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.
• 1611 – King James Bible is published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker.
• 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' leader Pablo 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.
• 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, Indiana.
• 1932 – Comedian Jack Benny's radio show airs for the first time.
• 1933 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler bans trade unions.
• 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: Fall of Berlin: The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin and Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over the Reichstag 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.
• 1989 – 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, 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.
• 2004 – Yelwa massacre of more than 630 nomad Muslims by Christians in Nigeria.
• 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 an auctioned work of art.