History for May 1

History for May 1 - On-This-Day.com:

Happy Birthday! Judy Collins, Rita Coolidge, Tim McGraw

1707 - England, Wales and Scotland were united to form Great Britain. 

1863 - In Virginia, the Battle of Chancellorsville began. General Robert E. Lee's forces began fighting with Union troops under General Joseph Hooker. Confederate General Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded by his own soldiers in this battle. (May 1-4) 


1867 - Reconstruction in the South began with black voter registration. 


1877 - U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew all Federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction. 


1883 - William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) had his first Wild West Show. 


1898 - The U.S. Navy under Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in the Philippines. 


1927 - Adolf Hitler held his first Nazi meeting in Berlin. 





1931 - The Empire State Building in New York was dedicated and opened. It was 102 stories tall and was the tallest building in the world at the time. 


1937 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed an act of neutrality, keeping the United States out of World War II. 





1944 - The Messerschmitt Me 262, the first combat jet, made its first flight. 


1948 - The People's Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) was proclaimed. 

1960 - Francis Gary Powers' U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. Powers was taken prisoner. 


1961 - Fidel Castro announced there would be no more elections in Cuba. 






1971 - The National Railroad Passenger Corp. (Amtrak) went into service. It was established by the U.S. Congress to run the nation's intercity railroads.
 

1992 - On the third day of the Los Angeles riots resulting from the Rodney King beating trial. King appeared in public to appeal for calm, he asked, "Can we all get along?" 


2001 - Chandra Levy was last seen in Washington, DC. Her remains were found in Rock Creek Park on May 22, 2002. Democrat California Congressman Gary Condit was questioned in the case due to his relationship with Levy. 


2011 - U.S. President Barack Obama announced that U.S. soldiers had killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.