• 1457 BC - Battle of Megiddo (15th century BC) between Thutmose III and a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh. It is the first battle to have been recorded in what is accepted as relatively reliable detail.
• 328 - Athanasius is elected Patriarch bishop of Alexandria.
• 1092 - The Lincoln Cathedral is consecrated.
• 1450 - 'Abd al-Latif (Timurid monarch) is assassinated.
• 1502 - Christopher Columbus leaves Spain for his fourth and final journey to the New World.
• 1671 - Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempts to steal England's Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.
• 1726 - Five men arrested during a raid on Mother Clap's molly house in London are executed at Tyburn.
• 1868 - The city of Reno, Nevada, is founded.
• 1873 - Der Krach: Vienna stock market crash heralds the Long Depression.
• 1874 - The first horse-drawn bus makes its début in the city of Mumbai, plying two routes.
• 1877 - Mihail Kogălniceanu reads, in the Chamber of Deputies, the Declaration of Independence of Romania. This day became the Independence Day of Romania.
• 1887 - Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show opens in London.
• 1901 - Australia opens its first parliament in Melbourne.
• 1904 - The steam locomotive City of Truro becomes the first steam engine to exceed 100mph.
• 1914 - J.T. Hearne becomes the first bowler to take 3000 first-class wickets.
• 1915 - World War I: Second Battle of Artois between German and French forces.
• 1920 - Polish-Soviet War: The Polish army under General Edward Rydz-Śmigły celebrates its capture of Kiev with a victory parade on Khreschatyk.
• 1926 - Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett claim to have flown over the North Pole (later discovery of Byrd's diary seems to indicate that this didn't happen).
• 1927 - The Australian Parliament first convenes in Canberra.
• 1936 - Italy formally annexes Ethiopia after taking the capital Addis Ababa on May 5.
• 1940 - World War II: The German submarine U-9 sinks the French coastal submarine Doris near Den Helder.
• 1941 - World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.
• 1942 - World War II: Belgrade becomes the first Axis-conquered city to murder or eliminate its Jewish population, largely with the help of Serbian collaborators.
• 1942 - Holocaust: The SS murder 588 Jewish residents of the Podolian town of Zinkiv (Khmelnytska oblast, Ukraine).
• 1945 - World War II: The final German surrender to Marshal Georgy Zhukov at Berlin-Karlshorst is signed by Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff as the representative of the Luftwaffe, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel as the Chief of Staff of OKW, and Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg as Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine.
• 1945 - World War II: General Alexander Löhr, commander of German Army Group E in Topolšica signs the unconditional surrender of German occupying forces in former Yugoslavia ending World War II in Slovenia.
• 1945 - World War II: Partisans liberate Ljubljana.
• 1945 - World War II: Hermann Göring is captured by the United States Army.
• 1945 - World War II: Vidkun Quisling is arrested in Norway.
• 1945 - World War II: The Red Army enters Prague (capitulation of Nazi occupation troops).
• 1945 - World War II: The Soviet Union marks Victory Day.
• 1945 - World War II: The Channel Islands are formally liberated by the British.
• 1946 - King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy abdicates and is succeeded by Humbert II.
• 1949 - Rainier III of Monaco becomes Prince of Monaco.
• 1950 - Robert Schuman presents his proposal on the creation of an organized Europe, indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations. This proposal, known as the "Schuman declaration", is considered by some people to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.
• 1950 - L. Ron Hubbard's is released.
• 1955 - Cold War: West Germany joins NATO.
• 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.
• 1956 - First ascent of Manaslu, the world's eighth-highest mountain.
• 1960 - The FDA announces it'll approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle's Enovid, making Enovid the world's first approved oral contraceptive pill.
• 1961 - Jim Gentile of the Baltimore Orioles becomes the first player in baseball history to hit grand slams in consecutive innings.
• 1970 - Vietnam War: In Washington, D.C., 75,000 to 100,000 war protesters demonstrate in front of the White House.
• 1974 - Watergate Scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon.
• 1980 - In Florida, Liberian freighter MV Summit Venture hits the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay sending 35 people (most in a bus) to a watery death as a 1,400-foot section of the bridge collapses.
• 1980 - In Norco, California, five masked gunman hold up a Security Pacific bank, leading to a violent shoot-out and one of the largest pursuits in California history. Two of the gunmen and one police officer are killed and thirty-three police and civilian vehicles are destroyed in the chase.
• 1980 - The first meeting of Pope John Paul II and the Archbishop of Canterbury takes place in Ghana.
• 1987 - A Polish LOT Ilyushin IL-62M "Tadeusz Kościuszko" (SP-LBG) crashes after takeoff in Warsaw, Poland, killing 183 people.
• 1988 - The new Australian Parliament House opens in Canberra.
• 1992 - Armenian forces capture Shusha, marking a major turning point in the Karabakh War.
• 1998 -Transsexual Israeli singer Dana International wins the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest
• 2001 - In Ghana 129 football fans die in what became known as the Accra Sports Stadium Disaster. The deaths were caused by a stampede (caused by the firing of teargas by police personnel at the stadium)that followed a controversial decision by the referee handling a crucial match between arch-rivals Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko.
• 2002 - The 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an end when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected militants among them deported to several different countries.
• 2002 - In Kaspiysk, Russia, a remote-controlled bomb explodes during a holiday parade killing 43 and injuring at least 130.
• 2004 - Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov is killed in a land mine bomb blast under a VIP stage during a World War II memorial victory parade in Grozny, Chechnya.
• 2006 - Estonia ratifies the European Constitution.
• 2006 - George Preca is canonised as the first Maltese saint in history.

Births