History Events on May 03

World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay.

#Prison_ship

World War II: Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo that results in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia.

#Empire_of_Japan

Raja Harishchandra the first full-length Indian feature film is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.

#Raja_Harishchandra

The largest of three earthquakes strikes the island of Rhodes and causes an estimated 30,000 casualties.

#1481_Rhodes_earthquake

The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, Florida.

#Great_Fire_of_1901

The Jinan incident begins with the deaths of twelve Japanese civilians by Chinese forces in Jinan, China, which leads to Japanese retaliation and the deaths of over 2,000 Chinese civilians in the following days.

#Jinan_incident

West Virginia becomes the first state to legislate a broad sales tax, but does not implement it until a number of years later due to enforcement issues.

#West_Virginia

Neapolitan War: Joachim Murat, King of Naples is defeated by the Austrians at the Battle of Tolentino, the decisive engagement of the war.

#Neapolitan_War

The Anne Frank House museum opens in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

#Anne_Frank_House

The University of Athens is founded in Athens, Greece.

#National_and_Kapodistrian_University_of_Athens

New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect.

#Constitution_of_Japan

An Indian Air Force MiG-21 crashes into a bank in Jalandhar, killing eight and injuring 17.

#Indian_Air_Force

A crash by Bobby Allison at the Talladega Superspeedway, Alabama fencing at the start-finish line would lead NASCAR to develop the restrictor plate for the following season both at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega.

#Bobby_Allison

A Bolshevik coup fails in the Democratic Republic of Georgia.

#1920_Georgian_coup_attempt

American adventurer William Walker departs from San Francisco with about 60 men to conquer Nicaragua.

#William_Walker_(filibuster)

The May Uprising in Dresden begins: The last of the German revolutions of 1848-49.

#May_Uprising_in_Dresden

The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and responds with violent force to stop the "Birmingham campaign" protesters. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing new-found attention to the civil rights movement.

#Birmingham,_Alabama

London's Royal Festival Hall opens with the Festival of Britain.

#Royal_Festival_Hall

John II becomes Duke of Brabant, Lothier and Limburg.

#John_II,_Duke_of_Brabant

The Hudson's Bay Company gives up all claims to Vancouver Island.

#Hudson's_Bay_Company

The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway is opened; it is the first steam-hauled passenger railway to issue season tickets and include a tunnel.

#Canterbury_and_Whitstable_Railway

A total solar eclipse was visible across northern Europe, and northern Asia, as predicted by Edmond Halley to within 4 minutes accuracy.

#Solar_eclipse_of_May_3,_1715

Finnish War: Sweden loses the fortress of Sveaborg to Russia.

#Finnish_War

The first unsolicited bulk commercial email (which would later become known as "spam") is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.

#Email

The Kentucky Derby is televised nationally for the first time, on the CBS network.

#Kentucky_Derby

Mayan king Bird Jaguar IV of Yaxchilan in modern-day Chiapas, Mexico assumes the throne.

#752

Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city after Congress abolishes the Board of Commissioners, the District's founding government. The "City of Washington" is given a mayor-council form of government.

#Washington,_D.C.

Erich Honecker becomes First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, remaining in power until 1989.

#Erich_Honecker

World War II; Hamburg capitulates to the British under threat of renewed bombing.

#Hamburg

Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes on Air Lanka Flight 512 at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.

#Air_Lanka_Flight_512

The sport of geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS posted on Usenet.

#Geocaching

Kongo monarch Nkuwu Nzinga is baptised by Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of João I.

#Kingdom_of_Kongo

The Government of Ireland Act 1920 is passed, dividing Ireland into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.

#Government_of_Ireland_Act_1920

Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are executed near Príncipe Pío hill.

#Peninsular_War

The southwestern portion of Oklahoma City is devastated by an F5 tornado, killing forty-five people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado is one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. This tornado also produces the highest wind speed ever recorded, measured at 301 +/- 20 mph (484 +/- 32 km/h).

#Oklahoma_City

Two gunmen launch an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, which was held in response to the Charlie Hebdo shooting.

#Curtis_Culwell_Center_attack

The United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations begin their closed door hearings into the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry Truman.

#United_States_Senate_Committee_on_Armed_Services

Eighty-eight thousand people were evacuated from their homes in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada as a wildfire ripped through the community, destroying approximately 2,400 homes and buildings.

The 3-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann disappears in Praia da Luz, Portugal, starting "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history".

The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.

The 108-story Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at 1,451 feet as the world's tallest building.

The Off-Broadway musical comedy The Fantasticks opens in New York City's Greenwich Village, eventually becoming the longest-running musical of all time.

Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.

Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States land a plane at the North Pole.

The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Shelley v. Kraemer that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.

World War II: German Admiral-General Hans Georg von Friedeburg sent by Nazi Germany to negotiate an armistice with British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery to end hostilities between Allies and Nazi Germany in north-west Germany.

The All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

Charles XV of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Sweden.

The boar-crested Anglo-Saxon Benty Grange helmet is discovered in a barrow on the Benty Grange farm in Derbyshire.

The Constitution of May 3 (the first modern constitution in Europe) is proclaimed by the Sejm of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Treaty of Loudun ends French civil war.