| | 1535 - French explorer Jacques Cartier sets sail on his second voyage to North America with three ships, 110 men, and Chief Donnacona's two sons (whom Cartier kidnapped during his first voyage). |
| | 1536 - Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, is beheaded for adultery. |
| | 1568 - Queen Elizabeth I of England has Mary Queen of Scots arrested. |
| | 1604 - The town of Montreal is founded. |
| | 1643 - Thirty Years' War: French forces under the duc d'Enghien decisively defeat Spanish forces at the Battle of Rocroi, marking the symbolic end of Spain as a dominant land power. |
| | 1649 - An Act declaring England a Commonwealth is passed by the Long Parliament. England would be a republic for the next eleven years. |
| | 1749 - King George II of Great Britain grants the Ohio Company a charter of land around the forks of the Ohio River. |
| | 1780 - Never-explained complete darkness falls on Eastern Canada and the New England area of the United States at 2 pm. |
| | 1802 - The Légion d'Honneur is founded by Napoleon Bonaparte. |
| | 1828 - U.S. President John Quincy Adams signs the Tariff of 1828 into law, protecting wool manufacturers in the United States. |
| | 1848 - Mexican-American War: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo – Mexico ratifies the treaty thus ending the war and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of five other modern-day U.S. states to the USA for USD $15 million. |
| | 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Spotsylvania Court House ends. |
| | 1897 - Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Gaol. |
| | 1919 - In Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk moves to Samsun from Istanbul with a few followers, to oppose the Ottoman government, which eventually leads to the Turkish War of Independence. |
| | 1921 - The Emergency Quota Act passes the U.S. Congress establishing national quotas on immigration |
| | 1922 - Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union is established. |
| | 1943 - World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set Monday, May 1, 1944 as the date for the cross-English Channel landing (D-Day would later be delayed over a month due to bad weather). |
| | 1961 - Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (the probe had lost contact with Earth a month earlier and did not send back data). |
| | 1962 - A birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, New York. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's infamous rendition of Happy Birthday. |
| | 1971 - Mars probe program: Mars 2 is launched by the Soviet Union. |
| | 1992 - In a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California, Vice President Dan Quayle criticizes television character Murphy Brown for ignoring the importance of fathers and bearing a child alone. |
| | 2005 - Star Wars: Episode III is released into theaters. |