Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/May 1

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This is a list of selected May 1 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

← April 30	May 2 →

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Images

Use only ONE image at a time

Carl Linnaeus
The Marriage of Figaro Overture
Scene from Citizen Kane
Orson Welles in 1937
Penny Black postage stamp
Stephen Báthory
Anna Jagiellon
Carol Ann Duffy
Wreckage of Ayrton Senna's car

Wreckage of Ayrton Senna's car
Moses Fleetwood Walker

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
International Workers' Day;	refimprove
May Day	refimprove
Law Day and Loyalty Day in the United States	Law Day: refimprove; Loyalty Day: should not appear if International Workers' Day does not because it was created specifically in opposition to it
1576 – Stephen Báthory and Anna Jagiellon were crowned as the elected rulers of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.	Báthory: unreferenced section
1707 – Under the terms of the Acts of Union, the Kingdoms of England and Scotland merged to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, with a single parliament and government based in Westminster.	both: unreferenced section
1840 – The United Kingdom issued the Penny Black, the world's first official adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system.	refimprove
1851 – The Great Exhibition, the first world's fair, opened in London's Hyde Park.	refimprove section
1865 – Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina signed a treaty creating an alliance against Paraguay in the War of the Triple Alliance.	refimprove section
1893 – The World's Columbian Exposition, a world's fair to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World, opened in Chicago.	unreferenced section, refimprove section
1897 – The Ramakrishna Mission was founded by Swami Vivekananda to serve as the humanitarian counterpart to the Hindu monastic order Ramakrishna Math.	primary sources
1898 – The American Asiatic Squadron under Commodore George Dewey defeated the Spanish Pacific Squadron under Admiral Patricio Montojo at the Battle of Manila Bay, the first engagement of the Spanish–American War.	refimprove
1925 – The All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the world's largest trade union, was founded in Guangzhou, China.	unreferenced section
1956 – A doctor in Japan reported an "epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system", marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.	unreferenced section
1960 – Bombay State in India was partitioned into Gujarat and Maharashtra along linguistic lines.	Gujarat: outdated, section needs to be rewritten
2001 – Rioters led by Miriam Defensor Santiago, Gregorio Honasan, Panfilo Lacson and Tito Sotto launched a siege against the Philippine presidential palace.	refimprove
2003 – Invasion of Iraq: Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of a "Mission Accomplished" banner, U.S. President George W. Bush declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended".	refimprove section
2009 – Carol Ann Duffy was appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly bisexual person to hold the position, as well as the first laureate to be chosen in the 21st century.	refimprove section

Eligible

1625 – Dutch–Portuguese War: After a month's siege, Portugal and Spain recaptured the city of Bahia in Brazil from the Dutch, who had taken it the previous year.
1753 – Carl Linnaeus published his Species Plantarum, which, with his earlier work Systema Naturae, is considered the beginning of modern botanical nomenclature.
1776 – The secret society known as the Order of Illuminati was founded by Adam Weishaupt and Adolph von Knigge in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany.
1786 – The Marriage of Figaro, an opera buffa composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
1884 – Moses Fleetwood Walker, the last African American in Major League Baseball until Jackie Robinson, played his first game for the Toledo Blue Stockings.
1885 – The original Chicago Board of Trade Building opened for business.
1900 – A dust explosion at a coal mine near Scofield, Utah, U.S., killed at least 200 miners.
1941 – Citizen Kane, a widely acclaimed film by actor and director Orson Welles, premiered.
1947 – Sicilian separatist Salvatore Giuliano and his gang fired into a crowd of May Day marchers near Piana degli Albanesi, Sicily, killing 11 and wounding 33.
1950 – Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
1974 – Argentine President Juan Perón expelled the Montoneros from a demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, forcing the group to become clandestine and later a target of the Dirty War.
1985 – Labor groups in the Philippines established the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, a political coalition and communist front, in order to challenge the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
1991 – 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.
2016 – 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.
Born/died this day: Honora Sneyd (d. 1780) · Anna Jarvis (b. 1864) · Ralph Stackpole (b. 1885) · Ulric Cross (b. 1917) · Magda Goebbels (d. 1945)

Notes

Woolworth Building appears on April 24, so Empire State Building should not appear in the same year
Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) appears on April 28, so Chicago Board of Trade Building should not appear in the same year

May 1: Beltane in Ireland and Scotland; Maharashtra Day in Maharashtra, India

Empire State Building

880 – The Nea Ekklesia church in Constantinople, on which many later cross-in-square Orthodox churches were based, was consecrated.
1169 – Norman mercenaries landed at Bannow Bay in Leinster, beginning the Norman invasion of Ireland.
1794 – 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.
1931 – New York City's Empire State Building (pictured), at the time the tallest building in the world, opened.
1994 – Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna, a three-time Formula One World Champion, was killed in a crash during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.

Franciscus Junius the Elder (b. 1545) · Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (b. 1769) · Eldridge Cleaver (d. 1998)

More anniversaries: