May 2

Queen Anne Boleyn is arrested on charges of adultery, incest, and treason against her husband, King Henry VIII.

Queen Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII's second wife, was arrested and taken to the Tower of London on fabricated charges of adultery, incest, and treason, part of a swiftly engineered downfall as Henry sought to remove her and remarry. Her arrest set in motion a rapid legal process that would end in her execution just over two weeks later.

The King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time in London.

The King James Version of the Bible, commissioned by King James I of England and produced by dozens of scholars over seven years, was published for the first time in London. Its majestic, influential prose profoundly shaped the English language and literature for centuries, and it remains one of the most widely printed and read books in history.

King Charles II grants a royal charter to the Hudson's Bay Company for North American fur trading.

King Charles II granted a royal charter to the Hudson's Bay Company, giving it a trading monopoly over a vast watershed of North American territory known as Rupert's Land. The company became a dominant force in the North American fur trade and one of the oldest continuously operating commercial corporations in the world.

Residents of Madrid rise up against occupying French forces, an uprising commemorated in Goya's paintings and marking a flashpoint of the Peninsular War.

Residents of Madrid rose up in a spontaneous, bloody uprising against occupying French troops after Napoleon's forces attempted to remove remaining members of the Spanish royal family, an event immortalized in Francisco Goya's paintings "The Second of May 1808" and "The Third of May 1808." The revolt sparked the broader Peninsular War against French occupation.

Confederate General Stonewall Jackson is accidentally wounded by his own troops during the Battle of Chancellorsville, later dying from complications.

Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was accidentally shot by his own nervous pickets while returning from a nighttime reconnaissance during the Battle of Chancellorsville. Jackson's arm was amputated, and he died of complications, including pneumonia, eight days later, a loss General Robert E. Lee called crippling to the Confederate war effort.

The Soviet Union announces the fall of Berlin, effectively ending major combat in the European theater of World War II.

The Soviet Union publicly announced the capture of Berlin, effectively ending major organized combat in the European theater of World War II just days after Adolf Hitler's suicide in his bunker beneath the city. The fall of the Nazi capital came after a brutal, costly final battle and paved the way for Germany's formal surrender less than a week later.

A de Havilland Comet completes the first commercial jetliner flight carrying paying passengers.

A British de Havilland Comet completed the world's first scheduled commercial flight by a jet airliner, carrying fare-paying passengers from London to Johannesburg. The jet-powered aircraft offered dramatically faster and smoother travel than earlier propeller planes, though a series of fatal structural failures in subsequent years temporarily set back the jetliner's early promise.

The British submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano during the Falklands War.

The British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror torpedoed and sank the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano outside the declared exclusion zone during the Falklands War, killing 323 sailors. The controversial sinking, the first by a nuclear-powered submarine in wartime, significantly escalated the conflict and remains a subject of ongoing debate over its legality and necessity.

Hungary begins dismantling its border fence with Austria, opening a crack in the Iron Curtain that accelerates East German defections.

Hungary's government began dismantling sections of its electrified border fence with Austria, a symbolic crack in the Iron Curtain that allowed thousands of East German citizens to flee westward through Hungary in the following months. The move is regarded as an early, pivotal step toward the collapse of communist rule across Eastern Europe later that year.

U.S. Navy SEALs kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

U.S. Navy SEALs conducted a covert nighttime raid on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The operation, ordered by President Barack Obama and nearly a decade in the making, marked a major milestone in the U.S. war on terrorism.