Kentucky Derby
May 1 102nd Kentucky Derby: Puerto Rican jockey Ángel Cordero Jr wins aboard Bold Forbes, the second of 3 Derby successes
- May 1 Empress Lilly, replica of a paddle steamer, dedicated at Walt Disney World, Florida
- May 3 Panama 747SP lands after record flight around world (46:26)
Event of Interest
May 3 Pulitzer prize for Fiction awarded to Saul Bellow for "Humboldt's Gift"
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
May 4 Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner's musical "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" opens at Mark Hellinger, NYC; runs for 7 performances
- May 4 Schiedam train accident kills 24 people and injures 11
- May 5 Train collision at Schiedam, Netherlands, kills 24
- May 6 An earthquake strikes Friuli in Northern Italy, causes 989 deaths and the destruction of entire villages
- May 8 Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner's musical "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" closes at Mark Hellinger, NYC, after 7 performances
- May 8 The rollercoaster Revolution (roller coaster), the first steel coaster with a vertical flip, opens at Six Flags Magic Mountain
- May 9 Stan Daniels' musical "So Long 174th Street", starring Robert Morse, closes at Harkness Theater, NYC, after 16 performances
Radio Premiere
May 10 Paul Harvey's daily syndicated program "The Rest of the Story" premieres on the ABC Radio Networks, continuing until his death in 2009
- May 11 Emmy 3rd Daytime Award presentation
- May 11 Last broadcast of "Marcus Welby, MD" on ABC-TV
- May 12 20th European Cup: Bayern Munich beats Saint-Etienne 1-0 at Glasgow
- May 13 9th & final ABA championship: NY Nets beat Denver Nuggets, 4 games to 2
- May 14 Lowell Thomas ends 46 years as radio network reporter
- May 14 Oil tanker Urqui Ola explodes off Spanish coast
- May 15 "Fonz Song" by Heyettes hits #91
- May 15 101st Preakness: John Lively aboard Elocutionist wins in 1:55
- May 15 Kentucky Moonrunner by Cledus Maggard hits #85
- May 15 The Provisional Irish Republican Army kill 3 Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers in County Fermanagh and 1 in County Down
- May 15 The Ulster Volunteer Force launch gun and bomb attacks on 2 pubs in County Armagh, killing 4 Catholic civilians and wounding many more; a British Army soldier is later convicted for taking part in the attacks
Stanley Cup
May 16 Stanley Cup Final, The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA: Guy Lafleur and Pete Mahovlich each have a goal and 2 assists as Montreal Canadiens beat Philadelphia Flyers, 5-3 for a 4 games series sweep
Emmy Awards
May 17 28th Emmy Awards: "The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Jack Albertson & Michael Learned win
- May 17 Earthquake in Uzbekistan: thousands killed
Turnstiles
May 19 Columbia Records releases "Turnstiles", singer-songwriter Billy Joel's fourth studio album
- May 19 Gold ownership legalized in Australia
- May 19 Senate establishes permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
- May 19 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- May 20 USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan USSR
- May 22 NASA launches space vehicle S-179
- May 22 St Louis Cardinal Reggie Smith hits 3 HR
- May 24 1st commercial SST flight to North America (Concorde to Washington, D.C.)
- May 24 In the Judgment of Paris, wine testers rate wines from California higher than their French counterparts, challenging the notion of France being the foremost producer of the world's best wines
Boxing Title Fight
May 24 Muhammad Ali TKOs Richard Dunn in 5 for heavyweight boxing title in Munich
- May 27 Musical whodunit "Something's Afoot" opens at Lyceum Theater, NYC; runs for 61 performances
Cannes Film Festival
May 28 29th Cannes Film Festival: "Taxi Driver" directed by Martin Scorsese wins the Palme d'Or
Music History
May 29 Car tune "One Piece At A Time" by Johnny Cash hits #29
- May 29 Only HR of Joe Niekro's 22-year career, comes off brother Phil
- May 30 Indianapolis 500: Polesitter Johnny Rutherford awarded race after taking the lead on lap 80, and leading when rain halted the race on lap 103; shortest Indy 500 in history
- May 30 LPGA Championship Women's Golf, Pine Ridge GC: Betty Burfeindt wins her only major title, 1 stroke ahead of runner-up Judy Rankin
- May 31 The Who set the record for the loudest concert of all time, 120 decibels at 50 meters, at The Valley in Charlton, London
Authors
Dictators
Explorers
Outlaws
Queens
Spies