May 3

May 3 is the 123rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (124th in leap years). There are 242 days remaining.

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Events

• 1494 – Christopher Columbus first spots Jamaica.
• 1791 – The May Constitution of Poland (first modern constitution in Europe) is proclaimed by the Polish Diet.
• 1808 – Finnish War: Sweden loses the fortress of Sveaborg to Russia.
• 1808 – Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are fired upon near Príncipe Pío hill.
• 1810 – Lord Byron swims the Hellespont.
• 1860 – Charles XV of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Sweden.
• 1867 – The Hudson's Bay Company gives up all claims to Vancouver Island.
• 1933 – Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first woman to head the United States Mint.
• 1937 – Gone With the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
• 1945 – World War II: Sinking of the floating-jails Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the RAF in the Lübeck Bay.
• 1946 – World War II: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East begins in Tokyo against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
• 1947 – New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect.
• 1951 – London's Royal Festival Hall opens.
• 1951  – The United States Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees begin their closed door hearings into the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
• 1952 – U.S. lieutenant colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict land a plane at the geographic North Pole.
• 1956 – The judo World Championships are first held.
• 1957 – Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York, to Los Angeles, California.
• 1960 – The Off-Broadway musical comedy, The Fantasticks, opens in New York City's Greenwich Village, eventually becoming the longest-running musical of all time.
• 1971 – All Things Considered, National Public Radio's flagship news program, broadcasts for the first time.
• 1986 – In Bergen, Norway, Sandra Kim wins the thirty-first Eurovision Song Contest for Belgium singing "J'aime la vie" (I love life).
• 1991 – The Declaration of Windhoek is signed.
• 1991  – The last episode of the soap opera Dallas airs.
• 1997 – In Dublin, Ireland, Katrina & the Waves win the forty-second Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom singing "Love Shine a Light".
• 1999 – Oklahoma City is slammed by an F5 tornado. The tornado was part of a storm system that produces 66 tornadoes. The Oklahoma City tornado kills 42 people and injures 665, and causes $1 billion in damage. (see The Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak)
• 1999 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,000 for the first time in its history at 11,014.70.
• 2000 – Datapoint, the company that commissioned the Intel 8008 microprocessor, declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
• 2000 – The sport of Geocaching begins with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS are posted on Usenet.
• 2003 – New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain collapses.
• 2003 – Funny Cide becomes the first New York-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby.

Births

• 612 – Constantine III, Byzantine Emperor (d. 641)
• 1415 – Cecily Neville, mother of Edward IV of England and Richard III of England (d. 1495)
• 1469 – Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian historian and political author (d. 1527)
• 1662 – Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, master builder (d. 1736)
• 1761 – August von Kotzebue, German dramatist (d. 1819)
• 1826 – Charles, Crown Prince of Sweden-Norway (d. 1872)
• 1835 – Alfred Austin, English poet (d. 1913)
• 1844 – Richard D'Oyly Carte, English theatrical impresario (d. 1901)
• 1859 – Andy Adams, author (d. 1935)
• 1860 – John Scott Haldane, Scottish physiologist (d. 1936)
• 1861 – Emmett Dalton, outlaw (d. 1937)
• 1867 – J.T. Hearne, English cricket player (d. 1944)
• 1874 – François Coty, French perfume manufacturer (d. 1934)
• 1886 – Marcel Dupré, French composer (d. 1971)
• 1888 – Beulah Bondi, actress (d. 1981)
• 1893 – Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian writer and public benefactor (d. 1975)
• 1895 – Cornelius Van Til, philosopher and Christian apologist (d. 1987)
• 1898 – Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1978)
• 1903 – Bing Crosby, American singer (d. 1977)
• 1905 – Sebastian Shaw, actor (d. 1994)
• 1906 – Anna E. Roosevelt, radio personality (d. 1975)
• 1906 – Mary Astor, actress (d. 1987)
• 1913 – William Inge, playwright (d. 1973)
• 1915 – Stu Hart, professional wrestler and wrestling trainer (d. 2003)
• 1919 – Pete Seeger, American folk singer
• 1919  – Betty Comden, lyricist
• 1921 – Sugar Ray Robinson, American boxer (d. 1989)
• 1921  – Joe Ames, singer
• 1923 – Ralph Hall, American politician
• 1933 – James Brown, singer
• 1937 – Frankie Valli, American pop singer
• 1946 – Silvino Francisco, South African snooker player
• 1947 – Doug Henning, magician (d. 2000)
• 1950 – Howard Ashman, lyricist (d. 1991)
• 1950  – Mary Hopkin, singer
• 1951 – Christopher Cross, musician
• 1952 – Allan Wells, British athlete, Jennifer Broadbridge
• 1955 – David Hookes, cricketer (d. 2004)
• 1959 – Ben Elton, British comedian and author
• 1959  – Uma Bharati, first woman chief minister of Madhya Pradesh
• 1962 – Anders Graneheim, Swedish bodybuilder
• 1966 – Darren Morgan, Welsh snooker player
• 1969 – Daryl F. Mallett, author and actor
• 1974 – Dulé Hill, actor
• 1975 – Maksim Mrvica, pianist
• 1991 – Narita Bryan, Japanese racehorse (d. 1998)

Deaths

• 1160 – Peter Lombard, scholar and bishop
• 1622 – Pedro Páez, Jesuit missionary to Ethiopia (b. 1564)
• 1679 – Archbishop James Sharp, assassinated (b. 1613)
• 1758 – Pope Benedict XIV (b. 1675)
• 1856 – Adolphe Charles Adam, French composer (b. 1803)
• 1932 – Charles Fort, American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena (b. 1874)
• 1942 – Thorvald Stauning, Prime Minister of Denmark (b. 1873)
• 1958 – Frank Foster, Warwickshire all-round cricketer (b. 1889)
• 1987 – Dalida, French singer (b. 1933)
• 1988 – Lev Semenovich Pontryagin, Soviet mathematician
• 1988 – Milt Caniff, cartoonist (b. 1907)
• 1989 – Christine Jorgensen, transsexual (b. 1926)
• 1991 – Jerzy Kosinski, writer (b. 1933)
• 1992 – Sidney Reso, Exxon executive
• 1994 – Ezra Taft Benson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1899)
• 2002 – Barbara Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn, British Labour politician (b. 1910)
• 2003 – Suzy Parker, American actress (b. 1932)

Holidays and observances

• National Teacher Day in America
• World Press Freedom Day
• Constitution Day in Poland and Japan
• Roman Catholicism- Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross (often called the Feast of the Invention of the True Cross)
• Feast day of the following saints in the Roman Catholic Church
  • Saints Eventius, Theodulus, and Alexander (martyrs of 119)
  • Emily Bicchiere (1238 – 1314)
  • Antonia and Alexander (martyrs of 313)
  • Saint Juvenal (d. 376)
  • Ausfrid (c. 1008)
• Israel – Yom Ha'atzma'ut (Israeli Independence Day) for 2006: (the observed date of this national holiday is determined by the Jewish Calendar).

External links

• External list of US polititians who were born on May 3.
• BBC: On This Day

May 2 – May 4 – April 3 – June 3 – listing of all days