May 5 in History

The Second Council of Constantinople is the fifth of the first seven ecumenical councils recognized by both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church. It is also recognized by the Old Catholics and others. Protestant opinions and recognition of it are varied. Some Protestants, such as Calvinists, recognize the first four councils, whereas Lutherans and most Anglo-Catholics accept all seven. Constantinople II was convoked by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I under the presidency of Patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople. It was held from 5 May to 2 June 553. Participants were overwhelmingly Eastern bishops—only sixteen Western bishops were present, including nine from Illyricum and seven from Africa, but none from Italy—out of the 152 total. The main work of the council was to confirm the condemnation issued by edict in 551 by the Emperor Justinian against the Three Chapters. These were the Christological writings and ultimately the person of Theodore of Mopsuestia (died 428), certain writings against Cyril of Alexandria's Twelve Anathemas accepted at the Council of Ephesus, written by Theodoret of Cyrrhus (died c. 466), and a letter written against Cyrillianism and the Ephesian Council by Ibas of Edessa (died 457). The purpose of the condemnation was to make plain that the Great Church, which followed a Chalcedonian creed, was firmly opposed to Nestorianism as supported by the Antiochene school which had either assisted Nestorius, the eponymous heresiarch, or had inspired the teaching for which he was anathematized and exiled. The council also condemned the teaching that Mary could not be rightly called the Mother of God (Greek: Theotokos) but only the mother of the man (anthropotokos) or the mother of Christ (Christotokos). The Second Council of Constantinople is also considered as one of the many attempts by Byzantine Emperors to bring peace in the empire between the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian factions of the church which had been in continuous conflict since the times of the Council of Ephesus in AD 431.

Isabella I (Old French: Ysabel; c. 1172 – 1205) was the queen of Jerusalem who reigned from the early 1190s to her death. She received the homage of her vassals as the rightful heir to the throne after the death of her half-sister Queen Sibylla in 1190, but Sibylla's widower, Guy of Lusignan, held onto the kingdom until 1192. Isabella became queen upon her coronation in 1198. Having little political ambition, she passed the government on to three successive husbands, Conrad of Montferrat, Henry II of Champagne, and Aimery of Lusignan, all of whom included her in the issuing of their charters. Isabella's co-reign with Aimery saw the compilation of the Livre au roi, a law treatise establishing the rights and obligations of queens regnant of Jerusalem. Isabella was the daughter of King Amalric and his second wife, Maria Komnene. After Amalric's death in 1174, Queen Maria married Balian of Ibelin. The marriage of Amalric's elder daughter, Sibylla, to the controversial Guy of Lusignan divided the nobility in two camps, with Isabella's stepfamily opposing Guy. Isabella's half-brother King Baldwin IV arranged for her to marry the lord Humphrey IV of Toron, whose family supported Guy and opposed the Ibelins. Baldwin IV suffered from leprosy and could not sire an heir; he named Sibylla's son, Baldwin V, as his successor. The High Court stipulated that a committee of Western European rulers was entitled to decide whether Sibylla or Isabella should inherit the throne if Baldwin V died. When Baldwin V died in 1186, Sibylla seized the throne before the committee could choose. Guy's opponents wished to install Isabella as anti-queen, but her husband, Humphrey, recognized Sibylla and Guy as rulers. In 1190, after Queen Sibylla died in the midst of the Third Crusade, Isabella's mother and stepfather forced her to leave Humphrey so that she could marry Marquis Conrad of Montferrat and claim the throne against Guy. The crusading Kings Richard I of England and Philip II of France arbitrated and declared that Guy should retain the kingship for his lifetime and be succeeded by Isabella and Conrad. Conrad was elected king when Guy left the kingdom in 1192, but was assassinated shortly after. The nobles selected Count Henry II of Champagne to succeed Conrad, and Isabella hastily married him. Her fourth marriage, celebrated shortly after Henry's accidental death in 1197, was to Guy's brother, King Aimery of Cyprus. Aimery died in 1205 and Isabella herself died a few months later, at which time her kingdom passed to Maria of Montferrat, the eldest of her five surviving daughters.

John (Christmastide 1166/7 – 19 October 1216) was King of England from 1199 until his death in 1216. He lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his other French lands to King Philip II of France, resulting in the collapse of the Angevin Empire and contributing to the subsequent growth in power of the French Capetian dynasty during the 13th century. The baronial revolt at the end of John's reign led to the sealing of Magna Carta, a document considered a foundational milestone in English and later British constitutional history. John was the youngest son of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was nicknamed John Lackland (Norman: Jean sans Terre, lit. 'John without land') because, as a younger son, he was not expected to inherit significant lands. He became Henry's favourite child after Henry faced a failed revolt from John's older brothers, Henry the Young King, Richard, and Geoffrey. Henry II appointed John Lord of Ireland in 1177 and gave him lands in England and on the continent. During the reign of his brother Richard I, John unsuccessfully attempted a rebellion against Richard's administrators while the King was participating in the Third Crusade, but he was proclaimed king after Richard died in 1199. Philip II of France agreed to recognise John's possession of the continental Angevin lands at the peace treaty of Le Goulet in 1200. When war with France broke out again in 1202, John achieved early victories, but shortages of military resources and his treatment of Norman, Breton, and Anjou nobles resulted in the collapse of his empire in northern France in 1204. He spent much of the next decade attempting to regain these lands, raising huge revenues, reforming his armed forces and rebuilding continental alliances. His judicial reforms had a lasting effect on the English common law system, as well as providing an additional source of revenue. His dispute with Pope Innocent III over the election of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury led Innocent to ban church services in England from 1208 until 1214 and excommunicate John from 1209 until 1213. John's attempt to defeat Philip in 1214 failed because of the French victory over John's allies at the Battle of Bouvines. When he returned to England, John faced a rebellion by many of his barons, who were unhappy with his fiscal policies and his treatment of powerful English nobles. John and the barons agreed to Magna Carta as a peace treaty in 1215. However, neither side complied with its conditions. Civil war erupted shortly afterwards, with the barons aided by Philip's son Louis, and soon descended into a stalemate. Amid the civil war, John died of dysentery in eastern England in late 1216; supporters of his son Henry III went on to achieve victory over Louis and the rebel barons the following year. Contemporary chroniclers were mostly critical of John's performance as king, and his reign has since been the subject of significant debate and periodic revision by historians from the 16th century onwards. Historian Jim Bradbury has summarised the current historical opinion of John's positive qualities, observing that John is today usually considered a "hard-working administrator, an able man, an able general". Nonetheless, modern historians agree that he also had many faults as king, including what historian Ralph Turner describes as "distasteful, even dangerous personality traits", such as pettiness, spitefulness, and cruelty. These negative qualities provided extensive material for fiction writers in the Victorian era, and John remains a recurring character within Western popular culture, primarily as a villain in Robin Hood folklore.

Kublai Khan (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder and first emperor of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. He proclaimed the dynastic name "Great Yuan" in 1271, and ruled Yuan China until his death in 1294. Kublai was the second son of Tolui by his chief wife Sorghaghtani Beki, and a grandson of Genghis Khan. He was almost 12 when Genghis Khan died in 1227. He had succeeded his older brother Möngke as Khagan in 1260, but had to defeat his younger brother Ariq Böke in the Toluid Civil War lasting until 1264. This episode marked the beginning of the division of the Mongol Empire. Kublai's real power was limited to the Yuan Empire, even though as Khagan he still influenced the Ilkhanate and, to a significantly lesser degree, the Golden Horde. In 1271, Kublai established the Yuan dynasty and formally claimed orthodox succession from prior Chinese dynasties. The Yuan dynasty came to rule over most of present-day China, Mongolia, Korea, southern Siberia, and other adjacent areas. He also amassed influence in the Middle East and Europe as Khagan. By 1279, the Yuan conquest of the Song dynasty was completed and Kublai became the first non-Han emperor to rule all of China proper. As emperor, he ordered invasions of Japan, Vietnam, Burma, and Java.

Adolf (c. 1255 – 2 July 1298) was the count of Nassau from about 1276 and the elected king of Germany from 1292 until his deposition by the prince-electors in 1298. He was never crowned by the pope, which would have secured him the imperial title. He was the first physically and mentally healthy ruler of the Holy Roman Empire ever to be deposed without a papal excommunication. Adolf died shortly afterwards in the Battle of Göllheim fighting against his successor Albert of Habsburg. He was the second in the succession of so-called count-kings of several rivalling comital houses striving after the Roman-German royal dignity.

Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed four Spanish transatlantic voyages in the name of the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America. The name Christopher Columbus is the anglicization of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. Growing up on the coast of Liguria, he went to sea at a young age and traveled widely, as far north as the British and Irish Isles and as far south as what is now Ghana. He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who bore a son, Diego, and was based in Lisbon for several years. He later took a Castilian mistress, Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, who bore a son, Ferdinand. Largely self-educated, Columbus was knowledgeable in geography, astronomy, and history. He developed a plan to seek a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice trade. After the Granada War, and Columbus's persistent lobbying in multiple kingdoms, the Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II, agreed to sponsor a journey west. Columbus left the Port of Palos in August 1492 with three ships and made landfall in the Americas on 12 October, ending the period of human habitation in the Americas now referred to as the pre-Columbian era. His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by its native inhabitants as Guanahani. He then visited the islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is now Haiti. Columbus returned to Castile in early 1493, with captured natives. Word of his voyage soon spread throughout Europe. Columbus made three further voyages to the Americas, exploring the Lesser Antilles in 1493, Trinidad and the northern coast of South America in 1498, and the east coast of Central America in 1502. Many of the names given to geographical features by Columbus, particularly the names of islands, are still in use. He gave the name indios ('Indians') to the Indigenous peoples he encountered. The extent to which he was aware that the Americas were a wholly separate landmass is uncertain; he never clearly renounced his belief he had reached the Far East. As a colonial governor, Columbus was accused by some of his contemporaries of significant brutality and removed from the post. Columbus's strained relationship with the Crown of Castile and its colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and removal from Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the privileges he and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the Crown. Columbus's expeditions inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for centuries, thus bringing the Americas into the European sphere of influence. The transfer of plants, animals, precious metals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Old World and New World that followed his first voyage are known as the Columbian exchange, named after him. These events and the effects which persist to the present are often cited as the beginning of the modern era. Diseases introduced from the Old World contributed to the genocide of Hispaniola's Indigenous peoples, who were also subject to enslavement and other mistreatments by Columbus's government. Increased public awareness of these interactions has led to Columbus being less celebrated in Western culture, which has historically idealized him as a heroic discoverer. Numerous places have been named for him.

Shimazu Tadatsune (島津 忠恒; November 27, 1576 – April 7, 1638) was a tozama daimyō of Satsuma, the first to hold it as a formal fief (han) under the Tokugawa shogunate, and the first Japanese to rule over the Ryūkyū Kingdom. As lord of Satsuma, he was among the most powerful lords in Japan at the time, and formally submitted to Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1602, to prove his loyalty, being rewarded as a result with the name Matsudaira Iehisa; Matsudaira being a branch family of the Tokugawa, and "Ie" of "Iehisa" being taken from "Ieyasu", this was a great honor. As of 1603, his holdings amounted to 605,000 koku.

Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland. After his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. He became heir apparent to the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1612 upon the death of his elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. An unsuccessful and unpopular attempt to marry him to Infanta Maria Anna of Spain culminated in an eight-month visit to Spain in 1623, which demonstrated the futility of the marriage negotiations. Two years later, shortly after his accession, he married Henrietta Maria of France. After his accession in 1625, Charles quarrelled with the English Parliament, which sought to curb his royal prerogative. He believed in the divine right of kings and was determined to govern according to his own conscience. Many of his subjects opposed his policies, in particular the levying of taxes without Parliamentary consent, and perceived his actions as those of a tyrannical absolute monarch. His religious policies, coupled with his marriage to a Catholic, generated antipathy and mistrust from Reformed religious groups such as the English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters, who thought his views too Catholic. He supported high church Anglican ecclesiastics and failed to aid continental Protestant forces successfully during the Thirty Years' War. His attempts to force the Church of Scotland to adopt high Anglican practices led to the Bishops' Wars, strengthened the position of the English and Scottish parliaments, and helped precipitate his own downfall. From 1642, Charles fought the armies of the English and Scottish parliaments in the English Civil War. After his defeat in 1645 at the hands of the Parliamentarian New Model Army, he fled north from his base at Oxford. Charles surrendered to a Scottish force and, after lengthy negotiations between the English and Scottish parliaments, was handed over to the Long Parliament in London. Charles refused to accept his captors' demands for a constitutional monarchy, and temporarily escaped captivity in November 1647. Re-imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, he allied with Scotland, but by the end of 1648, the New Model Army had consolidated its control over England. Charles was tried, convicted, and executed for high treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished and the Commonwealth of England was established as a republic. The monarchy was restored in 1660, with Charles's son Charles II as king.

Cromwell's Act of Grace, or, more formally, the Act of Pardon and Grace to the People of Scotland, was an Act of the Parliament of England that declared that the people of Scotland (with certain exceptions) were pardoned for any crimes they might have committed during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It was proclaimed at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh on 5 May 1654. General George Monck, the English military governor of Scotland, was present in Edinburgh, having arrived the day before for two proclamations also delivered at the Mercat Cross, the first of which declared Oliver Cromwell to be the protector of England, Ireland and Scotland, and that Scotland was united with the Commonwealth of England.

Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country in Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the largest country in the world, spanning eleven time zones and sharing land borders with fourteen countries. With a population of over 140 million, Russia is the most populous country in Europe and the ninth-most populous in the world. It is a highly urbanised country, with three-fourths of its population living in urban areas. Moscow, the most populous metropolitan area in Europe, is the capital and largest city of Russia, while Saint Petersburg is its second-largest city and a major cultural centre.

France, officially the French Republic, is a country primarily located in Western Europe. Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Metropolitan France shares borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north; Germany to the northeast; Switzerland to the east; Italy and Monaco to the southeast; Andorra and Spain to the south; and a maritime border with the United Kingdom to the northwest. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea. Its 18 integral regions—five of which are overseas—span a combined area of 632,702 km2 (244,288 sq mi), with a total population estimated at over 69.1 million in 2026. Its capital, largest city and main cultural and economic centre is Paris, with a metropolitan population of over 13 million.

Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815. He rose to prominence as a general during the French Revolution and led a series of military campaigns across Europe and the Middle East during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As a statesman, he implemented numerous legal and administrative reforms in France and Europe. Born on the island of Corsica to a family of Italian origin, Napoleon moved to mainland France in 1779 and was commissioned as an officer in the French Royal Army in 1785. He supported the French Revolution in 1789 and promoted its cause in Corsica. He rose rapidly through the ranks after winning the siege of Toulon in 1793 and defeating royalist insurgents in Paris on 13 Vendémiaire in 1795. In 1796 he commanded a military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies in the War of the First Coalition, scoring decisive victories and becoming a national hero. He led an invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1798, which served as a springboard for his rise to political power. In November 1799 Napoleon engineered the Coup of 18 Brumaire against the French Directory and became First Consul of the Republic. He won the Battle of Marengo in 1800, which secured France's victory in the War of the Second Coalition, and in 1803 he sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States. In December 1804 Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French, further consolidating his power. The breakdown of the Treaty of Amiens led to the War of the Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered the coalition with a decisive victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. In the War of the Fourth Coalition, Napoleon defeated Prussia at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806, marched his Grande Armée into Eastern Europe, and defeated the Russians in 1807 at the Battle of Friedland. Seeking to extend his trade embargo against Britain, Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula and installed his brother Joseph as King of Spain in 1808, provoking the Peninsular War. In 1809 the Austrians again challenged France in the War of the Fifth Coalition, during which Napoleon consolidated his dominance over Europe after winning the Battle of Wagram. In the summer of 1812 he launched an invasion of Russia. After forcing the Russians to abandon Moscow following the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon briefly occupied the city before conducting a catastrophic retreat of his army that winter. In 1813 Prussia and Austria joined Russia in the War of the Sixth Coalition, in which Napoleon was decisively defeated at the Battle of Leipzig. The coalition invaded France and captured Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814. He was exiled to the Mediterranean island of Elba and the Bourbons were restored to power. Ten months later Napoleon escaped from Elba with around a thousand men and marched on Paris, reclaiming control of the country. His opponents responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died of stomach cancer in 1821, aged 51. Since his death, Napoleon has maintained a prominent place in historical research and popular culture. He is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history, and Napoleonic tactics are still studied at military schools worldwide. His legacy endures through the legal and administrative reforms he enacted in France and Western Europe, most notably the Napoleonic Code. He established a system of public education, abolished the vestiges of feudalism, emancipated Jews and other religious minorities, abolished the Spanish Inquisition, enacted the principle of equality before the law for an emerging middle class, and centralized state power at the expense of religious authorities. His conquests also acted as a catalyst for political change and the development of nation-states. However, he remains controversial because of his role in wars that devastated Europe, his looting of conquered territories, and his mixed record on civil rights. He abolished the free press, ended directly elected representative government, exiled and imprisoned critics of his regime, reinstated slavery in French colonies, banned the entry of black people and mulattos into France, reduced the civil rights of women and children, reintroduced a hereditary monarchy and nobility, and violently repressed popular uprisings against his rule.

The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, The Guardian Weekly, The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust Limited. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of The Guardian free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for The Guardian the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in its journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main newsprint sections have been published in tabloid format. In July 2021, the latest month for which figures are available, its print edition had a daily circulation of 105,134. The newspaper is available online; it lists UK, US (founded in 2011), Australian (founded in 2013), European, and International editions, and its website has sections for World, Europe, US, Americas, Asia, Australia, Middle East, Africa, New Zealand, Inequality, and Global development. It is published Monday–Saturday, though from 1993 to 2025 The Observer served as its Sunday sister paper. The paper's readership is generally on the mainstream left of British political opinion. In an Ipsos MORI research poll in September 2018 designed to interrogate the public's trust of specific titles online, The Guardian scored highest for digital-content news, with 84% of readers agreeing that they "trust what [they] see in it". A December 2018 report of a poll by the Publishers Audience Measurement Company stated that the paper's print edition was found to be the most trusted in the UK in the period from October 2017 to September 2018. It was also reported to be the most-read of the UK's "quality newsbrands", including digital editions; other "quality" brands included The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, and the i. While The Guardian's print circulation is in decline, the report indicated that news from The Guardian, including that reported online, reaches more than 23 million UK adults each month. Chief among the notable "scoops" obtained by the paper was the 2011 News International phone-hacking scandal—and in particular the hacking of the murdered English teenager Milly Dowler's phone. The investigation led to the closure of the News of the World, the UK's best-selling Sunday newspaper and one of the highest-circulation newspapers in history. In June 2013, The Guardian broke news of the secret collection by the Obama administration of Verizon telephone records, and subsequently revealed the existence of the surveillance program PRISM after knowledge of it was leaked to the paper by the whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. In 2016, The Guardian led an investigation into the Panama Papers, exposing then–prime minister David Cameron's links to offshore bank accounts. It has been named "newspaper of the year" four times at the annual British Press Awards, most recently in 2023.

Belgium was heavily involved in the early development of railway transport. Belgium was the second country in Europe, after Great Britain, to open a railway and produce locomotives. The first line, between the cities of Brussels and Mechelen opened in 1835. Belgium was the first state in Europe to create a national railway network and the first to possess a nationalised railway system. The network expanded fast as Belgium industrialised, and by the early 20th century was increasingly under state-control. The nationalised railways, under the umbrella organisation National Railway Company of Belgium (NMBS/SNCB), retained their monopoly until liberalisation in the 2000s.

Cinco de Mayo (Mexican Spanish: [ˈsiŋko ðe ˈmaʝo]; Spanish for 'Fifth of May') is an annual celebration held on May 5 to celebrate Mexico's victory over the Second French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, led by General Ignacio Zaragoza. Zaragoza died months after the battle from an illness, however, and a larger French force ultimately defeated the Mexican army at the Second Battle of Puebla and then occupied Mexico City. Following the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the United States began lending money and guns to the Mexican Liberals, pushing France and Mexican Conservatives to the edge of defeat. At the opening of the French chambers in January 1866, Napoleon III announced that he would withdraw French troops from Mexico. In reply to a French request for American neutrality, the American secretary of state William H. Seward replied that French withdrawal from Mexico should be unconditional. More popular in the United States than in Mexico, Cinco de Mayo has become associated with the celebration of Mexican-American culture. Celebrations began in Columbia, California, where they have been observed annually since 1862. The day gained nationwide popularity beyond those of Mexican-American heritage in the 1980s due to advertising campaigns by beer, wine, and tequila companies; today, Cinco de Mayo generates beer sales on par with the Super Bowl. In Mexico, the commemoration of the battle continues to be mostly ceremonial, such as through military parades or battle reenactments. The city of Puebla marks the event with various festivals and reenactments of the battle. Cinco de Mayo is sometimes mistaken for Mexican Independence Day—the most important national holiday in Mexico—which is celebrated on September 16, commemorating the Grito de Dolores ("Cry of Dolores") in 1810, which initiated the Mexican War of Independence from Spain. Cinco de Mayo has been referenced and featured in entertainment media, and has become an increasingly global celebration of Mexican culture, cuisine, and heritage.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by 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 and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

The conclusion of the American Civil War commenced with the articles of surrender agreement of the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at the Virginian village of Appomattox Court House, by General Robert E. Lee and concluded with the surrender of CSS Shenandoah on November 6, 1865, bringing the hostilities of the American Civil War to a close. Legally, the war did not end until a proclamation by President Andrew Johnson on August 20, 1866, when he declared "that the said insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquillity, and civil authority now exist in and throughout the whole of the United States of America". The Confederate government being in the final stages of collapse, the war ended by debellatio, with no definitive capitulation from the rapidly disintegrating Confederacy; rather, Lee's surrender marked the effective end of Confederate military operations. The Confederate cabinet held its final meeting on May 5, at which point it declared the Confederacy dissolved, ending its substantive existence; despite this, some remnant Confederate units did not surrender for another month. Lee's defeat on April 9 began the effective end of the war, after which there was no substantial resistance, but the news of his surrender took time to spread and some fighting continued, though only small skirmishes. President Abraham Lincoln lived to see Lee's surrender after four bloody years of war, but he was assassinated just five days later. The Battle of Columbus, Georgia, was fought on April 16, the day after Lincoln died. For the most part though, news of Lee's defeat led to a wave of Confederate surrenders. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered his large Army of Tennessee and the Southeastern Department on April 26. The Confederate cabinet was dissolved on May 5, and Confederate president Jefferson Davis was captured by Union soldiers on May 10, one day after Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, declared that the belligerent rights of the Confederacy were at an end, with the rebellion effectively over. The Battle of Palmito Ranch was fought on May 12–13. The last large Confederate military department, the Trans-Mississippi Department, surrendered on May 26, completing the formalities on June 2. The last surrender on land did not come until June 23, when Cherokee Confederate General Stand Watie gave up his command at Doaksville, Choctaw Nation. At sea, the last Confederate ship, CSS Shenandoah, did not surrender until November 6. It had continued sailing around the world raiding vessels until it finally received news of the end of the war. Shenandoah also fired the last shots of the war on June 22. By April 6, 1866, the rebellion was declared over in all states but Texas. Finally, on August 20, 1866, the war was declared legally over, though fighting had been over for more than a year by then. The end of slavery in the United States of America is closely tied to the end of the Civil War. As the main cause of the war, slavery led to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the Confederacy as Union troops advanced. The last slaves in the Confederacy were not freed until June 19, 1865, now celebrated as the national holiday Juneteenth. After the end of hostilities, the war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in a partially successful attempt to rebuild the country and grant civil rights to freed slaves.

Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. It is observed on the last Monday of May.

The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were initially fought by European colonial empires, the United States, and briefly the Confederate States of America and Republic of Texas against various American Indian tribes in North America. These conflicts occurred from the time of the earliest colonial settlements in the 17th century until the end of the 19th century. The various conflicts resulted from a wide variety of factors, the most common being the desire of settlers and governments for tribal lands. The European powers and their colonies enlisted allied Indian tribes to help them conduct warfare against each other's colonial settlements. After the American Revolution, many conflicts were local to specific states or regions and frequently involved disputes over land use; many involved retaliatory violence. As American settlement expanded westward after the American Revolution, conflicts between the United States and Native American nations increased in scale and frequency. A major turning point came during the War of 1812, when Native confederacies in the Old Northwest and the Southern United States allied with the British against the United States. Following the war, armed resistance continued in some regions, but relations between the United States and Native nations were increasingly governed through treaties that transferred large areas of Indigenous land to the United States. Historians have noted that the United States frequently failed to uphold treaty obligations, contributing to recurring disputes and further conflict. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the president to negotiate treaties exchanging Native American lands east of the Mississippi River for lands in the west. Although the act itself provided for negotiated removals, federal and state authorities subsequently used a combination of treaties, political pressure, and coercion to relocate many Native nations from the southeastern United States to Indian Territory. The resulting removals, including the Trail of Tears, transferred millions of acres of Indigenous land to the United States and opened much of the Southeast to American settlement. As American settlement expanded across the Great Plains and the Western United States, the federal government increasingly confined Native peoples to Indian reservations through treaties, military campaigns, and congressional legislation. Native American tribes and confederacies often achieved significant military victories against American settlers and soldiers, but generally lacked the population, resources, and logistical capacity to sustain prolonged resistance against the expanding United States. Some scholars have characterized aspects of United States policies toward Native Americans, including forced removals, warfare, and reservation policies, as constituting genocide against Native Americans. Other scholars dispute the application of the term genocide to the American Indian Wars as a whole, arguing that the conflicts varied significantly across time and place.

The eight-hour day movement was a social movement that appeared in various countries to regulate the length of a working day. The goal was preventing excesses and abuses of working time.

The Peruvian Academy of Language or …of the Language (Academia Peruana de la Lengua, APL) is a cultural institution that brings together literary figures, writers, poets, linguists, and scholars specializing in the use of the Spanish language in Peru. It is a collective member of the Association of Spanish Language Academies.

Carnegie Hall ( KAR-nig-ee) is a concert venue at 881 Seventh Avenue, between 56th and 57th Streets, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by its namesake, industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, the venue is one of the most prestigious in the world for both classical music and popular music. Carnegie Hall has its own artistic programming, development, and marketing departments and presents about 250 performances each season. It is also rented out to performing groups, though it has not had a resident company since the New York Philharmonic moved to Lincoln Center in 1962. The Carnegie Hall complex has three auditoriums. The largest one is the Stern Auditorium, a five-story auditorium with 2,790 seats. Also part of the complex are the 599-seat Zankel Hall, located below ground on Seventh Avenue, as well as the 268-seat Joan and Sanford I. Weill Recital Hall on 57th Street. Besides the auditoriums, Carnegie Hall contains offices on its top stories. Carnegie Hall, originally the Music Hall, was constructed between 1889 and 1891 as a venue shared by the Oratorio Society of New York and the New York Symphony Society. The hall was owned by the Carnegie family until 1925, after which Robert E. Simon and then his son, Robert E. Simon Jr., became owners. Carnegie Hall was renovated multiple times throughout its history, including in the 1940s and 1980s. It was proposed for demolition in the 1950s when the Philharmonic's planned relocation to Lincoln Center was announced, but was saved by a public campaign led by Isaac Stern. Carnegie Hall is a National Historic Landmark and a New York City designated landmark.

In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw a walk. In the defensive numbering system used in baseball, the pitcher is assigned the number 1. The pitcher is often considered the most important player on the defensive side of the game, and as such is situated at the right end of the defensive spectrum. There are many different types of pitchers, such as the starting pitcher, relief pitcher, middle reliever, lefty specialist, setup man, and the closer.

The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The Bolshevik party, formally established in 1912, seized power in Russia in the October Revolution of 1917 and was later renamed the Russian Communist Party, All-Union Communist Party, and ultimately the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Its ideology, based on Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist principles, became known as Bolshevism.

Nicola Sacco (Italian: [niˈkɔːla ˈsakko]; April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (Italian: [bartoloˈmɛːo vanˈtsetti, -ˈdzet-]; June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were Italian immigrants and anarchists, controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a guard and a paymaster, during the April 15, 1920, armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Seven years later, they were executed in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison, on the same day as Celestino Medeiros, who had confessed to the crime. Most historians consider their conviction unfair due to prejudice against immigrants and radicals. After a few hours' deliberation on July 14, 1921, the jury convicted Sacco and Vanzetti of first-degree murder and they were sentenced to death by the trial judge. Anti-Italianism, anti-immigrant, and anti-anarchist bias were suspected by some as having influenced the verdict. A series of appeals followed, funded largely by the private Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee. The appeals were based on recanted testimony, conflicting ballistics evidence, a prejudicial pretrial statement by the jury foreman, and a confession by an alleged participant in the robbery. All appeals were denied by trial judge Webster Thayer and also later denied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. By 1926, the case had drawn worldwide attention. As details of the trial and the men's suspected innocence became known, Sacco and Vanzetti became the center of one of the largest causes célèbres in modern history. In 1927, protests on their behalf were held in every major city in North America and Europe, as well as in Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Montevideo, Johannesburg, Mexico City and Auckland. Celebrated writers, artists, and academics pleaded for their pardon or for a new trial. Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter argued for their innocence in a widely read Atlantic Monthly article that was later published in book form. Even the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was convinced of their innocence and attempted to pressure American authorities to have them released. The two were scheduled to be executed in April 1927, accelerating the outcry. Responding to a massive influx of telegrams urging their pardon, Massachusetts governor Alvan T. Fuller appointed a three-man commission to investigate the case. After weeks of secret deliberation that included interviews with the judge, lawyers, and several witnesses, the commission upheld the verdict. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair just after midnight on August 23, 1927. Investigations in the aftermath of the executions continued throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The publication of the men's letters, containing eloquent professions of innocence, intensified the public's belief in their wrongful execution. A ballistic test performed in 1961 suggested that the pistol found on Sacco was used to commit the murders, though later commentators have questioned its reliability and conclusiveness, given questions about the chain of custody and possible manipulation of evidence. On August 23, 1977—the 50th anniversary of the executions—Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names". The proclamation however, did not include a pardon.

The March of the Iron Will (Italian: marcia della ferrea volontà) was an Italian offensive occurring from 26 April to 5 May 1936, during the final days of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Its goal was to capture the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, in a show of force for Fascist propaganda. An Italian mechanized column under the command of Pietro Badoglio, Marshal of Italy, advanced from the town of Dessie to take Addis Ababa. The march covered a distance of approximately 200 miles (320 km). It was an achievement that demonstrated the offensive potential of motorized forces in securing bold advances. However, the Italian "March of the Iron Will" turned out to be little more than a logistics exercise. An anonymous journalist at the time described it as "more of a sports event than a page in military history."

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.

Haile Selassie I was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia under Empress Zewditu between 1916 and 1930.

The Prague uprising was a partially successful attempt by the Czech resistance movement to liberate the city of Prague from German occupation in May 1945, during the end of World War II. The preceding six years of occupation had fuelled anti-German sentiment and the rapid advance of Allied forces from the Red Army and the United States Army offered the resistance a chance of success.

Fu-Go was an incendiary balloon weapon deployed by Japan against the United States during World War II. It consisted of a hydrogen-filled paper balloon 33 feet (10 m) in diameter, with a payload of four 11-pound (5.0 kg) incendiary devices and one 33-pound (15 kg) high-explosive anti-personnel bomb. The uncontrolled balloons were carried over the Pacific Ocean from Japan to North America by fast, high-altitude air currents, today known as the jet stream, and used a sophisticated sandbag ballast system to maintain their altitude. The bombs were intended to ignite large-scale forest fires and spread panic.

The Battle of Castle Itter was fought on 5 May 1945, in the Austrian village of Itter in the North Tyrol region of the country, during the last days of the European Theater of World War II.

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trial and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was a military trial convened on April 29, 1946, to try leaders of the Empire of Japan for their crimes against peace, conventional war crimes, and crimes against humanity, leading up to and during World War II. The IMTFE was modeled after the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, Germany, which prosecuted the leaders of Nazi Germany for their war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity.

The Bonn–Paris conventions were signed in May 1952 and came into force after the 1955 ratification. The conventions put an end to the Allied occupation of West Germany.

The Council of Europe is an international organisation which aims to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it is Europe's oldest intergovernmental organisation with the largest number of Member States, representing 46 European member states. The council is an official United Nations observer. The headquarters of the Council of Europe, as well as the European Court of Human Rights – one of its main bodies – are situated in Strasbourg, France. Field offices are spread in over 16 countries, including in Africa, namely Morocco and Tunisia. The Council uses English and French as its two official languages. The Committee of Ministers, the PACE, and the Congress of the Council of Europe also use German and Italian for some of their work. The council's two statutory bodies are the Committee of Ministers, which comprises the foreign ministers of each member state, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which is composed of members of the national parliaments of each member state. The Commissioner for Human Rights is an institution within the Council of Europe, mandated to promote awareness of and respect for human rights within the member states. The secretary general presides over the secretariat of the organisation. Other major CoE bodies include the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) and the European Audiovisual Observatory. The 1949 Statute of the Council of Europe established the organization, initially among Western European states. Portugal and Spain joined in 1976 and 1977 via the Portuguese and Spanish transitions to democracies. Following the revolutions of 1989 and dissolution of the Soviet Union, all post-Warsaw Pact and post-Yugoslav states countries joined, as well as all European post-Soviet states except Belarus and Kazakhstan. Russia became the first country expelled from the Council, following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Alitalia Flight 112 was a scheduled flight from Leonardo da Vinci Airport, in Rome, Italy, to Palermo International Airport in Palermo, Italy, with 115 on board. On 5 May 1972, the Douglas DC-8 crashed into Mount Longa, about 3 miles (4.8 km) southwest of Palermo while on approach to the airport, killing all 115 passengers and crew onboard. Investigators believe that the crew had three miles visibility and did not adhere to the established vectors issued by air traffic control, while according to an independent investigation the accident was caused by an explosion on board.

Secretariat was a champion American thoroughbred racehorse who was the ninth winner of the American Triple Crown, setting and still holding the fastest time record in all three of its constituent races. He is widely considered to be the greatest racehorse of all time. He became the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years and his record-breaking victory in the Belmont Stakes, which he won by 31 lengths, is often considered the greatest race ever run by a thoroughbred racehorse. During his racing career, he won five Eclipse Awards, including Horse of the Year honors at ages two and three. He was nominated to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1974. In the Blood-Horse magazine List of the Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century, Secretariat was second to Man o' War.

The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980, after a group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy on Prince's Gate in South Kensington, London.

Robert Gerard Sands was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland. Sands helped to plan the 1976 Balmoral Furniture Company bombing in Dunmurry, which was followed by a gun battle with the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Sands was arrested while trying to escape and sentenced to 14 years for firearms possession.

Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, he became an important figure in the American conservative movement. The period encompassing his presidency is known as the Reagan era.

The Iran–Contra affair or Iran–Contra scandal, also referred to as the Iran Initiative or Contragate, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitated by senior officials of the Reagan administration. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, an anti-Sandinista rebel group in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendments, a series of laws passed by Congress and signed by Ronald Reagan, further funding of the Contras by legislative appropriations was prohibited by Congress, but the Reagan administration continued funding them secretly using non-appropriated funds.

The Bishkek Protocol was a provisional ceasefire agreement, signed by the representatives of Armenia, Azerbaijan, the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, and Russia on May 12, 1994, in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.

Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the southeast, and South Sudan to the south. Sudan has a population of 51.8 million people as of 2025 and occupies 1,886,068 square kilometres, making it Africa's third-largest country by area. Sudan's capital and most populous city is Khartoum.

Kenya Airways Flight 507 was a scheduled international passenger service between Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and Nairobi, Kenya, with a stopover in Douala, Cameroon, operated by Kenya Airways. On 5 May 2007, the Boeing 737-800 aircraft serving the flight crashed immediately after takeoff from Douala International Airport in Cameroon, killing all 114 occupants onboard.

The anti-austerity movement in Greece involved a series of demonstrations and general strikes that took place across the country. The events, which began on 5 May 2010, were provoked by plans to cut public spending and raise taxes as austerity measures in exchange for a €110 billion bail-out, aimed at solving the Greek government-debt crisis. Three people were killed on 5 May in one of the largest demonstrations in Greece since 1973.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has six regional offices and 150 field offices worldwide. Only sovereign states are eligible to join, and it is the largest intergovernmental health organization at the international level.