May 5: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1215 - Rebel barons renounce their allegiance to King John of England - part of a chain of events leading to the signing of the Magna Carta.
2. 1494 - Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica and claims it for Spain.
3. 1809 - Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread.
4. 1860 - Giuseppe Garibaldi sets sail from Genoa, leading the expedition of the Thousand to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and giving birth to the Kingdom of Italy.
5. 1862 - Cinco de Mayo: troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in theBattle of Puebla in Mexico.
6. 1891 - The Music Hall in New York City (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.
7. 1905 - The trial in the Stratton Brothers case begins in London, England; it marks the first time that fingerprint evidence is used to gain a conviction for murder.
8. 1925 - Scopes Trial: serving of an arrest warrant on John T. Scopes for teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.
9. 1949 - The Treaty of London establishes the Council of Europe in Strasbourg as the first European institution working for European integration.
10. 2000 - Approximate alignment of the five planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) visible to the naked eye from Earth, as well as the sun and Earth's moon, and Earth itself; for the first time since March 4th, 1953 B.C. (since about 4000 years ago); and for the last time in the next 4000 years
11. Famous Birthdays: Karl Marx (German philosopher), Henryk Sienkiewicz (Polish author, Nobel Prize laureate), Nellie Bly (American journalist and author), Floyd Gottfredson (American illustrator), Arthur Leonard Schawlow (American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate)

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

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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.