Skip to Main Content
Ask Us

Featured Collections: May

On this day... May

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31

May 1

1873 Alexandra Palace opens on Queen Victoria's 54th birthday with a grand celebration including concerts, recitals and fireworks

May 2

2012 A pastel version of "The Scream", by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch sells at auction for $119,922,500

May 3

1965 1st use of satellite TV, Today Show on Early Bird Satellite

May 4

1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman to be elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

May 5

1260 Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire

May 6

1997 Michael Jackson & Bee Gees inducted into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

May 7

2013 The Dow Jones Industrial average and S&P 500 set record highs

May 8

1899 Ernest Rutherford publishes his discovery of two different kinds of radiation (Alpha and Beta Particles)

May 9

2018 Oldest viral DNA, a form of hepatitis B, reported discovered in 7,000 year old skeleton found in Germany

May 10

1973 Bruce Lee collapses in Golden Harvest studios in Hong Kong and is rushed to Hong Kong Baptist Hospital where doctors diagnose him with cerebral edema

May 11

2015 Record price for a work of art at auction: Picasso's The Women of Algiers (Version ‘O’) sells for US$179.3 million at Christies in New York

May 12

1991 A new cancer drug is announced which can only be found in bark of a rare tree in the Pacific Northwest

May 13

1993 6th annual business person run held in Wall Street

May 14

2013 Dan Brown's fourth novel starring Robert Langdon (The Da Vinci Code), titled "Inferno", is released and instantly becomes a bestseller

May 15

1990 "Portrait of Doctor Gachet" by Vincent van Gogh sells for $82.5 million

May 16

2013 Bill Gates regains his position as the world's richest man with $72.7 billion after losing the position in 2008

May 17

2015 Gun fight between rival biker gangs and police in Waco, Texas leaves 9 dead and 18 injured. 170 later arrested for organised crime.

May 18

1998 United States v. Microsoft: The United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states file an antitrust case against Microsoft.

May 19

1990 "Elvis" TV Drama about early life of Elvis Presley last airs on ABC

May 20

1310 Shoes were made for both right & left feet

May 21

922 "On the Road to Moscow" is 1st cartoon to receive a Pulitzer Prize

May 22

2015 Ireland becomes 1st country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote

May 23

2016 Chinese archaeologists announce findings of earliest use of barley in China to make beer, Shaanxi province 3400-2900 BC

May 24

2002 Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty.

May 25

2013  Yuichiro Miura of Japan becomes the oldest person to climb Mount Everest at 80

May 26

1984 Floods kill 14 in Tulsa, Oklahoma

May 27

1940 World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 97 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops

May 28

2018 One million French smokers quit in one year after anti-smoking measures introduced according to Public Health France

May 29

1997 Span scientists announce new human species in 780,000 year old fossil

May 30

1982 Spain becomes 16th member of NATO

May 31

1989 Speaker of US House of Representatives Jim Wright resigns