May 31 in History

Petronius Maximus (c. 397 – 31 May 455) was Roman emperor of the West for two and a half months in 455. A wealthy senator and a prominent aristocrat, he was instrumental in the murders of the Western Roman magister militum, Aëtius, and the Western Roman emperor, Valentinian III. After the assassination of Aëtius and the subsequent death of Valentinian III, Maximus secured the support of the Senate and utilized bribery to gain the favor of palace officials, enabling him to ascend to power. He strengthened his position by forcing Licinia Eudoxia, Valentinian's widow, to marry him and forcing her daughter Eudocia to marry his son, cancelling her betrothal to the son of the Vandal king Genseric. This infuriated both Eudocia and Genseric, who sent a fleet to Rome. Maximus failed to obtain troops from the Visigoths and he fled as the Vandals arrived, became detached from his retinue and bodyguard in the confusion, and was killed by fellow Romans. The Vandals thoroughly sacked Rome in their retaliatory invasion. The reign of Petronius Maximus marked a significant period of instability and decline for the Western Roman Empire. His brief and controversial rule reflected the political fragmentation and lack of centralized authority that plagued the empire during its final years. The invasion and sacking of Rome by the Vandals underlined the growing vulnerability of the Western Roman Empire, which would ultimately culminate in its collapse in 476.

Zhongdu, also called Daxing City, was a capital city of the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty (1115–1234) of China, located in modern-day Beijing, in the southwestern part of Xicheng District. It served as the Jin capital from 1153 to 1214.

The Battle of the Kalka River was fought between the Mongol Empire, whose armies were led by Jebe and Subutai, and a coalition of several Rus' principalities, including Kiev and Galicia-Volhynia, and the Cumans under Köten. They were under the joint command of Mstislav the Bold and Mstislav III of Kiev. The battle was fought on May 31, 1223 on the banks of the Kalka River in present-day Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, and ended in a decisive Mongol victory. Following the Mongol invasion of Central Asia and the subsequent collapse of the Khwarezmian Empire, a Mongol force under the command of prominent Mongol Noyans (generals) Jebe and Subutai advanced into Iraq-i Ajam. Jebe requested permission from the Mongol emperor, Genghis Khan, to continue his conquests for a few years before returning to the main army via the Caucasus. While waiting for Genghis Khan's reply, the duo set out on a raid in which they attacked the Kingdom of Georgia. Genghis Khan granted the duo permission to undertake their expedition, and after making their way through the Caucasus, they defeated a coalition of Caucasian tribes before defeating the Cumans. The Cuman Khan fled to the court of his son-in-law, Mstislav Mstislavich of Galicia, whom he convinced to help fight the Mongols. Mstislav the Bold formed an alliance of the Rus' princes including Mstislav III of Kiev. The combined Rus' army defeated the Mongol rearguard at first. The Rus' pursued the Mongols, who were in a feigned retreat, for several days, which spread out their armies. The Mongols stopped and assumed battle formation on the banks of the Kalka River. Mstislav the Bold and his Cuman allies attacked the Mongols without waiting for the rest of the Rus' army and were defeated. In the ensuing confusion, several other Rus' princes were defeated, and Mstislav of Kiev was forced to retreat to a fortified camp. After holding out for three days, he surrendered in return for a promise of safe conduct for himself and his men. Once they surrendered, however, the Mongols slaughtered them and executed Mstislav of Kiev. Mstislav the Bold escaped, and the Mongols went back to Asia, where they joined Genghis Khan.

The Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia and China, as well as parts of southern Siberia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family of Mongolic peoples. The Oirats and the Buryats are classified either as distinct ethno-linguistic groups or as subgroups of Mongols.

Henry III of France (French: Henri III, né Alexandre Édouard; 19 September 1551 – 2 August 1589) was King of France from 1574 until his assassination in 1589 and, as Henry of Valois (Polish: Henryk Walezy; Lithuanian: Henrikas Valua), King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1573 to 1575. Before he came to these thrones, he was known as the Duke of Angoulême and Duke of Orléans from 1560, then as Duke of Anjou from 1566. As the fourth son of King Henry II of France and Queen Catherine de' Medici, he was not expected to inherit the French throne and thus was a good candidate for the vacant throne of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, where he was elected monarch in 1573. During his brief rule, he refused to sign the Henrician Articles into law, which would recognise the szlachta's right to freely elect their monarch. The Henrician Articles became, nonetheless, deeply rooted in Poland's politics as all his successors accepted them. Aged 22, Henry abandoned Poland–Lithuania upon inheriting the French throne when his brother, Charles IX of France, died without issue. France was at the time plagued by the Wars of Religion, and Henry's authority was undermined by violent political factions funded by foreign powers: the Catholic League (supported by Spain and the Pope), the Protestant Huguenots (supported by England and the Dutch) and the Malcontents (led by Henry's own brother Francis, Duke of Anjou and Alençon, a party of Catholic and Protestant aristocrats who jointly opposed the absolutist ambitions of the king). Henry III was himself a politique, arguing that only a strong and centralised yet religiously tolerant monarchy would save France from collapse. After the death of Henry's younger brother Francis, Duke of Anjou, and when it became apparent that Henry would not father an heir, the Wars of Religion developed into a dynastic war known as the War of the Three Henrys. Under Salic Law, Henry III's heir presumptive was his distant cousin, King Henry III of Navarre, a Protestant. The Catholic League, led by Henry I, Duke of Guise, demanded the exclusion of all Protestant heirs from the line of succession. They instead championed the Catholic Charles, Cardinal of Bourbon, as Henry III's heir presumptive. Henry had the Duke of Guise murdered in 1588 and was in turn assassinated by Jacques Clément, a Catholic League fanatic, in 1589. He was succeeded by Henry of Navarre.

London's Love to Prince Henry (31 May 1610), was a pageant on the River Thames organised by the city of London for the investiture of Prince Henry as Prince of Wales.

Samuel Pepys ( PEEPS; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English writer and Tory politician. He served as an official in the Navy Board and Member of Parliament, but is now most renowned for the diary he kept for almost a decade. It is considered one of the most notable diaries ever written, particularly for its detailed personal accounts of his everyday life, the Great Plague of London and the Fire of London. For historians it is an important primary source of the Stuart Restoration and of upper-middle class London life at the time. Son of a tailor, Pepys was educated at St Paul's School and attended Magdalene College, Cambridge. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree, he entered the service of his cousin Sir Edward Montagu, and later found work as a teller in the Exchequer under George Downing. Pepys began to keep a detailed private diary in 1660. The diary provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of major events, such as the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Great Plague of London, and the Great Fire of London. He recorded his daily life until 1669 when concerns over fading eyesight forced him to abandon the routine. In 1660, courtesy of Montagu, Pepys secured the position of the Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board. Despite his lack of maritime experience, he eventually rose to become the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both Charles II and James II through patronage, diligence, and his talent for administration. His influence and reforms at the English Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy. He was elected MP for Castle Rising in 1673 and Harwich in 1679 and 1685. From 1684 to 1686, he served as President of the Royal Society.

The American Revolution (1765–1789) was a political movement in the Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain. It began as a colonial rebellion and turned into a revolution eventually resulting into the creation of the United States, which was the outcome of the associated American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). The Second Continental Congress, as the provisional government, established the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander-in-chief in 1775. The following year, the Congress passed the Lee Resolution on July 2nd and unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4th. Throughout most of the war, the outcome appeared uncertain, but a 1781 victory by Washington and the Continental Army in the Siege of Yorktown led King George III and the Fox–North coalition in government to negotiate the cessation of British colonial rule and the acknowledgment of American sovereignty, which was formalized in the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783. The second U.S. Constitution took effect in 1789 and the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. Discontent with British colonial rule began shortly right after the end of the French and Indian War, which ended in 1763. Although the Thirteen Colonies had fought and supported the war directly, the British Parliament imposed new taxes onto the British-American colonists, ostensibly to compensate for wartime costs, and transferred control of the colonies' western lands to British officials in Montreal. Representatives from several of the Thirteen Colonies convened in New York City for the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. Its declaration argued that taxation without representation and other British policies had violated their rights as Englishmen. In 1767, though the Stamp Act was repealed, tensions increased again following Parliament's passing of the Townshend Acts. In an effort to quell the mounting rebellion, King George III deployed British troops to the colony of Massachusetts, where there was a conflict in the 1770 Boston Massacre. In December 1773, the local faction of the Sons of Liberty, made up of British-American colonists disguised as American Indians, orchestrated the Boston Tea Party, during which they dumped chests of taxed tea owned by the British East India Company into the Boston Harbor. Parliament responded by enacting a series of punitive laws, called the Intolerable Acts. These were intended to end self-government in Massachusetts but instead increased American support for revolution. In 1774, 12 of the Thirteen Colonies sent delegates to the First Continental Congress (the Province of Georgia joined in 1775). The First Continental Congress began coordinating Patriot resistance through underground networks of committees largely built on the foundations of the Sons of Liberty network. In August 1775, King George III proclaimed Massachusetts to be in rebellion. The British attempted to disarm the colonists, resulting in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, starting the Revolutionary War. The Second Continental Congress convened in May of 1775 and created the Continental Army, which then surrounded Boston, forcing the British to withdraw by sea in March 1776 and leaving Patriots in control in every colony. In May 1776, Congress had voted to prevent all forms of British Crown authority, to be replaced by a locally created authority, and each colony created a state constitution. On July 2, the Congress passed the Lee Resolution, affirming their support for joint independence. On July 4, 1776, they unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, basing the new nation on the revolutionary principle of protecting and guaranteeing Certain inalienable rights, proclaiming that "all men are created equal". After that, Congress had began drafting the first U.S. Constitution, known as the Articles of Confederation, an effort to establish a multi-state self-governing coordinating body capable of negotiating international treaties and prosecuting the war. The Revolutionary War continued for another seven years, during in which France and Spain eventually entered. On September 28, 1781, Washington commanded the Continental Army's capture of a British army under General Cornwallis at the Siege of Yorktown, leading to the collapse of King George's control of Parliament. Consensus in Parliament soon shifted to the war ending on American terms. On September 3, 1783, the British signed the Treaty of Paris, recognizing the sovereign independence of the United States, and ceding to the new nation nearly all the territory east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes. The United States became the first nation to establish a federal republic with a written constitution based on the principles of universal natural rights, consent of the governed, and equality under the law, although with significant democratic limitations compared to later evolution of the concept.

Manuel Quimper Benítez del Pino (c. 1757 – April 2, 1844) was a Spanish Peruvian explorer, cartographer, naval officer, and colonial official. He participated in charting the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Hawaiian Islands in the late 18th century. He was later appointed a colonial governor in his native Peru at the beginning of the fight for independence there. He retired to Spain, but was able to return to Peru where he served as a naval officer in the new republic and pursued a literary career, publishing over 20 books about his experiences before his death there in Lima.

The French Revolution was a period of political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the Coup of 18 Brumaire on 9 November 1799. Many of the revolution's ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, and its values remain central to modern French political discourse. It was caused by a combination of social, political, and economic factors which the existing regime proved unable to manage.

The Battle of Diamond Rock (French: Bataille du rocher du Diamant, Spanish: Batalla de la roca del Diamante) took place between 31 May and 2 June 1805 during the War of the Third Coalition, when a Franco-Spanish force dispatched under Captain Julien Cosmao was able to retake Diamond Rock, on the approach to Fort-de-France, from the British forces that had occupied it over a year before. The French in Martinique had been unable to oust the defenders from the strategically important rock, allowing the British garrison to restrict access to Fort-de-France Bay, firing on ships attempting to enter it by the quickest route with guns they had placed on the cliffs and thus forcing them to take a slower route, allowing interception by the blockading vessels. The arrival of a large combined Franco-Spanish fleet in May changed the strategic situation. The fleet's commander, French Vice-admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, had orders to attack British possessions in the Caribbean, but instead waited at Martinique for clearer instructions. He was finally persuaded to authorise an assault on the British position, and a Franco-Spanish flotilla was dispatched to storm the rock. Already short of water, the defenders held on in the summit for several days, while the French, with the lack of bringing scaling ladders, could make little headway. The British, short of both water and ammunition, eventually negotiated their surrender after several days under fire. As Diamond Rock was legally considered a Royal Navy vessel, and the commander was legally "captain" of it, after repatriation, he was tried by court-martial (as the law dictated in any case where a captain loses his ship, regardless of the cause), but was honourably acquitted.

William Lawson, MLC (2 June 1774 – 16 June 1850) was a British soldier, explorer, land owner, grazier and politician. In 1800, he migrated to Sydney, New South Wales, and from 1819, he served as the commandant of the Bathurst, New South Wales region, and from 1843, he served as a member of the New South Wales Parliament. In 1813, Lawson pioneered the first successful crossing of the Blue Mountains by British colonists, along with Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth, and they discovered inland pastures that fuelled the colony's economic growth thereafter.

The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly known as Qajar Iran, was the Iranian state under the rule of the Qajar dynasty, which lasted from 1789 to 1925. It was founded by Agha Mohammad Khan, a chieftain of the Qajar tribe, a Turkic tribe based in northern Iran. In the power struggle following the death of Karim Khan Zand in 1779, Agha Mohammad defeated all competitors from the preceding Zand and Afsharid dynasties, unifying Iran. He re-asserted Iranian sovereignty over large parts of the Caucasus and was formally crowned as Shah in 1796. Although he was murdered the next year, he was succeeded by his nephew Fath-Ali Shah, and the Qajars maintained control over the country until their deposal in 1925.

Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, and, by extension, for the clock tower that stands at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England. Originally named the Clock Tower, the structure was renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. The clock is a striking clock with five bells.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by Southern States that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with a Union victory, dissolution of the Confederacy and the national abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States of America. The Confederate States seized United States forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederate States bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederate States river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederate States into two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. Union General Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval Union blockade of Confederate ports, the Union army had marshaled resources and had the manpower to attack the Confederate States army from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the American South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed black slaves. The war has been one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States, and it remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Interest continues in the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in American history. The advance technology and extreme brutality of the American Civil War was foreshadowed in the upcoming ("First" and "Second") World Wars.

The Overland Campaign, also known as Grant's Overland Campaign, the Virginia Campaign, and the Wilderness Campaign, was a series of battles fought in Virginia during May and June 1864, towards the end of the American Civil War. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, general-in-chief of all Union armies, directed the actions of the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, and other forces against Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Although Grant suffered severe losses during the campaign, causing some to view it as inconclusive on its own, others have viewed it as a strategic Union victory. It inflicted proportionately higher losses on Lee's army and maneuvered it into a siege at Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, in just over eight weeks. Crossing the Rapidan River on May 4, 1864, Grant sought to defeat Lee's army by quickly placing his forces between Lee and Richmond and inviting an open battle. Lee surprised Grant by attacking the larger Union army in the Battle of the Wilderness (May 5–7), resulting in many casualties on both sides. Unlike his predecessors in the eastern theater, Grant did not withdraw his army following this setback but instead maneuvered to the southeast, resuming his attempt to interpose his forces between Lee and Richmond; Lee's army was able to get into position to block this maneuver. At the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House (May 8–21), Grant repeatedly attacked segments of the Confederate defensive line, hoping for a breakthrough but the only results were again many losses for both sides. Grant maneuvered again, meeting Lee at the North Anna River (Battle of North Anna, May 23–26). Here, Lee held clever defensive positions to divide the Union army and attack them; however, the effectiveness of the plan is debatable. The final major battle of the campaign was waged at Cold Harbor (May 31 – June 12), in which Grant gambled that Lee's army was exhausted and ordered a massive assault against strong defensive positions, resulting in disproportionately heavy Union casualties. Resorting to maneuver a final time, Grant surprised Lee by stealthily crossing the James River, threatening to capture the city of Petersburg, the loss of which would doom the Confederate capital. The resulting siege of Petersburg (June 1864 – April 1865) then led to the eventual surrender of Lee's army in April 1865 and the end of the Civil War. The campaign included two long-range raids by Union cavalry under Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan. In a raid toward Richmond, Confederate cavalry commander Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart was mortally wounded at the Battle of Yellow Tavern (May 11). In a raid attempting to destroy the Virginia Central Railroad to the west, Sheridan was thwarted by Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton at the Battle of Trevilian Station (June 11–12), the largest cavalry battle of the war.

Madison Square Garden (1879–1890) was an arena in New York City at the northeast corner of East 26th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. The first venue to use that name, it seated 10,000 spectators. It was replaced with a new building on the same site.

Plymouth is a port city and unitary authority in Devon, England. It is located on the county's south coast between the rivers Plym and Tamar, about 36 miles (58 km) south-west of Exeter and 193 miles (311 km) south-west of London. It is the most populous settlement in Devon.

The Johnstown Flood, sometimes referred to locally as the Great Flood of 1889, occurred on Friday, May 31, 1889, after the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam, located on the south fork of the Little Conemaugh River, 14 miles (23 km) upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, United States. The dam ruptured after several days of extremely heavy rainfall, releasing 14.55 million cubic meters of water. With a volumetric flow rate that temporarily equaled the average flow rate of the Mississippi River, the flood killed 2,208 people and accounted for US$17 million (equivalent to $536 million in 2024) in damage. By loss of life it was by far the worst flash flood in U.S. history. The American Red Cross, led by Clara Barton and with 50 volunteers, undertook a major disaster relief effort. Support for victims came from all over the United States and 18 foreign countries. After the flood, survivors suffered a series of legal defeats in their attempts to recover damages from the dam's owners. This led in the 20th century to American Tort law allowing, in some circumstances, strict liability rather than fault-based liability. The events have been commemorated nationally as well as locally. The Johnstown Flood National Memorial was established in 1964. The National Historic Landmark District of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was established in 1986. Both are administered by the National Park Service.

The Second Boer War was a conflict fought between 1899 and 1902 between the British Empire and the Boer republics (the South African Republic and Orange Free State), triggered by the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, specifically the Witwatersrand gold fields, and the ensuing political dispute over the voting rights of British expatriates (Uitlanders). In 1877, the British annexed the bankrupt Transvaal, and the British military neutralized the regional threat of the Zulu Kingdom in 1879 in the Anglo-Zulu War. With their borders secure, the Boers subsequently revolted and regained their independence after defeating the British in the First Boer War (1880–1881). The Witwatersrand Gold Rush caused an influx of "foreigners" (Uitlanders), most of them British from the Cape Colony, to the South African Republic (SAR), an independent Boer Republic. As they were permitted to vote only after 14 years' residence, they protested to the British authorities in the Cape. Negotiations failed at the botched Bloemfontein Conference in June 1899. The conflict broke out in October after the British government decided to send 10,000 troops. The war had three phases. In the first, the Boers mounted preemptive strikes into British-held territory in Natal and the Cape Colony, besieging British garrisons at Ladysmith, Mafeking, and Kimberley. The Boers won victories at Stormberg, Magersfontein, Colenso and Spion Kop. In the second phase, British fortunes changed when their commanding officer, General Redvers Buller, was replaced by Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener, who relieved the besieged cities and invaded the Boer republics at the head of a 180,000-strong expeditionary force. The Boers, aware that they were unable to resist such a force, refrained from fighting pitched battles, thereby allowing the British to occupy both republics and their capitals. Boer politicians fled or went into hiding; the British annexed the two republics in 1900. In Britain, the Conservative ministry attempted to capitalise by calling an early general election, dubbed a "khaki election". In the third phase, Boer fighters launched a guerrilla campaign. They used hit-and-run attacks and ambushes against the British for two years. The guerrilla campaign proved difficult for the British to defeat, due to unfamiliarity with tactics and support among civilians. British high command ordered scorched earth policies as part of a counterinsurgency campaign. Over 100,000 Boer civilians were forcibly relocated into concentration camps, where 26,000 died, by starvation and disease. Native Africans were interned to prevent them from supplying the Boers; 20,000 died. British mounted infantry were deployed to track down guerrillas, and few combatants were killed in action, most dying from disease. Kitchener offered terms to remaining Boer leaders to end the conflict. Eager to ensure Boers were released from the camps, most Boer commanders accepted the terms in the Treaty of Vereeniging, surrendering in May 1902. The former republics were transformed into the British colonies of the Transvaal and Orange River, and in 1910 were merged with the Natal and Cape Colonies to form the Union of South Africa, a self-governing colony within the British Empire. British expeditionary efforts were aided significantly by colonial forces from the Cape Colony, the Natal, Rhodesia, and many volunteers from the British Empire. Native African recruits contributed increasingly to the British effort. International public opinion was sympathetic to the Boers and hostile to the British. Even within the UK, there existed significant opposition to the war. As a result, the Boer cause attracted volunteers from neutral countries, including the German Empire, the United States, Russia and parts of the British Empire, such as Australia and Ireland. Some consider the war the beginning of questioning the British Empire's global dominance, due to the war's surprising duration and unforeseen losses suffered by the British. A trial for British war crimes, including the killings of civilians and prisoners of war, was opened in January 1902. The war had a lasting effect on the region and on British domestic politics.

The Morral affair was the attempted regicide of Spanish King Alfonso XIII and his bride, Queen Victoria Eugenie, on their wedding day, 31 May 1906, and its subsequent effects. The attacker, Mateu Morral, acting on a desire to spur revolution, threw a bomb concealed in a floral bouquet from a Madrid hotel window as the King's procession passed, killing 24 bystanders and soldiers and wounding over 100 others, while leaving the royals unscathed. Morral sought refuge from republican journalist José Nakens but fled in the night to Torrejón de Ardoz, whose villagers reported the interloper. Two days after the attack, militiamen accosted Morral, who killed one before killing himself. Morral was likely involved in a similar attack on the king a year earlier. The affair became a pretext to suppress Francisco Ferrer, an anarchist educator who ran Escuela Moderna, the influential, rationalist, antigovernment, anticlerical, antimilitary, Barcelonean school in whose library Morral worked. An unrequited love interest from the school might also have influenced Morral. Ferrer was charged with masterminding the attack, and though he was acquitted for lack of evidence, he remained a target of the government and church. The journalist Nakens and two friends, however, received prison sentences, held partially responsible for the murder Morral committed after fleeing the city. Following a prominent campaign for royal pardon, the three were released within a year of sentencing. Nakens' role in the affair spotlighted fissures in the Spanish republican movement between gradualism and near-term revolution that would later become an identity crisis.

The South Africa Act 1909 (9 Edw. 7. c. 9) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that created the Union of South Africa out of the former Cape, Natal, Orange River, and Transvaal colonies, and served as the constitution of the Union from 1910 until 1961. The act also allowed for potential admission of Rhodesia into the Union, a proposal rejected by Rhodesian colonists in a 1922 referendum. The draft proposal was supported by the four colonial parliaments, but was opposed by Cape Colony premier W. P. Schreiner, who raised concerns that it would remove rights from non-white South Africans. The act was the third major piece of legislation passed by the British Parliament to unite various British colonies and provide some degree of autonomy. This had been done through the British North America Act 1867 (30 & 31 Vict. c. 3), which united the Province of Canada (split into Ontario and Quebec) with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and the unification of Australia through the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 (63 & 64 Vict. c. 12 (Imp)).

RMS Titanic was a British ocean liner that sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. Of the 2,208 passengers and crew aboard, approximately 1,500 died, making the incident one of the deadliest peacetime sinkings of a single ship. Titanic, operated by White Star Line, carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and elsewhere in Europe who were seeking a new life in the United States and Canada. The disaster drew public attention, spurred major changes in maritime safety regulations, and inspired a lasting legacy in popular culture. It was the second time White Star Line had lost a ship on her maiden voyage, the first being RMS Tayleur in 1854.

The president of Mexico (Spanish: presidente de México), officially the president of the United Mexican States (Spanish: presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos), is the head of state and head of government of Mexico. Under the Constitution of Mexico, the president heads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander in chief of the Mexican Armed Forces. The office, which was first established by the federal Constitution of 1824, is currently held by Claudia Sheinbaum, who was sworn in on October 1, 2024. The office of the president is considered to be revolutionary, in the sense that the powers of office are derived from the Revolutionary Constitution of 1917. Another legacy of the Mexican Revolution is the Constitution's ban on re-election. Mexican presidents are limited to a single six-year term, called a sexenio. No one who has held the post, even on a caretaker basis, is allowed to run or serve again. The constitution and the office of the president closely follow the presidential system of government.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, World War I caused 15 to 22 million deaths, including those resulting from war crimes and genocides. The war also contributed to the spread of the Spanish flu pandemic. The conflict saw important developments in weaponry, including machine guns, artillery, aircraft, chemical weapons, and tanks.

The Tulsa race massacre was a two-day-long terrorist massacre perpetrated by white supremacists that took place in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, between May 31 and June 1, 1921. Mobs of white residents, some of whom had been armed and appointed as deputies by city government officials, attacked black residents and their homes and businesses. The attackers burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood—at the time, one of the wealthiest black communities in the United States, colloquially known as "Black Wall Street." The event is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history. More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals, and as many as 6,000 black residents of Tulsa were interned, many of them for several days. The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics officially recorded that 36 people died. In 2001, the Tulsa Reparations Coalition examination of events identified 39 people dead (26 black and 13 white), based on contemporary autopsy reports, death certificates, and other records. The commission reported estimates ranging from 39 people to around 300 people dead. The massacre began during Memorial Day weekend after 19-year-old Dick Rowland, a black shoeshiner, was accused of assaulting Sarah Page, a white 21-year-old elevator operator in the nearby Drexel Building. He was arrested and rumors spread that he was to be lynched. Several hundred white residents assembled outside the courthouse, appearing to have the makings of a lynch mob. A group of approximately 50–60 black men, armed with rifles and shotguns, arrived at the jail to support the sheriff and his deputies in defending Rowland from the mob. Having seen the armed black men, some of the whites who had been at the courthouse went home for their own guns. There are conflicting reports about the exact time and nature of the incident, or incidents, that immediately precipitated the massacre. According to the 2001 Commission, "As the black men were leaving, a white man attempted to disarm a tall, African American World War I veteran. A struggle ensued, and a shot rang out." Then, according to the sheriff, "all hell broke loose." The two groups shot at each other until midnight when the group of black men was greatly outnumbered and forced to retreat to Greenwood. At the end of the exchange of gunfire, 12 people were dead, 10 white and 2 black. Alternatively, another eyewitness account was that the shooting began "down the street from the Courthouse" when black business owners came to the defense of a lone black man being attacked by a group of around six white men. It is possible that the eyewitness did not recognize the fact that this incident was occurring as a part of a rolling gunfight that was already underway. As news of the violence spread throughout the city, mob violence exploded. White rioters invaded Greenwood that night and the next morning, killing men and burning and looting stores and homes. Around noon on June 1, the Oklahoma National Guard imposed martial law, ending the massacre. About 10,000 black people were left homeless, and the cost of the property damage amounted to more than $1.5 million in real estate and $750,000 in personal property (equivalent to $40.61 million in 2025). By the end of 1922, most of the residents' homes had been rebuilt, but the city and real estate companies refused to compensate them. Many survivors left Tulsa. The massacre was largely omitted from local, state, and national histories for years. In 1997, a bipartisan group in the state legislature authorized the formation of the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. The commission's final report, published in 2001, was unable to establish that the city had conspired with the racist mob; however it recommended a program of reparations to survivors and their descendants. The state passed legislation to establish scholarships for the descendants of survivors and develop a park in memory of the victims, which was dedicated in 2010. Schools in Oklahoma have been required to teach students about the massacre since 2002, and in 2020, the massacre officially became a part of the Oklahoma school curriculum.

The Hope Development School fire started about 9 p.m. on the evening of May 31, 1924 in Playa Del Rey, Los Angeles, California. The fire at the Hope Development School for Deficient Girls killed 24 people, primarily the mentally disabled or behaviorally challenged girls who were residents of the home, as well as the matron and her eight-year-old son.

The Anglo-Iraqi War was a British-led Allied military campaign during the Second World War against the Kingdom of Iraq, then ruled by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani who had seized power in the 1941 Iraqi coup d'état with assistance from Germany and Italy. The campaign resulted in the downfall of Gaylani's government, the re-occupation of Iraq by the British, and the return to power of the Regent of Iraq, Prince 'Abd al-Ilah, a British ally.

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, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

Ferenc Nagy was a Hungarian politician of the Smallholders Party who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1946 until his forced resignation in 1947. He was also a Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary and a member of the High National Council from 1945 to 1946. Nagy was the second democratically elected prime minister of Hungary, and would be the last until 1990 not to be a Communist or fellow traveler. The subsequent Hungarian prime minister Imre Nagy was unrelated to him.

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 state court cases that turn on questions of U.S. constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party". In 1803, the court asserted the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law.

The Constitution of 1961 was the fundamental law of South Africa for two decades. Under the terms of the constitution South Africa ceased to be a Commonwealth realm and became a republic, until rejoining the Commonwealth of Nations in 1994.

The Moscow City Court is the highest judicial body of the city of Moscow on civil, criminal, administrative and other cases.

The West Indies Federation, also known as the West Indies, the Federation of the West Indies or the West Indian Federation, was a short-lived political union that existed from 3 January 1958 to 31 May 1962. Various islands in the Caribbean that were part of the British Empire, including Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, and those on the Leeward and Windward Islands, came together to form the Federation, with its capital in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The expressed intention of the Federation was to create a political unit that would become independent from Britain as a single state – possibly similar to Australia, Canada, or Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Before that could happen, the Federation collapsed due to internal political conflicts over how it would be governed or function viably following the results of the Jamaican political referendum on participation. The formation of a West Indian Federation was encouraged by the United Kingdom, but also requested by pan-Caribbean nationalists.

The 1970 Ancash earthquake occurred on 31 May off the coast of Peru in the Pacific Ocean at 15:23:29 local time. Combined with a resultant landslide, it is the most catastrophic natural disaster in the history of Peru. Due to the large amounts of snow and ice included in the landslide that caused an estimated 66,794–70,000 fatalities, it is also considered to be the world's deadliest avalanche.

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act is an Act of Congress that permanently moved two federal holidays in the United States to a Monday, being Washington's Birthday and Memorial Day, and further made Columbus Day a federal holiday, also permanently on a Monday. This created long weekends with three days off ending with the holidays, such as Memorial Day Weekend.

The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, and the U.S. House of Representatives is the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the Constitution to make and pass or defeat federal legislation.

Indian Airlines Flight 440 was a flight on 31 May 1973 operated by a Boeing 737-200 that crashed while on approach to Palam Airport killing 48 of the 65 passengers and crew on board.

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is an oil transportation system spanning Alaska, including the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 12 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one of the world's largest pipeline systems. The core pipeline itself, which is commonly called the Alaska pipeline, trans-Alaska pipeline, or Alyeska pipeline,, is an 800-mile (1,287 km) long, 48-inch (1.22 m) diameter pipeline that conveys oil from Prudhoe Bay, on Alaska's North Slope, south to Valdez, on the shores of Prince William Sound in southcentral Alaska. The crude oil pipeline is privately owned by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company.

The 1985 United States–Canada tornado outbreak, referred to as the Barrie tornado outbreak in Canada, was a major tornado outbreak that occurred in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, on May 31, 1985. In all, 43 tornadoes were counted including 14 in Ontario, Canada. Ninety people were killed, with 14 deaths occurring in Canada, and 76 occurring in the United States. It remains the largest and most intense tornado outbreak ever to hit this region, and the worst tornado outbreak in Pennsylvania history in terms of deaths and destruction.

The Confederation Bridge is a box girder bridge carrying the Trans-Canada Highway across the Abegweit Passage of the Northumberland Strait, linking the province of Prince Edward Island with the mainland province of New Brunswick. Opened on May 31, 1997, the 12.9-kilometre bridge is Canada's longest bridge and the world's longest bridge over ice-covered water.

Air France, stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and is one of the founding members of the SkyTeam airline alliance. As of 2013, Air France served 29 destinations in France and operates worldwide scheduled passenger and cargo services to 201 destinations in 78 countries and also carried 46,803,000 passengers in 2019. The airline maintains its global and domestic hub at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Air France's corporate headquarters, previously in Montparnasse, Paris, are located at the Roissypôle complex on the grounds of Charles de Gaulle Airport, north of Paris.

Vanity Fair is an American monthly magazine of popular culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast in the United States.

Usain St. Leo Bolt is a Jamaican retired sprinter. Widely regarded as the greatest sprinter of all time, he is an eight-time Olympic gold medalist and the world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4 × 100 metres relay.

Space Shuttle Discovery is a retired American Space Shuttle orbiter. The spaceplane was one of the orbiters from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5, 1984. Over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, aggregating more spaceflights than any other spacecraft as of December 2024. The Space Shuttle launch vehicle had three main components: the Space Shuttle orbiter, a single-use central fuel tank, and two reusable solid rocket boosters. Nearly 25,000 heat-resistant tiles cover the orbiter to protect it from high temperatures on re-entry.

An asteroid is a minor planet that orbits within the inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter. These objects are larger than a meteoroid and are neither a planet nor an identified comet. Asteroids are rocky, metallic, or icy bodies with no atmosphere, and are broadly classified into C-type (carbonaceous), M-type (metallic), or S-type (silicaceous). The size and shape of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from small rubble piles under a kilometer across to Ceres, a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter. A body is classified as a comet, not an asteroid, if it shows a coma (tail) when warmed by solar radiation, although recent observations suggest a continuum between these types of bodies.

In the early evening of May 31, 2013, an extremely large and historic tornado impacted parts central Oklahoma, just west of Oklahoma City. This lethal, and rain-wrapped multiple-vortex tornado was the widest ever recorded, peaking at 2.6 miles across. The storm was part of a larger weather system that produced dozens of tornadoes over the preceding days. The tornado initially formed at 6:03 p.m. CDT (23:03 UTC) about 8.3 miles (13.4 km) west-southwest of El Reno, rapidly growing in size and becoming more violent as it tracked through central Canadian County. Remaining over mostly open terrain, the tornado did not impact many structures; however, measurements from mobile weather radars revealed extreme instantaneous winds in excess of 313 mph (504 km/h) within sub-vortices. These are among the highest recorded wind speeds, just slightly lower than the wind speeds of the 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado. As it crossed U.S. 81, it had grown to a record-breaking width of 2.6 miles (4.2 km), beating the previous width record set in 2004. Turning northeastward, the tornado soon weakened. Upon crossing Interstate 40, the tornado dissipated around 6:43 p.m. CDT (23:43 UTC), after tracking for 16.2 miles (26.1 km). It avoided affecting more densely populated areas near and within the OKC metropolitan area.

The Syrian civil war was an armed conflict that began with the Syrian revolution in March 2011, when popular discontent with the Ba'athist regime ruled by Bashar al-Assad triggered large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across Syria, as part of the wider Arab Spring. The Assad regime responded to the protests with lethal force, which led to a series of defections, the emergence of armed opposition groups, and the civilian uprising descending into a civil war. The war lasted almost 14 years and culminated in the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. Many sources regard this as the end of the civil war even though clashes have continued into 2026.