Historical Events
Sitting Bull Heads for Canada
May 5 Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles
- May 7 Cincinnati Enquirer first uses term "bullpen" to indicate baseball field foul territory where late-coming spectators were herded like cattle
- May 8 1st Westminster Dog Show held
- May 9 Mihail Kogălniceanu reads, in the Chamber of Deputies, the Declaration of Independence of Romania. This day becomes the Independence Day of Romania.
1st White House Telephone
May 10 US President Rutherford B. Hayes has 1st White House telephone installed, in the telegraph room
- May 12 Ottawa Rough Riders 1st outside competition vs Britannia
- May 13 Caesar Franck's symphonic poem "Lesson Eolides" premieres
- May 16 May 16, 1877 political crisis in France.
- May 17 Edwin T Holmes installs 1st telephone switchboard burglar alarm
- May 22 3rd Kentucky Derby: Billy Walker aboard Baden-Baden wins in 2:38
- May 24 5th Preakness: C Holloway aboard Cloverbrook wins in 2:45.5
Famous Birthdays
- May 3 Karl Abraham, German psychoanalyst, born in Bremen, Germany (d. 1925)
- May 4 Arthur Lang, American boxer and businessman, born in Van Wert, Ohio (d. 1992)
- May 10 Roderich Mojsisovics-Mojsvar, Austrian music educator and composer, born in Graz, Austria (d. 1954)
- May 25 Billy Murray, Irish-American vaudeville and early recording popular music tenor, known as the 'Denver Nightengale' ("Shine On, Harvest Moon"), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1954)
Isadora Duncan (1877-1927)
May 26 American free form/interpretative dancer, born in San Francisco, California
- May 26 Jean Schlumberger, French writer (La Mort de Sparte), born in Guebwiller, Alsace-Lorraine (d. 1968)
- May 26 Sadao Araki, Japanese general, Minister of War (1931-34), born in Tokyo, Japan (d. 1966)
Famous Deaths
- May 6 Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Finnish poet (Finland's national anthem "Maamme"), dies at 73
- May 14 John Roberts, Welsh composer, minister and poet, dies at 54
- May 18 William "Extra Billy" Smith, American lawyer, politician (Governor of Virginia, 1846-49 and 1864-65; US Representative from Virginia, 1853-61), and oldest General in the Confederate Army, dies at 89
- May 29 John Lothrop Motley, American historian and author (The Rise of the Dutch Republic), dies at 63
