868 – A copy of the Diamond Sutra is printed in China, making it the oldest known dated printed book.
912 – Alexander becomes Emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
1745 – War of the Austrian Succession: French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch–Hanoverian army.
1792 – Robert Gray commands the first expedition to sail into the Columbia River.
1812 – Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the British House of Commons.
1813 – William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth discover a route across the Blue Mountains, opening up inland Australia to settlement.
1833 – The Lady of the Lake strikes an iceberg off Newfoundland and sinks with the loss of up to 265 passengers and crew.
1846 – President James K. Polk asked for a Declaration of War against Mexico, starting the Mexican–American War.
1857 – Indian Rebellion of 1857: Indian rebels seize Delhi from the British.
1858 – Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd state of the United States.
1880 – Seven people are killed in the Mussel Slough Tragedy, a gun battle in California.
1889 – An attack upon a U.S. Army paymaster and escort results in the theft of over $28,000 and the award of two Medals of Honor.
1894 – Four thousand Pullman Palace Car Company workers go on a wildcat strike.
1910 – An act of the U.S. Congress establishes Glacier National Park in Montana.
1943 – World War II: American troops invade Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
1945 – World War II: Off the coast of Okinawa, the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill is hit by two kamikazes.
1960 – Adolf Eichmann is captured by the Mossad in Argentina.
1963 – Racist bombings in Birmingham, Alabama, disrupt nonviolence in the Birmingham campaign and precipitate a crisis involving federal troops.
1970 – The 1970 Lubbock tornado kills 26 and causes $250 million in damage.
1973 – Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg’s charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times are dismissed.
1985 – Fifty-six spectators die and more than 200 are injured in the Bradford City stadium fire.
1987 – Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II.
1996 – After the aircraft’s departure from Miami, a fire started by improperly handled chemical oxygen generators in the cargo hold of Atlanta-bound ValuJet Flight 592 causes the Douglas DC-9 to crash in the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 on board.
1997 – Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.
1998 – India conducts three underground atomic tests in Pokhran.
2000 – Second Chechen War: Chechen separatists ambush Russian paramilitary forces in the Republic of Ingushetia.
2010 – David Cameron takes office as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats form the country’s first coalition government since the Second World War.
2011 – An earthquake of magnitude 5.1 hits Lorca, Spain.
2013 – Fifty-two people are killed in a bombing in Reyhanlı, Turkey.
2014 – Fifteen people are killed and 46 injured in Kinshasa in a stampede caused by tear gas being thrown into soccer stands by police officers.
2016 – One hundred and ten people are killed in an ISIL bombing in Baghdad.
Births on May 11
1571 – Niwa Nagashige, Japanese daimyō (d. 1637)
1715 – Johann Gottfried Bernhard Bach, German organist (d. 1739)
1752 – Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, German physician, physiologist, and anthropologist (d. 1840)
1797 – José Mariano Salas, Mexican general and politician (d. 1867)
1811 – Jean-Jacques Challet-Venel, Swiss politician (d. 1893)
1852 – Charles W. Fairbanks, American journalist and politician, 26th United States Vice President (d. 1918)
1854 – Jack Blackham, Australian cricketer (d. 1932)
1869 – Archibald Warden, English tennis player (d. 1943)
1871 – Frank Schlesinger, American astronomer and author (d. 1943)
1875 – Harriet Quimby, American pilot and screenwriter (d. 1912)
1881 – Al Cabrera, Spanish-Cuban baseball player and manager (d. 1964)
1881 – Jan van Gilse, Dutch composer and conductor (d. 1944)
1881 – Theodore von Kármán, Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, and engineer (d. 1963)
1888 – Irving Berlin, Belarusian-American pianist and composer (d. 1989)
1888 – Willis Augustus Lee, American admiral (d. 1945)
1889 – Paul Nash, British painter (d. 1946)
1890 – Willie Applegarth, English-American sprinter (d. 1958)
1890 – Helge Løvland, Norwegian decathlete (d. 1984)
1894 – Martha Graham, American dancer and choreographer (d. 1991)
1895 – Jacques Brugnon, French tennis player (d. 1978)
1895 – William Grant Still, American composer and conductor (d. 1978)
1896 – Josip Štolcer-Slavenski, Croatian composer and academic (d. 1955)
1897 – Robert E. Gross, American businessman (d. 1961)
1901 – Rose Ausländer, Ukrainian-English poet and author (d. 1988):7
1901 – Gladys Rockmore Davis, American painter (d. 1967)
1902 – Edna Ernestine Kramer, American mathematician (d. 1984)
1903 – Charlie Gehringer, American baseball player and manager (d. 1993)
1904 – Salvador Dalí, Spanish artist (d. 1989)
1905 – Lise de Baissac, Mauritian-born SOE agent, war hero (d. 2004)
1905 – Catherine Bauer Wurster, American architect and public housing advocate (d. 1964)
1907 – Rip Sewell, American baseball player and coach (d. 1989
1911 – Mitchell Sharp, Canadian economist and politician, 23rd Canadian Minister of Finance (d. 2004)
1911 – Phil Silvers, American actor and comedian (d. 1985)
1912 – Saadat Hasan Manto, Indian-Pakistani author and screenwriter (d. 1955)
1916 – Camilo José Cela, Spanish author and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2002)
1918 – Richard Feynman, American physicist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1988)
1921 – Robin Barbour, Scottish minister and author (d. 2014)
1921 – Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, German politician (d. 2016)
1924 – Antony Hewish, English astronomer and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1925 – Edward J. King, American football player and politician, 66th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 2006)
1927 – Bernard Fox, British actor (d. 2016)
1927 – Gene Savoy, American explorer, author, and scholar (d. 2007)
1930 – Edsger W. Dijkstra, Dutch computer scientist and academic (d. 2002)
1930 – Stanley Elkin, American novelist, short story writer, and essayist (d. 1995)
1932 – Valentino Garavani, Italian fashion designer
1933 – Louis Farrakhan, American religious leader
1934 – Jim Jeffords, American captain, lawyer, and politician (d. 2014)
1934 – Jack Twyman, American basketball player (d. 2012)
1935 – Francisco Umbral, Spanish journalist and author (d. 2007)
1937 – Ildikó Újlaky-Rejtő, Hungarian Olympic and world champion foil fencer
1009 – Lombard Revolt: Lombard forces led by Melus revolt in Bari against the Byzantine Catepanate of Italy.
1271 – Ninth Crusade, Edward I of England disembarks at Acre.
1386 – England and Portugal formally ratify their alliance with the signing of the Treaty of Windsor, making it the oldest diplomatic alliance in the world which is still in force.
1450 – ‘Abd al-Latif (Timurid monarch) is assassinated.
1540 – Hernando de Alarcón sets sail on an expedition to the Gulf of California.
1662 – The figure who later became Mr. Punch makes his first recorded appearance in England.
1671 – Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempts to steal England’s Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.
1726 – Five men arrested during a raid on Mother Clap’s molly house in London are executed at Tyburn.
1763 – The Siege of Fort Detroit begins during Pontiac’s War against British forces.
1864 – Second Schleswig War: The Danish navy defeats the Austrian and Prussian fleets in the Battle of Heligoland.
1865 – American Civil War: Nathan Bedford Forrest surrenders his forces at Gainesville, Alabama.
1865 – American Civil War: President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation ending belligerent rights of the rebels and enjoining foreign nations to intern or expel Confederate ships.
1873 – Der Krach: Vienna stock market crash heralds the Long Depression.
1874 – The first horsebus makes its début in the city of Mumbai, traveling two routes.
1877 – Mihail Kogălniceanu reads, in the Chamber of Deputies, the Declaration of Independence of Romania. This day became the Independence Day of Romania.
1877 – A magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the coast of Peru kills 2,541, including some as far away as Hawaii and Japan.
1887 – Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show opens in London.
1901 – Australia opens its first national parliament in Melbourne.
1904 – The steam locomotive City of Truro becomes the first steam engine in Europe to exceed 100 mph (160 km/h).
1911 – The works of Gabriele D’Annunzio are placed in the Index of Forbidden Books by the Vatican.
1915 – World War I: Second Battle of Artois between German and French forces.
1918 – World War I: Germany repels Britain’s second attempt to blockade the port of Ostend, Belgium.
1920 – Polish–Soviet War: The Polish army under General Edward Rydz-Śmigły celebrates its capture of Kiev with a victory parade on Khreshchatyk.
1926 – Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett claim to have flown over the North Pole (later discovery of Byrd’s diary appears to cast some doubt on the claim.)
1927 – Old Parliament House, Canberra officially opens.
1936 – Italy formally annexes Ethiopia after taking the capital Addis Ababa on May 5.
1940 – World War II: The German submarine U-9 sinks the French coastal submarine Doris near Den Helder.
1941 – World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.
1942 – Holocaust: The SS executes 588 Jewish residents of the Podolian town of Zinkiv (Khmelnytska oblast, Ukraine). The Zoludek Ghetto (in Belarus) is destroyed and all its inhabitants executed or deported.
1945 – World War II: The final German Instrument of Surrender is signed at the Soviet headquarters in Berlin-Karlshorst.
1945 – World War II: The German occupation of the Channel Islands comes to an end.
1946 – King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy abdicates and is succeeded by Umberto II.
1948 – Czechoslovakia’s Ninth-of-May Constitution comes into effect.
1949 – Rainier III becomes Prince of Monaco.
1950 – Robert Schuman presents his proposal on the creation of an organized Europe, which according to him was indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations. This proposal, known as the “Schuman Declaration”, is considered by some people to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.
1955 – Cold War: West Germany joins NATO.
1958 – Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo has world premiere in San Francisco.
1960 – The Food and Drug Administration announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle’s Enovid, making Enovid the world’s first approved oral contraceptive pill.
1961 – FCC Chairman Newton N. Minow gives his Wasteland Speech.
1964 – Ngô Đình Cẩn, de facto ruler of central Vietnam under his brother President Ngô Đình Diệm before the family’s toppling, is executed.
1969 – Carlos Lamarca leads the first urban guerrilla action against the military dictatorship of Brazil in São Paulo, by robbing two banks.
1970 – Vietnam War: In Washington, D.C., 75,000 to 100,000 war protesters demonstrate in front of the White House.
1974 – Watergate scandal: The United States House Committee on the Judiciary opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon.
1977 – Hotel Polen fire: A disastrous fire burns down the Hotel Polen in Amsterdam causing 33 deaths and 21 severe injuries.
1979 – Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is executed by firing squad in Tehran, prompting the mass exodus of the once 100,000-strong Jewish community of Iran.
1980 – In Florida, Liberian freighter MV Summit Venture collides with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, making a 1,400-ft. section of the southbound span collapse. Thirty-five people in six cars and a Greyhound bus fall 150 ft. into the water and die.
1980 – In Norco, California, five masked gunmen hold up a Security Pacific bank, leading to a violent shoot-out and one of the largest pursuits in California history. Two of the gunmen and one police officer are killed and thirty-three police and civilian vehicles are destroyed in the chase.
1987 – LOT Flight 5055 Tadeusz Kościuszko crashes after takeoff in Warsaw, Poland, killing all 183 people on board.
1988 – New Parliament House, Canberra officially opens.
1992 – Armenian forces capture Shusha, marking a major turning point in the Nagorno-Karabakh War.
1992 – Westray Mine disaster kills 26 workers in Nova Scotia, Canada.
1994 – Disappearance of Cleashindra Hall in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
2001 – In Ghana, 129 football fans die in what became known as the Accra Sports Stadium disaster. The deaths are caused by a stampede (caused by the firing of tear gas by police personnel at the stadium) that followed a controversial decision by the referee.
2002 – The 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an end when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected terrorists among them deported to several different countries.
2012 – A Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft crashes into Mount Salak in West Java, Indonesia, killing 45 people.
2015 – An Airbus A400M Atlas military transport aircraft crashes near the Spanish city of Seville with three people on board killed.
2015 – Russia stages its biggest ever military parade in Moscow’s Red Square to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Victory Day.
2018 – The historic defeat for Barisan Nasional, the governing coalition of Malaysia since the country’s independence in 1957 in 2018 Malaysian general election.
2018 – At the height of the 2018 East Africa floods, the Patel dam breaks in Solai, Kenya, killing 48 people and displacing another 2000.
Births on May 9
1147 – Minamoto no Yoritomo, Japanese shōgun (d. 1199)
1170 – Valdemar II of Denmark (d. 1241)
1540 – Maharana Pratap, Indian ruler (d. 1597)
1555 – Jerónima de la Asunción, Spanish Catholic nun and founder of the first monastery in Manila (d. 1630)
1594 – Louis Henry, Prince of Nassau-Dillenburg, military leader in the Thirty Years’ War (d. 1662)
1617 – Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Eschwege (d. 1655)
1740 – Giovanni Paisiello, Italian composer and educator (probable; d. 1816)
1746 – Gaspard Monge, French mathematician and engineer (d. 1818)
1763 – János Batsányi, Hungarian-Austrian poet and author (d. 1845)
1800 – John Brown, American activist (d. 1859)
1801 – Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood, English politician, founded the town of Fleetwood (d. 1866)
1814 – John Brougham, Irish-American actor and playwright (d. 1880)
1823 – Frederick Weld, English-New Zealand politician, 6th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1891)
1824 – Jacob ben Moses Bachrach, Polish apologist and author (d. 1896)
1825 – James Collinson, Victorian painter (d. 1881)
1836 – Ferdinand Monoyer, French ophthalmologist, invented the Monoyer chart (d. 1912)
1837 – Adam Opel, German engineer, founded the Opel Company (d. 1895)
1845 – Gustaf de Laval, Swedish engineer and businessman (d. 1913)
1850 – Edward Weston, English-American chemist (d. 1936)
1855 – Julius Röntgen, German-Dutch composer (d. 1932)
1860 – J. M. Barrie, Scottish novelist and playwright (d. 1937)
1866 – Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Indian economist and politician (d. 1915)
1870 – Harry Vardon, British golfer (d. 1937)
1873 – Anton Cermak, Czech-American captain and politician, 44th Mayor of Chicago (d. 1933)
1874 – Howard Carter, English archaeologist and historian (d. 1939)
1882 – George Barker, American painter (d. 1965)
1882 – Henry J. Kaiser, American shipbuilder and businessman, founded Kaiser Shipyards (d. 1967)
1883 – José Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher, author, and critic (d. 1955)
1884 – Valdemar Psilander, Danish actor (d. 1917)
1885 – Gianni Vella, Maltese artist (d. 1977)
1888 – Francesco Baracca, Italian fighter pilot (d. 1918)
1888 – Rolf de Maré, Swedish art collector (d. 1964)
1892 – Zita of Bourbon-Parma, last Empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (d. 1989)
1893 – William Moulton Marston, American psychologist and author (d. 1947)
1895 – Richard Barthelmess, American actor (d. 1963)
1895 – Lucian Blaga, Romanian poet, playwright, and philosopher (d. 1961)
1895 – Frank Foss, American pole vaulter (d. 1989)
1896 – Richard Day, Canadian-American art director and set decorator (d. 1972)
1900 – Maria Malicka, Polish stage and film actress (d. 1992)
1904 – Conrad Bernier, Canadian-American organist, composer, and educator (d. 1988)
1905 – Lilí Álvarez, Spanish tennis player, author, and feminist (d. 1998)
1906 – Eleanor Estes, American librarian, author, and illustrator (d. 1988)
1907 – Jackie Grant, Trinidadian cricketer (d. 1978)
1907 – Kathryn Kuhlman, American evangelist and author (d. 1976)
1907 – Baldur von Schirach, German politician (d. 1974)
1909 – Don Messer, Canadian violinist (d. 1973)
1909 – Gordon Bunshaft, American architect, designed the Solow Building (d. 1990)
1911 – Harry Simeone, American music arranger, conductor, and composer (d. 2005)
1912 – Pedro Armendáriz, Mexican-American actor (d. 1963)
1912 – Per Imerslund, Norwegian-German soldier and author (d. 1943)
1912 – Géza Ottlik, Hungarian mathematician and theorist (d. 1990)
1914 – Patricia Swift Blalock, American librarian (d.2011)
1914 – Denham Fouts, American prostitute (d. 1948)
1914 – Thanat Khoman, Thai politician and diplomat (d. 2016)
1914 – Carlo Maria Giulini, Italian conductor and director (d. 2005)
1914 – Hank Snow, American country music singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1999)
1916 – William Pène du Bois, American author and illustrator (d. 1993)
1917 – Fay Kanin, American screenwriter and producer (d. 2013)
1918 – Moisis Michail Bourlas, Greek soldier and educator (d. 2011)
1918 – Orville Freeman, American soldier and politician, 16th United States Secretary of Agriculture (d. 2003)
1918 – Mike Wallace, American journalist, media personality and one-time game show host (d. 2012)
1919 – Clifford Chadderton, Canadian soldier and journalist (d. 2013)
1920 – William Tenn, English-American author and academic (d. 2010)
1920 – Richard Adams, English novelist (d. 2016)
1921 – Daniel Berrigan, American priest, poet, and activist (d. 2016)
1921 – Sophie Scholl, German activist (d. 1943)
1921 – Mona Van Duyn, American poet and academic (d. 2004)
1923 – Johnny Grant, American radio host and producer (d. 2008)
1924 – Bulat Okudzhava, Russian singer, poet, and author (d. 1997)
1926 – John Middleton Murry, Jr., English soldier, pilot, and author (d. 2002)
1927 – Manfred Eigen, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2019)
1928 – Ralph Goings, American painter (d. 2016)
1928 – Pancho Gonzales, American tennis player (d. 1995)
1928 – Barbara Ann Scott, Canadian figure skater (d. 2012)
1930 – Joan Sims, English actress (d. 2001)
1930 – Kalifa Tillisi, Libyan historian and linguist (d. 2010)
1931 – Vance D. Brand, American pilot, engineer, and astronaut
1932 – Conrad Hunte, Barbadian cricketer (d. 1999)
1934 – Alan Bennett, English screenwriter, playwright, and novelist
1935 – Nokie Edwards, American guitarist (d. 2018)
1935 – Roger Hargreaves, English author and illustrator (d. 1988)
1936 – Terry Downes, British boxer and former world middle-weight champion (d. 2017)
1936 – Albert Finney, English actor (d. 2019)
1936 – Glenda Jackson, English actress and politician
1937 – Sonny Curtis, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1937 – Rafael Moneo, Spanish architect, designed the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and Valladolid Science Museum
1937 – Dave Prater, American singer (d. 1988)
1938 – Charles Simić, Serbian-American poet and editor
1939 – Ralph Boston, American long jumper
1939 – Ion Țiriac, Romanian tennis player and manager
1939 – Ken Warby, Australian motorboat racer
1939 – Giorgio Zancanaro, Italian baritone
1939 – John Ogbu, Nigerian-American anthropologist and professor (d. 2003)
1940 – James L. Brooks, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1941 – Dorothy Hyman, English sprinter
1941 – Danny Rapp, American musician (d. 1983)
1942 – John Ashcroft, American lawyer and politician, 79th United States Attorney General
1942 – Tommy Roe, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1943 – Vince Cable, English economist and politician, former Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
1943 – Anders Isaksson, Swedish historian and journalist (d. 2009)
1943 – Colin Pillinger, English astronomer, chemist, and academic (d. 2014)
1944 – Richie Furay, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1945 – Gamal El-Ghitani, Egyptian journalist and author (d. 2015)
1945 – Jupp Heynckes, German footballer and manager
1945 – Steve Katz, American guitarist, songwriter, and producer
1946 – Candice Bergen, American actress and producer
1946 – Ayşe Nur Zarakolu, Turkish author and activist (d. 2002)
1947 – Yukiya Amano, Japanese diplomat (d. 2019)
1948 – Hans Georg Bock, German mathematician, computer scientist, and academic
1948 – John Mahaffey, American golfer
1948 – Steven W. Mosher, American social scientist and author
1948 – Calvin Murphy, American basketball player and radio host
1949 – Billy Joel, American singer-songwriter and pianist
1949 – Richard S. Williamson, American lawyer and diplomat, 17th Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (d. 2013)
1951 – Alley Mills, American actress
1953 – Bruno Brokken, Belgian high jumper
1955 – Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia (d. 2012)
1955 – Anne Sofie von Otter, Swedish soprano and actress
1956 – Wendy Crewson, Canadian actress and producer
1956 – Jana Wendt, Australian television host
1958 – Graham Smith, Canadian swimmer
1959 – Andrew Jones, New Zealand cricketer
1960 – Tony Gwynn, American baseball player and coach (d. 2014)
1961 – Sean Altman, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1961 – John Corbett, American actor
1962 – Dave Gahan, English singer-songwriter
1962 – Paul Heaton, English singer-songwriter
1963 – Joe Cirella, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1965 – Ken Nomura, Japanese race car driver and sportscaster
1965 – Steve Yzerman, Canadian ice hockey player and manager
1966 – Mark Tinordi, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1968 – Masahiko Harada, Japanese ski jumper
1968 – Graham Harman, American philosopher and academic
1968 – Ruth Kelly, British economist and politician, Secretary of State for Transport
1968 – Marie-José Pérec, French sprinter
1968 – Neil Ruddock, English international footballer and television personality
1970 – Doug Christie, American basketball player
1970 – Hao Haidong, Chinese footballer & all time top scorer for Chinese national team
1970 – Ghostface Killah, American rapper and actor
1971 – Jason Lee, English footballer and manager
1971 – Dan Chiasson, American poet and critic
1972 – Megumi Odaka, Japanese actress and singer
1973 – Tegla Loroupe, Kenyan runner
1973 – Leonard Myles-Mills, Ghanaian sprinter
1975 – Tamia, Canadian singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1975 – Brian Deegan, American motocross rider
1977 – Averno, Mexican wrestler
1977 – Marek Jankulovski, Czech footballer
1977 – Svein Tuft, Canadian cyclist
1978 – Leandro Cufré, Argentinian footballer
1978 – Santiago Dellapè, Argentinian-Italian rugby player
1978 – Aaron Harang, American baseball player
1978 – Marwan al-Shehhi, Emirati terrorist (d. 2001)
1979 – Pierre Bouvier, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1979 – Rosario Dawson, American actress
1979 – Andrew W.K., American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, motivational speaker, and music producer
2013 – George M. Leader, American soldier and politician, 36th Governor of Pennsylvania (b. 1918)
2013 – Humberto Lugo Gil, Mexican lawyer and politician, 23rd Governor of Hidalgo (b. 1933)
2013 – Ottavio Missoni, Italian hurdler and fashion designer, founded Missoni (b. 1921)
2014 – Giacomo Bini, Italian priest and missionary (b. 1938)
2014 – Harlan Mathews, American lawyer and politician (b. 1927)
2014 – Nedurumalli Janardhana Reddy, Indian politician, 12th Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh (b. 1935)
2014 – Mary Stewart, English-Scottish author and poet (b. 1916)
2015 – Edward W. Estlow, American football player and journalist (b. 1920)
2015 – Kenan Evren, Turkish general and politician, 7th President of Turkey (b. 1917)
2015 – Elizabeth Wilson, American actress (b. 1921)
2017 – Robert Miles, a Swiss-born Italian record producer, composer, musician and DJ (b. 1969)
2018 – Per Kirkeby, Danish painter, poet, film maker and sculptor (b. 1938)
2019 – Freddie Starr, English comedian, impressionist, singer and actor (1943)
2020 – Little Richard, American singer, songwriter, and pianist (b. 1932)
Holidays and observances on May 9
Anniversary of Dianetics (Church of Scientology)
Christian feast day:
Beatus of Lungern
Beatus of Vendome
Christopher (Eastern Orthodox Church)
George Preca
Gerontius of Cervia
Gregory of Nazianzen (The Episcopal Church (US) and traditional Roman Catholic calendar)
Nicolaus Zinzendorf (Lutheran)
Pachomius the Great
Tudy of Landevennec
May 9 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Commemoration of the end of the German occupation of the Channel Islands related observances:
Liberation Day, commemorating the end of the German occupation of the Channel Islands during World War II. (Guernsey and Jersey)
National Day (Alderney)
Europe Day, commemorating the Schuman Declaration. (European Union)
Victory Day observances, celebration of the Soviet Union victory over Nazi Germany (Soviet Union, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan)
Victory and Peace Day, marks the capture of Shusha (1992) in the Nagorno-Karabakh War, and the end of World War II. (Armenia)
453 BC – Spring and Autumn period: The house of Zhao defeats the house of Zhi, ending the Battle of Jinyang, a military conflict between the elite families of the State of Jin.
413 – Emperor Honorius signs an edict providing tax relief for the Italian provinces Tuscia, Campania, Picenum, Samnium, Apulia, Lucania and Calabria, which were plundered by the Visigoths.
589 – Reccared I opens the Third Council of Toledo, marking the entry of Visigothic Spain into the Catholic Church.
1429 – Joan of Arc lifts the Siege of Orléans, turning the tide of the Hundred Years’ War.
1450 – Kentishmen revolt against King Henry VI.
1516 – A group of imperial guards, led by Trịnh Duy Sản, murdered Emperor Lê Tương Dực and fled, leaving the capital Thăng Long undefended.
1541 – Hernando de Soto stops near present-day Walls, Mississippi, and sees the Mississippi River(then known by the Spanish as Río de Espíritu Santo, the name given to it by Alonso Álvarez de Pineda in 1519).
1788 – King Louis XVI of France attempts to impose the reforms of Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne by abolishing the parlements.
1794 – Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme générale, is tried, convicted and guillotined in one day in Paris.
1821 – Greek War of Independence: The Greeks defeat the Turks at the Battle of Gravia Inn.
1842 – A train derails and catches fire in Paris, killing between 52 and 200 people.
1846 – Mexican–American War: American forces led by Zachary Taylor defeat a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande in the first major battle of the war.
1877 – At Gilmore’s Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens.
1886 – Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named “Coca-Cola” as a patent medicine.
1898 – The first games of the Italian football league system are played.
1899 – The Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin produced its first play.
1902 – In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.
1912 – Paramount Pictures is founded.
1919 – Edward George Honey proposes the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate the Armistice of 11 November 1918 which ended World War I.
1921 – The creation of the Communist Party of Romania.
1924 – The Klaipėda Convention is signed formally incorporating Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory) into Lithuania.
1927 – Attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, French war heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli disappear after taking off aboard The White Bird biplane.
1933 – Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast of self-purification and launched a one-year campaign to help the Harijan movement.
1941 – World War II: The German Luftwaffe launches a bombing raid on Nottingham and Derby.
1942 – World War II: The German 11th Army begins Operation Trappenjagd (Bustard Hunt) and destroys the bridgehead of the three Soviet armies defending the Kerch Peninsula.
1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington.
1942 – World War II: Gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebel in the Cocos Islands Mutiny. Their mutiny is crushed and three of them are executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War.
1945 – World War II: The German Instrument of Surrender signed at Reims comes into effect.
1945 – End of the Prague uprising, celebrated now as a national holiday in the Czech Republic.
1945 – Hundreds of Algerian civilians are killed by French Army soldiers in the Sétif massacre.
1945 – The Halifax riot starts when thousands of civilians and servicemen rampage through Halifax, Nova Scotia.
1946 – Estonian schoolgirls Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel blow up the Soviet memorial which preceded the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn.
1963 – South Vietnamese soldiers under the Roman Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem open fire on Buddhists defying a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, killing nine and sparking the Buddhist crisis.
1967 – The Philippine province of Davao is split into three: Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental.
1972 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces his order to place naval mines in major North Vietnamese ports in order to stem the flow of weapons and other goods to that nation.
1973 – A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants.
1976 – The rollercoaster The New Revolution, the first steel coaster with a vertical loop, opens at Six Flags Magic Mountain.
1978 – The first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler.
1980 – The World Health Organization confirms the eradication of smallpox.
1984 – Corporal Denis Lortie enters the Quebec National Assembly and opens fire, killing three people and wounding 13. René Jalbert, Sergeant-at-Arms of the Assembly, succeeds in calming him, for which he will later receive the Cross of Valour.
1984 – The Thames Barrier is officially opened, preventing the floodplain of most of Greater London from being flooded except under extreme circumstances.
1987 – The SAS kills eight Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers and a civilian during an ambush in Loughgall, Northern Ireland.
1988 – A fire at Illinois Bell’s Hinsdale Central Office triggers an extended 1AESS network outage once considered to be the “worst telecommunications disaster in US telephone industry history”.
1997 – China Southern Airlines Flight 3456 crashes on approach into Bao’an International Airport, killing 35 people.
2019 – British 17-year-old Isabelle Holdaway is reported to be the first patient ever to receive a genetically modified phage therapy to treat a drug-resistant infection.
Births on May 8
1326 – Joan I, Countess of Auvergne (d. 1360)
1427 – John Tiptoft, 1st Earl of Worcester, Lord High Treasurer (d. 1470)
1460 – Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (d. 1536)
1492 – Andrea Alciato, Italian jurist and writer (d. 1550)
1508 – Charles Wriothesley, English Officer of Arms (d. 1562)
1521 – Peter Canisius, Dutch-Swiss priest and saint (d. 1597)
1551 – Thomas Drury, English government informer and swindler (d. 1603)
1587 – Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy (d. 1637)
1622 – Claes Rålamb, Swedish politician (d. 1698)
1628 – Angelo Italia, Sicilian Jesuit and architect (d. 1700)
1629 – Niels Juel, Norwegian-Danish admiral (d. 1697)
1632 – Heino Heinrich Graf von Flemming, German field marshal and politician (d. 1706)
1639 – Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Italian artist (d. 1709)
1641 – Nicolaes Witsen, Mayor of Amsterdam, Netherlands (d. 1717)
1653 – Claude Louis Hector de Villars, French general and politician, French Minister of Defence (d. 1734)
1670 – Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans, English soldier and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire (d. 1726)
1698 – Henry Baker, English naturalist (d. 1774)
1720 – William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1764)
1735 – Nathaniel Dance-Holland, English painter and politician (d. 1811)
1737 – Edward Gibbon, English historian and politician (d. 1794)
1745 – Carl Stamitz, German violinist and composer (d. 1801)
1753 – Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, Mexican priest and rebel leader (d. 1811)
1786 – John Vianney, French priest and saint (d. 1859)
1815 – Edward Tompkins, American lawyer and politician (d. 1872)
1818 – Samuel Leonard Tilley, Canadian pharmacist and politician, 3rd Premier of New Brunswick (d. 1896)
1821 – William Henry Vanderbilt, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1885)
1824 – William Walker, American physician, lawyer, journalist and mercenary (d. 1860)
1825 – George Bruce Malleson, English-Indian colonel and author (d. 1898)
1828 – Henry Dunant, Swiss businessman and activist, co-founded the Red Cross, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1910)
1828 – Charbel Makhluf, Lebanese monk and saint (d. 1898)
1829 – Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American pianist and composer (d. 1869)
1835 – Bertalan Székely, Hungarian painter and academic (d. 1910)
1839 – Adolphe-Basile Routhier, Canadian judge, author, and songwriter (d. 1920)
1842 – Emil Christian Hansen, Danish physiologist and mycologist (d. 1909)
1846 – Oscar Hammerstein I, American businessman and composer (d. 1919)
1850 – Ross Barnes, American baseball player and manager (d. 1915)
1853 – Dan Brouthers, American baseball player and manager (d. 1932)
1856 – Pedro Lascuráin, Mexican politician, president for 45 minutes on February 13, 1913. (d. 1952)
1858 – Heinrich Berté, Slovak-Austrian composer (d. 1924)
1858 – J. Meade Falkner, English author and poet (d. 1932)
1859 – Johan Jensen, Danish mathematician and engineer (d. 1925)
1867 – Margarete Böhme, German novelist (d. 1939)
1879 – Wesley Coe, American shot putter, discus thrower, and tug of war competitor (d. 1926)
1884 – Harry S. Truman, American colonel and politician, 33rd President of the United States (d. 1972)
1885 – Thomas B. Costain, Canadian journalist and author (d. 1965)
1892 – Adriaan Pelt, Dutch journalist and diplomat (d. 1981)
1893 – Francis Ouimet, American golfer (d. 1967)
1893 – Edd Roush, American baseball player and coach (d. 1988)
1893 – Teddy Wakelam, English rugby player and sportscaster (d. 1963)
1895 – James H. Kindelberger, American businessman (d. 1962)
1895 – Fulton J. Sheen, American archbishop (d. 1979)
1895 – Edmund Wilson, American critic, essayist, and editor (d. 1972)
1898 – Aloysius Stepinac, Croatian cardinal (d. 1960)
1899 – Arthur Q. Bryan, American actor, voice actor, comedian and radio personality (d. 1959)
1899 – Friedrich Hayek, Austrian economist and philosopher, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1992)
1899 – Jacques Heim, French fashion designer (d. 1967)
1901 – Turkey Stearnes, American baseball player (d. 1979)
1902 – André Michel Lwoff, French microbiologist and physician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1994)
1903 – Fernandel, French actor and singer (d. 1971)
1903 – Mary Stewart, Baroness Stewart of Alvechurch, British politician and educator (d. 1984)
1904 – John Snagge, English journalist (d. 1996)
1905 – Red Nichols, American cornet player, composer, and bandleader (d. 1965)
1906 – Roberto Rossellini, Italian director and screenwriter (d. 1977)
1910 – George Male, English footballer (d. 1998)
1910 – Andrew E. Svenson, American author and publisher (d. 1975)
1910 – Mary Lou Williams, American pianist and composer (d. 1981)
1911 – Wilhelm Friedrich de Gaay Fortman, Dutch jurist and politician, Dutch Minister of The Interior (d. 1997)
1911 – Robert Johnson, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1938)
1912 – George Woodcock, Canadian author and poet (d. 1995)
1913 – Bob Clampett, American animator, director, and producer (d. 1984)
1913 – Sid James, South African-English actor and singer (d. 1976)
1915 – Milton Meltzer, American historian and author (d. 2009)
1916 – João Havelange, Brazilian water polo player, lawyer, and businessman (d. 2016)
1916 – Chinmayananda Saraswati, Indian spiritual leader and educator (d. 1993)
1916 – Ramananda Sengupta, Indian cinematographer (d. 2017)
1917 – John Anderson, Jr., American lawyer and politician, 36th Governor of Kansas (d. 2014)
1919 – Lex Barker, American actor (d. 1973)
1920 – Saul Bass, American graphic designer and director (d. 1996)
1920 – Tom of Finland, Finnish illustrator (d. 1991)
1920 – Sloan Wilson, American author and poet (d. 2003)
1920 – Gordon McClymont, Australian ecologist and academic (d. 2000)
1922 – Mary Q. Steele, American naturalist and author (d. 1992)
1924 – S. Vithiananthan, Sri Lankan author and academic (d. 1989)
1925 – Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Tanzanian politician, 2nd President of Tanzania
1926 – David Attenborough, English environmentalist and television host
1926 – David Hurst, German actor (d. 2019)
1926 – Don Rickles, American comedian and actor (d. 2017)
1927 – Chumy Chúmez, Spanish actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2003)
1927 – László Paskai, Hungarian cardinal (d. 2015)
1928 – Robert Conley, American journalist (d. 2013)
1928 – Ted Sorensen, American lawyer, 8th White House Counsel (d. 2010)
1929 – Ethel D. Allen, American physician and politician (d. 1981)
1929 – Girija Devi, Indian classical singer (d. 2017)
1929 – Claude Castonguay, Canadian banker and politician
1929 – Miyoshi Umeki, Japanese-American actress and singer (d. 2007)
1930 – Heather Harper, Northern Irish soprano (d. 2019)
1930 – Doug Atkins, American football player (d. 2015)
1930 – René Maltête, French photographer and poet (d. 2000)
1930 – Gary Snyder, American poet, essayist, and translator
1932 – Julieta Campos, Cuban-Mexican author and translator (d. 2007)
1932 – Phyllida Law, Scottish actress
1932 – Harry Wells, Australian rugby league player
1934 – Leonard Hoffmann, Baron Hoffmann, South African-English lawyer and judge
1934 – Maurice Norman, English footballer
1934 – David Williamson, Baron Williamson of Horton, English soldier and politician (d. 2015)
1935 – Lucius Cary, 15th Viscount Falkland, Scottish politician
1935 – Princess Elisabeth of Denmark (d. 2018)
1935 – Jack Charlton, English footballer and manager
1936 – Kazuo Koike, Japanese author
1936 – Haljand Udam, Estonian orientalist and academic (d. 2005)
1937 – Bernard Cleary, Canadian journalist, academic, and politician
1937 – Mike Cuellar, Cuban-American baseball player (d. 2010)
1937 – Carlos Gaviria Díaz, Colombian lawyer and politician (d. 2015)
1937 – Thomas Pynchon, American novelist
1938 – Javed Burki, Indian-Pakistani cricketer
1938 – Jean Giraud, French author and illustrator (d. 2012)
1939 – Paul Drayton, American sprinter (d. 2010)
1940 – Peter Benchley, American author and screenwriter (d. 2006)
1940 – James Blyth, Baron Blyth of Rowington, English businessman and academic
1940 – Irwin Cotler, Canadian lawyer and politician, 47th Canadian Minister of Justice
Earliest day on which Father’s Day can fall, while May 14 is the latest; celebrated on the second Sunday of May. (Romania)
Earliest day on which Mother’s Day can fall, while May 14 is the latest; celebrated on the second Sunday of May. (United States and others)
Earliest day on which State Flag and State Emblem Day can fall, while May 14 is the latest; celebrated on the second Sunday of May. (Belarus)
Earliest day on which World Fair Trade Day can fall, while May 14 is the latest; celebrated on the second Saturday of May (site of the WFTO) (International)
Emancipation Day (Columbus, Mississippi)
Furry Dance (Helston, UK)
Liberation Day (Czech Republic)
Miguel Hidalgo’s birthday (Mexico)
Parents’ Day (South Korea)
Truman Day (Missouri)
Veterans Day (Norway)
Victory in Europe Day, and its related observances (Europe):
Time of Remembrance and Reconciliation for Those Who Lost Their Lives during the Second World War, continues to May 9
White Lotus Day (Theosophy)
World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day (International)
351 – The Jewish revolt against Constantius Gallus breaks out after his arrival at Antioch.
558 – In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapses, twenty years after its construction. Justinian I immediately orders that the dome be rebuilt.
1274 – In France, the Second Council of Lyon opens to regulate the election of the Pope.
1487 – The Siege of Málaga commences during the Spanish Reconquista.
1544 – The Burning of Edinburgh by an English army is the first action of the Rough Wooing.
1664 – Louis XIV of France begins construction of the Palace of Versailles.
1685 – Battle of Vrtijeljka between rebels and Ottoman forces.
1697 – Stockholm’s royal castle (dating back to medieval times) is destroyed by fire. It is replaced in the 18th century by the current Royal Palace.
1718 – The city of New Orleans is founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville.
1763 – Pontiac’s War begins with Pontiac’s attempt to seize Fort Detroit from the British.
1794 – French Revolution: Robespierre introduces the Cult of the Supreme Being in the National Convention as the new state religion of the French First Republic.
1824 – World premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Austria. The performance is conducted by Michael Umlauf under the composer’s supervision.
1832 – Greece’s independence is recognized by the Treaty of London.
1840 – The Great Natchez Tornado strikes Natchez, Mississippi killing 317 people. It is the second deadliest tornado in United States history.
1846 – The Cambridge Chronicle, America’s oldest surviving weekly newspaper, is published for the first time in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1864 – American Civil War: The Army of the Potomac, under General Ulysses S. Grant, breaks off from the Battle of the Wilderness and moves southwards.
1864 – The world’s oldest surviving clipper ship, the City of Adelaide is launched by William Pile, Hay and Co. in Sunderland, England, for transporting passengers and goods between Britain and Australia.
1895 – In Saint Petersburg, Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrates to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society his invention, the Popov lightning detector—a primitive radio receiver. In some parts of the former Soviet Union the anniversary of this day is celebrated as Radio Day.
1915 – World War I: German submarine U-20 sinks RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. Public reaction to the sinking turns many former pro-Germans in the United States against the German Empire.
1915 – The Republic of China accedes to 13 of the 21 Demands, extending the Empire of Japan‘s control over Manchuria and the Chinese economy.
1920 – Kiev Offensive: Polish troops led by Józef Piłsudski and Edward Rydz-Śmigły and assisted by a symbolic Ukrainian force capture Kiev only to be driven out by the Red Army counter-offensive a month later.
1920 – Treaty of Moscow: Soviet Russia recognizes the independence of the Democratic Republic of Georgia only to invade the country six months later.
1920 – Morecambe Football Club was founded during a meeting at the West View Hotel on the town’s promenade.
1930 – The 7.1 Mw Salmas earthquake shakes northwestern Iran and southeastern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). Up to three-thousand people were killed.
1931 – The stand-off between criminal Francis Crowley and 300 members of the New York Police Department takes place in his fifth-floor apartment on West 91st Street, New York City.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: The German Condor Legion, equipped with Heinkel He 51 biplanes, arrives in Spain to assist Francisco Franco’s forces.
1940 – World War II: The Norway Debate in the British House of Commons begins, and leads to the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with Winston Churchill three days later.
1942 – World War II: During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attack and sink the Imperial Japanese Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō; the battle marks the first time in naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.
1945 – World War II: Last German U boat attack of the war, two freighters are sunk off the Firth of Forth, Scotland.
1945 – World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany’s participation in the war. The document takes effect the next day.
1946 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (later renamed Sony) is founded
1948 – The Council of Europe is founded during the Hague Congress.
1952 – The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey Dummer.
1954 – Indochina War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat and a Viet Minh victory (the battle began on March 13).
1960 – Cold War: U-2 Crisis of 1960: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers.
1976 – The Honda Accord is officially launched.
1986 – Canadian Patrick Morrow becomes the first person to climb each of the Seven Summits.
1992 – Michigan ratifies a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the United States Constitution making the 27th Amendment law. This amendment bars the U.S. Congress from giving itself a mid-term pay raise.
1992 – Space Shuttle program: The Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on its first mission, STS-49.
1992 – Three employees at a McDonald’s Restaurant in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, are brutally murdered and a fourth permanently disabled after a botched robbery. It is the first “fast-food murder” in Canada.
1994 – Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream is recovered undamaged after being stolen from the National Gallery of Norway in February.
1998 – Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for US$40 billion and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history.
1999 – Pope John Paul II travels to Romania, becoming the first pope to visit a predominantly Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism in 1054.
1999 – Kosovo War: Three Chinese citizens are killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft apparently inadvertently bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Serbia.
1999 – In Guinea-Bissau, President João Bernardo Vieira is ousted in a military coup.
2000 – Vladimir Putin is inaugurated as president of Russia.
2002 – An EgyptAir Boeing 737-500 crashes on approach to Tunis–Carthage International Airport, killing 14 people.
2002 – A China Northern Airlines MD-82 plunges into the Yellow Sea, killing 112 people.
2004 – American businessman Nick Berg is beheaded by Islamic militants. The act is recorded on videotape and released on the Internet.
Births on May 7
Before 160 – Julia Maesa, Roman noblewoman (d. 224)
1488 – John III of the Palatinate, archbishop of Regensburg (d. 1538)
1530 – Louis, Prince of Condé (d. 1569)
1553 – Albert Frederick, Duke of Prussia (d. 1618)
1605 – Patriarch Nikon of Moscow (d. 1681)
1643 – Stephanus Van Cortlandt, American politician, 10th Mayor of New York City (d. 1700)
1700 – Gerard van Swieten, Dutch-Austrian physician (d. 1772)
1701 – Carl Heinrich Graun, German tenor and composer (d. 1759)
1711 – David Hume, Scottish economist, historian, and philosopher (d. 1776)
1724 – Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, French-Austrian field marshal (d. 1797)
1740 – Nikolai Arkharov, Russian police officer and general (d. 1814)
1748 – Olympe de Gouges, French playwright and philosopher (d. 1793)
1763 – Józef Poniatowski, Polish general (d. 1813)
1767 – Princess Frederica Charlotte of Prussia (d. 1820)
1774 – William Bainbridge, American commodore (d. 1833)
1787 – Jacques Viger, Canadian archaeologist and politician, 1st mayor of Montreal (d. 1858)
1812 – Robert Browning, English poet and playwright (d. 1889)
1833 – Johannes Brahms, German pianist and composer (d. 1897)
1836 – Joseph Gurney Cannon, American lawyer and politician, 40th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (d. 1926)
1837 – Karl Mauch, German geographer and explorer (d. 1875)
1840 – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer and educator (d. 1893)
1845 – Mary Eliza Mahoney, American nurse and activist (d. 1926)
1847 – Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1929)
1857 – William A. MacCorkle, American lawyer and politician, 9th Governor of West Virginia (d. 1930)
1860 – Tom Norman, English businessman (d. 1930)
1861 – Rabindranath Tagore, Indian author and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1941)
1867 – Władysław Reymont, Polish novelist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1925)
1875 – Bill Hoyt, American pole vaulter (d. 1951)
1880 – Pandurang Vaman Kane, Indologist and Sanskrit scholar, Bharat Ratna awardee (d. 1972)
1881 – George E. Wiley, American cyclist (d. 1954)
1882 – Willem Elsschot, Belgian author and poet (d. 1960)
1885 – George “Gabby” Hayes, American actor (d. 1969)
1889 – Viktor Puskar, Estonian colonel (d. 1943)
1891 – Harry McShane, Scottish engineer and activist (d. 1988)
1892 – Archibald MacLeish, American poet, playwright, and lawyer (d. 1982)
1892 – Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslav field marshal and politician, 1st President of Yugoslavia (d. 1980)
1893 – Frank J. Selke, Canadian ice hockey coach and manager (d. 1985)
1896 – Kathleen McKane Godfree, English tennis and badminton player (d. 1992)
1899 – Alfred Gerrard, English sculptor and academic (d. 1998)
1901 – Gary Cooper, American actor (d. 1961)
1903 – Jimmy Ball, Canadian sprinter (d. 1988)
1904 – Kurt Weitzmann, German-American historian and author (d. 1993)
1906 – Eric Krenz, American discus thrower and shot putter (d. 1931)
1909 – Edwin H. Land, American scientist and inventor, co-founded the Polaroid Corporation (d. 1991)
1909 – Dorothy Sunrise Lorentino, Native American teacher (d. 2005)
1911 – Ishirō Honda, Japanese director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1993)
1911 – Rıfat Ilgaz, Turkish author, poet, and educator (d. 1993)
1912 – Pannalal Patel, Indian author (d. 1989)
1913 – John Spencer Hardy, American general (d. 2012)
1913 – Simon Ramo, American physicist and engineer (d. 2016)
1914 – Arthur Snelling, English civil servant and diplomat. British Ambassador to South Africa (d. 1996)
1916 – Huw Wheldon, Welsh-English broadcaster (d. 1986)
1916 – W. B. Young, Scottish rugby player and physician (d. 2013)
1917 – Domenico Bartolucci, Italian cardinal and composer (d. 2013)
1917 – Lenox Hewitt, Australian public servant (d. 2020)
1917 – David Tomlinson, English actor (d. 2000)
1919 – Eva Perón, Argentinian actress, 25th First Lady of Argentina (d. 1952)
1920 – Rendra Karno, Indonesian actor (d. 1985)
1921 – Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs, English historian and academic (d. 2016)
1921 – Gaston Rébuffat, French mountaineer and author (d. 1985)
1922 – Darren McGavin, American actor and director (d. 2006)
1922 – Joe O’Donnell, American photographer and journalist (d. 2007)
1923 – Anne Baxter, American actress (d. 1985)
1923 – Jim Lowe, American singer-songwriter, disc jockey, and radio host (d. 2016)
1923 – Bülent Ulusu, Turkish admiral and politician, 18th Prime Minister of Turkey (d. 2015)
1924 – Albert Band, French-American director and producer (d. 2002)
1925 – Lauri Vaska, Estonian-American chemist and academic (d. 2015)
1927 – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, German-American author and screenwriter (d. 2013)
1929 – Dick Williams, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 2011)
1930 – Totie Fields, American comedian and author (d. 1978)
1930 – Babe Parilli, American football player and coach (d. 2017)
1930 – John Smith, Baron Kirkhill, English politician
1931 – Teresa Brewer, American singer (d. 2007)
1931 – Gene Wolfe, American author (d. 2019)
1932 – Jordi Bonet, Spanish-Canadian painter and sculptor (d. 1979)
1932 – Alan Cuthbert, English pharmacologist and academic (d. 2016)
1932 – Pete Domenici, American lawyer and politician, 37th Mayor of Albuquerque (d. 2017)
1932 – Derek Taylor, English journalist and author (d. 1997)
1933 – Johnny Unitas, American football player and sportscaster (d. 2002)
1935 – Avraham Heffner, Israeli actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2014)
1935 – Michael Hopkins, English architect
1936 – Robin Hanbury-Tenison, English explorer and author
1936 – Tony O’Reilly, Irish rugby player and businessman
1936 – Jimmy Ruffin, American soul singer (d. 2014)
1937 – Eddie Clayton, English footballer
1937 – Claude Raymond, Canadian baseball player and coach
1939 – Sidney Altman, Canadian-American biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1939 – Ruggero Deodato, Italian actor, director, and screenwriter
1939 – Ruud Lubbers, Dutch economist and politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 2018)
1939 – Johnny Maestro, American pop/doo-wop singer (d. 2010)
1939 – Clive Soley, Baron Soley, English politician
1940 – Angela Carter, English novelist and short story writer (d. 1992)
1940 – Dave Chambers, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1941 – Lawrence Collins, Baron Collins of Mapesbury, English lawyer and judge
1943 – Terry Allen, American singer and painter
1943 – Harvey Andrews, English singer-songwriter and poet
1943 – John Bannon, Australian academic and politician, 39th Premier of South Australia (d. 2015)
1943 – Peter Carey, Australian novelist and short story writer
1945 – Christy Moore, Irish singer-songwriter and guitarist
1945 – Robin Strasser, American actress
1946 – Thelma Houston, American R&B/disco singer and actress
1946 – Marv Hubbard, American football player (d. 2015)
1946 – Bill Kreutzmann, American drummer
1946 – Michael Rosen, English author and poet
1946 – Brian Turner, English chef and television host
1949 – Kathy Ahern, American golfer (d. 1996)
1949 – Deborah Butterfield, American sculptor
1950 – John Dowling Coates, Australian lawyer, sports administrator and businessman
1950 – Randall “Tex” Cobb, American boxer and actor
1950 – Tim Russert, American television journalist and lawyer (d. 2008)
1953 – Pat McInally, American football player and coach
1953 – Ian McKay, English sergeant, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1982)
1954 – Philippe Geluck, Belgian cartoonist
1954 – Joanna Haigh, English meteorologist and physicist
1954 – Amy Heckerling, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1955 – Clément Gignac, Canadian politician
1955 – Ben Poquette, American basketball player
1955 – Axel Zwingenberger, German pianist and songwriter
1956 – Jan Peter Balkenende, Dutch jurist and politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
1956 – Anne Dudley, English pianist and composer
1956 – Nicholas Hytner, English director and producer
1956 – Jean Lapierre, Canadian talk show host and politician
1956 – Calum MacDonald, Scottish journalist and politician
1957 – Kristina M. Johnson, American business executive, engineer, academic and government official
1958 – Mikhail Biryukov, Russian footballer and manager
1958 – Mark G. Kuzyk, American physicist and academic
1958 – Anne Marie Rafferty, English nurse and academic
1959 – Michael E. Knight, American actor
1959 – Tony Sealy, English footballer, forward and manager
1959 – Heiki Valk, Estonian archeologist and academic
1960 – Adam Bernstein, American director and screenwriter
1960 – Ara Darzi, Baron Darzi of Denham, Iraqi-English surgeon and academic
1960 – Almudena Grandes, Spanish author
1961 – Hans-Peter Bartels, German politician
1961 – Sue Black, Scottish anthropologist and academic
1961 – Ivar Must, Estonian composer and producer
1962 – Tony Campbell, American basketball player and coach
1962 – Judith Donath, American computer scientist and academic
1963 – Johnny Lee Middleton, American bass player and songwriter
1964 – Ronnie Harmon, American football player
1964 – Denis Mandarino, Brazilian guitarist, composer, and painter
1964 – Leslie O’Neal, American football player
1965 – Reuben Davis, American football player
1965 – Owen Hart, Canadian wrestler (d. 1999)
1965 – Norman Whiteside, Northern Irish footballer and manager
1965 – Huang Zhihong, Chinese shot putter
1967 – Martin Bryant, Australian mass murderer
1967 – Adam Price, Danish chef and screenwriter
1967 – Joe Rice, American colonel and politician
1968 – Traci Lords, American actress and singer
1968 – Lisa Raitt, Canadian lawyer and politician, 30th Canadian Minister of Transport
1969 – Eagle-Eye Cherry, Swedish singer-songwriter
1969 – Jun Falkenstein, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1969 – Katerina Maleeva, Bulgarian tennis player
1971 – Reidar Horghagen, Norwegian drummer
1971 – Dave Karpa, Canadian ice hockey player
1971 – Thomas Piketty, French economist
1972 – Peter Dubovský, Czech-Slovak footballer (d. 2000)
1972 – Frank Trigg, American mixed martial artist and wrestler
1973 – Kristian Lundin, Swedish songwriter and producer
1973 – Paolo Savoldelli, Italian cyclist
1974 – Ian Pearce, English footballer and assistant manager
1973 – Lawrence Johnson, American pole vaulter
1975 – Ashley Cowan, English cricketer
1976 – Calvin Booth, American basketball player
1976 – Berke Hatipoğlu, Turkish guitarist and songwriter
1976 – Stacey Jones, New Zealand rugby league player
1976 – Andrea Lo Cicero, Italian rugby player
1976 – Michael P. Murphy, American lieutenant, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 2005)
1976 – Ayelet Shaked, Israeli Minister of Justice (2015-2019)
1977 – Elton Flatley, Australian rugby player
1978 – Stian Arnesen, Norwegian guitarist, drummer, and songwriter
1978 – James Carter, American hurdler
1978 – Shawn Marion, American basketball player
1979 – Katie Douglas, American basketball player
1983 – Phionah Atuhebwe, Ugandan vaccinologist and immunization expert
1984 – James Loney, American baseball player
1984 – Alex Smith, American football player
1984 – Kevin Owens, Canadian wrestler
1985 – Jarrad Hickey, Australian rugby league player
1985 – Drew Neitzel, American basketball player
1986 – Matt Helders, English drummer
1987 – Asami Konno, Japanese singer
1987 – Michael Maidens, English footballer (d. 2007)
1987 – Mark Reynolds, Scottish footballer
1987 – David Schlemko, Canadian ice hockey player
1988 – Eino Puri, Estonian footballer
1988 – Sander Puri, Estonian footballer
1989 – Earl Thomas, American football player
1995 – Seko Fofana, French born Ivorian international footballer
1997 – Daria Kasatkina, Russian tennis player
1998 – Jesse Puljujärvi, Finnish ice hockey player
Deaths on May 7
721 – John of Beverley, bishop of York
833 – Ibn Hisham, Egyptian Muslim historian
973 – Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 912)
1014 – Bagrat III, 1st King of Georgia (b. 960)
1092 – Remigius de Fécamp, English monk and bishop
1166 – William I of Sicily
1202 – Hamelin de Warenne, Earl of Surrey
1205 – Ladislaus III of Hungary (b. 1201)
1234 – Otto I, Duke of Merania (b. c. 1180)
1243 – Hugh d’Aubigny, 5th Earl of Arundel
1427 – Thomas la Warr, 5th Baron De La Warr, English priest (b. 1352)
1494 – Eskender, Emperor of Ethiopia (b. 1471)
1523 – Franz von Sickingen, German knight (b. 1481)
1539 – Ottaviano Petrucci, Italian printer (b. 1466)
1617 – David Fabricius, German astronomer and theologian (b. 1564)
1667 – Johann Jakob Froberger, German organist and composer (b. 1616)
1682 – Feodor III of Russia (b. 1661)
1685 – Bajo Pivljanin (b. 1630)
1718 – Mary of Modena (b. 1658)
1793 – Pietro Nardini, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1722)
1800 – Niccolò Piccinni, Italian composer (b. 1728)
1805 – William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, Irish-English general and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1737)
1815 – Jabez Bowen, American colonel and politician, 45th Deputy Governor of Rhode Island (b. 1739)
1825 – Antonio Salieri, Italian composer and conductor (b. 1750)
1840 – Caspar David Friedrich, German painter and educator (b. 1774)
1868 – Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, Scottish lawyer and politician, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1778)
1872 – Alexander Loyd, American carpenter and politician, 4th Mayor of Chicago (b. 1805)
1876 – William Buell Sprague, American clergyman, historian, and author (b. 1795)
1887 – C. F. W. Walther, German-American religious leader and theologian (b. 1811)
1896 – H. H. Holmes, American serial killer (b. 1861)
1902 – Agostino Roscelli, Italian priest and saint (b. 1818)
1917 – Albert Ball, English fighter pilot (b. 1896)
1922 – Max Wagenknecht, German pianist and composer (b. 1857)
1924 – Alluri Sitarama Raju, Indian activist (b. 1897/1898)
1925 – William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, English businessman and politician (b. 1851)
1937 – Ernst A. Lehmann, German captain and author (b. 1886)
1938 – Octavian Goga, Romanian politician, former Prime Minister (b. 1881)
1940 – George Lansbury, English journalist and politician (b. 1859)
1941 – James George Frazer, Scottish-English anthropologist and academic (b. 1854)
1942 – Felix Weingartner, Croatian pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1863)
1943 – Fethi Okyar, Turkish colonel and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Turkey (b. 1880)
1946 – Herbert Macaulay, Nigerian journalist and politician (b. 1864)
1951 – Warner Baxter, American actor (b. 1889)
1967 – Margaret Larkin, American writer and poet (b. 1899)
1958 – Mihkel Lüdig, Estonian organist, composer, and conductor (b. 1880)
1976 – Alison Uttley, English children’s book writer (b. 1884)
1978 – Mort Weisinger, American journalist and author (b. 1915)
1986 – Haldun Taner, Turkish playwright and author (b. 1915)
1987 – Colin Blakely, Northern Irish actor (b. 1930)
1987 – Paul Popham, American soldier and activist, co-founded Gay Men’s Health Crisis (b. 1941)
1990 – Sam Tambimuttu, Sri Lankan lawyer and politician (b. 1932)
1994 – Clement Greenberg, American art critic (b. 1909)
1995 – Ray McKinley, American drummer, singer, and bandleader (Glenn Miller Orchestra) (b. 1910)
1998 – Allan McLeod Cormack, South African-English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1924)
1998 – Eddie Rabbitt, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1941)
2000 – Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., American captain, actor, and producer (b. 1909)
2001 – Jacques de Bourbon-Busset, French author and politician (b. 1912)
1527 – Spanish and German troops sack Rome; many scholars consider this the end of the Renaissance.
1536 – The Siege of Cuzco commences, in which Incan forces attempt to retake the city of Cuzco from the Spanish.
1536 – King Henry VIII orders English-language Bibles be placed in every church. In 1539 the Great Bible would be provided for this purpose.
1542 – Francis Xavier reaches Old Goa, the capital of Portuguese India at the time.
1659 – English Restoration: A faction of the British Army removes Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth and reinstalls the Rump Parliament.
1682 – Louis XIV of France moves his court to the Palace of Versailles.
1757 – Battle of Prague: A Prussian army fights an Austrian army in Prague during the Seven Years’ War.
1757 – The end of Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War, and the end of Burmese Civil War (1740–1757).
1757 – English poet Christopher Smart is admitted into St Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics in London, beginning his six-year confinement to mental asylums.
1782 – Construction begins on the Grand Palace, the royal residence of the King of Siam in Bangkok, at the command of King Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke.
1801 – Captain Thomas Cochrane in the 14-gun HMS Speedy captures the 32-gun Spanish frigate El Gamo.
1835 – James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald.
1840 – The Penny Black postage stamp becomes valid for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1857 – The East India Company disbands the 34th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry whose sepoy Mangal Pandey had earlier revolted against the British in the lead up to the War of Indian Independence.
1861 – American Civil War: Arkansas secedes from the Union.
1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville ends with the defeat of the Army of the Potomac by the Army of Northern Virginia.
1877 – Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Lakota surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.
1882 – Thomas Henry Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish are stabbed to death by Fenian assassins in Phoenix Park, Dublin.
1882 – The United States Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act.
1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.
1906 – The Russian Constitution of 1906 is adopted (on April 23 by the Julian calendar).
1910 – George V becomes King of Great Britain, Ireland, and many overseas territories, on the death of his father, Edward VII.
1915 – Babe Ruth, then a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, hits his first major league home run.
1916 – Twenty-one Lebanese nationalists are executed in Martyrs’ Square, Beirut by Djemal Pasha.
1916 – Vietnamese Emperor Duy Tân is captured while calling upon the people to rise up against the French, and is later deposed and exiled to Réunion island.
1933 – The Deutsche Studentenschaft attacked Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, later burning many of its books.
1935 – New Deal: Under the authority of the newly-enacted Federal Emergency Relief Administration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Executive Order 7034 to create the Works Progress Administration.
1937 – Hindenburg disaster: The German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people are killed.
1940 – John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.
1941 – At California’s March Field, Bob Hope performs his first USO show.
1941 – The first flight of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.
1942 – World War II: On Corregidor, the last American forces in the Philippines surrender to the Japanese.
1945 – World War II: Axis Sally delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.
1945 – World War II: The Prague Offensive, the last major battle of the Eastern Front, begins.
1949 – EDSAC, the first practical electronic digital stored-program computer, runs its first operation.
1954 – Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.
1960 – More than 20 million viewers watch the first televised royal wedding when Princess Margaret marries Anthony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey.
1966 – Myra Hindley and Ian Brady are sentenced to life imprisonment for the Moors murders in England.
1972 – Deniz Gezmiş, Yusuf Aslan and Hüseyin İnan are executed in Ankara after being convicted of attempting to overthrow the Constitutional order.
1975 – During a lull in fighting, 100,000 Armenians gather in Beirut for the 60th anniversary commemorations of the Armenian Genocide.
1976 – The 6.5 Mw Friuli earthquake affected Northern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), leaving 900–978 dead and 1,700–2,400 injured.
1983 – The Hitler Diaries are revealed as a hoax after being examined by new experts.
1984 – One hundred three Korean Martyrs are canonized by Pope John Paul II in Seoul.
1988 – All thirty-six passengers and crew were killed when Widerøe Flight 710 crashed into Mt. Torghatten in Brønnøy.
1994 – Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand officiate at the opening of the Channel Tunnel.
1996 – The body of former CIA director William Colby is found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared.
1997 – The Bank of England is given independence from political control, the most significant change in the bank’s 300-year history.
1998 – Kerry Wood strikes out 20 Houston Astros to tie the major league record held by Roger Clemens. He threw a one-hitter and did not walk a batter in his fifth career start.
1998 – Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. unveils the first iMac.
1999 – The first elections to the devolved Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly are held.
2001 – During a trip to Syria, Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to enter a mosque.
2002 – Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is assassinated following a radio-interview at the Mediapark in Hilversum.
2010 – In just 36 minutes, the Dow-Jones average plunged nearly 1000 points in what is known as the 2010 Flash Crash.
2013 – Three women, kidnapped and missing for more than a decade, are found alive in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States.
Births on May 6
973 – Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1024)
1464 – Sophia Jagiellon, Margravine of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Polish princess (d. 1512)
1493 – Girolamo Seripando, Italian theologian and cardinal (d. 1563)
1501 – Marcellus II, pope of the Catholic Church (d. 1555)
1574 – Innocent X, pope of the Catholic Church (d. 1655)
1580 – Charles Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua and Montferrat, French noble (d. 1637)
1635 – Johann Joachim Becher, German physician and alchemist (d. 1682)
1668 – Alain-René Lesage, French author and playwright (d. 1747)
1680 – Jean-Baptiste Stuck, Italian-French cellist and composer (d. 1755)
1713 – Charles Batteux, French philosopher and academic (d. 1780)
1714 – Anton Raaff, German tenor (d. 1797)
1742 – Jean Senebier, Swiss pastor and physiologist (d. 1809)
1758 – André Masséna, French general (d. 1817)
1758 – Maximilien Robespierre, French lawyer and politician (d. 1794)
1769 – Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1824)
1769 – Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette, French mathematician and academic (d. 1834)
1781 – Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, German philosopher and author (d. 1832)
1797 – Joseph Brackett, American religious leader and composer (d. 1882)
1800 – Roman Sanguszko, Polish general (d. 1881)
1827 – Hermann Raster, German-American journalist and politician (d. 1891)
1836 – Max Eyth, German engineer and author (d. 1906)
1843 – Grove Karl Gilbert, American geologist and academic (d. 1918)
1848 – Henry Edward Armstrong, English chemist and academic (d. 1937)
1851 – Aristide Bruant, French singer and actor (d. 1925)
1856 – Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst (d. 1939)
1856 – Robert Peary, American admiral and explorer (d. 1920)
1861 – Motilal Nehru, Indian lawyer and politician, President of the Indian National Congress (d. 1931)
1868 – Gaston Leroux, French journalist and author (d. 1927)
1869 – Junnosuke Inoue, Japanese businessman and central banker, 8th and 11th Governor of the Bank of Japan (d. 1932)
1870 – Walter Rutherford, Scottish golfer (d. 1936)
1871 – Victor Grignard, French chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1935)
1871 – Christian Morgenstern, German author and poet (d. 1914)
1872 – Willem de Sitter, Dutch mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (d. 1934)
1872 – Djemal Pasha, Ottoman general (d. 1922)
1879 – Bedřich Hrozný, Czech orientalist and linguist (d. 1952)
1879 – Hendrik van Heuckelum, Dutch footballer (d. 1929)
1880 – Winifred Brunton, English-South African painter and illustrator (d. 1959)
1880 – Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, German-Swiss painter (d. 1938)
1883 – Alberto Collo, Italian actor (d. 1955)
1895 – Júlio César de Mello e Souza, Brazilian mathematician and author (d. 1974)
1895 – Fidél Pálffy, Hungarian soldier and politician, Hungarian Minister of Agriculture (d. 1946)
1895 – Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor (d. 1926)
1896 – Rolf Maximilian Sievert, Swedish physicist and academic (d. 1966)
1897 – Paul Alverdes, German author and poet (d. 1979)
1898 – Konrad Henlein, Czech soldier and politician (d. 1945)
1902 – Harry Golden, Ukrainian-American journalist and author (d. 1981)
1902 – Max Ophüls, German-American director and screenwriter (d. 1957)
1903 – Toots Shor, American businessman, founded Toots Shor’s Restaurant (d. 1977)
1904 – Moshé Feldenkrais, Ukrainian-Israeli physicist and academic (d. 1984)
1904 – Catherine Lacey, English actress (d. 1979)
1904 – Harry Martinson, Swedish novelist, essayist, and poet Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1978)
1905 – Philip N. Krasne, American lawyer and producer (d. 1999)
1906 – André Weil, French mathematician and academic (d. 1998)
1907 – Weeb Ewbank, American football player and coach (d. 1998)
1911 – Guy des Cars, French journalist and author (d. 1993)
1913 – Carmen Cavallaro, American pianist (d. 1989)
1913 – Stewart Granger, English-American actor (d. 1993)
1915 – Orson Welles, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1985)
1915 – Theodore H. White, American historian, journalist, and author (d. 1986)
1916 – Robert H. Dicke, American physicist and astronomer (d. 1997)
1917 – Kal Mann, American songwriter (d. 2001)
1918 – Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, emir of Abu Dhabi and first president of the United Arab Emirates (d. 2004)
1919 – André Guelfi, French race car driver (d. 2016)
1920 – Kamisese Mara, Fijian politician, 1st Prime Minister of Fiji (d. 2004)
1920 – Marguerite Piazza, American soprano and actress (d. 2012)
1921 – Erich Fried, Austrian-German author, poet, and translator (d. 1988)
1922 – Camille Laurin, Canadian psychiatrist and politician, 7th Deputy Premier of Quebec (d. 1999)
1923 – Harry Watson, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (d. 2002)
1924 – Nestor Basterretxea, Spanish painter and sculptor (d. 2014)
1924 – Patricia Helen Kennedy, American socialite, activist, and author (d. 2006)
1924 – Denny Wright, English guitarist, composer, and producer (d. 1992)
1926 – Gilles Grégoire, Canadian politician, co-founded the Parti Québécois (d. 2006)
1929 – Rosemary Cramp, English archaeologist and academic
1929 – Paul Lauterbur, American chemist and biophysicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2007)
1929 – John Taylor, English bishop and theologian (d. 2016)
1931 – Willie Mays, American baseball player and coach
1931 – Louis Gambaccini, American government official (d. 2018)
1932 – Ahmet Haxhiu, Kosovan activist (d. 1994)
1932 – Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, English lieutenant and politician (d. 2020)
1934 – Richard Shelby, American lawyer and politician
1937 – Rubin Carter, American-Canadian boxer (d. 2014)
1938 – Jean Garon, Canadian economist, lawyer, and politician (d. 2014)
1939 – Eddie C. Campbell, American singer and guitarist (d. 2018)
1939 – Chet Allen, American child actor (d. 1984)
1942 – Ariel Dorfman, Argentinian author, playwright, and academic
1943 – Andreas Baader, German terrorist, co-founded the Red Army Faction (d. 1977)
1943 – Milton William Cooper, American theorist and author (d. 2001)
1943 – Wolfgang Reinhardt, German pole vaulter (d. 2011)
1943 – James Turrell, American sculptor and illustrator
1944 – Anton Furst, English-American production designer and art director (d. 1991)
1944 – Masanori Murakami, Japanese baseball player and coach
1945 – Jimmie Dale Gilmore, American country singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, and producer
1945 – Bob Seger, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1947 – Alan Dale, New Zealand actor
1947 – Martha Nussbaum, American philosopher and author
1947 – Ljubomir Vračarević, Serbian martial artist, founded Real Aikido (d. 2013)
1948 – Frankie Librán, Puerto Rican-American baseball player (d. 2013)
1950 – Jeffery Deaver, American journalist and author
1951 – Samuel Doe, Liberian sergeant and politician, 21st President of Liberia (d. 1990)
1952 – Gerrit Zalm, Dutch economist and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands
1953 – Alexander Akimov, Ukrainian Chernobyl worker (d. 1986)
1953 – Tony Blair, British politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1953 – Michelle Courchesne, Canadian urban planner and politician, Deputy Premier of Quebec
1953 – Ülle Rajasalu, Estonian politician
1953 – Graeme Souness, Scottish international footballer and manager
1953 – Lynn Whitfield, American actress and producer
1954 – Tom Abernethy, American basketball player
1954 – Dora Bakoyannis, Greek politician, 120th Greek Minister for Foreign Affairs
1954 – Angela Hernández Nuñez, Dominican author and poet
1954 – Ain Lutsepp, Estonian actor and politician
1955 – Nicholas Alexander, 7th Earl of Caledon, English politician, Lord Lieutenant of Armagh
1955 – Tom Bergeron, American television host
1955 – John Hutton, Baron Hutton of Furness, English academic and politician, Secretary of State for Defence
1956 – Lakis Lazopoulos, Greek actor and screenwriter
1956 – Cindy Lovell, American educator and writer
1956 – Roland Wieser, German race walker and coach
1958 – Randall Stout, American architect, designed the Taubman Museum of Art (d. 2014)
1959 – Andreas Busse, German runner
1959 – Charles Hendry, English politician
1960 – Lyudmila Andonova, Bulgarian high jumper
1960 – Keith Dowding, English political scientist, philosopher, and academic
1960 – Roma Downey, Irish-American actress and producer
1960 – John Flansburgh, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1960 – Aleksei Lotman, Estonian biologist and politician
1960 – Anne Parillaud, French actress
1961 – Oleksandr Apaychev, Ukrainian decathlete and coach
1961 – George Clooney, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1961 – Tom Hunter, Scottish businessman and philanthropist
1961 – Gina Riley, Australian actress, producer, and screenwriter
1961 – Frans Timmermans, Dutch politician and diplomat, First Vice President of the European Commission
1962 – Tom Brake, English politician
1962 – Brad Izzard, Australian rugby league player
1963 – Alessandra Ferri, Italian ballerina
1965 – Leslie Hope, Canadian actress, director, producer, and screenwriter
1968 – Worku Bikila, Ethiopian runner
1968 – Lætitia Sadier, French singer and keyboard player
1969 – Jim Magilton, Northern Irish footballer and manager
1970 – Roland Kun, Nauruan politician
1970 – Kavan Smith, Canadian actor
1971 – Chris Shiflett, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1972 – Martin Brodeur, Canadian ice hockey player
1972 – Naoko Takahashi, Japanese runner
1974 – Bernard Barmasai, Kenyan runner
1974 – Daniela Bártová, Czech pole vaulter and gymnast
1975 – Alan Richardson, English cricketer and coach
1976 – Dean Chandler, English footballer
1976 – Iván de la Peña, Spanish footballer
1977 – Christophe Brandt, Belgian cyclist
1977 – Marc Chouinard, Canadian ice hockey player
1977 – Mark Eaton, American ice hockey player and coach
1977 – Chantelle Newbery, Australian diver
1978 – John Abraham, American football player
1978 – Tony Estanguet, French slalom canoeist
1978 – Fredrick Federley, Swedish journalist and politician
1978 – Alexandr Fedorov, Russian bodybuilder
1979 – Gerd Kanter, Estonian discus thrower
1979 – Jan Erik Mikalsen, Norwegian composer
1979 – Jon Montgomery, Canadian skeleton racer and television host
1980 – Brooke Bennett, American swimmer
1980 – Dimitris Diamantidis, Greek professional basketball player
1980 – Ricardo Oliveira, Brazilian footballer
1980 – Matthew Whiley, English cricketer
1982 – Jason Witten, American football player
1983 – Dani Alves, Brazilian footballer
1983 – Ingrid Jonach, Australian author
1983 – Gabourey Sidibe, American actress
1983 – Trinley Thaye Dorje, Tibetan religious leader, the 17th Karmapa Lama
1983 – Fredrik Sjöström, Swedish ice hockey player
1984 – Anton Babchuk, Ukrainian ice hockey player
1984 – Juan Pablo Carrizo, Argentinian footballer
1985 – Chris Paul, American basketball player
1986 – Goran Dragic, Slovenian basketball player
1987 – Dries Mertens, Belgian footballer
1987 – Meek Mill, American rapper
1987 – Adrienne Warren, American actress
1988 – Ryan Anderson, American basketball player
1988 – Dakota Kai, New Zealander profesional wrestler
1989 – Dominika Cibulková, Slovak tennis player
1989 – Jesse Hughes, Canadian DJ and producer
1990 – José Altuve, Venezuelan baseball player
1992 – Brendan Gallagher, Canadian ice hockey player
1992 – Byun Baekhyun, South Korean musician and actor
1992 – Jonas Valančiūnas, Lithuanian professional basketball player
1256 – The Augustinian monastic order is constituted at the Lecceto Monastery when Pope Alexander IV issues a papal bull Licet ecclesiae catholicae.
1415 – Religious reformers John Wycliffe and Jan Hus are condemned as heretics at the Council of Constance.
1436 – Assassination of the Swedish rebel (later national hero) Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson
1471 – Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Tewkesbury: Edward IV defeats a Lancastrian Army and kills Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales.
1493 – Pope Alexander VI divides the New World between Spain and Portugal along the Line of Demarcation.
1626 – Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrives in New Netherland (present day Manhattan Island) aboard the See Meeuw.
1686 – The Municipality of Ilagan is founded in the Philippines.
1776 – Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.
1799 – Fourth Anglo-Mysore War: The Battle of Seringapatam: The siege of Seringapatam ends when the city is invaded and Tipu Sultan killed by the besieging British army, under the command of General George Harris.
1814 – Emperor Napoleon arrives at Portoferraio on the island of Elba to begin his exile.
1814 – King Ferdinand VII abolishes the Spanish Constitution of 1812, returning Spain to absolutism.
1836 – Formation of Ancient Order of Hibernians
1859 – The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge linking Devon and Cornwall in England.
1869 – The Naval Battle of Hakodate is fought in Japan.
1871 – The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
1886 – Haymarket affair: A bomb is thrown at policemen trying to break up a labor rally in Chicago, United States, killing eight and wounding 60. The police fire into the crowd.
1904 – The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal.
1910 – The Royal Canadian Navy is created.
1912 – Italy occupies the Greek island of Rhodes.
1919 – May Fourth Movement: Student demonstrations take place in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, protesting the Treaty of Versailles, which transferred Chinese territory to Japan.
1926 – The United Kingdom general strike begins.
1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is incorporated.
1932 – In Atlanta, mobster Al Capone begins serving an eleven-year prison sentence for tax evasion.
1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins with an attack by aircraft from the United States aircraft carrier USS Yorktown on Japanese naval forces at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese forces had invaded Tulagi the day before.
1945 – World War II: Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg is liberated by the British Army.
1945 – World War II: The German surrender at Lüneburg Heath is signed, coming into effect the following day. It encompasses all Wehrmacht units in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany.
1946 – In San Francisco Bay, U.S. Marines from the nearby Treasure Island Naval Base stop a two-day riot at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Five people are killed in the riot.
1949 – The entire Torino football team (except for two players who did not take the trip: Sauro Tomà, due to an injury and Renato Gandolfi, because of coach request) is killed in a plane crash.
1953 – Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
1959 – The 1st Annual Grammy Awards are held.
1961 – American civil rights movement: The “Freedom Riders” begin a bus trip through the South.
1961 – Malcolm Ross and Victor Prather attain a new altitude record for manned balloon flight ascending in the Strato-Lab V open gondola to 113,740 feet (34.67 km).
1970 – Vietnam War: Kent State shootings: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the United States and South Vietnam.
1972 – The Don’t Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to “Greenpeace Foundation”.
1978 – The South African Defence Force attacks a SWAPO base at Cassinga in southern Angola, killing about 600 people.
1979 – Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1982 – Twenty sailors are killed when the British Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield is hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the Falklands War.
1988 – The PEPCON disaster rocks Henderson, Nevada, as tons of Space Shuttle fuel detonate during a fire.
1989 – Iran–Contra affair: Former White House aide Oliver North is convicted of three crimes and acquitted of nine other charges; the convictions are later overturned on appeal.
1990 – Latvia proclaims the renewal of its independence after the Soviet occupation.
1994 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord, granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
1998 – A federal judge in Sacramento, California, gives “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski accepts a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty.
2000 – Ken Livingstone becomes the first Mayor of London (an office separate from that of the Lord Mayor of London).
2007 – Greensburg, Kansas is almost completely destroyed by a 1.7-mile wide EF5 tornado. It was the first-ever tornado to be rated as such with the new Enhanced Fujita scale.
2014 – Three people are killed and 62 injured in a pair of bombings on buses in Nairobi, Kenya.
Births on May 4
1006 – Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, Persian mystic and poet (d. 1088)
1008 – Henry I, king of France (d. 1060)
1559 – Alice Spencer, English noblewoman (d. 1637)
1634 – Katherine Ferrers, English aristocrat and heiress (d. 1660)
1649 – Chhatrasal, Indian ruler (d. 1731)
1654 – Kangxi Emperor, Emperor of the Qing Dynasty
1655 – Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italian instrument maker, invented the piano (d. 1731)
1677 – Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, French noblewoman (d.1749)
1715 – Richard Graves, English minister and author (d. 1804)
1733 – Jean-Charles de Borda, French mathematician, physicist, and sailor (d. 1799)
1752 – John Brooks, American soldier and politician, 11th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1825)
1757 – Manuel Tolsá, Spanish sculptor and first director of the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City (d. 1816)
1767 – Tyagaraja, Indian composer (d. 1847)
1770 – François Gérard, French painter (d. 1837)
1772 – Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus, German publisher (d. 1823)
1796 – Horace Mann, American educator and politician (d. 1859)
1796 – William Pennington, American lawyer and politician, 13th Governor of New Jersey, 23rd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (d. 1862)
1796 – William H. Prescott, American historian and scholar (d. 1859)
1820 – Julia Gardiner Tyler, American wife of John Tyler, 11th First Lady of the United States (d. 1889)
1820 – John Whiteaker, American soldier, judge, and politician, 1st Governor of Oregon (d. 1902)
1822 – Charles Boucher de Boucherville, Canadian physician and politician, 3rd Premier of Quebec (d. 1915)
1825 – Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist, anatomist, and academic (d. 1895)
1825 – Augustus Le Plongeon, English-American historian, photographer, and academic (d. 1908)
1826 – Frederic Edwin Church, American painter (d. 1900)
1827 – John Hanning Speke, English soldier and explorer (d. 1864)
1851 – Thomas Dewing, American painter (d. 1938)
1852 – Alice Liddell, English model (d. 1934)
1855 – Greyfriars Bobby, faithful dog (d. 1872)
1883 – Wang Jingwei, Chinese politician (d. 1944)
1884 – Richard Baggallay, English army officer and cricketer (d. 1975)
1887 – Andrew Dasburg, French-American painter (d. 1979)
1889 – Francis Spellman, American cardinal (d. 1967)
1890 – Franklin Carmichael, Canadian painter (d. 1945)
1902 – Ronnie Aird, English cricketer and administrator (d. 1986)
1902 – Cola Debrot, Dutch physician, lawyer, and politician (d. 1981)
1903 – Luther Adler, American actor (d. 1984)
1903 – Paul Demel, Czech actor (d. 1951)
1905 – Al Dexter, American country singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1984)
1906 – Gustav Bergmann, Austrian-American philosopher from the Vienna Circle (d. 1987)
1907 – Lincoln Kirstein, American soldier and playwright, co-founded the New York City Ballet (d. 1996)
1907 – Walter Walsh, American target shooter and FBI agent (d. 2014)
1908 – Wolrad Eberle, German decathlete (d. 1949)
1911 – Evald Seepere, Estonian boxer (d. 1990)
1913 – John Broome, American author (d. 1999)
1913 – Princess Katherine of Greece and Denmark (d. 2007)
1914 – Maedayama Eigorō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 39th Yokozuna (d. 1971)
1916 – Jane Jacobs, American-Canadian journalist, author, and activist (d. 2006)
1916 – Richard Proenneke, American soldier, carpenter, and meteorologist (d. 2003)
1917 – Edward T. Cone, American pianist and composer (d. 2004)
1917 – Nick Joaquin, Filipino writer, journalist and historian (d. 2004)
1918 – Tom Mead, Australian journalist and politician (d. 2004)
1918 – Kakuei Tanaka, Japanese soldier and politician, 64th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1993)
1919 – Dory Funk, American wrestler and trainer (d. 1973)
1919 – Basil Yamey, South African-English economist and academic
1921 – Patsy Garrett, American actress and singer (d. 2015)
1921 – John van Kesteren, Dutch-American tenor and actor (d. 2008)
1921 – Edo Murtić, Croatian painter, sculptor, and illustrator (d. 2005)
1922 – Paul-Émile Charbonneau, Canadian archbishop (d. 2014)
1922 – Eugenie Clark, American biologist and academic (d. 2015)
1923 – Stanley Biber, American soldier and physician (d. 2006)
1923 – Ed Cassidy, American jazz and rock drummer (d. 2012)
1923 – Assi Rahbani, Lebanese composer and producer (d. 1986)
1923 – Eric Sykes, British actor and comedian (d. 2012)
1923 – John Toner, American football player and coach (d. 2014)
1925 – Jenő Buzánszky, Hungarian footballer and coach (d. 2015)
1925 – Maurice R. Greenberg, American businessman and philanthropist
1926 – David Stoddart, Baron Stoddart of Swindon, English politician
1928 – Maynard Ferguson, Canadian trumpet player and bandleader (d. 2006)
1928 – Thomas Kinsella, Irish poet, translator, and publisher
1928 – Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian air marshal and politician, 4th President of Egypt (d. 2020)
1928 – Betsy Rawls, American golfer
1928 – Wolfgang von Trips, German race car driver (d. 1961)
1929 – Manuel Contreras, Chilean general (d. 2015)
1929 – Audrey Hepburn, Belgian-British actress and humanitarian (d. 1993)
1930 – Katherine Jackson, matriarch of the Jackson family
1930 – Roberta Peters, American soprano (d. 2017)
1931 – Jan Pesman, Dutch speed skater (d. 2014)
1931 – Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Russian conductor and educator (d. 2018)
1931 – Thomas Stuttaford, English physician, journalist, and politician (d. 2018)
1932 – Harlon Hill, American football player and coach (d. 2013)
1932 – Alexander MacAra, Scottish epidemiologist and academic (d. 2012)
1933 – J. Fred Duckett, American journalist and educator (d. 2007)
1936 – El Cordobés, Spanish bullfighter
1936 – Med Hondo, Mauritanian filmmaker and actor (d. 2019)
1937 – Ron Carter, American bassist and educator
1937 – Dick Dale, American surf-rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter (d. 2019)
1937 – Wim Verstappen, Dutch director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2004)
1938 – Tyrone Davis, American blues and soul singer (d. 2005)
1938 – Carlos Monsiváis, Mexican journalist, author, and critic (d. 2010)
1938 – Gillian Tindall, English historian and author
1939 – Neil Fox, English rugby league player and coach
1939 – Amos Oz, Israeli journalist and author (d. 2018)
1939 – Leon Rochefort, Canadian ice hockey player
1940 – Robin Cook, American physician and author
1940 – Peter Gregg, American race car driver and businessman (d. 1980)
1941 – George Will, American journalist and author
1942 – Nickolas Ashford, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer (d. 2011)
1943 – Georgi Asparuhov, Bulgarian footballer (d. 1971)
1943 – Mihail Chemiakin, Russian painter and sculptor
1943 – Prasanta Pattanaik, Indian economist and academic
1944 – Steve Liebmann, Australian radio and television host
1944 – Russi Taylor, American voice actress (d. 2019)
1945 – Jan Mulder, Dutch footballer and journalist
1946 – John Barnard, English car designer
1946 – Gary Bauer, American political activist
1946 – John Watson, British race car driver
1947 – John Bosley, Canadian businessman and politician, 31st Canadian Speaker of the House of Commons
1947 – Ronald Sørensen, Dutch historian and politician
1947 – Trivimi Velliste, Estonian politician, 17th Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs
1948 – Alison Britton, English sculptor and educator
1948 – Hurley Haywood, American race car driver
1948 – King George Tupou V of Tonga, (d. 2012)
1949 – Graham Swift, English novelist and short story writer
1950 – Darryl Hunt, English bass player
1951 – Colin Bass, English bass player, songwriter, and producer
1951 – Colleen Hanabusa, American lawyer and politician
1951 – Jackie Jackson, American singer-songwriter and dancer
1952 – Belinda Green, Australian beauty queen and 1972 Miss World
1953 – Pia Zadora, American actress and singer
1954 – Ryan Cayabyab, Filipino pianist, composer, and conductor
1956 – Michael L. Gernhardt, American astronaut and engineer
1956 – David Guterson, American novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist
1956 – Ken Oberkfell, American baseball player and coach
1957 – Jaak Huimerind, Estonian architect
1957 – Kathy Kreiner, Canadian skier
1957 – Peter Sleep, Australian cricketer
1957 – Marijke Vos, Dutch educator and politician
1958 – Delbert Fowler, American football player
1958 – Keith Haring, American painter (d. 1990)
1958 – Jane Kennedy, English politician
1958 – Caroline Spelman, English politician, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
1959 – Valdemaras Chomičius, Lithuanian basketball player and coach
1959 – Randy Travis, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
1959 – Bob Tway, American golfer
1960 – Werner Faymann, Austrian politician, 28th Chancellor of Austria
1961 – Jay Aston, English singer-songwriter and dancer
1964 – Silvia Costa, Cuban high jumper
1966 – Gary Elkins, English footballer and manager
1966 – Jane McGrath, English-Australian activist, co-founded the McGrath Foundation (d. 2008)
1967 – Kate Garraway, English journalist
1967 – Ana Gasteyer, American actress and singer
1969 – Micah Aivazoff, Canadian ice hockey player
1969 – Franz Resch, Austrian footballer and manager
1970 – Gregg Alexander, American singer-songwriter and producer
1970 – Will Arnett, Canadian actor and producer
1970 – Giovanni Mirabassi, Italian jazz musician
1970 – Dawn Staley, American basketball player
1970 – Paul Wiseman, New Zealand cricketer and coach
1971 – Joe Borowski, American baseball player and sportscaster
1971 – Miles Stewart, Australian triathlete
1972 – Manny Aybar, Dominican baseball player
1972 – Mike Dirnt, American bass player and songwriter
1973 – Matthew Barnaby, Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster
1973 – Guillermo Barros Schelotto, Argentinian footballer and coach
1973 – John Madden, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1974 – Miguel Cairo, Venezuelan baseball player and coach
1974 – Tony McCoy, Northern Irish jockey and sportscaster
1976 – Ben Grieve, American baseball player
1976 – Rory Hamill, Northern Irish international footballer
1976 – Jason Michaels, American baseball player
1976 – Indrek Visnapuu, Estonian basketball player and coach
1977 – John Tripp, Canadian-German ice hockey player
1978 – Erin Andrews, American sportscaster and journalist
1978 – Igor Biscan, Croatian footballer
1978 – Brett Burton, Australian footballer
1978 – Vladimíra Uhlířová, Czech tennis player
1979 – Lance Bass, American singer, dancer, and producer
1979 – Kristin Harmel, American journalist and author
1979 – Marie Poissonnier, French pole vaulter
1979 – Lesley Vainikolo, Tongan rugby player
1980 – Andrew Raycroft, Canadian ice hockey player
1981 – Eric Djemba-Djemba, Cameroon footballer
1981 – Dallon Weekes, American singer-songwriter and musician
1982 – Kleopas Giannou, Greek footballer
1982 – Markus Rogan, Austrian swimmer
1982 – Giorgos Tsiaras, Greek basketball player
1983 – Dan Christian, Australian cricketer
1983 – Derek Roy, Canadian ice hockey player
1983 – Robert Zwinkels, Dutch footballer
1984 – Manjural Islam Rana, Bangladeshi cricketer (d. 2007)
1984 – Brad Maddox, American wrestler and referee
1984 – Sarah Meier, Swiss figure skater
1984 – Montell Owens, American football player
1984 – Kevin Slowey, American baseball player
1985 – Ravi Bopara, English cricketer
1985 – Anthony Fedorov, Ukrainian-born American singer and actor
1985 – Fernandinho, Brazilian footballer
1985 – Lester “Bo” McCalebb, American-Macedonian professional basketball player
1985 – Jamie Adenuga, English MC and rapper
1986 – Devan Dubnyk, Canadian ice hockey player
1986 – George Hill, American basketball player
1987 – Cesc Fàbregas, Spanish footballer
1987 – Jorge Lorenzo, Spanish motorcycle racer
1988 – Radja Nainggolan, Belgian footballer
1989 – Dániel Gyurta, Hungarian swimmer
1989 – Henna Lindholm, Finnish figure skater
1989 – Rory McIlroy, Northern Irish golfer
1989 – Aris Tatarounis, Greek basketball player
1989 – James van Riemsdyk, American ice hockey player
1990 – Irina Falconi, American tennis player
1990 – Ryan Morgan, Australian rugby league player
1990 – Duvashen Padayachee, Australian race car driver
1990 – Andrea Torres, Filipino actress and model
1991 – Brianne Jenner, Canadian women’s ice hockey player
1992 – Victor Oladipo, American basketball player
1993 – Jānis Bērziņš, Latvian basketball player
1994 – Abi Masatora, Japanese sumo wrestler
1994 – Joseph Tapine, New Zealand rugby league player
1996 – Pelayo Roza, Spanish sprint canoeist
Deaths on May 4
408 – Venerius, archbishop of Milan
784 – Arbeo, bishop of Freising
1003 – Herman II, duke of Swabia
1038 – Gotthard of Hildesheim, German bishop (b. 960)
1406 – Coluccio Salutati, chancellor of Florence (b. 1331)
1436 – Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson, Swedish rebel leader
1471 – Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, son and heir of Henry VI of England (b. 1453)
1471 – Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset (b. 1438)
1483 – George Neville, Duke of Bedford (b. 1457)
1506 – Husayn Mirza Bayqara, Timurid ruler of Herat (b. 1438)
1519 – Lorenzo de’ Medici, duke of Urbino (b. 1492)
1535 – John Houghton, Carthusian monk and saint
1562 – Lelio Sozzini, Italian Protestant theologian (b. 1525)
1566 – Luca Ghini, Italian physician and botanist (b. 1490)
1571 – Pierre Viret, Swiss theologian and reformer (b. 1511)
1604 – Claudio Merulo, Italian organist and composer (b. 1533)
1605 – Ulisse Aldrovandi, Italian naturalist (b. 1522)
1615 – Adriaan van Roomen, Flemish priest and mathematician (b. 1561)
1626 – Arthur Lake, English bishop and scholar (b. 1569)
1677 – Isaac Barrow, English mathematician and theologian (b. 1630)
1684 – John Nevison, English criminal (b. 1639)
1729 – Louis Antoine de Noailles, French cardinal (b. 1651)
1734 – James Thornhill, English painter and politician (b. 1675)
1737 – Eustace Budgell, English journalist and politician (b. 1686)
1774 – Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick, Prussian nobleman (b. 1714)
1776 – Jacques Saly, French painter and sculptor (b. 1717)
1790 – Matthew Tilghman, American politician (b. 1718)
1799 – Tipu, ruler of Mysore (b. 1750)
1811 – Nikolay Kamensky, Russian general (b. 1776)
1816 – Samuel Dexter, American lawyer and politician, 4th United States Secretary of War, 3rd United States Secretary of the Treasury (b. 1761)
1824 – Joseph Joubert, French author (b. 1754)
1826 – Sebastián Kindelán y O’Regan, colonial governor of East Florida, Santo Domingo and Cuba (b. 1757)
1839 – Denis Davydov, Russian general and poet (b. 1784)
1858 – Aimé Bonpland, French botanist and explorer (b. 1773)
1859 – Joseph Diaz Gergonne, French mathematician and philosopher (b. 1771)
1880 – Edward Clark, American lawyer and politician, 8th Governor of Texas (b. 1815)
1901 – John Jones Ross, Canadian lawyer and politician, 7th Premier of Quebec (b. 1831)
1903 – Gotse Delchev, Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary IMRO (b. 1872)
1912 – Nettie Stevens, American geneticist credited with discovering sex chromosomes (b. 1861)
752 – Mayan king Bird Jaguar IV of Yaxchilan in modern-day Chiapas, Mexico assumes the throne.
1294 – John II becomes Duke of Brabant, Lothier and Limburg.
1481 – The largest of three earthquakes strikes the island of Rhodes and causes an estimated 30,000 casualties.
1491 – Kongo monarch Nkuwu Nzinga is baptized by Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of João I.
1616 – Treaty of Loudun ends French civil war.
1715 – A total solar eclipse was visible across northern Europe, and northern Asia, as predicted by Edmond Halley to within 4 minutes accuracy.
1791 – The Constitution of May 3 (the first modern constitution in Europe) is proclaimed by the Sejm of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1802 – Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city after Congress abolishes the Board of Commissioners, the District’s founding government. The “City of Washington” is given a mayor-council form of government.
1808 – Finnish War: Sweden loses the fortress of Sveaborg to Russia.
1808 – Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are executed near Príncipe Pío hill.
1815 – Neapolitan War: Joachim Murat, King of Naples is defeated by the Austrians at the Battle of Tolentino, the decisive engagement of the war.
1830 – The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway is opened; it is the first steam-hauled passenger railway to issue season tickets and include a tunnel.
1837 – The University of Athens is founded in Athens, Greece.
1848 – The boar-crested Anglo-Saxon Benty Grange helmet is discovered in a barrow on the Benty Grange farm in Derbyshire.
1849 – The May Uprising in Dresden begins: The last of the German revolutions of 1848–49.
1855 – American adventurer William Walker departs from San Francisco with about 60 men to conquer Nicaragua.
1860 – Charles XV of Sweden–Norway is crowned king of Sweden.
1867 – The Hudson’s Bay Company gives up all claims to Vancouver Island.
1901 – The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, Florida.
1913 – Raja Harishchandra, the first full-length Indian feature film, is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.
1920 – A Bolshevik coup fails in the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
1921 – West Virginia becomes the first state to legislate a broad sales tax, but does not implement it until a number of years later due to enforcement issues.
1921 – The Government of Ireland Act 1920 is passed, dividing Ireland into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.
1928 – The Jinan incident begins with the deaths of twelve Japanese civilians by Chinese forces in Jinan, China, which leads to Japanese retaliation and the deaths of over 2,000 Chinese civilians in the following days.
1939 – The All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
1942 – World War II: Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo that results in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia.
1945 – World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay.
1947 – New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect.
1948 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Shelley v. Kraemer that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.
1951 – London’s Royal Festival Hall opens with the Festival of Britain.
1951 – The United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations begin their closed door hearings into the relief of Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry Truman.
1952 – Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States land a plane at the North Pole.
1952 – The Kentucky Derby is televised nationally for the first time, on the CBS network.
1957 – Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
1960 – The Off-Broadway musical comedy The Fantasticks opens in New York City’s Greenwich Village, eventually becoming the longest-running musical of all time.
1960 – The Anne Frank House museum opens in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1963 – The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and responds with violent force to stop the “Birmingham campaign” protesters. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing new-found attention to the civil rights movement.
1971 – Erich Honecker becomes First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, remaining in power until 1989
1973 – The 108-story Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at 1,451 feet as the world’s tallest building.
1978 – The first unsolicited bulk commercial email (which would later become known as “spam”) is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.
1986 – Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes on Air Lanka Flight 512 at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.
1987 – A crash by Bobby Allison at the Talladega Superspeedway, Alabama fencing at the start-finish line would lead NASCAR to develop the restrictor plate for the following season both at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega.
1999 – The southwestern portion of Oklahoma City is devastated by an F5 tornado, killing forty-five people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado is one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. This tornado also produces the highest wind speed ever recorded, measured at 301 +/- 20 mph (484 +/- 32 km/h).
1999 – Infiltration of Pakistani soldiers on Indian side resulted into the kargil war.
2000 – The sport of geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS posted on Usenet.
2001 – The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.
2002 – An Indian Air Force MiG-21 crashes into a bank in Jalandhar, killing eight and injuring 17.
2007 – The 3-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann disappears in Praia da Luz, Portugal, starting “the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history”.
2015 – Two gunmen launch an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, which was held in response to the Charlie Hebdo shooting.
2016 – Eighty-eight thousand people were evacuated from their homes in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada as a wildfire ripped through the community, destroying approximately 2,400 homes and buildings.
Births on May 3
490 – K’an Joy Chitam I, ruler of Palenque (d. 565)
612 – Constantine III, Byzantine emperor (d. 641)
1238 – Emilia Bicchieri, Italian saint (d. 1314)
1276 – Louis, Count of Évreux, son of King Philip III of France (d. 1319)
1415 – Cecily Neville, Duchess of York (d. 1495)
1428 – Pedro González de Mendoza, Spanish cardinal (d. 1495)
1446 – Margaret of York (d. 1503)
1461 – Raffaele Riario, Italian cardinal (d. 1521)
1469 – Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian historian and philosopher (d. 1527)
1479 – Henry V, Duke of Mecklenburg (d. 1552)
1481 – Juana de la Cruz Vázquez Gutiérrez, Spanish abbess of the Franciscan Third Order Regular (d. 1534)
1536 – Stephan Praetorius, German theologian (d. 1603)
1632 – Catherine of St. Augustine, French-Canadian nurse and saint, founded the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec (d. 1668)
1662 – Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, German architect, designed the Pillnitz Castle (d. 1736)
1678 – Amaro Pargo, Spanish corsair (d. 1747)
1695 – Henri Pitot, French physicist and engineer, invented the Pitot tube (d. 1771)
1729 – Florian Leopold Gassmann, Czech composer (d. 1774)
1761 – August von Kotzebue, German playwright and author (d. 1819)
1764 – Princess Élisabeth of France (d. 1794)
1768 – Charles Tennant, Scottish chemist and businessman (d. 1838)
1783 – José de la Riva Agüero, Peruvian soldier and politician, 1st President of Peru and 2nd President of North Peru (d. 1858)
1814 – Adams George Archibald, Canadian lawyer and politician, 4th Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia (d. 1892)
1826 – Charles XV of Sweden (d. 1872)
1844 – Richard D’Oyly Carte, English talent agent and composer (d. 1901)
1849 – Jacob Riis, Danish-American journalist and photographer (d. 1914)
1849 – Bernhard von Bülow, German soldier and politician, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1929)
1854 – George Gore, American baseball player and manager (d. 1933)
1859 – August Herrmann, American executive in Major League Baseball (d.1931)
1860 – Vito Volterra, Italian mathematician and physicist (d. 1940)
1867 – Andy Bowen, American boxer (d. 1894)
1867 – J. T. Hearne, English cricketer (d. 1944)
1870 – Princess Helena Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein (d. 1948)
1871 – Emmett Dalton, American criminal (d. 1937)
1873 – Pavlo Skoropadskyi, German-Ukrainian general and politician, Hetman of Ukraine (d. 1945)
1874 – François Coty, French businessman and publisher, founded Coty, Inc. (d. 1934)
1874 – Vagn Walfrid Ekman, Swedish oceanographer and academic (d. 1954)
1877 – Karl Abraham, German psychoanalyst and author (d. 1925)
1879 – Fergus McMaster, Australian businessman and soldier, co-founded Qantas (d. 1950)
1886 – Marcel Dupré, French organist and composer (d. 1971)
1887 – Marika Kotopouli, Greek actress (d. 1954)
1889 – Beulah Bondi, American actress (d. 1981)
1889 – Gottfried Fuchs, German-Canadian Olympic soccer player (d. 1972)
1891 – Tadeusz Peiper, Polish poet and critic (d. 1969)
1891 – Eppa Rixey, American baseball pitcher (d. 1963)
1892 – George Paget Thomson, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)
1892 – Jacob Viner, Canadian-American economist and academic (d. 1970)
1893 – Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian author (d. 1975)
1895 – Cornelius Van Til, Dutch philosopher, theologian, and apologist (d. 1987)
1896 – Karl Allmenröder, German soldier and pilot (d. 1917)
1896 – V. K. Krishna Menon, Indian lawyer, jurist, and politician, Indian Minister of Defence (d. 1974)
1896 – Dodie Smith, English author and playwright (d. 1990)
1897 – William Joseph Browne, Canadian lawyer and politician, 20th Solicitor General of Canada (d. 1989)
1898 – Septima Poinsette Clark, American educator and activist (d. 1987)
1898 – Golda Meir, Ukrainian-Israeli educator and politician, 4th Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1978)
1902 – Alfred Kastler, German-French physicist and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1984)
1903 – Bing Crosby, American singer and actor (d. 1977)
1905 – Edmund Black, American hammer thrower (d. 1996)
1905 – Werner Fenchel, German-Danish mathematician and academic (d. 1988)
1905 – Red Ruffing, American baseball pitcher and coach (d. 1986)
1906 – Mary Astor, American actress (d. 1987)
1906 – René Huyghe, French historian and author (d. 1997)
1906 – Anna Roosevelt Halsted, American journalist and author (d. 1975)
1906 – Enrique Laguerre, Puerto Rican journalist, author, and playwright (d. 2005)
1910 – Norman Corwin, American screenwriter and producer (d. 2011)
1912 – Virgil Fox, American organist and composer (d. 1980)
1912 – May Sarton, American poet, novelist and memoirist (d. 1995)
1913 – William Inge, American playwright and novelist (d. 1973)
1914 – Georges-Emmanuel Clancier, French journalist, author, and poet (d. 2018)
1915 – Stu Hart, Canadian wrestler and trainer, founded Stampede Wrestling (d. 2003)
1915 – Richard Lippold, American sculptor and academic (d. 2002)
1916 – Léopold Simoneau, Canadian tenor and actor (d. 2006)
1917 – Betty Comden, American screenwriter and librettist (d. 2006)
1917 – George Gaynes, Finnish-American actor (d. 2016)
1918 – Ted Bates, English footballer and manager (d. 2003)
1919 – John Cullen Murphy, American soldier and illustrator (d. 2004)
1919 – Pete Seeger, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist (d. 2014)
1920 – John Lewis, American pianist and composer (d. 2001)
1921 – Sugar Ray Robinson, American boxer (d. 1989)
1922 – Len Shackleton, English footballer and journalist (d. 2000)
1923 – George Hadjinikos, Greek pianist, conductor, and educator (d. 2015)
1923 – Ralph Hall, American lieutenant, lawyer, and politician (d. 2019)
1924 – Yehuda Amichai, German-Israeli author and poet (d. 2000)
1924 – Ken Tyrrell, English race car driver, founded Tyrrell Racing (d. 2001)
1925 – Jean Séguy, French sociologist and author (d. 2007)
1926 – Matt Baldwin, Canadian curler and engineer
1928 – Dave Dudley, American singer-songwriter (d. 2003)
1928 – Jacques-Louis Lions, French mathematician (d. 2001)
1929 – Denise Lor, American singer and actress (d. 2015)
1930 – Juan Gelman, Argentinian poet and author (d. 2014)
1930 – David Harrison, English chemist and academic
1931 – Vasily Rudenkov, Belarusian hammer thrower (d. 1982)
1931 – Sait Maden, Turkish translator, poet, painter and graphic designer (d. 2013)
1932 – Robert Osborne, American actor and historian (d. 2017)
1933 – James Brown, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor (d. 2006)
1933 – Steven Weinberg, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1934 – Henry Cooper, English boxer and sportscaster (d. 2011)
1934 – Georges Moustaki, Egyptian-French singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2013)
1934 – Frankie Valli, American singer and actor
1935 – Ron Popeil, American businessman, founded the Ronco Company
1937 – Nélida Piñon, Brazilian author and academic
1938 – Omar Abdel-Rahman, Egyptian terrorist
1938 – Chris Cannizzaro, American baseball player
1938 – Napoleon XIV, American singer, songwriter and record producer
1939 – Jonathan Harvey, English composer and educator (d. 2012)
1940 – David Koch, American engineer, businessman, and philanthropist (d. 2019)
1940 – Clemens Westerhof, Dutch footballer and manager
1941 – Alexander Harley, English general
1941 – Edward Malloy, American priest and academic
1942 – Věra Čáslavská, Czech gymnast and coach (d. 2016)
1942 – Dave Marash, American journalist and sportscaster
1942 – Butch Otter, American soldier and politician, 32nd Governor of Idaho
1943 – Yukio Hashi, Japanese singer and actor
1943 – Jim Risch, American lawyer and politician, 31st Governor of Idaho
1943 – Vicente Saldivar, Mexican boxer (d. 1985)
1944 – Peter Doyle, English bishop
1944 – Pete Staples, English bass player
1945 – Jörg Drehmel, German triple jumper and coach
1945 – Davey Lopes, American baseball player, coach, and manager
1946 – Norm Chow, American football player and coach
1946 – Silvino Francisco, South African snooker player
1946 – Greg Gumbel, American sportscaster
1947 – Doug Henning, Canadian magician (d. 2000)
1948 – Denis Cosgrove, British-American academic and geographer (d. 2008)
1948 – Chris Mulkey, American actor
1949 – Liam Donaldson, English physician and academic
1949 – Ruth Lister, Baroness Lister of Burtersett, English academic and politician
1949 – Ron Wyden, American academic and politician
1950 – Mary Hopkin, Welsh singer-songwriter
1950 – Dag Arnesen, Norwegian pianist and composer
1951 – Alan Clayson, English singer-songwriter and journalist
1951 – Christopher Cross, American singer-songwriter and producer
1951 – Ashok Gehlot, Indian politician, 21st Chief Minister of Rajasthan
1951 – Tatyana Tolstaya, Russian author and publicist
1952 – Chuck Baldwin, American pastor and politician
1952 – Caitlin Clarke, American actress (d. 2004)
1952 – Joseph W. Tobin, American cardinal
1953 – Bruce Hall, American singer-songwriter, bass player, and producer
1953 – Jake Hooker, Israeli-American guitarist and songwriter (d. 2014)
1954 – Angela Bofill, American singer-songwriter
1954 – Jean-Marc Roberts, French author and screenwriter (d. 2013)
1955 – Stephen D. M. Brown, British geneticist
1955 – Colin Deans, Scottish rugby player
1955 – David Hookes, Australian cricketer, coach, and sportscaster (d. 2004)
1955 – Seishirō Nishida, Japanese actor
1956 – Marc Bellemare, Canadian lawyer and politician
1957 – Alain Côté, Canadian ice hockey player
1957 – Rod Langway, Taiwanese-American ice hockey player and coach
1958 – Bill Sienkiewicz, American author and illustrator
1958 – Sandi Toksvig, Danish-English comedian, writer, and broadcaster
1959 – David Ball, English keyboard player and producer
1959 – Uma Bharti, Indian activist and politician, 16th Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh
1959 – Ben Elton, English actor, director, and screenwriter
1960 – Kathy Smallwood-Cook, English sprinter and educator
1961 – Steve McClaren, English footballer and manager
1961 – David Vitter, American lawyer and politician
1961 – Leyla Zana, Kurdish activist and politician
1962 – Anders Graneheim, Swedish bodybuilder
1963 – Jeff Hornacek, American basketball player and coach
1963 – Mona Siddiqui, Pakistani-Scottish journalist and academic
1964 – Sterling Campbell, American drummer and songwriter
1964 – Ron Hextall, Canadian-American ice hockey player and manager
1965 – Ignatius Aphrem II, Syrian patriarch
1965 – Mark Cousins, Northern Irish director, writer, cinematographer
1965 – John Jensen, Danish footballer and coach
1965 – Mikhail Prokhorov, Russian businessman
1966 – Giorgos Agorogiannis, Greek footballer
1966 – Frank Dietrich, German politician (d. 2011)
1967 – Daniel Anderson, Australian rugby league coach and manager
1967 – Kenneth Joel Hotz, Canadian producer, writer, director, actor, and comedian
1968 – Viliami Ofahengaue, Tongan-Australian rugby player
1971 – Douglas Carswell, British politician, the first elected MP for the UK Independence Party
1972 – Stephen Barclay, English lawyer and politician
1973 – Jamie Baulch, Welsh sprinter and television host
1975 – Willie Geist, American television journalist and host
1976 – Jeff Halpern, American ice hockey player
1976 – Brad Scott, Australian footballer and coach
1976 – Chris Scott, Australian footballer and coach
1977 – Eric Church, American country music singer-songwriter
1977 – Ryan Dempster, Canadian baseball player and sportscaster
1977 – Tyronn Lue, American basketball player and coach
1977 – Maryam Mirzakhani, Iranian mathematician (d. 2017)
1977 – Ben Olsen, American soccer player and coach
1978 – Christian Annan, Ghanaian-Hong Kong footballer
1978 – Paul Banks, English-American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1978 – Dai Tamesue, Japanese hurdler
1978 – Lawrence Tynes, American football player
1979 – Steve Mack, American wrestler
1979 – Anastasiya Shvedova, Belarusian pole vaulter
1980 – Zuzana Ondrášková, Czech tennis player
1982 – Igor Olshansky, Ukrainian-American football player
1982 – Nick Stavinoha, American baseball player
1983 – Joseph Addai, American football player
1983 – Romeo Castelen, Dutch footballer
1983 – Jérôme Clavier, French pole vaulter
1983 – Márton Fülöp, Hungarian footballer (d. 2015)
1985 – Ezequiel Lavezzi, Argentinian footballer
1985 – Kadri Lehtla, Estonian biathlete
1985 – Miko Mälberg, Estonian swimmer
1986 – Moon Byung-woo, South Korean footballer
1987 – Lina Grinčikaitė, Lithuanian sprinter
1988 – Ben Revere, American baseball player
1988 – Paddy Holohan, Irish mixed martial artist
1989 – Jesse Bromwich, New Zealand rugby league player
1989 – Katinka Hosszú, Hungarian swimmer
1990 – Brooks Koepka, American golfer
1991 – Samuel Seo, South Korean musician
1992 – Aaron Whitchurch, Australian rugby league player
1995 – Ivan Bukavshin, Russian chess player (d. 2016)
1996 – Mary Cain, American runner
1996 – Alex Iwobi, Nigerian football player
1996 – Domantas Sabonis, Lithuanian basketball player
1194 – King Richard I of England gives Portsmouth its first Royal Charter
1230 – William de Braose is hanged by Prince Llywelyn the Great.
1335 – Otto the Merry, Duke of Austria, becomes Duke of Carinthia.
1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, is arrested and imprisoned on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft.
1559 – John Knox returns from exile to Scotland to become the leader of the nascent Scottish Reformation.
1568 – Mary, Queen of Scots, escapes from Loch Leven Castle.
1611 – The King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker.
1625 – Afonso Mendes, appointed by Pope Gregory XV as Latin Patriarch of Ethiopia, arrives at Beilul from Goa.
1670 – King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson’s Bay Company to open up the fur trade in North America.
1672 – John Maitland becomes Duke of Lauderdale and Earl of March.
1808 – Outbreak of the Peninsular War: The people of Madrid rise up in rebellion against French occupation. Francisco de Goya later memorializes this event in his painting The Second of May 1808.
1812 – The Siege of Cuautla during the Mexican War of Independence ends with both sides claiming victory after Mexican rebels under José María Morelos y Pavón abandon the city after 72 days under siege by royalist Spanish troops under Félix María Calleja.
1816 – Marriage of Léopold of Saxe-Coburg and Princess Charlotte of Wales.
1829 – After anchoring nearby, Captain Charles Fremantle of HMS Challenger, declares the Swan River Colony in Australia.
1863 – American Civil War: Stonewall Jackson is wounded by friendly fire while returning to camp after reconnoitering during the Battle of Chancellorsville. He succumbs to pneumonia eight days later.
1866 – Peruvian defenders fight off the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Callao.
1876 – The April Uprising breaks out in Ottoman Bulgaria.
1879 – The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party is founded in Madrid by Pablo Iglesias.
1885 – Cree and Assiniboine warriors win the Battle of Cut Knife, their largest victory over Canadian forces during the North-West Rebellion.
1889 – Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia, signs the Treaty of Wuchale, giving Italy control over Eritrea.
1906 – Closing ceremony of the Intercalated Games in Athens, Greece.
1918 – General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.
1920 – The first game of the Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis.
1933 – Germany’s independent labor unions are replaced by the German Labour Front.
1941 – Following the coup d’état against Iraq Crown Prince ‘Abd al-Ilah earlier that year, the United Kingdom launches the Anglo-Iraqi War to restore him to power.
1945 – World War II: The Soviet Union announces the fall of Berlin.
1945 – World War II: The surrender of Caserta comes into effect, by which German troops in Italy cease fighting.
1945 – World War II: The US 82nd Airborne Division liberates Wöbbelin concentration camp finding 1000 dead prisoners, most of whom starved to death.
1945 – World War II: A death march from Dachau to the Austrian border is halted by the segregated, all-Nisei 522nd Field Artillery Battalion of the U.S. Army in southern Bavaria, saving several hundred prisoners.
1952 – A De Havilland Comet makes the first jetliner flight with fare-paying passengers, from London to Johannesburg.
1955 – Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
1963 – Berthold Seliger launches a rocket with three stages and a maximum flight altitude of more than 100 kilometres near Cuxhaven. It is the only sounding rocket developed in Germany.
1964 – Vietnam War: An explosion sinks the American aircraft carrier USNS Card while it is docked at Saigon. Two Viet Cong combat swimmers had placed explosives on the ship’s hull. She is raised and returned to service less than seven months later.
1964 – First ascent of Shishapangma, the fourteenth highest mountain in the world and the lowest of the Eight-thousanders.
1969 – The British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 departs on her maiden voyage to New York City.
1972 – In the early morning hours a fire breaks out at the Sunshine Mine located between Kellogg and Wallace, Idaho, killing 91 workers.
1982 – Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano.
1986 – Chernobyl disaster: The City of Chernobyl is evacuated six days after the disaster.
1989 – Cold War: Hungary begins dismantling its border fence with Austria, which allows a number of East Germans to defect.
1994 – A bus crashes in Gdańsk, Poland killing 32 people.
1995 – During the Croatian War of Independence, the Army of the Republic of Serb Krajina fires cluster bombs at Zagreb, killing seven and wounding over 175 civilians.
1998 – The European Central Bank is founded in Brussels in order to define and execute the European Union’s monetary policy.
1999 – Panamanian general election, 1999: Mireya Moscoso becomes the first woman to be elected President of Panama.
2000 – President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military.
2004 – The Yelwa massacre concludes. It began on 4 February 2004 when armed Muslims killed 78 Christians at Yelwa. In response, about 630 Muslims were killed by Christians on May 2nd.
2008 – Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Burma killing over 138,000 people and leaving millions of people homeless.
2008 – Chaitén Volcano begins erupting in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,500 people.
2011 – Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI’s most wanted man, is killed by the United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
2011 – An E. coli outbreak strikes Europe, mostly in Germany, leaving more than 30 people dead and many others sick from the bacteria outbreak.
2012 – A pastel version of The Scream, by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, sells for $120 million in a New York City auction, setting a new world record for a work of art at auction.
2014 – Two mudslides in Badakhshan, Afghanistan, leave up to 2,500 people missing.
Births on May 2
1360 – Yongle Emperor of China (d. 1424)
1402 – Eleanor of Aragon, Queen of Portugal (d. 1445)
1451 – René II, Duke of Lorraine (d. 1508)
1458 – Eleanor of Viseu (d. 1525)
1476 – Charles I, Duke of Münsterberg-Oels, Count of Kladsko, Governor of Bohemia and Silesia (d. 1536)
1533 – Philip II, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen (d. 1596)
1551 – William Camden, English historian and topographer (d. 1623)
1567 – Sebald de Weert, Dutch captain, vice-admiral of the Dutch East India Company (d. 1603)
1579 – Tokugawa Hidetada, Japanese shōgun (d. 1632)
1601 – Athanasius Kircher, German priest and scholar (d. 1680)
1660 – Alessandro Scarlatti, Italian composer (d. 1725)
1695 – Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni, Italian-French painter and architect (d. 1766)
1702 – Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, German theologian and theosopher (d. 1782)
1707 – Jean-Baptiste Barrière, French cellist and composer (d. 1747)
1729 – Catherine the Great of Russia (d. 1796)
1737 – William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, Irish-English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1805)
1740 – Elias Boudinot, American lawyer and politician, 10th President of the Continental Congress (d. 1821)
1750 – John André, English soldier and spy (d. 1780)
1752 – Ludwig August Lebrun, German oboe player and composer (d. 1790)
1754 – Vicente Martín y Soler, Spanish composer (d. 1806)
1772 – Novalis, German author and poet (d. 1801)
1773 – Henrik Steffens, Norwegian philosopher and poet (d. 1845)
1797 – Abraham Pineo Gesner, Canadian physician and geologist (d. 1864)
1802 – Heinrich Gustav Magnus, German chemist and physicist (d. 1870)
1806 – Catherine Labouré, French nun and saint (d. 1876)
1810 – Hans Christian Lumbye, Danish composer and conductor (d. 1874)
1813 – Caroline Leigh Gascoigne, English novelist and poet (d. 1883)
1815 – William Buell Richards, Canadian lawyer and judge, 1st Chief Justice of Canada (d. 1889)
1822 – Jane Miller Thengberg, Scottish-Swedish governess and educator (d. 1902)
1828 – Désiré Charnay, French archaeologist and photographer (d. 1915)
1830 – Otto Staudinger, German entomologist and author (d. 1900)
1843 – Elijah McCoy, Canadian-American engineer (d. 1929)
1859 – Jerome K. Jerome, English author and playwright (d. 1927)
1860 – John Scott Haldane, Scottish physiologist, physician, and academic (d. 1936)
1860 – Theodor Herzl, Austro-Hungarian Zionist philosopher, journalist and author (d. 1904)
1865 – Clyde Fitch, American playwright (d. 1909)
1867 – Giuseppe Morello, Italian-American mobster (d. 1930)
1873 – Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Lithuanian poet, critic, and translator (d. 1944)
1879 – James F. Byrnes, American stenographer and politician, 49th United States Secretary of State (d. 1972)
1880 – Bill Horr, American football player, discus thrower, and coach (d. 1955)
1882 – Isabel González, Puerto Rican activist who helped pave the way for Puerto Ricans’ American citizenship (d. 1971)
1885 – Hedda Hopper, American actress and gossip columnist (d. 1966)
1886 – Gottfried Benn, German author and poet (d. 1956)
1887 – Vernon Castle, English-American dancer (d. 1918)
1887 – Eddie Collins, American baseball player and manager (d. 1951)
1889 – Ki Hajar Dewantara, Indonesian philosopher, academic, and politician (d. 1959)
1890 – E. E. Smith, American engineer and author (d. 1965)
1892 – Manfred von Richthofen, German captain and pilot (d. 1918)
1894 – Norma Talmadge, leading US actress of the silent era (d. 1957)
1894 – Joseph Henry Woodger, English biologist, philosopher, and academic (d. 1981)
1895 – Lorenz Hart, American playwright and lyricist (d. 1943)
1897 – John Frederick Coots, American songwriter (d. 1985)
1898 – Henry Hall, English bandleader, composer, and actor (d. 1989)
1901 – Bob Wyatt, English cricketer (d. 1995)
1901 – Edouard Zeckendorf, Belgian doctor, army officer and mathematician (d. 1983)
1901 – Willi Bredel, German writer (d. 1964)
1902 – Brian Aherne, English actor (d. 1986)
1902 – Werner Finck, German Kabarett comedian, actor and author (d. 1978)
1903 – Benjamin Spock, American rower, pediatrician, and author (d. 1998)
1904 – Bill Brandt, German-English photographer and journalist (d. 1983)
1905 – Alan Rawsthorne, British composer (d. 1971)
1905 – Charlotte Armstrong, American author (d. 1969)
1906 – Philippe Halsman, Latvian-American photographer (d. 1979)
1907 – Pinky Lee, American comedian and television host (d. 1993)
1908 – Frank Rowlett, American cryptologist (d. 1998)
1909 – Teddy Stauffer, Swiss bandleader, musician, and actor (d. 1991)
1910 – Alexander Bonnyman, Jr., American lieutenant, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1943)
1910 – Edmund Bacon, American urban planner, architect, educator, and author (d. 2005)
1912 – Axel Springer, German journalist and publisher, founded Axel Springer AG (d. 1985)
1912 – Karl Adam, German rowing coaches (d. 1976)
1912 – Marten Toonder, Dutch comic strip creator (d. 2005)
1912 – Nigel Patrick, English actor and director (d. 1981)
1913 – Pietro Frua, Italian coachbuilder and car designer (d. 1983)
1913 – Aydın Sayılı, Turkish historian and academic (d. 1993)
1915 – Doris Fisher, American singer-songwriter (d. 2003)
1915 – Peggy Mount, English actress (d. 2001)
1917 – Albert Castelyns, Belgian water polo player and bobsledder
1917 – Văn Tiến Dũng, Vietnamese general and politician, 6th Minister of Defence for Vietnam (d. 2002)
1920 – Jean-Marie Auberson, Swiss violinist and conductor (d. 2004)
1920 – Otto Buchsbaum, Austrian-Brazilian journalist and activist (d. 2000)
1920 – Vasantrao Deshpande, Indian singer and sitar player (d. 1983)
1920 – Guinn Smith, American pole vaulter, soldier, and pilot (d. 2004)
1920 – Jacob Gilboa, Israeli composer (d. 2007)
1921 – B. B. Lal, Indian archaeologist
1921 – Satyajit Ray, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1992)
1922 – Roscoe Lee Browne, American actor and director (d. 2007)
1922 – A. M. Rosenthal, Canadian-born American journalist and author (d. 2006)
1922 – Serge Reggiani, Italian-born French singer and actor (d. 2004)
1923 – Patrick Hillery, Irish physician and politician, 6th President of Ireland (d. 2008)
1923 – Albert Nordengen, Norwegian banker and politician (d. 2004)
1924 – Jamal Abro, Pakistani lawyer and author (d. 2004)
1924 – Theodore Bikel, Austrian-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (d. 2015)
1924 – Arthur Clues, Australian rugby league player (d. 1998)
1924 – Hugh Cortazzi, English soldier, historian, and diplomat, British Ambassador to Japan (d. 2018)
1925 – John Neville, English-Canadian actor (d. 2011)
1926 – Gérard D. Levesque, Canadian lawyer and politician, 5th Deputy Premier of Quebec (d. 1993)
1927 – Ray Barrett, Australian actor and singer (d. 2009)
1927 – Amos Kenan, Israeli columnist, painter, sculptor, playwright and novelist (d. 2009)
1927 – Michael Broadbent, British wine critic and writer (d. 2020)
1928 – Hans Trass, Estonian ecologist and botanist (d. 2017)
1928 – Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt, French writer and translator of German origin
1928 – Horst Stein, German conductor (d. 2008)
1929 – Édouard Balladur, Turkish-French economist and politician, 162nd Prime Minister of France
1929 – James Dillion, American discus thrower (d. 2010)
1929 – Link Wray, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2005)
1929 – Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, Druk Gyalpo of Bhutan (d. 1972)
1930 – Yoram Kaniuk, Israeli painter and critic (d. 2013)
1930 – Marco Pannella, Italian journalist and politician (d. 2016)
1931 – Phil Bruns, American actor and stuntman (d. 2012)
1931 – Martha Grimes, American author and poet
1932 – Maury Allen, American journalist, actor, and author (d. 2010)
1933 – Bunk Gardner, American musician
1933 – Harry Woolf, Baron Woolf, English lawyer and judge, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
1934 – Manfred Durniok, German film producer, director and screenwriter (d. 2003)
1935 – Luis Suárez Miramontes, Spanish footballer and manager
1935 – Faisal II of Iraq, the last King of Iraq (d.1958)
1936 – Norma Aleandro, Argentinian actress, director, and screenwriter
1936 – Engelbert Humperdinck, English singer and pianist
1936 – Michael Rabin, American violinist (d. 1972)
1937 – Klaus Enders, German motorcycle sidecar racer (d. 2019)
1937 – Lorenzo Music, American actor, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2001)
1937 – Gisela Elsner, German writer (d. 1992)
1938 – Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho (d. 1996)
1939 – Sumio Iijima, Japanese physicist and engineer
1939 – Ernesto Castano, Italian football player
1940 – Jules Albert Wijdenbosch, Surinamese politician
1941 – Tony Adamowicz, American race car driver (d. 2016)
1941 – Bruce Cameron, Scottish bishop
1941 – Clay Carroll, American baseball player
1941 – Eddy Louiss, French jazz musician (d. 2015)
1942 – Jacques Rogge, Belgian businessman
1942 – Wojciech Pszoniak, Polish film and theater actor
1944 – Robert G. W. Anderson, English chemist, historian, and curator
1945 – Randy Cain, American soul singer (d. 2009)
1945 – Judge Dread, English singer-songwriter (d. 1998)
1945 – Bianca Jagger, Nicaraguan-American model, actress, and activist
1945 – Goldy McJohn, Canadian keyboard player (d. 2017)
1946 – Peter L. Benson, American psychologist and academic (d. 2011)
1946 – Lesley Gore, American singer-songwriter (d. 2015)
1946 – David Suchet, English actor
1947 – James Dyson, English businessman, founded the Dyson Company
1947 – Lynda Myles, English screenwriter and producer
1947 – Philippe Herreweghe, Belgian conductor
1948 – Larry Gatlin, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
1949 – Alan Titchmarsh, English gardener and author
1949 – Alfons Schuhbeck, German celebrity chef, author and businessman
1950 – Simon Gaskell, English chemist and academic
1950 – Duncan Gay, Australian businessman and politician
1950 – Lou Gramm, American singer-songwriter
1950 – Richard Ground, English lawyer and judge (d. 2014)
1950 – Fausto Silva, Brazilian television presenter
1951 – John Glascock, English singer and bass player (d. 1979)
1952 – Chris Anderson, Australian rugby league player and coach
1952 – Christine Baranski, American actress and singer
1952 – Isla St Clair, Scottish singer and actress
1953 – Valery Gergiev, Russian conductor and director
1953 – Jamaal Wilkes, American basketball player
1954 – Elliot Goldenthal, American composer and conductor
1954 – Dawn Primarolo, English politician
1954 – Stephen Venables, English mountaineer and author
1955 – Willie Miller, Scottish footballer
1955 – Donatella Versace, Italian fashion designer
1956 – Régis Labeaume, Canadian businessman and politician, 41st Mayor of Quebec City
1958 – Yasushi Akimoto, Japanese songwriter and producer
1958 – Stanislav Levý, Czech footballer and manager
1958 – David O’Leary, English-Irish footballer and manager
1959 – Alan Best, Canadian animator, director, and producer
1959 – Tony Wakeford, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1960 – Stephen Daldry, English director and producer
1961 – Steve James, English snooker player
1961 – Sophie Thibault, Canadian journalist
1961 – Phil Vickery, English chef and author
1962 – Elizabeth Berridge, American actress
1962 – Michael Grandage, English director and producer
1962 – Jimmy White, English snooker player
1965 – Félix José, Dominican-American baseball player
1966 – Uwe Freiler, German footballer
1966 – Margus Kolga, Estonian diplomat
1966 – Belinda Stronach, Canadian businesswoman, philanthropist, and politician
1967 – Bengt Åkerblom, Swedish ice hockey player (d. 1995)
1967 – Mika Brzezinski, American journalist and author
1967 – David Rocastle, English footballer (d. 2001)
1968 – Jeff Agoos, Swiss-American soccer player, manager, and sportscaster
1968 – Julia Hartley-Brewer, English broadcaster and columnist
1968 – Ziana Zain, Malaysian singer-songwriter and actress
1969 – Brian Lara, Trinidadian cricketer
1970 – Marco Walker, Swiss footballer and coach
1971 – Musashimaru Kōyō, Samoan-American sumo wrestler, the 67th Yokozuna
1971 – Fatima Yusuf, Nigerian sprinter
1972 – Paul Adcock, English footballer
1972 – Ahti Heinla, Estonian programmer and businessman, co-developed Skype
1972 – Dwayne Johnson, American-Canadian wrestler, actor, and producer
1973 – Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, German director and screenwriter
1974 – Horacio Carbonari, Argentinian footballer and manager
1974 – Andy Johnson, English-Welsh footballer
1974 – Janek Meet, Estonian footballer
1975 – David Beckham, English footballer, coach, and model
1975 – Joe Wilkinson, English comedian, actor and writer
1976 – Jeff Gutt, American singer-songwriter
1977 – Brian Cardinal, American basketball player
1977 – Jan Fitschen, German runner
1977 – Luke Hudson, American baseball player
1977 – Fredrik Malm, Swedish journalist and politician
1977 – Jenna von Oÿ, American actress and singer
1977 – Kalle Palander, Finnish skier
1978 – Melvin Ely, American basketball player
1978 – Mike Weaver, Canadian ice hockey player
1979 – Jason Chimera, Canadian ice hockey player
1979 – Ioannis Kanotidis, Greek footballer
1979 – Defne Joy Foster, Turkish-American actress, presenter and VJ (d. 2011)
1980 – Tim Borowski, German footballer
1980 – Pierre-Luc Gagnon, Canadian skateboarder
1980 – Ellie Kemper, American actress, comedian and writer
1980 – Zat Knight, English footballer
1980 – Artūras Masiulis, Lithuanian basketball player
1980 – Troy Murphy, American basketball player
1980 – Lassaâd Ouertani, Tunisian footballer (d. 2013)
1980 – Brad Richards, Canadian ice hockey player
1980 – Vincent Tong, Canadian actor, singer, voice actor and director
1981 – Robert Buckley, American actor
1981 – Chris Kirkland, English footballer
1981 – Tiago Mendes, Portuguese footballer
1981 – Matt Murray, English footballer
1981 – Rina Satō, Japanese voice actress and singer
1982 – Timothy Benjamin, Welsh sprinter
1982 – Johan Botha, South African cricketer
1983 – Alessandro Diamanti, Italian footballer
1983 – Maynor Figueroa, Honduran footballer
1983 – Tina Maze, Slovenian skier
1983 – Daniel Sordo, Spanish race car driver
1983 – Ove Vanebo, Norwegian politician
1984 – Saulius Mikoliūnas, Lithuanian footballer
1984 – Thabo Sefolosha, Swiss basketball player
1985 – Lily Allen, English singer-songwriter and actress
1985 – Kyle Busch, American race car driver
1985 – Ashley Harkleroad, American tennis player
1985 – Sarah Hughes, American figure skater
1987 – Saara Aalto, Finnish singer and actress
1987 – Nana Kitade, Japanese singer-songwriter and actress
1987 – Pat McAfee, American football player
1987 – Kris Russell, Canadian ice hockey player
1987 – Justin Young, English singer and songwriter
1988 – Neftalí Feliz, Dominican baseball player
1988 – Stephen Henderson, Irish footballer
1989 – Jeanette Pohlen, American basketball player
1990 – Kay Panabaker, American actress
1990 – Paul George, American basketball player
1991 – Jeong Jinwoon, South Korean actor and singer
1992 – Sunmi, South Korean singer
1992 – María Teresa Torró Flor, Spanish tennis player
1993 – Owain Doull, Welsh track cyclist
1993 – Isyana Sarasvati, Indonesian singer
1993 – Huang Zitao, Chinese singer and rapper
1996 – Cherprang Areekul, Thai singer
1996 – Julian Brandt, German footballer
1996 – Schuyler Bailar, American swimmer
2015 – Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, British royal, and fourth in line to the British throne
Deaths on May 2
373 – Athanasius of Alexandria, Egyptian bishop and saint (b. 298)
649 – Marutha of Tikrit, Persian theologian of the Syriac Orthodox Church (b. 565)
821 – Liu Zong, general of the Tang Dynasty
907 – Boris I of Bulgaria
1219 – Leo I, King of Armenia (b. 1150)
1230 – William de Braose, English son of Reginald de Braose (b. 1197)
1293 – Meir of Rothenburg, German rabbi (b. c.1215)
1300 – Blanche of Artois (b. 1248)
1450 – William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, English admiral (b. 1396)
1519 – Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, and architect (b. 1452)
1564 – Rodolfo Pio da Carpi, Italian cardinal (b. 1500)
1627 – Lodovico Grossi da Viadana, Italian composer and educator (b. 1560)
1667 – George Wither, English poet and author (b. 1588)
1683 – Stjepan Gradić, Croatian philosopher and mathematician (b. 1613)
1711 – Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester, English politician, First Lord of the Treasury (b. 1641)
1799 – Juan Vicente de Güemes, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo (b. 1740)
1802 – Herman Willem Daendels, Dutch general and politician, Governor-General of the Dutch Gold Coast (b. 1762)
1810 – Henry Jerome de Salis, English priest (b. 1740)
1819 – Mary Moser, English painter and academic (b. 1744)
1857 – Alfred de Musset, French dramatist, poet, and novelist (b. 1810)
1864 – Giacomo Meyerbeer, German composer and educator (b. 1791)
2012 – Tufan Miñnullin, Russian playwright and politician (b. 1936)
2012 – Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih, Indonesian physician and politician, Indonesian Minister of Health (b. 1955)
2012 – Akira Tonomura, Japanese physicist, author, and academic (b. 1942)
2013 – Ernie Field, English boxer (b. 1943)
2013 – Jeff Hanneman, American guitarist and songwriter (b. 1964)
2013 – Joseph P. McFadden, American bishop (b. 1947)
2013 – Dvora Omer, Israeli author and educator (b. 1932)
2013 – Ivan Turina, Croatian footballer (b. 1980)
2013 – Charles Banks Wilson, American painter and illustrator (b. 1918)
2014 – Tomás Balduino, Brazilian bishop (b. 1922)
2014 – Žarko Petan, Slovenian director, playwright, and screenwriter (b. 1929)
2014 – Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., American actor (b. 1918)
2015 – Stuart Archer, English colonel and architect (b. 1915)
2015 – Michael Blake, American author and screenwriter (b. 1945)
2015 – Guy Carawan, American singer and musicologist (b. 1927)
2015 – Maya Plisetskaya, Russian-Lithuanian ballerina, choreographer, actress, and director (b. 1925)
2015 – Ruth Rendell, English author (b. 1930)
2016 – Afeni Shakur, American music businesswoman, activist, and Black Panther (b. 1947)
2020 – Arif Wazir, Pakistani politician, leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (b. 1982)
Holidays and observances on May 2
Christian feast day:
Athanasius of Alexandria (Western Christianity)
Boris I of Bulgaria (Bulgarian Orthodox Church)
Germanus of Normandy
May 2 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
International Harry Potter Day
The last day of the Festival of Ridván (Bahá’í Faith) (Note that this date is non-Gregorian and may change according to the March equinox, see List of observances set by the Baháʼí calendar)
Anniversary of the Dos de Mayo Uprising (Community of Madrid, Spain)
Birth Anniversary of Third Druk Gyalpo (Bhutan)
Flag Day (Poland)
Indonesia National Education Day
Teachers’ Day (Iran) (Note that this date is non-Gregorian and may change according to the March Equinox, see List of observances set by the Solar Hijri calendar)
475 BC – Roman consul Publius Valerius Poplicola celebrates a Roman triumph for his victory over Veii and the Sabines.
305 – Diocletian and Maximian retire from the office of Roman emperor.
524 – King Sigismund of Burgundy is executed at Orléans after an eight-year reign and is succeeded by his brother Godomar.
880 – The Nea Ekklesia is inaugurated in Constantinople, setting the model for all later cross-in-square Orthodox churches.
1169 – Norman mercenaries land at Bannow Bay in Leinster, marking the beginning of the Norman invasion of Ireland.
1328 – Wars of Scottish Independence end: By the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton, England recognises Scotland as an independent state.
1455 – Battle of Arkinholm, Royal forces end the Black Douglas hegemony in Scotland.
1576 – Stephen Báthory, the reigning Prince of Transylvania, marries Anna Jagiellon and they become co-rulers of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1707 – The Act of Union joining England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain takes effect.
1753 – Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.
1759 – Josiah Wedgwood founds the Wedgwood pottery company in Great Britain
1776 – Establishment of the Illuminati in Ingolstadt, Upper Bavaria, by Jesuit-taught Adam Weishaupt.
1778 – American Revolution: The Battle of Crooked Billet begins in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.
1786 – In Vienna, Austria, Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro is performed for the first time.
1794 – War of the Pyrenees: The Battle of Boulou ends, in which French forces defeat the Spanish and regain nearly all the land they lost to Spain in 1793.
1820 – Execution of the Cato Street Conspirators, who plotted to kill the British Cabinet and Prime Minister Lord Liverpool.
1840 – The Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, is issued in the United Kingdom.
1844 – Hong Kong Police Force, the world’s second modern police force and Asia’s first, is established.
1846 – The few remaining Mormons left in Nauvoo, Illinois, formally dedicate the Nauvoo Temple.
1851 – Queen Victoria opens The Great Exhibition at The Crystal Palace in London.
1856 – The Province of Isabela was created in the Philippines in honor of Queen Isabela II.
1862 – American Civil War: The Union Army completes its capture of New Orleans.
1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville begins.
1865 – The Empire of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay sign the Treaty of the Triple Alliance.
1866 – The Memphis Race Riots begin. In three days time, 46 blacks and two whites were killed. Reports of the atrocities influenced passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1875 – Alexandra Palace reopens after being burned down in a fire in 1873.
1884 – The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions demands the eight-hour work day in the United States.
1884 – Moses Fleetwood Walker becomes the first black person to play in a professional baseball game in the United States.
1885 – The original Chicago Board of Trade Building opens for business.
1886 – Rallies are held throughout the United States demanding the eight-hour work day, culminating in the Haymarket affair in Chicago, in commemoration of which May 1 is celebrated as International Workers’ Day in many countries.
1893 – The World’s Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago.
1894 – Coxey’s Army, the first significant American protest march, arrives in Washington, D.C.
1898 – Spanish–American War: Battle of Manila Bay: The Asiatic Squadron of the United States Navy destroys the Pacific Squadron of the Spanish Navy after a seven-hour battle. Spain loses all seven of its ships, and 381 Spanish sailors die. There are no American vessel losses or combat deaths.
1900 – The Scofield Mine disaster kills over 200 men in Scofield, Utah in what is to date the fifth-worst mining accident in United States history.
1915 – The RMS Lusitania departs from New York City on her 202nd, and final, crossing of the North Atlantic. Six days later, the ship is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,198 lives.
1919 – German troops enter Munich to suppress the Bavarian Soviet Republic.
1925 – The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is officially founded. Today it is the largest trade union in the world, with 134 million members.
1927 – The Union Labor Life Insurance Company is founded by the American Federation of Labor.
1929 – The 7.2 Mw Kopet Dag earthquake shakes the Iran–Turkmenistan border region with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing up to 3,800 and injuring 1,121.
1930 – “Pluto” is officially proposed for the name of the newly-discovered dwarf planet Pluto by Vesto Slipher in the Lowell Observatory Observation Circular. The name quickly catches on.
1931 – The Empire State Building is dedicated in New York City.
1941 – World War II: German forces launch a major attack during the siege of Tobruk.
1944 – World War II: Two hundred Communist prisoners are shot by the Germans at Kaisariani, Athens in reprisal for the killing of General Franz Krech by partisans at Molaoi.
1945 – World War II: A German newsreader officially announces that Adolf Hitler has “fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany”. The Soviet flag is raised over the Reich Chancellery, by order of Stalin.
1945 – World War II: Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda commit suicide in the Reich Garden outside the Führerbunker. Their children are also killed by having cyanide pills inserted into their mouths by their mother, Magda.
1945 – World War II: Forces of the Soviet Red Army liberate Allied prisoners of war imprisoned at Stalag Luft I near Barth, Germany.
1945 – World War II: Up to 2,500 people die in a mass suicide in Demmin following the advance of the Red Army.
1945 – World War II: Yugoslav Partisans liberate Trieste.
1946 – Start of three-year Pilbara strike of Indigenous Australians.
1946 – The Paris Peace Conference concludes that the islands of the Dodecanese should be returned to Greece by Italy.
1947 – Portella della Ginestra massacre against May Day celebrations in Sicily by the bandit and separatist leader Salvatore Giuliano where 11 persons are killed and 33 wounded.
1956 – The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.
1956 – A doctor in Japan reports an “epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system”, marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.
1957 – Thirty-four people are killed when a Vickers Viking airliner crashes in Hampshire, England.
1960 – Formation of the western Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra; also known as “Maharashtra Day”.
1960 – Cold War: U-2 incident: Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Sverdlovsk Oblast, Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis.
1961 – The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaims Cuba a socialist nation and abolishes elections.
1965 – Cross-Strait relations: Battle of Dong-Yin, a naval conflict between the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China, takes place.
1967 – Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu are married in Las Vegas.
1970 – Vietnam War: Protests erupt following the announcement by Richard Nixon that the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces would attack Vietnamese communists in a Cambodian Campaign.
1971 – Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) takes over operation of U.S. passenger rail service.
1974 – The Argentine terrorist organization Montoneros is expelled from Plaza de Mayo by president Juan Perón.
1977 – Thirty-six people are killed in Taksim Square, Istanbul, during the Labour Day celebrations.
1978 – Japan’s Naomi Uemura, travelling by dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone.
1982 – Operation Black Buck: The Royal Air Force attacks the Argentine Air Force during Falklands War.
1983 – The Sydney Entertainment Centre is opened.
1987 – Pope John Paul II beatifies Edith Stein, a Jewish-born Carmelite nun who was gassed in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
1989 – Disney-MGM Studios opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.
1990 – The former Philippine Episcopal Church (supervised by the Episcopal Church of the United States of America) is granted full autonomy and raised to the status of an Autocephalous Anglican Province and renamed the Episcopal Church in the Philippines.
1993 – Dingiri Banda Wijetunga became president of Sri Lanka automatically after killing of R Premadasa in LTTE bomb explosion.
1994 – Three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna is killed in an accident whilst leading the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola.
1995 – Croatian War of Independence: Croatian forces launch Operation Flash.
1999 – The body of British climber George Mallory is found on Mount Everest, 75 years after his disappearance in 1924
1999 – SpongeBob SquarePants premieres on Nickelodeon.
2001 – Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declares the existence of “a state of rebellion”, hours after thousands of supporters of her arrested predecessor, Joseph Estrada, storm towards the presidential palace at the height of the EDSA III rebellion.
2002 – OpenOffice.org released version 1.0, the first stable version of the software.
2003 – Invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the “Mission Accomplished” speech, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (off the coast of California), U.S. President George W. Bush declares that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended”.
2004 – Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin.
2009 – Same-sex marriage is legalized in Sweden.
2011 – Pope John Paul II is beatified by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.
2019 – Naxalite attack in Gadchiroli district of India: Sixteen army soldiers, including a driver, killed in an IED blast. Naxals targeted an anti-Naxal operations team.
Births on May 1
1218 – John I, Count of Hainaut (d. 1257)
1218 – Rudolf I of Germany (d. 1291)
1285 – Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel, English politician (d. 1326)
1326 – Rinchinbal Khan, Mongolian emperor (d. 1332)
1488 – Sidonie of Bavaria, eldest daughter of Duke Albrecht IV of Bavaria-Munich (d. 1505)
1527 – Johannes Stadius, German astronomer, astrologer, mathematician (d. 1579)
1545 – Franciscus Junius, French theologian (d. 1602)
1579 – Wolphert Gerretse, Dutch-American farmer, co-founded New Netherland (d. 1662)
1582 – Marco da Gagliano, Italian composer (d. 1643)
1585 – Sophia Olelkovich Radziwill, Belarusian saint (d. 1612)
1591 – Johann Adam Schall von Bell, German missionary and astronomer (d. 1666)
1594 – John Haynes, English-American politician, 1st Governor of the Colony of Connecticut (d. 1653)
1602 – William Lilly, English astrologer (d. 1681)
1672 – Joseph Addison, English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician (d. 1719)
1730 – Joshua Rowley, English admiral (d. 1790)
1735 – Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen, Dutch admiral and philanthropist (d. 1819)
1751 – Judith Sargent Murray, American poet and playwright (d. 1820)
1764 – Benjamin Henry Latrobe, English-American architect, designed the United States Capitol (d. 1820)
1769 – Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Irish-English field marshal and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1852)
1783 – Phoebe Hinsdale Brown, American hymnwriter (d. 1861)
1803 – James Clarence Mangan, Irish poet and author (d. 1849)
1821 – Henry Ayers, English-Australian politician, 8th Premier of South Australia (d. 1897)
1824 – Alexander William Williamson, English chemist and academic (d. 1904)
1825 – Johann Jakob Balmer, Swiss mathematician and physicist (d. 1898)
1825 – George Inness, American painter and educator (d. 1894)
1827 – Jules Breton, French painter (d. 1906)
1829 – José de Alencar, Brazilian author and playwright (d. 1877)
1829 – Frederick Sandys, English painter and illustrator (d. 1904)
1830 – Guido Gezelle, Belgian priest and poet (d. 1899)
1831 – Emily Stowe, Canadian physician and activist (d. 1903)
1847 – Henry Demarest Lloyd, American journalist and politician (d. 1903)
1848 – Adelsteen Normann, Norwegian painter (d. 1919)
1850 – Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (d. 1942)
1851 – Laza Lazarević, Serbian psychiatrist and neurologist (d. 1891)
1852 – Calamity Jane, American frontierswoman and professional scout (d. 1903)
1852 – Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish neuroscientist and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1934)
1853 – Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin, Jewish Ukrainian-American journalist, actor, and playwright (d. 1909)
1855 – Cecilia Beaux, American painter and academic (d. 1942)
1857 – Theo van Gogh, Dutch art dealer (d. 1891)
1859 – Jacqueline Comerre-Paton, French painter and sculptor (d. 1955)
1862 – Marcel Prévost, French novelist and playwright (d. 1941)
1864 – Anna Jarvis, American founder of Mother’s Day (d. 1948)
1871 – Seakle Greijdanus, Dutch theologian and scholar (d. 1948)
1871 – Emiliano Chamorro Vargas, President of Nicaragua (d. 1966)
1872 – Hugo Alfvén, Swedish composer, conductor, violinist, and painter (d. 1960)
1872 – Sidónio Pais, Portuguese soldier and politician, 4th President of Portugal (d. 1918)
1874 – Romaine Brooks, American-French painter and illustrator (d. 1970)
1874 – Paul Van Asbroeck, Belgian target shooter (d. 1959)
1875 – Dave Hall, American runner (d. 1972)
1881 – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French priest, palaeontologist, and philosopher (d. 1955)
1884 – Francis Curzon, 5th Earl Howe, English race car driver and politician (d. 1964)
1885 – Clément Pansaers, Belgian poet (d. 1922)
1885 – Ralph Stackpole, American sculptor and painter (d. 1973)
1887 – Alan Cunningham, Anglo-Irish general and diplomat, High Commissioners for Palestine and Transjordan (d. 1983)
1890 – Clelia Lollini, Italian physician (d. 1963 or 1964)
1891 – Lillian Estelle Fisher, American historian of Spanish America (d. 1988)
1895 – Nikolai Yezhov, Soviet secret police official, head of the NKVD (d. 1940)
1895 – May Hollinworth, Australian theatre producer and director (d. 1968)
1896 – Herbert Backe, German agronomist and politician (d. 1947)
1896 – Mark W. Clark, American general (d. 1984)
1896 – J. Lawton Collins, American general (d. 1987)
1898 – Alfred Schmidt, Estonian weightlifter (d. 1972)
1900 – Ignazio Silone, Italian journalist and politician (d. 1978)
1900 – Aleksander Wat, Polish poet and writer (d. 1967)
1901 – Sterling Allen Brown, American poet, academic, and critic (d. 1989)
1901 – Heinz Eric Roemheld, American pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1985)
1901 – Antal Szerb, Hungarian scholar and author (d. 1945)
1905 – Henry Koster, German-American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1988)
1906 – Horst Schumann, German SS officer and physician (d. 1983)
1907 – Hayes Alvis, American bassist (d. 1972)
1907 – Kate Smith, American singer and actress (d. 1986)
1908 – Giovannino Guareschi, Italian journalist and author (d. 1968)
1908 – Morris Kline, American mathematician and academic (d. 1992)
1909 – Endel Puusepp, Estonian-Soviet military pilot and politician (d. 1996)
1909 – Yiannis Ritsos, Greek poet and playwright (d. 1990)
1910 – Behice Boran, Turkish sociologist and politician (d. 1987)
1910 – Raya Dunayevskaya, Ukrainian-American philosopher and activist (d. 1987)
1910 – Dirk Andries Flentrop, Dutch organ builder (d. 2003)
1910 – J. Allen Hynek, American astronomer and ufologist (d. 1986)
1910 – Nejdet Sançar, Turkish literature teacher (d. 1975)
1911 – Wilfred Watson, English-Canadian poet, playwright and educator (d. 1998)
1912 – Otto Kretschmer, German admiral (d. 1998)
1913 – Louis Nye, American actor (d. 2005)
1913 – Walter Susskind, Czech-English pianist, conductor, and educator (d. 1980)
1914 – Jaap van der Poll, Dutch javelin thrower (d. 2010)
1915 – Hanns Martin Schleyer, German businessman (d. 1977)
1916 – Antoni Bazaniak, Polish sprint canoeist (d. 1979)
1916 – Glenn Ford, Canadian-American actor and producer (d. 2006)
1917 – John Beradino, American baseball player and actor (d. 1996)
1917 – Ulric Cross, Trinidadian navigator, judge, and diplomat (d. 2013)
1917 – Danielle Darrieux, French actress and singer (d. 2017)
1917 – Ahron Soloveichik, Russian rabbi and scholar (d. 2001)
1918 – Gersh Budker, Ukrainian-Russian physicist and academic (d. 1977)
1918 – Jack Paar, American comedian, author and talk show host (d. 2004)
1919 – Manna Dey, Indian singer and composer (d. 2013)
1919 – Mohammed Karim Lamrani, Moroccan businessman and politician, 7th Prime Minister of Morocco (d. 2018)
1919 – Dan O’Herlihy, Irish-American actor (d. 2005)
1921 – Vladimir Colin, Romanian journalist and author (d. 1991)
1922 – Alastair Gillespie, Canadian scholar and politician (d. 2018)
1923 – Joseph Heller, American novelist, short story writer, and playwright (d. 1999)
1923 – Antônio Maria Mucciolo, Italian-Brazilian archbishop (d. 2012)
1923 – Marcel Rayman, Polish soldier (d. 1944)
1924 – Evelyn Boyd Granville, American mathematician, computer scientist, and academic
1924 – Karel Kachyňa, Czech director and screenwriter (d. 2004)
1924 – Terry Southern, American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter (d. 1995)
1925 – Chuck Bednarik, American lieutenant and football player (d. 2015)
1925 – Scott Carpenter, American commander, pilot, and astronaut (d. 2013)
1925 – Sardar Fazlul Karim, Bangladeshi philosopher, scholar, and academic (d. 2014)
1926 – Peter Lax, Hungarian-American mathematician and academic
1927 – Gary Bertini, Israeli conductor and composer (d. 2005)
1927 – Laura Betti, Italian actress (d. 2004)
1927 – Albert Zafy, Malagasy politician, 3rd President of Madagascar (d. 2017)
1927 – Bernard Vukas, Yugoslav-Croatian footballer (d. 1983)
1928 – Sonny James, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2016)
1928 – Delfim Netto, Brazilian economist
1929 – Ralf Dahrendorf, German-English sociologist and politician (d. 2009)
1929 – Sonny Ramadhin, Trinidadian cricketer
1930 – Ollie Matson, American sprinter and football player (d. 2011)
1930 – Richard Riordan, American lieutenant and politician, 39th Mayor of Los Angeles and publisher
1930 – Little Walter Jacobs, American blues harp player and singer (d. 1968)
1931 – Naim Attallah, Palestinian author
1932 – Sandy Woodward, English admiral (d. 2013)
1932 – Tabibar Rahman Sarder, Bangladeshi politician. (d. 2010)
1934 – Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, Mexican politician
1934 – Tang Chang, Thai artist (d. 1990)
1934 – Shirley Horn, American singer and pianist (d. 2005)
1934 – Phillip King, Tunisian-English sculptor
1934 – John Meillon, Australian actor (d. 1989)
1936 – Danièle Huillet, French filmmaker (d. 2006)
1936 – Hans E. Wallman, Swedish director, producer, and composer (d. 2014)
1937 – Una Stubbs, English actress and dancer
1939 – Judy Collins, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1939 – Wilhelmina Cooper, Dutch model (d. 1980)
1939 – Victor Davies, Canadian pianist, composer, and conductor
1943 – Vassal Gadoengin, Nauruan politician (d. 2004)
1943 – Joe Walsh, Irish politician, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (d. 2014)
1945 – Rita Coolidge, American singer-songwriter
1945 – Carson Whitsett, American keyboard player, songwriter, and producer (d. 2007)
1946 – Joanna Lumley, English actress, voice-over artist, author, and activist
1946 – John Woo, Hong Kong director, producer, and screenwriter
1947 – Jacob Bekenstein, Mexican-born Israeli-American theoretical physicist (d. 2015)
1947 – Sergio Infante, Chilean-Swedish poet and author
1948 – Györgyi Balogh, Hungarian sprinter
1948 – Patricia Hill Collins, American sociologist and scholar
1949 – Jim Clench, Canadian bass player (d. 2010)
1949 – Tim Hodgkinson, English saxophonist, clarinet player, and composer
1949 – Paul Teutul, Sr., American motorcycle designer, co-founded Orange County Choppers
1950 – Dann Florek, American actor and director
1950 – Danny McGrain, Scottish footballer and coach
1951 – Gordon Greenidge, Barbadian cricketer and coach
1951 – Geoff Lees, English race car driver
1951 – Sally Mann, American photographer
1952 – Richard Blundell, English economist and academic
1952 – Kim Lewison, English lawyer and judge
1952 – Peter Smith, Malaysian-born English academic and judge
1953 – Glen Ballard, American songwriter and producer
1954 – Ray Parker, Jr., American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1954 – Joel Rosenberg, Canadian-American author and activist (d. 2011)
1955 – Alex Cunningham, Scottish politician
1955 – Martin O’Donnell, American composer
1955 – Ray Searage, American baseball player and coach
1956 – Catherine Frot, French actress
1956 – Phil Foglio, American illustrator
1957 – Rick Darling, Australian cricketer
1957 – Uberto Pasolini, Italian banker, director, and producer
1959 – Yasmina Reza, French actress and playwright
1959 – Lawrence Seeff, South African cricketer and basket weaver
1960 – Steve Cauthen, American jockey and sportscaster
1961 – Sultan Günal-Gezer, Dutch politician
1961 – Clint Malarchuk, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1961 – Marilyn Milian, American judge
1961 – Vasiliy Sidorenko, Russian hammer thrower
1962 – Maia Morgenstern, Romanian actress
1962 – Ted Sundquist, American football player, coach, and manager
1964 – Yvonne van Gennip, Dutch speed skater
1966 – Olaf Thon, German footballer and manager
1967 – Tim McGraw, American singer-songwriter and actor
1968 – Oliver Bierhoff, German footballer and manager
1968 – D’arcy Wretzky, American bass player and singer
1969 – Wes Anderson, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1969 – Mary Lou McDonald, Irish politician
1969 – Billy Owens, American basketball player
1970 – Bernard Butler, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1971 – Ethan Albright, American football player
1971 – Stuart Appleby, Australian golfer
1971 – Kim Grant, South African tennis player
1971 – Artur Kohutek, Polish hurdler and soldier
1971 – Ajith Kumar, Indian film actor in Tamil cinema and race car driver
1972 – Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Yemeni terrorist
1972 – Julie Benz, American actress
1972 – Yoon Hae-young, South Korean actress
1973 – Peter Baah, English footballer and manager
1973 – Mike Jesse, German footballer
1973 – Curtis Martin, American football player
1973 – Oliver Neuville, German footballer
1975 – Austin Croshere, American basketball player and sportscaster
1975 – Marc-Vivien Foé, Cameroonian footballer (d. 2003)
1975 – Nina Hossain, English journalist
1975 – Alexey Smertin, Russian international footballer
1976 – Patricia Stokkers, Dutch swimmer
1977 – Vera Lischka, Austrian swimmer and politician
1978 – James Badge Dale, American actor
1979 – Mauro Bergamasco, Italian rugby player
1979 – Roman Lyashenko, Russian ice hockey player (d. 2003)
1980 – Marvin Cabrera, Mexican footballer
1980 – Rob Davison, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1980 – Inês Henriques, Portuguese race walker
1980 – Jan Heylen, Belgian race car driver
1980 – Jay Reatard, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2010)
1980 – Yuliya Tabakova, Russian athlete
1981 – Manny Acosta, Panamanian baseball player
1981 – Derek Asamoah, Ghanaian footballer
1981 – Alexander Hleb, Belarusian footballer
1981 – Wes Welker, American football player
1982 – Beto, Portuguese footballer
1982 – Jamie Dornan, Northern Irish model and actor
1982 – Mark Farren, Irish footballer (d. 2016)
1982 – Katya Zamolodchikova, American drag queen
1982 – Tommy Robredo, Spanish tennis player
1982 – Darijo Srna, Croatian footballer
1983 – Alain Bernard, French swimmer
1983 – Human Tornado, American wrestler
1983 – Park Hae-jin, South Korean actor
1984 – David Backes, American ice hockey player
1984 – Mišo Brečko, Slovenian footballer
1984 – Patrick Eaves, American ice hockey player
1984 – Alexander Farnerud, Swedish footballer
1984 – Farah Fath, American actress
1984 – Keiichiro Koyama, Japanese singer and actor
1984 – Víctor Montaño, Colombian footballer
1984 – Mark Seaby, Australian footballer
1985 – Shahriar Nafees, Bangladeshi cricketer
1986 – Christian Benítez, Ecuadorian footballer (d. 2013)
1986 – Adam Casey, Australian footballer
1986 – Cassie Jaye, American actress and film director
1986 – Jesse Klaver, Dutch politician
1986 – Lee Chang-min, South Korean singer
1986 – Brent Stanton, Australian footballer
1987 – Leonardo Bonucci, Italian footballer
1987 – Glen Coffee, American football player
1987 – Iván DeJesús Jr., Puerto Rican baseball player
1987 – Marcus Drum, Australian footballer
1987 – Amir Johnson, American basketball player
1987 – Ryan Mathews, American football player
1987 – Saidi Ntibazonkiza, Burundian footballer
1987 – Shahar Pe’er, Israeli tennis player
1988 – Maria Balaba, Latvian figure skater
1988 – Maxim Gustik, Belarusian freestyle skier
1988 – Teodor Peterson, Swedish cross-country skier
1989 – Alejandro Arribas, Spanish footballer
1989 – Poļina Jeļizarova, Latvian runner
1990 – Uriel Álvarez, Mexican footballer
1990 – Caitlin Stasey, Australian actress
1990 – Diego Contento, German footballer
1990 – Scooter Gennett, American baseball player
1991 – Marcus Stroman, American baseball player
1991 – Daniel Talbot, British sprinter
1992 – Trevor Philp, Canadian alpine skier
1992 – Bradley Roby, American football player
1993 – Jean-Christophe Bahebeck, French footballer
1993 – Ifeoma Nwoye, Nigerian wrestler
1994 – Wallace Oliveira, Brazilian footballer
1995 – Collin Seedorf, Dutch footballer
1996 – Christopher J. Alexis Jr., Grenadian road cyclist
1996 – Daniel Saifiti, Australian-Fijian rugby league player
1996 – Jacob Saifiti, Australian-Fijian rugby league player
1996 – Michael Seaton, Jamaican footballer
2004 – Charli D’Amelio, American social media influencer and dancer
Deaths on May 1
408 – Arcadius, Byzantine emperor (b. 377)
558 – Marcouf, missionary and saint
908 – Wang Zongji, Chinese prince and pretender
1118 – Matilda of Scotland (b. 1080)
1171 – Diarmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster (b. 1110)
1187 – Roger de Moulins, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller
1255 – Walter de Gray, English prelate and statesman
1277 – Stefan Uroš I of Serbia (b. 1223)
1278 – William II of Villehardouin
1308 – Albert I of Germany (b. 1255)
1312 – Paul I Šubić of Bribir
1539 – Isabella of Portugal (b. 1503)
1555 – Pope Marcellus II (b. 1501)
1572 – Pope Pius V (b. 1504)
1668 – Frans Luycx, Flemish painter (b. 1604)
1730 – François de Troy, French painter and engraver (b. 1645)
1731 – Johann Ludwig Bach, German violinist and composer (b. 1677)
1738 – Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, English politician, First Lord of the Treasury (b. 1669)
1772 – Gottfried Achenwall, Polish-German historian, economist, and jurist (b. 1719)
1813 – Jean-Baptiste Bessières, French general (b. 1768)
1838 – Antoine Louis Dugès, French obstetrician and naturalist (b. 1797)
1856 – John Wilbur, American minister and theologian (b. 1774)
1873 – David Livingstone, Scottish-English missionary and explorer (b. 1813)
1899 – Ludwig Büchner, German physiologist and physician (b. 1824)
1904 – Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer and academic (b. 1841)
1913 – John Barclay Armstrong, American lieutenant (b. 1850)
1920 – Princess Margaret of Connaught (b. 1882)
1935 – Henri Pélissier, French cyclist (b. 1889)
1943 – Johan Oscar Smith, Norwegian religious leader, founded the Brunstad Christian Church (b. 1871)
1945 – Joseph Goebbels, German lawyer and politician, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1897)
1945 – Magda Goebbels, German wife of Joseph Goebbels (b. 1901)
1953 – Everett Shinn, American painter and illustrator (b. 1876)
1956 – LeRoy Samse, American pole vaulter (b. 1883)
1960 – Charles Holden, English architect, designed the Bristol Central Library (b. 1875)
1963 – Lope K. Santos, Filipino lawyer and politician (b. 1879)
1965 – Spike Jones, American singer and bandleader (b. 1911)
1968 – Jack Adams, Canadian-American ice hockey player, coach, and manager (b. 1895)
1968 – Harold Nicolson, English author and politician (b. 1886)
1970 – Yi Un, Korean prince (b. 1897)
1973 – Asger Jorn, Danish painter and sculptor (b. 1914)
1976 – T. R. M. Howard, American surgeon and activist (b. 1908)
1976 – Alexandros Panagoulis, Greek poet and politician (b. 1939)
1978 – Aram Khachaturian, Armenian composer and conductor (b. 1903)
1982 – William Primrose, Scottish viola player and educator (b. 1903)
1984 – Jüri Lossmann, Estonian-Swedish runner (b. 1891)
1985 – Denise Robins, English journalist and author (b. 1897)
1986 – Hylda Baker, English comedian, actress and music hall performer (b. 1905)
1986 – Hugo Peretti, American songwriter and producer (b. 1916)
1988 – Ben Lexcen, Australian sailor and architect (b. 1936)
1989 – Sally Kirkland, American journalist (b. 1912)
1989 – V. M. Panchalingam, Sri Lankan civil servant (b. 1930)
1989 – Patrice Tardif, Canadian farmer and politician (b. 1904)
1990 – Sergio Franchi, Italian-American tenor and actor (b. 1926)
1991 – Richard Thorpe, American director and screenwriter (b. 1896)
1993 – Pierre Bérégovoy, French metallurgist and politician, Prime Minister of France (b. 1925)
1993 – Ranasinghe Premadasa, Sri Lankan politician, 3rd President of Sri Lanka (b. 1924)
1994 – Ayrton Senna, Brazilian race car driver (b. 1960)
1995 – Antonio Salemme, Italian-American painter (b. 1892)
1997 – Fernand Dumont, Canadian sociologist, philosopher, and poet (b. 1927)
1998 – Eldridge Cleaver, American author and activist (b. 1935)
2000 – Steve Reeves, American bodybuilder and actor (b. 1926)
2002 – Ebrahim Al-Arrayedh, Indian poet and author (b. 1908)
2003 – Miss Elizabeth, American wrestler and manager (b. 1960)
2003 – Wim van Est, Dutch cyclist (b. 1923)
2005 – Kenneth Clark, American psychologist and academic (b. 1914)
2008 – Anthony Mamo, Maltese judge and politician, 1st President of Malta (b. 1909)
2008 – Philipp von Boeselager, German soldier and economist (b. 1917)
2010 – Helen Wagner, American actress (b. 1918)
2011 – Henry Cooper, English boxer (b. 1934)
2011 – Ted Lowe, English sportscaster (b. 1920)
2012 – James Kinley, Canadian engineer and politician, 29th Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia (b. 1925)
2012 – Mordechai Virshubski, German-Israeli lawyer and politician (b. 1930)
2013 – Chris Kelly, American rapper (b. 1978)
2013 – Pierre Pleimelding, French footballer and manager (b. 1952)
2014 – Adamu Atta, Nigerian lawyer and politician, 5th Governor of Kwara State (b. 1927)
2015 – Vafa Guluzade, Azerbaijani political scientist, academic, and diplomat (b. 1940)
2015 – María Elena Velasco, Mexican actress, singer, director, and screenwriter (b. 1940)
2015 – Grace Lee Whitney, American actress (b. 1930)
Holidays and observances on May 1
Christian feast day:
Andeolus
Augustin Schoeffler, Jean-Louis Bonnard (part of Vietnamese Martyrs)
Benedict of Szkalka
Brioc
James the Less (Anglican Communion)
Joseph the Worker (Roman Catholic)
Blessed Klymentiy Sheptytsky (Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
Marcouf
Philip the Apostle (Anglican Communion, Lutheran Church)
Richard Pampuri
Sigismund of Burgundy
Ultan
May 1 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest day on which Mother’s Day can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday in May. (Samoa)
Earliest day on which Mother’s Day can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Sunday in May. (Hong Kong, Hungary, Lithuania, Mozambique, Portugal, Spain, Romania)
Earliest day on which National Day of Prayer can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Thursday in May. (United States)
Earliest day on which World Asthma Day can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Tuesday in May. (International)
Armed Forces Day (Mauritania)
Constitution Day (Argentina, Latvia, Marshall Islands)
Commemoration of the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat following the foundation of Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti (India):
Maharashtra Day
International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day
Lei Day (Hawaii)
International Workers’ Day or Labour Day (International), and its related observances:
Earliest day on which Labour Day can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of May. (Barbados, Dominica)
Law Day (United States), formerly intended to counterbalance the celebration of Labour Day. (United States)
Loyalty Day, formerly intended to counterbalance the celebration of Labour Day. (United States)
May Day (beginning of Summer) observances in the Northern hemisphere (see April 30):
Beltane (Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Celtic neopagans and Wiccans in the Northern hemisphere)
Earliest day on which Beltane can fall, while May 7 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday in May. (Ireland, Scotland)
Calan Mai (Wales)
Samhain (Celtic neopagans and Wiccans in the Southern Hemisphere)
311 – The Diocletianic Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire ends.
313 – Battle of Tzirallum: Emperor Licinius defeats Maximinus II and unifies the Eastern Roman Empire.
642 – Chindasuinth is proclaimed king by the Visigothic nobility and bishops.
1315 – Enguerrand de Marigny is hanged at the instigation of Charles, Count of Valois.
1492 – Spain gives Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration.
1513 – Edmund de la Pole, Yorkist pretender to the English throne, is executed on the orders of Henry VIII.
1557 – Mapuche leader Lautaro is killed by Spanish forces at the Battle of Mataquito in Chile.
1598 – Juan de Oñate begins the conquest of Santa Fe de Nuevo México.
1598 – Henry IV of France issues the Edict of Nantes, allowing freedom of religion to the Huguenots.
1636 – Eighty Years’ War: Dutch Republic forces recapture a strategically important fort from Spain after a nine-month siege.
1671 – Petar Zrinski, the Croatian Ban from the Zrinski family, is executed.
1789 – On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States.
1803 – Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.
1812 – The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana.
1838 – Nicaragua declares independence from the Central American Federation.
1863 – A 65-man French Foreign Legion infantry patrol fights a force of nearly 2,000 Mexican soldiers to nearly the last man in Hacienda Camarón, Mexico.
1871 – The Camp Grant massacre takes place in Arizona Territory.
1885 – Governor of New York David B. Hill signs legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York’s first state park, ensuring that Niagara Falls will not be devoted solely to industrial and commercial use.
1897 – J. J. Thomson of the Cavendish Laboratory announces his discovery of the electron as a subatomic particle, over 1,800 times smaller than a proton (in the atomic nucleus), at a lecture at the Royal Institution in London.
1900 – Hawaii becomes a territory of the United States, with Sanford B. Dole as governor.
1904 – The Louisiana Purchase Exposition World’s Fair opens in St. Louis, Missouri.
1905 – Albert Einstein completes his doctoral thesis at the University of Zurich.
1925 – Automaker Dodge Brothers, Inc is sold to Dillon, Read & Co. for US$146 million plus $50 million for charity.
1927 – The Federal Industrial Institute for Women opens in Alderson, West Virginia, as the first women’s federal prison in the United States.
1927 – Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford become the first celebrities to leave their footprints in concrete at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
1937 – The Commonwealth of the Philippines holds a plebiscite for Filipino women on whether they should be extended the right to suffrage; over 90% would vote in the affirmative.
1938 – The animated cartoon short Porky’s Hare Hunt debuts in movie theaters, introducing Happy Rabbit, an early version of Bugs Bunny.
1939 – The 1939–40 New York World’s Fair opens.
1939 – NBC inaugurates its regularly scheduled television service in New York City, broadcasting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s N.Y. World’s Fair opening day ceremonial address.
1943 – World War II: The British submarine HMS Seraph surfaces near Huelva to cast adrift a dead man dressed as a courier and carrying false invasion plans.
1945 – World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for less than 40 hours. Soviet soldiers raise the Victory Banner over the Reichstag building.
1945 – World War II: Stalag Luft I prisoner-of-war camp near Barth, Germany is liberated by Soviet soldiers, freeing nearly 9000 American and British airmen.
1947 – In Nevada, Boulder Dam is renamed Hoover Dam.
1948 – In Bogotá, Colombia, the Organization of American States is established.
1956 – Former Vice President and Democratic Senator Alben Barkley dies during a speech in Virginia.
1957 – Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery entered into force.
1961 – K-19, the first Soviet nuclear submarine equipped with nuclear missiles, is commissioned.
1963 – The Bristol Bus Boycott is held in Bristol to protest the Bristol Omnibus Company’s refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews, drawing national attention to racial discrimination in the United Kingdom.
1966 – The Church of Satan is formed in The Black House, San Francisco.
1973 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that White House Counsel John Dean has been fired and that other top aides, most notably H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, have resigned.
1975 – Fall of Saigon: Communist forces gain control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ends with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Dương Văn Minh.
1980 – Beatrix is inaugurated as Queen of the Netherlands following the abdication of Juliana.
1980 – The Iranian Embassy siege begins in London.
1982 – The Bijon Setu massacre occurs in Calcutta, India.
1993 – CERN announces World Wide Web protocols will be free.
1994 – Formula One racing driver Roland Ratzenberger is killed in a crash during the qualifying session of the San Marino Grand Prix run at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari outside Imola, Italy.
2000 – Canonization of Faustina Kowalska in the presence of 200,000 people and the first Divine Mercy Sunday celebrated worldwide.
2004 – U.S. media release graphic photos of American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
2008 – Two skeletal remains found near Yekaterinburg, Russia are confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei and Anastasia, two of the children of the last Tsar of Russia, whose entire family was executed at Yekaterinburg by the Bolsheviks.
2009 – Chrysler files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
2009 – Seven civilians and the perpetrator are killed and another ten injured at a Queen’s Day parade in Apeldoorn, Netherlands in an attempted assassination on Queen Beatrix.
2012 – An overloaded ferry capsizes on the Brahmaputra River in India killing at least 103 people.
2013 – Willem-Alexander is inaugurated as King of the Netherlands following the abdication of Beatrix.
2014 – A bomb blast in Ürümqi, China kills three people and injures 79 others.
Births on April 30
1245 – Philip III of France (d. 1285)
1310 – King Casimir III of Poland (d. 1368)
1331 – Gaston III, Count of Foix (d. 1391)
1383 – Anne of Gloucester, English countess, granddaughter of King Edward III of England (d. 1438)
1425 – William III, Landgrave of Thuringia (d. 1482)
1504 – Francesco Primaticcio, Italian painter (d. 1570)
1553 – Louise of Lorraine (d. 1601)
1623 – François de Laval, French-Canadian bishop and saint (d. 1708)
1651 – Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, French priest and saint (d. 1719)
1662 – Mary II of England (d. 1694)
1664 – François Louis, Prince of Conti (d. 1709)
1710 – Johann Kaspar Basselet von La Rosée, Bavarian general (d. 1795)
1723 – Mathurin Jacques Brisson, French zoologist and philosopher (d. 1806)
1758 – Emmanuel Vitale, Maltese commander and politician (d. 1802)
1770 – David Thompson, English-Canadian cartographer and explorer (d. 1857)
1777 – Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician and physicist (d. 1855)
1803 – Albrecht von Roon, Prussian soldier and politician, 10th Minister President of Prussia (d. 1879)
1829 – Ferdinand von Hochstetter, Austrian geologist and academic (d. 1884)
1857 – Eugen Bleuler, Swiss psychiatrist and eugenicist (d. 1940)
1857 – Walter Simon, German banker and philanthropist (d. 1920)
1865 – Max Nettlau, German historian and academic (d. 1944)
1866 – Mary Haviland Stilwell Kuesel, American pioneer dentist (d. 1936)
1869 – Hans Poelzig, German architect, designed the IG Farben Building and Großes Schauspielhaus (d. 1936)
1870 – Franz Lehár, Hungarian composer (d. 1948)
1870 – Dadasaheb Phalke, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1944)
1874 – Cyriel Verschaeve, Flemish priest and author (d. 1949)
1876 – Orso Mario Corbino, Italian physicist and politician (d. 1937)
1877 – Léon Flameng, French cyclist (d. 1917)
1877 – Alice B. Toklas, American memoirist (d. 1967)
1878 – Władysław Witwicki, Polish psychologist, philosopher, translator, historian (of philosophy and art) and artist (d. 1948)
1880 – Charles Exeter Devereux Crombie, Scottish cartoonist (d. 1967)
1883 – Jaroslav Hašek, Czech soldier and author (d. 1923)
1883 – Luigi Russolo, Italian painter and composer (d. 1947)
1884 – Olof Sandborg, Swedish actor (d. 1965)
1888 – John Crowe Ransom, American poet, critic, and academic (d. 1974)
1893 – Harold Breen, Australian public servant (d. 1966)
1893 – Joachim von Ribbentrop, German soldier and politician, 14th German Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs (d. 1946)
1895 – Philippe Panneton, Canadian physician, academic, and diplomat (d. 1960)
1896 – Reverend Gary Davis, American singer and guitarist (d. 1972)
1896 – Hans List, Austrian scientist and businessman, founded the AVL Engineering Company (d. 1996)
1897 – Humberto Mauro, Brazilian director and screenwriter (d. 1983)
1900 – Erni Krusten, Estonian author and poet (d. 1984)
1901 – Simon Kuznets, Belarusian-American economist, statistician, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1985)
1902 – Theodore Schultz, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1998)
1905 – Sergey Nikolsky, Russian mathematician and academic (d. 2012)
1908 – Eve Arden, American actress (d. 1990)
1908 – Bjarni Benediktsson, Icelandic professor of law and politician, 13th Prime Minister of Iceland (d. 1970)
1908 – Frank Robert Miller, Canadian air marshal and politician (d. 1997)
1909 – F. E. McWilliam, Irish sculptor and educator (d. 1992)
1909 – Juliana of the Netherlands (d. 2004)
1910 – Levi Celerio, Filipino pianist, violinist, and composer (d. 2002)
1914 – Charles Beetham, American middle-distance runner (d. 1997)
1914 – Dorival Caymmi, Brazilian singer-songwriter, actor, and painter (d. 2008)
1916 – Paul Kuusberg, Estonian journalist and author (d. 2003)
1916 – Claude Shannon, American mathematician and engineer (d. 2001)
1916 – Robert Shaw, American conductor (d. 1999)
1917 – Bea Wain, American singer (d. 2017)
1920 – Duncan Hamilton, Irish-English race car driver and pilot (d. 1994)
1920 – Tom Moore, British army officer and fundraiser
1921 – Roger L. Easton, American scientist, co-invented the GPS (d. 2014)
1922 – Anton Murray, South African cricketer (d. 1995)
1923 – Percy Heath, American bassist (d. 2005)
1923 – Kagamisato Kiyoji, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 42nd Yokozuna (d. 2004)
1924 – Uno Laht, Estonian KGB officer and author (d. 2008)
1925 – Corinne Calvet, French actress (d. 2001)
1925 – Johnny Horton, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1960)
1926 – Shrinivas Khale, Indian composer (d. 2011)
1926 – Cloris Leachman, American actress and comedian
1928 – Hugh Hood, Canadian author and academic (d. 2000)
1928 – Orlando Sirola, Italian tennis player (d. 1995)
1930 – Félix Guattari, French psychotherapist and philosopher (d. 1992)
1933 – Charles Sanderson, Baron Sanderson of Bowden, English politician
1934 – Jerry Lordan, English singer-songwriter (d. 1995)
1934 – Don McKenney, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1937 – Tony Harrison, English poet and playwright
1938 – Gary Collins, American actor and talk show host (d. 2012)
1938 – Juraj Jakubisko, Slovak director and screenwriter
1938 – Larry Niven, American author and screenwriter
1940 – Jeroen Brouwers, Dutch journalist and writer
1940 – Michael Cleary, Australian rugby player and politician
1941 – Stavros Dimas, Greek lawyer and politician, Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs
1941 – Max Merritt, New Zealand-Australian singer-songwriter
1942 – Sallehuddin of Kedah, Sultan of Kedah
1943 – Frederick Chiluba, Zambian politician, 2nd President of Zambia (d. 2011)
1943 – Bobby Vee, American pop singer-songwriter (d. 2016)
1944 – Jon Bing, Norwegian author, scholar, and academic (d. 2014)
1944 – Jill Clayburgh, American actress (d. 2010)
1945 – J. Michael Brady, British radiologist
1945 – Annie Dillard, American novelist, essayist, and poet
1945 – Mimi Fariña, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist (d. 2001)
1945 – Michael J. Smith, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (d. 1986)
1946 – King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
1946 – Bill Plympton, American animator, producer, and screenwriter
1946 – Don Schollander, American swimmer
1947 – Paul Fiddes, English theologian and academic
1947 – Finn Kalvik, Norwegian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1947 – Tom Køhlert, Danish footballer and manager
1947 – Mats Odell, Swedish economist and politician, Swedish Minister for Financial Markets
1948 – Wayne Kramer, American guitarist and singer-songwriter
1948 – Pierre Pagé, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1948 – Margit Papp, Hungarian athlete
1949 – Phil Garner, American baseball player and manager
1949 – António Guterres, Portuguese academic and politician, 114th Prime Minister of Portugal and 9th Secretary-General of the United Nations
1949 – Karl Meiler, German tennis player (d. 2014)
1952 – Jacques Audiard, French director and screenwriter
1952 – Jack Middelburg, Dutch motorcycle racer (d. 1984)
1953 – Merrill Osmond, American singer and bass player
1954 – Jane Campion, New Zealand director, producer, and screenwriter
1954 – Kim Darroch, English diplomat, UK Permanent Representative to the European Union
1954 – Frank-Michael Marczewski, German footballer
1955 – Nicolas Hulot, French journalist and environmentalist
1955 – David Kitchin, English lawyer and judge
1955 – Zlatko Topčić, Bosnian writer and screenwriter
1956 – Lars von Trier, Danish director and screenwriter
1957 – Wonder Mike, American rapper and songwriter
1958 – Charles Berling, French actor, director, and screenwriter
1959 – Stephen Harper, Canadian economist and politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Canada
1960 – Geoffrey Cox, English lawyer and politician
1960 – Kerry Healey, American academic and politician, 70th Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts
1961 – Arnór Guðjohnsen, Icelandic footballer
1961 – Isiah Thomas, American basketball player, coach, and sportscaster
1963 – Andrew Carwood, English tenor and conductor
1963 – Michael Waltrip, American race car driver and sportscaster
1964 – Tony Fernandes, Malaysian-Indian businessman, co-founded Tune Group
1964 – Ian Healy, Australian cricketer, coach, and sportscaster
1964 – Lorenzo Staelens, Belgian footballer and manager
