May 2 - Events

Events

• 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 beginning Scottish Reformation.
• 1568 – Mary, Queen of Scots, escapes from Loch Leven Castle.
• 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.
• 1816 – Marriage of Léopold of Saxe-Coburg and Charlotte Augusta.
• 1829 – After anchoring nearby, Captain Charles Fremantle of the 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 Spanish fleet at the Battle of Callao.
• 1876 – The April Uprising breaks out in Bulgaria.
• 1879 – The Spanish Socialist Worker's Party is founded in Casa Labra Pub (city of Madrid) by the historical Spanish workers' leaderPablo Iglesias.
• 1885 – Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time.
• 1885 – Cree and Assiniboine warriors win the Battle of Cut Knife, their largest victory over Canadian forces during the North-West Rebellion.
• 1885 – The Congo Free State is established by King Léopold II of Belgium.
• 1889 – Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia, signs a treaty of amity with Italy, which gives Italy control over Eritrea.
• 1918 – General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.
• 1920 – The first game of the Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis, Indiana.
• 1932 – Comedian Jack Benny's radio show airs for the first time.
• 1933 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler bans trade unions.
• 1945 – World War II: Fall of Berlin: The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin and Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over theReichstag building.
• 1945 – World War II: Italian Campaign – General Heinrich von Vietinghoff signs the official instrument of surrender of all Wehrmacht forces in Italy.
• 1945 – World War II: The US 82nd Airborne Division liberates Wöbbelin concentration camp finding 1000 dead inmates, most starved to death.
• 1946 – The "Battle of Alcatraz" takes place, killing two guards and three inmates.
• 1952 – The world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1 makes its maiden flight, 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 USS Card while docked at Saigon. Viet Cong forces are suspected of placing a bomb on the ship.
• 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 broke out at the Sunshine mine located between Kellogg and Wallace, ID, killing 91 workers.
• 1982 – Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano.
• 1994 – In a bus disaster in Poland, 32 people die.
• 1995 – During the Croatian War of Independence, Serb forces fire cluster bombs at Zagreb, killing 7 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 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.
• 2002 – Marad massacre of eight Hindus near Palakkad in Kerala.
• 2003 – From the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, US President George W. Bush announced in a nationally televised address in front of a "Mission Accomplished" banner that major combat operations in Iraq had ended.
• 2004 – Yelwa massacre of more than 630 nomad Muslims by Christians in Nigeria.
• 2008 – Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Myanmar killing over 130,000 people and leaving millions of people homeless.