- May 1 Messerschmitt Me 262 Sturmvogel, 1st jet bomber, makes 1st flight
- May 1 Pulitzer prize awarded to American Martin Flavin for his novel "Journey in the Dark"
- May 1 Surprise attack on Weteringschans, Amsterdam, fails
- May 2 WABD (WNEW, now WNYW) TV channel 5 in NYC (DUM/MET/FOX) 1st broadcast
Going My Way
May 3 "Going My Way", directed by Leo McCarey and starring Bing Crosby premieres in New York (Academy Award for Best Picture, 1945)
- May 3 Meat rationing ends in US
Gaslight
May 4 MGM releases film adaptation of "Gaslight", starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, and an 18-year-old Angela Lansbury in her film debut
Gandhi Freed
May 5 Mahatma Gandhi freed from prison (again)
- May 5 Soviet offensive against Sebastopol, Crimea
- May 6 70th Kentucky Derby: Conn McCreary aboard Pensive wins in 2:04.2
- May 6 KJR-AM in Seattle Washington swaps calls with KOMO
NY Yankees Manager Returns
May 9 Joe McCarthy returns as New York Yankees manager after an illness
- May 9 Russians recapture Crimea by taking Sevastopol
- May 10 Chinese offensive in West-Yunnan
- May 10 Smith v Allwright (excluding Blacks from primary voting) is illegal
- May 11 Opposition group surprise attack post office Washer
- May 12 900+ 8th US Air Force bombers attack Zwikau, Bohlen & Brux
- May 12 Crimea purged of Nazi troops
- May 12 German police arrest Dutch resistance member Gerrit van der Veen and later execute him
- May 13 69th Preakness: Conn McCreary aboard Pensive wins in 1:59.2
- May 14 91 German bombers harass Bristol
- May 14 British troops occupy Kohima
- May 15 Cincinnati Red Clyde Shoun no-hits Boston Braves, 1-0
D-Day Planning
May 15 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bernard Montgomery, Winston Churchill and King George VI discuss the plan for D-Day
- May 15 Sergei Aleksi becomes guardian of the Patriarch Throne of the Russian Orthodox Church
- May 16 1st of 180,000+ Hungarian Jews reach Auschwitz
- May 17 -18] Allied air raid on Surabaja, Java
- May 17 Chinese and US armed forces take Myitkyina Airport, Burma
- May 17 Operation Straightline: Allies land in Dutch New Guinea
D-Day Date Set
May 17 US General Dwight Eisenhower sets D-Day for June 5
- May 18 Expulsion of more than 200,000 Tartars from Crimea by Soviet Union begins, they are accused of collaborating with the Germans
- May 18 Polish 2nd Army corps captures convent of Monte Cassino, Italy
- May 19 240 gypsies transported to Auschwitz from Westerbork, Netherlands, including Sinti girl Settela Steinbach famously filmed by Jewish photographer Rudolf Breslauer [1]
- May 19 German defense line in Italy collapses
Event of Interest
May 19 Writer and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois becomes 1st Black member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters
- May 20 US Communist Party dissolves
- May 21 WWII: West Loch Disaster - explosion during munition loading kills at least 160 sailors, injures nearly 400, destroys six ships and damages 3 piers and several buildings at Pearl Harbor U.S. Naval Base in Oahu, Hawaii; details were kept classified until the early 1960s
- May 23 British and Canadian troops occupy Pontecorvo, Italy
- May 23 Chinese counter offensive at Hunan front
- May 23 Operation Buffalo: Allied break out from Anzio bridgehead
Enver Hoxha
May 24 Enver Hoxha becomes head of Albania's anti fascists
No Exit
May 27 Jean-Paul Sartres' existentialist play "Huis Clos" (No Exit) premieres in Paris
Authors
Dictators
Explorers
Outlaws
Queens
Spies