There's a lot of history in regards to May 1st.
AD
305 - Emperor Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus Jovius of Rome resigns
305 - Diocletian and Maximian retire from the office of Roman Emperor.
1006 - Supernova observed by Chinese & Egyptians in constellation Lupus
1048 - Bishop Bernold flees St Pieterskerk for Utrecht Neth
1328 - Wars of Scottish Independence end: Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton - the Kingdom of England
recognises the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state.
1528 - Pánfilo the Narváez begins exploration with 350 men to Florida
1544 - Turkish troops occupy Hungary
1551 - Council of Trente resumes
1576 - Stefan Batory, the reigning Prince of Transylvania, marries Anna Jagiellon and they become the co-rulers
of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1625 - Portuguese & Spanish expedition recaptures Salvador (Bahia)
1625 - Prince Frederik Henry appointed viceroy of Holland
1682 - Louis XIV & his court inaugurates Paris Observatory
1703 - Battle at Rultusk: Swedish army beats Russians
1704 - Boston Newsletter publishes 1st newspaper ad
1707 - England, Wales & Scotland form UK of Great Britain
1711 - Arch duke Karel of Austria/Hungarian rebellion sign Peace of Szatmar
1715 - Prussia declares war on Sweden
1753 - Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted
by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.
1756 - France & Austria sign alliance
1757 - Austria & France divide Prussia
1759 - British fleet occupies Guadeloupe, West-Indies, on France
1776 - Adam Weishaupt founds secret society of Illuminati
1778 - American Revolution: The Battle of Crooked Billet begins in Hatboro, Pennsylvania.
1781 - Emperor Jozef II decrees protection of population
1785 - Kamehameha, the king of Hawaii defeats Kalanikupule and establishes the Kingdom of Hawaii.
1822 - John Phillips becomes 1st mayor of Boston
1846 - Ida Pfeiffer (48) begins trip around world
1853 - Argentina adopts it's constitution
1863 - Battle of Chancellorsville, VA (29,000 injured or died)
1863 - Battle of Port Gibson, Mississippi
1863 - Confederate "National Flag" replaces "Stars & Bars"
1863 - Confederate congress passed resolution to kill black soldiers
1864 - Atlanta campaign, GA begins
1864 - Wilderness campaign
1866 - American Equal Rights Association forms
1875 - 238 members of "Whiskey Ring" accused of anti-US activities
1883 - "Buffalo Bill" Cody put on his 1st Wild West Show
1884 - Proclamation of the demand for eight-hour workday in the United States.
1885 - Maria "Goeie Mie" Swanenburg sentence to life for killing 27 in Neth
1886 - US general strike for 8 hour day, begins
1892 - US Quarantine Station opens on Angel Island, SF Bay
1898 - George Dewey commands, "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley" as US route Spanish fleet at
Manila
1900 - Premature blast collapses mine tunnel killing 200 at Scofield, Utah
1908 - World's most intense rain shower (2.47" in 3 minutes) at Portobelo Panama
1909 - Netherlands begins unity with Belgium
1914 - China's 1st president Yuan Shikai wins dictatorial qualification
1915 - German submarine sinks US ship Gulflight
1919 - Mount Kelud (Indonesia) erupts, boiling crater lake which broke through crater wall killing 5,000
people in 104 small villages
1920 - Babe Ruth's 1st Yankee HR & 50th of career, out of Polo Grounds
1925 - Cyprus becomes a British Crown Colony
1928 - 6 children die & 10 injured by hailstones in Klausenburg, Romania
1928 - Drunken fascist Erich Wichman attacks VARA-radio transmitter
1929 - Police kill 19 Mayday demonstrators in Berlin
1931 - Empire State Building opens in NYC
1934 - Austria signs pact with Vatican
1936 - FBI's J Edgar Hoover arrests Alvin Karpis
1937 - FDR signs act of neutrality
1939 - Batman comics hit street
1940 - 140 Palestinian Jews die as German planes bomb their ship
1940 - The 1940 Olympics are cancelled
1941 - German assault on Tobruk
1942 - Radio Orange calls to defy order to wear "Jewish star"
1943 - Food rationing begins in US
1943 - German Wehrmacht deployed in order to break Dutch strikes
1943 - German plane sinks boat loaded with Palestinian Jews bound for Malta
1943 - Rauter signs unofficial death sentence
1944 - Surprise attack on Weteringschans Amsterdam, fails
1945 - 900 occupiers of Demmin Vorpommeren, commit suicide
1945 - Hitler's suicide reported
1947 - Rear Admiral Roscoe H Hillenkoetter, USN, becomes 3th director of CIA
1948 - North Korean proclaims itself People's Democratic Republic of Korea
1948 - Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Auspicia quaedam
1949 - Gerard Kuiper discovers Nereid, (2nd satellite of Neptune)
1950 - New marriage laws enforced in People's Republic China
1951 - 600,000 march for peace & freedom in Germany
1952 - Marines take part in an atomic explosion training in Nevada
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 - Larry King's 1st radio broadcast
1958 - Ambonese rebellion bombed Ambon/conquer Morotai
1958 - Arturo Frondizi sworn in as president of Argentina
1961 - 1st US airplane hijacked to Cuba
1961 - Fidel Castro announces there will be no more elections in Cuba
1962 - 1st French underground nuclear experiment in the Sahara
1962 - France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria
1962 - JFK authorizes Area Redevelopment Act (ARA)
1963 - 1st American (James Whittaker) conquers Mount Everest
1963 - Indonesia takes control of Irian Jaya (west New Guinea) from Neth
1964 - 1st BASIC program runs on a computer (Dartmouth)
1965 - USSR launches Luna 5; later impacts on Moon
1965 - Battle of Dong-Yin, a naval conflict between ROC and PRC, takes place.
1966 - US troops shooting targets in Cambodia
1969 - Pirate Radio Station 259 (England/France) begins transmitting
1972 - North Vietnamese troops occupy Quang Tri Activities Committee
1977 - 36 people are killed in Taksim Square, Istanbul, during the Labour Day celebrations.
1978 - Naomi Uemura became 1st to reach North Pole overland alone
1984 - Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1985 - "Communist" bomb attack kills 2 firemen in Brussels
1985 - US president Reagan ends embargo against Nicaragua
1986 - Tass reports Chernobyl nuclear power plant mishap
1986 - Will Stegers expedition reaches North Pole
1987 - Pope John Paul II beatifies Edith Stein, a Jewish born nun
1988 - IRA attack in Roermond, kills 3
1993 - Bomb attack on Sri Lankan president (26 die)
1994 - Tornado & hail storms hit Jiangxi China, 95 killed
1997 - Toni Blair elected PM of UK
2000 - Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declares the existence of "a state of rebellion",
hours after thousands of supporters of her arrested predecessor, Joseph Estrada, storm
towards the presidential palace at the height of the EDSA III rebellion.
2003 - 2003 invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech,
U.S. President George W. Bush declares that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended"
on board the USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast of California.
2004 - Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia,
and Slovenia join the European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President
in Dublin.
2006 - The Puerto Rican government closes the Department of Education and 42 other government
agencies due to significant shortages in cash flow.
2007 - The Los Angeles May Day mêlée occurs, in which the Los Angeles Police Department's
response to a May Day pro-immigration rally become a matter of controversy.
2008 - The London Agreement on translation of European patents, concluded in 2000, enters into
force in 14 of the 34 Contracting States to the European Patent Convention.
2009 - Same-sex marriage is legalized in Sweden.
2010 - Car bomb fails to go off in Times Square, New York City
The same can be said of any day of the year though. I'll leave it up to others to try and discern a pattern.
edit on 2-5-2011 by Mactire
because: (no reason given)