23rd May 1701: Captain Kidd, the Scottish privateer, executed in London after being convicted of piracy and murder
Kidd was executed for piracy and murder at Execution Dock on the River Thames, and his body was subsequently placed in gibbet and displayed over the River Thames at Tilbury ...
23 Maj 0s
22nd May 1455: Wars of the Roses begin at the First Battle of St Albans between Richard, Duke of York, and King Henry VI
The Wars of the Roses were fought between the Houses of Lancaster and York, both of whom had claims to the ...
22 Maj 0s
21st May 1972: Laszlo Toth attacks and seriously damages Michelangelo’s Pietà statue
Hungarian-born geologist Laszlo Toth attacked and seriously damaged Michelangelo’s Pietà statue with a ...
21 Maj 0s
20th May 325: First Council of Nicaea brings together bishops from across the early Christian world
Several hundred bishops came from regions including Asia Minor, the eastern Mediterranean, and parts of the Latin West where they formulated the Nicene Creed, which affirmed that the Son was “of the s...
20 Maj 0s
19th May 1536: The execution of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife and mother of the future Elizabeth I
Although found unanimously guilty by a jury of 27 peers, the evidence against Anne was questionable. Only the Flemish musician Mark Smeaton admitted to having an affair with her, and this confession i...
19 Maj 0s
18th May 1291: The Siege of Acre saw the Muslim forces of the Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil seize control of the Crusader-controlled city
The Siege of Acre, sometimes known in Christendom as the Fall of Acre, marked the last attempt to exert Crusader influence in the Holy ...
18 Maj 0s
17th May 1954: U.S. Supreme Court rules in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional
The unanimous opinion of the Court said that segregated public schools were inherently unequal and therefore ...
17 Maj 0s
16th May 1966: Start of the Cultural Revolution in China when Mao releases the ‘May 16th Notification’
By the time the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976 an estimated minimum of 400,000 people had died through torture, execution, or ...
16 Maj 0s
