02 May History
- 1670 - The Hudson Bay Company is founded.
- 1598 - Henry IV signs Treaty of Vervins, ending Spain's interference in France.
- 1668 - Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of Devolution in France.
- 1776 - France and Spain agree to donate arms to American rebels fighting the British.
- 1797 - A mutiny in the British navy spreads from Spithead to the rest of the fleet.
- 1798 - The black General Toussaint L'ouverture forces British troops to agree to evacuate the port of Santo Domingo.
- 1808 - The citizens of Madrid rise up against Napoleon.
- 1813 - Napoleon defeats a Russian and Prussian army at Grossgorschen.
- 1863 - Stonewall Jackson smashes Hooker's flank at Chancellorsville, Virginia.
- 1865 - President Andrew Johnson offers a $100,000 reward for the capture of Confederate President
- 1885 - King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo Free State.
- 1890 - The Territory of Oklahoma is created.
- 1919 - The first U.S. air passenger service starts.
- 1923 - Lieutenants Okaley Kelly and John Macready take off from New York for the West Coast on what will become the first successful nonstop transcontinental flight.
- 1941 - Hostilities break out between British forces in Iraq and that country's pro-German faction.
- 1942 - Admiral Chester J. Nimitz, convinced that the Japanese will attack Midway Island, visits the island to review its readiness.
- 1945 - Russian forces take Berlin after 12 days of fierce house-to-house fighting.
- 1946 - Prisoners revolt at California's Alcatraz prison.
- 1968 - The U.S. Army attacks Nhi Ha in South Vietnam and begins a fourteen-day battle to wrestle it away from Vietnamese Communists.
- 1970 - Student anti-war protesters at Ohio's Kent State University burn down the campus ROTC building. The National Guard takes control of campus.
02 May Birthdays
- 1729 - Catherine II, Czarina of Russia.
- 1837 - Henry Martyn Roberts, parlimentarian (Robert's Rules of Order).
- 1860 - William Maddock Bayliss, British physiologist, co-discoverer of hormones.
- 1866 - Jesse Lazear, American physician and researcher of yellow fever.
- 1877 - Vernon Castle, ballroom dancer.
- 1892 - Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron), German fighter ace of World War I.
- 1895 - Lorenz Milton Hart, lyricist, collaborator with Richard Rodgers.
- 1903 - Benjamin Spock, pediatrician, author and activist.
- 1921 - Satyajit Ray, Indian film director (Aparajito, The World of Apu).