On May 7th...

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1274 Pope Gregory X convened the 2nd Council of Lyons.

1355 About 1,200 Jews in Toledo, Spain, were killed by Count Henry of Trastamara.

1429 The Siege of Orleans was broken by Joan of Arc and the French army.

1579 The Congress of Cologne was formed in the Netherlands.

1638 Cornelis S. Goyer took possession of Mauritius.

1697 The royal castle in Stockholm, Sweden, was destroyed by fire.

1718 The city of New Orleans, Louisiana, was founded.

1774 William Bainbridge, American naval hero, was born.

1800 Indiana Territory was organized.

1812 Poet Robert Browning was born.

1825 Composer Antonio Salieri died.

1832 Greece achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire.

1833 Composer Johannes Brahms was born.

1840 A tornado killed 317 persons in Natchez, Mississippi.
1840 Composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born.

1847 The American Medical Association was organized.

1861 Poet Rabindranath Tagore was born.

1864 The Battle of the Wilderness ended.

1866 German Premier Otto von Bismarck was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt.

1873 Samuel Portland Chase, former U. S. Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, died.
1873 José Antonio Páez, the first President of Venezuela, died.

1875 The German ship SS Schiller sank near the Sicily Islands, killing 312 persons.

1877 The Cincinnati Enquirer first used the term "bullpen" to refer to foul territory in baseball.

1885 Actor Gabby Hayes was born.

1892 Josip Broz Tito, dictator of Yugoslavia, was born.

1895 Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrated the world's first radio receiver to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society.

1901 Actor Gary Cooper was born.

1902 La Soufrière volcano killed 1,680 persons on the island of St. Vincent.

1909 Edwin Herbert Land, inventor of Polaroid film and the Polaroid Land camera, was born.

1913 The British House of Commons rejected an actl granting women the right to vote.

1914 The U. S. Congress established Mother's Day.

1915 A German submarine sank the ocean liner Lusitania.

1919 Evita Peron, wife of Argentinian leader Juan Peron, was born.

1921 Charles Thompson rode Behave Yourself to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1922 Actor Darren McGavin was born.

1931 Hermann Oberth launched his first liquid-fueled rocket.

1932 Eugene James rode Burgoo King to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1933 Football player Johnny Unitas was born.

1938 Eddie Arcaro rode Lawrin to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1941 James George Frazer, a cultural anthropologist who became an authority on folklore, died.

1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea ended.

1943 The Liberty Ship George Washington Carver was launched.

1945 Germany surrendered to the Allies, ending the war in Europe.

1946 William H. Hastie was inaugurated as the first black Governor of the Virgin Islands.
1946 Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (now Sony) was founded.
1946 Singer Thelma Houston was born.

1947 "Kraft Television Theater" premiered on NBC.

1949 Steve Brooks rode Ponder to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1954 French troops surrendered to the Vietminh after a 55-day siege at Dieb Bien Phu, French Indochina.
1954 Construction of the Mackinac Bridge began.

1955 Bill Shoemaker rode Swaps to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1958 An F-104A Starfighter set a world altitude record of 91,249 feet.
1958 A coal mine near Nagasaki, Japan, was flooded; 29 miners were feared drowned.

1960 Bill Hartack rode Venetian Way to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1962 Daredevil Robbie Knievel was born.

1966 Donald Brumfield rode Kauai King to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1970 "Long and Winding Road" became the last Beatles song to be released in America.

1972 The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the New York Knicks for the NBA Championship.

1977 Jean Cruguet rode Seattle Slew to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1982 The Oakland Raiders moved to Los Angeles, California.

1983 Ed Delahoussaye rode Sunny's Halo to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1988 Gary Stevens rode Winning Colors to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1991 Singer Dennis Crosby committed suicide.

1993 The government of South Africa agreed to multi-racial elections.

1994 Chris McCarron rode Go For Gin to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1998 Mercedes-Benz bought Chrysler and formed Daimler Chrysler.
1998 Singer Eddie Rabbitt died.

1999 Guinea-Bissau President João Bernardo Vieira was ousted by a military coup.
1999 A NATO aircraft accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, killing 3 persons and wounding 20.

2000 Actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., died.

2002 A China Northern Airlines MD-82 plunged into the Yellow Sea, killing 112 persons.

2005 Mike Smith rode Giacomo to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

2011 John Velazquez rode Animal Kingdom to victory in the Kentucky Derby.
2011 Golfer Seve Ballesteros died.

2012 A NATO air strike killed 14 civilians in Afghanistan's Badghis Province.

2013 A gas tanker exploded in Ecatepec de Moreles, Mexico, killing 20 persons and injuring 36.
2013 The Italian cargo ship Jolly Nero crashed into the port of Genoa, Italy, killing 7 persons.

2014 Mario Gutierrez rode Nyquist to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

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This page was last updated on May 06, 2018.