1626Having been appointed the director-general of New Netherland, Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrives in present day Manhattan Island aboard the See Meeuw.
1738The Imperial Theatrical School, the first ballet school in Russia, is founded.
1776Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.
1799Fourth Anglo-Mysore War: The Battle of Seringapatam: The siege of Seringapatam ends when the city is invaded and Tipu Sultan killed by the besieging British army, under the command of General George Harris.
1814Emperor Napoleon arrives at Portoferraio on the island of Elba to begin his exile.
1814King Ferdinand VII abolishes the Spanish Constitution of 1812, returning Spain to absolutism.
1823Brazilian War of Independence: A Brazilian squadron led by Lord Cochrane engages a Portuguese squadron under João de Campos off Salvador, Bahia.
1836Formation of Ancient Order of Hibernians.
1859The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge linking Devon and Cornwall in England.
1869The four-day Naval Battle of Hakodate begins. The newly formed Imperial Japanese Navy defeats the remnants of the Tokugawa shogunate navy in the Sea of Japan off the city of Hakodate, leading to the surrender of the Ezo Republic on May 17.
1871The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
1886Haymarket affair: In Chicago, United States, a homemade bomb is thrown at police officers trying to break up a labor rally, killing one officer. Ensuing gunfire leads to the deaths of a further seven officers and four civilians.
1904The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal.
1910The Royal Canadian Navy is created.
1912Italy begins the invasion and occupation of the Ottoman island of Rhodes.
1919May Fourth Movement: Student demonstrations take place in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, protesting the Treaty of Versailles, which transferred Chinese territory to Japan.
1927The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is incorporated.
1932Having been incarcerated at the Cook County Jail since his sentencing on October 24, 1931, mobster Al Capone is transferred to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta after the U.S. Supreme Court denies his appeal for conviction of tax evasion.
1945World War II: Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg is liberated by the British Army.
1945World War II: The German surrender at Lüneburg Heath is signed, coming into effect the following day. It encompasses all Wehrmacht units in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany.
1946In San Francisco Bay, U.S. Marines from the nearby Treasure Island Naval Base stop a two-day riot at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Five people are killed in the riot.
1949The entire Torino football team (except for two players who did not take the trip: Sauro Tomà, due to an injury and Renato Gandolfi, because of coach request) is killed in a plane crash.
1953Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
1961Malcolm Ross and Victor Prather attain a new altitude record for manned balloon flight ascending in the Strato-Lab V open gondola to .
1970Vietnam War: Kent State shootings: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the United States and South Vietnam.
1972The Don't Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to Greenpeace Foundation.
1973The 108-story Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at as the world's tallest building.
1978The South African Defence Force attacks a SWAPO base at Cassinga in southern Angola, killing about 600 people.
1982Twenty sailors are killed when the British Type 42 destroyer is hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the Falklands War.
1988The PEPCON disaster rocks Henderson, Nevada, as tons of Space Shuttle fuel detonate during a fire.
1989Iran–Contra affair: Former White House aide Oliver North is convicted of three crimes and acquitted of nine other charges; the convictions are later overturned on appeal.
1989Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on mission STS-30 to deploy the Venus-bound Magellan space probe.
2000Ken Livingstone becomes the first Mayor of London (an office separate from that of the Lord Mayor of London).
2002One hundred three people are killed and 51 are injured in a plane crash near Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Nigeria.
2007Greensburg, Kansas is almost completely destroyed by the 2007 Greensburg tornado, a 1.7-mile wide EF5 tornado. It was the first-ever tornado to be rated with the new Enhanced Fujita scale.
2014Three people are killed and 62 injured in a pair of bombings on buses in Nairobi, Kenya.
2019The inaugural all-female motorsport series, W Series, takes place at Hockenheimring. The race was won by Jamie Chadwick, who would go on to become the inaugural series champion.
2023Nine people are killed and thirteen injured in a spree shooting in Mladenovac and Smederevo, Serbia. It is the second mass shooting in the country in two days.
Nacimientos (121)
1006Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, Persian mystic and poet (died 1088)
1559Alice Spencer, English noblewoman (died 1637)
1634Katherine Ferrers, English aristocrat and heiress (died 1660)
1649Chhatrasal, Indian ruler (died 1731)
1655Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italian instrument maker, invented the piano (died 1731)
1677Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, French noblewoman (died 1749)
1715Richard Graves, English minister and author (died 1804)
1733Jean-Charles de Borda, French mathematician, physicist, and sailor (died 1799)