May 5 - Events

Events

• 553 – The Second Council of Constantinople begins.
• 1215 – Rebel barons renounce their allegiance to King John of England — part of a chain of events leading to the signing of the Magna Carta
• 1260 – Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.
• 1494 – Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica and claims it for Spain.
• 1640 – King Charles I of England dissolves the Short Parliament.
• 1762 – Russia and Prussia sign the Treaty of St. Petersburg.
• 1789 – In France, the Estates-General convenes for the first time since 1614.
• 1809 – Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silkand thread.
• 1809 – The Swiss canton of Aargau denies citizenship to Jews.
• 1821 – Emperor Napoleon I dies in exile on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.
• 1835 – In Belgium, the first railway in continental Europe opens between Brussels and Mechelen.
• 1860 – Giuseppe Garibaldi sets sail from Genoa, leading the expedition of the Thousand to conquer theKingdom of the Two Sicilies and giving birth to the Kingdom of Italy.
• 1862 – Cinco de Mayo: troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico.
• 1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of the Wilderness begins in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.
• 1865 – In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio), the first train robbery in the United States takes place.
• 1866 – Memorial Day first celebrated in United States at Waterloo, New York.
• 1877 – Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under ColonelNelson Miles.
• 1886 – The Bay View Tragedy: A militia fires into a crowd of protesters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, killing seven.
• 1891 – The Music Hall in New York City (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, withTchaikovsky as the guest conductor.
• 1904 – Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, Cy Young of the Boston Americans throws the firstperfect game in the modern era of baseball.
• 1920 – Authorities arrest Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for alleged robbery and murder.
• 1925 – Scopes Trial: serving of an arrest warrant on John T. Scopes for teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.
• 1925 – The government of South Africa declares Afrikaans an official language
• 1936 – Italian troops occupy Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
• 1940 – World War II: Norwegian refugees form a government-in-exile in London
• 1941 – Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; the country commemorates the date as Liberation Day or Patriots' Victory Day.
• 1945 – World War II: Canadian and UK troops liberate the Netherlands and Denmark from Nazi occupation when Wehrmacht troops capitulate
• 1949 – The Treaty of London establishes the Council of Europe in Strasbourg as the first European institution working for European integration.
• 1950 – Bhumibol Adulyadej crowns himself King Rama IX of Thailand.
• 1955 – West Germany gains full sovereignty.
• 1961 – The Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 3 – Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space, making a sub-orbital flight of 15 minutes.
• 1964 – The Council of Europe declares May 5 as Europe Day
• 1980 – Operation Nimrod: The British Special Air Service storms the Iranian embassy in London after a six-day siege.
• 1981 – Bobby Sands dies in the Long Kesh prison hospital after 66 days of hunger-striking, aged 27.
• 1987 – Iran-Contra affair: start of Congressional televised hearings in the United States of America
• 1991 – A riot breaks out in the Mt. Pleasant section of Washington, D.C. after police shoot a Salvadoran man.
• 1992 – Ratification by Alabama brings into effect the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
• 1994 – The signing of the Bishkek Protocol between Armenia and Azerbaijan effectively freezes the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
• 1994 – American teenager Michael P. Fay is caned in Singapore for theft and vandalism, a punishment that many in the United States deemed to be excessive for a teenager committing a non-violent crime.
• 2006 – The government of Sudan signs an accord with the Sudan Liberation Army.
• 2007 – Kenya Airways Flight KQ 507 crashes in Cameroon.