What are the important events that happened on May 3? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.
May 3: Facts & Myths About This Day
May 3 is the 124th day of the year 2024 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 242 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Friday.
Under the Julian calendar, this day is April 20, 2024 – a Friday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?
When this day started, 1,714,694,400 seconds has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.
Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘hectaicosatetragon’ day.
Taurus is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Emerald is the modern birthstone for this month. Sapphire is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 271 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,151 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.
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May 3 Historical Events
- 1481 –The largest of three earthquakes strikes the island of Rhodes and causes an estimated 30,000 casualties.
- 1491 –Kongo monarch Nkuwu Nzinga is baptised by Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of João I.
- 1808 –Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are executed near Príncipe Pío hill.
- 1860 –Charles XV of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Sweden.
- 1937 –Gone with the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
- 1939 –The All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.
- 1951 –London’s Royal Festival Hall opens with the Festival of Britain
- 1951 –The United States Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees begin their closed door hearings into the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry Truman.
- 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 is the strongest tornado ever recorded with wind speeds of up to 318 mph.
- 2002 –A military MiG-21 aircraft crashes into the Bank of Rajasthan in India, killing eight.
Who were born on May 3?
- 1860 –John Scott Haldane, Scottish physiologist (d. 1936)
- 1888 –Beulah Bondi, American actress (d. 1981)
- 1892 –George Paget Thomson, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)
- 1938 –Omar Abdel-Rahman, Egyptian Islamist terrorist
- 1945 –Davey Lopes, American baseball player and coach
- 1952 –Allan Wells, British athlete
- 1965 –Rob Brydon, Welsh comedian
- 1974 –Princess Haya bint Hussein of Jordan
- 1978 –Autumn Phillips, member of the British royal family
- 1983 –Myriam Fares, Lebanese singer
Who died on May 3?
- 1616 –William Shakespeare, English writer and actor (b. 1564) (his death is commonly accepted to be on April 23, according to the Julian calendar)
- 1693 –Claude de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, French courtier (b. 1607)
- 1750 –John Willison, Scottish minister and writer (b. 1680)
- 1763 –George Psalmanazar, British impostor (b. 1679)
- 1972 –Leslie Harvey, Scottish guitar player for Stone the Crows (b. 1944)
- 1989 –Edward Ochab, Polish Communist politician (b. 1906)
- 2001 –Billy Higgins, American drummer (b. 1936)
- 2003 –Suzy Parker, American actress (b. 1932)
- 2006 –Earl Woods, athlete and father of Tiger Woods (b. 1932)
- 2008 –Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo, Spanish former Prime Minister (b. 1926)
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