17 – Germanicus celebrates a triumph in Rome for his victories over the Cherusci, Chatti, and other German tribes west of the Elbe.
451 – Battle of Avarayr between Armenian rebels and the Sasanian Empire takes place. The Sasanids defeat the Armenians militarily but guarantee them freedom to openly practice Christianity.
946 – King Edmund I of England is murdered by a thief whom he personally attacks while celebrating St Augustine’s Mass Day.
961 – King Otto I elects his 6-year-old son Otto II as heir apparent and co-ruler of the East Frankish Kingdom. He is crowned at Aachen, and placed under the tutelage of his grandmother Matilda.
1135 – Alfonso VII of León and Castile is crowned in León Cathedral as Imperator totius Hispaniae (Emperor of all of Spain).
1293 – An earthquake strikes Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan, killing about 23,000.
1328 – William of Ockham, the Franciscan Minister-General Michael of Cesena, and two other Franciscan leaders secretly leave Avignon, fearing a death sentence from Pope John XXII.
1538 – Geneva expels John Calvin and his followers from the city. Calvin lives in exile in Strasbourg for the next three years.
1573 – The Battle of Haarlemmermeer, a naval engagement in the Dutch War of Independence.
1637 – Pequot War: A combined English and Mohegan force under John Mason attacks a village in Connecticut, massacring approximately 500 Pequots.
1644 – Portuguese Restoration War: Portuguese and Spanish forces both claim victory in the Battle of Montijo.
1736 – The Battle of Ackia was fought near the present site of Tupelo, Mississippi. British and Chickasaw soldiers repelled a French and Choctaw attack on the then-Chickasaw village of Ackia.
1770 – The Orlov Revolt, an attempt to revolt against the Ottoman Empire before the Greek War of Independence, ends in disaster for the Greeks.
1783 – A Great Jubilee Day held at North Stratford, Connecticut, celebrated the end of fighting in the American Revolution.
1805 – Napoléon Bonaparte assumes the title of King of Italy and is crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy in Milan Cathedral, the gothic cathedral in Milan.
1821 – Establishment of the Peloponnesian Senate by the Greek rebels.
1822 – One hundred sixteen people die in the Grue Church fire, the biggest fire disaster in Norway’s history.
1857 – Dred Scott is emancipated by the Blow family, his original owners.
1864 – Montana is organized as a United States territory.
1865 – American Civil War: The Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi division, is the last full general of the Confederate Army to surrender, at Galveston, Texas.
1868 – The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson ends with his acquittal by one vote.
1869 – Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
1879 – Russia and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Gandamak establishing an Afghan state.
1896 – Nicholas II becomes the last Tsar of Imperial Russia.
1896 – Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
1897 – Dracula, a Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, is published.
1897 – The original manuscript of William Bradford’s history, “Of Plymouth Plantation” is returned to the Governor of Massachusetts by the Bishop of London after being taken during the American Revolutionary War.
1900 – Thousand Days’ War: The Colombian Conservative Party turns the tide of war in their favor with victory against the Colombian Liberal Party in the Battle of Palonegro.
1908 – The first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East was made at Masjed Soleyman in southwest Persia. The rights to the resource were quickly acquired by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
1917 – Several powerful tornadoes rip through Illinois, including the city of Mattoon.
1918 – The Democratic Republic of Georgia is established.
1923 – The first 24 Hours of Le Mans was held and has since been run annually in June.
1927 – The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles.
1936 – In the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, Tommy Henderson begins speaking on the Appropriation Bill. By the time he sits down in the early hours of the following morning, he had spoken for ten hours.
1937 – Walter Reuther and members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) clashed with Ford Motor Company security guards at the River Rouge Complex complex in Dearborn, Michigan, during the Battle of the Overpass.
1938 – In the United States, the House Un-American Activities Committee begins its first session.
1940 – World War II: Operation Dynamo: In northern France, Allied forces begin a massive evacuation from Dunkirk, France.
1940 – World War II: The Siege of Calais ends with the surrender of the British and French garrison.
1942 – World War II: The Battle of Gazala takes place.
1948 – The U.S. Congress passes Public Law 80-557, which permanently establishes the Civil Air Patrol as an auxiliary of the United States Air Force.
1966 – British Guiana gains independence, becoming Guyana.
1967 – The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is released.
1968 – H-dagurinn in Iceland: Traffic changes from driving on the left to driving on the right overnight
1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to Earth after a successful eight-day test of all the components needed for the forthcoming first manned moon landing.
1970 – The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2.
1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War: The Pakistan Army slaughters at least 71 Hindus in Burunga, Sylhet, Bangladesh.
1972 – The United States and the Soviet Union sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
1981 – Italian Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani and his coalition cabinet resign following a scandal over membership of the pseudo-masonic lodge P2 (Propaganda Due).
1981 – An EA-6B Prowler crashes on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, killing 14 crewmen and injuring 45 others.
1983 – The 7.8 Mw Sea of Japan earthquake shakes northern Honshu with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). A destructive tsunami is generated that leaves about 100 people dead.
1986 – The European Community adopts the European flag.
1991 – Zviad Gamsakhurdia becomes the first elected President of the Republic of Georgia in the post-Soviet era.
1991 – Lauda Air Flight 004 breaks apart in mid-air and crashes in the Phu Toei National Park in Thailand, killing all 223 people on board.
1998 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules in New Jersey v. New York that Ellis Island, the historic gateway for millions of immigrants, is mainly in the state of New Jersey, not New York.
1998 – The first “National Sorry Day” was held in Australia, and reconciliation events were held nationally, and attended by over a million people.
2002 – The tugboat Robert Y. Love collides with a support pier of Interstate 40 on the Arkansas River near Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, resulting in 14 deaths and 11 others injured.
2004 – United States Army veteran Terry Nichols is found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the Oklahoma City bombing.
2008 – Severe flooding begins in eastern and southern China that will ultimately cause 148 deaths and force the evacuation of 1.3 million.
Births on May 26
1264 – Koreyasu, Japanese prince and shōgun (d. 1326)
1478 – Clement VII, pope of the Catholic Church (d. 1534)
1562 – James III, margrave of Baden-Hachberg (d. 1590)
1566 – Mehmed III, Ottoman sultan (d. 1603)
1602 – Philippe de Champaigne, Dutch-French painter (d. 1674)
1623 – William Petty, English economist and philosopher (d. 1687)
1650 – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, English general and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire (d. 1722)
1667 – Abraham de Moivre, French-English mathematician and theorist (d. 1754)
1669 – Sébastien Vaillant, French botanist and mycologist (d. 1722)
1700 – Nicolaus Zinzendorf, German bishop and saint (d. 1760)
1799 – August Kopisch, German poet and painter (d. 1853)
1822 – Edmond de Goncourt, French author and critic, founded the Académie Goncourt (d. 1896)
1863 – Bob Fitzsimmons, English-New Zealand boxer (d. 1917)
1865 – Robert W. Chambers, American author and illustrator (d. 1933)
1867 – Mary of Teck, English-born queen consort of the United Kingdom (d. 1953)
1873 – Olaf Gulbransson, Norwegian painter and illustrator (d. 1958)
1876 – Percy Perrin, English cricketer (d. 1945)
1880 – W. Otto Miessner, American composer and educator (d. 1967)
1881 – Adolfo de la Huerta, Mexican politician and provisional president, 1920 (d. 1955)
1883 – Mamie Smith, American singer, actress, dancer, and pianist (d. 1946)
1886 – Al Jolson, American singer and actor (d. 1950)
1887 – Ba U, 2nd President of Burma (d. 1963)
1893 – Eugene Aynsley Goossens, English conductor and composer (d. 1962)
1895 – Dorothea Lange, American photographer and journalist (d. 1965)
1895 – Paul Lukas, Hungarian-American actor and singer (d. 1971)
1898 – Ernst Bacon, American pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1990)
1898 – Christfried Burmeister, Estonian speed skater (d. 1965)
1899 – Antonio Barrette, Canadian lawyer and politician, 18th Premier of Quebec (d. 1968)
1899 – Muriel McQueen Fergusson, Canadian lawyer and politician, Canadian Speaker of the Senate (d. 1997)
1900 – Karin Juel, Swedish singer, actor, and writer (d. 1976)
1904 – George Formby, English singer-songwriter and actor (d. 1961)
1904 – Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, Turkish author, poet, and playwright (d. 1983)
1904 – Vlado Perlemuter, Lithuanian-French pianist and educator (d. 2002)
1907 – Jean Bernard, French physician and haematologist (d. 2006)
1907 – John Wayne, American actor, director, and producer (d. 1979)
1908 – Robert Morley, English actor (d. 1992)
1908 – Nguyễn Ngọc Thơ, Vietnamese politician, 1st Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam (d. 1976)
1909 – Matt Busby, Scottish footballer and manager (d. 1994)
1909 – Adolfo López Mateos, Mexican politician, 48th President of Mexico (d. 1969)
1910 – Imi Lichtenfeld, Hungarian-Israeli martial artist, boxer, and gymnast (d. 1998)
1911 – Maurice Baquet, French actor and cellist (d. 2005)
1911 – Henry Ephron, American playwright, screenwriter, and producer (d. 1992)
1912 – János Kádár, Hungarian mechanic and politician, 46th Prime Minister of Hungary (d. 1989)
1912 – Jay Silverheels, Canadian-American actor (d. 1980)
1913 – Peter Cushing, English actor (d. 1994)
1913 – Pierre Daninos, French author (d. 2005)
1913 – Karin Ekelund, Swedish actress (d. 1976)
1913 – Josef Manger, German weightlifter (d. 1991)
1914 – Frankie Manning, American dancer and choreographer (d. 2009)
1915 – Vernon Alley, American bassist (d. 2004)
1915 – Antonia Forest, English author (d. 2003)
1916 – Henriette Roosenburg, Dutch journalist and author (d. 1972)
1919 – Rubén González, Cuban pianist (d. 2003)
1920 – Jack Cheetham, South African cricketer (d. 1980)
1920 – Peggy Lee, American singer-songwriter and actress (d. 2002)
1921 – Inge Borkh, German soprano (d. 2018)
1922 – Troy Smith, American businessman, founded Sonic Drive-In (d. 2009)
1923 – James Arness, American actor (d. 2011)
1923 – Roy Dotrice, English actor (d. 2017)
1925 – Carmen Montejo, Cuban-Mexican actress (d. 2013)
1925 – Alec McCowen, English actor (d. 2017)
1926 – Miles Davis, American trumpet player, composer, and bandleader (d. 1991)
1927 – Jacques Bergerac, French actor and businessman (d. 2014)
1928 – Jack Kevorkian, American pathologist, author, and assisted suicide activist (d. 2011)
1929 – J. F. Ade Ajayi, Nigerian historian and academic (d. 2014)
1929 – Ernie Carroll, Australian television personality and producer
1929 – Hans Freeman, Australian bioinorganic chemist and protein crystallographer (d. 2008)
1929 – John Jackson, English lawyer and businessman
1929 – Catherine Sauvage, French singer and actress (d. 1998)
1930 – Karim Emami, Indian-Iranian lexicographer and critic (d. 2005)
1933 – Edward Whittemore, American soldier and author (d. 1995)
1935 – Eero Loone, Estonian philosopher and academic
1936 – David Stevens, Baron Stevens of Ludgate, English politician
1937 – Manorama, Indian actress and singer (d. 2015)
1937 – Paul E. Patton, American politician, 59th Governor of Kentucky
1938 – William Bolcom, American pianist and composer
1938 – Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Russian author and playwright
1938 – K. Bikram Singh, Indian director and producer (d. 2013)
1938 – Teresa Stratas, Canadian soprano and actress
1939 – Brent Musburger, American sportscaster
1939 – Herb Trimpe, American author and illustrator (d. 2015)
1940 – Monique Gagnon-Tremblay, Canadian academic and politician, Deputy Premier of Quebec
1940 – Levon Helm, American singer-songwriter, drummer, producer, and actor (d. 2012)
1941 – Aldrich Ames, American CIA officer and criminal
1941 – Jim Dobbin, Scottish microbiologist and politician (d. 2014)
1941 – Cliff Drysdale, South African tennis player and sportscaster
1941 – Imants Kalniņš, Latvian composer
1943 – Erica Terpstra, Dutch swimmer, journalist, and politician
1944 – Phil Edmonston, American-Canadian journalist and politician
1944 – Jan Kinder, Norwegian ice hockey player (d. 2013)
1944 – Sam Posey, American race car driver and journalist
1945 – Vilasrao Deshmukh, Indian lawyer and politician, 17th Chief Minister of Maharashtra (d. 2012)
1945 – Alistair MacDuff, English lawyer and judge
1945 – Garry Peterson, Canadian-American drummer
1946 – Neshka Robeva, Bulgarian gymnast and coach
1946 – Mick Ronson, English guitarist, songwriter, and producer (d. 1993)
1947 – Carol O’Connell, American author and painter
1947 – Glenn Turner, New Zealand cricketer
1948 – Stevie Nicks, American singer-songwriter
1949 – Jeremy Corbyn, British journalist and politician
1949 – Ward Cunningham, American computer programmer, developed the first wiki
1949 – Pam Grier, American actress
1949 – Anne McGuire, Scottish educator and politician
1949 – Philip Michael Thomas, American actor
1949 – Hank Williams Jr., American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1951 – Ramón Calderón, Spanish lawyer and businessman
1951 – Lou van den Dries, Dutch mathematician
1951 – Sally Ride, American physicist and astronaut, founded Sally Ride Science (d. 2012)
1951 – Madeleine Taylor-Quinn, Irish educator and politician
1952 – David Meece, American singer-songwriter and pianist
1953 – Kay Hagan, American lawyer and politician (d. 2019)
1953 – Don McAllister, English footballer and manager
1953 – Michael Portillo, English journalist and politician, Secretary of State for Defence
1953 – Dan Roundfield, American basketball player (d. 2012)
1954 – Alan Hollinghurst, English novelist, poet, short story writer, and translator
1954 – Denis Lebel, Canadian businessman and politician, 29th Canadian Minister of Transport
1955 – Masaharu Morimoto, Japanese-American chef
1955 – Paul Stoddart, Australian businessman
1955 – Wesley Walker, American football player and educator
1956 – Neil Parish, English politician
1956 – Fiona Shackleton, English lawyer
1957 – Diomedes Díaz, Colombian singer-songwriter (d. 2013)
1957 – François Legault, Canadian businessman and politician
1957 – Roberto Ravaglia, Italian race car driver
1958 – Ronnie Black, American golfer
1958 – Arto Bryggare, Finnish hurdler and politician
1958 – Margaret Colin, American actress
1959 – Ole Bornedal, Danish actor, director, and producer
1960 – Doug Hutchison, American actor
1960 – Dean Lukin, Australian weightlifter
1960 – Masahiro Matsunaga, Japanese race car driver
1960 – Rob Murphy, American baseball player
1960 – Romas Ubartas, Lithuanian discus thrower
1961 – Steve Pate, American golfer
1961 – Tarsem Singh, Indian-American director, producer, and screenwriter
1962 – Black, English singer-songwriter (d. 2016)
1962 – Genie Francis, Canadian-American actress
1962 – Bobcat Goldthwait, American actor, director, and screenwriter
1963 – Simon Armitage, English poet, playwright and novelist
1963 – Claude Legault, Canadian actor and screenwriter
1963 – Mary Nightingale, English journalist
1963 – Jamie Spence, English golfer
1964 – Caitlín R. Kiernan, Irish-American paleontologist and author
1964 – Lenny Kravitz, American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and actor
1964 – Argiris Pedoulakis, Greek basketball player and coach
1965 – Hazel Irvine, Scottish sportscaster and journalist
1966 – Helena Bonham Carter, English actress
1966 – Zola Budd, South African runner
1967 – Philip Treacy, Irish milliner, hat designer
1967 – Mika Yamamoto, Japanese journalist (d. 2012)
1968 – Fernando León de Aranoa, Spanish director, producer, and screenwriter
1968 – Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark
1968 – Steve Sedgley, English footballer and manager
1969 – John Baird, Canadian politician, 10th Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs
1969 – Siri Lindley, American triathlete and coach
1969 – Dominic Mohan, English journalist
1970 – Nobuhiro Watsuki, Japanese illustrator
1971 – Zaher Andary, Lebanese footballer
1971 – Matt Stone, American actor, animator, screenwriter, producer, and composer
567 BC – Servius Tullius, the king of Rome, celebrates a triumph for his victory over the Etruscans.
240 BC – First recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet.
1085 – Alfonso VI of Castile takes Toledo, Spain, back from the Moors.
1420 – Henry the Navigator is appointed governor of the Order of Christ.
1521 – The Diet of Worms ends when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw.
1644 – Ming general Wu Sangui forms an alliance with the invading Manchus and opens the gates of the Great Wall of China at Shanhaiguan pass, letting the Manchus through towards the capital Beijing.
1659 – Richard Cromwell resigns as Lord Protector of England following the restoration of the Long Parliament, beginning a second brief period of the republican government called the Commonwealth of England.
1660 – Charles II lands at Dover at the invitation of the Convention Parliament, which marks the end of the Cromwell-proclaimed Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and begins the Restoration of the British monarchy.
1738 – A treaty between Pennsylvania and Maryland ends the Conojocular War with settlement of a boundary dispute and exchange of prisoners.
1787 – After a delay of 11 days, the United States Constitutional Convention formally convenes in Philadelphia after a quorum of seven states is secured.
1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: Battle of Carlow begins; executions of suspected rebels at Carnew and at Dunlavin Green take place.
1809 – Chuquisaca Revolution: Patriot revolt in Chuquisaca (modern-day Sucre) against the Spanish Empire, sparking the Latin American wars of independence.
1810 – May Revolution: Citizens of Buenos Aires expel Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros during the “May Week”, starting the Argentine War of Independence.
1819 – The Argentine Constitution of 1819 is promulgated.
1833 – The Chilean Constitution of 1833 is promulgated.
1865 – In Mobile, Alabama, around 300 people are killed when an ordnance depot explodes.
1878 – Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore opens at the Opera Comique in London.
1895 – Playwright, poet and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of “committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons” and sentenced to serve two years in prison.
1895 – The Republic of Formosa is formed, with Tang Jingsong as its president.
1914 – The House of Commons of the United Kingdom passes the Home Rule Bill for devolution in Ireland.
1925 – Scopes Trial: John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching human evolution in Tennessee.
1926 – Sholom Schwartzbard assassinates Symon Petliura, the head of the government of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, which is in government-in-exile in Paris.
1935 – Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks three world records and ties a fourth at the Big Ten Conference Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
1938 – Spanish Civil War: The bombing of Alicante kills 313 people.
1940 – World War II: The German 2nd Panzer Division captures the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer; the surrender of the last French and British troops marks the end of the Battle of Boulogne.
1946 – The parliament of Transjordan makes Abdullah I of Jordan their Emir.
1953 – Nuclear weapons testing: At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its first and only nuclear artillery test.
1953 – The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston.
1955 – In the United States, a night-time F5 tornado strikes the small city of Udall, Kansas, killing 80 and injuring 273. It is the deadliest tornado to ever occur in the state and the 23rd deadliest in the U.S.
1955 – First ascent of Mount Kangchenjunga: A British expedition led by Charles Evans, Joe Brown and George Band reaches the summit of the third-highest mountain in the world (8,586 meters); Norman Hardie and Tony Streather join them the following day.
1961 – Apollo program: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces, before a special joint session of the U.S. Congress, his goal to initiate a project to put a “man on the Moon” before the end of the decade.
1963 – The Organisation of African Unity is established in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
1966 – Explorer program: Explorer 32 launches.
1968 – The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, is dedicated.
1973 – In protest against the dictatorship in Greece, the captain and crew on Greek naval destroyer Velos mutiny and refuse to return to Greece, instead anchoring at Fiumicino, Italy.
1977 – Star Wars (retroactively titled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope) is released in theaters.
1977 – The Chinese government removes a decade-old ban on William Shakespeare’s work, effectively ending the Cultural Revolution started in 1966.
1978 – The first of a series of bombings orchestrated by the Unabomber detonates at Northwestern University resulting in minor injuries.
1979 – John Spenkelink, a convicted murderer, is executed in Florida; he is the first person to be executed in the state after the reintroduction of capital punishment in 1976.
1979 – American Airlines Flight 191: A McDonnell Douglas DC-10 crashes during takeoff at O’Hare International Airport, Chicago, killing all 271 on board and two people on the ground.
1981 – In Riyadh, the Gulf Cooperation Council is created between Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
1982 – Falklands War: HMS Coventry is sunk by Argentine Air Force A-4 Skyhawks.
1985 – Bangladesh is hit by a tropical cyclone and storm surge, which kills approximately 10,000 people.
1986 – The Hands Across America event takes place.
1997 – A military coup in Sierra Leone replaces President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah with Major Johnny Paul Koroma.
1999 – The United States House of Representatives releases the Cox Report which details the People’s Republic of China’s nuclear espionage against the U.S. over the prior two decades.
2000 – Liberation Day of Lebanon: Israel withdraws its army from Lebanese territory (with the exception of the disputed Shebaa farms zone) 18 years after the invasion of 1982.
2001 – Erik Weihenmayer becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in the Himalayas, with Dr. Sherman Bull.
2002 – China Airlines Flight 611 disintegrates in mid-air and crashes into the Taiwan Strait, with the loss of all 225 people on board.
2008 – NASA’s Phoenix lander touches down in the Green Valley region of Mars to search for environments suitable for water and microbial life.
2009 – North Korea allegedly tests its second nuclear device, after which Pyongyang also conducts several missile tests, building tensions in the international community.
2011 – Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her 25-year run of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
2012 – The SpaceX Dragon becomes the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous and berth with the International Space Station.
2013 – Suspected Maoist rebels kill at least 28 people and injure 32 others in an attack on a convoy of Indian National Congress politicians in Chhattisgarh, India.
2013 – A gas cylinder explodes on a school bus in the Pakistani city of Gujrat, killing at least 18 people.
2018 – The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) becomes enforceable in the European Union.
2018 – Ireland votes to repeal the Eighth Amendment of their constitution that prohibits abortion in all but a few cases, choosing to replace it with the Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland.
2020 – George Floyd, a black man, is killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest when he is restrained in a prone position face-down on the ground for several minutes, provoking protests across the United States and elsewhere around the world.
Births on May 25
1048 – Emperor Shenzong of Song (d. 1085)
1320 – Toghon Temür, Mongolian emperor (d. 1370)
1334 – Emperor Sukō of Japan (d. 1398)
1416 – Jakobus (“James”), Count of Lichtenburg (d. 1480)
1417 – Catherine of Cleves, Duchess consort regent of Guelders (d. 1479)
1550 – Camillus de Lellis, Italian saint and nurse (d. 1614)
1606 – Charles Garnier, French missionary and saint (d. 1649)
1661 – Claude Buffier, Polish-French historian and philosopher (d. 1737)
1713 – John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, Scottish politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1792)
1725 – Samuel Ward, American politician, 31st Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island (d. 1776)
1783 – Philip Pendleton Barbour, American farmer and politician, 12th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (d. 1841)
1791 – Minh Mạng, Vietnamese emperor (d. 1841)
1803 – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, English author, playwright, and politician, Secretary of State for the Colonies (d. 1873)
1803 – Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet and philosopher (d. 1882)
1818 – Jacob Burckhardt, Swiss historian and academic (d. 1897)
1818 – Louise de Broglie, Countess d’Haussonville, French essayist and biographer (d. 1882)
1830 – Trebor Mai (né Robert Williams), Welsh poet (d. 1877)
1846 – Naim Frashëri, Albanian-Turkish poet and translator (d. 1900)
1848 – Johann Baptist Singenberger, Swiss composer, educator, and publisher (d. 1924)
1852 – William Muldoon, American wrestler and trainer (d. 1933)
1856 – Louis Franchet d’Espèrey, Algerian-French general (d. 1942)
1860 – James McKeen Cattell, American psychologist and academic (d. 1944)
1865 – John Mott, American evangelist and saint, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955)
1865 – Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1943)
1867 – Anders Peter Nielsen, Danish target shooter (d. 1950)
1869 – Robbie Ross, Canadian journalist and art critic (d. 1918)
1869 – Mathilde Verne, English pianist and educator (d. 1936)
1878 – Bill Robinson, American actor and dancer (d. 1949)
1879 – Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, Canadian-English businessman and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (d. 1964)
1879 – William Stickney, American golfer (d. 1944)
1880 – Jean Alexandre Barré, French neurologist and academic (d. 1967)
1882 – Marie Doro, American actress (d. 1956)
1883 – Carl Johan Lind, Swedish hammer thrower (d. 1965)
1886 – Rash Behari Bose, Indian soldier and activist (d. 1945)
1886 – Philip Murray, Scottish-American miner and labor leader (d. 1952)
1887 – Padre Pio, Italian priest and saint (d. 1968)
1888 – Miles Malleson, English actor and screenwriter (d. 1969)
1889 – Günther Lütjens, German admiral (d. 1941)
1889 – Igor Sikorsky, Russian-American aircraft designer, founded Sikorsky Aircraft (d. 1972)
1893 – Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, American country musician (d. 1968)
1897 – Alan Kippax, Australian cricketer (d. 1972)
1897 – Gene Tunney, American boxer and soldier (d. 1978)
1898 – Bennett Cerf, American publisher and television game show panelist; co-founded Random House (d. 1971)
1899 – Kazi Nazrul Islam, Bengali poet, author, and flute player (d. 1976)
1900 – Alain Grandbois, Canadian poet and author (d. 1975)
1907 – U Nu, Burmese politician, 1st Prime Minister of Burma (d. 1995)
1908 – Theodore Roethke, American poet (d. 1963)
1909 – Alfred Kubel, German politician, 5th Prime Minister of Lower Saxony (d. 1999)
1912 – Dean Rockwell, American commander, wrestler, and coach (d. 2005)
1913 – Heinrich Bär, German colonel and pilot (d. 1957)
1913 – Richard Dimbleby, English journalist and producer (d. 1965)
1916 – Brian Dickson, Canadian captain, lawyer, and politician, 15th Chief Justice of Canada (d. 1998)
1916 – Giuseppe Tosi, Italian discus thrower (d. 1981)
1917 – Steve Cochran, American film, television and stage actor (d. 1965)
1917 – Theodore Hesburgh, American priest, theologian, and academic (d. 2015)
1920 – Arthur Wint, Jamaican runner and diplomat (d. 1992)
1921 – Hal David, American songwriter and composer (d. 2012)
1921 – Kitty Kallen, American singer (d. 2016)
1921 – Jack Steinberger, German-Swiss physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1922 – Enrico Berlinguer, Italian politician (d. 1984)
1924 – István Nyers, French-Hungarian footballer (d. 2005)
1925 – Rosario Castellanos, Mexican poet and author (d. 1974)
1925 – Jeanne Crain, American actress (d. 2003)
1925 – Eldon Griffiths, English journalist and politician (d. 2014)
1925 – Don Liddle, American baseball player (d. 2000)
1925 – Claude Pinoteau, French film director and screenwriter (d. 2012)
1926 – Claude Akins, American actor (d. 1994)
1926 – William Bowyer, English painter and academic (d. 2015)
1926 – Phyllis Gotlieb, Canadian author and poet (d. 2009)
1926 – Bill Sharman, American basketball player and coach (d. 2013)
1926 – David Wynne, English sculptor and painter (d. 2014)
1927 – Robert Ludlum, American soldier and author (d. 2001)
1927 – Norman Petty, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer (d. 1984)
1929 – Beverly Sills, American soprano and actress (d. 2007)
1930 – Sonia Rykiel, French fashion designer (d. 2016)
1931 – Herb Gray, Canadian lawyer and politician, 7th Deputy Prime Minister of Canada (d. 2014)
1931 – Georgy Grechko, Russian engineer and astronaut (d. 2017)
1931 – Irwin Winkler, American director and producer
1932 – John Gregory Dunne, American novelist, screenwriter, and critic (d. 2003)
1932 – K. C. Jones, American basketball player and coach
1933 – Sarah Marshall, English-American actress (d. 2014)
1933 – Basdeo Panday, Trinidadian lawyer and politician, 5th Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago
1933 – Ray Spencer, English footballer (d. 2016)
1933 – Jógvan Sundstein, Faroese accountant and politician, 7th Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands
1935 – John Ffowcs Williams, Welsh engineer and academic
1935 – Cookie Gilchrist, American football player (d. 2011)
1935 – W. P. Kinsella, Canadian novelist and short story writer (d. 2016)
1935 – Victoria Shaw, Australian-born American actress (d. 1988)
1936 – Tom T. Hall, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1936 – Rusi Surti, Indian cricketer (d. 2013)
1937 – Tom Phillips, English painter and academic
1938 – Raymond Carver, American short story writer and poet (d. 1988)
1938 – Margaret Forster, English historian, author, and critic (d. 2016)
1938 – Geoffrey Robinson, English businessman and politician
1939 – Dixie Carter, American actress and singer (d. 2010)
1939 – Ian McKellen, English actor
1940 – Nobuyoshi Araki, Japanese photographer
1941 – Rudolf Adler, Czech filmmaker:88
1941 – Uta Frith, German developmental psychologist
1941 – Vladimir Voronin, Moldovan economist and politician, 3rd President of Moldova
1943 – Jessi Colter, American singer-songwriter and pianist
1943 – John Palmer, English keyboard player
1943 – Leslie Uggams, American actress and singer
1944 – Digby Anderson, English journalist and philosopher
1944 – Pierre Bachelet, French singer-songwriter (d. 2005)
1944 – Charlie Harper, English singer-songwriter and producer
1944 – Robert MacPherson, American mathematician and academic
1944 – Frank Oz, English-born American puppeteer, filmmaker, and actor
1944 – Chris Ralston, English rugby player
1946 – Bill Adam, Scottish-Canadian racing driver
1946 – David A. Hargrave, American game designer, created Arduin (d. 1988)
1947 – Karen Valentine, American actress
1947 – Catherine G. Wolf, American psychologist and computer scientist
1948 – Bülent Arınç, Turkish lawyer and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey
1948 – Marianne Elliott, Northern Irish historian, author, and academic
1948 – Klaus Meine, German rock singer-songwriter
1949 – Jamaica Kincaid, Antiguan-American novelist, short story writer, and essayist
1949 – Barry Windsor-Smith, English painter and illustrator
1950 – Robby Steinhardt, American rock violinist and singer
1951 – Bob Gale, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1952 – Jeffrey Bewkes, American businessman
1952 – Nick Fotiu, American ice hockey player and coach
1952 – David Jenkins, Trinidadian-Scottish runner
1952 – Al Sarrantonio, American author and publisher
1952 – Gordon H. Smith, American businessman and politician
1953 – Eve Ensler, American playwright and producer
1953 – Daniel Passarella, Argentinian footballer, coach, and manager
1953 – Stan Sakai, Japanese-American author and illustrator
1953 – Gaetano Scirea, Italian footballer (d. 1989)
1954 – John Beck, English footballer, midfielder and manager
1954 – Murali, Indian actor, producer, and politician (d. 2009)
1955 – Alistair Burt, English lawyer and politician
1956 – Stavros Arnaoutakis, Greek politician
1956 – Larry Hogan, American politician, 62nd Governor of Maryland
1956 – David P. Sartor, American composer and conductor
1957 – Alastair Campbell, English journalist and author
1957 – Edward Lee, American author
1957 – Robert Picard, Canadian ice hockey player
1958 – Dorothy Straight, American children’s author
1958 – Paul Weller, English singer, songwriter and musician
1959 – Julian Clary, English comedian, actor, and author
1959 – Manolis Kefalogiannis, Greek politician
1959 – Rick Wamsley, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1960 – Amy Klobuchar, American lawyer and politician
1960 – Anthea Turner, English journalist and television host
1962 – Ric Nattress, Canadian ice hockey player, coach, and manager
1963 – George Hickenlooper, American director and producer (d. 2010)
1963 – Mike Myers, Canadian-American actor, singer, producer, and screenwriter
1963 – Ludovic Orban, Romanian engineer, and politician, 68th Prime Minister of Romania
1964 – David Shaw, Canadian-American ice hockey player
1965 – Yahya Jammeh, Gambian colonel and politician, President of the Gambia
1967 – Luc Nilis, Belgian footballer and manager
1967 – Mark Rosewater, Head designer of Magic: the Gathering
1968 – Kendall Gill, American basketball player, boxer, and sportscaster
1969 – Glen Drover, Canadian guitarist and songwriter
1969 – Anne Heche, American actress
1969 – Karen Bernstein, Canadian voice actress
1969 – Stacy London, American journalist and author
1970 – Robert Croft, Welsh-English cricketer and sportscaster
1970 – Jamie Kennedy, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
1971 – Stefano Baldini, Italian runner
1971 – Marco Cappato, Italian politician
1972 – Karan Johar, Indian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1972 – Octavia Spencer, American actress and author
1973 – Daz Dillinger, American rapper and producer
1973 – Molly Sims, American model and actress
1974 – Dougie Freedman, Scottish footballer and manager
1974 – Frank Klepacki, American drummer and composer
1974 – Miguel Tejada, Dominican-American baseball player
1975 – Blaise Nkufo, Congolese-Swiss footballer
1976 – Stefan Holm, Swedish high jumper
1976 – Erki Pütsep, Estonian cyclist
1976 – Ethan Suplee, American actor
1976 – Cillian Murphy, Irish actor
1976 – Miguel Zepeda, Mexican footballer
1977 – Andre Anis, Estonian footballer
1977 – Alberto Del Rio, Mexican-American mixed martial artist and wrestler
1978 – Adam Gontier, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1978 – Brian Urlacher, American football player
1979 – Carlos Bocanegra, American international soccer player, defender and Sports Executive
1979 – Sayed Moawad, Egyptian footballer
1979 – Caroline Ouellette, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1979 – Sam Sodje, English-Nigerian footballer
1979 – Jonny Wilkinson, English rugby player
1979 – Chris Young, American baseball pitcher
1980 – David Navarro, Spanish footballer
1981 – Michalis Pelekanos, Greek basketball player
1981 – Matt Utai, New Zealand rugby league player
1982 – Adam Boyd, English footballer
1982 – Daniel Braaten, Norwegian footballer
1982 – Ryan Gallant, American skateboarder
1982 – Roger Guerreiro, Polish footballer
1982 – Justin Hodges, Australian rugby league player
1982 – Ezekiel Kemboi, Kenyan runner
1982 – Jason Kubel, American baseball player
1982 – Stacey Pensgen, American figure skater and meteorologist
1982 – Luke Webster, Australian footballer
1984 – Luke Ball, Australian footballer
1984 – Kyle Brodziak, Canadian ice hockey player
1984 – A. J. Foyt IV, American race car driver
1984 – Shawne Merriman, American football player
1985 – Luciana Abreu, Portuguese singer and actress
1985 – Demba Ba, French footballer
1985 – Gert Kams, Estonian footballer
1985 – Roman Reigns, American football player and wrestler
1986 – Edewin Fanini, Brazilian footballer
1986 – Yoan Gouffran, French footballer
1986 – Takahiro Hōjō, Japanese actor and musician
1986 – Geraint Thomas, Welsh cyclist
1987 – Timothy Derijck, Belgian footballer
1987 – Yves De Winter, Belgian footballer
1987 – Moritz Stehling, German footballer
1987 – Kamil Stoch, Polish ski jumper
1988 – Dávid Škutka, Slovak footballer
1988 – Cameron van der Burgh, South African swimmer
1990 – Bo Dallas, American wrestler
1990 – Nikita Filatov, Russian ice hockey player
1993 – James Porter, English cricketer
1994 – Matt Murray, Canadian ice hockey player
1994 – Aly Raisman, American gymnast
1995 – Kagiso Rabada, South African cricketer
1996 – David Pastrňák, Czech ice hockey player
Deaths on May 25
675 – Li Hong, Chinese prince (b. 652)
709 – Aldhelm, English-Latin bishop, poet, and scholar (b. 639)
803 – Higbald of Lindisfarne, English bishop
912 – Xue Yiju, chancellor of Later Liang
916 – Flann Sinna, king of Meath
939 – Yao Yanzhang, general of Chu
986 – Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, Muslim astronomer (b. 903)
992 – Mieszko I of Poland (b. 935)
1085 – Pope Gregory VII (b. 1020)
1261 – Pope Alexander IV (b. 1185)
1452 – John Stafford, English archbishop and politician
1983 – Jack Stewart, Canadian-American ice hockey player (b. 1917)
1986 – Chester Bowles, American journalist and politician, 22nd Under Secretary of State (b. 1901)
1990 – Vic Tayback, American actor (b. 1930)
1995 – Élie Bayol, French racing driver (b. 1914)
1995 – Krešimir Ćosić, Croatian basketball player and coach, Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer 1996 (b. 1948)
1995 – Dany Robin, French actress (b. 1927)
1996 – Renzo De Felice, Italian historian and author (b. 1929)
2003 – Sloan Wilson, American author and poet (b. 1920)
2004 – Roger Williams Straus, Jr., American publisher, co-founded Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publishing Company (b. 1917)
2005 – Sunil Dutt, Indian actor, director, producer, and politician (b. 1929)
2005 – Robert Jankel, English businessman, founded Panther Westwinds (b. 1938)
2005 – Graham Kennedy, Australian television host and actor (b. 1934)
2005 – Ismail Merchant, Indian-born film producer and director (b. 1936)
2005 – Zoran Mušič, Slovene painter and illustrator (b. 1909)
2007 – Charles Nelson Reilly, American actor, comedian, and director (b. 1931)
2008 – J. R. Simplot, American businessman, founded Simplot (b. 1909)
2009 – Haakon Lie, Norwegian politician (b. 1905)
2010 – Alexander Belostenny, Ukrainian basketball player (b. 1959)
2010 – Michael H. Jordan, American businessman (b. 1936)
2010 – Alan Hickinbotham, Australian footballer and coach (b. 1925)
2010 – Gabriel Vargas, Mexican painter and illustrator (b. 1915)
2010 – Jarvis Williams, American football player and coach (b. 1965)
2011 – Terry Jenner, Australian cricketer and coach (b. 1944)
2012 – William Hanley, American author and screenwriter (b. 1931)
2012 – Peter D. Sieruta, American author and critic (b. 1958)
2012 – Lou Watson, American basketball player and coach (b. 1924)
2013 – Mahendra Karma, Indian politician (b. 1950)
2013 – Nand Kumar Patel, Indian politician (b. 1953)
2014 – David Allen, English cricketer (b. 1935)
2014 – Marcel Côté, Canadian economist and politician (b. 1942)
2014 – Wojciech Jaruzelski, Polish general and politician, 1st President of Poland (b. 1923)
2014 – Herb Jeffries, American singer and actor (b. 1913)
2014 – Toaripi Lauti, Tuvaluan educator and politician, 1st Prime Minister of Tuvalu (b. 1928)
2014 – Matthew Saad Muhammad, American boxer and trainer (b. 1954)
2015 – George Braden, Canadian lawyer and politician, 2nd Premier of the Northwest Territories (b. 1949)
2015 – Robert Lebel, Canadian bishop (b. 1924)
2019 – Claus von Bülow, Danish-British socialite (b.1926)
Holidays and observances on May 25
Africa Day (African Union)
African Liberation Day (African Union, Rastafari)
Christian feast day:
Aldhelm
Bede
Canius
Dionysius of Milan
Dúnchad mac Cinn Fáelad
Gerard of Lunel
Madeleine Sophie Barat
Mary Magdalene de Pazzi
Maximus (Mauxe) of Évreux
Pope Boniface IV
Pope Gregory VII
Pope Urban I
Zenobius of Florence
May 25 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest day on which Arbor Day can fall, while May 31 is the latest; celebrated on the last Sunday in May. (Venezuela)
Earliest day on which Children’s Day can fall, while May 31 is the latest; celebrated on the last Sunday in May. (Hungary)
Earliest day on which Holiday of Saint Etchmiadzin can fall, while July 27 is the latest; celebrated on the 64th day after Easter. (Armenia)
Earliest day on which Memorial Day can fall, while May 31 is the latest; celebrated on the last Monday in May. (United States)
Earliest day on which Mother’s Day can fall, while May 31 is the latest; celebrated on the last Sunday in May. (Algeria, Dominican Republic, France (First Sunday of June, if Pentecost occurs on this day), Haiti, Mauritius, Morocco, Sweden, Tunisia)
Earliest day on which Turkmen Carpet Day can fall, while May 31 is the latest; celebrated on the last Sunday in May. (Turkmenistan)
First National Government / National Day (Argentina)
Geek Pride Day (geek culture)
Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Jordan from the United Kingdom in 1946.
Last bell (Russia, post-Soviet countries)
Liberation Day (Lebanon)
International Missing Children’s Day and its related observances:
National Missing Children’s Day (United States),
National Tap Dance Day (United States)
Towel Day in honour of the work of the writer Douglas Adams
919 – The nobles of Franconia and Saxony elect Henry the Fowler at the Imperial Diet in Fritzlar as king of the East Frankish Kingdom.
1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt.
1276 – Magnus Ladulås is crowned King of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral.
1487 – The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel is crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland, with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII’s reign.
1567 – Erik XIV of Sweden and his guards murder five incarcerated Swedish nobles.
1595 – Nomenclator of Leiden University Library appears, the first printed catalog of an institutional library.
1607 – One hundred English settlers disembark in Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in America.
1621 – The Protestant Union is formally dissolved.
1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.
1667 – The French Royal Army crosses the border into the Spanish Netherlands, starting the War of Devolution opposing France to the Spanish Empire and the Triple Alliance.
1683 – The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world’s first university museum.
1689 – The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration protecting dissenting Protestants but excluding Roman Catholics.
1738 – John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day and a church service is generally held on the preceding Sunday.
1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins.
1813 – South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador (“The Liberator”).
1822 – Battle of Pichincha: Antonio José de Sucre secures the independence of the Presidency of Quito.
1832 – The First Kingdom of Greece is declared in the London Conference.
1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message “What hath God wrought” (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C.
1856 – John Brown and his men kill five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas.
1861 – American Civil War: Union troops occupy Alexandria, Virginia.
1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.
1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State.
1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the conflict on the side of the Allies.
1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).
1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2–1 at Crosley Field.
1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.
1940 – Acting on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, NKVD agent Iosif Grigulevich orchestrates an unsuccessful assassination attempt on exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Coyoacán, Mexico.
1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks then-pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen.
1948 – Arab–Israeli War: Egypt captures the Israeli kibbutz of Yad Mordechai, but the five-day effort gives Israeli forces time to prepare enough to stop the Egyptian advance a week later.
1956 – The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland.
1958 – United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.
1960 – Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt.
1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, for “disturbing the peace” after disembarking from their bus.
1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.
1967 – Egypt imposes a blockade and siege of the Red Sea coast of Israel.
1976 – The Judgment of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine.
1981 – Ecuadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera, his wife, and his presidential committee die in an aircraft accident while travelling from Quito to Zapotillo minutes after the president gave a famous speech regarding the 24 de mayo anniversary of the Battle of Pichincha.
1982 – Liberation of Khorramshahr: Iranians recapture of the port city of Khorramshahr from the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq War.
1988 – Section 28 of the United Kingdom’s Local Government Act 1988, a controversial amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, is enacted.
1991 – Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
1992 – The last Thai dictator, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, resigns following pro-democracy protests.
1992 – The ethnic cleansing in Kozarac, Bosnia and Herzegovina begins when Serbian militia and police forces enter the town.
1993 – Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia.
1993 – Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo and five other people are assassinated in a shootout at Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla Guadalajara International Airport in Mexico.
1994 – Four men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 are each sentenced to 240 years in prison.
1995 – While attempting to return to Leeds Bradford Airport in the United Kingdom, Knight Air Flight 816 crashes in Harewood, North Yorkshire, killing all 12 people on board.
1999 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.
2002 – Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty.
2014 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake occurs in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, injuring 324 people.
2014 – At least three people are killed in a shooting at Brussels’ Jewish Museum of Belgium.
2019 – Twenty-two students die in a fire in Surat (India).
2019 – Under pressure over her handling of Brexit, British Prime Minister Theresa May announces her resignation as Leader of the Conservative Party, effective as of June 7.
Births on May 24
15 BC – Germanicus, Roman general (d. 19)
1335 – Margaret of Bohemia, Queen of Hungary (d. 1349)
1494 – Pontormo, Italian painter (d. 1557)
1522 – John Jewel, English bishop (d. 1571)
1544 – William Gilbert, English physician, physicist, and astronomer (d. 1603)
1576 – Elizabeth Carey, Lady Berkeley, English courtier (d. 1635)
1616 – John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale, Scottish politician, Secretary of State, Scotland (d. 1682)
1628 – Marek Sobieski, Polish noble (d. 1652)
1669 – Emerentia von Düben, Swedish royal favorite (d. 1743)
1671 – Gian Gastone de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1737)
1686 – Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, Polish-German physicist and engineer, developed the Fahrenheit scale (d. 1736)
1689 – Daniel Finch, 8th Earl of Winchilsea, English politician, Lord President of the Council (d. 1769)
1743 – Jean-Paul Marat, Swiss-French physician, journalist, and politician (d. 1793)
1789 – Cathinka Buchwieser, German operatic singer and actress (d.1828)
1794 – William Whewell, English priest and philosopher (d. 1866)
1803 – Alexander von Nordmann, Finnish biologist and paleontologist (d. 1866)
1810 – Abraham Geiger, German rabbi and scholar (d. 1874)
1816 – Emanuel Leutze, German-American painter (d. 1868)
1819 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (d. 1901)
1830 – Alexei Savrasov, Russian painter and academic (d. 1897)
1855 – Arthur Wing Pinero, English actor, director, and playwright (d. 1934)
1861 – Gerald Strickland, 1st Baron Strickland, Maltese lawyer and politician, 4th Prime Minister of Malta (d. 1940)
1863 – George Grey Barnard, American sculptor (d. 1938)
1868 – Charlie Taylor, American engineer and mechanic (d. 1956)
1870 – Benjamin N. Cardozo, American lawyer and judge (d. 1938)
1870 – Jan Smuts, South African lawyer and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of South Africa (d. 1950)
1874 – Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine (d. 1878)
1875 – Robert Garrett, American discus thrower and shot putter (d. 1961)
1878 – Lillian Moller Gilbreth, American psychologist and engineer (d. 1972)
1879 – H. B. Reese, American candy maker, created Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (d. 1956)
1886 – Paul Paray, French organist, composer, and conductor (d. 1979)
1887 – Mick Mannock, Irish soldier and pilot, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1918)
1891 – William F. Albright, American archaeologist, philologist, and scholar (d. 1971)
1895 – Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr., American publisher, founded Advance Publications (d. 1979)
1899 – Suzanne Lenglen, French tennis player (d. 1938)
1899 – Henri Michaux, Belgian-French poet and painter (d. 1984)
1900 – Eduardo De Filippo, Italian actor and screenwriter (d. 1984)
1901 – José Nasazzi, Uruguayan footballer and manager (d. 1968)
1902 – Lionel Conacher, Canadian football player and politician (d. 1954)
1902 – Sylvia Daoust, Canadian sculptor (d. 2004)
1905 – George Nakashima, American woodworker and architect(d. 1990)
1905 – Mikhail Sholokhov, Russian novelist and short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1984)
1909 – Wilbur Mills, American banker and politician (d. 1992)
1910 – Jimmy Demaret, American golfer (d. 1983)
1913 – Joe Abreu, American baseball player and soldier (d. 1993)
1914 – Lilli Palmer, German-American actress (d. 1986)
1916 – Roden Cutler, Australian lieutenant and politician, 32nd Governor of New South Wales (d. 2002)
1917 – Alan Campbell, Baron Campbell of Alloway, English lawyer and judge (d. 2013)
1918 – Coleman Young, American politician, 66th Mayor of Detroit (d. 1997)
1923 – Siobhán McKenna, Irish actress (d. 1986)
1924 – Philip Pearlstein, American soldier and painter
1925 – Carmine Infantino, American illustrator and educator (d. 2013)
1925 – Mai Zetterling, Swedish actress and director (d. 1994)
1926 – Stanley Baxter, Scottish actor and screenwriter
1928 – William Trevor, Irish novelist, playwright and short story writer (d. 2016)
1932 – Arnold Wesker, English playwright and producer (d. 2016)
1933 – Jane Byrne, American lawyer and politician, 50th Mayor of Chicago (d. 2014)
1933 – Réal Giguère, Canadian television host and actor
1933 – Aharon Lichtenstein, French-Israeli rabbi and author (d. 2015)
1935 – Joan Micklin Silver, American director and screenwriter
1936 – Harold Budd, American composer and poet
1937 – Maryvonne Dupureur, French runner and educator (d. 2008)
1937 – Archie Shepp, American saxophonist and composer
1938 – Prince Buster, Jamaican singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2016)
1938 – Tommy Chong, Canadian-American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1940 – Joseph Brodsky, Russian-American poet and essayist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1996)
1941 – Bob Dylan, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, artist, writer, and producer; Nobel Prize laureate
1941 – Patricia Hollis, Baroness Hollis of Heigham, English academic and politician
1942 – Ali Bacher, South African cricketer and manager
1942 – Hannu Mikkola, Finnish race car driver
1942 – Ichirō Ozawa, Japanese lawyer and politician, Japanese Minister of Home Affairs
1943 – Gary Burghoff, American actor
1944 – Patti LaBelle, American singer-songwriter and actress
1944 – Dominique Lavanant, French actress
1945 – Terry Callier, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2012)
1945 – Steven Norris, English engineer and politician
1945 – Richard Ottaway, English lieutenant and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
1945 – Priscilla Presley, American actress and businesswoman
1946 – Tansu Çiller, Turkish economist and politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Turkey
1946 – Jesualdo Ferreira, Portuguese footballer and manager
1946 – Irena Szewińska, Russian-Polish sprinter
1947 – Albert Bouchard, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and drummer
1947 – Mike De Leon, Filipino director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer
1947 – Mike Reid, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and American football player
1947 – Waddy Wachtel, American guitarist, singer-songwriter, and record producer
1947 – Martin Winterkorn, German businessman
1948 – Richard Dembo, French director and screenwriter (d. 2004)
1949 – Jim Broadbent, English actor
1949 – Roger Deakins , English cinematographer
1953 – Alfred Molina, English actor
1955 – Rosanne Cash, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1955 – Philippe Lafontaine, Belgian singer and songwriter
1955 – Rajesh Roshan, Indian composer
1956 – R. B. Bernstein, American constitutional historian
1956 – Larry Blackmon, American singer-songwriter and producer
1956 – Dominic Grieve, English lawyer and politician, Attorney General for England and Wales
1956 – Michael Jackson, Irish archbishop
1958 – Chip Ganassi, American race car driver, team owner and businessman
1959 – Pelle Lindbergh, Swedish-American ice hockey player (d. 1985)
1959 – Barry O’Farrell, Australian politician, 43rd Premier of New South Wales
1960 – Guy Fletcher, English keyboard player, guitarist, and producer
1960 – Bill Harrigan, Australian rugby league referee and sportscaster
1960 – Kristin Scott Thomas, English actress
1961 – Lorella Cedroni, Italian philosopher and theorist (d. 2013)
1961 – Alain Lemieux, Canadian-American ice hockey player and coach
1962 – Héctor Camacho, Puerto Rican-American boxer (d. 2012)
1962 – Gene Anthony Ray, American actor, dancer, and choreographer (d. 2003)
1963 – Ivan Capelli, Italian race car driver and sportscaster
1963 – Michael Chabon, American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter
1963 – Joe Dumars, American basketball player
1963 – Rich Rodriguez, American football player and coach
1963 – Valerie Taylor, American computer scientist and educator
1964 – Liz McColgan, Scottish educator and runner
1964 – Adrian Moorhouse, English swimmer
1964 – Isidro Pérez, Mexican boxer (d. 2013)
1964 – Pat Verbeek, Canadian ice hockey player and manager
1965 – John C. Reilly, American actor
1965 – Shinichirō Watanabe, Japanese director, producer, and screenwriter
1966 – Éric Cantona, French footballer, manager, and actor
1966 – Ricky Craven, American race car driver and sportscaster
1967 – Tamer Karadağlı, Turkish actor
1967 – Andrey Borodin, Russian-English economist and businessman
1967 – Eric Close, American actor
1967 – Heavy D, Jamaican-American rapper, producer, and actor (d. 2011)
1967 – Carlos Hernández, Venezuelan-American baseball player and manager
1969 – Martin McCague, Northern Irish-English cricketer
1969 – Jacob Rees-Mogg, English politician
1969 – Rich Robinson, American guitarist and songwriter
1971 – Kris Draper, Canadian ice hockey player and manager
1972 – Greg Berlanti, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1973 – Rodrigo, Argentinian singer-songwriter (d. 2000)
1973 – Bartolo Colón, Dominican-American baseball player
1973 – Shirish Kunder, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter
1973 – Vladimír Šmicer, Czech footballer and manager
1974 – Sébastien Foucan, French runner and actor
1974 – Masahide Kobayashi, Japanese baseball player and coach
1974 – Magnus Manske, German biochemist and computer programmer, developed MediaWiki
1975 – Will Sasso, Canadian actor and comedian
1975 – Marc Gagnon, Canadian speed skater
1975 – Giannis Goumas, Greek footballer and coach
1975 – Maria Lawson, English singer-songwriter
1976 – Alessandro Cortini, Italian-American singer and keyboard player
1976 – Catherine Cox, New Zealand-Australian netball player
1976 – Silje Vige, Norwegian singer
1977 – Jeet Gannguli, Indian score composer, music director and singer
1978 – Elijah Burke, American wrestler
1978 – Johan Holmqvist, Swedish ice hockey player
1978 – Brad Penny, American baseball player
1978 – Rose, French singer, songwriter and composer
1979 – Tracy McGrady, American basketball player
1979 – Kareem McKenzie, American football player
1980 – Jason Babin, American football player
1980 – Anthony Minichiello, Australian rugby league player
1981 – Andy Lee, Australian comedian, actor, and screenwriter
1982 – Issah Gabriel Ahmed, Ghanaian footballer
1982 – Rian Wallace, American football player
1983 – Custódio Castro, Portuguese footballer
1983 – Pedram Javaheri, Iranian-American meteorologist and journalist
1983 – Woo Seung-yeon, South Korean model and actress (d. 2009)
1984 – Sarah Hagan, American actress
1984 – Dmitri Kruglov, Estonian footballer
1985 – Tim Bridgman, English race car driver
1986 – Mark Ballas, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, dancer, and actor
1986 – Giannis Kontoes, Greek footballer
1987 – Guillaume Latendresse, Canadian ice hockey player
1988 – Artem Anisimov, Russian ice hockey player
1988 – Monica Lin Brown, American sergeant
1988 – Billy Gilman, American musician
1988 – Lucian Wintrich, American political artist and White House correspondent
1989 – G-Eazy, American rapper
1989 – Andrew Jordan, English race car driver
1990 – Mattias Ekholm, Swedish ice hockey player
1991 – Aled Davies, Welsh discus thrower
1991 – Cody Eakin, Canadian ice hockey player
1992 – Marcus Bettinelli, English footballer, goalkeeper
1994 – Daiya Seto, Japanese swimmer
1994 – Emily Nicholl, Scottish netball player
1994 – Daiya Seto, Japanese swimmer
1994 – Emily Temple Wood, American 2016 Wikipedian of the Year award
1999 – Tarjei Sandvik Moe, Norwegian actor
Deaths on May 24
688 – Ségéne, bishop of Armagh (b. c. 610)
1089 – Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury
1136 – Hugues de Payens, first Grand Master of the Knights Templar (b. c. 1070)
1153 – David I of Scotland (b. 1083)
1201 – Theobald III, Count of Champagne (b. 1179)
1351 – Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman, Moroccan sultan (b. 1297)
1408 – Taejo of Joseon (b. 1335)
1425 – Murdoch Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany, Scottish politician (b. 1362)
1456 – Ambroise de Loré, French commander (b. 1396)
1543 – Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish mathematician and astronomer (b. 1473)
1612 – Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, English politician, Lord High Treasurer (b. 1563)
1627 – Luis de Góngora, Spanish poet and cleric (b. 1561)
1632 – Robert Hues, English mathematician and geographer (b. 1553)
1665 – Mary of Jesus of Ágreda, Spanish Franciscan abbess and mystic (b. 1602)
1734 – Georg Ernst Stahl, German physician and chemist (b. 1660)
1792 – George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney, English admiral and politician, 16th Governor of Newfoundland (b. 1718)
1806 – John Campbell, 5th Duke of Argyll, Scottish field marshal and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Argyllshire (b. 1723)
1843 – Sylvestre François Lacroix, French mathematician and academic (b. 1765)
1848 – Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, German author and composer (b. 1797)
1861 – Elmer E. Ellsworth, American colonel (b. 1837)
1872 – Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, German painter and illustrator (b. 1794)
1879 – William Lloyd Garrison, American journalist and activist (b. 1805)
1881 – Samuel Palmer, English painter and illustrator (b. 1805)
1901 – Louis-Zéphirin Moreau, Canadian bishop (b. 1824)
1908 – Old Tom Morris, Scottish golfer and architect (b. 1821)
1915 – John Condon, Irish-English soldier (b. 1896)
1929 – Nikolai von Meck, Russian engineer (b. 1863)
1941 – Lancelot Holland, English admiral (b. 1887)
1945 – Robert Ritter von Greim, German field marshal and pilot (b. 1892)
1948 – Jacques Feyder, Belgian actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1885)
1949 – Alexey Shchusev, Russian architect, designed Lenin’s Mausoleum and Moscow Kazanskaya railway station (b. 1873)
1950 – Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell, English field marshal and politician, 43rd Governor-General of India (b. 1883)
1951 – Thomas N. Heffron, American actor, director, screenwriter (b. 1872)
1956 – Martha Annie Whiteley, English chemist and mathematician (b. 1866)
1958 – Frank Rowe, Australian public servant (b. 1895)
1959 – John Foster Dulles, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 52nd United States Secretary of State (b. 1888)
1963 – Elmore James, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1918)
1965 – Sonny Boy Williamson II, American singer-songwriter and harmonica player (b. 1908)
1974 – Duke Ellington, American pianist and composer (b. 1899)
1976 – Denise Pelletier, Canadian actress (b. 1923)
1979 – Ernest Bullock, English organist, composer, and educator (b. 1890)
1981 – Herbert Müller, Swiss race car driver (b. 1940)
1984 – Vince McMahon Sr., American wrestling promoter and businessman, founded WWE (b. 1914)
1988 – Freddie Frith, English motorcycle road racer (b. 1909)
1990 – Arthur Villeneuve, Canadian painter (b. 1910)
1991 – Gene Clark, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1944)
1992 – Hitoshi Ogawa, Japanese race car driver (b. 1956)
1995 – Harold Wilson, English academic and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1916)
1996 – Enrique Álvarez Félix, Mexican actor (b. 1934)
1996 – Joseph Mitchell, American journalist and author (b. 1908)
1997 – Edward Mulhare, Irish actor (b. 1923)
2000 – Kurt Schork, American journalist and scholar (b. 1947)
2000 – Majrooh Sultanpuri, Indian poet and songwriter (b. 1919)
2002 – Wallace Markfield, American author (b. 1926)
2003 – Rachel Kempson, English actress (b. 1910)
2004 – Henry Ries, German-American photographer (b. 1917)
2004 – Milton Shulman, Canadian author and critic (b. 1913)
2004 – Edward Wagenknecht, American critic and educator (b. 1900)
2005 – Carl Amery, German activist and author (b. 1922)
2005 – Arthur Haulot, Belgian journalist and poet (b. 1913)
2005 – Guy Tardif, Canadian academic and politician (b. 1935)
2006 – Henry Bumstead, American art director and production designer (b. 1915)
2006 – Claude Piéplu, French actor (b. 1923)
2006 – Michał Życzkowski, Polish technician and educator (b. 1930)
2008 – Dick Martin, American actor, comedian, and director (b. 1922)
2008 – Jimmy McGriff, American organist and bandleader (b. 1936)
2009 – Jay Bennett, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (b. 1963)
2010 – Ray Alan, English ventriloquist, actor, and screenwriter (b. 1930)
2010 – Paul Gray, American bass player and songwriter (b. 1972)
2010 – Raymond V. Haysbert, American businessman and activist (b. 1920)
2010 – Petr Muk, Czech singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1965)
2010 – Anneliese Rothenberger, German soprano and actress (b. 1926)
2011 – Huguette Clark, American heiress, painter, and philanthropist (b. 1906)
2011 – Hakim Ali Zardari, Indian-Pakistani businessman and politician (b. 1930)
2012 – Klaas Carel Faber, Dutch-German SS officer (b. 1922)
2012 – Kathi Kamen Goldmark, American journalist and author (b. 1948)
2012 – Jacqueline Harpman, Belgian psychoanalyst and author (b. 1929)
2012 – Juan Francisco Lombardo, Argentinian footballer (b. 1925)
2012 – Lee Rich, American production manager and producer (b. 1918)
2013 – Helmut Braunlich, German-American violinist and composer (b. 1929)
2013 – Ron Davies, Welsh footballer (b. 1942)
2013 – Gotthard Graubner, German painter (b. 1930)
2013 – Haynes Johnson, American journalist and author (b. 1931)
2013 – Pyotr Todorovsky, Ukrainian-Russian director and screenwriter (b. 1925)
2014 – David Allen, English cricketer (b. 1935)
2014 – Stormé DeLarverie, known as the “Rosa Parks of the lesbian community” (b. 1920)
2014 – Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, Iranian businessman (b. 1969)
2014 – Knowlton Nash, Canadian journalist and author (b. 1927)
2014 – John Vasconcellos, American lieutenant, lawyer, and politician (b. 1932)
2015 – Dean Carroll, English rugby player (b. 1962)
2015 – Kenneth Jacobs, Australian lawyer and judge (b. 1917)
2015 – Tanith Lee, English author (b. 1947)
2018 – Gudrun Burwitz, daughter of Margarete Himmler and Heinrich Himmler (b. 1929)
2018 – John Bain (TotalBiscuit), English gaming commentator and critic (b. 1984)
Holidays and observances on May 24
Aldersgate Day/Wesley Day (Methodism)
Battle of Pichincha Day (Ecuador)
Bermuda Day (Bermuda), celebrated on the nearest weekday if May 24 falls on the weekend.
Christian feast day:
Anna Pak Agi (one of The Korean Martyrs)
Donatian and Rogatian
Jackson Kemper (Episcopal Church)
Joanna
Mary, Help of Christians
Sarah (celebrated by the Romani people of Camargue)
Vincent of Lérins
May 24 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Commonwealth Day (Belize)
Earliest day on which El Colacho tradition can fall, while June 27 is the latest; celebrated on Sunday after Corpus Christi. (Castrillo de Murcia, near Burgos)
Independence Day (Eritrea), celebrates the independence of Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1993.
Lubiri Memorial Day (Buganda)
Saints Cyril and Methodius Day (Eastern Orthodox Church, Julian Calendar) and its related observance:
Bulgarian Education and Culture and Slavonic Literature Day (Bulgaria)
Saints Cyril and Methodius, Slavonic Enlighteners’ Day (North Macedonia)
Victoria Day; celebrated on Monday on or before May 24. (Canada), and its related observance:
National Patriots’ Day or Journée nationale des patriotes (Quebec)
1430 – Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to raise the Siege of Compiègne.
1498 – Girolamo Savonarola is burned at the stake in Florence, Italy.
1533 – The marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void.
1568 – Dutch rebels led by Louis of Nassau, defeat Jean de Ligne, Duke of Arenberg, and his loyalist troops in the Battle of Heiligerlee, opening the Eighty Years’ War.
1609 – Official ratification of the Second Virginia Charter takes place.
1618 – The Second Defenestration of Prague precipitates the Thirty Years’ War.
1701 – After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London.
1706 – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defeats a French army under Marshal François de Neufville, duc de Villeroy at the Battle of Ramillies.
1788 – South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution as the eighth American state.
1793 – Battle of Famars during the Flanders Campaign of the War of the First Coalition.
1829 – Accordion patent granted to Cyrill Demian in Vienna, Austrian Empire.
1844 – Declaration of the Báb the evening before the 23rd: A merchant of Shiraz announces that he is a Prophet and founds a religious movement that would later be brutally crushed by the Persian government. He is considered to be a forerunner of the Bahá’í Faith; Bahá’ís celebrate the day as a holy day.
1846 – Mexican–American War: President Mariano Paredes of Mexico unofficially declares war on the United States.
1863 – The General German Workers’ Association, a precursor of the modern Social Democratic Party of Germany, is founded in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony.
1873 – The Canadian Parliament establishes the North-West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
1900 – American Civil War: Sergeant William Harvey Carney is awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism in the Assault on the Battery Wagner in 1863.
1907 – The unicameral Parliament of Finland gathers for its first plenary session.
1911 – The New York Public Library is dedicated.
1915 – World War I: Italy joins the Allies, fulfilling its part of the Treaty of London.
1932 – In Brazil, four students are shot and killed during a manifestation against the Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas, which resulted in the outbreak of the Constitutionalist Revolution several weeks later.
1934 – Infamous American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
1934 – The Auto-Lite strike culminates in the “Battle of Toledo”, a five-day melée between 1,300 troops of the Ohio National Guard and 6,000 picketers.
1939 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Squalus sinks off the coast of New Hampshire during a test dive, causing the death of 24 sailors and two civilian technicians. The remaining 32 sailors and one civilian naval architect are rescued the following day.
1945 – World War II: Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel, commits suicide while in Allied custody.
1945 – World War II: Germany’s Flensburg Government under Karl Dönitz is dissolved when its members are arrested by British forces.
1948 – Thomas C. Wasson, the US Consul-General, is assassinated in Jerusalem, Israel.
1949 – Cold War: The Western occupying powers approve the Basic Law and establish a new German state, the Federal Republic of Germany.
1951 – Tibetans sign the Seventeen Point Agreement with China.
1960 – A tsunami caused by an earthquake in Chile the previous day kills 61 people in Hilo, Hawaii.
1992 – Italy’s most prominent anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards are killed by the Corleonesi clan with a half-ton bomb near Capaci, Sicily. His friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino will be assassinated less than two months later, making 1992 a turning point in the history of Italian Mafia prosecutions.
1995 – The first version of the Java programming language is released.
1998 – The Good Friday Agreement is accepted in a referendum in Northern Ireland with roughly 75% voting yes.
2002 – The “55 parties” clause of the Kyoto Protocol is reached after its ratification by Iceland.
2006 – Alaskan stratovolcano Mount Cleveland erupts.
2008 – The International Court of Justice (ICJ) awards Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Puteh) to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between the two countries.
2013 – A freeway bridge carrying Interstate 5 over the Skagit River collapses in Mount Vernon, Washington.
2014 – Seven people, including the perpetrator, are killed and another 14 injured in a killing spree near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara.
2015 – At least 46 people are killed as a result of floods caused by a tornado in Texas and Oklahoma.
2016 – Two suicide bombings, conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, killed at least 45 potential army recruits in Aden, Yemen.
2016 – Eight bombings were carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Jableh and Tartus, coastline cities in Syria. One hundred eighty-four people were killed and at least 200 people injured.
2017 – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao, following the Maute’s attack in Marawi.
Births on May 23
635 – K’inich Kan Bahlam II, Mayan king (d. 702)
675 – Perumbidugu Mutharaiyar II, King of Mutharaiyar dynasty, Tamil Nadu, India
1052 – Philip I of France (d. 1108)
1100 – Emperor Qinzong of Song (d. 1161)
1127 – Uijong of Goryeo, Korean monarch of the Goryeo dynasty (d. 1173)
1330 – Gongmin of Goryeo, Korean ruler (d. 1374)
1586 – Paul Siefert, German composer and organist (d. 1666)
1606 – Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz, Spanish mathematician and philosopher (d. 1682)
1614 – Bertholet Flemalle, Flemish Baroque painter (d. 1675)
1617 – Elias Ashmole, English astrologer and politician (d. 1692)
1629 – William VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, noble of Hesse-Kassel (d. 1663)
1707 – Carl Linnaeus, Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist (d. 1778)
1718 – William Hunter, Scottish-English anatomist and physician (d. 1783)
1729 – Giuseppe Parini, Italian poet and educator (d. 1799)
1730 – Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia, Prussian prince and general (d. 1813)
1734 – Franz Mesmer, German physician and astrologer (d. 1815)
1741 – Andrea Luchesi, Italian organist and composer (d. 1801)
1789 – Franz Schlik, Austrian earl and general (d. 1862)
1790 – Jules Dumont d’Urville, French admiral and explorer (d. 1842)
1790 – James Pradier, French neoclassical sculptor (d. 1852)
1794 – Ignaz Moscheles, Czech pianist and composer (d. 1870)
1795 – Charles Barry, English architect, designed the Upper Brook Street Chapel and Halifax Town Hall (d. 1860)
1800 – Rómulo Díaz de la Vega, Mexican general and president (1855) (d. 1877)
1810 – Margaret Fuller, American journalist and critic (d. 1850)
1817 – Manuel Robles Pezuela, Unconstitutional Mexican interim president (d. 1862)
1820 – James Buchanan Eads, American engineer, designed the Eads Bridge (d. 1887)
1820 – Lorenzo Sawyer, American lawyer and judge (d. 1891)
1824 – Ambrose Burnside, American general and politician, 30th Governor of Rhode Island (d. 1881)
1834 – Jānis Frīdrihs Baumanis, Latvian architect (d. 1891)
1834 – Carl Bloch, Danish painter and academic (d. 1890)
1837 – Anatole Mallet, Swiss mechanical engineer and inventor (d. 1919)
1837 – Józef Wieniawski, Polish pianist and composer (d. 1912)
1838 – Amaldus Nielsen, Norwegian painter (d. 1932)
1840 – George Throssell, Irish-Australian politician, 2nd Premier of Western Australia (d. 1910)
1844 – `Abdu’l-Bahá, Iranian religious leader (d. 1921)
1848 – Otto Lilienthal, German pilot and engineer (d. 1896)
1855 – Isabella Ford, English author and activist (d. 1924)
1861 – József Rippl-Rónai, Hungarian painter (d. 1927)
1863 – Władysław Horodecki, Polish architect (d. 1930)
1864 – William O’Connor, American fencer (d. 1939)
1865 – Epitácio Pessoa, Brazilian jurist and politician, 11th President of Brazil (d. 1942)
1875 – Alfred P. Sloan, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1966)
1882 – William Halpenny, Canadian pole vaulter (d. 1960)
1883 – Douglas Fairbanks, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1939)
1884 – Corrado Gini, Italian sociologist and demographer (d. 1965)
1887 – Thoralf Skolem, Norwegian mathematician and theorist (d. 1963)
1887 – Nikolai Vekšin, Estonian-Russian sailor and captain (d. 1951)
1888 – Adriaan Roland Holst, Dutch writer (d. 1976)
1888 – Zack Wheat, American baseball player and police officer (d. 1972)
1889 – Ernst Niekisch, German educator and politician (d. 1967)
1890 – Herbert Marshall, English-American actor and singer (d. 1966)
1891 – Pär Lagerkvist, Swedish novelist, playwright, and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
1892 – Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer, British peer and grandfather of Diana Spencer (d. 1975)
1896 – Felix Steiner, Russian-German SS officer (d. 1966)
1897 – Jimmie Guthrie, Scottish motorcycle racer (d. 1937)
1898 – Scott O’Dell, American soldier, journalist, and author (d. 1989)
1898 – Josef Terboven, German soldier and politician (d. 1945)
1899 – Jeralean Talley, American super-centenarian (d. 2015)
1900 – Hans Frank, German lawyer and politician (d. 1946)
1900 – Franz Leopold Neumann, German lawyer and theorist (d. 1954)
1908 – John Bardeen, American physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
1908 – Hélène Boucher, French pilot (d. 1934)
1910 – Margaret Wise Brown, American author and educator (d. 1952)
1910 – Hugh Casson, English architect and academic (d. 1999)
1910 – Scatman Crothers, American actor and comedian (d. 1986)
1910 – Franz Kline, American painter and academic (d. 1962)
1910 – Artie Shaw, American clarinet player, composer, and bandleader (d. 2004)
1911 – Lou Brouillard, Canadian boxer (d. 1984)
1911 – Paul Augustin Mayer, German cardinal (d. 2010)
1911 – Betty Nuthall, English tennis player (d. 1983)
1912 – Jean Françaix, French pianist and composer (d. 1997)
1912 – John Payne, American actor (d. 1989)
1914 – Harold Hitchcock, English visionary landscape artist (d. 2009)
1914 – Celestine Sibley, American journalist and author (d. 1999)
1914 – Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, English economist, journalist, and prominent Catholic layperson (d. 1981)
1915 – S. Donald Stookey, American physicist and chemist, invented CorningWare (d. 2014)
1917 – Edward Norton Lorenz, American mathematician and meteorologist (d. 2008)
1918 – Denis Compton, English cricketer and sportscaster (d. 1997)
1919 – Robert Bernstein, American author and playwright (d. 1988)
1919 – Ruth Fernández, Puerto Rican contralto and a member of the Puerto Rican Senate (d. 2012)
1919 – Betty Garrett, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2011)
1920 – Helen O’Connell, American singer (d. 1993)
1923 – Alicia de Larrocha, Catalan-Spanish pianist (d. 2009)
1923 – Irving Millman, American virologist and microbiologist (d. 2012)
1924 – Karlheinz Deschner, German author and activist (d. 2014)
1925 – Joshua Lederberg, American biologist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2008)
1926 – Basil Salvadore D’Souza, Indian bishop (d. 1996)
1926 – Joe Slovo, Lithuanian-South African activist and politician (d. 1995)
1928 – Rosemary Clooney, American singer and actress (d. 2002)
1928 – Nigel Davenport, English actor (d. 2013)
1928 – Nina Otkalenko, Russian runner (d. 2015)
1929 – Ulla Jacobsson, Swedish-Austrian actress (d. 1982)
1930 – Friedrich Achleitner, German poet and critic (d. 2019)
1931 – Barbara Barrie, American actress
1932 – Kevork Ajemian, Syrian-French journalist and author (d. 1998)
1933 – Joan Collins, English actress
1933 – Ove Fundin, Swedish motorcycle racer
1934 – Robert Moog, electronic engineer and inventor of the Moog synthesizer (d. 2005)
1935 – Lasse Strömstedt, Swedish author (d. 2009)
1936 – Ingeborg Hallstein, German soprano and actress
1936 – Charles Kimbrough, American actor
1939 – Michel Colombier, French-American composer and conductor (d. 2004)
1939 – Reinhard Hauff, German director and screenwriter
1940 – Bjorn Johansen, Norwegian saxophonist (d. 2002)
1940 – Gérard Larrousse, French race car driver
1940 – Cora Sadosky, Argentinian mathematician and academic (d. 2010)
1941 – Zalman King, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2012)
1941 – Rod Thorn, American basketball player, coach, and executive
1942 – Gabriel Liiceanu, Romanian philosopher, author, and academic
1942 – Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao, Indian director, screenwriter, and choreographer
1943 – Peter Kenilorea, Solomon Islands politician, 1st Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands (d. 2016)
1944 – John Newcombe, Australian tennis player and sportscaster
1945 – Padmarajan, Indian director, screenwriter, and author (d. 1991)
1946 – David Graham, Australian golfer
1947 – Jane Kenyon, American poet and translator (d. 1995)
1948 – Myriam Boyer, French actress, director, and producer
1949 – Daniel DiNardo, American cardinal
1949 – Alan García, Peruvian lawyer and politician, 61st and 64th President of Peru (d. 2019)
1950 – Martin McGuinness, Irish republican and Sinn Féin politician, Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland (d. 2017)
1951 – Anatoly Karpov, Russian chess player
1951 – Antonis Samaras, Greek economist and politician, 185th Prime Minister of Greece
1952 – Martin Parr, English photographer and journalist
1954 – Gerry Armstrong, Northern Irish international footballer, striker
1954 – Marvelous Marvin Hagler, American boxer and actor
1955 – Luka Bloom, Irish singer-songwriter and guitarist
1956 – Andrea Pazienza, Italian illustrator and painter (d. 1988)
1956 – Ursula Plassnik, Austrian politician and diplomat, Foreign Minister of Austria
1956 – Buck Showalter, American baseball player, coach, and manager
1958 – Mitch Albom, American journalist, author, and screenwriter
1958 – Drew Carey, American actor, game show host, and entrepreneur
1958 – Lea DeLaria, American actress and singer
1959 – Marcella Mesker, Dutch tennis player and sportscaster
1960 – Linden Ashby, American actor
1961 – Daniele Massaro, Italian footballer and manager
1961 – Norrie May-Welby, Scottish Australian gender activist
1962 – Karen Duffy, American actress
1963 – Viviane Baladi, Swiss mathematician
1964 – Ruth Metzler, Swiss lawyer and politician
1965 – Manuel Sanchís Hontiyuelo, Spanish footballer
1965 – Tom Tykwer, German director, producer, screenwriter, and composer
1965 – Melissa McBride, American actress
1965 – Paul Sironen, Australian rugby league player
1966 – Graeme Hick, Zimbabwean-English cricketer and coach
1966 – Gary Roberts, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1967 – Luís Roberto Alves, Mexican footballer
1967 – Anna Ibrisagic, Swedish politician
1968 – Guinevere Turner, American actress and screenwriter
1970 – Bryan Herta, American race car driver and businessman, co-founded Bryan Herta Autosport
1971 – George Osborne, English journalist and politician, former Chancellor of the Exchequer
1972 – Rubens Barrichello, Brazilian race car driver
1972 – Martin Saggers, English cricketer and umpire
1973 – Maxwell, American singer-songwriter and producer
1974 – Jewel, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actress, and poet
1974 – Manuela Schwesig, German politician, German Federal Minister of Family Affairs
1976 – Ricardinho, Brazilian footballer and manager
1977 – Ilia Kulik, Russian figure skater
1978 – Scott Raynor, American drummer
1979 – Rasual Butler, American basketball player (d. 2018)
1979 – Brian Campbell, Canadian ice hockey player
1980 – Theofanis Gekas, Greek footballer
1980 – Ben Ross, Australian rugby league player
1983 – Silvio Proto, Belgian-Italian footballer
1984 – Hugo Almeida, Portuguese footballer
1985 – Sebastián Fernández, Uruguayan footballer
1985 – Teymuraz Gabashvili, Russian tennis player
1985 – Wim Stroetinga, Dutch cyclist
1985 – Ross Wallace, Scottish footballer
1986 – Ryan Coogler, American film director and screenwriter
192 – Dong Zhuo is assassinated by his adopted son Lü Bu.
760 – Fourteenth recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet.
853 – A Byzantine fleet sacks and destroys undefended Damietta in Egypt.
1176 – The Hashshashin (Assassins) attempt to assassinate Saladin near Aleppo.
1200 – King John of England and King Philip II of France sign the Treaty of Le Goulet.
1246 – Henry Raspe is elected anti-king of the Kingdom of Germany in opposition to Conrad IV.
1254 – Serbian King Stefan Uroš I and the Republic of Venice sign a peace treaty.
1370 – Brussels massacre: Hundreds of Jews are murdered and the rest of the Jewish community is banished from Brussels, Belgium, for allegedly desecrating consecrated Host.
1377 – Pope Gregory XI issues five papal bulls to denounce the doctrines of English theologian John Wycliffe.
1455 – Start of the Wars of the Roses: At the First Battle of St Albans, Richard, Duke of York, defeats and captures King Henry VI of England.
1520 – The massacre at the festival of Tóxcatl takes place during the Fall of Tenochtitlan, resulting in turning the Aztecs against the Spanish.
1629 – Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and Danish King Christian IV sign the Treaty of Lübeck ending Danish intervention in the Thirty Years’ War.
1762 – Sweden and Prussia sign the Treaty of Hamburg.
1762 – Trevi Fountain is officially completed and inaugurated in Rome.
1766 – A large earthquake causes heavy damage and loss of life in Istanbul and the Marmara region.
1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially begins as the Corps of Discovery departs from St. Charles, Missouri.
1807 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.
1809 – On the second and last day of the Battle of Aspern-Essling (near Vienna, Austria), Napoleon I is repelled by an enemy army for the first time.
1816 – A mob in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, England, riots over high unemployment and rising grain costs, and the riots spread to Ely the next day.
1819 – SS Savannah leaves port at Savannah, Georgia, United States, on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
1826 – HMS Beagle departs on its first voyage.
1840 – The penal transportation of British convicts to the New South Wales colony is abolished.
1848 – Slavery is abolished in Martinique.
1849 – Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is issued a patent for an invention to lift boats, making him the only U.S. president to ever hold a patent.
1856 – Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina severely beats Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made regarding Southerners and slavery.
1863 – American Civil War: Union forces begin the Siege of Port Hudson which lasts 48 days, the longest siege in U.S. military history.
1864 – American Civil War: After ten weeks, the Union Army’s Red River Campaign ends in failure.
1872 – Reconstruction Era: President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act into law, restoring full civil and political rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.
1900 – The Associated Press is formed in New York City as a non-profit news cooperative.
1906 – The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their “Flying-Machine”.
1915 – Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, the only volcano besides Mount St. Helens to erupt in the contiguous U.S. during the 20th century.
1915 – Three trains collide in the Quintinshill rail disaster near Gretna Green, Scotland, killing 227 people and injuring 246.
1926 – Chiang Kai-shek replaces the communists in Kuomintang China.
1927 – Near Xining, China, an 8.3 magnitude earthquake causes 200,000 deaths in one of the world’s most destructive earthquakes.
1939 – World War II: Germany and Italy sign the Pact of Steel.
1941 – During the Anglo-Iraqi War, British troops take Fallujah.
1942 – Mexico enters the Second World War on the side of the Allies.
1943 – Joseph Stalin disbands the Comintern.
1947 – Cold War: The Truman Doctrine goes into effect, aiding Turkey and Greece.
1957 – South Africa’s government approves of racial separation in universities.
1958 – The 1958 riots in Ceylon become a watershed in the race relations of various ethnic communities of Sri Lanka. The total deaths is estimated at 300, mostly Tamils.
1960 – The Great Chilean earthquake, measuring 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale, hits southern Chile, becoming the most powerful earthquake ever recorded.
1962 – Continental Airlines Flight 11 crashes after bombs explode on board.
1963 – Greek left-wing politician Grigoris Lambrakis is shot in an assassination attempt, and dies five days later.
1964 – Lyndon B. Johnson launches the Great Society.
1967 – Egypt closes the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping.
1967 – L’Innovation department store in Brussels, Belgium, burns down, resulting in 323 dead or missing and 150 injured, the most devastating fire in Belgian history.
1968 – The nuclear-powered submarine USS Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard, 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
1969 – Apollo 10’s lunar module flies within 8.4 nautical miles (16 km) of the moon’s surface.
1972 – Ceylon adopts a new constitution, becoming a republic and changing its name to Sri Lanka, and joins the Commonwealth of Nations.
1972 – Over 400 women in Derry, Northern Ireland attack the offices of Sinn Féin following the shooting by the Irish Republican Army of a young British soldier on leave.
1987 – Hashimpura massacre occurs in Meerut, India.
1987 – First ever Rugby World Cup kicks off with New Zealand playing Italy at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand.
1990 – North and South Yemen are unified to create the Republic of Yemen.
1992 – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia join the United Nations.
1994 – A worldwide trade embargo against Haiti goes into effect to punish its military rulers for not reinstating the country’s ousted elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
1996 – The Burmese military regime jails 71 supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi in a bid to block a pro-democracy meeting.
1998 – A U.S. federal judge rules that U.S. Secret Service agents can be compelled to testify before a grand jury concerning the Lewinsky scandal involving President Bill Clinton.
2000 – In Sri Lanka, over 150 Tamil rebels are killed over two days of fighting for control in Jaffna.
2002 – Civil rights movement: A jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murder of four girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
2010 – Air India Express Boeing 737 crashes over a cliff upon landing at Mangalore, India, killing 158 of 166 people on board, becoming the deadliest crash involving a Boeing 737.
2010 – Inter Milan beat Bayern Munich 2–0 in the Uefa Champions League final in Madrid, Spain to become the first, and so far only, Italian team to win the historic treble (Serie A, Coppa Italia, Champions League).
2011 – An EF5 tornado strikes Joplin, Missouri, killing 158 people and wreaking $2.8 billion in damages, the costliest and seventh-deadliest single tornado in U.S. history.
2012 – Tokyo Skytree opens to the public. It is the tallest tower in the world (634 m), and the second tallest man-made structure on Earth after Burj Khalifa (829.8 m).
2014 – General Prayut Chan-o-cha becomes interim leader of Thailand in a military coup d’état, following six months of political turmoil.
2014 – An explosion occurs in Ürümqi, capital of China’s far-western Xinjiang region, resulting in at least 43 deaths and 91 injuries.
2015 – The Republic of Ireland becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum.
2017 – Twenty-two people are killed at an Ariana Grande concert in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.
2017 – United States President Donald Trump visits the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and becomes the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Western Wall.
Births on May 22
626 – Itzam K’an Ahk I, Mayan king (d. 686)
1009 – Su Xun, Chinese writer (d. 1066)
1408 – Annamacharya, Hindu saint (d. 1503)
1539 – Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford (d. 1621)
1622 – Louis de Buade de Frontenac, French soldier and governor (d. 1698)
1644 – Gabriël Grupello, Flemish Baroque sculptor (d. 1730)
1650 – Richard Brakenburgh, Dutch Golden Age painter (d. 1702)
1694 – Daniel Gran, Austrian painter (d. 1757)
1715 – François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis, French cardinal and diplomat (d. 1794)
1733 – Hubert Robert, French painter (d. 1808)
1752 – Louis Legendre, French butcher and politician (d. 1797)
1762 – Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst, English politician (d. 1834)
1770 – Princess Elizabeth of the United Kingdom (d. 1840)
1772 – Ram Mohan Roy, Indian philosopher and reformer (d. 1833)
1782 – Hirose Tansō, Japanese neo-Confucian scholar, teacher, writer (d. 1856)
1783 – William Sturgeon, English physicist and inventor, invented the electromagnet and electric motor (d. 1850)
1808 – Gérard de Nerval, French poet and translator (d. 1855)
1811 – Giulia Grisi, Italian soprano (d. 1869)
1811 – Henry Pelham-Clinton, 5th Duke of Newcastle, English politician (d. 1864)
1813 – Richard Wagner, German composer (d. 1883)
1814 – Amalia Lindegren, Swedish painter (d. 1891)
1820 – Worthington Whittredge, American painter (d. 1910)
1828 – Albrecht von Graefe, German ophthalmologist and academic (d. 1870)
1831 – Henry Vandyke Carter, English anatomist and surgeon (d. 1897)
1833 – Félix Bracquemond, French painter and etcher (d. 1914)
1833 – Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla, Spanish politician, Prime Minister of Spain (d. 1895)
1841 – Catulle Mendès, French poet, author, and playwright (d. 1909)
1844 – Mary Cassatt, American painter and educator (d. 1926)
1846 – Rita Cetina Gutiérrez, Mexican poet, educator, and activist (d. 1908)
1848 – Fritz von Uhde, German painter and educator (d. 1911)
1849 – Aston Webb, English architect and academic (d. 1930)
1858 – Belmiro de Almeida, Brazilian painter, illustrator, sculptor (d. 1935)
1859 – Arthur Conan Doyle, British writer (d. 1930)
1859 – Tsubouchi Shōyō, Japanese author, playwright, and educator (d. 1935)
1864 – Willy Stöwer, German author and illustrator (d. 1931)
1868 – Augusto Pestana, Brazilian engineer and politician (d. 1934)
1874 – Daniel François Malan, South African clergyman and politician, 5th Prime Minister of South Africa (d. 1959)
1876 – Julius Klinger, Austrian painter and illustrator (d. 1942)
1879 – Warwick Armstrong, Australian cricketer and journalist (d. 1947)
1879 – Jean Cras, French admiral and composer (d. 1932)
1879 – Symon Petliura, Ukrainian statesman and independence leader (d. 1926)
1880 – Francis de Miomandre, French author and translator (d. 1959)
1885 – Giacomo Matteotti, Italian lawyer and politician (d. 1924)
1885 – Soemu Toyoda, Japanese admiral (d. 1957)
1887 – A. W. Sandberg, Danish film director and screenwriter (d. 1938)
1891 – Johannes R. Becher, German politician, novelist, and poet (d. 1958)
1894 – Friedrich Pollock, German sociologist and philosopher (d. 1970)
1897 – Robert Neumann, German and English-speaking author (d. 1975)
1900 – Juan Arvizu, Mexican lyric opera tenor and bolero vocalist (d.1985)
1901 – Maurice J. Tobin, American politician, 6th United States Secretary of Labor (d. 1953)
1902 – Jack Lambert, English footballer and manager (d. 1940)
1902 – Al Simmons, American baseball player and coach (d. 1956)
1904 – Uno Lamm, Swedish electrical engineer and inventor (d. 1989)
1905 – Bodo von Borries, German physicist and academic, co-invented the electron microscope (d. 1956)
1905 – Tom Driberg, British politician (d. 1976)
1907 – Hergé, Belgian author and illustrator (d. 1983)
1907 – Laurence Olivier, English actor, director, and producer (d. 1989)
1908 – Horton Smith, American golfer and captain (d. 1963)
1909 – Margaret Mee, English illustrator and educator (d. 1988)
1912 – Herbert C. Brown, English-American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004)
1913 – Rafael Gil, Spanish director and screenwriter (d. 1986)
1913 – Dominique Rolin, Belgian author (d. 2012)
1914 – Max Kohnstamm, Dutch historian and diplomat (d. 2010)
1914 – Sun Ra, American pianist, composer, bandleader, poet (d. 1993)
1917 – George Aratani, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 2013)
1917 – Jean-Louis Curtis, French author (d. 1995)
1919 – Paul Vanden Boeynants, Belgian businessman and politician, 55th Prime Minister of Belgium (d. 2001)
1920 – Thomas Gold, Austrian-American astrophysicist and academic (d. 2004)
1921 – George S. Hammond, American scientist (d. 2005)
1922 – Quinn Martin, American screenwriter and producer (d. 1987)
1924 – Charles Aznavour, French-Armenian singer-songwriter and actor (d. 2018)
1925 – Jean Tinguely, Swiss painter and sculptor (d. 1991)
1927 – Michael Constantine, American actor
1927 – Peter Matthiessen, American novelist, short story writer, editor, co-founded The Paris Review (d. 2014)
1927 – George Andrew Olah, Hungarian-American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2017)
1928 – Serge Doubrovsky, French theorist and author (d. 2017)
1928 – John Mackenzie, Scottish director and producer (d. 2011)
1928 – T. Boone Pickens, American businessman (d. 2019)
1928 – Hiroshi Sano, Japanese novelist (d. 2013)
1929 – Ahmed Fouad Negm, Egyptian poet (d. 2013)
1930 – Kenny Ball, English jazz trumpet player, vocalist, and bandleader (d. 2013)
1930 – Marisol Escobar, French-American sculptor (d. 2016)
1930 – Harvey Milk, American lieutenant and politician (d. 1978)
1932 – Robert Spitzer, American psychiatrist and academic (d. 2015)
1933 – Chen Jingrun, Chinese mathematician and academic (d. 1996)
1934 – Peter Nero, American pianist and conductor
1936 – George H. Heilmeier, American engineer (d. 2014)
1937 – Facundo Cabral, Argentinian singer-songwriter (d. 2011)
1938 – Richard Benjamin, American actor and director
1938 – Susan Strasberg, American actress (d. 1999)
1939 – Paul Winfield, American actor (d. 2004)
1940 – Kieth Merrill, American filmmaker
1940 – Michael Sarrazin, Canadian actor (d. 2011)
1940 – Bernard Shaw, American journalist
1940 – Mick Tingelhoff, American Pro Football Hall of Famer
1941 – Menzies Campbell, Scottish sprinter and politician
1942 – Roger Brown, American basketball player (d. 1997)
1942 – Ted Kaczynski, American academic and mathematician turned anarchist and serial murderer (Unabomber)
1942 – Barbara Parkins, Canadian actress
1942 – Richard Oakes, Native American civil rights activist (d. 1972)
1943 – Betty Williams, Northern Irish peace activist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2020)
1943 – Tommy John, American baseball player
1944 – John Flanagan, Australian fantasy author
1945 – Bob Katter, Australian politician
1946 – George Best, Northern Irish footballer and manager (d. 2005)
1946 – Michael Green, English physicist and academic
1946 – Howard Kendall, English footballer and manager (d. 2015)
1946 – Andrei Marga, Romanian philosopher, political scientist, politician
293 – Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian appoint Galerius as Caesar to Diocletian, beginning the period of four rulers known as the Tetrarchy.
878 – Syracuse, Sicily, is captured by the Muslim Aghlabids after a nine-month siege.
879 – Pope John VIII gives blessings to Branimir of Croatia and to the Croatian people, considered to be international recognition of the Croatian state.
996 – Sixteen-year-old Otto III is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
1349 – Dušan’s Code, the constitution of the Serbian Empire, is enacted by Dušan the Mighty.
1403 – Henry III of Castile sends Ruy González de Clavijo as ambassador to Timur to discuss the possibility of an alliance between Timur and Castile against the Ottoman Empire.
1554 – Queen Mary I grants a royal charter to Derby School, as a grammar school for boys in Derby, England.
1659 – In the Concert of The Hague, the Dutch Republic, the Commonwealth of England and the Kingdom of France set out their views on how the Second Northern War should end.
1660 – The Battle of Long Sault concludes after five days in which French colonial militia, with their Huron and Algonquin allies, are defeated by the Iroquois Confederacy.
1674 – The nobility elect John Sobieski King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.
1703 – Daniel Defoe is imprisoned on charges of seditious libel.
1725 – The Order of St. Alexander Nevsky is instituted in Russia by Empress Catherine I. It would later be discontinued and then reinstated by the Soviet government in 1942 as the Order of Alexander Nevsky.
1758 – Ten-year-old Mary Campbell is abducted in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War. She is returned six and a half years later.
1792 – A lava dome collapses on Mount Unzen, near the city of Shimbara on the Japanese island of Kyūshū, creating a deadly tsunami that kills nearly 15,000 people.
1809 – The first day of the Battle of Aspern-Essling between the Austrian army led by Archduke Charles and the French army led by Napoleon I of France sees the French attack across the Danube held.
1851 – Slavery in Colombia is abolished.
1856 – Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces.
1863 – American Civil War: The Union Army succeeds in closing off the last escape route from Port Hudson, Louisiana, in preparation for the coming siege.
1864 – Russia declares an end to the Russo-Circassian War and many Circassians are forced into exile. The day is designated the Circassian Day of Mourning.
1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House ends.
1864 – The Ionian Islands reunite with Greece.
1871 – French troops invade the Paris Commune and engage its residents in street fighting. By the close of “Bloody Week”, some 20,000 communards have been killed and 38,000 arrested.
1871 – Opening of the first rack railway in Europe, the Rigi Bahnen on Mount Rigi.
1879 – War of the Pacific: Two Chilean ships blocking the harbor of Iquique (then belonging to Peru) battle two Peruvian vessels in the Battle of Iquique.
1881 – The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton in Washington, D.C.
1894 – The Manchester Ship Canal in the United Kingdom is officially opened by Queen Victoria, who later knights its designer Sir Edward Leader Williams.
1904 – The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is founded in Paris.
1911 – President of Mexico Porfirio Díaz and the revolutionary Francisco Madero sign the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez to put an end to the fighting between the forces of both men, concluding the initial phase of the Mexican Revolution.
1917 – The Imperial War Graves Commission is established through royal charter to mark, record, and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of the British Empire’s military forces.
1917 – The Great Atlanta fire of 1917 causes $5.5 million in damages, destroying some 300 acres including 2,000 homes, businesses and churches, displacing about 10,000 people but leading to only one fatality (due to heart attack).
1924 – University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a “thrill killing”.
1927 – Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world’s first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
1932 – Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
1934 – Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens.
1936 – Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover’s severed genitals in her handbag. Her story soon becomes one of Japan’s most notorious scandals.
1937 – A Soviet station, North Pole-1, becomes the first scientific research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic Ocean.
1939 – The Canadian National War Memorial is unveiled by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
1946 – Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
1951 – The opening of the Ninth Street Show, otherwise known as the 9th Street Art Exhibition: A gathering of a number of notable artists, and the stepping-out of the post war New York avant-garde, collectively known as the New York School.
1961 – American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Malcolm Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out.
1966 – The Ulster Volunteer Force declares war on the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland.
1969 – Civil unrest in Rosario, Argentina, known as Rosariazo, following the death of a 15-year-old student.
1972 – Michelangelo’s Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome is damaged by a vandal, the mentally disturbed Hungarian geologist Laszlo Toth.
1976 – Twenty-nine people are killed in the Yuba City bus disaster in Martinez, California.
1979 – White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.
1981 – The Italian government releases the membership list of Propaganda Due, an illegal pseudo-Masonic lodge that was implicated in numerous Italian crimes and mysteries.
1981 – Transamerica Corporation agrees to sell United Artists to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $380 million after the box office failure of the 1980 film Heaven’s Gate.
1982 – Falklands War: A British amphibious assault during Operation Sutton leads to the Battle of San Carlos.
1991 – Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated by a female suicide bomber near Madras.
1991 – Mengistu Haile Mariam, president of the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, flees Ethiopia, effectively bringing the Ethiopian Civil War to an end.
1992 – After 30 seasons Johnny Carson hosted his penultimate episode and last featuring guests (Robin Williams and Bette Midler) of The Tonight Show.
1994 – The Democratic Republic of Yemen unsuccessfully attempts to secede from the Republic of Yemen; a war breaks out.
1996 – The ferry MV Bukoba sinks in Tanzanian waters on Lake Victoria, killing nearly 1,000.
1998 – In Miami, five abortion clinics are attacked by a butyric acid attacker.
1998 – President Suharto of Indonesia resigns following the killing of students from Trisakti University earlier that week by security forces and growing mass protests in Jakarta against his ongoing corrupt rule.
2001 – French Taubira law is enacted, officially recognizing the Atlantic slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity.
2003 – The 6.8 Mw Boumerdès earthquake shakes northern Algeria with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). More than 2,200 people were killed and a moderate tsunami sank boats at the Balearic Islands.
2005 – The tallest roller coaster in the world, Kingda Ka opens at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey.
2006 – The Republic of Montenegro holds a referendum proposing independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro; 55% of Montenegrins vote for independence.
2010 – JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, launches the solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS aboard an H-IIA rocket. The vessel would make a Venus flyby late in the year.
2011 – Radio broadcaster Harold Camping predicted that the world would end on this date.
2012 – A bus accident near Himara, Albania kills 13 people and injures 21 others.
2012 – A suicide bombing kills more than 120 people in Sana’a, Yemen.
2017 – Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus performed their final show at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
Births on May 21
1471 – Albrecht Dürer, German painter, engraver, and mathematician (d. 1528)
1497 – Al-Hattab, Muslim jurist (d. 1547)
1527 – Philip II of Spain (d. 1598)
1653 – Eleonore of Austria, Queen of Poland (d. 1697)
1688 – Alexander Pope, English poet, essayist, and translator (d. 1744)
1755 – Alfred Moore, American lawyer and judge (d. 1810)
1756 – William Babington, Irish-born, English physician and mineralogist (d. 1833)
1763 – Joseph Fouché, French lawyer and politician (d. 1820)
1775 – Lucien Bonaparte, French soldier and politician (d. 1840)
1780 – Elizabeth Fry, English prison reformer, philanthropist and Quaker (d. 1845)
1790 – William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, English politician, Lord Chamberlain of the Household (d. 1858)
1792 – Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis, French mathematician and engineer (d. 1843)
1799 – Mary Anning, English paleontologist (d. 1847)
1801 – Princess Sophie of Sweden, Swedish princess (d. 1865)
1806 – Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland, English duchess (d. 1868)
1808 – David de Jahacob Lopez Cardozo, Dutch Talmudist (d. 1890)
1827 – William P. Sprague, American banker and politician (d. 1899)
1828 – Rudolf Koller, Swiss painter (d. 1905)
1835 – František Chvostek, Czech-Austrian physician and academic (d. 1884)
1837 – Itagaki Taisuke, Japanese soldier and politician (d. 1919)
1843 – Charles Albert Gobat, Swiss lawyer and politician, and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1914)
1843 – Louis Renault, French jurist, educator, and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1918)
1844 – Henri Rousseau, French painter (d. 1910)
1850 – Giuseppe Mercalli, Italian priest and volcanologist (d. 1914)
1851 – Léon Bourgeois, French police officer and politician, 64th Prime Minister of France, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1925)
1853 – Jacques Marie Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac, French politician (d. 1905)
1856 – José Batlle y Ordóñez, Uruguayan journalist and politician, President of Uruguay (d. 1929)
1860 – Willem Einthoven, Indonesian-Dutch physician, physiologist, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1927)
1861 – Abel Ayerza, Argentinian physician and academic (d. 1918)
1863 – Archduke Eugen of Austria (d. 1954)
1864 – Princess Stéphanie of Belgium (d. 1945)
1873 – Hans Berger, German neurologist and academic (d. 1941)
1878 – Glenn Curtiss, American cyclist and engineer (d. 1930)
1880 – Tudor Arghezi, Romanian journalist, author, and poet (d. 1967)
1884 – Manuel Pérez y Curis, Uruguayan poet and publisher (d. 1920)
1885 – Princess Sophie of Albania, (Princess Sophie of Schönburg-Waldenburg) (d. 1936)
1893 – Arthur Carr, English cricketer (d. 1963)
1893 – Giles Chippindall, Australian public servant (d. 1969)
1895 – Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexican general, president (1934–1940) and father of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas (d. 1970)
1898 – Armand Hammer, American physician and businessman, founded Occidental Petroleum (d. 1990)
1898 – Charles Léon Hammes, Luxembourgian lawyer and judge (d. 1967)
1898 – Carl Johnson, American long jumper (d. 1932)
1898 – John McLaughlin, American painter and translator (d. 1976)
1901 – Regina M. Anderson, Multiracial playwright and librarian (d. 1993)
1901 – Horace Heidt, American pianist, bandleader, and radio host (d. 1986)
1901 – Sam Jaffe, American film producer and agent (d. 2000)
1901 – Suzanne Lilar, Belgian author and playwright (d. 1992)
1902 – Earl Averill, American baseball player (d. 1983)
1902 – Marcel Breuer, Hungarian-American architect and academic, designed the Ameritrust Tower (d. 1981)
1902 – Anatole Litvak, Ukrainian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1974)
1903 – Manly Wade Wellman, American author (d. 1986)
1904 – Robert Montgomery, American actor and director (d. 1981)
1904 – Fats Waller, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1943)
1907 – John C. Allen, American roller coaster designer (d. 1979)
1912 – Chen Dayu, Chinese painter and calligrapher (d. 2001)
1912 – John Curtis Gowan, American psychologist and academic (d. 1986)
1912 – Monty Stratton, American baseball player and coach (d. 1982)
1913 – Gina Bachauer, Greek pianist and composer (d. 1976)
1915 – Cathleen Cordell, American actress (d. 1997)
1915 – Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan, Indian Civil Service Officer and former Under Secretary-General of the UN (d. 2003)
1916 – Dennis Day, American singer and actor (d. 1988)
1916 – Tinus Osendarp, Dutch sprinter and police officer (d. 2002)
1916 – Harold Robbins, American author and screenwriter (d. 1997)
1917 – Raymond Burr, Canadian-American actor and director (d. 1993)
1918 – Anthony Steel, English actor and singer (d. 2001)
1919 – George P. Mitchell, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 2013)
1920 – Bill Barber, American tuba player and educator (d. 2007)
1920 – Forrest White, American businessman, co-founded the Music Man Company (d. 1994)
1921 – Sandy Douglas, English computer scientist and academic, designed OXO (d. 2010)
1921 – Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1989)
1923 – Vernon Biever, American photographer (d. 2010)
1923 – Armand Borel, Swiss-American mathematician and academic (d. 2003)
1923 – Ara Parseghian, American football player and coach (d. 2017)
1923 – Dorothy Hewett, Australian feminist poet, novelist and playwright (d. 2002)
1923 – Evelyn Ward, American actress (d. 2012)
1924 – Peggy Cass, American actress, comedian, and game show panelist (d. 1999)
1926 – Robert Creeley, American novelist, essayist, and poet (d. 2005)
1927 – Kay Kendall, English actress and comedian (d. 1959)
1927 – Péter Zwack, Hungarian businessman and diplomat (d. 2012)
1928 – Tom Donahue, American radio host and producer (d. 1975)
1928 – Alice Drummond, American actress (d. 2016)
1929 – Larance Marable, American drummer (d. 2012)
1929 – Robert Welch, English silversmith and industrial designer (d. 2000)
1930 – Tommy Bryant, American bassist (d. 1982)
1930 – Keith Davis, New Zealand rugby player (d. 2019)
1930 – Malcolm Fraser, Australian politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Australia (d. 2015)
1932 – Inese Jaunzeme, Latvian javelin thrower and surgeon (d. 2011)
1932 – Leonidas Vasilikopoulos, Greek admiral and intelligence chief (d. 2014)
1933 – Maurice André, French trumpet player (d. 2012)
1933 – Yevgeny Minayev, Russian weightlifter (d. 1993)
1934 – Jocasta Innes, Chinese-English journalist and author (d. 2013)
1934 – Bob Northern, American horn player and bandleader
1934 – Bengt I. Samuelsson, Swedish biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1935 – Terry Lightfoot, English clarinet player and bandleader (d. 2013)
1936 – Günter Blobel, Polish-American biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2018)
1938 – Lee “Shot” Williams, American singer (d. 2011)
1939 – Heinz Holliger, Swiss oboist, composer, and conductor
1940 – Tony Sheridan, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2013)
1941 – Martin Carthy, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1941 – Bobby Cox, American baseball player and manager
1941 – Ambrose Greenway, 4th Baron Greenway, English photographer and politician
1941 – Ronald Isley, American singer-songwriter and producer
1942 – David Hunt, Baron Hunt of Wirral, English politician, Secretary of State for Wales
1942 – John Konrads, Australian swimmer
1942 – Danny Ongais, American race car driver
1943 – Vincent Crane, English pianist and composer (d. 1989)
1943 – John Dalton, English bass player
1943 – Hilton Valentine, English guitarist and songwriter
1944 – Haleh Afshar, Baroness Afshar, Iranian-English academic and politician
1944 – Marcie Blane, American singer
1944 – Janet Dailey, American author and entrepreneur (d. 2013)
1944 – Mary Robinson, Irish lawyer and politician, 7th President of Ireland
1945 – Ernst Messerschmid, German physicist and astronaut
1945 – Richard Hatch, American actor, writer, and producer (d. 2017)
1946 – Allan McKeown, English-American screenwriter and producer (d. 2013)
1946 – Wayne Roycroft, Australian equestrian rider and coach
1947 – Bill Champlin, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1947 – Linda Laubenstein, American physician and academic (d. 1992)
1947 – İlber Ortaylı, Turkish historian and academic
1948 – Elizabeth Buchan, English author and critic
1948 – Joe Camilleri, Maltese-Australian singer-songwriter and saxophonist
1948 – Jonathan Hyde, Australian-English actor
1948 – Denis MacShane, Scottish journalist and politician, UK Minister of State for Europe
1948 – Leo Sayer, English-Australian singer-songwriter and musician
1949 – Andrew Neil, Scottish journalist and academic
1949 – Denis O’Connor, British police officer
1949 – Rosalind Plowright, English soprano
1950 – Will Hutton, English economist and journalist
1951 – Al Franken, American actor, screenwriter, and politician
1951 – Adrian Hardiman, Irish lawyer and judge (d. 2016)
1952 – Mr. T, American actor and wrestler
1953 – Nora Aunor, Filipino actress and recording artist
1954 – D. B. S. Jeyaraj, Sri Lankan-Canadian journalist and blogger
1954 – Janice Karman, American film producer, record producer, singer, and voice actress
1954 – Marc Ribot, American guitarist and composer
1955 – Paul Barber, English field hockey player
1955 – Stan Lynch, American drummer, songwriter, and producer
1957 – James Bailey, American basketball player
1957 – Nadine Dorries, English nurse and politician
1957 – Judge Reinhold, American actor and producer
1957 – Renée Soutendijk, Dutch actress
1958 – Christian Audigier, French fashion designer (d. 2015)
1958 – Muffy Calder, Canadian-Scottish computer scientist and academic
1958 – Michael Crick, English journalist and author
1958 – Naeem Khan, Indian-American fashion designer
1958 – Jefery Levy, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1959 – Nick Cassavetes, American actor, director, and screenwriter
1959 – Abdulla Yameen, Maldivian politician, 6th President of the Maldives
1960 – Jeffrey Dahmer, American serial killer (d. 1994)
1960 – Kent Hrbek, American baseball player and sportscaster
1960 – Mohanlal, Indian actor
1960 – Mark Ridgway, Australian cricketer
1960 – Vladimir Salnikov, Russian swimmer
1962 – David Crumb, American composer and educator
1963 – Richard Appel, American screenwriter and producer
1963 – Patrick Grant, American musician and producer
1963 – David Lonsdale, English actor
1964 – Pete Sandoval, Salvadoran-American drummer
1963 – Kevin Shields, American-Irish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1963 – Dave Specter, American guitarist
1963 – Laurie Spina, Australian rugby league player and sportscaster
1964 – Danny Bailey, English footballer and coach
1965 – Josh Richman, American actor and producer
1966 – Lisa Edelstein, American actress and playwright
1966 – Tatyana Ledovskaya, Belarusian hurdler
1967 – Chris Benoit, Canadian professional wrestler (d. 2007)
1968 – Ilmar Raag, Estonian director, producer, and screenwriter
1968 – Matthias Ungemach, German-Australian rower
1968 – Julie Vega, Filipino actress and singer (d. 1985)
1969 – Pierluigi Brivio, Italian footballer
1969 – Georgiy Gongadze, Georgian-Ukrainian journalist and director (d. 2000)
1969 – Masayo Kurata, Japanese voice actress and singer
1969 – George LeMieux, American lawyer and politician
1969 – Brian Statham, Rhodesian born English footballer, defender and manager
1970 – Brigita Bukovec, Slovenian hurdler
1970 – Dorsey Levens, American football player and sportscaster
1970 – Pauline Menczer, Australian surfer
1970 – Carl Veart, Australian footballer and coach
1972 – The Notorious B.I.G., American rapper (d. 1997)
1973 – Stewart Cink, American golfer
1973 – Noel Fielding, English comedian, musician and television presenter
1974 – Brad Arthur, Australian rugby league coach
1974 – Fairuza Balk, American actress
1974 – Aditi Gowitrikar, Indian model, actress, and physician, Mrs. World 2001
1974 – Havoc, American rapper and producer
1975 – Anthony Mundine, Australian rugby league player and boxer
1976 – Stuart Bingham, English snooker player
1976 – Abderrahim Goumri, Moroccan runner (d. 2013)
1976 – Deron Miller, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1977 – Quinton Fortune, South African international footballer midfielder and coach
1977 – Michael Fuß, German footballer
1977 – Ricky Williams, American football player and coach
1978 – Max B, American rapper and songwriter
1978 – Briana Banks, German-American porn actress and model
1978 – Jamaal Magloire, Canadian basketball player and coach
2020 – Alan Merten, fifth President of George Mason University (b. 1941)
Holidays and observances on May 21
Afro-Colombian Day (Colombia)
Christian feast day:
Arcangelo Tadini
Blessed Adílio Daronch and Manuel Gómez González
Blessed Franz Jägerstätter
Earliest day on which Corpus Christi can fall, while June 24 is the latest; held on Thursday after Trinity Sunday (often locally moved to Sunday). (Roman Catholic Church)
Emperor Constantine I
Eugène de Mazenod
Helena of Constantinople, also known as “Feast of the Holy Great Sovereigns Constantine and Helen, Equal-to-the-Apostles.” (Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion)
John Elliot (Episcopal Church)
Saints of the Cristero War, including Christopher Magallanes
May 21 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Circassian Day of Mourning (Circassians)
Day of Patriots and Military (Hungary)
Independence Day, celebrates the Montenegrin independence referendum in 2006, celebrated until the next day. (Montenegro)
Navy Day (Chile)
Saint Helena Day, celebrates the discovery of Saint Helena in 1502. (Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha)
World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development (International)
325 – The First Council of Nicaea is formally opened, starting the first ecumenical council of the Christian Church.
491 – Empress Ariadne marries Anastasius I. The widowed Augusta is able to choose her successor for the Byzantine throne, after Zeno (late emperor) dies of dysentery.
685 – The Battle of Dun Nechtain is fought between a Pictish army under King Bridei III and the invading Northumbrians under King Ecgfrith, who are decisively defeated.
794 – While visiting the royal Mercian court at Sutton Walls with a view to marrying princess Ælfthryth, King Æthelberht II of East Anglia is taken captive and beheaded.
1217 – The Second Battle of Lincoln is fought near Lincoln, England, resulting in the defeat of Prince Louis of France by William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke.
1293 – King Sancho IV of Castile creates the Estudio de Escuelas de Generales in Alcalá de Henares.
1449 – The Battle of Alfarrobeira is fought, establishing the House of Braganza as a principal royal family of Portugal.
1497 – John Cabot sets sail from Bristol, England, on his ship Matthew looking for a route to the west (other documents give a May 2 date).
1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovers the sea route to India when he arrives at Kozhikode (previously known as Calicut), India.
1521 – Ignatius of Loyola is seriously wounded in the Battle of Pampeluna.
1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas.
1609 – Shakespeare’s sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by the publisher Thomas Thorpe.
1631 – The city of Magdeburg in Germany is seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empire and most of its inhabitants massacred, in one of the bloodiest incidents of the Thirty Years’ War.
1645 – Yangzhou massacre: The ten day massacre of 800,000 residents of the city of Yangzhou, part of the Transition from Ming to Qing.
1741 – The Battle of Cartagena de Indias ends in a Spanish victory and the British begin withdrawal towards Jamaica with substantial losses.
1775 – The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence is allegedly signed in Charlotte, North Carolina.
1802 – By the Law of 20 May 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstates slavery in the French colonies, revoking its abolition in the French Revolution.
1813 – Napoleon Bonaparte leads his French troops into the Battle of Bautzen in Saxony, Germany, against the combined armies of Russia and Prussia. The battle ends the next day with a French victory.
1840 – York Minster is badly damaged by fire.
1861 – American Civil War: The state of Kentucky proclaims its neutrality, which will last until September 3 when Confederate forces enter the state. Meanwhile, the State of North Carolina secedes from the Union.
1862 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law, opening 84 million acres of public land to settlers.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Ware Bottom Church: In the Virginia Bermuda Hundred campaign, 10,000 troops fight in this Confederate victory.
1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
1875 – Signing of the Metre Convention by 17 nations leading to the establishment of the International System of Units.
1882 – The Triple Alliance between the German Empire, Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Italy is formed.
1883 – Krakatoa begins to erupt; the volcano explodes three months later, killing more than 36,000 people.
1891 – History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison’s prototype kinetoscope.
1902 – Cuba gains independence from the United States. Tomás Estrada Palma becomes the country’s first President.
1927 – Treaty of Jeddah: The United Kingdom recognizes the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud in the Kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd, which later merge to become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
1932 – Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the world’s first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day.
1940 – The Holocaust: The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.
1941 – World War II: Battle of Crete: German paratroops invade Crete.
1948 – Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek wins the 1948 Republic of China presidential election and is sworn in as the first President of the Republic of China at Nanjing.
1949 – In the United States, the Armed Forces Security Agency, the predecessor to the National Security Agency, is established.
1956 – In Operation Redwing, the first United States airborne hydrogen bomb is dropped over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
1964 – Discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Robert Woodrow Wilson and Arno Penzias.
1967 – The Popular Movement of the Revolution political party is established in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
1969 – The Battle of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam ends.
1971 – In the Chuknagar massacre, Pakistani forces massacre thousands, mostly Bengali Hindus.
1980 – In a referendum in Quebec, the population rejects, by 60% of the vote, a government proposal to move towards independence from Canada.
1983 – First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier.
1983 – Church Street bombing: A car bomb planted by Umkhonto we Sizwe explodes on Church Street in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, killing 19 people and injuring 217 others.
1985 – Radio Martí, part of the Voice of America service, begins broadcasting to Cuba.
1989 – The Chinese authorities declare martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations, setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square massacre.
1990 – The first post-Communist presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Romania.
1996 – Civil rights: The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Romer v. Evans against a law that would have prevented any city, town or county in the state of Colorado from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect the rights of gays and lesbians.
2002 – The independence of East Timor is recognized by Portugal, formally ending 23 years of Indonesian rule and three years of provisional UN administration (Portugal itself is the former colonizer of East Timor until 1976).
2012 – At least 27 people are killed and 50 others injured when a 6.0-magnitude earthquake strikes northern Italy.
2013 – An EF5 tornado strikes the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, killing 24 people and injuring 377 others.
2019 – The International System of Units (SI): The base units are redefined, making the international prototype of the kilogram obsolete.
Births on May 20
1315 – Bonne of Luxembourg, first wife of John II of France (d. 1349)
1470 – Pietro Bembo, Italian cardinal, poet, and scholar (d. 1547)
1505 – Levinus Lemnius, Dutch writer (d. 1568)
1531 – Thado Minsaw of Ava, Viceroy of Ava (d. 1584)
1537 – Hieronymus Fabricius, Italian anatomist (d. 1619)
1575 – Robert Heath, English judge and politician (d. 1649)
1664 – Andreas Schlüter, German sculptor and architect (d. 1714)
1726 – Francis Cotes, English painter and academic (d. 1770)
1743 – Toussaint Louverture, Haitian revolutionary, general, and president (d. 1803)
1759 – William Thornton, Virgin Islander-American architect, designed the United States Capitol (d. 1828)
1769 – Andreas Vokos Miaoulis, Greek admiral and politician (d. 1835)
1772 – Sir William Congreve, 2nd Baronet, English inventor and politician, developed Congreve rockets (d. 1828)
1776 – Simon Fraser, American-Canadian fur trader and explorer (d. 1862)
1795 – Pedro María de Anaya, Mexican soldier. President (1847-1848) (d. 1854)
1799 – Honoré de Balzac, French novelist and playwright (d. 1850)
1806 – John Stuart Mill, English economist, civil servant, and philosopher (d. 1873)
1811 – Alfred Domett, English-New Zealand poet and politician, 4th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1887)
1818 – William Fargo, American businessman and politician, co-founded Wells Fargo and American Express (d. 1881)
1822 – Frédéric Passy, French economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1912)
1824 – Cadmus M. Wilcox, Confederate States Army general (d. 1890)
1825 – Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first woman to be ordained as a mainstream Protestant minister in the U.S. (d. 1921)
1830 – Hector Malot, French author (d. 1907)
1838 – Jules Méline, French lawyer and politician, 65th Prime Minister of France (d. 1925)
1851 – Emile Berliner, German-American inventor, invented the Gramophone record (d. 1929)
1854 – George Prendergast, Australian politician, 28th Premier of Victoria (d. 1937)
1856 – Henri-Edmond Cross, French Neo-Impressionist painter (d. 1910)
1860 – Eduard Buchner, German chemist, zymologist, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1917)
1875 – Hendrik Offerhaus, Dutch rower (d. 1953)
1877 – Pat Leahy, Irish-American jumper (d. 1927)
1879 – Hans Meerwein, German chemist (d. 1965)
1882 – Sigrid Undset, Danish-Norwegian novelist, essayist, and translator, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1949)
1883 – Faisal I of Iraq (d. 1933)
1886 – Ali Sami Yen, Turkish footballer and manager, founded the Galatasaray Sports Club (d. 1951)
1894 – Chandrashekarendra Saraswati, Indian guru and scholar (d. 1994)
1895 – R. J. Mitchell, English engineer, designed the Supermarine Spitfire and Supermarine S.6B (d. 1937)
1897 – Diego Abad de Santillán, Spanish economist and author (d. 1983)
1897 – Malcolm Nokes, English hammer and discus thrower (d. 1986)
1898 – Eduard Ole, Estonian painter (d. 1995)
1899 – Aleksandr Deyneka, Russian painter and sculptor (d. 1969)
1899 – John Marshall Harlan II, American lawyer and jurist (d. 1971)
1900 – Sumitranandan Pant, Indian poet and author (d. 1977)
1901 – Max Euwe, Dutch chess player, mathematician, and author (d. 1981)
1901 – Doris Fleeson, American journalist (d. 1970)
1904 – Margery Allingham, English author of detective fiction (d. 1966)
1906 – Giuseppe Siri, Italian cardinal (d. 1989)
1907 – Carl Mydans, American photographer and journalist (d. 2004)
1908 – Henry Bolte, Australian politician, 38th Premier of Victoria (d. 1990)
1908 – Louis Daquin, French actor and director (d. 1980)
1908 – Francis Raymond Fosberg, American botanist and author (d. 1993)
1908 – James Stewart, American actor (d. 1997)
1911 – Gardner Fox, American author (d. 1986)
1911 – Annie M. G. Schmidt, Dutch author and playwright (d. 1995)
1913 – Teodoro Fernández, Peruvian footballer (d. 1996)
1913 – William Redington Hewlett, American engineer, co-founded Hewlett-Packard (d. 2001)
1915 – Peter Copley, English actor (d. 2008)
1915 – Moshe Dayan, Israeli general and politician, 5th Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs (d. 1981)
1915 – Joff Ellen, Australian comedian and actor (d. 1999)
1916 – Owen Chadwick, English rugby player, historian, and academic (d. 2015)
1916 – Alexey Maresyev, Russian soldier and pilot (d. 2001)
1916 – Ondina Valla, Italian sprinter and hurdler (d. 2006)
1917 – Tony Cliff, Israeli-English author and activist (d. 2000)
1917 – Guy Favreau, Canadian lawyer, judge, and politician, 28th Canadian Minister of Justice (d. 1967)
1918 – Alexandra Boyko, Russian tank commander (d. 1996)
1918 – Edward B. Lewis, American biologist, geneticist, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004)
1919 – George Gobel, American comedian (d. 1991)
1920 – John Cruickshank, Scottish lieutenant and banker, Victoria Cross recipient
1921 – Wolfgang Borchert, German author and playwright (d. 1947)
1921 – Hal Newhouser, American baseball player and scout (d. 1998)
1921 – Hao Wang, Chinese-American logician, philosopher, and mathematician (d. 1995)
1922 – Ted Hinton, Northern Irish international footballer (d. 1988)
1923 – Edith Fellows, American actress (d. 2011)
1923 – Sam Selvon, Trinidad-born writer (d. 1994)
1924 – David Chavchavadze, English-American CIA officer and author (d. 2014)
1924 – Zelmar Michelini, Uruguayan journalist and politician (d. 1976)
1925 – Alexei Tupolev, Russian engineer, designed the Tupolev Tu-144 (d. 2001)
1926 – Bob Sweikert, American race car driver (d. 1956)
1927 – Bud Grant, American football player and coach
1927 – David Hedison, American actor (d. 2019)
1927 – Franciszek Macharski, Polish cardinal (d. 2016)
1929 – Gilles Loiselle, Canadian politician and diplomat, 33rd Canadian Minister of Finance
1930 – Sam Etcheverry, American football player and coach (d. 2009)
1931 – Ken Boyer, American baseball player and manager (d. 1982)
1931 – Louis Smith, American trumpeter (d. 2016)
1933 – Constance Towers, American actress and singer
1935 – José Mujica, Uruguayan guerrilla leader and politician, 40th President of Uruguay
1936 – Anthony Zerbe, American actor
1937 – Dave Hill, American golfer (d. 2011)
1937 – Derek Lampe, English footballer
1939 – Balu Mahendra, Sri Lankan-Indian director, cinematographer, and screenwriter (d. 2014)
1940 – Shorty Long, American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 1969)
1940 – Stan Mikita, Slovak-Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster (d. 2018)
1940 – Sadaharu Oh, Japanese-Taiwanese baseball player and manager
1941 – Goh Chok Tong, Singaporean politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Singapore
1941 – John Strasberg, American actor and teacher
1942 – Raymond Chrétien, Canadian lawyer and diplomat, Canadian Ambassador to the United States
1942 – Lynn Davies, Welsh sprinter and long jumper
1942 – Carlos Hathcock, American sergeant and sniper (d. 1999)
1942 – Frew McMillan, South African tennis player
1943 – Albano Carrisi, Italian singer, actor, and winemaker
1943 – Deryck Murray, Trinidadian cricketer
1944 – Joe Cocker, English singer-songwriter (d. 2014)
1944 – Boudewijn de Groot, Indonesian-Dutch singer-songwriter and guitarist
1944 – Keith Fletcher, English cricketer and manager
1944 – Dietrich Mateschitz, Austrian businessman, co-founded Red Bull GmbH
332 – Emperor Constantine the Great announces free distributions of food to the citizens in Constantinople.
872 – Louis II of Italy is crowned for the second time as Roman Emperor at Rome, at the age of 47. His first coronation was 28 years earlier, in 844, during the reign of his father Lothair I.
1096 – First Crusade: Around 800 Jews are massacred in Worms, Germany.
1152 – The future Henry II of England marries Eleanor of Aquitaine. He would become king two years later, after the death of his cousin once removed King Stephen of England.
1268 – The Principality of Antioch, a crusader state, falls to the Mamluk Sultan Baibars in the Siege of Antioch.
1291 – Fall of Acre, the end of Crusader presence in the Holy Land.
1302 – Bruges Matins, the nocturnal massacre of the French garrison in Bruges by members of the local Flemish militia.
1388 – During the Battle of Buyur Lake, General Lan Yu leads a Chinese army forward to crush the Mongol hordes of Tögüs Temür, the Khan of Northern Yuan.
1499 – Alonso de Ojeda sets sail from Cádiz on his voyage to what is now Venezuela.
1565 – The Great Siege of Malta begins, in which Ottoman forces attempt and fail to conquer Malta.
1593 – Playwright Thomas Kyd’s accusations of heresy lead to an arrest warrant for Christopher Marlowe.
1631 – In Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Winthrop takes the oath of office and becomes the first Governor of Massachusetts.
1652 – Slavery in Rhode Island is abolished, although the law is not rigorously enforced.
1756 – The Seven Years’ War begins when Great Britain declares war on France.
1783 – First United Empire Loyalists reach Parrtown (later called Saint John, New Brunswick), Canada, after leaving the United States.
1794 – Battle of Tourcoing during the Flanders Campaign of the War of the First Coalition.
1803 – Napoleonic Wars: The United Kingdom revokes the Treaty of Amiens and declares war on France.
1804 – Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of the French by the French Senate.
1811 – Battle of Las Piedras: The first great military triumph of the revolution of the Río de la Plata in Uruguay led by José Artigas.
1812 – John Bellingham is found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging for the assassination of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.
1843 – The Disruption in Edinburgh of the Free Church of Scotland from the Church of Scotland.
1848 – Opening of the first German National Assembly (Nationalversammlung) in Frankfurt, Germany.
1860 – Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican Party presidential nomination over William H. Seward, who later becomes the United States Secretary of State.
1863 – American Civil War: The Siege of Vicksburg begins.
1896 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that the “separate but equal” doctrine is constitutional.
1896 – Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field in Moscow during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II results in the deaths of 1,389 people.
1900 – The United Kingdom proclaims a protectorate over Tonga.
1912 – The first Indian film, Shree Pundalik by Dadasaheb Torne, is released in Mumbai.
1917 – World War I: The Selective Service Act of 1917 is passed, giving the President of the United States the power of conscription.
1926 – Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappears in Venice, California.
1927 – The Bath School disaster: Forty-five people, including many children, are killed by bombs planted by a disgruntled school-board member in Michigan.
1927 – After being founded for 20 years, the Government of the Republic of China approves Tongji University to be among the first national universities of the Republic of China.
1933 – New Deal: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.
1944 – World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino: Conclusion after seven days of the fourth battle as German paratroopers evacuate Monte Cassino.
1944 – Deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union government.
1948 – The First Legislative Yuan of the Republic of China officially convenes in Nanking.
1953 – Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.
1955 – Operation Passage to Freedom, the evacuation of 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from communist North Vietnam to South Vietnam following the end of the First Indochina War, ends.
1965 – Israeli spy Eli Cohen is hanged in Damascus, Syria.
1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 is launched.
1973 – Aeroflot Flight 109 is hijacked mid-flight and the aircraft is subsequently destroyed when the hijacker’s bomb explodes, killing all 82 people on board.
1974 – Nuclear weapons testing: Under project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonates its first nuclear weapon becoming the sixth nation to do so.
1977 – Likud party wins the 1977 Israeli legislative election, with Menachem Begin, its founder, as the sixth Prime Minister of Israel.
1980 – Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage.
1980 – Students in Gwangju, South Korea begin demonstrations calling for democratic reforms.
1990 – In France, a modified TGV train achieves a new rail world speed record of 515.3 km/h (320.2 mph).
1991 – Northern Somalia declares independence from the rest of Somalia as the Republic of Somaliland but is not recognized by the international community.
1993 – Riots in Nørrebro, Copenhagen, caused by the approval of the four Danish exceptions in the Maastricht Treaty referendum. Police open fire against civilians for the first time since World War II and injure 11 demonstrators.
1994 – Israeli troops finish withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, ceding the area to the Palestinian National Authority to govern.
2005 – A second photo from the Hubble Space Telescope confirms that Pluto has two additional moons, Nix and Hydra.
2006 – The post Loktantra Andolan government passes a landmark bill curtailing the power of the monarchy and making Nepal a secular country.
2009 – The LTTE are defeated by the Sri Lankan government, ending almost 26 years of fighting between the two sides.
2015 – At least 78 people die in a landslide caused by heavy rains in the Colombian town of Salgar.
2018 – A school shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas kills 10 people.
Births on May 18
1048 – Omar Khayyám, Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet (d. 1131)
1186 – Konstantin of Rostov (d. 1218)
1450 – Piero Soderini, Italian politician and diplomat (d. 1513)
1537 – Guido Luca Ferrero, Roman Catholic cardinal (d. 1585)
1631 – Stanislaus Papczyński, Polish priest (d. 1701)
1662 – George Smalridge, English bishop (d. 1719)
1692 – Joseph Butler, English bishop, theologian, and apologist (d. 1752)
1711 – Roger Joseph Boscovich, Ragusan physicist, astronomer, and mathematician (d. 1787)
1777 – John George Children, English chemist, mineralogist, and zoologist (d. 1852)
1778 – Charles Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, Irish soldier and diplomat, British Ambassador to Austria (d. 1854)
1785 – John Wilson, Scottish author and critic (d. 1854)
1797 – Frederick Augustus II of Saxony (d. 1854)
1822 – Mathew Brady, American photographer and journalist (d. 1896)
1835 – Charles N. Sims, American Methodist preacher and 3rd chancellor of Syracuse University (d. 1908)
1850 – Oliver Heaviside, English engineer, mathematician, and physicist (d. 1925)
1851 – James Budd, American lawyer and politician, 19th Governor of California (d. 1908)
1852 – Gertrude Käsebier, American photographer (d. 1934)
1854 – Bernard Zweers, Dutch composer and educator (d. 1924)
1855 – Francis Bellamy, American minister and author (d. 1931)
1862 – Josephus Daniels, American publisher and politician, 41st United States Secretary of the Navy (d. 1948)
1867 – Minakata Kumagusu, Japanese author, biologist, naturalist and ethnologist (d. 1941)
1868 – Nicholas II of Russia (d. 1918)
1869 – Lucy Beaumont, English-American actress (d. 1937)
1871 – Denis Horgan, Irish shot putter and weight thrower (d. 1922)
1872 – Bertrand Russell, British mathematician, historian, and philosopher, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1970)
1876 – Hermann Müller, German journalist and politician, 12th Chancellor of Germany (d. 1931)
1878 – Johannes Terwogt, Dutch rower (d. 1977)
1882 – Babe Adams, American baseball player, manager, and journalist (d. 1968)
1883 – Eurico Gaspar Dutra, Brazilian marshal and politician, 16th President of Brazil (d. 1974)
1883 – Walter Gropius, German-American architect, designed the John F. Kennedy Federal Building (d. 1969)
1886 – Jeanie MacPherson, American actress and screenwriter (d. 1946)
1889 – Thomas Midgley, Jr., American chemist and engineer (d. 1944)
1891 – Rudolf Carnap, German-American philosopher and academic (d. 1970)
1892 – Ezio Pinza, Italian-American actor and singer (d. 1957)
1895 – Augusto César Sandino, Nicaraguan rebel leader (d. 1934)
1896 – Eric Backman, Swedish runner (d. 1965)
1897 – Frank Capra, Italian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1991)
1898 – Faruk Nafiz Çamlıbel, Turkish poet, author, and playwright (d. 1973)
1901 – Henri Sauguet, French composer (d. 1989)
1901 – Vincent du Vigneaud, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)
1902 – Meredith Willson, American playwright and composer (d. 1984)
1904 – Shunryū Suzuki, Japanese-American monk and educator (d. 1971)
1904 – Jacob K. Javits, American colonel and politician, 58th New York Attorney General (d. 1986)
1905 – Ruth Alexander, pioneering American pilot (d. 1930)
1905 – Hedley Verity, English cricketer and soldier (d. 1943)
1907 – Irene Hunt, American author and educator (d. 2001)
1909 – Fred Perry, English-Australian tennis player and academic (d. 1995)
1910 – Ester Boserup, Danish economist and author (d. 1999)
1911 – Big Joe Turner, American blues/R&B singer (d. 1985)
1912 – Richard Brooks, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1992)
1912 – Perry Como, American singer and television host (d. 2001)
1912 – Walter Sisulu, South African politician (d. 2003)
1913 – Jane Birdwood, Baroness Birdwood, Canadian-English publisher and politician (d. 2000)
1914 – Pierre Balmain, French fashion designer, founded Balmain (d. 1982)
1914 – Boris Christoff, Bulgarian-Italian opera singer (d. 1993)
1917 – Bill Everett, American author and illustrator (d. 1973)
1919 – Margot Fonteyn, British ballerina (d. 1991)
1920 – Pope John Paul II (d. 2005)
1921 – Michael A. Epstein, English pathologist and academic
1922 – Bill Macy, American actor (d. 2019)
1922 – Kai Winding, Danish-American trombonist and composer (d. 1983)
1923 – Jean-Louis Roux, Canadian actor and politician, 34th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (d. 2013)
1923 – Hugh Shearer, Jamaican journalist and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Jamaica (d. 2004)
1924 – Priscilla Pointer, American actress
1924 – Jack Whitaker, American sportscaster (d. 2019)
1925 – Lillian Hoban, American author and illustrator (d. 1998)
1927 – Richard Body, English politician (d. 2018)
1927 – Ray Nagel, American football player and coach (d. 2015)
1928 – Pernell Roberts, American actor (d. 2010)
1929 – Jack Sanford, American baseball player and coach (d. 2000)
1929 – Norman St John-Stevas, Baron St John of Fawsley, English lawyer and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (d. 2012)
1930 – Warren Rudman, American soldier, lawyer, and politician (d. 2012)
1930 – Fred Saberhagen, American soldier and author (d. 2007)
1931 – Don Martin, American cartoonist (d. 2000)
1931 – Robert Morse, American actor
1931 – Kalju Pitksaar, Estonian chess player (d. 1995)
1931 – Clément Vincent, Canadian farmer and politician (d. 2018)
1933 – Bernadette Chirac, French politician, First Lady of France
1933 – H. D. Deve Gowda, Indian farmer and politician, 11th Prime Minister of India
1933 – Don Whillans, English rock climber and mountaineer (d. 1985)
1934 – Dwayne Hickman, American actor and director
1936 – Leon Ashley, American singer-songwriter (d. 2013)
1936 – Türker İnanoğlu, Turkish director, producer, and screenwriter
1936 – Michael Sandle, English sculptor and academic
1937 – Brooks Robinson, American baseball player and sportscaster
1937 – Jacques Santer, Luxembourger jurist and politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Luxembourg
1938 – Janet Fish, American painter and academic
1939 – Patrick Cormack, Baron Cormack, English historian, journalist, and politician
1939 – Giovanni Falcone, Italian lawyer and judge (d. 1992)
1939 – Gordon O’Connor, Canadian general and politician, 38th Canadian Minister of Defence
1940 – Erico Aumentado, Filipino journalist, lawyer, and politician (d. 2012)
1941 – Gino Brito, Canadian wrestler and promoter
1941 – Malcolm Longair, Scottish astronomer, physicist, and academic
1941 – Miriam Margolyes, English-Australian actress and singer
1942 – Nobby Stiles, English footballer, coach, and manager
1944 – Albert Hammond, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1944 – W. G. Sebald, German novelist, essayist, and poet (d. 2001)
1946 – Frank Hsieh, Taiwanese lawyer and politician, 40th Premier of the Republic of China
1946 – Reggie Jackson, American baseball player and sportscaster
1946 – Gerd Langguth, German political scientist and author (d. 2013)
1947 – John Bruton, Irish politician, 10th Taoiseach of Ireland
1947 – Gail Strickland, American actress
1948 – Joe Bonsall, American country/gospel singer
1948 – Yi Mun-yol, South Korean author and academic
1948 – Richard Swedberg, Swedish sociologist and academic
1948 – Tom Udall, American lawyer and politician, 28th New Mexico Attorney General, United States Senator from New Mexico
1949 – Rick Wakeman, English progressive rock keyboardist and songwriter (Yes)
1949 – Walter Hawkins, American gospel music singer and pastor (d. 2010)
1950 – Rod Milburn, American hurdler and coach (d. 1997)
1950 – Mark Mothersbaugh, American singer-songwriter and painter
1951 – Richard Clapton, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1951 – Jim Sundberg, American baseball player and sportscaster
1951 – Angela Voigt, German long jumper (d. 2013)
1952 – Diane Duane, American author and screenwriter
1952 – David Leakey, English general and politician
1952 – George Strait, American singer, guitarist and producer
1952 – Jeana Yeager, American pilot
1953 – Alan Kupperberg, American author and illustrator (d. 2015)
1954 – Wreckless Eric, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1954 – Eric Gerets, Belgian footballer and manager
1955 – Chow Yun-fat, Hong Kong actor and screenwriter
1956 – Catherine Corsini, French director and screenwriter
1956 – John Godber, English playwright and screenwriter
1957 – Michael Cretu, Romanian-German keyboard player and producer
1957 – Henrietta Moore, English anthropologist and academic
1958 – Rubén Omar Romano, Argentinian-Mexican footballer and coach
1958 – Toyah Willcox, English singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1959 – Graham Dilley, English cricketer and coach (d. 2011)
1959 – Jay Wells, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1960 – Brent Ashton, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1960 – Jari Kurri, Finnish ice hockey player, coach, and manager
1960 – Yannick Noah, French tennis player
1961 – Russell Senior, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1963 – Marty McSorley, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1963 – Sam Vincent, American basketball player and coach
1964 – Ignasi Guardans, Spanish academic and politician
1966 – Renata Nielsen, Polish-Danish long jumper and coach
1966 – Michael Tait, American singer-songwriter and producer
1967 – Nina Björk, Swedish journalist and author
1967 – Heinz-Harald Frentzen, German race car driver
1967 – Nancy Juvonen, American screenwriter and producer, co-founded Flower Films
1967 – Mimi Macpherson, Australian environmentalist, entrepreneur and celebrity
1968 – Philippe Benetton, French rugby player
1968 – Ralf Kelleners, German race car driver
1969 – Troy Cassar-Daley, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1969 – Martika, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1969 – Antônio Carlos Zago, Brazilian footballer and manager
1970 – Tina Fey, American actress, producer, and screenwriter
1970 – Tim Horan, Australian rugby player and sportscaster
1970 – Billy Howerdel, American guitarist, songwriter, and producer
1970 – Javier Cárdenas, Spanish singer, television and radio presenter
1970 – Vicky Sunohara, Canadian former ice hockey player
1971 – Brad Friedel, American international soccer player, goalkeeper, manager and sportscaster
1971 – Mark Menzies, Scottish politician
1971 – Nobuteru Taniguchi, Japanese race car driver
1972 – Turner Stevenson, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1973 – Donyell Marshall, American basketball player and coach
1973 – Aleksandr Olerski, Estonian footballer (d. 2011)
1974 – Nelson Figueroa, American baseball player and sportscaster
1975 – Jem, Welsh singer-songwriter and producer
1975 – John Higgins, Scottish snooker player
1975 – Jack Johnson, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1976 – Ron Mercer, American basketball player
1976 – Marko Tomasović, Croatian pianist and composer
1976 – Oleg Tverdovsky, Ukrainian-Russian ice hockey player
1977 – Lee Hendrie, English footballer
1977 – Danny Mills, English footballer and sportscaster
1977 – Li Tie, Chinese footballer and manager
1978 – Ricardo Carvalho, Portuguese footballer
1978 – Marcus Giles, American baseball player
1978 – Charles Kamathi, Kenyan runner
1979 – Jens Bergensten, Swedish video game designer, co-designed Minecraft
1979 – Mariusz Lewandowski, Polish footballer
1979 – Michal Martikán, Slovak slalom canoeist
1979 – Milivoje Novaković, Slovenian footballer
1979 – Julián Speroni, Argentinian footballer
1980 – Reggie Evans, American basketball player
1980 – Michaël Llodra, French tennis player
1980 – Diego Pérez, Uruguayan footballer
1981 – Mahamadou Diarra, Malian international footballer
1981 – Ashley Harrison, Australian rugby league player
1982 – Jason Brown, English footballer
1982 – Marie-Ève Pelletier, Canadian tennis player
1983 – Gary O’Neil, English footballer
1983 – Luis Terrero, Dominican baseball player
1983 – Vince Young, American football player
1984 – Ivet Lalova, Bulgarian sprinter
1984 – Simon Pagenaud, French race car driver
1984 – Darius Šilinskis, Lithuanian basketball player
1984 – Joakim Soria, Mexican baseball player
1984 – Niki Terpstra, Dutch cyclist
1985 – Oliver Sin, Hungarian painter
1985 – Henrique Sereno, Portuguese footballer
1986 – Ahmed Hamada, Egyptian race car driver
1986 – Kevin Anderson, South African tennis player
1988 – Taeyang, South Korean singer
1990 – Dimitri Daeseleire, Belgian footballer
1990 – Yuya Osako, Japanese footballer
1990 – Josh Starling, Australian rugby league player
1992 – Adwoa Aboah, British fashion model
1993 – Stuart Percy, Canadian ice hockey player
1993 – Jessica Watson, Australian sailor
1998 – Polina Edmunds, American figure skater
1999 – Laura Omloop, Belgian singer-songwriter
2000 – Ryan Sessegnon, English footballer
2000 – Steven Sessegnon, English footballer
2002 – Alina Zagitova, Russian figure skater
Deaths on May 18
526 – Pope John I (b. 470)
893 – Stephen I of Constantinople (b. 867)
932 – Ma Shaohong, general of Later Tang
947 – Emperor Taizong of the Liao Dynasty
978 – Frederick I, duke of Upper Lorraine
1065 – Frederick, Duke of Lower Lorraine (b. c. 1003)
1096 – Minna of Worms, Jewish martyr killed during the Worms massacre (1096)
1160 – Eric Jedvardsson (King Eric IX) of Sweden (since 1156); (b. circa 1120)
1297 – Nicholas Longespee, Bishop of Salisbury
1401 – Vladislaus II of Opole (b. 1332)
1410 – Rupert of Germany, Count Palatine of the Rhine (b. 1352)
1550 – Jean, Cardinal of Lorraine (b. 1498)
1551 – Domenico di Pace Beccafumi, Italian painter (b. 1486)
1675 – Stanisław Lubieniecki, Polish astronomer, historian, and theologian (b. 1623)
1675 – Jacques Marquette, French-American missionary and explorer (b. 1637)
1692 – Elias Ashmole, English astrologer and politician (b. 1617)
1721 – Maria Barbara Carillo, victim of the Spanish Inquisition (b.1625)
1733 – Georg Böhm, German organist and composer (b. 1761)
1780 – Charles Hardy, English-American admiral and politician, 29th Colonial Governor of New York (b. 1714)
1781 – Túpac Amaru II, Peruvian-Indian rebel leader (b. 1742)
1792 – Levy Solomons, Canadian merchant and fur trader (b. 1730)
1795 – Robert Rogers, English colonel (b. 1731)
1799 – Pierre Beaumarchais, French playwright and publisher (b. 1732)
1800 – Alexander Suvorov, Russian general (b. 1729)
1807 – John Douglas, Scottish bishop and scholar (b. 1721)
1808 – Elijah Craig, American minister, inventor, and educator, invented Bourbon whiskey (b. 1738)
1844 – Richard McCarty, American lawyer and politician (b. 1780)
1853 – Lionel Kieseritzky, Estonian-French chess player (b. 1806)
1867 – Clarkson Stanfield, English painter (b. 1793)
1395 – Battle of Rovine: The Wallachians defeat an invading Ottoman army.
1536 – George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford and four other men are executed for treason.
1536 – Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn’s marriage is annulled.
1590 – Anne of Denmark is crowned Queen of Scotland.
1642 – Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve (1612–1676) founds the Ville Marie de Montréal.
1673 – Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River.
1792 – The New York Stock Exchange is formed under the Buttonwood Agreement.
1805 – Muhammad Ali becomes Wāli of Egypt.
1809 – Emperor Napoleon I orders the annexation of the Papal States to the French Empire.
1814 – Occupation of Monaco changes from French to Austrian.
1814 – The Constitution of Norway is signed and Crown Prince Christian Frederick of Denmark is elected King of Norway by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly.
1859 – Members of the Melbourne Football Club codified the first rules of Australian rules football.
1863 – Rosalía de Castro publishes Cantares Gallegos, the first book in the Galician language.
1865 – The International Telegraph Union (later the International Telecommunication Union) is established in Paris.
1875 – Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby with the jockey Oliver Lewis (2:37.75)
1900 – Second Boer War: British troops relieve Mafeking.
1900 – The children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, is first published in the United States. The first copy is given to the author’s sister.
1902 – Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer.
1914 – The Protocol of Corfu is signed, recognising full autonomy to Northern Epirus under nominal Albanian sovereignty.
1915 – The last British Liberal Party government (led by H. H. Asquith) falls.
1933 – Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort form Nasjonal Samling — the national-socialist party of Norway.
1939 – The Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers play in the United States’ first televised sporting event, a collegiate baseball game in New York City.
1940 – World War II: Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium.
1943 – World War II: Dambuster Raids commence by No. 617 Squadron RAF.
1954 – The United States Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, outlawing racial segregation in public schools.
1967 – Six-Day War: President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt demands dismantling of the peace-keeping UN Emergency Force in Egypt.
1969 – Venera program: Soviet Venera 6 begins its descent into the atmosphere of Venus, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure.
1973 – Watergate scandal: Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate.
1974 – The Troubles: Thirty-three civilians are killed and 300 injured when the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) detonates four car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, Republic of Ireland.
1974 – Police in Los Angeles raid the Symbionese Liberation Army’s headquarters, killing six members, including Camilla Hall.
1977 – Nolan Bushnell opened the first Chuck E. Cheese’s in San Jose, California.
1980 – General Chun Doo-hwan of South Korea seizes control of the government and declares martial law in order to suppress student demonstrations.
1980 – On the eve of presidential elections, Maoist guerrilla group Shining Path attacks a polling location in Chuschi (a town in Ayacucho), starting the Internal conflict in Peru.
1983 – The U.S. Department of Energy declassifies documents showing world’s largest mercury pollution event in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (ultimately found to be 4.2 million pounds , in response to the Appalachian Observer’s Freedom of Information Act request.
1983 – Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
1984 – Prince Charles calls a proposed addition to the National Gallery, London, a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend”, sparking controversies on the proper role of the Royal Family and the course of modern architecture.
1987 – Iran–Iraq War: An Iraqi Dassault Mirage F1 fighter jet fires two missiles into the U.S. Navy warship USS Stark, killing 37 and injuring 21 of her crew.
1990 – The General Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) eliminates homosexuality from the list of psychiatric diseases.
1992 – Three days of popular protests against the government of Prime Minister of Thailand Suchinda Kraprayoon begin in Bangkok, leading to a military crackdown that results in 52 officially confirmed deaths, hundreds of injuries, many disappearances, and more than 3,500 arrests.
1994 – Malawi holds its first multi-party elections.
1995 – Shawn Nelson steals an M60 tank from the California Army National Guard Armory in San Diego and proceeds to go on a rampage.
1997 – Troops of Laurent Kabila march into Kinshasa. Zaire is officially renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo.
2000 – Arsenal and Galatasaray fans clash in the 2000 UEFA Cup Final riots in Copenhagen
2004 – The first legal same-sex marriages in the U.S. are performed in the state of Massachusetts.
2006 – The aircraft carrier USS Oriskany is sunk in the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef.
2007 – Trains from North and South Korea cross the 38th Parallel in a test-run agreed by both governments. This is the first time that trains have crossed the Demilitarized Zone since 1953.
2014 – A plane crash in northern Laos kills 17 people.
Births on May 17
1155 – Jien, Japanese monk, poet, and historian (d. 1225)
1443 – Edmund, Earl of Rutland (d. 1460)
1451 – Engelbert II of Nassau, Count of Nassau-Vianden and Lord of Breda (1475–1504) (d. 1504)
1490 – Albert, Duke of Prussia, last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights (d. 1568)
1500 – Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (d. 1540)
1551 – Martin Delrio, Belgian occultist and theologian (d. 1601)
1568 – Anna Vasa of Sweden, Swedish princess (d. 1625)
1610 – Stefano della Bella, Italian engraver and etcher (d. 1664)
1628 – Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria (d. 1662)
1636 – Edward Colman, English Catholic courtier under Charles II (d. 1678)
1682 – Bartholomew Roberts, Welsh pirate (d. 1722)
1698 – Gio Nicola Buhagiar, Maltese painter (d. 1752)
1706 – Andreas Felix von Oefele, German historian and librarian (d. 1780)
1718 – Robert Darcy, 4th Earl of Holderness, English politician and diplomat, Secretary of State for the Southern Department (d. 1778)
1732 – Francesco Pasquale Ricci, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1817)
1743 – Seth Warner, American colonel (d. 1784)
1749 – Edward Jenner, English physician and microbiologist (d. 1823)
1758 – Sir John St Aubyn, 5th Baronet, English politician (d. 1839)
1768 – Caroline of Brunswick (d. 1821)
1768 – Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, English general and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (d. 1854)
1794 – Anna Brownell Jameson, Irish-English author (d. 1860)
1818 – Ezra Otis Kendall, American professor, astronomer and mathematician (d. 1899)
1821 – Sebastian Kneipp, German priest and therapist (d. 1897)
1835 – Thomas McIlwraith, Scottish-Australian politician, 8th Premier of Queensland (d. 1900)
1836 – Virginie Loveling, Belgian author and poet (d. 1923)
1836 – Wilhelm Steinitz, Austrian-American chess player (d. 1900)
1845 – Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan priest and poet (d. 1902)
1860 – Martin Kukučín, Slovak author and playwright (d. 1928)
1860 – Charlotte Barnum, American mathematician and social activist (d. 1934)
1863 – Léon Gérin, Canadian lawyer, sociologist, and civil servant (d. 1951)
1864 – Louis Richardet, Swiss target shooter (d. 1923)
1864 – Ante Trumbić, Croatian lawyer and politician, 27th Mayor of Split (d. 1938)
1866 – Erik Satie, French pianist and composer (d. 1925)
1868 – Horace Elgin Dodge, American businessman, co-founded Dodge (d. 1920)
1868 – Panagis Tsaldaris, Greek politician, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1936)
1870 – Newton Moore, Australian politician, 8th Premier of Western Australia (d. 1936)
1873 – Henri Barbusse, French author and journalist (d. 1935)
1873 – Dorothy Richardson, English author and journalist (d. 1957)
1874 – George Sheldon, American diver (d. 1907)
1882 – Karl Burman, Estonian architect and painter (d. 1965)
1886 – Alfonso XIII of Spain, Spanish monarch (d. 1941)
1888 – Tich Freeman, English cricketer (d. 1965)
1889 – Dorothy Gibson, American actress and singer (d. 1946)
1889 – Alfonso Reyes, Mexican author (d. 1959)
1891 – Napoleon Zervas, Greek general and politician (d. 1957)
1893 – Frederick McKinley Jones, American inventor and entrepreneur (d. 1961)
1895 – Saul Adler, Belarusian-English captain and parasitologist (d. 1966)
1895 – Reinhold Saulmann, Estonian sprinter and bandy player (d. 1936)
1897 – Odd Hassel, Norwegian chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1981)
1898 – A. J. Casson, Canadian painter (d. 1992)
1899 – Carmen de Icaza, Spanish writer (d. 1979)
1901 – Werner Egk, German pianist and composer (d. 1983)
1903 – Cool Papa Bell, American baseball player and manager (d. 1991)
1904 – Marie-Anne Desmarest, French author (d. 1973)
1906 – Zinka Milanov, Croatian-American soprano and educator (d. 1989)
1909 – Julius Sumner Miller, American physicist and academic (d. 1987)
1911 – Lisa Fonssagrives, Swedish-American model (d. 1992)
1911 – Maureen O’Sullivan, Irish-American actress (d. 1998)
1912 – Archibald Cox, American lawyer and politician, 31st United States Solicitor General (d. 2004)
1912 – Ace Parker, American baseball and football player (d. 2013)
1912 – Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner, American inventor (d. 2006)
1913 – Hans Ruesch, Swiss racing driver and author (d. 2007)
1914 – Robert N. Thompson, American-Canadian chiropractor and politician (d. 1997)
1918 – Joan Benham, English actress (d. 1981)
1918 – Birgit Nilsson, Swedish operatic soprano (d. 2005)
1919 – Antonio Aguilar, Mexican singer-songwriter, producer, actor, and screenwriter (d. 2007)
1919 – Merle Miller, American author and screenwriter (d. 1986)
1919 – Gustav Naan, Russian-Estonian physicist and philosopher (d. 1994)
1920 – Harry Männil, Estonian-Venezuelan businessman, co-founded ACO Group (d. 2010)
1921 – Dennis Brain, English composer (d. 1957)
1921 – Bob Merrill, American composer and screenwriter (d. 1998)
1922 – Jean Rédélé, French racing driver, founded Alpine (d. 2007)
1923 – Michael Beetham, English commander and pilot (d. 2015)
1924 – Roy Bentley, English footballer (d. 2018)
1924 – Francis Tombs, Baron Tombs, English engineer and politician (d. 2020)
1926 – David Ogilvy, 13th Earl of Airlie, English-Scottish soldier and politician
1926 – Dietmar Schönherr, Austrian-Spanish actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2014)
1926 – Franz Sondheimer, German-English chemist and academic (d. 1981)
1929 – Branko Zebec, Yugoslav football player and coach (d. 1988)
1931 – Marshall Applewhite, American cult leader, founded Heaven’s Gate (d. 1997)
1931 – Dewey Redman, American saxophonist (d. 2006)
1932 – Rodric Braithwaite, English soldier and diplomat, British Ambassador to Russia
1932 – Peter Burge, Australian cricketer (d. 2001)
1933 – Yelena Gorchakova, Russian javelin thrower (d. 2002)
1934 – Friedrich-Wilhelm Kiel, German educator and politician
1934 – Earl Morrall, American football player and coach (d. 2014)
1934 – Ronald Wayne, American computer scientist, co-founded Apple Inc.
1935 – Dennis Potter, English voice actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1994)
1936 – Dennis Hopper, American actor and director (d. 2010)
1937 – Hazel R. O’Leary, American lawyer and politician, 7th United States Secretary of Energy
1938 – Jason Bernard, American actor (d. 1996)
1938 – Marcia Freedman, Israeli activist
1938 – Pervis Jackson, American R&B bass singer (d. 2008)
1939 – Hugh Dykes, Baron Dykes, English politician
1939 – Gary Paulsen, American author
1940 – Alan Kay, American computer scientist and academic
1940 – Reynato Puno, Filipino lawyer and jurist, 22nd Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines
1941 – David Cope, American composer and author
1941 – Ben Nelson, American lawyer and politician, 37th Governor of Nebraska
1942 – Taj Mahal, American blues singer-songwriter and musician
1943 – Sirajuddin of Perlis, Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia
1943 – Johnny Warren, Australian footballer, coach, and sportscaster (d. 2004)
1944 – Jesse Winchester, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (d. 2014)
1945 – B.S. Chandrasekhar, Indian cricketer
1945 – Tony Roche, Australian tennis player and coach
1946 – Udo Lindenberg, German singer-songwriter and drummer
1947 – Stephen Platten, English bishop
1948 – Dick Gaughan, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist
1949 – Bill Bruford, English drummer, songwriter, and producer
1949 – Keith, American pop singer
1950 – Howard Ashman, American playwright and composer (d. 1991)
1950 – Keith Bradley, Baron Bradley, English accountant and politician
1950 – Janez Drnovšek, Slovenian economist and politician, 2nd President of Slovenia (d. 2008)
1950 – Alan Johnson, English politician, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
1950 – Valeriya Novodvorskaya, Russian journalist and politician (d. 2014)
1951 – Simon Hughes, English lawyer and politician
1952 – Howard Hampton, Canadian lawyer and politician
1954 – Michael Roberts, South African-English jockey
1955 – Bill Paxton, American actor and director (d. 2017)
1955 – David Townsend, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2005)
1956 – Sugar Ray Leonard, American boxer
1956 – Annise Parker, American politician
1956 – Bob Saget, American comedian, actor, and television host
1956 – Dave Sim, Canadian cartoonist and author
1957 – Pascual Pérez, Dominican baseball player (d. 2012)
1958 – Paul Di’Anno, English rock singer-songwriter
1959 – Marcelo Loffreda, Argentine rugby player and coach
1960 – Lou DiBella, American boxing promoter, actor, and producer
1960 – Simon Fuller, English talent manager and producer, created the Idols series
1961 – Enya, Irish singer-songwriter and producer
1961 – Jamil Azzaoui, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1961 – Justin King, English businessman
1962 – Lise Lyng Falkenberg, Danish journalist and author
1962 – Andrew Farrar, Australian rugby league player and coach
1962 – Craig Ferguson, Scottish-American comedian, actor, and talk show host
1962 – Jane Moore, English journalist and author
1962 – Rosalind Picard, American computer scientist and engineer, co-founded Affectiva
1963 – Jon Koncak, American basketball player
1963 – Page McConnell, American keyboard player and songwriter
1964 – Stratos Apostolakis, Greek footballer and coach
1964 – Mauro Martini, Italian race car driver
1964 – Menno Oosting, Dutch tennis player (d. 1999)
1965 – Trent Reznor, American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer
1965 – Jeremy Vine, English journalist and author
1966 – Qusay Hussein, Iraqi soldier and politician (d. 2003)
1966 – Mark Kratzmann, Australian tennis player and coach
1966 – Danny Manning, American basketball player and coach
1966 – Gilles Quénéhervé, French sprinter
1967 – Nancy Benoit, American professional wrestling valet and model (d. 2007)
1967 – Mohamed Nasheed, Maldivian lawyer and politician 4th President of the Maldives
1967 – Patrick Ortlieb, Austrian skier
1968 – Dave Abbruzzese, American rock drummer and songwriter
1969 – Keith Hill, English footballer and manager
1970 – Hubert Davis, American basketball player and coach
1970 – Jordan Knight, American singer-songwriter and actor
1970 – Matt Lindland, American mixed martial artist, wrestler, and politician
1970 – Jodie Rogers, Australian diver
1970 – René Vilbre, Estonian director and screenwriter
1971 – Mark Connors, Australian rugby player
1971 – Shaun Hart, Australian footballer, coach, and sportscaster
1971 – Stella Jongmans, Dutch athlete
1971 – Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, Dutch royal
1971 – Gina Raimondo, Governor of Rhode Island
1972 – Barry Hayles, English born Jamaican international footballer
1973 – Josh Homme, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1974 – Andrea Corr, Irish singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress
1974 – Wiki González, Venezuelan baseball player
1974 – Eddie Lewis, American international soccer player
1975 – Marcelinho Paraíba, Brazilian footballer
1975 – Alex Wright, German wrestler
1976 – Kandi Burruss, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1976 – Shayne Dunley, Australian rugby league player
1976 – José Guillén, Dominican-American baseball player
1976 – Daniel Komen, Kenyan runner
1976 – Wang Leehom, American-Taiwanese singer-songwriter, producer, actor, and director
1976 – Mayte Martínez, Spanish runner
1976 – Kirsten Vlieghuis, Dutch freestyle swimmer
1978 – John Foster, American baseball player and coach
1978 – Paddy Kenny, English footballer
1978 – Carlos Peña, Dominican-American baseball player
1978 – Magdalena Zděnovcová, Czech tennis player
1979 – David Jarolím, Czech footballer
1979 – Wayne Thomas, English footballer
1980 – Davor Džalto, Bosnian historian and philosopher
1980 – Fredrik Kessiakoff, Swedish cyclist
1980 – Alistair Overeem, Dutch mixed martial artist and kickboxer
1980 – Ariën van Weesenbeek, Dutch drummer
1981 – Beñat Albizuri, Spanish cyclist
1981 – Leon Osman, English footballer
1981 – Lim Jeong-hee, South Korean singer
1981 – Chris Skidmore, English historian and politician
1981 – Giannis Taralidis, Greek footballer
1982 – Matt Cassel, American football player
1982 – Dan Hardy, English mixed martial artist
1982 – Reiko Nakamura, Japanese swimmer
1982 – Tony Parker, French-American basketball player
1982 – Chloe Smith, English politician
1983 – Channing Frye, American basketball player
1983 – Chris Henry, American football player (d. 2009)
1983 – Nicky Hofs, Dutch footballer
1983 – Kevin Kingston, Australian rugby league player
1983 – Jeremy Sowers, American baseball player
1984 – Christian Bolaños, Costa Rican footballer
1984 – Christine Ohuruogu, English runner
1984 – Christine Robinson, Canadian water polo player
1984 – Passenger, English singer-songwriter and musician
1985 – Teófilo Gutiérrez, Colombian footballer
1985 – Derek Hough, American actor, singer, and dancer
1985 – Christine Nesbitt, Canadian speed skater
1985 – Todd Redmond, American baseball player
1985 – Matt Ryan, American football player
1986 – Marius Činikas, Lithuanian footballer
1986 – Timo Simonlatser, Estonian skier
1986 – Jodie Taylor, English footballer
1987 – Edvald Boasson Hagen, Norwegian cyclist
1987 – Aleandro Rosi, Italian footballer
1988 – Nikki Reed, American actress, singer, and screenwriter
1988 – Jennison Myrie-Williams, English footballer
1989 – Mose Masoe, New Zealand rugby league player
1989 – Rain Raadik, Estonian basketball player
1989 – Tessa Virtue, Canadian ice dancer
1990 – Fabian Giefer, German footballer
1990 – Charlie Gubb, New Zealand rugby league player
1990 – Katrina Hart, English runner
1990 – Guido Pella, Argentine tennis player
1991 – Johanna Konta, Australian-English tennis player
1991 – Adil Omar, Pakistani rapper and music producer
1991 – Abigail Raye, Canadian field hockey player
Deaths on May 17
528 – Empress Dowager Hu of Northern Wei
528 – Yuan Yong, imperial prince of Northern Wei
528 – Yuan Zhao, emperor of Northern Wei (b. 526)
896 – Liu Jianfeng, Chinese warlord
924 – Li Maozhen, Chinese warlord and king (b. 856)
2017 – Todor Veselinović, Serbian football player and manager (b. 1930)
2019 – Herman Wouk, American author (b. 1915)
2020 – Lucky Peterson, American blues singer, keyboardist and guitarist (b. 1964)
Holidays and observances on May 17
Birthday of the Raja (Perlis)
Christian feast day:
Giulia Salzano
Paschal Baylon
William Hobart Hare (Episcopal Church (USA))
Restituta
May 17 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Children’s Day (Norway)
Constitution Day (Nauru)
Norwegian Constitution Day
The earliest date on which Trinity Sunday can fall, while June 20 is the latest; celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost. (Western Christianity)
Feast of ‘Aẓamat (Bahá’í Faith, day shifts with March Equinox, see List of observances set by the Baháʼí calendar)
Galician Literature Day or Día das Letras Galegas (Galicia)
National Day Against Homophobia (Canada)
International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia also known as IDAHOT
946 – Emperor Suzaku abdicates the throne in favor of his brother Murakami who becomes the 62nd emperor of Japan.
1204 – Having been elected on May 9, Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders is crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin Empire.
1426 – Gov. Thado of Mohnyin becomes king of Ava.
1527 – The Florentines drive out the Medici for a second time and Florence re-establishes itself as a republic.
1532 – Sir Thomas More resigns as Lord Chancellor of England.
1568 – Mary, Queen of Scots, flees to England.
1584 – Santiago de Vera becomes sixth Governor-General of the Spanish colony of the Philippines.
1739 – The Battle of Vasai concludes as the Marathas defeat the Portuguese army.
1770 – The 14-year-old Marie Antoinette marries 15-year-old Louis-Auguste, who later becomes king of France.
1771 – The Battle of Alamance, a pre-American Revolutionary War battle between local militia and a group of rebels called The “Regulators”, occurs in present-day Alamance County, North Carolina.
1811 – Peninsular War: The allies Spain, Portugal and United Kingdom, defeat the French at the Battle of Albuera.
1812 – Imperial Russia signs the Treaty of Bucharest, ending the Russo-Turkish War. The Ottoman Empire cedes Bessarabia to Russia.
1822 – Greek War of Independence: The Turks capture the Greek town of Souli.
1832 – Juan Godoy discovers the rich silver outcrops of Chañarcillo sparking the Chilean silver rush.
1834 – The Battle of Asseiceira is fought, the last and decisive engagement of the Liberal Wars in Portugal.
1842 – The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail from Elm Grove, Missouri, with 100 pioneers.
1866 – The United States Congress establishes the nickel.
1868 – The United States Senate fails to convict President Andrew Johnson by one vote.
1874 – A flood on the Mill River in Massachusetts destroys much of four villages and kills 139 people.
1877 – The 16 May 1877 crisis occurs in France, ending with the dissolution of the National Assembly 22 June and affirming the interpretation of the Constitution of 1875 as a parliamentary rather than presidential system. The elections held in October 1877 led to the defeat of the royalists as a formal political movement in France.
1888 – Nikola Tesla delivers a lecture describing the equipment which will allow efficient generation and use of alternating currents to transmit electric power over long distances.
1891 – The International Electrotechnical Exhibition opens in Frankfurt, Germany, and will feature the world’s first long-distance transmission of high-power, three-phase electric current (the most common form today).
1916 – The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the French Third Republic sign the secret wartime Sykes-Picot Agreement partitioning former Ottoman territories such as Iraq and Syria.
1918 – The Sedition Act of 1918 is passed by the U.S. Congress, making criticism of the government during wartime an imprisonable offense. It will be repealed less than two years later.
1919 – A naval Curtiss NC-4 aircraft commanded by Albert Cushing Read leaves Trepassey, Newfoundland, for Lisbon via the Azores on the first transatlantic flight.
1920 – In Rome, Pope Benedict XV canonizes Joan of Arc.
1929 – In Hollywood, the first Academy Awards ceremony takes place.
1943 – The Holocaust: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends.
1951 – The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights begin between Idlewild Airport (now John F Kennedy International Airport) in New York City and Heathrow Airport in London, operated by El Al Israel Airlines.
1959 – The Triton Fountain in Valletta, Malta is turned on for the first time.
1960 – Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser (a ruby laser), at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.
1961 – Park Chung-hee leads a coup d’état to overthrow the Second Republic of South Korea.
1966 – The Communist Party of China issues the “May 16 Notice”, marking the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
1969 – Venera program: Venera 5, a Soviet space probe, lands on Venus.
1974 – Josip Broz Tito is elected president for life of Yugoslavia.
1988 – A report by the Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.
1991 – Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom addresses a joint session of the United States Congress. She is the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.
1997 – Mobutu Sese Seko, the President of Zaire, flees the country.
2003 – In Morocco, 33 civilians are killed and more than 100 people are injured in the Casablanca terrorist attacks.
2005 – Kuwait permits women’s suffrage in a 35–23 National Assembly vote.
2011 – STS-134 (ISS assembly flight ULF6), launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the 25th and final flight for Space ShuttleEndeavour.
2014 – Twelve people are killed in two explosions in the Gikomba market area of Nairobi, Kenya.
Births on May 16
1418 – John II of Cyprus, King of Cyprus and Armenia and also titular King of Jerusalem from 1432 to 1458 (probable; d. 1458)
1455 – Wolfgang I of Oettingen, German count (d. 1522)
1542 – Anna Sibylle of Hanau-Lichtenberg, German noblewoman (d. 1580)
1606 – John Bulwer, British doctor (d. 1656)
1611 – Pope Innocent XI (d. 1689)
1641 – Dudley North, English economist and politician (d. 1691)
1710 – William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot, English politician, Lord Steward of the Household (d. 1782)
1718 – Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian mathematician and philosopher (d. 1799)
1763 – Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, French pharmacist and chemist (d. 1829)
1788 – Friedrich Rückert, German poet and translator (d. 1866)
1801 – William H. Seward, American lawyer and politician, 24th United States Secretary of State (d. 1872)
1804 – Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, American educator who founded the first U.S. kindergarten (d. 1894)
1819 – Johann Voldemar Jannsen, Estonian journalist and poet (d. 1890)
1821 – Pafnuty Chebyshev, Russian mathematician and statistician (d. 1894)
1824 – Levi P. Morton, American banker and politician, 22nd United States Vice President (d. 1920)
1824 – Edmund Kirby Smith, American general (d. 1893)
1827 – Pierre Cuypers, Dutch architect, designed the Amsterdam Centraal railway station and Rijksmuseum (d. 1921)
1831 – David Edward Hughes, Welsh-American physicist, co-invented the microphone (d. 1900)
1862 – Margaret Fountaine, English lepidopterist and diarist (d.1940)
1876 – Fred Conrad Koch, American biochemist and endocrinologist (d. 1948)
1879 – Pierre Gilliard, Swiss author and academic (d. 1962)
1882 – Simeon Price, American golfer (d. 1945)
1883 – Celâl Bayar, Turkish politician, 3rd President of Turkey (d. 1986)
1888 – Royal Rife, American microbiologist and instrument maker (d. 1971)
1890 – Edith Grace White, American ichthyologist (d. 1975)
1892 – Osgood Perkins, American actor (d. 1937)
1894 – Walter Yust, American journalist and writer (d. 1960)
1897 – Zvi Sliternik, Israeli entomologist and academic (d. 1994)
1898 – Tamara de Lempicka, Polish-American painter (d. 1980)
1898 – Desanka Maksimović, Serbian poet and academic (d. 1993)
1898 – Kenji Mizoguchi, Japanese director and screenwriter (d. 1956)
1903 – Charles F. Brannock, American inventor and manufacturer (d. 1992)
1905 – Henry Fonda, American actor (d. 1982)
1906 – Ernie McCormick, Australian cricketer (d. 1991)
1906 – Alfred Pellan, Canadian painter and educator (d. 1988)
1906 – Arturo Uslar Pietri, Venezuelan lawyer, journalist, and author (d. 2001)
1906 – Margret Rey, German author and illustrator (d. 1996)
1907 – Bob Tisdall, Irish hurdler (d. 2004)
1909 – Margaret Sullavan, American actress and singer (d. 1960)
1909 – Luigi Villoresi, Italian race car driver (d. 1997)
1910 – Olga Bergholz, Russian poet and author (d. 1975)
1910 – Higashifushimi Kunihide, Japanese monk and educator (d. 2014)
1910 – Aleksandr Ivanovich Laktionov, Russian painter and educator (d. 1972)
1912 – Studs Terkel, American historian and author (d. 2008)
1913 – Gordon Chalk, Australian politician, 30th Premier of Queensland (d. 1991)
1913 – Woody Herman, American singer, saxophonist, and clarinet player (d. 1987)
1914 – Edward T. Hall, American anthropologist and author (d. 2009)
1915 – Mario Monicelli, Italian director and screenwriter (d. 2010)
1916 – Ephraim Katzir, Israeli biophysicist and politician, 4th President of Israel (d. 2009)
1917 – Ben Kuroki, American sergeant and pilot (d. 2015)
1917 – James C. Murray, American lawyer and politician (d. 1999)
1917 – Juan Rulfo, Mexican author and photographer (d. 1986)
1918 – Wilf Mannion, English footballer and manager (d. 2000)
1919 – Liberace, American pianist and entertainer (d. 1987)
1919 – Ramon Margalef, Spanish ecologist and biologist (d. 2004)
1920 – Martine Carol, French actress (d. 1967)
1921 – Harry Carey, Jr., American actor, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2012)
1923 – Victoria Fromkin, American linguist and academic (d. 2000)
1923 – Merton Miller, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2000)
1923 – Peter Underwood, English parapsychologist and author (d. 2014)
1924 – Dawda Jawara, 1st President of the Gambia (d. 2019)
1925 – Nancy Roman, American astronomer (d. 2018)
1925 – Ola Vincent, Nigerian banker and economist (d. 2012)
1925 – Nílton Santos, Brazilian footballer (d. 2013)
1928 – Billy Martin, American baseball player and coach (d. 1989)
1929 – Betty Carter, American singer-songwriter (d. 1998)
1929 – John Conyers, American lawyer and politician (d. 2019)
1929 – Claude Morin, Canadian academic and politician
1929 – Adrienne Rich, American poet, essayist, and feminist (d. 2012)
1930 – Friedrich Gulda, Austrian pianist and composer (d. 2000)
1931 – Vujadin Boškov, Serbian footballer, coach, and manager (d. 2014)
1931 – Hana Brady, Jewish-Czech Holocaust victim (d.1944)
1931 – K. Natwar Singh, Indian scholar and politician, Indian Minister of External Affairs
1931 – Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., American soldier and politician, 85th Governor of Connecticut
1934 – Kenneth O. Morgan, Welsh historian and author
1934 – Antony Walker, English general
1935 – Floyd Smith, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1936 – Karl Lehmann, German cardinal (d. 2018)
1937 – Yvonne Craig, American ballet dancer and actress (d. 2015)
1938 – Stuart Bell, English lawyer and politician (d. 2012)
1938 – Ivan Sutherland, American computer scientist and academic
1938 – Marco Aurelio Denegri, Peruvian television host and sexologist (d. 2018)
1941 – Denis Hart, Australian archbishop
1942 – David Penry-Davey, English lawyer and judge (d. 2015)
1943 – Kay Andrews, Baroness Andrews, English politician
1943 – Dan Coats, American politician and diplomat, 29th United States Ambassador to Germany
1943 – Wieteke van Dort, Dutch actress, comedian, singer, writer and artist
1944 – Billy Cobham, Panamanian-American drummer, composer, and bandleader
1944 – Antal Nagy, Hungarian footballer
1944 – Danny Trejo, American actor
1946 – John Law, English sociologist and academic
1946 – Robert Fripp, English guitarist, songwriter and producer
1947 – Cheryl Clarke, American writer
1947 – Darrell Sweet, Scottish drummer (d. 1999)
1947 – Roch Thériault, Canadian religious leader (d. 2011)
1948 – Jesper Christensen, Danish actor, director, and producer
1948 – Judy Finnigan, English talk show host and author
1948 – Enrico Fumia, Italian automobile and product designer
1948 – Emma Georgina Rothschild, English historian and academic
1948 – Staf Van Roosbroeck, Belgian cyclist
1949 – Rick Reuschel, American baseball player
1950 – Georg Bednorz, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1950 – Ray Condo, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2004)
1950 – Bruce Coville, American author
1951 – Christian Lacroix, French fashion designer
1951 – Jonathan Richman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1951 – Janet Soskice, Canadian philosopher and theologian
1952 – James Herndon, American psychologist and academic
1953 – Pierce Brosnan, Irish-American actor and producer
1953 – Peter Onorati, American actor
1953 – Richard Page, American singer-songwriter and bass player
1953 – Kitanoumi Toshimitsu, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 55th Yokozuna (d. 2015)
1953 – David Maclean, Scottish politician
1953 – Stephen Woolman, Lord Woolman, Scottish judge and academic
1954 – Dafydd Williams, Canadian physician and astronaut
1955 – Olga Korbut, Soviet gymnast
1955 – Jack Morris, American baseball player and sportscaster
1955 – Hazel O’Connor, English-born Irish singer-songwriter and actress
1955 – Páidí Ó Sé, Irish footballer and manager (d. 2012)
1955 – Debra Winger, American actress
1956 – Loretta Schrijver, Dutch television host, news anchor
1957 – Joan Benoit, American runner
1957 – Benjamin Mancroft, 3rd Baron Mancroft, English politician
1957 – Yuri Shevchuk, Russian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1957 – Anthony St John, 22nd Baron St John of Bletso, English lawyer and businessman
1957 – Bob Suter, American ice hockey player and coach (d. 2014)
1959 – Mitch Webster, American baseball player
1959 – Mare Winningham, American actress and singer-songwriter
1960 – Landon Deireragea, Nauruan politician, Nauruan Speaker of Parliament
1960 – S. Shanmuganathan, Sri Lankan commander and politician (d. 1998)
1961 – Kevin McDonald, Canadian actor and screenwriter
1961 – Charles Wright, American wrestler
1962 – Jimmy Hood, Scottish engineer and politician (d. 2017)
1962 – Helga Radtke, German long jumper
1963 – Rachel Griffith, Anglo-American economist
1963 – David Wilkinson, English theologian and academic
1964 – John Salley, American basketball player and actor
1964 – Boyd Tinsley, American singer-songwriter and violinist
1964 – Milton Jones, English comedian, actor, and screenwriter
1965 – Krist Novoselic, American bass player, songwriter, author, and activist
1965 – Tanel Tammet, Estonian computer scientist, engineer, and academic
1966 – Janet Jackson, American singer-songwriter, producer, dancer, and actress
1966 – Scott Reeves, American singer-songwriter and actor
1966 – Thurman Thomas, American football player
1967 – Doug Brocail, American baseball player and coach
1967 – Susan Williams, Baroness Williams of Trafford, British politician
1968 – Ralph Tresvant, American singer and producer
1969 – David Boreanaz, American actor
1969 – Tucker Carlson, American journalist, co-founded The Daily Caller
1969 – Steve Lewis, American sprinter
1970 – Gabriela Sabatini, Argentinian tennis player
1970 – Danielle Spencer, Australian singer-songwriter and actress
1971 – Phil Clarke, English rugby league player and sportscaster
1971 – Rachel Goswell, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1972 – Christian Califano, French rugby player
1972 – Matthew Hart, New Zealand cricketer
1973 – Tori Spelling, American actress, reality television personality, and author
1974 – Laura Pausini, Italian singer-songwriter and producer
1974 – Sonny Sandoval, American singer-songwriter and rapper
1975 – Tony Kakko, Finnish musician, composer, and vocalist
