May 4
Haymarket massacre. A bomb is thrown when Chicago police start to break up a rally for strikers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. A riot erupts, and 11 police and strikers die, mostly from gunfire, and scores more are injured. – 1886.
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.
British journalist David Frost conducts live television interviews of former U.S. president Richard Nixon regarding the Watergate scandal and his resignation. – 1977.
Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat reach agreement in Cairo on the first stage of Palestinian self-rule. – 1994.
May 5
Lumber strike begins in Pacific Northwest, will involve 40,000 workers by the time victory is achieved after 13 weeks: Union recognition, a 50¢ per hour minimum wage and an eight-hour day. – 1937.
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.
Works Projects Administration (WPA) established, provides work opportunities for millions during the Great Depression. – 1935.
Nearly 400 black women working as tobacco stemmers walk off the job in a spontaneous revolt against poor working conditions and a $3. weekly wage at the Vaughan Co. in Richmond, Va.. – 1937.
U.S. Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright surrenders all U.S. troops in the Philippines to the Japanese. – 1942.
In a ceremony presided over by England’s Queen Elizabeth II and French president Francois Mitterand, a rail tunnel under the English Channel officially opens to connect Britain and the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age. – 1994.
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.
Two die, 20 are injured in “Bloody Tuesday” when strikebreakers attempt to run San Francisco streetcars during a strike by operators. The strike was declared lost in 1908 after many more deaths, including several in scab-operated streetcar accidents. – 1907.
The German High Command, in the person of General Alfred Jodl, signs the unconditional surrender of all German forces, East and West, at Reims, in northwestern France. – 1945.
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.
Approximately 200 construction workers in New York City attack a crowd of Vietnam War protesters four days after the Kent University State killings by the Ohio National Guard. More than 70 were injured, including four police officers. Peter Brennan, head of the New York building trades, honored at the Nixon White House two weeks later, eventually was named Secretary of Labor. – 1970.
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.
May 10
Thanks to an army of thousands of Chinese and Irish immigrants, who laid 2,000 miles of track, the Nation’s first transcontinental railway line is finished by the joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines at Promontory Point, Utah. – 1869.
U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes has the White House’s first telephone installed in the telegraph room. The White House phone number was 1. President Hayes rarely received phone calls because the Treasury Department possessed the only other direct phone line to the White House. – 1877.