May 2
• 1906 – Closing ceremony of the Intercalated Games in Athens, Greece.
• 1918 – General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.
• 1920 – The first game of the Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis.
• 1932 – Comedian Jack Benny's radio show airs for the first time.
• 1933 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler bans trade unions.
• 1941 – Following the coup d'état against Iraq Crown Prince 'Abd al-Ilah earlier that year, the United Kingdom launches the Anglo-Iraqi War to restore him to power.
• 1945 – World War II: Fall of Berlin: The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin and Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over the Reichstag building.
• 1945 – World War II: Italian Campaign: General Heinrich von Vietinghoff signs the official instrument of surrender of all Wehrmacht forces in Italy.
• 1945 – World War II: The US 82nd Airborne Division liberates Wöbbelin concentration camp finding 1000 dead prisoners, most of whom starved to death.
• 1946 – The "Battle of Alcatraz" takes place; two guards and three inmates are killed.
• 1952 – The world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1 makes its maiden flight, from London to Johannesburg.
• 1955 – Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
• 1963 – Berthold Seliger launches a rocket with three stages and a maximum flight altitude of more than 100 kilometres near Cuxhaven. It is the only sounding rocket developed in Germany.
• 1964 – Vietnam War: An explosion sinks the USS Card while it is docked at Saigon. Viet Cong forces are suspected of placing a bomb on the ship. She is raised and returned to service less than seven months later.
• 1964 – First ascent of Shishapangma the fourteenth highest mountain in the world and the lowest of the Eight-thousanders.
• 1969 – The British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 departs on her maiden voyage to New York City.
• 1972 – In the early morning hours a fire breaks out at the Sunshine Mine located between Kellogg and Wallace, Idaho, killing 91 workers.
• 1980 – Referendum on system of government held in Nepal.
• 1982 – Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano.
• 1986 – Chernobyl disaster: The City of Chernobyl is evacuated six days after the disaster
• 1989 – Hungary begins dismantling its border fence with Austria, which allows a number of East Germans to defect.
• 1994 – A bus crashes in Gdańsk, Poland killing 32 people.
• 1995 – During the Croatian War of Independence, the Army of the Republic of Serb Krajina fires cluster bombs at Zagreb, killing seven and wounding over 175 civilians.
• 1998 – The European Central Bank is founded in Brussels in order to define and execute the European Union's monetary policy.
• 1999 – Panamanian general election, 1999: Mireya Moscoso becomes the first woman to be elected President of Panama.
• 2000 – President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military.
• 2004 – The Yelwa massacre concludes. It began on 4 February 2004 when armed Muslims killed 78 Christians at Yelwa. In response, about 630 Muslims were killed by Christians on May 2nd.
• 2008 – Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Burma killing over 138,000 people and leaving millions of people homeless.
• 2008 – Chaitén Volcano begins erupting in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,500 people.
• 2011 – Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI's most wanted man, is killed by the United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
• 2011 – An E. coli outbreak strikes Europe, mostly in Germany, leaving more than 30 people dead and many others sick from the bacteria outbreak.
• 2011 – The 41st Canadian federal election is held, in which the governing Conservative Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper, increases their number of seats from a minority to a majority.
• 2012 – A pastel version of The Scream, by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, sells for $120 million in a New York City auction, setting a new world record for a work of art at auction.
• 2014 – Two mudslides in Badakhshan, Afghanistan, leave up to 2,500 people missing.