On this day: 5 May

The Second Council of Constantinople begins.

Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.

Election of Count Adolf of Nassau as King of the Romans in the Dominican monastery of Frankfurt.

On his second voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus sights Jamaica, landing at Discovery Bay and declares Jamaica the property of the Spanish crown.

Daimyō (Lord) Shimazu Tadatsune of the Satsuma Domain in southern Kyūshū, Japan, completes his successful invasion of the Ryūkyū Kingdom in Okinawa.

Russia and Prussia sign the Treaty of St. Petersburg.

In France, the Estates-General convenes for the first time since 1614.

Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread.

The first railway in continental Europe opens between Brussels and Mechelen.

Led by Italian general Giuseppe Garibaldi, the volunteer Expedition of the Thousand set sail from Genoa on a campaign to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a crucial event of the unification of Italy.

Cinco de Mayo: Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico.

American Civil War: Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign in Virginia began with the inconclusive Battle of the Wilderness in Spotsylvania County.

American Civil War: The Confederate government is declared dissolved at Washington, Georgia.

Memorial Day first celebrated in United States at Waterloo, New York.

American Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.

The Peruvian Academy of Language is founded.

Carnegie Hall (interior pictured) in New York City, built by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, officially opened with a concert conducted by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Pitching for the Boston Americans, Cy Young threw the first perfect game in modern professional baseball.

The first issue of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda is published.

Second Italo-Ethiopian War: Italian troops (pictured) captured the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa unopposed.

Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa; the country commemorates the date as Liberation Day or Patriots' Victory Day.

World War II: The citizens of Prague spontaneously rose up against the city's German occupiers.

World War II: American and German troops fought side-by-side at the Battle for Castle Itter, defending a prison against Waffen-SS forces.

The Netherlands Carillon was inaugurated in Arlington, Virginia, on the 15th anniversary of Dutch Liberation Day.

Project Mercury: American astronaut Alan Shepard made a sub-orbital spaceflight on board Freedom 7, becoming the second person to travel into outer space.

The Council of Europe declares May 5 as Europe Day.

Secretariat wins the 1973 Kentucky Derby in 1:59.4, an as-yet-unbeaten record.

The Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, 202 years after it was first proposed.

The signing of the Bishkek Protocol between Armenia and Azerbaijan effectively freezes the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The government of Sudan signs an accord with the Sudan Liberation Army.

Philippine broadcast network ABS-CBN was forced to go off-air by the National Telecommunications Commission after Congress failed to renew its franchise granted in 1995.

The World Health Organization declared the end of COVID-19 as a global health emergency.