Two Catholic imperial officials and their secretary were thrown out of the window of the Bohemian Chancellery in the Second Defenestration of Prague.
The 22nd May 1455 marked the start of the Wars of the Roses, when the First Battle of St Albans was fought between Richard, Duke of York, and King Henry VI.
Hungarian-born geologist Laszlo Toth attacked and seriously damaged Michelangelo’s Pietà statue with a hammer.
On the 20th May 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis secured the patent for riveted blue jeans.
The Turkish War of Independence began when General Mustafa Kemal Pasha, the Inspector of the Ottoman 9th Army and later known as Atatürk, arrived at the town of Samsun on the Black Sea Coast.
On the 18th May 1291, the Crusader-controlled city of Acre was seized by the Muslim forces of the Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil.
Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron attacked German dams in Operation Chastise, otherwise known as the Dambuster Raids.
The ‘May 16th Notification’ of 1966 effectively started the Cultural Revolution in China.
Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino, California.
On the 14th May 1796, English physician and scientist Edward Jenner purposefully infected 8-year James Phipps with cowpox.
The first Formula One World Championship Grand Prix race took place at the Silverstone circuit in England.
On May 12th 1949, the Soviet Union ended its blockade of West Berlin.
The world’s earliest dated printed book, a copy of the Diamond Sutra, was created in China.
On the 10th May 1941 Deputy Fuhrer of the German Party, Rudolf Hess, flew from Germany to Scotland on a mission to strike a peace deal with the British government.