Historical Events
Reward for Jeff. Davis
May 2 US President Andrew Johnson offers $100,000 reward for capture of Jefferson Davis
End of the American Civil War
May 9 President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation declaring armed resistance in the South is virtually at an end; this is the commonly accepted end date of the American Civil War
- May 10 Confederate President Jefferson Davis captured by Union troops at Irwinsville Georgia (US Civil War)
- May 10 Major General Sam Jones, the Confederate military leader in Florida, South Carolina and South Georgia, surrenders to Union forces
- May 11 Confederate Brigadier General Meriwether Jeff Thompson surrenders at Jacksonport, Arkansas
- May 12 Last land action of Civil war at Palmito Ranch, Texas
- May 13 Battle of Palmito Ranch, near Brownsville, Texas: final engagement of the American Civil War, Private John Jefferson Williams of B Company, 34th Regiment Indiana Infantry is last man killed
- May 17 The International Telegraph Union (later the International Telecommunication Union) is established
- May 23 -24] Victory parade in Washington, D.C. (Grand Review)
- May 23 Flag flown at full mast over White House for the first time since Lincoln was shot
- May 26 US Civil War Battle of Galveston, (Texas) - Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith negotiates a surrender
Famous Birthdays
Clyde Fitch (1865-1909)
May 2 American playwright (Nathan Hale, The Girl with the Green Eyes), born in Elmira, New York [1]
- May 5 Felicjan Szopski, Polish composer, born in Krzeszowice, Poland (d. 1939)
Nellie Bly (1865-1922)
May 5 American journalist and writer (Ten Days in a Mad House), born in Cochran’s Mills, Pennsylvania
- May 9 August de Boeck, Flemish composer, born in Merchtem, Belgium (d. 1937)
- May 15 Albert Verwey, Dutch poet and literary historian (Motion), born in Amsterdam, Netherlands (d. 1937)
- May 22 Enric Morera i Viura, Spanish musician and composer, born in Barcelona (d. 1942)
- May 23 Epitácio Pessoa, 11th President of Brazil (Minas Gerais Republican: 1919-22), born in Umbuzeiro, Paraíba, Empire of Brazil (d. 1942)
- May 25 Frederick Augustus III, King of Saxony (1904-18), born in Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony (d. 1932)
- May 25 John Mott, American evangelist and organizer (YMCA, Nobel 1946), born in Livingston Manor, Sullivan County, New York (d. 1955)
- May 25 Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist (Zeeman effect, Nobel Prize 1902), born in Zonnemaire, Schouwen-Duiveland (d. 1943)
- May 26 Robert W. Chambers, American artist and fiction writer, born in Brooklyn, New York (d. 1933)
- May 28 Gerrit Grijns, Dutch researcher and co-discoverer of vitamin B1 (thiamine), born in Leerdam, Netherlands (d. 1944)
