2 May in history

7 events that happened on 2 May, from 1519 to 1972.

  1. ✦ Anniversary of the day

    1519 CE 507 years ago

    Leonardo da Vinci dies at Amboise

    Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, the manor near Amboise given to him by Francis I. Painter of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, he also left thousands of pages of notes on anatomy, engineering and nature.

    Ottoman EmpireFrancis I

  2. 1536 CE 490 years ago

    Anne Boleyn is arrested and taken to the Tower

    Queen Anne Boleyn was arrested at Greenwich on charges of adultery, incest and treason. She was beheaded at the Tower seventeen days later, and Henry VIII married Jane Seymour within days.

  3. 1670 CE 356 years ago

    Charles II charters the Hudson's Bay Company

    The company received a monopoly of trade across the lands draining into Hudson Bay, a vast territory named Rupert's Land. It remains one of the oldest commercial enterprises in the world.

    Hudson Bay

  4. 1808 CE 218 years ago

    Madrid rises against French occupation

    Crowds in Madrid attacked French troops in the Dos de Mayo uprising, which was suppressed with mass executions painted by Goya. Revolt spread across Spain and began the Peninsular War.

    Spanish EmpirePeninsular WarMadrid

  5. 1863 CE 163 years ago

    Stonewall Jackson is shot by his own men at Chancellorsville

    Returning from a night reconnaissance, General Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson was hit by fire from Confederate pickets. He died of pneumonia eight days later, a grave loss to Lee.

  6. 1945 CE 81 years ago

    Berlin garrison surrenders to the Red Army

    General Helmuth Weidling surrendered the German forces in Berlin to the Soviets two days after Hitler's suicide. Germany's unconditional surrender followed within a week.

  7. 1972 CE 54 years ago

    J. Edgar Hoover dies after 48 years leading the FBI

    J. Edgar Hoover died in Washington, having led the Bureau and its predecessor since 1924. He built a modern federal police force but also used it to spy on activists and politicians.

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