1824, Beethoven‘s 9th Symphony debuted in Vienna, Austria.
1914, Congress passed a national Mothers’ Day holiday for the second Sunday in May without a single “no” vote.
1915, The British liner Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland on its return trip from New York to England. Of the 1,959 passengers and crew on board, 1,198 died, including 128 Americans.
1945, Germany signed an unconditional surrender that took effect the following day, ending World War II in the European theater.
1954, Vietnamese forces beat the French at Dien Bien Phu, ending the Indochina War.
1977, Seattle Slew won the 103rd Kentucky Derby by one-and three-quarter lengths. He went on to take the Preakness and the Belmont, winning the Triple Crown.
1985, Ten years after the Vietnam War ended, New York City honored the conflict’s veterans with a ticker tape parade.
1999, NATO jets mistakenly attacked the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three people and injuring 20.
1999, A jury in Pontiac, Michigan, ordered The Jenny Jones Show to pay $25 million to the family of Scott Amedure, a gay man who was shot to death after revealing a crush on Jonathan Schmitz, a fellow guest on the talk show.
2000, A second fire was set to contain an earlier blaze that was begun to clear brush on the Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico; the second fire blew out of control, destroying more than 200 homes and damaging part of the Los Alamos National Laboratory before it was controlled.
2000, President Vladimir Putin took the oath of office in Russia’s first democratic transfer of power.