| YEAR | DAY | EVENT |
| 70CE | May 31 | Rome captured the 1st wall of the city of Jerusalem. |
| 455 | May 31 | Petronius Maximus, senator, Emperor of Rome, was lynched. |
| 1433 | May 31 | Sigismund was crowned emperor of Rome. |
| 1469 | May 31 | Manuel I, king of Portugal (1495-1521), was born. |
| 1531 | May 31 | “Women’s Revolt” in Amsterdam: wool house in churchyard. |
| 1594 | May 31 | Jacopo Tintoretto (b.1518), Italian artist, died. |
| 1621 | May 31 | Sir Francis Bacon was thrown into Tower of London for overnight. |
| 1634 | May 31 | Massachusetts Bay colony annexed the Maine colony. |
| 1665 | May 31 | Jerusalem’s rabbi Sjabtai Tswi proclaimed himself Messiah. |
| 1678 | May 31 | The Godiva procession, commemorating Lady Godiva’s legendary ride while naked, became part of the Coventry Fair. |
| 1701 | May 31 | Alexander Cruden, compiler of a concordance to King James Bible, was born. |
| 1753 | May 31 | Pierre V. Vergniaud, French politician, Girondin orator (guillotined in 1793), was born. |
| 1790 | May 31 | The US copyright law was enacted. |
| 1809 | May 31 | Composer Franz Joseph Haydn died in Vienna, Austria on his 77th birthday. When Napoleon’s armies marched into Vienna, the commanding general posted guards in front of Haydn’s house to protect Haydn from trouble, and a young officer was sent to sing for the old man. |
| 1831 | May 31 | Captain John Ross, English explorer, identified the magnetic north pole on the west coast of the Boothia Peninsula, Netsilik territory. |
| 1832 | May 31 | Evariste Galois (b.1811), French mathematician who developed a general theory of equations, died from wounds suffered in a duel. In 2005 Mario Livio authored “The Equation That couldn’t Be Solved: How Mathematical Genius Discovered the Language of Symmetry.” |
| 1836 | May 31 | HMS Beagle anchored in Simons Bay, Cape of Good Hope. |
| 1837 | May 31 | Astor Hotel opened in NYC. It later became the Waldorf-Astoria. John Jacob Astor bought up foreclosed properties during the financial bust. He later sold them for a 10-fold profit. |
| 1854 | May 31 | Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by U.S. Congress. |
| 1861 | May 31 | Gen. PGT Beauregard was given command of Confederate Alexandria Line. |
| 1862 | May 31 | At the Battle of Fair Oaks, also known as the Battle of Seven Pines, Gen. McClellan defeated the Confederates outside of Richmond. Confederate Gen. Joe Johnston was injured and evacuated to Richmond. Maj. Gen. G.W. Smith took temporary command. |
| 1868 | May 31 | The 1st Memorial Day parade was held in Ironton, Ohio. |
| 1875 | May 31 | Italo Montemezzi, composer, was born. |
| 1879 | May 31 | New York’s Madison Square Garden opened its doors. |
| 1892 | May 31 | Gregor Strasser, German pharmacist, NSDAP-Reich organization founder, was born. |
| 1894 | May 31 | Fred Allen [John Florence Sullivan], American comedian, was born. |
| 1898 | May 31 | Norman Vincent Peale (d1993), American religious leader, was born in Ohio. He later authored “The Power of Positive Thinking.” |
| 1900 | May 31 | U.S. troops arrived in Peking to help put down Boxer Rebellion. |
| 1906 | May 31 | France and Germany signed an accord in which France agreed to yield control of the Moroccan police, but otherwise retained effective control of Moroccan political and financial affairs. |
| 1907 | May 31 | Taxis began running in NYC. |
| 1908 | May 31 | Actor Don Ameche was born in Kenosha, Wis. |
| 1909 | May 31 | The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) held its first conference at the United Charities Building in NYC. |
| 1910 | May 31 | Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (b.1821), the first American woman to become a doctor, died. She and colleagues founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children (1857). |
| 1913 | May 31 | The 17th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for the popular election of U.S. senators, was declared in effect. |
| 1915 | May 31 | A German LZ-38 Zeppelin made an air raid on London. |
| 1925 | May 31 | Julian Beck, theater manager, was born. |
| 1926 | May 31 | Portuguese president Bernardino Machedo resigned after coup. |
| 1928 | May 31 | The first flight over the Pacific took off from Oakland. Charles Kingsford-Smith & Charles Ulm departed from Oakland, Ca., and arrived in Australia on June 9. |
| 1930 | May 31 | Clint Eastwood, actor and director, was born was born in SF and went to high school in Oakland. He became famous for his “Dirty Harry” films and “Spaghetti Westerns.” A biography: “Clint Eastwood,” by Richard Schickel was published in 1996 and made into a TV documentary in 1997. |
| 1935 | May 31 | In Quetta, India, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake killed some 50,000 people. |
| 1937 | May 31 | German battleships shelled Almeria, Spain. |
| 1938 | May 31 | Peter Yarrow, (Peter, Paul & Mary-Puff the Magic Dragon), was born in NYC. |
| 1939 | May 31 | Terry Waite, Anglican Church envoy, Lebanese hostage, was born. |
| 1940 | May 31 | British General Bernard Montgomery left Dunkirk. The French government allowed French soldiers to be picked up at Dunkirk. |
| 1942 | May 31 | Luftwaffe bombed Canterbury. |
| 1943 | May 31 | Joe Namath, NFL QB (NY Jets), $400,000 man (1969 Superbowl), was born in PA. |
| 1952 | May 31 | In San Francisco the first Golden Gate Park Road Race was held with some 60 cars vying for first place. The races continued again in 1953 and ended in 1954. |
| 1953 | May 31 | V.I. Tatlin (b.1885), Ukrainian-born painter and sculptor, died in Moscow. |
| 1955 | May 31 | Supreme Court ordered that states must end racial segregation “with all deliberate speed.” |
| 1961 | May 31 | South Africa became an independent republic. |
| 1969 | May 31 | John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded “Give Peace a Chance” during their “Bed-In” at the Queen Elizabeth’s Hotel in Montreal. |
| 1974 | May 31 | Israel and Syria signed an agreement on the Golan Heights. |
| 1976 | May 31 | Martha Mitchell, the estranged wife of former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, died in New York. |
| 1977 | May 31 | The trans-Alaska oil pipeline was completed after three years of work. |
| 1979 | May 31 | Zimbabwe proclaimed its independence. |
| 1985 | May 31 | At least 41 tornadoes hit Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and southeastern Ontario, Canada, during an eight-hour period killing 88 people with over 1,000 injured. |
| 1987 | May 31 | Addressing AIDS research supporters in Washington, D.C., President Reagan called “for urgency, not panic,” but drew scattered boos when he announced he would seek expanded testing for the disease. |
| 1989 | May 31 | Pres. G.W. Bush met with Chancellor Kohl and addressed the citizens of Mainz, Germany. He offered Germany a “partnership in leadership.” |
| 1990 | May 31 | Seinfeld, starring Jerry Seinfeld, debuted on NBC. |
| 1991 | May 31 | US Federal health officials announced a new Medicare fee schedule |
| 1992 | May 31 | “Crazy for You” was named Broadway’s best musical at the Tony Awards; “Dancing at Lughnasa” was named best play. |
| 1993 | May 31 | President Clinton paid a Memorial Day visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where some in the crowd jeered him for avoiding military service. “Disagreement is freedom’s privilege,” Clinton exhorted critics. |
| 1995 | May 31 | President Clinton declared he was ready to permit the temporary use of American ground forces in Bosnia to help UN peacekeepers move to safer positions if necessary. |
| 1997 | May 31 | Pope John Paul II began an 11-day tour of his native Poland, his seventh visit since assuming the papacy. |
| 1998 | May 31 | Pres. Clinton endorsed additional conditional financial support for Russia from the IMF and World Bank. |
| 1999 | May 31 | During a Memorial Day visit to Arlington National Cemetery, President Clinton asked Americans to reconsider their ambivalence about Kosovo, calling it “a very small province in a small country. But it is a big test of what we believe in.” |
| 2000 | May 31 | Pres. Clinton proposed to EU allies in Portugal to share key technology on a US missile defense program to calm fears of a nuclear arms race that would leave Europe vulnerable. |
| 2001 | May 31 | Veteran FBI agent Robert Hanssen pleaded innocent to charges of spying for Moscow. He later changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. |
| 2002 | May 31 | Vermont Gov. Howard Dean filed papers with the Federal Election Commission for “Dean for America” presidential-campaign organization. |
| 2003 | May 31 | President Bush visited the site of the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland as he challenged allies to overcome their bitterness and mistrust over the Iraq war and unite in the struggle against terrorism. |
| 2004 | May 31 | In Memorial Day tributes, President Bush declared that “America is safer” because of its fighting forces while Sen. John Kerry visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. |
| 2005 | May 31 | Vanity Fair Magazine revealed that W. Mark Felt (91), former FBI official, was the Watergate whistleblower Deep Throat, who helped bring down Pres. Nixon in 1974. |
| 2006 | May 31 | The US said it would join in face-to-face talks with Iran over its disputed nuclear program if Tehran first agreed to put challenged atomic activities on hold; Iran dismissed the offer as “a propaganda move.” |
| 2007 | May 31 | President Bush, under international pressure to take tough action against global warming, called for a world summit to set a long-term global strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. |
| 2008 | May 31 | FDIC bank regulators took over the First Integrity Bank in Staples, Minnesota. This was the 4th FDIC-insured bank to fail this year. |
| 2009 | May 31 | Afghan and NATO troops killed 18 Taliban militants after insurgents attacked a joint patrol in Farah province. |
| 2010 | May 31 | The US Congress allowed emergency health care assistance for unemployed workers to expire, and seemed unwilling to renew it despite pleas from Pres. Barack Obama. |
| 2011 | May 31 | Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed legislation requiring all adult applicants for cash benefits from the state welfare system to be tested for drugs. The next day the ACLU sued to stop implementation of the legislation. |
| 2012 | May 31 | A US federal appeals court in Boston declared that the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutionally denies federal benefits to married gay couples, a groundbreaking ruling all but certain to wind up before the US Supreme Court. |
| 2013 | May 31 | In Arizona two small planes collided near Phoenix killing all four people aboard. |
| 2014 | May 31 | US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned an international security conference at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that the US “will not look the other way” when nations such as China try to restrict navigation or ignore international rules and standards. |
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