Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/May 31
This is a list of selected May 31 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Johnstown flood debris
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Faisal II of Iraq (age 5)
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The first Madison Square Garden
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MV Mavi Marmara
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Mark Felt
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Statue of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel
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Samuel Pepys
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'Abd al-Ilah
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| ; Mother's Day in Algeria, France, Morocco and Sweden (2015) | refimprove |
| 1279 BC – Ramesses II became Pharaoh of Egypt. | refimprove section |
| 1669 – Citing poor eyesight, English naval administrator and Member of Parliament Samuel Pepys recorded his last entry in his diary, one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. | refimprove section |
| 1889 – The South Fork Dam near Johnstown, Pennsylvania, failed, unleashing a torrent of 18.1 million cubic meters (4.8 billion gallons) of water that killed over 2,200 people. | refimprove section |
| 1910 – The South Africa Act came into force, uniting four colonies into the Union of South Africa, exactly 51 years before it became the Republic of South Africa. | Act: unreferenced section; Union: refimprove section |
| 1916 – The German High Seas Fleet and British Grand Fleet clashed in the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of the First World War. | refimprove section |
| 1921 – A large-scale race riot began in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in which the Greenwood District, the wealthiest African-American community in the U.S., was destroyed by fire. | page ranges too broad |
| 1970 – The Ancash earthquake devastated various coastal towns in Peru and resulted in a massive avalanche on the north side of Nevado Huascarán, burying the town of Yungay. | refimprove |
| 2010 – During an attempt to break the ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Navy engaged in armed conflict with the crew of the MV Mavi Marmara, resulting in nine civilian deaths. | Raid: expansion; Mavi Marmara: multiple issues |
| Chien-Shiung Wu (b. 1912) | POTD for 2019 |
| Jørgen Jensen (d. 1922) | TFA for April 2, 2019 |
Eligible
- 1223 – Mongol invasions: Mongol forces defeated a combined army of Kiev, Galich, and the Cumans at the Kalchik River in present-day Ukraine.
- 1775 – American Revolution: The Committee of Safety of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, adopted the Mecklenburg Resolves, which annulled and vacated all laws originating from the authority of the King or Parliament.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Confederate forces under Joseph E. Johnston and G. W. Smith engaged Union forces under George B. McClellan at the Battle of Seven Pines outside Richmond, Virginia.
- 1879 – Gilmore's Garden in New York City was renamed Madison Square Garden, the city's first venue to use that name.
- 1902 – The Second Boer War came to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging.
- 1941 – The United Kingdom completed its re-occupation of Iraq, returning 'Abd al-Ilah to power as regent for Faisal II.
- 2005 – An article in the magazine Vanity Fair revealed that the secret informant known as "Deep Throat", who provided information about the Watergate scandal, was former FBI Associate Director Mark Felt.
- Born this day: Albertino Mussato (d. 1329) · Nur Jahan (b. 1577) · Joseph Grimaldi (d. 1837) · Bernard Lewis (b. 1916) · Clint Eastwood (b. 1930) · Timothy Leary (d. 1996) · Jan Crouch (d. 2016)
May 31: World No Tobacco Day; Feast of the Visitation (Catholicism and Anglicanism); International Quds Day (2019)
- 1293 – The forces of Raden Wijaya won a major victory in the Mongol invasion of Java, which is considered to be the founding date of the city of Surabaya.
- 1795 – French Revolution: The Revolutionary Tribunal (pictured), a court instituted by the National Convention for the trial of political offenders, was suppressed.
- 1935 – An earthquake of magnitude 7.7 Mw struck Balochistan in the British Raj, now part of Pakistan, killing between 30,000 and 60,000 people.
- 1981 – An organized mob of police and government-sponsored paramilitias began burning the public library in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, destroying more than 97,000 items in one of the most violent examples of ethnic biblioclasm of the 20th century.
- 2009 – American physician George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions, was shot and killed by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist.
Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud (b. 1753) · Walt Whitman (b. 1819) · Carla Lane (d. 2016)