- 1525 – Insurgent peasants led by Anabaptist pastor Thomas Muentzer were defeated at the Battle of Frankenhausen, ending the Peasants' War in the Holy Roman Empire.
- 1932 – Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated in the May 15 incident, an attempted coup d'état in Japan.
- 1934 – Prime Minister Kārlis Ulmanis dissolved the Saeima and established an authoritarian rule in Latvia.
- 1957 – The United Kingdom tested its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple.
- 1990 – Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet (pictured) was sold for US$82.5 million, at the time the world's most-expensive painting.
