Historical Events on May 10

  • 1775: A small Colonial militia known as the Green Mountain Boys and led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold seize Fort Ticonderoga from the British.
  • 1775: The Second Continental Congress begins in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with a delegate from each of the Thirteen Colonies during the American Revolutionary War.
  • 1801: The First Barbary War begins when the Barbary Pirates of Tripoli declare war against the U.S.
  • 1824: In the city of London in England, the National Gallery officially opens to the general public.
  • 1837: Unemployment skyrockets and banks in New York begin to fail during the Panic of 1837 – which begins on this day.
  • 1864: Union Colonel Emory Upton leads a ten regiment attack against the Confederate works at the Battle of Spotsylvania during the American Civil War.
  • 1865: Union troops capture Confederate President Jefferson Davis near Irwinville, Georgia.
  • 1865: Confederate raider William Quantrill is ambushed and mortally wounded by Union soldiers in Kentucky during the American Civil War. Quantrill will eventually die on the 6th of June.
  • 1908: In the town of Grafton in West Virginia, Mother’s Day is observed for the first time in the U.S.
  • 1922: The U.S annexes the Kingman Reef – an uninhabited triangular reef which is roughly halfway between the Hawaiian Islands and the Samoan Islands in the Northern Pacific Ocean.
  • 1924: Edgar Hoover becomes the first Director of the U.S Federal Bureau of Investigation (the FBI). He would remain in that position until his death in 1972.
  • 1933: Massive public book burnings are staged by the Nazis.
  • 1940: Germany begins bombing raids on British shipping convoys.
  • 1940: Germany invades the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium.
  • 1940: Winston Churchill is made Prime Minister of the U.K.

Famous Birthdays on May 10

  • American actor and assassin of U.S President Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth is born in 1838.
  • German journalist, Chancellor and Nobel Prize laureate, Gustav Stresemann is born in 1878.
  • American actor, dancer and singer, Fred Astaire is born in 1899.
  • English singer Sid Vicious is born in 1957.
  • American rapper and producer, Craig Mack is born in 1971.