Events on May 1 82
Year 524
King Sigismund of Burgundy is executed at Orléans after an 8-year reign and is succeeded by his brother Godomar.
Year 880
The Nea Ekklesia is inaugurated in Constantinople, setting the model for all later cross-in-square Orthodox churches.
Year 1169
Norman mercenaries land at Bannow Bay in Leinster, marking the beginning of the Norman invasion of Ireland.
Year 1328
Wars of Scottish Independence end: By the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton the Kingdom of England recognises the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state.
Year 1576
Stephen Báthory, the reigning Prince of Transylvania, marries Anna Jagiellon and they become co-rulers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Year 1707
The Act of Union joins the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
Year 1753
Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.
Year 1776
Establishment of the Illuminati in Ingolstadt (Upper Bavaria), by Jesuit-taught Adam Weishaupt.
Year 1778
American Revolution: The Battle of Crooked Billet begins in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.
Year 1785
Kamehameha I, the king of Hawaiʻi, defeats Kalanikūpule and establishes the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.
Year 1786
In Vienna, Austria, Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro is performed for the first time.
Year 1794
War of the Pyrenees: The Battle of Boulou ends, in which French forces defeat the Spanish and regain nearly all the land they lost to Spain in 1793.
Year 1840
The Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, is issued in the United Kingdom.
Year 1844
Hong Kong Police Force, the world's second modern police force and Asia's first, is established.
Year 1846
The few remaining Mormons left in Nauvoo, Illinois, formally dedicate the Nauvoo Temple.
Year 1856
The Province of Isabela was created in the Philippines in honor of Queen Isabela II.
Year 1865
The Empire of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay sign the Treaty of the Triple Alliance.
Year 1866
The Memphis Race Riots begin. In three days time, 46 blacks and two whites were killed. Reports of the atrocities influenced passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Year 1884
Moses Fleetwood Walker becomes the first black person to play in a professional baseball game in the United States.
Year 1886
Rallies are held throughout the United States demanding the eight-hour work day, culminating in the Haymarket affair in Chicago, in commemoration of which May 1 is celebrated as International Workers' Day in many countries.
Year 1894
Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, arrives in Washington, D.C.
Year 1898
Spanish-American War: Battle of Manila Bay: The United States Navy destroys the Spanish Pacific fleet in the first major battle of the war.
Year 1900
The Scofield Mine disaster kills over 200 men in Scofield, Utah in what is to date the fifth-worst mining accident in United States history.
Year 1915
The RMS Lusitania departs from New York City on her 202nd, and final, crossing of the North Atlantic. Six days later, the ship is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,198 lives.
Year 1925
The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is officially founded. Today it is the largest trade union in the world, with 134 million members.
Year 1927
The Union Labor Life Insurance Company is founded by the American Federation of Labor.
Year 1929
The 7.2 Mw Kopet Dag earthquake shakes the Iran-Turkmenistan border region with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing up to 3,800 and injuring 1,121.
Year 1944
World War II: Two hundred Communist prisoners are shot by the Germans at Kaisariani, Athens in reprisal for the killing of General Franz Krech by partisans at Molaoi.
Year 1945
World War II: A German newsreader officially announces that Adolf Hitler has "fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany". The Soviet flag is raised over the Reich Chancellery, by order of Stalin.
Year 1945
World War II: Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda commit suicide in the Reich Garden outside the Führerbunker. Their children are also killed by having cyanide pills inserted into their mouths by their mother, Magda.
Year 1945
World War II: Forces of the Soviet Red Army liberate Allied prisoners of war imprisoned at Stalag Luft I near Barth, Germany.
Year 1945
World War II: Up to 2,500 people die in a mass suicide in Demmin following the advance of the Red Army.
Year 1946
The Paris Peace Conference concludes that the islands of the Dodecanese should be returned to Greece by Italy.
Year 1947
Portella della Ginestra massacre against May Day celebrations in Sicily by the bandit and separatist leader Salvatore Giuliano where 11 persons are killed and 33 wounded.
Year 1956
A doctor in Japan reports an "epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system", marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.
Year 1957
Thirty-four people are killed when a Vickers Viking airliner crashes in Hampshire, England.
Year 1960
Formation of the western Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra; also known as "Maharashtra Day".
Year 1960
Cold War: U-2 incident: Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis.
Year 1961
The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaims Cuba a socialist nation and abolishes elections.
Year 1970
Protests erupt following the announcement by Richard Nixon that American and South Vietnamese forces would attack Vietnamese communists in a Cambodian Campaign.
Year 1971
Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) takes over operation of U.S. passenger rail service.
Year 1974
The Argentine terrorist organization Montoneros is expelled from Plaza de Mayo by president Juan Perón.
Year 1977
Thirty-six people are killed in Taksim Square, Istanbul, during the Labour Day celebrations.
Year 1978
Japan's Naomi Uemura, travelling by dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone.
Year 1982
Operation Black Buck: The Royal Air Force attacks the Argentine Air Force during Falklands War.
Year 1987
Pope John Paul II beatifies Edith Stein, a Jewish-born Carmelite nun who was gassed in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
Year 1989
Disney-MGM Studios opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.
Year 1990
The former Philippine Episcopal Church (supervised by the Episcopal Church of the United States of America) is granted full autonomy and raised to the status of an Autocephalous Anglican Province and renamed the Episcopal Church in the Philippines.
Year 1993
Dingiri Banda Wijetunga became president of Sri Lanka automatically after killing of R Premadasa in LTTE bomb explosion
Year 1994
Three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna is killed in an accident whilst leading the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola.
Year 1999
The body of British climber George Mallory is found on Mount Everest, 75 years after his disappearance in 1924.
Year 1999
SpongeBob SquarePants premieres on Nickelodeon after the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards.
Year 2001
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declares the existence of "a state of rebellion", hours after thousands of supporters of her arrested predecessor, Joseph Estrada, storm towards the presidential palace at the height of the EDSA III rebellion.
Year 2003
Invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (off the coast of California), U.S. President George W. Bush declares that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended".
Year 2004
Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin.
Year ?
Roman consul Publius Valerius Poplicola celebrates a Roman triumph for his victory over Veii and the Sabines.