What Happened on May 3rd in History
30 historical events on this date
The Jinan incident begins with the deaths of twelve Japanese civilians by Chinese forces in Jinan, China, which leads to Japanese retaliation and the deaths of over 2,000 Chinese civilians in the following days.
The Jinan incident or 3 May Tragedy began as a 3 May 1928 dispute between Chiang Kai-shek's National Revolutionary Army (NRA) and Japanese soldiers and civilians in Jinan, the capital of Shandong...
The All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
The All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) is a left-wing nationalist political party in India. It emerged as a faction within the Indian National Congress in 1939, led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and was...
World War II: Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo that results in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in LĂŒbeck Bay, resulting in more than 7,000 deaths.
A prison ship, is a current or former seagoing vessel that has been modified to become a place of substantive detention for convicts, prisoners of war or civilian internees. Some prison ships were...
New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect.
The Constitution of Japan is the supreme law of Japan. Written primarily by American civilian officials during the occupation of Japan after World War II, it was adopted on 3 November 1946 and came...
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Shelley v. Kraemer that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over...
London's Royal Festival Hall opens with the Festival of Britain.
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London, England. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford...
The United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations begin their closed door hearings into the relief of Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry Truman.
The Committee on Armed Services, sometimes abbreviated SASC for Senate Armed Services Committee, is a committee of the United States Senate empowered with legislative oversight of the nation's...
Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States land a plane at the North Pole.
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United...
The Kentucky Derby is televised nationally for the first time, on the CBS network.
The Kentucky Derby is an American Grade I stakes race run at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. The race is run by three-year-old Thoroughbreds at a distance of 1+1â4 miles. Colts and geldings...
Two men are rescued from a semitrailer that crashed over the side of the Pit River Bridge before it fell into the Sacramento River. Amateur photographer Virginia Schau photographs "Rescue on Pit River Bridge", the first and only winning submission for the Pulitzer Prize for Photography to have been taken by a woman.
A semi-trailer is a trailer without a front axle. The combination of a semi-trailer and a tractor truck is called a semi-trailer truck.
Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
Walter Francis O'Malley was an American sports executive who owned the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers team in Major League Baseball from 1950 to 1979. In 1958, as owner of the Dodgers, he brought...
The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and responds with violent force to stop the "Birmingham campaign" protesters. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing new-found attention to the civil rights movement.
Birmingham is a city in the north central region of Alabama, United States. It is the third-most populous city in the state, with an estimated population of 196,357 as of 2024. The Birmingham...
Eighty-five people are killed when Braniff International Airways Flight 352 crashes near Dawson, Texas.
Braniff International Airways Flight 352 was a scheduled domestic flight from William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas, United States, to Dallas Love Field in Dallas. On May 3, 1968, a Lockheed...
Erich Honecker becomes First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, remaining in power until 1989.
Erich Ernst Paul Honecker was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic from 1971 until shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He held the posts of...
The first unsolicited bulk commercial email (which would later become known as "spam") is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.
Electronic mail is a method of transmitting and receiving digital messages using electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the lateâ20th century as the digital version of, or...
The Conservative Party wins the United Kingdom general election. The following day, Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female British Prime Minister.
The Conservative and Unionist Party, commonly the Conservative Party and colloquially the Tories, is a political party in the United Kingdom. It sits on the centre-right to right-wing of the...
Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes on Air Lanka Flight 512 at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.
Air Lanka Flight 512 was an Air Lanka flight from London Gatwick Airport via Zurich and Dubai to Colombo and Malé, Maldives. On 3 May 1986, the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar serving the flight was on the...
A crash by Bobby Allison at the Talladega Superspeedway, Alabama fencing at the start-finish line would lead NASCAR to develop the restrictor plate for the following season both at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega.
Robert Arthur Allison was an American professional stock car racing driver and owner. Allison was the founder of the Alabama Gang, a group of drivers based in Hueytown, Alabama, where there were...
The southwestern portion of Oklahoma City is devastated by an F5 tornado, killing forty-five people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado is one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. This tornado also produces the highest wind speed ever recorded, measured at 484 ± 32 kilometres per hour (301 ± 20 mph). In meteorology, the term "May 3" is synonymous with the F5 tornado.
Oklahoma City, often shortened to OKC, is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It is the 21st-most populous U.S. city and 8th largest in the Southern United States, with...
Infiltration of Pakistani soldiers on Indian side results in the Kargil War.
The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil conflict, was fought between India and Pakistan from May to July 1999 in the Kargil district of Ladakh, then part of the Indian-administered state of Jammu...
The sport of geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS posted on Usenet.
Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers,...
The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human...
Armavia Flight 967 crashes into the Black Sea near Sochi International Airport in Sochi, Russia, killing 113 people.
Armavia Flight 967 was a scheduled international passenger flight operated by Armavia from Zvartnots International Airport, Zvartnots in Armenia to Sochi, a Black Sea coastal resort city in Russia....
The three-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann disappears in Praia da Luz, Portugal, starting "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history".
Madeleine Beth McCann is a British missing person, who at the age of 3 disappeared from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Lagos, Portugal, on the evening of 3 May 2007. The Daily...
Two gunmen launch an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, which was held in response to the Charlie Hebdo shooting.
The Curtis Culwell Center attack was a failed terrorist attack on an exhibit featuring cartoon images of Muhammad at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, United States, on May 3, 2015, which...
Eighty-eight thousand people are evacuated from their homes in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada as a wildfire rips through the community, destroying approximately 2,400 homes and buildings.
Fort McMurray is an urban service area in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in Alberta, Canada. It is located in northeast Alberta, in the middle of the Athabasca oil sands, surrounded by...
Twenty-six people are killed and ninety-eight are injured after an elevated section of the Mexico City Metro collapses.
The Mexico City Metro is a rapid transit system that serves the metropolitan area of Mexico City, including some municipalities in the State of Mexico. Operated by the Sistema de Transporte...
Nine students and a security guard are killed in the Belgrade school shooting, the first attack of its kind in Serbia.
On the morning of 3 May 2023, a school shooting occurred at Vladislav Ribnikar Model Elementary School in the VraÄar municipality of Belgrade, Serbia. The shooter, identified as 13-year-old Kosta...
Ethnic violence breaks out between the Meitei and the Kuki Zo people in the state of Manipur.
On 3 May 2023, ethnic violence erupted in India's north-eastern state of Manipur between the Meitei people, a majority that lives in the Imphal Valley, and the Kuki-Zo tribal community from the...