On May 7

A draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome was published, demonstrating that today's humans have Neanderthal ancestors.

Police in Napier, New Zealand, began a 40-hour siege of the home of a former New Zealand Army member who had shot at officers during the routine execution of a search warrant.

Kosovo War: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the United States bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union was holding American pilot Francis Gary Powers, whose spy plane had been shot down six days earlier.

A convoy of circus wagons carrying lions, horses, ponies and an ass lost control and overturned into some shop fronts in Dungannon, Northern Ireland.

Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita founded the telecommunications corporation Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, later renamed Sony.

A three-day debate began in the House of Commons that resulted in British prime minister Neville Chamberlain being replaced by Winston Churchill (pictured).

Employees at Fleischer Studios in New York City went on strike in the animation industry's first major labor strike.

New York City police engaged in a two-hour-long shootout with Francis Crowley, witnessed by 15,000 bystanders, before he finally surrendered.

Alexander Stepanovich Popov presented his lightning detector, one of the first radio receivers in the world, to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society.

War of the First Coalition: A British garrison repelled a French attack on the Îles Saint-Marcouf off the Normandy coast, inflicting heavy losses.

French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre (pictured) established the Cult of the Supreme Being as the new state religion of the French First Republic.

Pontiac, a Native American chief of the Odawa tribe, led an attempt to seize Fort Detroit from the British, marking the start of Pontiac's War.

The 13th-century castle of Tre Kronor in Stockholm burned down; plans for the current royal palace were presented within the year.

Granada War: Forces of Aragon and Castile began a siege of Málaga, a Muslim city in the south of the Iberian Peninsula.