On May 3

Twenty-six people are killed and ninety-eight are injured after an elevated section of the Mexico City Metro collapses.

Three-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal; she has never been found.

A Doppler on Wheels team measured the fastest winds recorded on Earth, at 143.6 m/s (321 mph; 517 km/h), in a tornado near Bridge Creek, Oklahoma.

The Kargil War initiates when Indian forces detected the infiltration of Pakistani forces in Indian-administered Kargil, a city in Jammu and Kashmir.

Erich Honecker became First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the governing party of East Germany.

Police in Birmingham, Alabama, used high-pressure water hoses and dogs against civil-rights protesters, bringing scrutiny on racial segregation in the southern United States.

The Off-Broadway show The Fantasticks premiered, eventually becoming the world's longest-running musical, with 17,162 performances across 42 years.

A new Constitution of Japan went into effect, providing for a parliamentary system of government, guaranteeing certain fundamental rights, and relegating the Japanese monarchy to a purely ceremonial role.

Second World War: The German ocean liner Cap Arcona, afloat in the Bay of Lübeck with thousands of concentration camp survivors on board, was attacked and sunk by the Royal Air Force.

Second World War: Japanese forces began an invasion of Tulagi and nearby islands in the British Solomon Islands, enabling them to threaten and intercept supply and communication routes between the United States and Australasia.

Subhas Chandra Bose formed the All India Forward Bloc, a faction within the Indian National Congress, in opposition to Gandhi's tactics of nonviolence.

Under the British Government of Ireland Act, Ireland was partitioned into two self-governing territories, Northern and Southern Ireland.

Russian Civil War: Relying on Red Army troops in neighboring Azerbaijan, the Bolsheviks attempted to stage a coup d'etat in Georgia.

The oldest Royal Air Force station in continuous operation, RAF Northolt, opened as home to No. 4 Reserve Aeroplane Squadron.

Raja Harishchandra, the first Indian feature-length film, was released.

Edith Maryon's statuette The Dance of Anitra (pictured), one of the only of her works known to survive in private hands, was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts.

A group of American mercenaries led by William Walker set sail from San Francisco to conquer Nicaragua.

The Benty Grange helmet, a boar-crested Anglo-Saxon helmet with parallels to those mentioned in the contemporary epic poem Beowulf, was discovered in Derbyshire, England.

A long-running feud between two towns in Wisconsin came to a head when a schooner crashed into a bridge; they later merged to form the city of Milwaukee.

The Great Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth ratified the first codified national constitution in Europe.