Portal:United States/Anniversaries/May

United States May anniversaries

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These are the selected anniversaries for May that appear on the United States portal.

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See also

• Yearly "...in the United States" articles, such as 2024 in the United States.
• United States history categories (Select [+] to view subcategories)

History of the United States

May 1

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• 1886 – A nationwide general strike begins, which eventually wins the eight–hour workday in the United States. Most industrialized countries commemorate the day as May Day or Labor Day.
• 1931 – The Empire State Building (pictured) is dedicated in New York City.
• 1956 – The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.
• 1960 – Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Soviet Union, America's Cold War rival, sparking off a diplomatic crisis.
• 1971 – Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, is formed to take over United States passenger rail service.

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May 2

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• 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.
• 1885 – Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time.
• 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.
• 1955 – Tennessee Williams (pictured) wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
• 2000 – Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military.

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May 3

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• 1802 – Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city.
• 1921 – West Virginia imposes the first state sales tax.
• 1933 – Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first woman to head the United States Mint.
• 1937 – Gone with the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell (pictured), wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
• 1959 – The first Grammy Awards are announced.
• 1963 – The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and responds with violent force to stop the "Birmingham campaign" protestors. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing newfound attention to the Civil Rights Movement.

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May 4

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• 1626 – Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrives in New Netherland (present day Manhattan Island) aboard the ship See Meeuw.
• 1776 – Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III of the United Kingdom.
• 1865 – Abraham Lincoln buried in Springfield, Illinois, three weeks after his assassination.
• 1904 – Construction begins by the United States on the Panama Canal.
• 1961 – The "Freedom Riders" (member pictured) begin a bus trip through the South.
• 1970 – The Ohio National Guard are sent to Kent State University after the ROTC building was burnt down, and subsequently open fire on students protesting at the American invasion of Cambodia. Four students are killed and nine are wounded.

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May 5

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• 1809 – For her technique of weaving straw with silk and thread, Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a United States patent.
• 1865 – In North Bend, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, the first train robbery in the United States takes place.
• 1893 – A crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts an economic depression.
• 1925 – John T. Scopes is served an arrest warrant for teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.
• 1961 – Alan Shepard (pictured) becomes the first American to travel into space, making a sub-orbital flight of 15 minutes as part of the Mercury-Redstone 3 mission.
• 1992 – The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified 203 years after its initial submission in 1789.

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May 6

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• 1877 – Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.
• 1882 – Congress pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese from immigrating to the United States.
• 1935 – Executive Order 7034 creates the New Deal era Works Progress Administration.
• 1937 – The German zeppelin Hindenburg (pictured) 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.
• 1981 – A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Ying Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries.

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May 7

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• 1846 – The Cambridge Chronicle, America's oldest surviving weekly newspaper, is published for the first time in Cambridge, Massachusetts
• 1847 – In Philadelphia, the American Medical Association (AMA) is founded.
• 1915 – A German submarine, SM U-20, sinks the RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. The German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare contributed to the United States' entry into World War I.
• 1960 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers (pictured).
• 1992 – Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on its maiden voyage (STS-49).
• 1998 – Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for US$40 billion and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history.

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May 8

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• 1861 – Richmond, Virginia is named the capital of the Confederate States of America.
• 1877 – At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens.
• 1884 – Harry S. Truman (pictured), 33rd President of the United States, is born.
• 1886 – Pharmacist John Styth Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine.
• 1970 – The Hard Hat Riot occurs in the Wall Street area of New York City as blue-collar construction workers clash with demonstrators protesting the Vietnam War.
• 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.

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May 9

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• 1868 – The city of Reno, Nevada (city landmark pictured), is founded.
• 1955 – Sam and Friends debuts on a local United States television channel, marking the first television appearance of both Jim Henson and what would become Kermit the Frog and The Muppets.
• 1960 – The FDA announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle's Enovid, making Enovid the world's first approved oral contraceptive pill.
• 1970 – In Washington, D.C., 75,000 to 100,000 protesters demonstrate in front of the White House against the Vietnam War.
• 1974 – The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon in regards to the Watergate Scandal.

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May 10

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• 1775 – Representatives from the Thirteen Colonies begin the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
• 1801 – The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America.
• 1872 – Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for President of the United States.
• 1893 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Nix v. Hedden that a tomato (pictured) is a vegetable, not a fruit, under the Tariff Act of 1883.
• 1908 – Mother's Day is observed for the first time in the United States, in Grafton, West Virginia.
• 1954 – Bill Haley & His Comets release "Rock Around the Clock", the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the Billboard charts.

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May 11

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• 1647 – Peter Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of New Netherland, the Dutch colonial settlement in present-day New York City.
• 1858 – Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. State.
• 1894 – The Pullman strike occurs. Four thousand Pullman Palace Car Company workers go on a wildcat strike in Illinois.
• 1910 – An act of the U.S. Congress establishes Glacier National Park (pictured) in Montana.
• 1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.

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May 12

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• 1932 – Ten weeks after his abduction Charles Jr., the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home.
• 1955 – The last section of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company Third Avenue Elevated line in Manhattan closes.
• 1958 – A formal agreement is signed between the United States and Canada to create the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) (logo pictured).
• 1962 – Douglas MacArthur delivers his Duty, Honor, Country valedictory speech at the United States Military Academy.
• 2002 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro's 1959 revolution.

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May 13

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• 1780 – The Cumberland Compact is signed by leaders of the settlers in early Tennessee.
• 1846 – The United States declares war on Mexico.
• 1880 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison (pictured) performs the first test of his electric railway.
• 1939 – The first commercial FM radio station in the United States is launched in Bloomfield, Connecticut. The station later becomes WDRC-FM.
• 1958 – During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice President Richard Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.
• 1985 – Police storm MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia to end a stand-off, killing 11 MOVE members and destroying the homes of 250 city residents.

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May 14

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• 1607 – Jamestown, Virginia is settled as an English colony.
• 1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begin their historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.
• 1913 – New York Governor William Sulzer approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation, which begins operations with a $100 million donation from John D. Rockefeller.
• 1961 – The Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama, and the civil rights protesters are beaten by an angry mob.
• 1973 – Skylab (pictured), the United States' first space station, is launched. Its launch marked the last time a Saturn V rocket was used in spaceflight.
• 1998 – The finale of the long running sit-com Seinfeld airs on NBC, with 76 million viewers tuning in.

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May 15

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• 1776 – The Virginia Convention instructs its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence.
• 1817 – Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law creating the United States Bureau of Agriculture (later renamed the United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA.)
• 1869 – In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (both pictured) form the National Woman Suffrage Association.
• 1928 – Mickey Mouse premiers in his first cartoon, Plane Crazy.
• 1970 – President Richard Nixon appoints Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington the first female United States Army Generals.

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May 16

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• 1843 – The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail with one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri.
• 1866 – The U.S. Congress eliminates the half dime coin and replaces it with the five cent piece, or nickel.
• 1868 – President Andrew Johnson is acquitted in his impeachment trial by one vote in the United States Senate.
• 1910 – Congress authorizes the creation of the United States Bureau of Mines (seal pictured).
• 1918 – The Sedition Act of 1918 is passed by the U.S. Congress, making criticism of the government an imprisonable offense.
• 1991 – Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom addressed a joint session of the United States Congress. She is the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.

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May 17

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• 1775 – The Continental Congress bans trade with British colony of Canada.
• 1792 – The New York Stock Exchange is formed.
• 1873 – El Paso, Texas is established by charter from the Texas Legislature.
• 1943 – The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop ENIAC (pictured), the first general-purpose electronic computer.
• 1954 – The United States Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional.
• 2004 – Massachusetts becomes the first United States state to legalize same-sex marriage.

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May 18

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• 1631 – In Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Winthrop takes the oath of office and becomes the first Governor of Massachusetts.
• 1652 – Rhode Island passes the first law in North America making slavery illegal.
• 1869 – The Public Credit Act is passed by Ulysses S. Grant, one of his first actions as President of the United States. The Act endorsed the payment of the national debt after the American Civil War in gold currency instead of greenbacks.
• 1896 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that the "separate but equal" doctrine is constitutional.
• 1933 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.
• 1980 – Mount St. Helens erupts (pictured) in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage.

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May 19

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• 1749 – King George II of Great Britain grants the Ohio Company a charter of land around the forks of the Ohio River.
• 1828 – President John Quincy Adams signs the Tariff of 1828 into law, protecting wool manufacturers in the United States.
• 1848 – Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thus ending the Mexican–American War and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of five other modern-day states to the United States for US$15 million (prewar map pictured).
• 1921 – The Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act, establishing national quotas on immigration.
• 1962 – A birthday salute to President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, New York. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's infamous rendition of Happy Birthday.

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May 20

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Today is Emancipation Day in the state of Florida.

• 1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law.
• 1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
• 1927 – At 07:52 Charles Lindbergh (pictured) takes off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, on the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, touching down at Le Bourget Field in Paris at 22:22 the next day.
• 1932 – Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day.
• 1996 – The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Romer v. Evans against an amendment to the Colorado state constitution that prevented protected status from being given to homosexuals or bisexuals.

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May 21

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• 1881 – The American Red Cross (logo pictured) is established by Clara Barton.
• 1934 – Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint each of its citizens.
• 1863 – The Seventh-day Adventist Church is organized in Battle Creek, Michigan.
• 1956 – In the Pacific Ocean, Bikini Atoll is nearly obliterated by the first airborne explosion of a hydrogen bomb.
• 1961 – Alabama Governor John Malcolm Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out as part of the civil rights movement.
• 1979 – In San Francisco the White Night riots break out following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.

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May 22

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• 1807 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President Aaron Burr (pictured) on a charge of treason.
• 1819 – The SS Savannah leaves port at Savannah, Georgia, United States, on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The ship arrived at Liverpool, England on June 20.
• 1906 – The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine".
• 1915 – Lassen Peak erupts, it is the only mountain to other than Mount St. Helens to erupt in the continental United States during the 20th century.
• 1947 – In an effort to fight the spread of Communism, President Harry S. Truman signs an act into law that will later be called the Truman Doctrine. The act grants $400 million in military and economic aid to Turkey and Greece.
• 1967 – Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, the longest running children's series on U.S. television, airs its first episode.

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May 23

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• 1863 – The Seventh-day Adventist Church is organized in Battle Creek, Michigan.
• 1900 – American Civil War soldier Sergeant William Harvey Carney becomes the first African American to be awarded the Medal of Honor, for his heroism in the Assault on the Battery Wagner in 1863.
• 1911 – The New York Public Library is dedicated.
• 1929 – The first talking cartoon of Mickey Mouse, The Karnival Kid, was released.
• 1934 – American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde (pictured) were ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana.
• 1934 – The Auto-Lite strike culminated in the "Battle of Toledo," a five-day melee between 1,300 troops of the Ohio National Guard and 6,000 picketers.

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May 24

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• 1626 – Peter Minuit purchases the island of Manhattan from Native Americans.
• 1830 – The nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb, penned by Sarah Josepha Hale, is published.
• 1844 – Samuel Morse (pictured) sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland to inaugurate the first telegraph line.
• 1941 – Bob Dylan, the singer-songwriter whose music became anthems for the American civil rights and anti-war movements, was born.
• 1962 – As part of Project Mercury, astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.
• 1976 – The Judgment of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine.

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May 25

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• 1738 – A treaty between Pennsylvania and Maryland ends the Conojocular War with settlement of a boundary dispute and exchange of prisoners.
• 1803 – Ralph Waldo Emerson, philosopher, lecturer, essayist, poet, champion of individualism, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement, is born.
• 1925 – John T. Scopes (pictured) is indicted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, beginning the Scopes Trial.
• 1961 – President John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of the Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the Moon" before the end of the decade.
• 1977 – Star Wars (retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981) is released in theaters.

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May 26

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• 1647 – Alse Young, is hung in Hartford, Connecticut, becoming the first person executed for witchcraft in the American colonies.
• 1830 – The Indian Removal Act is passed by Congress; It is signed into law by President Andrew Jackson two days later.
• 1868 – The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ends with Johnson being found not guilty by a one vote margin.
• 1896 – Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
• 1938 – The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its first session.
• 1948 – The U.S. Congress passes Public Law 557, which permanently establishes the Civil Air Patrol (seal pictured) as an auxiliary of the United States Air Force.

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May 27

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• 1923 – Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford and one of the chief architects of United States foreign policy during the Cold War, was born.
• 1927 – The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.
• 1930 – The 1,046 feet (319 m) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public.
• 1933 – The Century of Progress World's Fair (poster pictured) opens in Chicago, Illinois.
• 1967 – The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy is launched by Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter Caroline.

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May 28

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• 1754 – In the first engagement of the French and Indian War, the Virginia militia, under 22-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Washington, defeat a French reconnaissance party in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in what is now Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania.
• 1863 – The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first African American regiment in the American Civil War, leaves Boston, Massachusetts, to fight for the Union.
• 1888 – Jim Thorpe (also known as Wa-Tho-Huk), considered one of the most versatile athletes in modern history, was born. Thorpe won Olympic gold medals for the pentathlon and decathlon and played professional American football, baseball, and basketball.
• 1892 – In San Francisco, California, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club.
• 2002 – NASA's Mars Odyssey robotic spacecraft finds signs of large ice deposits on the planet Mars (mission patch pictured).

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May 29

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• 1736 – Patrick Henry, first and sixth Governor of Virginia, Founding Father, and orator remembered most for his "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" speech, was born.
• 1917 – John F. Kennedy (pictured), 35th President of the United States and Pulitzer Prize winner, was born.
• 1932 – World War I veterans begin to assemble in Washington, D.C., forming what would be called the Bonus Army, to demand immediate cash-payment redemption of their service certificates. The movement would be violently dispersed just under two months later.
• 1942 – Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra record Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", the best-selling Christmas single in history, for Decca Records in Los Angeles.
• 1999 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.
• 2004 – The World War II Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C.

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May 30

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• 1539 – In Florida, Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal of finding gold.
• 1879 – New York City's Gilmores Garden is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and is opened to the public.
• 1922 – In Washington, D.C., the Lincoln Memorial is officially dedicated.
• 1948 – A dike along the flooding Columbia River breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon within minutes. Fifteen people die and tens of thousands are left homeless.
• 1958 – The remains of two unidentified American servicemen, one killed in action during World War II and the other in the Korean War, are buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (pictured) in Arlington National Cemetery.

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May 31

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• 1790 – The United States enacts its first copyright statute, the Copyright Act of 1790.
• 1909 – The National Negro Committee, forerunner to the NAACP, convenes for the first time.
• 1918 – Poet, essayist, and journalist Walt Whitman (pictured) is born. Often called the father of free verse, Whitman ranks among the most influential poets in the American canon.
• 1921 – The Tulsa Race Riot breaks out in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• 1971 – In accordance with the Uniform Monday Holiday Act passed by Congress in 1968, observation of Memorial Day occurs on the last Monday in May for the first time, rather than on the previously fixed date of May 30.
• 1977 – The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System completed.

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