed as Reich commissar of The Hague, Netherlands
- 1940 In WWII, Germans capture Ostend & Ypres in Belgium and Lille in France
Event of Interest
1943 Confederacy of Algiers (Churchill-Marshall-Eisenhower)
Dwight D. Eisenhower
- 1943 Meat and cheese rationed in US
- 1944 British troops occupy Aprilia, Italy
- 1945 US 1st Marine division conquers Shuri Castle, Okinawa
- 1946 KVP wins Provincial National election in Netherlands
- 1951 1st North Pole flight in single engine plane-CF Blair
- 1952 2nd Round Conference between Dutch Antilles & Suriname ends
Tenzing Norgay on the Summit of Mount Everest
1953 Edmund Hillary (NZ) and Tenzing Norgay (Nepal) are first to reach the summit of Mount Everest as part of a British Expedition
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- 1953 500th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire (to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II)
- 1954 Pope Pius XII issues holy declaration
- 1954 First of the annual Bilderberg conferences.
- 1955 Jordan government of Tewfik Abdul Huda resigns
- 1957 Algerian rebels kill 336 collaborators
- 1957 Laos government of prince Suvanna Phuma resigns
Event of Interest
1959 Charles de Gaulle forms French government
Charles de Gaulle
Appointment of Interest
1967 Pope Paul VI names 27 new cardinals, including Karol Wojtyla, archbishop of Krakow, who later became Pope John Paul II
Paul VI
John Paul II
- 1968 US Truth in Lending Act signed into law
- 1968 UN resolves sanctions on white-minority-ruled Rhodesia
- 1969 Britain's Trans-Arctic expedition makes 1st crossing of Arctic Sea ice
- 1969 General strike in Cordoba, Argentina, leading to the Cordobazo civil unrest
- 1970 USSR performs underground nuclear test
- 1972 The Official IRA announce a ceasefire
- 1973 Thomas Bradley elected 1st African American mayor of Los Angeles, California
- 1973 Columbia Records fires president Clive Davis for misappropriating $100,000 in funds, Davis will start Arista records
- 1974 Northern Ireland is brought under direct rule from Westminster
- 1976 Only HR of Joe Niekro's 22-year career, comes off brother Phil
- 1977 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1978 US 1st class postage rises to 15 cents (13 cents for 3 years)
- 1978 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1979 Bishop Abel Muzorewa is sworn in as Zimbabwe's 1st black PM
- 1980 53rd National Spelling Bee: Jacques Bailly wins spelling elucubrate
- 1980 Attempted assassination on Vernon Jordan Jr National Urban League president
- 1980 JMW Turner's "Juliet & Her Nurse" sold for $6,400,000 in NYC
- 1981 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1982 1st papal visit to Britain since 1531
- 1982 Pentagon plans 1st strategy to fight a nuclear war
- 1986 59th National Spelling Bee: Jon Pennington wins spelling odontalgia
- 1988 Pakistan President Zia ul-Haq dismisses government and disbands parliament
- 1989 Student protesters in China construct a replica of Statue of Liberty
- 1990 An earthquake hits Peru, killing over 200
Election of Interest
1990 Boris Yeltsin is elected President of the Russian Republic
Boris Yeltsin
Event of Interest
1996 Space Shuttle STS 77 Endeavour 11), lands
Marc Garneau
- 1997 70th National Spelling Bee: Rebecca Sealfon wins spelling euonym
- 1997 Jesse Timmedequas found guilty of rape and murder of Megan Kanka, 7
- 1997 Span scientists announce new human species in 780,000 year old fossil
- 1999 Olusegun Obasanjo takes office as President of Nigeria, the first elected and civilian head of state in Nigeria after 16 years of military rule
- 1999 Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.
- 2001 International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers inaugurated.
- 2001 Natural gas futures plunge 6% to a 10-month low on speculation that growing US inventories will help power plants meet summer demand for air-conditioning
- 2004 The World War II Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
- 2004 The Al-Khobar massacres in Saudi Arabia kill 22
- 2005 France resoundingly rejects the European Constitution
Event of Interest
2011 Hong Kong student activist group Scholarism started by Joshua Wong and Ivan Lam
Joshua Wong
- 2012 Thousands march in protest in Johannesburg against Brett Murray's controversial painting The Spear
- 2012 Facebook's problematic public listing could cost those involved $115 million from technical glitches
- 2012 A 5.9 magnitude earthquake kills 24 people near Bologna, northern Italy
- 2012 Indonesian police make the biggest drug bust in ten years after seizing over a million ecstasy pills valued at $45 million
Event of Interest
2014 President Obama approves US military training of 'moderate' Syrian rebels to fight the regime of Bashar al-Assad and al Qaeda-linked groups
Bashar al-Assad
Barack Obama
- 2015 Heat wave in India centered in Telengana and Andhra Pradesh states is reported to have killed 1800 people in a week
Event of Interest
2015 Muhammadu Buhari is sworn in as the President of Nigeria
Muhammadu Buhari
- 2015 Sepp Blatter is elected to a fifth term as president of FIFA
- 2017 Violent storm and high winds in Moscow, Russia leaves 13 dead
- 2018 Missouri Governor Eric Greitens resigns over an extramarital affair and illegal use of a donor list
- 2018 Heatwave in Karachi, Pakistan, kills 65 as temperatures soar above 110 degrees Fahrenheit
- 2018 Starbucks closes more than 8,000 US stores early for racial bias training after two black men wrongly arrested in a store in April
- 2018 Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko fakes his own death with Ukrainian security services to foil an assassination plot
- 2018 Death toll on Puerto Rico 70 times higher than official figure, likely 4,600 died from Hurricane Maria according to Harvard University study
May in History
![Ship that Changed the Face of Britain]()
Ship that Changed the Face of Britain
Britain was on its knees after the Second World War, its economy and infrastructure in tatters. For help the Mother Country turned to the Commonwealth.
May 27, 1948![A Modern Major-General of Light Entertainment]()
A Modern Major-General of Light Entertainment
William Gilbert, celebrated as the unique lyricist behind the highly popular Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, met his death in highly unexpected circumstances.
May 29, 1911![Voltaire: Writer, Wit, Philosopher and Rebel]()
Voltaire: Writer, Wit, Philosopher and Rebel
They burned his books, sent him to the Bastille and into exile, but Voltaire, who died on this day, remained rich, successful – and defiant.
May 30, 1778![Cloak And Dagger World of Walter Raleigh]()
Cloak And Dagger World of Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh's secret marriage to a lady-in-waiting was uncovered on this day. It ruined his career, but things were to get much worse.
May 31, 1592
