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31 newsworthy historical anniversaries in May 2024

31 newsworthy historical anniversaries in May 2024

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Here are 31 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries in May 2024 (listed six months in advance so you have time to write about them)

Historical anniversaries are great for ‘On This Day in History’ features, articles, biographies and other anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with newspaper and magazine readers and radio stations, and editors, producers and presenters love them. They’re easy to research too. You can also turn them into movies, documentaries, novels, use them to plan events and exhibitions, and much more. (Find out more at the end of this article.)

We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2024, which lists more than 3,000 anniversaries (an average of eight newsworthy anniversaries for every day of the year).

1 May 1964 – 60 years ago
The computer programming language BASIC (Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was released.
It was designed to teach non-scientists/mathematicians how to program, and was released into the public domain.

2 May 1974 – 50 years ago
Former U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew was disbarred by the Maryland Court of Appeals after being convicted of tax evasion and resigning as vice president. He had hoped to resume his career as a lawyer, but founded a business consultancy instead.

3 May 1999 – 25 years ago
The Bridge Creek–Moore tornado, Oklahoma, USA.
An exceptionally powerful F5 tornado devastated southern Oklahoma, particularly Bridge Creek, Del City, Midwest City, Moore, and Oklahoma City. 41 people were killed and 583 were injured, and it caused over $1 billion in damage.
It produced the highest wind-speed ever recorded on Earth: 302 mph, measured in Bridge Creek.
(Another tornado struck parts of the same area, and adjacent areas, in May 2013, killing 24 people.

4 May 1924 – 100 years ago
Death of E. Nesbit, (Edith Nesbit), British children’s writer and poet.
Best known for The Railway Children, The Story of the Treasure Seekers, and Five Children and It.
Co-founder of the Fabian Society.

5 May 1949 – 75 years ago
The Council of Europe was founded

6 May 1949 – 75 years ago
EDSAC – the Electronic Delayed Storage Automatic Computer – ran its first program.
It was the first practical stored-program computer, and was built by Maurice Wilkes at Cambridge University, UK.

7 May 1824 – 200 years ago
The first performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, in Vienna, Austria.
It is regarded as Beethoven’s greatest work, and is one of the most-performed symphonies in the world.

8 May 1984 – 40 years ago
The Soviet Union announced that it was boycotting the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California, USA.

9 May 1949 – 75 years ago
Britain’s first self-service coin-operated laundrette opened in Bayswater, London.

10 May 1824 – 200 years ago
The National Gallery in London opened to the public.
It was located in Pall Mall. It moved to its present building in Trafalgar Square in 1838.

11 May 1964 – 60 years ago
The song I Get Around by the Beach Boys was released.
In July it became their first #1 hit single.

12 May 1924 – 100 years ago
Birth of Tony Hancock, British comedian and actor.
Best known for the radio/TV series Hancock’s Half Hour. (Died 1968.)

13 May 1949 – 75 years ago
The English Electric Canberra jet bomber made its first flight.
In 1951 it became the first jet to fly non-stop across the Atlantic. It could fly higher than any other aircraft of that era, and set an altitude record of 70,310 feet. Over 900 were produced, and it remained in service with the British RAF until 2006.

14 May 1964 – 60 years ago
The first stage of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt was completed, and the reservoir began filling.
The dam was completed in 1970 and the reservoir reached full capacity in 1976.

15 to 16 May 1974 – 50 years ago
The Ma’alot massacre, Israel.
Palestinian terrorists took 115 people (including 105 students) hostage at the Netiv Meir Elementary School.
Israeli Defence Forces stormed the school the following day.
The terrorists killed 25 of the hostages, and about 70 others were injured. Three terrorists were killed.
Israel retaliated by bombing Palestinian villages and refugee camps in southern Lebanon, killing at least 27 people and injuring 138.

16 May 1874 – 150 years ago
The Mill River flood, Williamsburg, Massachusetts, USA.
The Williamsburg Reservoir Dam burst and sent 600 million gallons of water down the valley in a 20-foot wave.
Four towns were devastated. 139 people were killed and about 800 people were left homeless.
It was the first recorded dam disaster in the USA.
(Cause: cost cutting – the dam’s strength was insufficient to hold back the amount of water.)

17 May 1999 – 25 years ago
SETI@home released a free screensaver. It used spare processing power on personal computers to analyse data from the Arecibo radio telescope for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

18 to 19 May 1964 – 60 years ago
Thousands of Mods and Rockers rioted at seaside towns along the south coast of England, most notably in Brighton, but also in Margate, Hastings and Broadstairs. Many of them received prison sentences as a result.
The Brighton riots are depicted in the film Quadrophenia.

19 May 1924 – 100 years ago
Engineers at AT&T in the USA sent fifteen photographs by fax from Cleveland, Ohio to New York City.
Their system transmitted the photos as audio signals over telephone lines rather than using radio, which had previously been used.

20 May 1949 – 75 years ago
The Armed Forces Security Agency (now the National Security Agency) was established in the USA.

21 May 1924 – 100 years ago
Two wealthy students from the University of Chicago in Illinois, USA kidnapped and murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks.
Nathan Leopold (aged 19) and Richard Loeb (18) lured the boy into their rented car, killed him with a chisel, then dumped his body in a culvert. In September they were both sentenced to life imprisonment for murder + 99 years for kidnapping.
They committed the crime as a demonstration of their ‘intellectual superiority’ and believed it was the ‘perfect crime’.
The murder inspired numerous books, plays and films.

22 May 1984 – 40 years ago
Hewlett-Packard launched the LaserJet laser printer.
It was the first laser printer for IBM PC compatible personal computers.

23 May 1949 – 75 years ago
The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was established.

24 May 1964 – 60 years ago
The Estadio Naciona disaster, Lima, Peru. The worst disaster in football history.
A referee disallowed a goal during an Olympic qualifying match between Peru and Argentina. Peruvian fans invaded the pitch, and police fired tear gas into the crowd. Fans tried to flee the stadium but found the exits locked.
328 people were killed in the crush, and 500 were injured.

25 to 27 May 1994 – 30 years ago
The First International Conference on the World Wide Web was held at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.
It is held annually and is now known as the Web Conference.

26 May 1999 – 25 years ago
The National Assembly for Wales (now the Senedd) was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II.

27 May 1774 – 250 years ago
Birth of Francis Beaufort, Irish hydrographer and an officer in the British Royal Navy.
Best known for creating the Beaufort scale for measuring wind speed, and for creating the Beaufort cipher encryption system.

28 May 1964 – 60 years ago
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was founded.

29 May 1874 – 150 years ago
Birth of G. K. Chesterton, British novelist, short story writer, philosopher and critic.
Best known for his Father Brown stories.

30 May 1964 – 60 years ago
Death of Leó Szilárd, Hungarian-born American nuclear physicist.
He conceived and helped create the first sustained nuclear chain reaction, which led to the development of the atomic bomb.

31 May 1924 – 100 years ago
Birth of Patricia Roberts Harris, American politician and diplomat.
The first African American woman to serve in a Presidential cabinet (Jimmy Carter).
She was also the first African American woman to become a U.S. ambassador, and the first to sit on the board of a Fortune 500 company.

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2024. The 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028 editions are also available if you work further ahead. The anniversaries are available as PDF ebooks, Excel spreadsheets, and printed paperback books.

How to use the anniversaries:

If you’d like to know more about how to turn the anniversaries listed here and in The Date-A-Base Books into articles for magazines and newspapers, take a look at our free 68-page guide, Ditch Your Day Job: the easiest way to make a living (or earn some extra cash) as a writer.

It has some terrific bonuses too, including a complete month of anniversaries from The Date-A-Base Book 2023, hundreds of article-writing tips and ideas, plus a 25 percent discount when you buy two or more editions of The Date-A-Base Book.

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31 newsworthy historical anniversaries in May 2023

31 newsworthy historical anniversaries in May 2023

Posted on by admin

Here are 31 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries in May 2023
(listed six months in advance so you have time to write about them)

Historical anniversaries are great for “On This Day in History” features, articles, biographies and other anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with newspaper and magazine readers and radio stations, and editors, producers and presenters love them. They’re easy to research too. You can also turn them into films, documentaries, novels, use them to plan events and exhibitions, and much more. (Find out more at the end of this article.)

We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2023, which lists more than 3,000 anniversaries.

1 May 1873 – 150 years ago
Death of David Livingstone, Scottish missionary and explorer. Best known for his search for the sources of the Nile, and for going missing (and being found) in Africa.

2 May 1933 – 90 years ago
The first modern sighting of Scotland’s Loch Ness monster was reported in the Inverness Courier.

3 May 1923 – 100 years ago
U.S. Army Air Service Lieutenants Oakley G. Kelly and John Arthur Macready made the first non-stop coast-to-coast flight across the USA. They flew from New York to San Diego in 26 hours and 50 minutes.

4 May 2003 – 20 years ago
The first member of the horse family to be cloned: a mule named Idaho Gem was born at the University of Idaho, USA.

5 May 1948 – 75 years ago
The Organization of American States was officially founded.

6 May 1953 – 70 years ago
The first successful open-heart surgery on a human, using a heart-lung machine, was performed by John Gibbon in Pennsylvania, USA.

7 May 1963 – 60 years ago
The USA launched the Telstar 2 communications satellite. It transmitted the first colour transatlantic television broadcasts. It was shielded against the radiation that had damaged its predecessor, Telstar 1.

8 May 1933 – 90 years ago
Polythene was discovered (by accident) by chemists Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett at ICI in Wallerscote, Cheshire, UK.

9 May 1873 – 150 years ago
Birth of Anton Cermak, Mayor of Chicago (1931–33).
(Shot in 1933 during an assassination attempt on U.S. President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. He died three weeks later – but most likely from ulcerative colitis rather than the wound.)

10 May 1933 – 90 years ago
The Nazis staged massive public burnings of ‘un-German’ books outside Berlin University.

11 May 1998 – 25 years ago
India exploded three atomic bombs underground – its first nuclear tests for 24 years – violating a global ban on testing and shocking the world. It carried out a second round of tests on 13th May. In response, Pakistan exploded five underground nuclear bombs on 28th May.

12 to 25 May 1943 – 80 years ago
World War II: the Trident Conference (also called the Third Washington Conference) took place in the USA. Delegations led by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt made plans for the next phase of the war. Topics included planning for the Allied invasion of Sicily, setting the date of the Normandy Landings (Operation Overlord/D-Day – 1st May 1944 but later delayed to 6th June), and the progress of the Pacific Campaign.

13 May 1973 – 50 years ago
The first Battle of the Sexes tennis match: Bobby Riggs v. Margaret Court, in Ramona, California, USA. Riggs won the two-set exhibition match.
(On 20th September 1973 Riggs played Billie Jean King in the three-set Battle of the Sexes II. King won.
In 1992, Jimmy Connors played Martina Navratilova in the Battle of the Sexes III. Connors won.)

14 May 1973 – 50 years ago
NASA launched Skylab – the USA’s first manned space station. The first manned mission launched on 25th May, and included three space walks to repair damage that Skylab suffered during launch.

15 May 1948 – 75 years ago
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War began when the Arab states of Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq invaded Israel in support of the Palestinians.
Saudi Arabia joined the invasion on 18th May.

16 to 17 May 1943 – 80 years ago
World War II – the Dambusters Raid.
Britain’s RAF launched Operation Chastise, deploying bouncing bombs (invented by Barnes Wallace) to bypass anti-torpedo nets and breach dams, causing catastrophic flooding in Germany’s Ruhr Valley.

17 May 1973 – 50 years ago
The Watergate hearings began in the U.S. Senate, and were televised nationally.

18 May 1958 – 65 years ago
Italian racing driver Maria Teresa de Filippis became the first woman to compete in a Formula One Grand Prix.

19 May 1898 – 125 years ago
Death of William Ewart Gladstone, British Prime Minister (1868–74, 1880–85, 1886, 1892–94).

20 May 1873 – 150 years ago
American businessman Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis were granted a U.S. patent for blue jeans.

21 May 1898 – 125 years ago
Birth of Armand Hammer, American business magnate and art collector. Best known as the chairman of Occidental Petroleum (1957–90). He was also known for his close ties with the Soviet Union and for advocating citizen diplomacy.

22 May 1923 – 100 years ago
Stanley Baldwin became British Prime Minister after Bonar Law was diagnosed with terminal cancer and immediately retired.

23 May 1873 – 150 years ago
The North-West Mounted Police was founded in Canada. It became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1920.

24 May 1948 – 75 years ago
Benjamin Britten’s The Beggar’s Opera was performed for the first time, in Cambridge, England.

25 May 1973 – 50 years ago
The album Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield was released. It was the first album released by Virgin Records.

26 to 27 May 1923 – 100 years ago
The first Le Mans 24 hours endurance motor race was held.

27 May 2003 – 20 years ago
WordPress, the blogging/content management system, was released.

28 May 1993 – 30 years ago
British nurse Beverley Allitt was convicted of killing four children and attacking nine others between February and April 1991 in the children’s ward at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital, Lincolnshire. She was sentenced to 13 concurrent life sentences in a secure hospital and is unlikely to be released.

29 May 1953 – 70 years ago
New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

30 May 1848 – 175 years ago
The Mexican–American War officially ended when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo came into effect.

31 May 1898 – 125 years ago
Birth of Norman Vincent Peale, American clergyman, writer, speaker, and advocate of positive thinking.
Best known for his book The Power of Positive Thinking.

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2023. The 2024, 2025 and 2026 and 2027 editions are also available if you work further ahead. The 2028 edition will be available from April 2023. Find out more at ideas4writers.com.

How to use the anniversaries:

If you’d like to know more about how to turn the anniversaries listed here and in The Date-A-Base Books into articles for magazines and newspapers, take a look at our free 68-page guide, Ditch Your Day Job: the easiest way to make a living (or earn some extra cash) as a writer.

It has some terrific bonuses too, including a complete month of anniversaries from The Date-A-Base Book 2023, 301 article-writing ideas and tips, plus a 25 percent discount when you buy two or more editions of The Date-A-Base Book.

Share this:

31 newsworthy historical anniversaries in May 2021

Posted on by admin

Historical anniversaries are great for “On This Day in History” features and anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with readers and viewers, editors and producers love them, they’re easy to research, and you can easily turn them into newspaper and magazine articles, films, TV/radio/theatre shows, and more.

Here are 31 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries coming up in May 2021 (so you have time to write about them!)

We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2021. You’ll find hundreds more in the book. The 2022 edition is also available.

1 May 1941 – 80 years ago
The U.S. première of Orson Welles’s award-winning film Citizen Kane.
(Released: 5th September. UK première: 12th October, released: 24th January 1942.)

2 to 4 May 1946 – 75 years ago
The Battle of Alcatraz. Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay, California, USA was taken over by prisoners after a failed escape attempt. A violent battle ensued.

3 May 1921 – 100 years ago
Ireland was divided into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland (now the Republic of Ireland).

4 May 1896 – 125 years ago
The first edition of the Daily Mail newspaper was published in the UK.

5 May 1821 – 200 years ago
Death of Napoleon I (Napoleon Bonaparte), Emperor of France (1804 – 14, 1815).
(Died from stomach cancer while in exile on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, aged 51.)

6 May 1941 – 80 years ago
Joseph Stalin became Premier of the Soviet Union.

7 May 1946 – 75 years ago
Sony, the Japanese electronics company, was founded (as the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation).

8 May 1721 – 300 years ago
Innocent XIII became Pope.

9 May to 8 Aug 1896 – 125 years ago
The world’s first motor show was held at the Imperial Institute in London.

10 May 1941 – 80 years ago
World War II: The last major attack on London during the Blitz caused heavy damage to many important buildings, including the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St James’s Palace and Lambeth Palace, several railway stations and hospitals, the British Museum and the Old Bailey. More than 1,300 people were killed.

11 May 1931 – 90 years ago
Austria’s largest bank, Creditanstalt, declared itself bankrupt, sending shockwaves across Europe. It was one of the major bank failures that initiated the Great Depression. It was rescued by the German Chancellor.

12 May 1941 – 80 years ago
German engineer Konrad Zuse completed his Z3 computer and presented it to an audience of scientists in Berlin. It is now recognised as the world’s first fully functional programmable digital computer. (No one outside of Germany was aware of its existence, so it had no influence on computer development in the UK or USA).

13 May 1981 – 40 years ago
Pope John Paul II was shot and seriously injured by a Turkish gunman in an assassination attempt in St Peter’s Square, Vatican City.

14 May 1771 – 250 years ago
Birth of Robert Owen, Welsh textile manufacturer and social reformer. A founder of the cooperative movement. Best known for his efforts to improve working conditions in his textile mill, and for his promotion of experimental utopian societies.

15 May 1921 – 100 years ago
The Royal British Legion was founded.

16 May 1946 – 75 years ago
The musical Annie Get Your Gun opened on Broadway.

17 May 1996 – 25 years ago
Megan’s Law came into effect in the USA. The public must be notified if dangerous sex offenders are released into their community.

18 May 1991 – 30 years ago
Helen Sharman became the first British citizen to travel into space. She responded to an advertisement to become the first British astronaut, was selected on live TV, spent 18 months training, and then spent a week on the Soviet Union’s Mir space station.

19 May 1961 – 60 years ago
The Soviet space probe Venera 1 became the first man-made object to fly past another planet, passing within 62,000 miles (100,000 km) of Venus.

20 May 1996 – 25 years ago
Oil-for-food programme, Iraq. The United Nations agreed to allow Iraq to sell up to $2 billion worth of oil to buy humanitarian supplies.

21 May 1991 – 30 years ago
Death of Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (1984–89). (Assassinated.)

22 May 1981 – 40 years ago
British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe (the “Yorkshire Ripper”) was convicted of murdering 13 women and sentenced to life imprisonment. The judge labelled him “an unusually dangerous man”. He is one of the few prisoners to be given a whole life tariff, meaning he will never be released.

23 May 1951 – 70 years ago
China annexed Tibet after pressuring Tibetan negotiators to sign a 17-point agreement – which many argue they had no real authority to sign and is therefore invalid. The Tibetan Government remained in place, but was dissolved in 1959 following an uprising that forced the Dalai Lama into exile. Tibet Autonomous Region was established in 1965.

24 May 1956 – 65 years ago
The first Eurovision Song Contest was held, in Lugano, Switzerland, and was won by Switzerland.

25 May 1961 – 60 years ago
US President John F. Kennedy gave his famous “man on the moon” speech. He urged Congress and America to commit itself to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth before the end of the decade.

26 May 1896 – 125 years ago
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was published for the first time in the Wall Street Journal.

27 May 1941 – 80 years ago
World War II: the British Royal Navy sank the German battleship Bismarck off France. More than 2,000 crew were killed.

28 May 1951 – 70 years ago
The first episode of the radio comedy series The Goon Show was broadcast in the UK. (The first series was called Crazy People.)

29 May 2001 – 20 years ago
A jury in New York, USA convicted 4 followers of Osama bin Laden of the 1998 bombing to two US embassies in Africa, which killed 224 people. (They were sentenced to life imprisonment. This was the first conviction in relation to Osama bin Laden’s terrorism activities.)

30 May 1846 – 175 years ago
Birth of Peter Carl Fabergé, Russian goldsmith and jeweller. Best known for his Fabergé eggs.

31 May 1821 – 200 years ago
Baltimore Basilica in Maryland was dedicated. It was the first Roman Catholic cathedral built in the USA.

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2021. The 2022 edition is also available if you need to work further ahead. Find out more at ideas4writers.com.

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31 newsworthy historical anniversaries in May 2021 (U.S. Edition)

Posted on by admin

Historical anniversaries are great for “On This Day in History” features and anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with readers and viewers, editors and producers love them, they’re easy to research, and you can easily turn them into newspaper and magazine articles, films, TV/radio/theatre shows, and more.

Here are 31 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries coming up in May 2021 (so you have time to write about them!)

We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2021. You’ll find hundreds more in the book. The 2022 edition is also available.

May 1, 1941 – 80 years ago
The U.S. première of Orson Welles’s award-winning movie Citizen Kane.
(Released: September 5th. UK première: October 12th, released: January 24, 1942.)

May 2 to 4, 1946 – 75 years ago
The Battle of Alcatraz. Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay, California, USA was taken over by prisoners after a failed escape attempt. A violent battle ensued.

May 3, 1921 – 100 years ago
Ireland was divided into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland (now the Republic of Ireland).

May 4, 1896 – 125 years ago
The first edition of the Daily Mail newspaper was published in the UK.

May 5, 1821 – 200 years ago
Death of Napoleon I (Napoleon Bonaparte), Emperor of France (1804 – 14, 1815).
(Died from stomach cancer while in exile on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, aged 51.)

May 6, 1941 – 80 years ago
Joseph Stalin became Premier of the Soviet Union.

May 7, 1946 – 75 years ago
Sony, the Japanese electronics company, was founded (as the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation).

May 8, 1721 – 300 years ago
Innocent XIII became Pope.

May 9 to Aug 8, 1896 – 125 years ago
The world’s first motor show was held at the Imperial Institute in London.

May 10, 1941 – 80 years ago
World War II: The last major attack on London during the Blitz caused heavy damage to many important buildings, including the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St James’s Palace and Lambeth Palace, several railway stations and hospitals, the British Museum and the Old Bailey. More than 1,300 people were killed.

May 11, 1931 – 90 years ago
Austria’s largest bank, Creditanstalt, declared itself bankrupt, sending shockwaves across Europe. It was one of the major bank failures that initiated the Great Depression. It was rescued by the German Chancellor.

May 12, 1941 – 80 years ago
German engineer Konrad Zuse completed his Z3 computer and presented it to an audience of scientists in Berlin. It is now recognised as the world’s first fully functional programmable digital computer. (No one outside of Germany was aware of its existence, so it had no influence on computer development in the UK or USA).

May 13, 1981 – 40 years ago
Pope John Paul II was shot and seriously injured by a Turkish gunman in an assassination attempt in St Peter’s Square, Vatican City.

May 14, 1771 – 250 years ago
Birth of Robert Owen, Welsh textile manufacturer and social reformer. A founder of the cooperative movement. Best known for his efforts to improve working conditions in his textile mill, and for his promotion of experimental utopian societies.

May 15, 1921 – 100 years ago
The Royal British Legion was founded.

May 16, 1946 – 75 years ago
The musical Annie Get Your Gun opened on Broadway.

May 17, 1996 – 25 years ago
Megan’s Law came into effect in the USA. The public must be notified if dangerous sex offenders are released into their community.

May 18, 1991 – 30 years ago
Helen Sharman became the first British citizen to travel into space. She responded to an advertisement to become the first British astronaut, was selected on live TV, spent 18 months training, and then spent a week on the Soviet Union’s Mir space station.

May 19, 1961 – 60 years ago
The Soviet space probe Venera 1 became the first man-made object to fly past another planet, passing within 62,000 miles (100,000 km) of Venus.

May 20, 1996 – 25 years ago
Oil-for-food programme, Iraq. The United Nations agreed to allow Iraq to sell up to $2 billion worth of oil to buy humanitarian supplies.

May 21, 1991 – 30 years ago
Death of Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (1984–89). (Assassinated.)

May 22, 1981 – 40 years ago
British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe (the “Yorkshire Ripper”) was convicted of murdering 13 women and sentenced to life imprisonment. The judge labelled him “an unusually dangerous man”. He is one of the few prisoners to be given a whole life tariff, meaning he will never be released.

May 23, 1951 – 70 years ago
China annexed Tibet after pressuring Tibetan negotiators to sign a 17-point agreement – which many argue they had no real authority to sign and is therefore invalid. The Tibetan Government remained in place, but was dissolved in 1959 following an uprising that forced the Dalai Lama into exile. Tibet Autonomous Region was established in 1965.

May 24, 1956 – 65 years ago
The first Eurovision Song Contest was held, in Lugano, Switzerland, and was won by Switzerland.

May 25, 1961 – 60 years ago
U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his famous “man on the moon” speech. He urged Congress and America to commit itself to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth before the end of the decade.

May 26, 1896 – 125 years ago
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was published for the first time in the Wall Street Journal.

May 27, 1941 – 80 years ago
World War II: the British Royal Navy sank the German battleship Bismarck off France. More than 2,000 crew were killed.

May 28, 1951 – 70 years ago
The first episode of the radio comedy series The Goon Show was broadcast in the UK. (The first series was called Crazy People.)

May 29, 2001 – 20 years ago
A jury in New York, USA convicted 4 followers of Osama bin Laden of the 1998 bombing to two US embassies in Africa, which killed 224 people. (They were sentenced to life imprisonment. This was the first conviction in relation to Osama bin Laden’s terrorism activities.)

May 30, 1846 – 175 years ago
Birth of Peter Carl Fabergé, Russian goldsmith and jeweller. Best known for his Fabergé eggs.

May 31, 1821 – 200 years ago
Baltimore Basilica in Maryland was dedicated. It was the first Roman Catholic cathedral built in the USA.

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2021. The 2022 edition is also available if you need to work further ahead. Find out more at ideas4writers.com.

Share this: