May 3 in History

Historical Events on May 3

334 BC

The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of the Granicus.
752

Mayan king Bird Jaguar IV of Yaxchilan in modern-day Chiapas, Mexico assumes the throne.
1294

John II becomes Duke of Brabant, Lothier and Limburg.
1481

The largest of three earthquakes strikes the island of Rhodes and causes an estimated 30,000 casualties.
1491

Kongo monarch Nkuwu Nzinga is baptised by Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of João I.
1616

Treaty of Loudun ends French civil war.
1715

A total solar eclipse was visible across northern Europe, and northern Asia, as predicted by Edmond Halley to within 4 minutes accuracy.
1791

The Constitution of May 3 (the first modern constitution in Europe) is proclaimed by the Sejm of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1802

Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city.
1808

Finnish War: Sweden loses the fortress of Sveaborg to Russia.
1808

Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are executed near Príncipe Pío hill.
1815

Neapolitan War: Joachim Murat, King of Naples is defeated by the Austrians at the Battle of Tolentino, the decisive engagement of the war.
1830

The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway is opened; it is the first steam-hauled passenger railway to issue season tickets and include a tunnel.
1837

The University of Athens is founded in Athens, Greece.
1848

The boar-crested Anglo-Saxon Benty Grange helmet is discovered.
1849

The May Uprising in Dresden begins - the last of the German revolutions of 1848-49.
1855

American adventurer William Walker departs from San Francisco with about 60 men to conquer Nicaragua.
1860

Charles XV of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Sweden.
1867

The Hudson's Bay Company gives up all claims to Vancouver Island.
1901

The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, Florida.
1913

Raja Harishchandra the first full-length Indian feature film is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.
1920

A Bolshevik coup fails in the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
1921

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.
1921

The Partition of Ireland; The Government of Ireland Act 1920 is passed, dividing Ireland into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.
1937

Gone with the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
1939

The All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
1942

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.
1945

World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay.
1947

New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect.
1948

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.
1951

London's Royal Festival Hall opens with the Festival of Britain.
1951

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.
1952

Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States land a plane at the North Pole.
1952

The Kentucky Derby is televised nationally for the first time, on the CBS network.
1957

Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, to Los Angeles.
1960

The Off-Broadway musical comedy The Fantasticks opens in New York City's Greenwich Village, eventually becoming the longest-running musical of all time.
1960

The Anne Frank House museum opens in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1963

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.
1973

The 108-story Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at 1,451 feet as the world's tallest building.
1978

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.
1986

Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes in an airliner (Flight UL512) at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.
1987

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.
1999

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).
2000

The sport of geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS posted on Usenet.
2001

The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.
2002

An Indian Air Force MiG-21 crashes into a bank in Jalandhar, killing eight and injuring 17.
2007

The 4 year old British girl Madeleine McCann disappears in Praia da Luz, Portugal, starting "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history".
2015

Two gunmen launch an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, which was held in response to the Charlie Hebdo shooting.
2016

88,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada as a wildfire ripped through the community, destroying approximately 2400 homes and buildings.

May 3 Birthdays

Choose Another Date