3 May 2025 (MIA)

– International Press Freedom Day

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.

1715 – A total solar eclipse was visible across northern Europe, and northern Asia, as predicted by Edmond Halley to within 4 minutes accuracy.

1791 – The Constitution of May 3 (the first modern constitution in Europe) is proclaimed by the Sejm of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

1802 – Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city.

1808 – Finnish War: Sweden loses the fortress of Sveaborg to Russia.

1808 – Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are executed near Príncipe Pío hill.

1815 – Neapolitan War: Joachim Murat, King of Naples is defeated by the Austrians at the Battle of Tolentino, the decisive engagement of the war.

1837 – The University of Athens is founded in Athens, Greece.

1849 – The May Uprising in Dresden begins – the last of the German revolutions of 1848.

1860 – Charles XV of Sweden–Norway is crowned king of Sweden.

1867 – The Hudson’s Bay Company gives up all claims to Vancouver Island.

1901 – The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, Florida.

1913 – Raja Harishchandra the first full-length Indian feature film is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.

1915 – The poem In Flanders Fields is written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.

1917 – Kiro Gligorov, the first president of independent Macedonia, is born in Shtip. He was head of state between 1991-1999, surviving an assassination attempt in the meantime (3 October 1995). Gligorov passed away on 1 January 2012.

1920 – A Bolshevik coup fails in the Democratic Republic of Georgia.

1921 – Ireland divides into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.

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 Subhas Chandra Bose.

1942 – World War II: Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo that results in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia.

1945 – The government of the People’s Republic of Macedonia makes decision to ratify the Macedonian alphabet consisting of 31 letters. The alphabet is printed for the first time in the newspaper Nova Makedonija.

1945 – World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay.

1947 – New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect.

1948 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Shelley v. Kraemer that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.

1952 – Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States land a plane at the North Pole.

1960 – The Off-Broadway musical comedy The Fantasticks opens in New York City’s Greenwich Village, eventually becoming the longest-running musical of all time.

1960 – The Anne Frank House museum opens in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

1960 – The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is established.

1963 – The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and responds with violent force to stop the “Birmingham campaign” protesters. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing new-found attention to the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

1973 – The 108-story Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at 1,451 feet as the world’s tallest building.

1978 – The first unsolicited bulk commercial email (which would later become known as “spam”) is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.

1986 – Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes in an airliner (Flight UL512) at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.

1999 – The southwestern portion of Oklahoma City 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 tornado also produces the highest wind speed ever recorded, measured at 301 +/- 20 mph (484 +/- 32 km/h).

2001 – The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.

2002 – A military MiG-21 aircraft crashes into the Bank of Rajasthan in India, killing eight.

2003 – New Hampshire’s famous Old Man of the Mountain collapses.

2015 – Two gunmen launch an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, which was held in response to the Charlie Hebdo shooting.