May 1
May 1 is the 121st day of the year in the
Gregorian calendar (122nd in
leap years). There are 244 days remaining.
*
305 -
Diocletian and
Maximian retire from the office of
Roman Emperor.
*
1045 -
Gregory VI appointed
Pope.
*
1328 -
Wars of Scottish Independence end:
Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton –
England recognises
Scotland as an independent nation.
*
1576 -
Stefan Batory, the reigning
Prince of Transylvania, married
Anna Jagiellon and became the co-rulers of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
*
1707 - The
Act of Union joins
England and
Scotland to form the
Kingdom of Great Britain.
*
1751 - The first cricket match is played in America.
*
1753 - Publication of
Species Plantarum by
Linnaeus, and the formal start date of
plant taxonomy adopted by the
International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.
*
1786 - Opening night of the
opera The Marriage of Figaro by
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in
Vienna.
*
1834 - The
British colonies abolish slavery.
*
1851 - The
Great Exhibition is opened in
London by
Queen Victoria.
*
1863 -
American Civil War: The
Battle of Chancellorsville begins.
*
1869 - The
Folies Bergères open in
Paris.
*
1884 - Proclamation of the demand for
eight-hour workday in the
United States*
1886 - The start of the
general strike which eventually wins the eight-hour workday in the
United States. These events are today commemorated as
May Day or
Labor Day in most industrialized countries.
*
1893 - The
World's Columbian Exposition opens in
Chicago, Illinois.
*
1894 -
Coxey's Army, the first significant American
protest march, arrives in
Washington D.C..
*
1898 -
Spanish-American War: The
Battle of Manila Bay - The
United States Navy destroys the
Spanish Pacific fleet in the first battle of the war.
*
1900 - The
Scofield mine disaster kills 200 in
Scofield, Utah in the now fifth-worst
mining accident in
United States history.
*
1901 - The
Pan-American Exposition opens in
Buffalo, New York.
*
1915 -
RMS Lusitania departs
New York City on her 202nd & final crossing of the
North Atlantic. Six days later she'll be torpedoed off the Irish coast with the loss of 1,198 lives.
*
1925 - The
All-China Federation of Trade Unions is official founded. Today it is the largest
trade union in the world, with 134 million members.
*
1927 - The first cooked meals on a scheduled flight are introduced on an Imperial Airways flight from
London to
Paris.
*
1930 - The planet
Pluto is officially named.
*
1931 - The
Empire State Building is dedicated in
New York City.
*
1940 - The
1940 Summer Olympics are cancelled due to war.
*
1941 -
Orson Welles's
Citizen Kane premieres in
New York City* 1941 -
World War II:
German forces launch a major attack on
Tobruk.
*
1945 -
Soviet troops raise the Soviet Flag over the
Reichstag, in
Berlin*
1946 - Start of 3 year
Pilbara strike of
Indigenous Australians.
*
1948 - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (
North Korea) is established, with
Kim Il Sung as president.
*
1950 -
Guam is organized as a
United States commonwealth.
*
1956 - The
polio vaccine developed by
Jonas Salk is made available to the public.
*
1960 -
Cold War:
U-2 Crisis –
Francis Gary Powers, in a
Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the
Soviet Union, sparking off a diplomatic crisis.
*
1971 -
Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) is formed to take over U.S. passenger rail service.
*
1978 -
Japan's
Naomi Uemura, travelling by
dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the
North Pole alone.
* 1978 - The first unsolicited bulk commercial
e-mail (which would later become known as "
spam") was sent by a
DEC marketing representative to every
ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.
* 1978 - May Day Bank Holiday introduced across England.
*
1982 - The
1982 World's Fair opens in
Knoxville, Tennessee.
*
1989 - The
coat of arms of Greenland was adopted.
*
1997 - Terry Burrows breaks the world record for speed window-cleaning, completing three 45-inch square windows in 18.46 seconds.
*
2003 -
2003 invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the "
Mission Accomplished" speech,
President George W. Bush declares "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" on board
USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast of
California.
*
2004 -
Cyprus,
Czech Republic,
Estonia,
Hungary,
Latvia,
Lithuania,
Malta,
Poland,
Slovakia, and
Slovenia join the
European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin.
*
2006 - Immigrants and their supporters across the
United States carry out the
Great American Boycott, a one day national
protest against the enforcement of pending
immigration laws criminalizing illegal immigrants and those who aid them, and calling for amnesty to be given to those in the U.S..
* 2006 - The
Puerto Rican government ran out of money and had to force the closure of schools and all other government agencies.
* 2006 - The First Ultra Mobile Personal Computer(
UMPC) was shipped worldwide by Samsung. The Project had been codenamed "origami" by microsoft. The concept had first been unveiled publicly at CeBIT 2006.
*
1218 -
John I, Count of Hainaut (d.
1257)
* 1218 -
Rudolph I of Germany, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (d.
1291)
*
1285 -
Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel, English politician (d.
1326)
*
1582 -
Marco da Gagliano, Italian composer (d.
1643)
*
1594 -
John Haynes, Massachusetts colonial magistrate
*
1672 -
Joseph Addison, English politician and writer (d.
1719)
*
1804 -
Aleksey Khomyakov, Russian poet (d.
1860)
*
1830 -
Mother Jones, American labor activist (d.
1930)
*
1831 -
Emily Stowe, Canadian physician and suffragist (b.
1903)
*
1852 -
Calamity Jane, American Wild West performer (d.
1903)
* 1852 -
Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish histologist and neuroscientist, recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d.
1934)
*
1872 -
Sidónio Pais, Portuguese military and politician (d.
1918)
*
1881 -
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French palaeontologist and philosopher (d.
1955)
*
1887 -
Alan Gordon Cunningham, British army officer (d.
1983)
*
1896 -
Mark Wayne Clark, American general (d.
1984)
*
1901 -
Heinz Eric Roemheld, American film composer (d.
1985)
*
1901 -
Antal Szerb, Hungarian author, literature historian (d.
1945)
*
1905 -
Henry Koster, German film director (d.
1988)
*
1908 -
Giovanni Guareschi, Italian journalist (d.
1968)
*
1909 -
Kate Smith, American singer (d.
1986)
*
1913 -
Louis Nye, American comedian and actor (d.
2005)
* 1913 -
Walter Susskind, Czech conductor (d.
1980)
*
1915 -
Archie Williams, American athlete (d.
1993)
*
1916 -
Glenn Ford, Canadian actor
*
1917 -
John Beradino, American actor and baseball player (d.
1996)
* 1917 -
Danielle Darrieux, French singer and actress
*
1918 -
Jack Paar, American television host (d.
2004)
* 1918 -
Gersh Budker, Russian physicist (d.
1977)
*
1919 -
Dan O'Herlihy, Irish film actor (d.
2005)
*
1923 -
Joseph Heller, American novelist (d.
1999)
*
1924 -
Art Fleming, American game show host (d.
1995)
* 1924 -
Karel Kachyňa, Czech film director (d.
2004)
*
1925 -
Chuck Bednarik, American football player
* 1925 -
Scott Carpenter, American astronaut
*
1928 -
Desmond Titterington, Northern Irish racecar driver (d.
2002)
*
1929 -
Ralf Dahrendorf, German-born sociologist and politician
*
1930 -
Richard Riordan, Mayor of Los Angeles, California
*
1934 -
Joan Hackett, American actress (d.
1983)
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1935 -
Ann Robinson, American actress
*
1937 -
Una Stubbs, English actress
*
1939 -
Judy Collins, American folk singer
* 1939 -
Max Robinson, American broadcast journalist (d.
1988)
*
1940 -
Elsa Peretti, Italian jewelry designer
*
1944 -
Suresh Kalmadi, Indian politician
*
1945 -
Rita Coolidge, American singer
*
1946 -
Joanna Lumley, British actress
* 1946 -
John Woo, Hong Kong director, producer, writer, and actor
*
1950 -
Dann Florek, American actor
*
1954 -
Ray Parker Jr., American singer and songwriter
*
1960 -
Steve Cauthen, American jockey
*
1962 -
Maia Morgenstern, Romanian actress
*
1964 -
Yvonne van Gennip, Dutch speed skater
*
1967 -
Tim McGraw, American musician
*
1968 -
Oliver Bierhoff, German footballer
* 1968 -
D'arcy Wretzky, American musician (
Smashing Pumpkins)
*
1969 -
Wes Anderson, American director, writer, and producer
*
1970 -
Gregg Groothuis, American professional wrestler
*
1973 -
Curtis Martin, American football player
* 1973 -
Oliver Neuville, German footballer
*
1975 -
Alexei Smertin, Russian footballer
* 1975 -
Jodhi May, British actress
*
1981 -
Aleksander Hleb, Belarusian footballer, Tyrel Van Wijk
*
1986 -
Cristian Benítez, Ecuadorian footballer
*
1988 -
Jacobo León, Mexican film director, animator, writer and producer
*
1990 -
Caitlin Stasey, Australian actress
*
1997 -
Ariel Gade, American child actress
*
408 -
Arcadius, Roman emperor
*
1118 -
Edith of Scotland, first wife of
Henry I of England (b. c.
1080)
*
1308 -
Albert I of Habsburg (murdered) (b.
1255)
*
1555 -
Pope Marcellus II (b.
1501)
*
1572 -
Pope Pius V (b.
1504)
*
1731 -
Johann Ludwig Bach, German composer (b.
1677)
*
1738 -
Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, English statesman
*
1772 -
Gottfried Achenwall, German statistician (b.
1719)
*
1813 -
Jean-Baptiste Bessières, French marshal (killed in combat) (b.
1768)
*
1873 -
David Livingstone, Scottish missionary (b.
1813)
*
1899 -
Ludwig Büchner, German philosopher and physician (b.
1824)
*
1904 -
Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer (b.
1841)
*
1935 -
Henri Pélissier, French cyclist (b.
1889)
*
1937 -
Snitz Edwards, American actor (b.
1868)
*
1945 -
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda (suicide) (b.
1897)
*
1965 -
Spike Jones, American band leader, musician, and comedian (b.
1911)
*
1968 -
Harold Nicolson, British diplomat, author and politician (b.
1886)
*
1970 -
Yi, Eun, Crown Prince Korea (b.
1897)
*
1976 -
Alexandros Panagoulis, Greek politician and poet (b.
1939)
*
1976 -
T.R.M. Howard, Civil rights leader, entrepreneur, surgeon (b.
1908)
*
1978 -
Aram Khachaturian, Armenian composer (b.
1903)
*
1982 -
William Primrose, Scottish violist (b.
1903)
*
1989 -
Sally Kirkland, fashion editor at
LIFE (b.
1912)
* 1989 -
Douglass Watson, American actor (b.
1921)
*
1993 -
Pierre Bérégovoy, French Prime Minister (suicide) (b.
1925)
* 1993 -
Ranasinghe Premadasa,
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (b.
1924)
*
1994 -
Ayrton Senna, Brazilian race car driver (b.
1960)
*
1998 -
Eldridge Cleaver, American activist (b.
1935)
*
2000 -
Steve Reeves, American actor (b.
1926)
*
2003 -
Miss Elizabeth, American wrestler (b.
1960)
*
May Day,
Labour Day, Workers' Day, Day of the International Solidarity of Workers.
*
Italy - national holiday (
Giorno dei Lavoratori).
*
Switzerland - official feast of Spring.
*
Czech Republic - "National Love Day" – couples tend to flock to the memorial of the poet
Karel Hynek Mácha in
Prague and kiss.
*
Lei Day -
Hawaiian holiday for the
Lei.
*
Beltane, Lá Bealtaine, the first day of
Summer in modern
Ireland was celebrated by the
Celts, and is now also celebrated by
Neopagans and
Wiccans.
*
Northern Europe -
Walpurgis Night.
*
Roman Empire - all-female festival in honour of
Bona Dea.
*Roman Empire - fourth and last day of the
Floralia in honour of
Flora.
*
United States -
Law Day, U.S.A.,
Loyalty Day.
*
Malta -
L-Ewwel ta Mejju, Malta,
Jum il-haddiem (Worker's Day).
*
Festival of Matsu in
Taiwan and various locales along the southern coast of
China (
2005).
*
Maharashtra Divas (
Maharashtra Day) in the state of
Maharastra,
India. On May 1,
1960, Maharashtra came into existence when
Bombay State was split into the new linguistic states of Maharashtra and
Gujarat.
*
May crowning - Unofficial
ritual ceremony usually happening in the
Roman Catholic Church.
*
Saint Joseph the Worker (also known as
Saint Joseph's Day).
*
Saint James the Less.
*
Saint Philip the Apostle.
*
Saint Andeol.
*
Saint Brieuc.
*
Saint Evermaar of Rutten (died 700)
*
Saint Jeremiah.
*
Saint Sigismund of Burgundy.
*
Saint Theodulf.
*
Saint Augustin Schoeffer*
Saint Florine*
BBC: On This Day*
The New York Times: On This Day*
On this day in CanadaApril 30 -
May 2 -
April 1 -
June 1 –
listing of all daysnds-nl:1 meie
