📜 This Day in History

May 1

• 305Diocletian and Maximian retired as co-rulers of the Roman Empire, being succeeded by Galerius and Constantius Chlorus.
• 1625Dutch–Portuguese War: Portuguese and Spanish forces recaptured the Brazilian city of Bahia, which had previously been captured by the Dutch Republic.
• 1884Moses Fleetwood Walker, the last African American in Major League Baseball until Jackie Robinson, played his first game for the Toledo Blue Stockings.
• 1931New York City's Empire State Building, at the time the tallest building in the world, opened.
• 1974Argentine president Juan Perón expelled Montoneros from a demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, forcing the group to become a clandestine organization.
• 2016The evacuation of nearly 88,000 people began when a wildfire swept through Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, and burned for another 14 months, becoming the costliest disaster in Canadian history.

Born on this day

• 1672Joseph Addison, English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician (died 1719)
• 1769Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Irish-English field marshal and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1852)
• 1852Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish neuroscientist and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1934)
• 1988Anushka Sharma, Indian actress and film producer