1096: Peter the Hermit and his army reached Hungary. They passed through without incident.
1450: Jack Cade's Rebellion-Kentishmen revolted against King Henry VI.
1541: Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River. He called it Rio de Espiritu Santo.
1794: Antoine Lavoisier was executed by guillotine. He was the French chemist that discovered oxygen.
1794: The United States Post Office was established.
1846: The first major battle of the Mexican War was fought. The battle occurred in Palo Alto, TX.
1847: The rubber tire was patented by Robert W. Thompson.
1879: George Selden applied for the first automobile patent.
1886: Pharmacist Dr. John Styth Pemberton invented what would later be called "Coca-Cola."
1902: Mount Pelee on Martinique erupted and killed over 30,000 people and destroyed the town of St. Pierre.
1904: U.S. Marines landed in Tangier to protect the Belgian legation.
1914: The U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution that designated the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.
1915: H.P. Whitney's Regret became the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby.
1919: The first transatlantic flight took-off by a navy seaplane.
1921: Sweden abolished capital punishment.
1933: Gandhi began a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.
1939: Clay Puett's electric starting gate was used for the first time.
1943: The Germans suppressed a revolt by Polish Jews and destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto.
1945: U.S. President Harry Truman announced that World War II had ended in Europe.
1954: Parry O'Brien became the first to toss a shot put over 60 feet. O'Brien achieved a distance of 60 feet 5 1/4 inches.
1956: Alfred E. Neuman appeared on the cover of "Mad Magazine" for the first time.
1958: U.S. President Eisenhower ordered the National Guard out of Little Rock as Ernest Green became the first black to graduate from an Arkansas public school.
1959: Mike and Marian Ilitch founded "Little Caesars Pizza Treat".
1960: Diplomatic relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union resumed.
1961: New Yorkers selected a new name for their new National League baseball franchise. They chose the Mets.
1967: Muhammad Ali was indicted for refusing induction in U.S. Army.
1970: Construction workers broke up an anti-war protest on New York City's Wall Street.
1973: Militant American Indians who had held the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks surrendered.
1978: David R. Berkowitz, known as the "Son of Sam," pled guilty to six murder charges.
1984: The Soviet Union announced that they would not participate in the 1984 Summer Olympics Games in Los Angeles.
1984: Joanie (Erin Moran) and Chachi (Scott Baio) got married on ABC-TV's "Happy Days."
1985: "New Coke" was released to the public on the 99th anniversary of Coca-Cola.
1986: Reporters were told that 84,000 people had been evacuated from areas near the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Soviet Ukraine.
1997: Larry King received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1998: A pipe burst leaving a million residents without water in Malaysia's capital area. This added to four days of shortages that 2 million already faced.
1999: The first female cadet graduated from The Citadel military college.