| 1479 | BC | Battle of Megiddo: Thutmose III defeats the King of Kadesh -- Learn More |
| 0 | | Army Day in Slovenia and Peace Officers' Memorial Day in the United States |
| 0 | | Feast of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, Patriarch and Doctor of the Church, and that of Saint Hallvard Vebjørnsson, Patron of Oslo |
| 755 | | Abd al-Rahman is proclaimed Emir of Cordoba (755-c. 788), institutes the Umayyad Caliphate |
| 1033 | | Moslem radicals began a pogrom against the Jews of Fez, Morocco, c. 6,000 died |
| 1213 | | King John surrenders England and Ireland to Pope Innocent III, who then grants them to him as fiefs of the papacy |
| 1266 | | Battle of Chesterfield ends England's Second Barons' War |
| 1333 | | Battle of Ferrara: League of Castebaldo defeats the Papal Army |
| 1464 | | Battle of Hexham: the Marques of Montague's Yorkists beat the Duke of Somerset's Lancastrians |
| 1525 | | The Battle of Frankenhausen: German "Peasants' War" ends as nobles slaughter 5,000 |
| 1614 | | Treaty of St. Menehould: ends 1st "League of Princes" rebellion against Louis XIII |
| 1682 | | Revolt of the Streltsy at Moscow |
| 1718 | | Brit James Puckle receives a patent for a repeating firearm - the first "machine gun" |
| 1768 | | Genoa cedes Corsica to France |
| 1796 | | French troops occupy Milan |
| 1796 | | Peace of Paris between the French Republic and the Kingdom of Sardinia |
| 1848 | | King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies stages an absolutist coup |
| 1851 | | Coronation of Rama IV as King of Thailand (1851-68) - Anna's friend |
| 1862 | | Battle of Princeton Court House , WVa: Rebs win |
| 1862 | | Ben Butler issues his famous "Woman Order," and proves every woman in New Orleans is a lady |
| 1863 | | U.S. Grant ordered the burning of the cotton works in Jackson, Mississippi -- Learn More |
| 1864 | | Battle of New Market, Virginia |
| 1867 | | Battle of Queretero: The Mexican Republicans defeat the Imperialists, and capture the "Emperor" Maximilian von Hapsburg |
| 1882 | | Tsar Alexander III bans Jews from living in rural areas |
| 1883 | | Austro-German-Italian military convention |
| 1885 | | Canadians arrest Louis Riel, insurgent leader |
| 1904 | | Japanese battleships 'Hatsuse' & 'Yashima' mined & sunk off Port Arthur |
| 1916 | | Austrians capture Asiago from the Italians |
| 1917 | | Battle of the Otranto Straits: An Austro-German squadron fails to break the Italo-Anglo-French blockade of the Adriatic |
| 1919 | | Greeks capture Smyrna, initiating an ultimately disastrous attempt to annex western Anatolia |
| 1932 | | The May 15th Incident: Unsuccessful coup attempt by ultra-nationalist Japanese officers and civilians |
| 1939 | | Dupont introduces nylon; within a year Japanese sales of silk to the US fall 30 percent |
| 1940 | | First successful test flight of an American helicopter, Vought-Sikorsky US-300 |
| 1940 | | German troops occupy Amsterdam as the Dutch Army surrenders |
| 1941 | | British attack Halfaya Pass & Fort Capuzzo in Egypt & Libya |
| 1942 | | Gasoline rationing introduced by the US |
| 1943 | | Cuban sub chaser 'CS-13' (Lt. Mario Ramirez Delgado) sinks 'U-176'. |
| 1944 | | Eisenhower & Montgomery brief George VI & Churchill on the D-Day plan |
| 1945 | | Andamans: Royal Navy raids Japanese installations |
| 1948 | | Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, & Saudi-Arabia attack Israel |
| 1955 | | Vienna Four-Power Treaty: Wartime allies restore Austria's independence |
| 1957 | | First British A-bomb explosion, Christmas Island, the Pacific |
| 1958 | | USSR launches Sputnik III |
| 1960 | | Sputnik IV launched into Earth orbit |
| 1970 | | Police fire on war protestors at Jackson State University, Mississippi, 2 die, 11 wounded |
| 1972 | | George Wallace shot & paralyzed by Arthur Bremer, Laurel, Md |
| 1972 | | Ryukyu Is return to Japan after 27 years of US control |
| 1397 | | Sejong the Great, King of Korea (1418-1450) |
| 1633 | | Sebastien Le Prestre, Seigneur de Vauban, fortification master, d. 1707 |
| 1773 | | Prince Klements Wenzel von Metternich, statesman, d. 1859 |
| 1892 | | Charles Emery Rosendahl, Vice-Adm., US Navy airship & heavy cruiser commander, d. 1977 |
| 1899 | | Jean Etienne Valluy, French officer, the world wars, C-in-C Indochina (1946-1949), d. 4 January 1970 |
| 1922 | | Richard A. Hough, sometime RAF fighter pilot, author, historian ("Dreadnought", "Admirals in Collision', etc.), d. |
| 1929 | | Andrew Willoughby Ninian Bertie, 78th Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta, d. 2008 |
| 1934 | | John Keegan, British military historian ("The Face of Battle", etc.), d. 2012. |
| 1942 | | The US Army's Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), which becomes the Women's Army Corps |
| 392 | | Roman Emperor Valentinian II (375-392), 21, found hanging in a locked room -- Learn More |
| 884 | | Pope Marinus I (882-884) |
| 1174 | | Atabeg al-Malik al-Adil Nur ad-Din Abu al-Qasim Mahmud Ibn 'Imad ad-Din Zangi -- Nur-ed-Din of Aleppo (1146-1174), 59 |
| 1464 | | Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset (1455-1464), 28, executed by Edward IV |
| 1470 | | "Charles VIII" -- King Charles II of Sweden (1448-1457, 1464-1465, 1467-1470) and I of Norway (1449-1450), c. 60 |
| 1526 | | Thomas Müntzer, c. 36, leader of the German Peasants' War, executed |
| 1591 | | Dimitri Ivanovitch, son of Tsar Ivan IV, murdered at 9 |
| 1638 | | Gerrit Jansen, NYC's first recorded murder victim, knifed by Jan Gysbertsen in front of Fort Amsterdam |
| 1877 | | Tajik Bey, Tadjik national hero, at about 57 |
| 1899 | | Emilio Jacinto y Dizon, 23, Filipino nationalist poet & revolutionary, of malaria |
| 1932 | | Inukai Tsuyoshi, 77, Prime Minister of Japan (1931-32), murdered by nationalists |
| 1976 | | Samuel Eliot Morison, sailor, historian ("Admiral of Ocean Sea"), 88 |