What Happened in May?

The Union of South Africa is created becoming a sovereign state within the British empire as General Louis Botha forms a government as prime minister.

The U.S. Congress passes the 17th Amendment, modifying Article I, Section 3, of the Constitution by allowing voters to cast direct votes for U.S. senators. Prior to its passage, senators were chosen by state legislatures. The amendment was ratified on April 8, 1913. More

President Wilson makes his first Mothers Day proclamation after the U.S. Congress set the second Sunday of every May as the official Mothers Day celebration. By then most U.S. States were already celebrating Mother's Day. Julia Ward Howe (1872), a key women's rights figure and participant in the American Woman Suffrage Association and Anna Jarvis (1907) are also credited for suggesting and promoting the idea. The custom developed of wearing a red or pink carnation to represent a living mother or a white carnation for a mother who was deceased. The modern American version of the holiday has been criticized for becoming too commercialized. Many other countries have a multi-century history of a day to celebrate mothers on different dates. More

The passenger liner RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine during World War I, killing 1,198 people. More

Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary. When World War I began in July 1914, Italy was a partner in the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, but decided to remain neutral. However, a strong sentiment existed within the general population and political factions to go to war against Austria-Hungary, Italy’s historical enemy.

Britain and France secretly concluded the Sykes-Picot Agreement, dividing most of the Arab lands under the Ottoman Empire into British and French spheres of influence after World War I. This agreement, negotiated by British diplomat Mark Sykes and French diplomat François Picot, effectively demarcated areas of direct control and influence for both nations. More

Battle of Jutland - World War I’s biggest naval conflict off the coast of Denmark marks the first and only showdown between German and British naval forces during World War I.

Three children, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto; report seeing the Virgin Mary near the village of Fátima, Portugal. In Roman Catholicism, "Our Lady of Fátima" is the title given to the Virgin Mary referring to her six appearances before the three peasant children. Her appearances were always on the 13th of the month, Mary reportedly entrusted the children with messages, including the "Three Secrets of Fatima". Since that revelation, millions of the faithful have made pilgrimages to the site. The Roman Catholic Church officially recognized the Fátima events as “worthy of belief” in 1930. More 

Congress passed the Selective Service Act, which authorized the Federal Government to temporarily expand the military through conscription. The act eventually required all men between the ages of 21 to 45 to register for military service. More

The first US transatlantic convoy to reach Great Britain departs Hampton Roads, Virginia. The United States had entered World War I recently and now faced the challenge of transporting men and material safely to the European war theater while facing the challenge of the German u-boats. Expand +

The U.S. Postal Service opens its first regularly scheduled airmail route between New York City and Washington, D.C. via Philadelphia. This historic event marked the beginning of a new era in both mail transportation and aviation. More

The U.S. Congress passes the Sedition Act. The Act, enacted during World War I, extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion. " Among other things, it forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces. At least 877 people were convicted in 1919 and 1920. Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for five to 20 years. The law was repealed on December 13, 1920. More

Day of the proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Georgia from the Russian Empire.

Azerbaijan Independence Day - Commemorates the date on which the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) was founded as the first secular democratic state in the Muslim East. Until 2021, it was marked as Republic Day. In October 2021, it was renamed and became Independence Day.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk lands at Samsun on the Black Sea coast, starting the Turkish War of Independence. More

The Socialist Party nominates Eugene V. Debs as its candidate for president in the upcoming November election. It was the fifth nomination for the 64-year-old, Indiana-born labor leader. At the time Debs was in jail, serving a 10-year sentence at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta. He was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, controversial laws pushed through Congress by President Woodrow Wilson to silence critics of U.S. involvement World War I. He wasn't due to get out until 1928. Debs had promised to pardon himself if elected. Harding, the newly elected President, pardoned Debs. More

The Tulsa Race Riots began. A two-day-long riot when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been appointed as deputies and armed by city government officials, attacked black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history. More

The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated in Washington DC in front of an audience of over 50,000 people. The ceremony was broadcasted across the nation through the then new medium of radio. The Dedication address on behalf of the government was given by US President Warren G. Harding. More

Warren G. Harding became the first U.S. President to broadcast a message over the radio as hisvoice was first heard on radio during a speech at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. He went on to do it again on June 14, 1922 while speaking at the dedication of a memorial to Francis Scott Key in Baltimore and again on December 8, 1922 when his Annual Address to Congress (now known as the State of the Union) was jointly broadcast by Naval radio stations NOF and NAA.

John Edgar Hoover becomes the 5th Director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), the predecessor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). After 11 years in that post, Hoover became instrumental in founding the FBI in June 1935, where he remained as director for an additional 37 years until his death in May 1972 – serving a total of 48 years leading both the BOI and the FBI under eight Presidents. He built the agency into a highly effective, although sometimes controversial, arm of federal law enforcement. More