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“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”
~ Niccolò Machiavelli
Wikiquote (Niccolò Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) was an Italian historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance.) Image: © DivineWhirlwind
May 3rd, 1481
Earthquake:
1481 - Rhodes earthquake (1481); The largest of three earthquakes strikes the island of Rhodes and causes an estimated 30,000 casualties.
Wikipedia Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.
May 3rd, 1791
Constitution of May 3: (the first modern constitution in Europe) is proclaimed by the Sejm of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Wikipedia Photo: Warsaw Poland Kkyline ● Tatra Mountains ● Polish Highlands ● Oravsky Hrad, former border watch between Hungary and Poland ● Malbork Castle: Medievla Gothic Castle - Poland.
May 3rd, 1802
Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city.
Wikipedia Photo: Washington, D.C., capitol of the United States
May 3rd, 1808
Finnish War: Sweden loses the fortress of Sveaborg to Russian.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Oravais
May 3rd, 1808
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1808 - Peninsular War; Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are executed near Príncipe Pío hill.
1815 - Battle of Tolentino Joachim Murat, King of Naples is defeated by the Austrians, the decisive engagement of the war.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar;
Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806;
Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet;
Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani);
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo;
Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807;
Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars;
Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen;
Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford;
Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).
May 3rd, 1867
The Hudson's Bay Company gives up all claims to Vancouver Island.
Wikipedia Image: Hudson Bay Company, Canada © Bridgeman Art Library ● Hudson's Bay Company Ships: Prince of Wales and Eddystone bartering with the Inuit off the Upper Savage Islands, Hudson Strait, NWT. Watercolour by Robert Hood (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-40364). credit The Canadian Encyclopedia ● Labrador Canada 1749 Hudson Bay (Bayes d'Hudson et de Baffins, et Terre de Labrador, Paris, 1749).
May 3rd, 1916
World War I:
1916 - Easter Rebellion; The leaders of the Easter Rising are executed in Dublin.
Wikipedia Photo: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. National Archives and Records Administration.
May 3rd, 1920
Russian Revolution:
Bolshevik coup; fails in the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
Wikipedia Image: The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union
May 3rd, 1936
Joe DiMaggio, familiarly referred to as Joltin' Joe and The Yankee Clipper makes his major league debut for the New York Yankees record.
Wikipedia Photo: No major leaguer has come close to matching Joe DiMaggio's record hitting streak of 56 straight games.
May 3rd, 1937
Gone with the Wind a novel by Margaret Mitchell, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Wikipedia Photo: Margaret Mitchell holding her book Gone with the Wind, 1938, credit Library of Congress.
May 3rd, 1942
World War II:
1942 - Operation Mo; Invasion of Tulagi - Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands that results in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia.
1945 - Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay.
Post World War II:
1947 - New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
May 3rd, 1948
1948 - Shelley v. Kraemer: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.
Wikipedia Photo: United States Supreme Court building; Guardian of Law, by James Earle Fraser, US Supreme Court, Washington, DC, USA.
May 3rd, 1951
Korean War:
1951 - United States Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees begin their closed door hearings into the dismissal of General of the Army, Douglas MacArthur by President Harry Truman of overall command in Korea.
Wikipedia Photo: Korean War Collage credit, The Big Picture, Boston Globe - (Associated Press; U.S. Department of Defense / SGT. F.C. Kerr; AP Photo; U.S. Department of Defense / TSGT. Charles B. Tyler; U.S. Department of Defense / TSGT. Charles B. Tyler; U.S. Department of Defense / TSGT. Robert H. Mosier; AP Photo / Max Desfor; U.S. Department of Defense / CPL. P. McDonald; AP Photo / Max Desfor; AP Photo/George Sweers; U.S. Navy / Maj. R.V. Spencer, UAF; AP Photo / Max Desfor).
May 3rd, 1957
Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York to Los Angeles, California.
Wikipedia Photo: The 1947 World Series matched the New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers,: Jackie Robinson knocks Phil Rizzuto into the air; Cookie Lavagetto is carried on the shoulders of his teammates after Game Four of the World Series, Ebbets Field, October 3, 1947 Bill Meurer/New York Daily News; Heroes and Bums: Hugh Casey, Pee Wee Reese, Joe Hatten, Eddie Stanky, and (seated) Dixie Walker. (National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY); On April 10, after he signed a contract to become a member of the Dodgers, Robinson played one more game with the minor-league Montreal Royals. Here, after the game, he posed for photographers as if entering the Dodger clubhouse for the first time. He was still five days away from his big-league debut, but by now the season's storyline was set. (National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY).
May 3rd, 1963
African-American Civil Rights Movement:
1963 - Birmingham campaign; The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and and responds with violent force to stop the "Birmingham campaign" protesters. (Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing newfound attention to the African-American Civil Rights Movement.)
Wikipedia Photo: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Francis Miller LIFE / Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Speech (I Have Been To The Mountaintop) 
May 3rd, 1973
The 108-story Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at 1.451 feet as the world's tallest building.
Wikipedia Photo: The city of Chicago architecture.
May 3rd, 1978
The first unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail (which would later become known as "spam" sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.
Wikipedia Image: Electronic mail service
May 3rd, 1979
Margaret Thatcher is elected to her first term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Wikipedia Image: British Prime Minister (and the only woman to hold that position) for 11 years, Margaret Thatcher is the most divisive figure in recent British political history.
May 3rd, 1986
Aircraft hijacking:
1986 - Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes in an airliner (Flight UL512) at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.
Wikipedia Photo: Hijacked Sudan passenger jet lands in Libya, August 27, 2008; Amsterdam false alarm revives airplane hijacking memories, Passengers leave a Vueling plane at a field near Amsterdam Airport after a hijack scare last week that led the Netherlands to scramble F-16 fighter jets, September 2, 2012 Reuters; Egypt Air flight 648 was hijacked in November 1985 by the terrorist Abu Nidal organisation, credit AP; Cockpit section of Pan Am 103 wreckage following a mid-air explosion, December 21, 1988; 747 Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, with 259 passengers on board in 1988; Debris lies in a deep gash through the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, caused by the crash of Pan Am flight 103, credit AP; Flight 175 hits the WTC South Tower. The picture was taken from a traffic helicopter. credit: WABC 7/ Salient Stills; Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the South Tower of the World Trade Center and explodes at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001 in New York City, credit Spencer Platt / Getty Images.
May 3rd, 1987
A crash by Bobby Allison at the Talladega Superspeedway, Alabama fencing at the start-finish line would lead National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) to develop restrictor plate racing the following season both at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway.
Wikipedia Photo: National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR)
May 3rd, 1999
Tornadoes:
1999 - Oklahoma tornado outbreak (1999); The southwestern portion of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is devastated by an F5 tornado, killing forty-five people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado is one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. This tornado also produced the highest wind speed ever recorded, measured at 301 +/- 20 mph (484 +/- 32 km/h).
Wikipedia Photo: Weather Front System; Tornado near Anadarko, Oklahoma; North Dakota Tornado; F3 Category Tornado Swirls Across A South Dakota Prairie by Carsten Peter; A waterspout parallels a lightning strike over Lake Okeechobee in Florida, by Fred K. Smith, National Geographics, Extream Instability.
May 3rd, 2002
Aviation accidents and incidents:
2002 - Jalandhar MiG-21 crash; An Indian Air Force MiG-21 crashes into a bank in Jalandhar, killing eight and injuring 17.
Wikipedia Photo: ● Pan AM 747 ● U.S. Airways flight 1549 also known as the "Miracle on the Hudson" navigates an exit ramp near Burlington, New Jersey, June 5, 2011 ● Passengers stand on the wings of a U.S. Airways plane as a ferry pulls up to it after it landed in the Hudson River in New York, Reuters ● U.S. Airways plane crashes into New York Hudson River, Photo: AP
May 3rd, 2003
New Hampshire's famous Old Man of the Mountain collapses.
Wikipedia Image: New Hampshire's famous Old Man of the Mountain ● United States stamp issued in 1955. Plural version of the name is very unusual.
May 3rd, 2015
Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2015 - Curtis Culwell Center attack; Two gunmen launch an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, which was held in response to the Charlie Hebdo shooting.
Wikipedia Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)
May 3rd, 2016
Fort McMurray Wildfire: 88,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada as a wildfire ripped through the community, destroying approximately 2400 homes and buildings.
Wikipedia Photo: Fort McMurray Wildfire: 88,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada as a wildfire ripped through the community, destroying approximately 2400 homes and buildings.