On This Day - What happened 1 May

On 1 May 305, Diocletian called an assembly of his generals, traditional companion troops, and representatives from distant legions. They met at the same hill, 5 kilometers (3.1 mi) out of Nicomedia, where Diocletian had been proclaimed emperor. In front of a statue of Jupiter, his patron deity, Diocletian addressed the crowd. With tears in his eyes, he told them of his weakness, his need for rest, and his will to resign. He declared that he needed to pass the duty of empire on to someone stronger. He thus became the first Roman emperor to voluntarily abdicate his title.

Albert was assassinated in 1308.

Edward IV had many mistresses, the best known of them being Jane Shore, and he did not have a reputation for fidelity. His marriage to the widowed Elizabeth Woodville took place secretly and, though the date is not known, it is traditionally said to have taken place at her family home in Northamptonshire on 1 May 1464.

Bach's mother died in 1694, and his father died eight months later.

Mozart paired with the grand old man of the world of libretto, the 74-year-old poet Metastasio. This wasn't an opera, this wasn't an oratorio, it was a 'dramatic serenade' that was performed successfully on May 1 of that year at the enthronement. Sadly, while it was definitely of high quality and certainly significant at the period, it has not survived the test of time to claim a place in the general repertoire.

Washington was inaugurated on April 30, 1789, taking the oath of office at Federal Hall in New York City.

In 1795, the number of stars and stripes was increased from 13 to 15 (to reflect the entry of Vermont and Kentucky as states of the Union).

A Constituent National Assembly was elected from various German states in late April and early May 1848 and gathered in St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt am Main on May 18, 1848.

On 1 May 1849, a meeting of the democratic people's associations was held in Kaiserslautern. About 12,000 people gathered under the slogan, "If the government becomes rebellious, the citizens of the Palatinate will become the enforcers of the laws.

On May 1, 1865, in Charleston, South Carolina, recently freed African-Americans held a parade of 10,000 people to honor 257 dead Union soldiers, whose remains they had reburied from a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp. Historian David W. Blight cites contemporary news reports of this incident in the Charleston Daily Courier and the New-York Tribune. Although Blight claimed that "African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina", in 2012, he stated that he "has no evidence" that the event in Charleston inspired the establishment of Memorial Day across the country. Accordingly, investigators for Time Magazine, LiveScience, RealClearLife and Snopes have called this conclusion into question.

Little progress was made until 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as president of France and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as minister for trade. A budget for the exposition was passed and, on 1 May, Lockroy announced an alteration to the terms of the open competition being held for a centrepiece to the exposition, which effectively made the selection of Eiffel's design a foregone conclusion, as entries had to include a study for a 300 m (980 ft) four-sided metal tower on the Champ de Mars. (A 300-meter tower was then considered a herculean engineering effort).

Co-organised a secret workers' mass meeting for May Day 1900, at which he successfully encouraged many of the men to take strike action. By this point, the empire's secret police—the Okhrana—were aware of Stalin's activities within Tiflis' revolutionary milieu. They attempted to arrest him in March 1901, but he escaped and went into hiding, living off the donations of friends and sympathizers.

Remaining underground, he helped plan a demonstration for May Day 1901, in which 3,000 marchers clashed with the authorities.

During his apprenticeship he was encouraged to mark May Day in 1909, and read and sold Slobodna Reč (Free Word), a socialist newspaper.

On 1 May, Bolshevik Soviet Russian Foreign Minister Georgy Chicherin issued an ultimatum to the Romanian government. Romania was ordered to leave Bessarabia.

On the evening of 1 May the entire east bank of the Tisza River was under the control of the Romanian army.

Goebbels converted the 1 May holiday from a celebration of workers' rights (observed as such especially by the communists) into a day celebrating the NSDAP.

On 1 May 1941, Tito issued a pamphlet calling on the people to unite in a battle against the occupation.

Later on 1 May, Vice-Admiral Voss saw Goebbels for the last time: "... While saying goodbye I asked Goebbels to join us. But he replied: 'The captain must not leave his sinking ship. I have thought about it all and decided to stay here. I have nowhere to go because with little children I will not be able to make it, especially with a leg like mine.

Goebbels carried out his sole official act as Chancellor. He dictated a letter to General Vasily Chuikov and ordered German General Hans Krebs to deliver it under a white flag. Goebbels' letter informed Chuikov of Hitler's death and requested a ceasefire. After this was rejected, Goebbels decided that further efforts were futile.

On the evening of 1 May, Goebbels arranged for an SS dentist, Helmut Kunz, to inject his six children with morphine so that when they were unconscious, an ampule of cyanide could be then crushed in each of their mouths.

Goebbels and Magda left the bunker and walked up to the garden of the Chancellery, where they killed themselves.

At around 11:00 pm on 1 May, Bormann left the Führerbunker with SS doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger, Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann, and Hitler's pilot Hans Baur as members of one of the groups attempting to break out of the Soviet encirclement. Bormann carried with him a copy of Hitler's last will and testament.

On May 1, 1960, a U.S. one-man U-2 spy plane was reportedly shot down at high altitude over Soviet airspace. The flight was made to gain photo intelligence before the scheduled opening of an east-west summit conference, which had been scheduled in Paris, 15 days later.

On 1 May, British operations on the Falklands opened with the "Black Buck 1" attack (of a series of five) on the airfield at Stanley.

Meili was comatose for 12 days. She suffered severe hypothermia, severe brain damage, severe hemorrhagic shock, loss of 75–80 percent of her blood, and internal bleeding. Her skull had been fractured so badly that her left eye was dislodged from its socket, which in turn was fractured in 21 places, and she suffered as well from facial fractures.

On May 1, 1989, Donald Trump, the real estate magnate, called for the return of the death penalty in full-page advertisements published in all four of the city's major newspapers. Trump said he wanted the "criminals of every age" who were accused of beating and raping a jogger in Central Park 12 days earlier "to be afraid". The advertisement, which cost an estimated US$85,000 (equivalent to $172,000 in 2018).

Renato Ruggiero was an Italian politician. He was Director-General of the World Trade Organization from 1995 to 1999.

Ahead of the 1997 general election, May was selected as the Conservative candidate for Maidenhead, a new seat which was created from parts of the seats of Windsor and Maidenhead and Wokingham. She was elected with 25,344 votes (49.8%), almost double the total of second-placed Andrew Terence Ketteringham of the Liberal Democrats, who took 13,363 votes (26.3%).

Köhler was appointed Managing Director and Chairman of the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2000.

The following night on Raw, Johnson successfully defended his title against Shane McMahon in a Steel Cage match.

On May 1, 2001, the CIA informed the White House that "a group presently in the United States" was in the process of planning a terrorist attack.

On May 1, Two additional confirmed cases of SARS and three additional suspected cases were reported in Beijing, all related to a single research lab. The total number of cases was six.

Erdoğan visited Israel on 1 May 2005, a gesture unusual for a leader of a Muslim majority country. During his trip, Erdoğan visited the Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.

On 1 May 2005, the company sold its personal computer business to the Chinese technology company Lenovo for US$1.25 billion.

Messi scored his first senior goal on 1 May 2005, against Albacete, from an assist by Ronaldinho, becoming – at that time – the youngest-ever scorer for the club.

Bryant's second daughter, Gianna, was born in May 2006.

The operation took place on May 1, 2011, and resulted in the shooting death of bin Laden and the seizure of papers, computer drives and disks from the compound.

After a 10-year manhunt, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that bin Laden was killed by American special forces in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 1, 2011.

Messi was ineffective during the first leg against Bayern Munich and was unable to play at all during the second, as Barcelona were defeated 7–0 on aggregate by the eventual champions. The first leg was played at Aliens Arena and Bayern finished with "4:0" on 23 April 2013, while the second leg was played at Camp Nou and Bayern finished with "3:0" on 1 May 2013 as well.

On May 1, 2014, the stock exchange was fined $4.5 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges that it had violated market rules.

On May 1, 2018, it was announced that Chairman Robert Keegan and CEO Jeff Jacobson and four other directors would resign as part of a deal with investors Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason, who had mounted a proxy fight to oppose the Fujifilm deal. On May 4, Xerox backed away from the deal after stipulations about ceasing litigation were not met.

Valerius was awarded a triumph for the victory, which he celebrated on 1 May.

The Portuguese and Spanish expedition took back the city of Salvador.

The viceroy of Holland was appointed by Prince Frederick Henry.

Kamehameha I, King of Hawaii was born in Hawaii in 1738.

The British fleet captured Guadeloupe, the West Indies, from France.

The founder of Albright's People, Jacob Albright, was born in Fox Mountain, Pennsylvania.

The American architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe was born in England in 1764.

The Czech composer, Gottfried Rieger, was born in the Czech Republic in 1764.