May 1: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1707 - The Act of Union joins the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain
2. 1884 - Moses Fleetwood Walker becomes the first black person to play in a professional baseball game in the United States.
3. 1894 - Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, arrives inWashington, D.C.
4. 1930 - The dwarf planet Pluto is officially named.
5. 1931 - The Empire State Building is dedicated in New York City.
6. 1950 - Guam is organized as a United States commonwealth.
7. 1956 - The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.
8. 1978 - Japan's Naomi Uemura, travelling by dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone.
9. 2003 - 2003 invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (off the coast of California), U.S. President George W. Bush declares that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended".
10. 2011 - Barack Obama announces that Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks is killed by United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Due to the time difference between the United States and Pakistan, bin Laden was actually killed on May 2.
11. Famous Birthdays: Benjamin Henry Latrobe (English-American architect, designed the United States Capitol), Jules Breton (French painter), Santiago Ramón y Cajal (Spanish neuroscientist and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate), Morris Kline (American mathematician and educator , Scott Carpenter (American commander, pilot, and astronaut)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: April 30

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: May 2

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.