What Happened in May?

The Warsaw Treaty Organization (also known as the Warsaw Pact), a political and military alliance between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries is established on May 14, 1955, The Soviet Union formed this alliance as a counterbalance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a collective security alliance concluded between the United States, Canada and Western European nations in 1949. More

The United States Air Force detonated the first airborne hydrogen bomb on May 21, 1956. The test, codenamed "Shot Cherokee," was part of Operation Redwing. The bomb was dropped from a Boeing RB-52B Stratofortress named Barbara Grace, assigned to the 4925th Test Group (Atomic).  Expand +

Vice President Nixon’s motorcade was attacked, on May 13, 1958, by a violent mob in Caracas, Venezuela during his goodwill trip through Latin America. The trip was characterized by Latin American anger over the U.S. Cold War policies. Earlier on the trip Nixon had engaged in loud and bitter debates with student groups during his travels through Peru and Uruguay.

An American U-2 spy plane flying at 60,000 feet was shot down over Sverdlovsk in central Russia. The pilot, CIA agent Francis Gary Powers, survived the crash, and was tried, convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. More

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev told the U.S.S.R., Supreme Soviet, on May 5, 1960, that a U.S. spy plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, had been shot down over the Soviet Union, four days earlier, on May 1, 1960. Khruschev, called the flight, an “aggressive act” by the United States. 

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev becomes Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state), on May 7, 1960, an important step in his rise to power, eventually taking control of the Soviet Union in 1964 when he became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a position he held until his death in 1982. More

The FDA announces the approval of Enovid for birth control.on May 9, 1960. The approval limited its use to no more than two years. Expand +

A magnitude 9.5 earthquake, The largest earthquake ever measured, strikes along the coast of Chile, on May 22, 1960, causing a tsunami which radiated outward from a subduction zone along the coast. Its waves reached Hawaii in 15 hours and Japan in 22 hours.  Expand +

A tsunami resulting from the massive 9.5-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Chile which killed thousands on the prior day, travels across the Pacific Ocean and on May 23, 1960, kills 61 people in Hilo, Hawaii, and 122 in Japan and causing much other property and structural damage.

Alan Shepard, one of the Mercury Astronauts, became the first American in space on May 5, 1961. He piloted the spacecraft Freedom 7 during a 15-minute 28-second suborbital flight that reached an altitude of 116 miles (186 kilometers) above the earth. Soviet Cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin had become the first man in space, on 12 April 1961. Expand +

United States President John F. Kennedy, announces before a special joint session of Congress, on May 25, 1961, the dramatic and ambitious goal for the nation, of sending an American safely to the Moon and back, before the end of the decade. More

The Union of South Africa officially became the Republic of South Africa, on May 31, 1961 breaking its ties with the British monarchy and withdrawing from the Commonwealth of Nations due to international opposition to its apartheid policies. Governor-General Charles Robert Swart formally took office as State President. More

Mountaineer, Jim Whittaker, became the first American to summit Mount Everest, reaching the 29,035-foot peak alongside Sherpa Nawang Gombu on May 1, 1963. He famously ran out of oxygen near the summit and survived by successfully managing risks in the "death zone". Expand +

More than 300 soccer fans were killed and another 500 people were injured on May 24, 1964 at the National Stadium in Lima, Peru, during a riot that erupted after a referee’s call in a soccer match between Peru and Argentina, disallowed an apparent goal for Peru.  Expand +

Guyana gains Independence from the United Kingdom,, on May 26, 1966, after a 170-year history as a British colony and before that a colony of the Dutch. More

The Soviet Union officially ratifies the Outer Space Treaty on May 19, 1967. The treaty bans the placement of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit around the Earth, on the Moon, or in outer space, and limits the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes.  Expand +

William M. Beecher, New York Times military correspondent publishes on May 9, 1969, a one-page dispatch from Washington, "Raids in Cambodia by US Unprotested," describing the first of recent B-52 raids in Cambodia and exposing President Richard M. Nixon's secret bombing campaign over Cambodia. Expand +

U.S. Justice, Abraham Fortas resigns on May 14, 1969, becoming the first member of the U.S. Supreme Court to resign under threat of impeachment. Expand +

Four students were killed and nine others were injured, on May 4, 1970, when National Guardsmen opened fire on a peaceful protest against the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Ohio, United States. More

A magnitude 7.75 earthquake on the Richter scale, off the coast of Peru, on May 31, 1970, causes major destruction and triggers the world's deadliest avalanche in the Peruvian town of Yungay, Ancash, totally destroying the town and ten nearby villages; killing between 66,000-70,000 people. Expand +