May 3
Four striking workers are killed, at least 200 wounded, when police attack a demonstration on Chicago’s South Side at the McCormick Harvesting Machine plant. The Haymarket Massacre is to take place the following day – 1886.
May 4
In Kent, Ohio, 28 National Guardsmen fire their weapons at a group of antiwar demonstrators on the Kent State University campus and kill four students, wound eight, and permanently paralyze another. – 1970.
May 5
In Lakeview, Ore., Mrs. Elsie Mitchell and five neighborhood children are killed while attempting to drag a Japanese balloon out of the woods. Unbeknownst to Mitchell and the children, the balloon was armed, and it exploded soon after they began tampering with it. They were the only known American civilians to be killed in the continental United States during World War II. – 1945.
Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, to become the first American astronaut go into space. – 1961.
May 6
The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, N.J. and kills 36 passengers and crew members. – 1937.
May 7
Martinique’s Mount Pele, near the city of Saint Pierre, begins the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th Century. The city of Saint Pierre was buried within minutes and virtually everyone died instantly. – 1902.
May 8
Both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory Day in Europe. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners and rejoice in the defeat of the Nazi war machine. – 1945.
May 9
U.S. president Woodrow Wilson issues a presidential proclamation that officially establishes the first National Mother’s Day holiday to celebrate America’s mothers. – 1914.
Sources: History.com, Toil and Trouble, by Thomas R. Brooks; American Labor Struggles, by Samuel Yellen; IWW calendar, Solidarity Forever; Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor, edited by Robert E. Weir and James P. Hanlan; Southwest Labor History Archives/George Meany Center; Geov Parrish’s Radical History; workday Minnesota; Andy Richards and Adam Wright, AFL-CIO Washington DC Metro Council.