On May 2, 1519, artist Leonardo da Vinci died at Cloux, France.
In 1670 the Hudson Bay Company was chartered by England’s King Charles II.
In 1863 Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson was accidentally wounded by his own men at Chancellorsville, Va.; he died eight days later.
In 1890 the Oklahoma Territory was organized.
In 1936 “Peter and the Wolf,” by Sergei Prokofiev, had its world premiere in Moscow.
In 1945 the Soviet Union announced the fall of Berlin, and the Allies announced the surrender of Nazi troops in Italy and parts of Austria.
In 1957 Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the controversial Republican senator from Wisconsin, died in Bethesda, Md.
In 1960 convicted sex offender and best-selling author Caryl Chessman was executed at San Quentin Prison in California.
In 1965 the “Early Bird” satellite was used to transmit television pictures across the Atlantic.
In 1972, after serving 48 years as head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover died in Washington; he was 77.
In 1987 Alysheba won the 113th Kentucky Derby to earn a record $618,600.
In 1994 Nelson Mandela claimed victory in the wake of South Africa’s first democratic elections; President F.W. de Klerk acknowledged defeat.
In 1995 President Bill Clinton agreed to allow some 20,000 Cubans into the U.S. after months of detention at Guantanamo Bay.
In 1997 Labor Party leader Tony Blair, at 44, became Britain’s youngest prime minister in 185 years.
In 2005 Pfc. Lynndie England, pictured in some of the most notorious Abu Ghraib photos, pleaded guilty at Ft. Hood, Texas, to mistreating prisoners. (However, a judge later threw out the plea agreement; England was later convicted in a court-martial and sentenced to 3 years in prison.)
