1604 – Leon VII Spanish poet’s first poem is published: La Cocina
1864 – US Civil War: Union Army General Sherman begins advance to Atlanta, Georgia, during the Atlanta Campaign
1889 – Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) in Paris opens with the recently completed Eiffel Tower serving as the entrance arch; the elevators in the tower are not yet ready, so intrepid visitors have to climb 1,710 steps to reach the top
1933 – 59th Kentucky Derby: Don Meade aboard Brokers Tip wins in 2:06.8
1942 – Corregidor and Philippines surrender to Japanese Armies
1970 – Irish Prime Minister Jack Lynch sacks two ministers in the Irish government over allegations of illegal arms importation
1981 – US expels Libyan diplomats
1991 – Space Shuttle STS 39 (Discovery 12) lands
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 5th May 2026
1863 – Irish boxer Joe Coburn KOs American Mike McCoole in the 67th round in his first defense of Heavyweight C’ship of America in Charlestown, Maryland
1916 – US Marines invade Dominican Republic, stay until 1924
1917 – St Louis Browns pitcher Ernie Koob no-hits Chicago White Sox, 1-0 at Sportsman’s Park III
1948 – First squadron of jet aircraft boards a carrier
1955 – US performs nuclear test at Nevada test Site
1956 – The first World Judo Championships are held in Tokyo
1961 – Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space aboard Freedom 7
2006 – The government of Sudan signs an accord with the Sudan Liberation Army
Historical Events for 4th May 2026
1493 – Spanish Pope Alexander VI decrees in the papal bull “Inter caetera” that all lands west of a line 100 leagues west of any of the islands of the Azores or the Cape Verde Islands belong to Castile, ultimately dividing the Americas between Spain and Portugal
1861 – At Gretna, Louisiana, one of the first guns for the Confederate Navy is cast
1910 – Wilfrid Laurier passes the Naval Service Act, which creates the Royal Canadian Navy
1927 – Nicaragua agrees to a US supervised presidential election in 1928
1957 – Anne Frank Foundation forms in Amsterdam
1975 – Italian film “Seven Beauties” directed by Lina Wertmüller, starring Giancarlo Giannini, and Shirley Stoler released – first film directed by a women to be nominated for an Academy Award
1988 – USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
2018 – LA Angels first baseman Albert Pujols collects his 3,000th MLB hit in a 5-0 win v Mariners in Seattle
Historical Events for 3rd May 2026
1342 – Count Hartmann II becomes the ruler of Vaduz, Liechtenstein
1864 – Red River Campaign: third day of Battle at Alexandria, Louisiana
1933 – Nellie T. Ross takes office as the first female director of the US Mint
1966 – WDHO (now WNWO) TV channel 24 in Toledo, Ohio (ABC) begins broadcasting
2002 – Military MiG-21 aircraft crashes into the Bank of Rajasthan in India, killing eight people
2002 – “Spider-Man,” starring Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin, premieres
2023 – 13-year-old Serbian student shoots and kills nine people at his Belgrade school, eight students and a security guard, before handing himself in
2023 – MLB LA Angels pitcher Shohei Ohtani joins NY Yankee legend Babe Ruth as only pitcher to strike out 500 batters and hit over 100 career home runs in 6-4 over the Cardinals in St. Louis
Historical Events for 2nd May 2026
1598 – France and Spain sign the Peace of Vervins
1923 – MLB Washington Senator Walter Johnson pitches his 100th shutout, beats New York Yankees 3-0
1941 – Nazi occupied Netherlands lays off Jewish journalists
1943 – German troops vacate Jefna, Tunisia
1950 – Dutch PM Malan recognizes South-Africa but not People’s Republic of China
1969 – British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth II departs Southampton on its maiden voyage to New York
1982 – Argentine cruiser General Belgrano is sunk by British submarine HMS Conqueror with the loss of more than 350 men during the Falklands War
1983 – 6.7 earthquake injures 487 in Coalinga, California
Historical Events for 1st May 2026
1850 – John Geary becomes the first mayor of San Francisco
1951 – Dutch Reformed Church introduces a new church choir
1967 – Bernard Malamud wins the Pulitzer Price in Fiction for “The Fixer”
1988 – Two IRA attacks in and near Roermond, Netherlands, kills three British servicemen and wounds three more
2002 – Padres closer Trevor Hoffman sets MLB record for saves for one team (321) in 4-3 win v Chicago Cubs in San Diego
2009 – Same-sex marriage is legalized in Sweden
2014 – Hundreds march through Nigerian capital calling for the release of schoolgirls abducted by Islamic militants, Boko Haram, who oppose Western education
2019 – US Attorney General William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee, defending his handling of the Mueller Report
Historical Events for 30th April 2026
1803 – Chancellor Robert Livingston and James Monroe sign Louisiana Purchase Treaty in Paris at a cost of 15 million dollars, doubles the size of the USA
1871 – The Camp Grant Massacre of Apache Indians in Arizona Territory is committed by white and Mexican adventurers, 144 die
1939 – Lou Gehrig sets a MLB record playing his 2,130th consecutive and final game for the New York Yankees.
1972 – “Arthur Godfrey Time” ends a 27 year run on radio
1973 – Women’s tennis groups end disputes over sanctioning tournaments
1995 – After 120 years the last 15 A and S department stores close
1997 – Tajik Prest Imomali Rakhmonov wounded in assassination attempt
2019 – New type of dementia identified and named limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy (Late) after misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease
Historical Events for 29th April 2026
1644 – Farm leader Li Zicheng becomes Emperor of China and flees Peking
1707 – English and Scottish parliaments accept Act of Union; creates the United Kingdom of Great Britain (comes into being 1st May)
1854 – Ashmun Institute (later Lincoln University), in Hinsonville, Pennsylvania, receives its charter from Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, making it the 1st degree-granting Black college in US
1862 – 100,000 federal troops prepare to march into Corinth, Mississippi
1864 – The Theta Xi fraternity is founded at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York
1953 – Milwaukee Braves’ Joe Adcock is 1st to homer into New York’s Polo Grounds center field bleachers
1995 – KC Royal John Nonely is 70th to HR on his 1st at bat
1996 – Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Fresno, California on KFRR 104.1 FM
Historical Events for 28th April 2026
1887 – “Europe’s first motoring competition” is ‘won’ by The Marquis de Dion on a steam-powered quadricycle built by French toymaker and engineer Georges Bouton; French newspaper Le Velocipede organized the ‘test’, and Bouton was the only participant
1914 – 181 die in coal mine collapse at Eccles, West Virginia
1919 – American stuntman and parachute developer Leslie Irvin (23) makes the first premeditated free-fall parachute jump from a plane above the US Army Air Service’s McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio
1952 – St Louis Browns lend 2 black minor leaguers to Hankyu Braves of Japan
2017 – Gwyneth Paltrow brand Goop and Condé Nast announce they will be launching a quarterly publication together
2022 – Russian missiles strike Ukrainian city of Kyiv during a visit by UN Secretary-General António Guterres
2025 – Beyoncé’s 10th concert tour, The Cowboy Carter Tour, commences in Inglewood, California
2025 – Airports, hospitals, and public transit shut down due to a widespread power outage in Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and parts of France
Historical Events for 27th April 2026
1565 – First Spanish settlement in the Philippines is founded in Cebu City
1908 – IV Summer (Modern) Olympic Games open in London
1912 – Relief laws in Netherlands replace those of 1854
1940 – Himmler orders establishment of Auschwitz Concentration Camp
1952 – Revival of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s operetta “Four Saints in Three Acts” closes at Broadway Theater, NYC, after 15 performances
1968 – Congress of Political Party Radicals (PPR) forms in Netherlands
1982 – Trial of John Hinckley, Jr begins for the attempted assassination of US President Ronald Reagan
2023 – NFL Draft: Alabama quarterback Bryce Young first pick by the Carolina Panthers