Event of Interest
May 2 In Germany, Adolf Hitler bans trade unions
- May 3 Nellie T. Ross takes office as the first female director of the US Mint
Pulitzer Prize to Macleish
May 4 Pulitzer Prize for poetry awarded to Archibald Macleish for "Conquistador"
- May 6 59th Kentucky Derby: Don Meade aboard Brokers Tip wins in 2:06.8
- May 6 Italy and USSR sign trade agreement
Gandhi Begins Fast
May 8 Mahatma Gandhi begins a 21-day fast in protest against British oppression in India
- May 9 Spanish anarchists call for general strike
- May 10 Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF) forms
- May 10 Nazis stage public book burnings in Germany
- May 10 Paraguay declares war on Bolivia
- May 10 Suriname worker's union leader A de Come banished to Netherlands
- May 12 Federal Emergency Relief Administration & Agricultural Adjustment Administration form to help the needy & farmers
- May 13 58th Preakness: Charley Kurtsinger aboard Head Play wins in 2:02
- May 15 1st voice amplification system to be used in US Senate
- May 16 Cecil Travis becomes 1st player to get 5 hits in his 1st game
Nasjonal Samling
May 17 Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort form Nasjonal Samling, the national-socialist party of Norway
- May 18 Around 5,000 forced deportees in the Soviet Union arrive on Nazino Island; within thirteen weeks most of them will be dead due to disease, cannibalism and violence
- May 18 First MLB All-Star Game announced for July 6 at Comiskey Park; to be played as part of the Chicago World's Fair; fans to pick players
Shostakovich's Preludes
May 24 Dmitri Shostakovich's Preludes premieres in Moscow
Klein Hits for Cycle
May 26 Phillies Chuck Klein hits for cycle vs St Louis Cards
- May 27 Austrian communist party banned
- May 27 Century of Progress Exposition opens in Chicago
- May 27 Federal Securities Act signed
Heidegger's Address
May 27 Martin Heidegger gives his inaugural rectoral address on “The Self-Assertion of the German University”, taken by some take as supporting the Nazi regime
- May 27 Trailing 11-3, Yanks score 12 runs in 8th & beat White Sox 15-11
- May 27 Walt Disney's short film "3 Little Pigs" released (Academy Award Best Animated film 1934)
- May 30 Indianapolis 500: Louis Meyer wins accompanied by riding mechanic Lawson Harris; Mark Billman killed in a crash on lap 79; Lester Spangler and riding mechanic "Monk" Jordan die in a crash on lap 132
- May 30 Patent on invisible glass installation