Today In History [1st May, 2015]

A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.

Today in History
May 1
408           Theodosius II succeeds to the throne of Constantinople.
1308           King Albert is murdered by his nephew John, because he refused his share of the Habsburg lands.
1486           Christopher Columbus convinces Queen Isabella to fund expedition to the West Indies.
1805           The state of Virginia passes a law requiring all freed slaves to leave the state, or risk either imprisonment or deportation.
1863           The Battle of Chancellorsville begins as Union Gen. Joe Hooker starts his three-pronged attack against Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
1867           Reconstruction in the South begins with black voter registration.
1877           President Ruthoford B. Hayes withdraws all Federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.
1898           The U.S. Navy under Dewey defeats the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines.
1915           The luxury liner Lusitania leaves New York Harbor for a voyage to Europe.
1927           Adolf Hitler holds his first Nazi meeting in Berlin.
1931           The Empire State Building opens in New York.
1934           The Philippine legislature accepts a U.S. proposal for independence.
1937           President Franklin Roosevelt signs an act of neutrality, keeping the United States out of World War II.
1941           The film Citizen Kane–directed and starring Orson Welles–opens in New York.
1944           The Messerschmitt Me 262, the first combat jet, makes its first flight.
1945           Martin Bormann, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, escapes the Fuehrerbunker as the Red Army advances on Berlin.
1948           North Korea is established.
1950           Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry called Annie Allen.
1960           Francis Gary Powers' U-2 spy plane is shot down over Russia.
1961           Fidel Castro announces there will be no more elections in Cuba.
1968           In the second day of battle, U.S. Marines, with the support of naval fire, continue their attack on a North Vietnamese Division at Dai Do.
1970           Students from Kent State University riot in downtown Kent, Ohio, in protest of the American invasion of Cambodia.
1986           The Tass News Agency reports the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.
2011           Osama Bin Laden is killed in Abbottabad Pakistan by US Navy SEALS in Operation Neptune Spear.

Born on May 1
1493           Phillippus Paracelsus, physician and alchemist.
1764           Benjamin Henry Latrobe, architect of the U.S. Capitol.
1769           Arthur Wellsley, Duke of Wellington.
1830           Mother (Mary Harris) Jones, reformer and labor organizer.
1839           Louis-Maire-Hilaire Bernigaud, French chemist, inventor of rayon.
1878           James Graham, inventor of the first naval aircraft-carrying ship and first man to film a total eclipse of the Sun.
1896           Mark Clark, American general during World War II.
1909           Kate Smith, singer.
1916           Glenn Ford, actor (The Blackboard Jungle).
1923           Joseph Heller, American author (Catch 22).
1924           Terry Southern, novelist and screenwriter (Dr. Strangelove, Easy Rider).
1940           Bobbie Ann Mason, American writer (Shiloh and Other Stories, In Country).