Rear Admiral George Dewey's American Asiatic Squadron destroys Spanish Pacific Squadron in the Battle of Manila Bay.

Tmarks the official beginning of the second attempt to build the Panama Canal. This second attempt to bridge the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans will succeed.

Minor holiday in Mexico celebrates the 1862 victory of Mexican army over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War.

Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh forces decisively defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu, a French stronghold besieged by the Vietnamese communists for 57 days.

The German High Command, in the person of General Alfred Jodl, signs the unconditional surrender of all German forces, East and West, at Reims, in northeastern France.

The British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. 1,198 people drowned, including 128 Americans.

On May 8, 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, rejoice in the end of war.

The presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads.

The U.S. Congress overwhelmingly votes in favor of President James K. Polk’s request to declare war on Mexico in a dispute over Texas.

Some 100 English colonists arrive along the east bank of the James River in Virginia to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America.

One year after the United States doubled its territory with the Louisiana Purchase, the expedition leaves St. Louis, Missouri, on a mission to explore the Northwest from the Mississippi to the Pacific

On May 17, 1943, the crew of the Memphis Belle, one of a group of American bombers based in Britain, becomes the first B-17 crew to complete 25 missions over Europe.

Humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons found the American National Red Cross, an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters.