752Mayan king Bird Jaguar IV of Yaxchilan in modern-day Chiapas, Mexico, assumes the throne.
996German king Otto III chooses his cousin Bruno of Carinthia as pope following the death of Pope John XV. Bruno becomes pope under the name Gregory V.
1481The largest of three earthquakes strikes the island of Rhodes and causes an estimated 30,000 casualties.
1491Kongo monarch Nkuwu Nzinga is baptised by Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of João I.
1568Angered by the brutal onslaught of Spanish troops at Fort Caroline, a French force burns the San Mateo fort and massacres hundreds of Spaniards.
1616Treaty of Loudun ends a French civil war.
1715A total solar eclipse is visible across northern Europe and northern Asia, as predicted by Edmond Halley to within four minutes accuracy.
1791The Constitution of May 3 (the first modern constitution in Europe) is proclaimed by the Sejm of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1802Washington, 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.
1808Finnish War: Sweden loses the fortress of Sveaborg to Russia.
1808Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are executed near Príncipe Pío hill.
1811The Anglo-Portuguese army under Lord Wellington tries to halt a larger French army under Marshal Masséna marching to relieve Almeida in the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro. After intense fighting, the French are repulsed.
1815Neapolitan War: Joachim Murat, King of Naples, is defeated by the Austrians at the Battle of Tolentino, the decisive engagement of the war.
1830The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway is opened; it is the first steam-hauled passenger railway to issue season tickets and include a tunnel.
1837The University of Athens is founded in Athens, Greece.
1848The boar-crested Anglo-Saxon Benty Grange helmet is discovered in a barrow on the Benty Grange farm in Derbyshire.
1849The May Uprising in Dresden begins: The last of the German revolutions of 1848–49.
1855American adventurer William Walker departs from San Francisco with about 60 men to conquer Nicaragua.
1901The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, Florida.
1913Raja Harishchandra, the first full-length Indian feature film, is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.
1921Ireland is partitioned under British law by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, creating Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.
1921West 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.
1928The 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.
1939The All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
1942World 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.
1945World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay, resulting in more than 7,000 deaths.
1947New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect.
1948The 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.
1951London's Royal Festival Hall opens with the Festival of Britain.
1951The United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations begin their closed door hearings into the relief of Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry Truman.
1952Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States land a plane at the North Pole.
1952The Kentucky Derby is televised nationally for the first time, on the CBS network.
1953Two men are rescued from a semitrailer that crashed over the side of the Pit River Bridge before it fell into the Sacramento River. Amateur photographer Virginia Schau photographs "Rescue on Pit River Bridge", the first and only winning submission for the Pulitzer Prize for Photography to have been taken by a woman.
1957Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
1963The 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.
1968Eighty-five people are killed when Braniff International Airways Flight 352 crashes near Dawson, Texas.
1971Erich Honecker becomes First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, remaining in power until 1989.
1978The 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.
1986Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes on Air Lanka Flight 512 at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.
1987A 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.
1999The 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 . In meteorology, the term "May 3" is synonymous with the F5 tornado.
1999Infiltration of Pakistani soldiers on Indian side results in the Kargil War.
2000The sport of geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS posted on Usenet.
2001The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.
2006Armavia Flight 967 crashes into the Black Sea near Sochi International Airport in Sochi, Russia, killing 113 people.
2007The three-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann disappears in Praia da Luz, Portugal, starting "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history".
2015Two gunmen launch an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, which was held in response to the Charlie Hebdo shooting.
2016Eighty-eight thousand people are evacuated from their homes in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada as a wildfire rips through the community, destroying approximately 2,400 homes and buildings.
2021Twenty-six people are killed and ninety-eight are injured after an elevated section of the Mexico City Metro collapses.
2023Nine students and a security guard are killed in the Belgrade school shooting, the first attack of its kind in Serbia.
2023Ethnic violence breaks out between the Meitei and the Kuki Zo people in the state of Manipur.
Nacimientos (182)
490Kʼan Joy Chitam I, ruler of Palenque (died 565)
612Constantine III, Byzantine emperor (died 641)
1238Emilia Bicchieri, Italian saint (died 1314)
1276Louis, Count of Évreux, son of King Philip III of France (died 1319)
1415Cecily Neville, Duchess of York (died 1495)
1428Pedro González de Mendoza, Spanish cardinal (died 1495)
1446Margaret of York (died 1503)
1461Raffaele Riario, Italian cardinal (died 1521)
1469Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian historian and philosopher (died 1527)
1479Henry V, Duke of Mecklenburg (died 1552)
1481Juana de la Cruz Vázquez Gutiérrez, Spanish abbess of the Franciscan Third Order Regular (died 1534)
1536Stephan Praetorius, German theologian (died 1603)
1632Catherine of St. Augustine, French-Canadian nurse and candidate for sainthood, founded the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec (died 1668)
1662Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, German architect, designed the Pillnitz Castle (died 1736)
1678Amaro Pargo, Spanish corsair (died 1747)
1695Henri Pitot, French physicist and engineer, invented the Pitot tube (died 1771)
1729Florian Leopold Gassmann, Czech composer (died 1774)
1761August von Kotzebue, German playwright and author (died 1819)
1764Princess Élisabeth of France (died 1794)
1768Charles Tennant, Scottish chemist and businessman (died 1838)
1783José de la Riva Agüero, Peruvian soldier and politician, 1st President of Peru and 2nd President of North Peru (died 1858)
1814Adams George Archibald, Canadian lawyer and politician, 4th Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia (died 1892)