31 MAY

1898 - Twelve noon of this date is calendared  as the day for a general uprising (against Spanish colonial forces) by Filipino revolutionary leader Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo who stupidly believes American Commodore George Dewey's assurances that United States is an ally against Spain;  upon Dewey's advice, Aguinaldo will later allow US  troops to enter Philippine territory and before long, the Americans will reveal their sinister imperialistic design and invade the Philippines, with the Philippine-American War erupting on February 4, 1899.

30 MAY

1901 - The local chief of Balangiga, Samar informs Gen. Vicente Lukban that the Principales of his town have agreed that they will maintain a policy of contrived friendship with the imperialist enemy [American] troops during the early stage of the Philippine-American War; the seething desire of the Balangiga residents to fight for the preservation of Philippine Independence the Filipinos earlier gained against the Spanish colonizers will ultimately be quelled by the fierce brutality of United States Gen. Jake Smith's "kill and burn" policy that will soon turn Samar into a "howling wilderness."

29 MAY

1992 - Ex-Sen. Lorenzo M. Tanada, Filipino nationalist crusader and civil rights defender dubbed the "Grand Old Man of Philippine Politics," dies at the ripe old age of 94; a pensionado who earned his law degree from Harvard University during the American colonial rule, he became a relentless crusader against American interference in Philippine affairs, eventually seeing some light on September 16, 1991  with the rejection of the Philippine-US Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Security that was supposed to take the place of the expiring RP-US Military Bases Agreement.

28 MAY

1906 -The Philippine leper colony in Cebu province, Philippines, is established during the American colonial rule, as the savage Philippine-American War rages on some seven years and three months after it first began; some 365 lepers land at the colony to form the nucleus of what is named the Culion Leper Colony, which would supposedly become known as the largest and one of the best institutions of its kind in the world. 

1898 -  The Battle of Alapan in Imus Cavite marks the Second Phase of the Philippine Revolution against Spain, waged under Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo as his camp returned from exile following the Truce of Biak na Bato earlier forged by the Filipino revolutionary leaders with colonial authorities.

27 MAY

1898 - The camp of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the Philippine Revolution against Spain (since May 1897) receives the first consignment of arms in Cavite from American consul Rounseville Wildman as part of the parties' unwritten deal forged in Hong Kong during the former's unsuccessful trip to meet United States Commodore George Dewey; Wildman will never deliver the second arms shipment to Aguinaldo, paid for with P67,000, and within nine months, the US will embark on its imperialistic invasion of the Philippines.

26 MAY

1609 - A law during the early period of the Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines regulates the services of the Indians (natives/filipinos) by prioritizing the hiring of Chinese and Japanese for public works; however, the Augustinian Recollects will attempt to thwart this order by later asking the king that they be released from such restrictions on the use of natives for work only under certain conditions, claiming that such law will ruin their work in the archipelago. 

25 MAY

1898 - During the Philippine Revolution against Spain, in the  Battle of San Miguel in Bulacan, a band of revolutionaries under Pablo Tecson attacks the troops of Spanish commander Telesforo Carrasco on the day of the baptism of the son of Carrasco, who will eventually surrender to the Filipinos in seven days; Tecson's band has been reinforced by Filipino members of Carrasco's detachment who had earlier defected to the revolutionaries' side following the return of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo from exile in Hong Kong as part of the so-called Biak-na-Bato truce with the Spanish colonial government.

24 MAY

1943 - The Director-General of the Japanese Military Administration of the Philippines during World War II addresses the graduating class of the Institute  for Former [Filipino] USAFF, or United States Army Forces in the Far East; the Director-General urges the graduates of a  cultural training and spiritual reorientation course to play active roles in reconstructing and regenerating their native country and further asks them to strive for the benefit and welfare of their countrymen.

23 MAY

1979 - Muslim Tausug leader Princess Tarhata Kiram, a strong-willed and liberal-minded early Filipina feminist, dies of heart failure at age 75 at the Veterans Memorial Hospital in Quezon City, Metro Manila; a heir of the original rulers of the island of Sabah (now part of Malaysia) and the first woman pensionado (educated in the imperialist United States) during the American colonial period, she became known in local politics for finding ways to plug the laws disadvantageous to the Muslims.

22 MAY

1867 - Julio Nakpil, Filipino patriot, revolutionary, musician, and composer who will become the second husband of Gregoria de Jesus following the murder-by-execution of Supremo Andres Bonifacio, founder/leader of the revolutionary Katipunan movement,  is born in Quiapo, Manila during the Spanish colonial period; Nakpil, who will be a member of Jose Rizal's La Liga Filipina and, subsequently, become Katipunan's Minister of National Development (fomento), will compose patriotic musical pieces, including Pasig Pantaynin (1897) and Kabanatuan (1903) in honor of Gen. Antonio Luna.

21 May

1909- While the Philippine-American War continues (on until 1915, including the part of the Moro resistance), the first session of the First Philippine Assembly, the colonial legislative body in the Philippine Islands during the United States'  imperialist rule, is concluded; the body that serves as the lower house of the mostly-American Philippine Commission passes a resolution declaring that the Filipino people's constant desire is to attain independence.

20 May

1865 - A royal decree from the Spain's Queen Isabella II reorganizes secondary education in its Southeast Asian colony, the Philippines, by dividing schools into public and private, with the University of Santo Tomas being considered public and Colegio de San Juan de Letran being classified as College of the First Class; the colonial-era decree gives gives the rector of UST the responsibility of supervising and inspecting secondary schools as it becomes the ex-oficio head of the secondary and higher education in the Philippines.

19 MAY

1898 - Some 10 months before American imperialist forces invaded the Philippines, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the Philippine revolutionary forces fighting to overthrow Spanish colonial rule, arrives at Cavite province aboard the revenue cutter McCulloch; Aguinaldo will soon confer with Admiral George Dewey to forge an alliance against Spain, and later saying that the American admiral  has categorically stated that the United States will recognize Philippine Independence as it has no need for colonies.

18 MAY

1571 - Philippine tribal chief Rahaj Sulayman belatedly appears before Spanish conquistadore Miguel Lopez de Legazpi  to make peace folllowing the Second Conquest of Manila;  following a short period of peace and after prodding by other tribes outside Manila, Rajah Sulayman (if not another ["Torik"] Sulayman) would later lead thousands of warriors from Manila, Bulacan, and Pampanga in a fierce but unsuccessful battle against the formidably armed colonizing Castillians.

17 May

1975 - Future National Artist Gerardo de Leon receives his Filipino Academy of Movie, Arts and Sciences (FAMAS) Hall of Fame for winning the best director award seven times, including for "Bagong Umaga" (1952) and will, in his lifetime, win every possible major Filipino film industry award; de Leon is the only Filipino filmmaker cited in the Petit Larousse du Cinema Mondial  and will become the first filmmaker to be recognised as a Philippine National Artist shortly after his death in 1981.

16 MAY

1903 - Apolinario Mabini, the former Prime Minister  of the short-lived Philippine Republic, is buried under the auspices of civic and labor organizations during the American colonial period when the Philippine-American War was still being waged; following his capture by invading American soldiers, Mabini had refused to swear fealty to the imperialist United States flag and did so only when he felt he was already very sick and weak in the bid to be allowed to return to the Philippines from imposed exile.

15 MAY

1889 - Filipino reformist Graciano Lopez Jaena's  article, "How to deceive the motherland," is published in La Solidaridad, the publication of illustrados who aim at representing and advocating the colonial cause of the Phillippines before the Spanish parliament; Jaena counters the La Voz de Espana's editorial declaring religion and traditionalism—to the exclusion of the Spanish language or government reforms—as the only things that unite the Spanish colony with the metropolis.

1957 - Great Britain drops its first hydrogen bomb over Christmas Island as part of a series of  tests in the Pacific following two years of development; supposedly made amidst the escalation of the nuclear arms race, the tests will later spark a major international debate as to the dangers of nuclear weapons and, ultimately, help lead to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty signed by many countries.

1974 - Between 18 and 21 teenagers die, along with three Palestinian kidnappers,  as Israeli troops storm a school in Ma'alot where hostage-taking has taken place; a total of 71 people are also injured in the operation aimed at freeing the youngsters in the violent act believed to be part of a wave of sabotage attacks designed to coincide with the 26th anniversary of the founding of the Israeli state.

1993 - Masked French police commandos free six girls and their nursery teacher from a lone gunman, to conclude the drama of a two-day hostage crisis in Paris; the operation involved shooting dead the then-sleeping "human bomb" hostage-taker fitted with 16 dynamites sticks and, at the same time, covering the children with mattresses.

14 May

1935 - The  Constitution of the Philippines during the American Colonial Era is ratified by a plebiscite held after United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt certified it as conforming with  Public Act No. 127 earlier passed by the US Congress; the 1935 Charter will serve as the fundamental law of the Philippines from 1935 and will be amended in 1940 and in 1947, two years after neo-imperialist America grants its colony "independence."

1948 - The independent state of Israel is proclaimed at midnight as British rule in Palestine ends, making  it the world's newest sovereign nation; while the United States  had opposed its establishment, the new state appeals to the United Nations "to assist the Jewish people in the building of its state and to admit Israel into the family of nations."

1955- The Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies sign the Warsaw Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance as the culmination of a three-day conference in the Polish capital, Warsaw; the new security pack to be more known as the Warsaw Pack is aimed, among others, at ensuring the close integration of military, economic and cultural policy between the eight Communist states.

1964 - Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser and Soviet Union's Nikita Khrushchev mark the first stage of the construction of the Aswan High Dam with the diversion of the ancient Nile river into a canal; the dam's construction, financed with Soviet help, marks a great propaganda coup for Nasser who still reels from the United States' 1956 refusal to finance the dam owing to his Soviet links.

13 MAY

1943 - The Director-General gives instructions during the Second Oath-Taking Ceremony of former USAFFE officers and men during the Japanese Occupation in World War II; the three cardinal requirements for achieving Philippine independence are given to the Filipinos, with the Director-General concluding his address by encouraging them to be the foundation for the establishment or the establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

1830 - The Republic of Ecuador is created as it breaks away from Gran Colombia, with Juan Flores being named supreme chief and, later, provisional president; Flores, whose official term will begin in September of the same year, will face the rebellion by Luis Urdaneta, a loyalist of Simon Bolivar.

1965 - The Big Bang theory of the Universe gets a boost when radio Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, of Bell Laboratories inadvertently discovers a source of irremovable static in a sensitive microwave antenna in Holmdel, New Jersey; Robert Dicke and David Wilkinson at nearby Princeton University would later inform Penzias and Wilson that what they have discovered is the  microwave background of radiation that exists as a remnant of the Big Bang.

1968 - French workers join students protests in Paris for the first time with a one-day general strike as the 800,000-strong demonstrators demand for the fall of Charles de Gaulle's government; the demonstrators, who were also protesting police brutality during the rioting that occured the past few days when Prime Minister Georges Pompidou sent in the infamous CRS riot police force to deal with the student mass action.

12 MAY

1962 - Philippine Independence Day is moved from July 4 to June 12 by President Diosdado Macapagal through Republic Act No. 4166  in a rare show of nationalism by Filipinos who have long observed the American-dictated post-World War II July 4 (1946) as Independence Day; the Philippines declared itself independent from Spanish rule on June 12, 1898 and established the Philippine Republic on January 23, 1899 before the American imperialists under President William McKinley began its colonization of the Southeast Asian archipelago a month later, triggering the bloody and savage Philippine-American War that raged for about a decade.

11 May

1897 - A day after Emilio Aguinaldo had Katipunan Supremo Andres Bonifacio executed,  his forces lose the four pitched battles against the Spaniards, leading to the fall of several upland towns, such as Mendez, Nuñez, Alfonso, Maragondon, Bailen and Magallanes in Indang, Cavite during the Philippine Revolution; Apolinario Mabini, Aguinaldo's future prime minister, will write of how the tragedy of Bonifacio's murder-by-execution "smothered the enthusiasm for the revolutionary cause, and hastened the failure of the insurrection in Cavite, because many from Manila, Laguna and Batangas, who were fighting for the province (of Cavite), were demoralized and quit, and soon the so-called central government had to withdraw to the mountains of Biak-na-Bato in Bulacan."

1934 - A massive storm sends millions of tonnes of topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the United States as far east as New York, Boston and Atlanta; In the mid-1800s when it was first settled, the Great Plains used to be covered by prairie grass that was able to hold moisture and keep most of the soil from being blown away even during spells.

1952 - Former Police Chief Jose A. Remon Cantera, the government's candidate, wins in the presidential elections of Panama; the opposition has described Cantera as a "dangerous burlesque of democratic principles."

1998 - Indian stirs international controversy with its announcement that it has carried out a series of underground nuclear tests, experimental tests which took place without any warning to the international community; Pokhran in Rajasthan's northen desert state, located only about 93 miles from the border with Pakistan, which served as testing site, is described by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee as "contained explosions."

10 MAY

1897 - The execution of Andres Bonifacio the founder and Supremo of the the Kataastaasan Kagalang-galang na Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan (KKK), the secret revolutionary movement  in the Philippines aiming to overthrow Spanish colonial rule, along with his brother Procopio, is carried out by men of power-grabber Emilio Aguinaldo in Mt. Nagpatong, Cavite; the tragic murder-by-execution of Bonifacio, the revolutionary leader until the anomalous and Tejeros Convention subsequently led to his arrest, Kangaroo Court trial (with his own lawyer, Placido Martinez attacking him), and sentence of "guilty" of treason and sedition by men of Emilio Aguinaldo, came one day after the 22nd birthday of his wife, Gregoria de Jesus.

9 May

1875 - Gregoria de Jesus, future Filipina patriot and first woman initiated in the Katipunan, the secret revolutionary organization aimed at overthrowing Spanish colonial rule,  is born in Caloocan, Manila; nicknamed Oriang, she will become the wife of Gat Andres Bonifacio, the revolutionary movement's founder and leader--to be wedded first under Catholic Church rites in Binondo and later, under Katipunan rites in the house of their sponsors.

1950 - The roots of Scientology sprouts with the publication of "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health" a book wherein Lafayetter Ronald Hubbard introduces a branch of self-help psychology; with the success of the book that sold over 100,000 just in two years of publication, Hubbard would later found Scientology that expanded on Dianetics by bringing his popular version of psychotherapy into the realm of philosphy and later, religion.

1972 - Twelve Israeli commandos disguised as maintenance staff successfully storms the hijacked Sabena Boeing at Lod airport in Tel Aviv releasing 100 people on board and killing two of the Arab hijackers; two women hijackers recruited by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine will be found guilty and jailed for life in August 1972 based on evidence that they boarded the Sabena aircarft with explosives packed into the lining of their corsets, apart from the possession of concealed pistol and grenade.

1979 - Twenty four demonstrators are killed when El Salvador police open fire outside the Metropolitan Cathedral in El Salvador during the protest organized by the left-wing Popular Revolutionary Bloc; the carnage is but one of the many violent clashes between protesters and the country's police, including the La Matanza (slaugher) peasant revolt incident that killed some 30,000 people over 50 years earlier.

1999 - The Chinese people demonstrate their anger at the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade which killed four people during the 1998 air strikes conducted by  NATO countries following international pressure on Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic to stop the escalating violence against ethnic Albanians; the demonstrations in China are the biggest and angriest yet to date, with students chanting anti-Nato and anti-American slogans such as "Clinton, We're not Monica!"

8 MAY

1897 - A few days after he seemed to have sealed his power grab from Philippine revolutionary leader and founder Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Aguinaldo in his new capacity as "President" orders "presidentes of the towns" to collect funds for the purchase of arms during the Revolution against Spain; Aguinaldo had days earlier ordered his men to capture the Bonifacio brothers and subject them to a Kangaroo Court trial  where Andres Bonifacio's lawyer, Placido Martinez, attacked, instead of defended, the Supremo.

1902 - Mount Pelee in the Caribbean commune of St. Pierre, Martinique islands, blows apart in an explosive eruption that rips the volcano's side, hurling it to the sea accompanied by a wave of fire sounded by what seemed like a thousand cannons, and subsequently flooding the the city with a cloud of superheated gas that carbonized many objects; only two men out of a population of 30,000 survived the horrific destruction made worse by the failure of the local government to evacuate residents.

1945 - Victory in Europe Day is celebrated as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces the end of war with Germany during a message broadcast about the signing of the ceasefire signed yesterday at the American advance headquarters in Rheims; the act of surrender by Germany will again be signed in Berlin the next day, with the Russian High Command, Allied Expeditionary Force, United States Air Force and French First Army officials/representatives.

1984 - Moscow pulls out the Soviet team in the Los Angeles Olympic Games in a boycott that would later by joined by 14 countries from most of the Eastern Bloc and by Cuba 12 weeks before the 1984 Olympics begin; the USSR has complained of the commercialization of the LA games and has accused the United States of "stirring up anti-Soviet propaganda," using the games for "political purposes," and donning a "cavalier attitude" to the Soviet athletes' security.

7 MAY

1943 - Sizuiti Tanaka, the highest Commander of the Japanese Imperial Army in the Philippines, gives instructions during the First Anniversary of the Fall of Corregidor and Peace and Order Day at Luneta, Manila; Tanaka hails the Fall of Corregidor during World War II as  "a momentous date in Philippine history because it stands for the end of the 40 odd years of American domination and the birthday of the New Philippines," claiming that 18 million Filipinos stand united in marking "the great day with jubilation and thanksgiving or their happy deliverance from the age-long tentacles of Western imperialism."

1902 -La Soufrière volcano in Saint Vincent, West Indies, erupts, emitting a hot ash cloud up into the air that mixed with steam and gas, choking the citizens in the towns below and leading to the death of some 2,000 people either from burns or ash asphyxiation; the volcano's rumbling which began in mid-February of the same year increasingly grew in intensity until an earthquake hit a day before the eruption.

1915 - The British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed off Ireland's southern coast by Germany during World War I, sinking it into the Celtic Sea and killing some 1,198 passengers and crew members;  the aggression came without warning, although Germany will defend it by noting how it has issued warnings that it will attack all ships entering the war zone around Britain.

1965 - White voters in Rhodesia, Britain's colony in Africa, backs the demand for independence of Prime Minister Ian Smith by overwhelming electing his Rhodesian Front party; Smith's party takes all the 50 parliamentary seats reserved for white solons, giving it more than the two thirds majority needed to change the constitution. 

6 MAY

1943 - Japanese Premier General Hideki Tozyo makes a personal visit to the Philippines during the Japanese Occupation, being presented with the Resolution of Gratitude of the Filipino people's supposed appreciation for the "tangible and positive progress toward national unity, spiritual rejuvenation, and economic rehabilitation" helped wrought by the Japanese Military Administration in building a New Philippines; the resolution presented in Luneta, Manila, was graced by the speeches of Philippine Executive Commission Chairman Jorge B. Vargas and Commissioner of the Interior Jose P. Laurel (who would later serve as President during the Japanese-sponsored Republic).

1897 - Andres Bonifacio, founder and leader of the Philippine Revolution against Spanish colonial rule, is declared "guilty"of contriving to supposedly overthrow the newly formed revolutionary government of Emilio Aguinaldo  by the Council of War that reviewed the findings of the former's court martial; Aguinaldo's camp earlier engineered the  power grab against the Supremo, subsequently ordering his capture and  court martial trial by what is regarded as a "Kangaroo Court" investigative body, with appointed defense lawyer, Placido Martinez, attacking, instead of defending, the Supremo.

1937 - The hydrogen-filled German dirigible Hindenburg burns and crashes in Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States, killing 36 out of its 97 crew and passengers and inflicting substantial injuries to the survivors; the largest dirigible ever constructed, it has suddenly exploded into flames while attempting to moor Lakehurst in what is believed to be a case of a spark igniting its hydrogen core. 

1976 - A powerful earthquake strikes northeastern Italy, leaving at least 60 people dead, with many more buried under rubble, and, along with another earthquake later in September, force the construction of thousands of tent cities for the affected; the quake's strongest tremor that measured 6.5 on the Richter scale affects six European countries: France, West Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia as well as Italy.

2005 - Malaysia and Indonesia agree to refrain from staging shows of force in the South Sulawesi Sea, where the neighboring countries are currently in dispute over maritime boundaries; the agreement is announced by Malaysia's deputy prime minister said. Najib Razak during news conference with visiting Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla.

5 MAY

1897 - A Council of War is formed by the power-grabbing camp of Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy, head of a new revolutionary body supposedly superseding the the secret-society-turned-revolutionary-government Kataastaasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan,  to pass judgment on  Andres Bonifacio y de Castro, Katipunan co-founder and Supreme President, during the Philippine Revolution against Spanish colonial rule; on April 28, the Supremo, along with his brother Procopio, was seized and brought to Naic, Cavite after Aguinaldo's men on treacherously attacked the Supremo's camp despite the warm reception given them by the Katipunan leader the night before. 
1955 - American virologist Dr. Jonas Salk promotes polio vaccination in London, Britain in the year that would mark the beginning of widespread vaccination against the crippling disease; the Salk anti-polio vaccine will soon be replaced by the orally administered Sabin vaccine, a weakened live vaccine, by the 1960s.

1961 - The United States sends the first American astronaut, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr., to space during 15-minute suborbital flight aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule; the shuttle reaches a height of 116 miles into the Earth's atmosphere, representing a major achievement for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that has, until now, been unable to score in the Cold War space race between the US and the Soviet Union.

1980 - The siege by SAS commandos of the Iranian embassy in London ends in a dramatic raid, with five Iranian gunmen and one hostage being killed, two hostages injured and  one gunman being arrested; the gunmen, members of the dissident Iranian group opposed to Ayatollah Khomeini, the religious leader who seized power last year, have demanded the release of 91 political prisoners held by their government.

4 MAY

1897 - Andres Bonifacio, founder and leader of the Katipunan, the Philippine revolutionary movement against colonial Spain, gives his testimony in Cavite before the court martial formed by Emilio Aguinaldo  as part of the scheme of the latter's camp to wrest the presidency  from the Supremo; testifying before the turn of his wife, Gregoria de Jesus, Bonifacio states that he is unaware  of the existence of  another revolutionary government in the province and neither aware whether or not he holds any legal powers in said government.

1945 - The 1,500-ton Balao Class submarine USS Lagarto disappears without trace after attacking a Japanese tanker and destroyer convoy some 100 miles off Thailand's southeast coast; believed to have been sunk by a Japanese minelayer, its wreckage will be discovered in May 2005.

1970 - American National Guardsmen fire their weapons at about 2,000 antiwar demonstrators on the Kent State University campus, killing four students, wounding eight, and permanently paralyzing another; despite that fact that no warning shot was fired during the dispersal, a federal court will drop all charges against the Ohio National Guardsmen charged with the students' killings four years later.

1979 - Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman Prime Minister of Britain as  the Conservative Party wins the general election; Thatcher, who will be dubbed "Iron Lady," will soon become one of the dominant political figures of the 20th century, especially figuring in the international arena along with her ideological soul mate American President Ronald Reagan.

3 MAY

1897 - The treacherous assault leading to the capture in Cavite of Gat Andres Bonifacio, leader of the Philippine revolution against Spain, is relayed in a letter to Emilio Jacinto, chief of Katipunan operations in Manila; the first-hand account  that comes from Col. Antonino M. Guevara sheds light on the treachery surrounding the power grab by Capt. Emilio Aguinaldo and his Magdalo partisans and the capture and subsequent execution of Bonifacio.

1971 - Anti-war protesters calling themselves the Mayday Tribe begin four days of demonstrations in Washington D.C., United States; around 7,000 demonstrators who engaged in harassment in the attempt to shut down the capital would be arrested following running skirmishes with metropolitan police and Federal troops.

1986 - A bomb believed planted by Tamil Tiger militants explodes on an Air Lanka passenger jet at Colombo's airport, killing 21 peple and injuring 41 others; a search of the aircraft will point the blame on the LTTE, the fiercest of the Tamil guerrilla groups, and it will be thought that the bomb was designed to stall the India-brokered talks between the rebels and the Sri Lankan government.

1990 - The new parliament of the Soviet republic of Latvia meets to discuss becoming independent from Moscow, with leaders of the Latvian Popular Front expressing confidence of gaining the majority needed to pull off a change in the constitution; the next  day, the Latvian parliament will declare the "de jure" independence of the Republic of Latvia, although Moscow will later issue a decree annulling said declaration.

2 MAY

1942 - Jose Abad Santos, Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court during the American imperialist rule, is executed at Malabang, Lanao by the Japanese during World War II for refusing to collaborate; an American educated lawyer who has held various government positions, Abad Santos became virtual head of the government when President Manuel Quezon left for Washington, United States  earlier the same year following Japanese occupation of the Southeast Asian archipelago.

1915 - The great Austro-German offensive in Galicia begins, with the Russian forces easily giving way after suffering severely from lack of rifles, artillery, ammunition, and clothing; the counterattack will put an end to 9 months of successful Russian advances in the East central European region, with the Russian Army embarking on a strategic retreat, evacuating Warsaw in the Great retreat of 1915 during World War I.

1933 - The first modern sighting of the Loch Ness monster makes local news based on an account of a local couple claiming to have witnessed "an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface";  in the 1960s, several British universities will launch expeditions to Loch Ness using sonar for deep searching, with nothing conclusive to be found but with each expedition detecting unexplainable large, moving underwater objects.

1982 - Three hundred sixty-eight people die as Britain sinks Argentina's only cruiser, General Belgrano, following the start of the two countries' dispute over the Falkland Islands; Britain used Mark 8 torpedoes in destroying the ship, with Argentina retaliating by sinking HMS Sheffield that saw the lost of some 20 men.

1 MAY

1896 - Andres Bonifacio and other Philippine revolutionary leaders meet at Ugong in Morong Province to plot moves on a planned uprising against Spain;  the Katipunero leaders decide to consult or enlist the support of acclaimed reformist leader Jose Rizal if and when the revolution breaks out, and subsequently appoint Dr. Pio Valenzuela for the mission.

1960 - The Soviet Union shoots down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane near Sverdlovsk and captures its pilot, American spy Francis Gary Powers; Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev will later publicly announce the incident and attack the United States for its mission of "aggressive provocation aimed at wrecking the summit conference."

1961 - Fidel Castro proclaims Cuba a socialist nation during a May Day parade  in Havana to the roaring approval of thousands of Cubans in attendance; Castro also abolishes elections, saying that the Latin American country's revolution has no time for elections as he takes potshots at the United States, saying that "We have as much right to complain about the existence of a capitalist imperialist regime 90 miles from our coast as he has to complain about a socialist regime 90 miles from his coast."

2000 - Violence marks the May Day celebration in London streets as anti-capitalist demonstrators fight running battles with police; May Day marks the end of four days of what started as peacfeul protest and culminating in violence as the protesters headed off for Trafalgar Square.