1525 – The German peasants’ revolt was crushed by the ruling class and church.
1915 – The Lusitania, a civilian ship, was sunk by a German submarine. 1,201 people were killed.
1940 – Winston Churchill became British Prime Minister.
1942 – In the Battle of the Coral Sea, Japanese and American navies attacked each other with carrier planes. It was the first time in the history of naval warfare where two enemy fleets fought without seeing each other.
1943 – The last major German strongholds in North Africa, Tunis and Bizerte, fell to Allied forces.
1954 – The United States and the United Kingdom rejected the Soviet Union’s bid to join NATO.
1958 – Howard Johnson set an aircraft altitude record in F-104.
1960 – Leonid Brezhnev became president of the Soviet Union.
1975 – U.S. President Ford declared an end to the Vietnam War.
1999 – In Guinea-Bissau, the government of President João Bernardo Vieira was ousted in a military coup.
2000 – Russian President Vladimir V. Putin named First Deputy Premier Mikhail Kasyanov as premier.