May 30

The Peasants' Revolt begins in England, a major uprising against oppressive taxation and feudal restrictions.

Rural laborers and townspeople across southeastern England rose up in the widespread Peasants' Revolt, protesting an oppressive new poll tax and lingering feudal restrictions on labor and movement, briefly overwhelming royal authority and even entering London before the rebellion was suppressed and its leaders, including Wat Tyler, were executed.

The Peasants' Revolt begins in England.

The uprising, triggered by resentment over a poll tax and long-standing grievances following the Black Death, saw rebels led by Wat Tyler march on London from Kent and Essex. The revolt culminated in a dramatic confrontation with the young King Richard II and, though ultimately crushed, marked a significant challenge to the medieval social order.

Joan of Arc is burned at the stake in Rouen, France, after being convicted of heresy.

Joan of Arc, then just nineteen years old, was burned at the stake in the marketplace of Rouen after being convicted of heresy by an English-backed ecclesiastical court, a judgment later formally annulled by the Catholic Church, which eventually canonized her a saint nearly five centuries afterward.

King Henry VIII marries his third wife, Jane Seymour, just days after the execution of Anne Boleyn.

King Henry VIII married his third wife, the quiet and demure Jane Seymour, just eleven days after the execution of Anne Boleyn, and Seymour would go on to give birth to Henry's only surviving male heir, the future Edward VI, before dying from complications shortly after childbirth.

King Henry VIII marries his third wife, Jane Seymour.

The wedding took place just eleven days after the execution of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, on charges of treason and adultery. Jane Seymour would die the following year shortly after giving birth to Henry's long-desired male heir, the future Edward VI, and was the only one of his six wives buried beside him.

The last ship of the Spanish Armada departs Lisbon to join the fleet bound for England.

The departure completed the assembly of Philip II's invasion force of roughly 130 vessels aimed at deposing Elizabeth I. The Armada would be decisively repelled weeks later in the English Channel and scattered by storms while fleeing around the British Isles, a defeat that became a defining moment of Elizabethan national pride.

The English Parliament retroactively annuls honours granted by King Charles I.

The measure came amid escalating conflict between Charles and Parliament in the months before the outbreak of the English Civil War. By nullifying titles and appointments the king had made, Parliament asserted its authority over royal patronage, further deepening the constitutional rift that erupted into armed conflict weeks later.

Britain and its allies sign the First Treaty of Paris with France.

The treaty, concluded after Napoleon's abdication and exile to Elba, restored the Bourbon monarchy under Louis XVIII and returned France roughly to its 1792 borders. Britain, as one of the principal victorious powers alongside Russia, Austria, and Prussia, secured recognition of its colonial gains and helped set the stage for the wider Congress of Vienna settlement.

The British East Indiaman Arniston is wrecked in a storm near Cape Agulhas, South Africa.

The ship was carrying wounded soldiers and civilians home to Britain after the Kandyan Wars in Ceylon when it was driven onto rocks by a gale, having overshot the Cape due to faulty charts. Of the roughly 378 people aboard, only six survived, making it one of the deadliest shipwrecks in South African maritime history.

John Francis attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria on Constitution Hill in London.

A day earlier, Francis had aimed a pistol at the Queen's carriage but the weapon failed to fire, and he escaped in the crowd unnoticed. Forewarned, police allowed Victoria to drive out again as bait, and Francis fired again and missed before being seized. He was convicted of treason and had his death sentence commuted to transportation for life.

The first Decoration Day, precursor to modern Memorial Day, is observed in the United States following a proclamation by veterans' leader John A. Logan.

Union veterans' organization leader General John A. Logan issued a formal proclamation establishing Decoration Day, the direct precursor to the modern Memorial Day, calling on Americans nationwide to decorate the graves of soldiers who had died during the recently concluded Civil War with flowers and flags.

Ray Harroun wins the inaugural Indianapolis 500 automobile race.

Race car driver Ray Harroun won the very first Indianapolis 500 automobile race, driving a car equipped with an early rearview mirror, a then-novel innovation he devised specifically to spot competitors behind him in place of the customary riding relief mechanic other drivers carried.

The Cunard ocean liner RMS Aquitania departs on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York.

Built on the Clyde in Scotland, the four-funneled liner was the largest ship afloat at the time of her launch and became known as 'the Ship Beautiful' for her opulent interiors. She went on to serve in both World Wars as a troopship and hospital ship and had one of the longest careers of any twentieth-century ocean liner.

The Lincoln Memorial is formally dedicated in Washington, D.C.

The Lincoln Memorial was formally dedicated in Washington, D.C., before a large crowd that included the president's own surviving son, though the ceremony itself was conducted under explicitly racially segregated seating arrangements, a bitter irony given the memorial honored the president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

The RAF launches its first thousand-bomber raid, striking Cologne, Germany.

Operation Millennium assembled over a thousand British bombers, including aircraft drawn from training units, to overwhelm German air defenses in a single massed strike. The raid caused extensive damage to the city and demonstrated RAF Bomber Command's growing capacity for large-scale strategic bombing under Air Marshal Arthur Harris.

Nigeria's Eastern Region declares independence as the Republic of Biafra, triggering a devastating civil war.

Nigeria's predominantly Igbo Eastern Region, led by military governor Odumegwu Ojukwu, declared independence as the Republic of Biafra following ethnic violence and political tensions, triggering a brutal three-year civil war marked by a devastating humanitarian famine before the secessionist state was ultimately militarily defeated and reabsorbed.

The trial of the Angry Brigade, a British anarchist group accused of a bombing campaign, begins in London.

Eight defendants faced charges over a series of bomb attacks targeting government buildings, embassies, and the homes of politicians and businessmen between 1970 and 1971. The lengthy Old Bailey trial, one of the longest in British criminal history at the time, ended with four defendants convicted and jailed.

Chinese student demonstrators unveil the "Goddess of Democracy" statue in Tiananmen Square, days before the square's violent clearing.

Student demonstrators occupying Beijing's Tiananmen Square unveiled a large plaster statue called the "Goddess of Democracy," deliberately modeled in part on the Statue of Liberty, just days before Chinese government authorities violently and forcibly cleared the square of protesters in a bloody military crackdown.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission launches astronauts from Kennedy Space Center, resuming crewed spaceflight from American soil for the first time since 2011.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission launched two NASA astronauts from Kennedy Space Center aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, marking the first crewed orbital spaceflight to launch from American soil since the retirement of NASA's Space Shuttle program nearly a decade earlier in 2011.

Donald Trump is convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, becoming the first former U.S. president found guilty in a criminal trial.

A New York jury unanimously convicted former President Donald Trump on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made during his 2016 presidential campaign, making him the first former or sitting U.S. president ever found guilty of a crime in a criminal trial.