History is everything. If you want to wipe the memory of a people, get rid of their history first. That’s why having some knowledge of past occurrences is imperative. May 2 is the 122nd day of the year (123rd in leap years). 243 days remain until the end of the year. Find out some of the important events that occurred on this day in history.
Historical events
1611 — The King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time in London, England by printer Robert Barker.
1230 — Prince Llywelyn the Great hangs William de Braose, the 10th Baron Abergavenny.
1497 — Explorer John Cabot’s expedition departs Bristol searching for new lands across the Atlantic.
1536 — Anne Boleyn is arrested, taken to the Tower of London and beheaded after a four-day show trial.
1598 — France and Spain sign the Peace of Vervins.
1780 — Astronomer William Herschel discovers the first binary star, Xi Ursae Majoris.
2nd May in the 19th Century
1808 — Outbreak of the Peninsular War: The citizens of Madrid rise up against Napoleon. Francisco de Goya later memorialises this event in his painting, The Second of May 1808.
1865 — 17th US President Andrew Johnson offers $100,000 reward for the capture of Jefferson Davis.
1878 — The US stops minting the 20 cent coin.
1885 — “Good Housekeeping” magazine is first published.
1887 — Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film (used in Inventor Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope)
2nd May in the 20th Century
1900 — Playwright George Bernard Shaw’s “You Never Can Tell” premieres in London.
1902 — “A Trip to the Moon,” the first science fiction film, created by magician George Melies, is released.
1903 — Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is born.
1905 — French newspapers publish lists of Novelist Jules Verne’s unpublished work.
1908 — 1908 “Take me out to the Ball Game” registered for copyright.
1924 — Netherlands refuses to recognise USSR.
1927 — International Economic Conference (52 countries including USSR) opens.
1929 — Jazz musician Billie Holiday, 14, and her mother are arrested for prostitution following a raid of a brothel in Harlem.
1933 — In Germany, Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler bans trade unions.
1936 — Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie and family flee Abyssinia.
1938 — Pulitzer prize awarded to Thornton Wilder for his play “Our Town”.
1941 — FCC approves regular scheduled commercial TV broadcasts to begin on 1st July.
1946 — The “Battle of Alcatraz” takes place, killing two guards and three inmates.
1949 — Playwright Arthur Miller wins Pulitzer Prize for “Death of a Salesman”.
1962 — OAS strikes in Algeria.
1962 — The seventh European Cup: Benfica beats Real Madrid 5-3 at Amsterdam.
1963 — Children’s crusade begins in Birmingham, Alabama. More than 600 African American school children are arrested for marching against segregation, organised by Civil Rights Activist James Bevel and the SCLC.
More dates
1964 — Beatles’ “Beatles’ 2nd Album” hits the top position and stays for five weeks.
1964 — First ascent of Shishapangma the fourteenth highest mountain in the world and lowest of the Eight-thousanders.
1968 — Israeli television begins transmitting.
1975 — Apple records closes down.
1977 — “The King and I” opens at Uris Theater NYC for 719 performances.
1980 — South Africa places ban on Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in Wall (Part II)”.
1980 — Pope John Paul II begins African tour.
1988 — Painter Jackson Pollock’s “Search” sells for $4,800,000.
1990 — South Africa and the African National Congress open talks to end apartheid.
1994 — Nelson Mandela claims victory after South Africa’s first democratic elections.
1994 — Michael Bolton found to have plagiarised Isley Bros “Love is Wonderful Thing”.
1995 — “Hamlet” opens at Belasco Theater NYC for 121 performances.
1997 — Donald Trump and Marla Maples announce they are separating.
1997 — Police arrest transsexual prostitute Atisone Seiuli with actor Eddie Murphy.
1998 — Battle of Hogwarts: The fictional battle ends the Second Wizarding War with the death of Lord Voldemort at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
1999 — Panamanian election, 1999: Mireya Moscoso becomes the first woman to be elected President of Panama.
2nd May in the 21st Century
2000 — Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands unveils the Man With Two Hats monument in Apeldoorn and the other in Ottawa on May 11, 2000. This symbolically links both Netherlands and Canada for their assistance throughout World War II.
2000 — President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military.
2008 — Marvel Cinematic Universe releases the first film “Iron Man”, directed by Jon Favreau, starring Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark.
2011 — Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI’s most wanted man, is killed by US special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
2011 — The 2011 E. coli O104: H4 outbreak strikes Europe, mostly in Germany. It leaves more than 30 people dead and many others sick from the bacteria outbreak.
2011 — Rapper and TV star Flavor Flav arrested on four outstanding misdemeanour warrants for various driving offences.
2012 — A pastel version of “The Scream”, by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, sells at auction for $119,922,500.
2012 — Barcelona football player Lionel Messi breaks the European goal-scoring record with 68 goals.
2013 — Rhode Island becomes the tenth state in the United States to legalise gay marriage after Governor Lincoln Chafee signs the bill into law.
2015 — Floyd Mayweather Jr. beats Manny Pacquiao on points in 12 rounds in world welterweight unification fight. He shatters all financial records for a boxing match.
2018 — Rapper Kanye West widely criticised for saying “slavery is a choice” in TMZ interview.
2018 — Indian city of Kanpur declared the world’s most polluted city by WHO with 14 other Indian cities in the top 20.
More dates
2018 — New research show plants “talk” to each other through their roots and the soil in a study on corn published in the journal, “Plos One”.
2018 — Iowa passes US’s strictest abortion ban, based on a fetal heartbeat.