Editing May 3 (section)

===1901–present===
*[[1901]] &ndash; The [[Great Fire of 1901]] begins in [[Jacksonville, Florida]].
*[[1913]] &ndash; ''[[Raja Harishchandra]]'', the first full-length Indian [[feature film]], is released, marking the beginning of the [[Cinema of India|Indian film industry]].
*[[1920]] &ndash; A [[1920 Georgian coup attempt|Bolshevik coup]] fails in the [[Democratic Republic of Georgia]].
*[[1921]] &ndash; [[Partition of Ireland|Ireland is partitioned]] under British law by the [[Government of Ireland Act 1920]], creating [[Northern Ireland]] and [[Southern Ireland (1921–22)|Southern Ireland]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Torrance |first1=David |title=100 years since the Government of Ireland Act 1920 |url=https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/100-years-since-the-government-of-ireland-act-1920/ |website=commonslibrary.parliament.uk |access-date=26 March 2025 |date=21 December 2020}}</ref>
*  1921   &ndash; [[West Virginia]] becomes the first state to legislate a broad [[sales tax]], but does not implement it until a number of years later due to enforcement issues.
*[[1928]] &ndash; The [[Jinan incident]] begins with the deaths of twelve Japanese civilians by Chinese forces in Jinan, China, which leads to Japanese retaliation and the deaths of over 2,000 Chinese civilians in the following days.<ref>{{cite book |first=C. Martin |last=Wilbur |author-link=C. Martin Wilbur |chapter=The Nationalist Revolution: from Canton to Nanking, 1923–1928 |series=[[Cambridge History of China]] |volume=12 |title=Republican China, 1912–1949 Pt I |location=[[Cambridge]] |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1983 |pages=702–706}}</ref>
*[[1939]] &ndash; The [[All India Forward Bloc]] is formed by Netaji [[Subhas Chandra Bose]].
*[[1942]] &ndash; [[World War II]]: [[Empire of Japan|Japanese]] naval troops [[Invasion of Tulagi (May 1942)|invade Tulagi]] Island in the [[Solomon Islands]] during the first part of [[Operation Mo]] that results in the [[Battle of the Coral Sea]] between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia.
*[[1945]] &ndash; World War II: Sinking of the [[prison ship]]s ''[[SS Cap Arcona (1927)|Cap Arcona]]'', ''[[SS Thielbek (1940)|Thielbek]]'' and ''[[SS Deutschland (1923)|Deutschland]]'' by the [[Royal Air Force]] in  [[Lübeck Bay]].
*[[1947]] &ndash; New post-war [[Constitution of Japan|Japanese constitution]] goes into effect.
*[[1948]] &ndash; The [[U.S. Supreme Court]] rules in ''[[Shelley v. Kraemer]]'' that covenants prohibiting the sale of [[real estate]] to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.<ref>{{cite book|last=Meyer|first=Stephen Grant|title='As Long as They Don't Move Next Door': Segregation and Racial Conflict in American Neighborhoods|location=[[Lanham, Maryland]]|publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]]|date=2000|isbn=978-0-8476-9700-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0jQtLcwuOLkC|page=265, fn. 41}}</ref>
*[[1951]] &ndash; London's [[Royal Festival Hall]] opens with the [[Festival of Britain]].
*  1951   &ndash; The [[United States Senate Committee on Armed Services]] and [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations]] begin their closed door hearings into the [[relief of Douglas MacArthur]] by U.S. President Harry Truman.
*[[1952]] &ndash; [[Lieutenant Colonel]]s [[Joseph O. Fletcher]] and [[William P. Benedict]] of the United States land a plane at the [[North Pole]].
*  1952   &ndash; The [[Kentucky Derby]] is televised nationally for the first time, on the [[CBS]] network.
*[[1953]] &ndash; Two men are rescued from a [[semitrailer]] that crashed over the side of the [[Pit River Bridge]] before it fell into the [[Sacramento River]]. Amateur photographer [[Virginia Schau]] photographs "Rescue on Pit River Bridge", the first and only winning submission for the [[Pulitzer Prize for Photography]] to have been taken by a woman.<ref name="Fischer2011">{{cite book|author=Heinz Dietrich Fischer|title=Picture Coverage of the World: Pulitzer Prize Winning Photos|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dw0Gx8XsWdUC&pg=PA30|accessdate=9 April 2012|date=June 2011|publisher=LIT Verlag Münster|isbn=978-3-643-10844-9|pages=30–31}}</ref>
*[[1957]] &ndash; [[Walter O'Malley]], the owner of the [[Brooklyn Dodgers]], agrees to move the team from [[Brooklyn]] to Los Angeles.
*[[1963]] &ndash; The police force in [[Birmingham, Alabama]] switches tactics and [[Birmingham campaign#Fire hoses and police dogs|responds with violent force]] to stop the "[[Birmingham campaign]]" protesters. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing new-found attention to the [[civil rights movement]].
*[[1968]] &ndash; Eighty-five people are killed when [[Braniff International Airways Flight 352]] crashes near [[Dawson, Texas]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ranter |first=Harro |title=ASN Aircraft accident Lockheed L-188A Electra N9707C Dawson, TX |url=https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19680503-0 |access-date=2022-05-02 |website=aviation-safety.net |publisher=[[Aviation Safety Network]]}}</ref>
*[[1971]] &ndash; [[Erich Honecker]] becomes [[Leadership of East Germany#Leaders of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED)|First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany]], remaining in power until 1989.<ref>{{cite book|last=Winkler|first=Heinrich August|author-link=Heinrich August Winkler|title=Germany: The Long Road West, Vol. 2: 1933–1990|pages=266–268|year=2007|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}</ref>
*[[1978]] &ndash; The first unsolicited bulk commercial [[email]] (which would later become known as "[[spam (electronic)|spam]]") is sent by a [[Digital Equipment Corporation]] marketing representative to every [[ARPANET]] address on the west coast of the United States. 
*[[1979]] &ndash; [[Margaret Thatcher]] wins the United Kingdom [[1979 United Kingdom general election|general election]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=United Kingdom - The Margaret Thatcher government (1979–90)|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Kingdom|access-date=2020-09-17|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}</ref> The following day, she becomes the first female [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|British Prime Minister]].
*[[1986]] &ndash; Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes on [[Air Lanka Flight 512]] at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka.
*[[1987]] &ndash; A crash by [[Bobby Allison]] at the [[Talladega Superspeedway]], [[Alabama]] fencing at the start-finish line would lead [[NASCAR]] to develop the [[restrictor plate]] for the following season both at [[Daytona International Speedway]] and Talladega.
*[[1999]] &ndash; The southwestern portion of [[Oklahoma City]] is devastated by an [[1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado|F5 tornado]], killing forty-five people, injuring 665, and causing $1&nbsp;billion in damage. The tornado is one of 66 from the [[1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak]]. This tornado also produces the highest wind speed ever recorded, measured at {{convert|301 +/- 20|mph|km/h|order=flip}}. In meteorology, the term "May 3" is synonymous with the F5 tornado.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Morgan |first1=Mike |date=20 May 2013 |title=Moore, OK Deadly Tornado from KFOR live broadcast (May 20, 2013) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga7niHGgSN4 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231101055339/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga7niHGgSN4 |archive-date=1 November 2023 |access-date=1 November 2023 |website=[[YouTube]] |publisher=[[KFOR-TV]] |format=[[Video]] (13:19-13:36) |quote=Folks, this is essentially, and you never want to say it, but we're going to say it right now. This is May 3rd all over again as far as the intensity of this tornado, where it is heading, and something has to change fast or it is going to be very close to a May 3rd event.}}</ref>
*  1999   &ndash; Infiltration of Pakistani soldiers on Indian side results in the [[Kargil War]].
*[[2000]] &ndash; The sport of [[geocaching]] begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a [[Global Positioning System|GPS]] posted on [[Usenet]].
*[[2001]] &ndash; The United States loses its seat on the [[U.N. Human Rights Commission]] for the first time since the commission was formed in [[1947]].
*[[2006]] &ndash; [[Armavia Flight 967]] crashes into the [[Black Sea]] near [[Sochi International Airport]] in [[Sochi]], Russia, killing 113 people.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Ranter|first=Harro|title=ASN Aircraft accident Airbus A320-211 EK32009 Adler/Sochi Airport (AER)|url=https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20060503-0|access-date=2022-01-31|website=aviation-safety.net|publisher=[[Aviation Safety Network]]}}</ref>
*[[2007]] &ndash; The three-year-old British girl [[Disappearance of Madeleine McCann|Madeleine McCann]] disappears in Praia da Luz, Portugal, starting "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history".
*[[2015]] &ndash; Two gunmen [[Curtis Culwell Center attack|launch an attempted attack]] on an anti-Islam event in [[Garland, Texas]], which was held in response to the [[Charlie Hebdo shooting|''Charlie Hebdo'' shooting]].
*[[2016]] &ndash; Eighty-eight thousand people are evacuated from their homes in [[Fort McMurray]], Alberta, Canada as [[2016 Fort McMurray Wildfire|a wildfire rips through the community]], destroying approximately 2,400 homes and buildings.<ref>{{Cite news|date=2016-05-06|title=Canada wildfire: Images show Fort McMurray devastation|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36224767|access-date=2021-05-22}}</ref>
*[[2021]] &ndash; Twenty-six people are killed and ninety-eight are injured after an elevated section of the [[Mexico City Metro]] [[Mexico City Metro overpass collapse|collapses]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/12/world/americas/mexico-city-train-crash.html|title=Why the Mexico City Metro Collapsed|work=The New York Times|date=2021-06-13|access-date=2025-05-02|first1=Natalie|last1=Kitroeff|first2=Maria|last2=Abi-Habib|first3=James|last3=Glanz|first4=Oscar|last4=Lopez|first5=Wiyi|last5=Cai|first6=Evan|last6=Grothjan|first7=Miles|last7=Peyton|first8=Alejandro|last8=Cegarra|url-access=limited|archive-date=20 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210620233905/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/12/world/americas/mexico-city-train-crash.html|url-status=live}}</ref> 
*[[2023]] &ndash; Nine students and a security guard are killed in the [[Belgrade school shooting]], the first attack of its kind in [[Serbia]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-65469813|title=At least nine dead in Serbia school shooting|work=BBC News|last=Lee|first=Dulcie|date=3 May 2023|access-date=3 May 2023}}</ref>