Historical Events
- May 4 Netherlands & Britain sign treaty against illegal slave handling
Jackson Captures Pensacola
May 24 General Andrew Jackson captures Pensacola, Florida
- May 28 Walk-in-the-Water, 1st steam vessel to sail Lake Erie launched
Famous Birthdays
- May 1 José Amador de los Ríos, Spanish historian and poet, born in Baena, Spain (d. 1878)
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
May 5 German philosopher (Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital), born in Trier, Prussia
- May 20 William Fargo, American expressman (founder of Wells Fargo and American Express Co), born in Pompey, New York (d. 1881)
- May 25 Jacob Burckhardt, Swiss cultural historian, born in Basel, Switzerland (d. 1897)
- May 27 Amelia Jenks Bloomer, American reformer who campaigned for temperance and women’s rights, born in Homer, New York (d. 1894)
- May 28 P. G. T. Beauregard, American Confederate general (Hero of Sumter), born in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana (d. 1893)
- May 31 John Albion Andrew, American politician (25th Governor of Massachusetts), born in Windham, Massachusetts (d. 1867)
Famous Deaths
Paul Revere (1735-1818)
May 10 American silversmith and patriot who alerted the colonial militia to the approach of British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, dies at 83
Authors
Dictators
Explorers
Outlaws
Queens
Spies