May 1 Historical Events

The following events took place on May 1. The list is arranged in chronological order.

Found 88 events. Showing 31 - 60.

• 1893
  The World’s Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago.
• 1894
  Coxey’s Army, the first significant American protest march, arrives in Washington, D.C.
• 1898
  Spanish–American War: Battle of Manila Bay: The United States Navy destroys the Spanish Pacific fleet in the first battle of the war.
• 1900
  The Scofield Mine disaster kills over 200 men in Scofield, Utah in what is to date the fifth-worst mining accident in United States history.
• 1901
  The Pan-American Exposition opens in Buffalo, New York.
• 1915
  The RMS Lusitania departs from New York City on her two hundred and second, and final, crossing of the North Atlantic. Six days later, the ship is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,198 lives.
• 1925
  The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is officially founded. Today it is the largest trade union in the world, with 134 million members.
• 1925
  The first Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer is held at the University of Toronto, Canada.
• 1927
  The first cooked meals on a scheduled flight are introduced on an Imperial Airways flight from London to Paris.
• 1927
  The Union Labor Life Insurance Company is founded by the American Federation of Labor.
• 1930
  The dwarf planet Pluto is officially named.
• 1931
  The Empire State Building is dedicated in New York City.
• 1933
  The Roca–Runciman Treaty between Argentina and Great Britain is signed by Julio Argentino Roca, Jr., and Sir Walter Runciman.
• 1933
  The Humanist Manifesto I published.
• 1940
  The 1940 Summer Olympics are cancelled due to war.

• 1941
  World War II: German forces launch a major attack on Tobruk.
• 1944
  World War II: Two hundred Communist prisoners are shot by the Germans at Kaisariani in Athens, Greece in reprisal for the killing of General Franz Krech by partisans at Molaoi.
• 1945
  World War II: A German newsreader officially announces that Adolf Hitler has “fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany”. The Soviet flag is raised over the Reich Chancellery, by order of Stalin.
• 1945
  World War II: Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda commit suicide in the Reich Garden outside the Führerbunker. Their children are also killed by having cyanide pills inserted into their mouths by their mother, Magda.
• 1945
  World War II: Up to 2,500 people die in a mass suicide in Demmin following the advance of the Red Army.
• 1945
  World War II: Yugoslav Partisans free Trieste.
• 1946
  Start of three-year Pilbara strike of Indigenous Australians.
• 1946
  The Paris Peace Conference concludes that the islands of the Dodecanese should be returned to Greece by Italy.
• 1947
  Portella della Ginestra massacre against May Day celebrations in Sicily by the bandit and separatist leader Salvatore Giuliano where 11 persons are killed and 33 wounded.
• 1948
  The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) is established, with Kim Il-sung as leader.
• 1950
  Guam is organized as a United States commonwealth.
• 1956
  The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.
• 1956
  A doctor in Japan reports an “epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system”, marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.
• 1957
  Thirty-four people are killed when a Vickers Viking airliner crashes in Hampshire England.
• 1960
  Formation of the western Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. Also known as “Maharashtra Day”.