1. 535 - St. Agapitus I begins his reign as Catholic Pope.

2. 609 - Pope Boniface I turns the Pantheon in Rome into a Catholic church.

3. 641 - Eligius (Saint Eloy) becomes Bishop of Doornik - Noyon.

4. 1106 - Henry I of Limburg loses the Duchy of Lower Lorraine to Godfrey of Louvain.

5. 1110 - Crusaders march into Beirut causing a bloodbath.

6. 1277 - As vizier, Mehmet I of Karaman issues a firman (decree) ordering only the Turkish language to be used, not Arabic or Persian.

7. 1364 - Peter Coutherel is banished from Leuven.

8. 1415 - Henry V of England lands in Normandy, France, starting the prelude to the Battle of Agincourt.

9. 1497 - Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Italian Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola for leading the expulsion of the Medici's from Florence.

10. 1559 - The exhumed corpse of heretic David Jorisz is burned in Basel.

11. 1568 - Mary, Queen of Scots, is defeated at the Battle of Langside.

12. 1588 - King Henri III flees Paris.

13. 1607 - English colonists led by John Smith make a second landing near the James River in Virginia, establishing Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in America.

14. 1624 - Dutch admiral Hermites' Nassau fleet blockades Lima, Peru.

15. 1637 - Cardinal Richelieu of France reputedly creates the table knife.

16. 1638 - Construction of the Red Fort begins at Shahjahanabad, Mughal Empire (now Delhi, India).

17. 1643 - The Battle of Grantham: English parliamentary armies beat royalists.

18. 1643 - A heavy earthquake strikes Santiago, Chile, killing one - third of the population.

19. 1652 - Ingen Ryuki is invited to become the abbot of Sofuku - ji temple in Nagasaki.

20. 1654 - The Venetian fleet under Norwegian admiral Cort Adeler beats the Turkish fleet near the Dardanelles, sinking 15 Turkish galleys.

21. 1767 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's first opera Apollo et Hyacinthus, written when he was 11 years old, premieres in Salzburg.

22. 1777 - The university library at Vienna opens.

23. 1779 - The War of Bavarian Succession ends.

24. 1787 - Arthur Phillip sets sail with 11 ships of criminals to Botany Bay, Australia.

25. 1830 - The Republic of Ecuador is founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president.

26. 1835 - The first foreign embassy in Hawaii is formed.

27. 1846 - The US declares war on Mexico, two months after fighting begins.

28. 1848 - The first performance of Finland's national anthem Maamme, composed by Fredrik Pacius with Swedish words by Johan Ludvig Runeberg.

29. 1861 - Queen Victoria announces Britain's position of neutrality.

30. 1861 - The Great Comet of 1861 is discovered by John Tebbutt of Windsor, New South Wales, Australia.

31. 1864 - Atlanta Campaign: Battle of Resaca, Georgia.

32. 1865 - Battle of Palmito Ranch, near Brownsville, Texas: the final engagement of the American Civil War. Private John Jefferson Williams of B Company, 34th Regiment Indiana Infantry is the last man killed.

33. 1874 - Pope Pius IX issues the encyclical "On Greek - Ruthenian Rite".

34. 1888 - Brazil officially abolishes slavery, becoming the first country in South America to completely abolish it.

35. 1940 - The German Luftwaffe begins large - scale bombings of Britain, marking the beginning of the Battle of Britain.

36. 1958 - The French colonial army in Algeria stages a coup, demanding the return of de Gaulle to power, which eventually leads to the establishment of the Fifth Republic of France.

37. 1960 - France conducts a nuclear test in the Sahara Desert, its fourth nuclear test.

38. 1960 - The US and the Soviet Union hold their first nuclear disarmament conference in Geneva, discussing issues related to the non - proliferation of nuclear weapons.

39. 1972 - US President Nixon and Soviet leader Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I).

40. 1979 - After the Iranian Revolution, important changes occur in Iran's political reform and leadership on May 13, and the country's reconstruction work gradually unfolds.

41. 1981 - Pope John Paul II is seriously injured by gunfire at St. Peter's Square in the Vatican.

42. 1991 - Bangladesh is hit by a tropical cyclone with winds of 240 km/h, triggering a storm surge that kills about 138,000 people, one of the deadliest natural disasters of the 20th century.

43. 1994 - South Africa holds its first all - race election, and Nelson Mandela is elected as the first black president of South Africa, marking the end of the apartheid system.

44. 1638 - The construction of the Red Fort begins in Shahjahanabad, Mughal Empire (now Delhi, India).

45. 1777 - The University of Vienna library opens.

46. 1830 - The Republic of Ecuador is founded with Juan Jose Flores as its first president.

47. 1848 - The first performance of Finland's national anthem "Maamme" takes place.

48. 1861 - Queen Victoria declares Britain's neutrality in the American Civil War.

49. 1864 - The Battle of Resaca takes place in the Atlanta Campaign.

50. 1874 - Pope Pius IX issues an encyclical on the Greek - Ruthenian rite.