1 May on the globe: what happened in the world on this day, and who was born

Diocletian and Maximian retired as co-rulers of the Roman Empire, being succeeded by Galerius and Constantius Chlorus.

A synod in Carthage condemns Pelagianism.

The Nea Ekklesia church in Constantinople, on which many later cross-in-square Eastern Orthodox churches were based, was consecrated.

Norman mercenaries land at Bannow Bay in Leinster, marking the beginning of the Norman invasion of Ireland.

Wars of Scottish Independence end: By the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton, England recognises Scotland as an independent state.

Scottish Royal forces loyal to King James II defeat a rebel army of the Black Douglases in the battle of Arkinholm.

The Edict of Expulsion is officially proclaimed in Castile, requiring all Jewish residents to leave within three months.

Stephen Báthory and Anna Jagiellon were crowned as the elected rulers of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Dutch–Portuguese War: Portuguese and Spanish forces recaptured the Brazilian city of Bahia, which had previously been captured by the Dutch Republic.

Henry Morgan's raid on Lake Maracaibo: the Spanish Armada de Barlovento is defeated by an English Privateer fleet led by Captain Henry Morgan.

Francis Nicholson and James Blair organize five May Day orations given by students of the College of William & Mary, leading to the establishment of Williamsburg as Virginia's new capital.

The Act of Union joining England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain takes effect.

Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

The Marriage of Figaro (audio featured), an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna.

War of the Pyrenees: France regained nearly all the land it lost to Spain the previous year with its victory in the Second Battle of Boulou.

The Slave Trade Act 1807 takes effect, abolishing the slave trade within the British Empire.

Execution of the Cato Street Conspirators, who plotted to kill the British Cabinet and Prime Minister Lord Liverpool.

Queen Victoria opens The Great Exhibition at The Crystal Palace in London.

American Civil War: During the Vicksburg campaign, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant win the Battle of Port Gibson and establish a firm presence on the east side of the Mississippi River.

American Civil War: The Battle of Chancellorsville between Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac under Joseph Hooker begins.

The Empire of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay sign the Treaty of the Triple Alliance.

The Memphis Race Riots begin. Over three days, 46 blacks and two whites were killed. Reports of the atrocities influenced passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Moses Fleetwood Walker, the last African American in Major League Baseball until Jackie Robinson, played his first game for the Toledo Blue Stockings.

The original Chicago Board of Trade Building opened for business.

Rallies are held throughout the United States demanding the eight-hour work day, culminating in the Haymarket affair in Chicago, in commemoration of which May 1 is celebrated as International Workers' Day in many countries.

On Labor Day in Catania, Sicily, workers establish the first successful Fascio Siciliano, launching a movement of peasants and laborers protesting poverty, landlordism, taxation, and economic hardship across Sicily.

The 1891 New Orleans Lynchings: 11 Italian immigrants are lynched by a mob in Louisiana, USA after the acquittal of several defendants in a murder case, the largest mass lynching in U.S. history.

Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, arrives in Washington, D.C.

While on a pilgrimage of Shah Abdol-Azim Shrine in Ray, Tehran, Naser al-Din Shah of Qajar Persia, was assassinated by Mirza Reza Kermani.

The Ramakrishna Mission was founded by Swami Vivekananda to serve as the humanitarian counterpart to the Hindu monastic order Ramakrishna Math.

Spanish–American War: Battle of Manila Bay: The Asiatic Squadron of the United States Navy destroys the Pacific Squadron of the Spanish Navy after a seven-hour battle. Spain loses all seven of its ships, and 381 Spanish sailors die. There are no American vessel losses or combat deaths.

The Scofield Mine disaster kills over 200 men in Scofield, Utah in what is to date the fifth-worst mining accident in United States history.

The Jaffa riots begin.

The 7.2 Mw Kopet Dag earthquake shakes the Iran–Turkmenistan border region with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing up to 3,800 and injuring 1,121.

New York City's Empire State Building, at the time the tallest building in the world, opened.

Citizen Kane, a widely acclaimed film by actor and director Orson Welles, premiered.

World War II: German radio broadcasts news of Adolf Hitler's death, falsely stating that he has "fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany". The Soviet flag is raised over the Reich Chancellery, by order of Stalin. Up to 2,500 people die in a mass suicide in Demmin following the advance of the Red Army.

Start of three-year Pilbara strike of Indigenous Australians.

Portella della Ginestra massacre against May Day celebrations in Sicily by the bandit and separatist leader Salvatore Giuliano where 11 persons are killed and 33 wounded.

Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

A Vickers VC.1 Viking crashes while attempting to return to Blackbushe Airport in Yateley, killing 34.

Cold War: U-2 incident: Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Sverdlovsk Oblast, Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis.

Vietnam War: A student anti-war strike erupts in response to U.S. and South Vietnamese forces attacking Vietnamese communists in a Cambodian Campaign.

Argentine president Juan Perón expelled Montoneros from a demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, forcing the group to become a clandestine organization.

Operation Black Buck: The Royal Air Force attacks the Argentine Air Force during the Falklands War.

Angolan Civil War: The MPLA and UNITA agree to the Bicesse Accords, which are formally signed on May 31 in Lisbon.

In Major League Baseball, Rickey Henderson broke the record for stolen bases on the same night that Nolan Ryan broke his own record for no-hitters.

Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa is assassinated in Colombo in a suicide bombing carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Three-time Formula One champion Ayrton Senna is killed in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix.

The Labour Party wins the 1997 General Election and Tony Blair is elected as Prime Minister.

The Horncastle boar's head, which probably once formed part of the crest of an Anglo-Saxon helmet, was found.

Invasion of Iraq: In what becomes known as the "Mission Accomplished" speech, on board the USS Abraham Lincoln (off the coast of California), U.S. President George W. Bush declares that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended".

Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin.

Same-sex marriage in Sweden is legalized.

Faisal Shahzad attempts to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, but the bomb fails to go off.

Pope John Paul II is beatified by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.

The evacuation of nearly 88,000 people began when a wildfire swept through Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, and burned for another 14 months, becoming the costliest disaster in Canadian history.

Syrian civil war: The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) resumes the Deir ez-Zor campaign in order to clear the remnants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from the Iraq–Syria border.

Naruhito ascends to the throne of Japan succeeding his father Akihito, beginning the Reiwa period.

Naxalite attack in Gadchiroli district of India: Sixteen army soldiers, including a driver, killed in an IED blast. Naxals targeted an anti-Naxal operations team.

The 2024 Loblaw boycott, a Canadian boycott against retail corporation and grocer Loblaw Companies, begins.

After a ransomware attack by the group ShinyHunters, the education platform Canvas operated by private company Instructure, goes offline, affecting thousands of educational institutions.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Irish-English field marshal and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1852)

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish neuroscientist and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1934)

Joseph Addison, English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician (died 1719)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French priest, palaeontologist, and philosopher (died 1955)

Anushka Sharma, Indian actress and film producer

Leonardo Bonucci, Italian footballer

Joseph Heller, American novelist, short story writer, and playwright (died 1999)

Wes Anderson, American director, producer, and screenwriter

Rudolf I of Germany, King of Germany 1273–1291 (died 1291)

Darijo Srna, Croatian footballer

Nikolai Yezhov, Soviet secret police official, head of the NKVD (died 1940)

Glenn Ford, Canadian-American actor and producer (died 2006)

Charli D'Amelio, American social media influencer and dancer

Johann Jakob Balmer, Swiss mathematician and physicist (died 1898)

Alexander Hleb, Belarusian footballer

Oliver Bierhoff, German footballer

Jamie Dornan, Northern Irish model and actor

John Woo, Hong Kong director, producer, and screenwriter

Scott Carpenter, American commander, pilot, and astronaut (died 2013)

Julie Benz, American actress

Yiannis Ritsos, Greek poet and playwright (died 1990)

Oliver Neuville, German footballer

Beto, Portuguese footballer

Giovannino Guareschi, Italian journalist and author (died 1968)

Yasmina Reza, French actress and playwright

Ignazio Silone, Italian journalist and politician (died 1978)

Danielle Darrieux, French actress and singer (died 2017)

Ralf Dahrendorf, German-English sociologist and politician (died 2009)

Theo van Gogh, Dutch art dealer (died 1891)

Joanna Lumley, English actress, voice-over artist, author, and activist

Tommy Robredo, Spanish tennis player

José de Alencar, Brazilian author and playwright (died 1877)

Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (died 1942)

Calamity Jane, American frontierswoman and professional scout (died 1903)

Mark W. Clark, American general (died 1984)

Peter Lax, Hungarian-American mathematician and academic (died 2025)

Olaf Thon, German footballer

Shahar Pe'er, Israeli tennis player

Ajith Kumar, Indian actor and race car driver

Jules Breton, French painter (died 1906)

Guido Gezelle, Belgian priest and poet (died 1899)

Dan O'Herlihy, Irish actor (died 2005)

Judy Collins, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

Tim McGraw, American singer-songwriter and actor

Mary Lou McDonald, Irish politician

Herbert Backe, German agronomist and politician (died 1947)

Albert Zafy, Malagasy politician, 3rd President of Madagascar (died 2017)

Rita Coolidge, American singer-songwriter

Sidónio Pais, Portuguese soldier and politician, 4th President of Portugal (died 1918)

J. Allen Hynek, American astronomer and ufologist (died 1986)

Maia Morgenstern, Romanian actress

James Badge Dale, American actor

Rema, Nigerian singer-songwriter and rapper

Hugo Alfvén, Swedish composer, conductor, violinist, and painter (died 1960)

Manna Dey, Indian singer and composer (died 2013)

Little Walter Jacobs, American blues harp player and singer (died 1968)

Christian Benítez, Ecuadorian footballer (died 2013)

Johann Adam Schall von Bell, German missionary and astronomer (died 1666)

Alain Bernard, French swimmer

Antal Szerb, Hungarian scholar and author (died 1945)