May 1
1881 - The U.S. Army abandoned Fort Hartsuff on the North Loup River.
1974 - The last regularly scheduled Union Pacific passenger train left Sidney depot.
May 2
1981 - Pari-mutuel machines broke down at Ak-Sar-Ben Field in Omaha, resulting in a two-hour delay in racing. The machines were fixed and the races resumed.
1947 - Henry Monsky, a lawyer who helped the Rev. Edward Flanagan start Boys Town, died of a heart attack in New York City.
May 3
1873 - Keith County was organized and citizens held their first election. A.H. Bradley was elected sheriff.
May 4
1984 - The state Supreme Court acquitted Attorney General Paul Douglas on six impeachment charges filed by the Legislature over his conduct in office and his personal dealings with a former officer of the failed Commonwealth Savings Co. of Lincoln.
May 5
1969 - The Legislature passed a bill declaring little bluestem the state grass.
1965 - Lightning struck the Nebraska National Forest at Halsey, touching off a fire that destroyed about one-third of the man-made forest.
May 6
1866 - Grenville Dodge assumed his duties as chief engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad.
1877 - The Sioux Indian chief Crazy Horse surrendered at Fort Robinson.
1975 - Tornadoes cut a swath through a large section of Omaha, killing three people and doing millions of dollars in property damage.
May 7
1966 - Kauai King, owned by Mike Ford of Omaha, won the Kentucky Derby.
1911 - The Savidge brothers of Ewing, among the first airplane pilots in the state, gave their first public flight exhibition.
May 8
1950 - Floods struck southeast Nebraska, killing 22 people, most of them travelers trapped by swelling waters.
May 9
1953 - A tornado ripped through Hebron, killing five people and injuring at least 50 others.
1989 - Real estate developer P.J. Morgan was elected mayor of Omaha, thwarting a comeback by Mike Boyle, who had been recalled from the mayor’s office in 1987.
May 10
1869 - The golden spike was driven at Promontory Point, Utah, completing the first transcontinental railroad. The Union Pacific began its link to Utah in Omaha.
May 11
1881 - Lt. Samuel Cherry of the 5th U.S. Cavalry was killed near Fort Niobrara. Cherry County is named for him.
2014 - Beaver Crossing and other communities were struck by a tornado, hail, heavy rain and straight line winds, but no serious injuries were reported.
May 12
1981 - Mike Boyle, who had been Douglas County election commissioner for eight years, was elected mayor of Omaha. He narrowly defeated incumbent Al Veys.
May 13
1923 - Omaha radio station WOAW transmitted the first radio broadcast from the ground to an airplane, reaching an airplane flying over Lake Erie.
1985 - Ruling in the case of an Omaha couple, the U.S. Supreme Court said the government has complete discretion to deport illegal immigrants who manage to stay in the United States longer than seven years.
May 14
1985 - Gov. Bob Kerrey banned the importation of Canadian hogs and livestock treated with chloramphenicol, a drug not approved for use on food animals in the United States.
May 15
1871 - The Army abandoned Fort Sedgwick in Colorado and its last garrison took station at Sidney Barracks in Nebraska.
1887 - The First Congregational Church of Naponee was organized.
1917 - Deuel County Commissioners incorporated the village of Big Springs.
May 16
1867 - Gov. Butler put out a call for a special session of the Legislature, the first during statehood.
1905 - Actor Henry Fonda was born in Grand Island.
1948 - The Rev. Edward Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town, died.
May 17
1883 - Buffalo Bill Cody brought his wild west show to Omaha.
May 18
1861 - Gov. Alvin Saunders ordered the formation of a Nebraska regiment to defend the Union.
1952 - Ground was broken for the Gavins Point Dam on the Missouri River.
May 19
1925 - Malcolm Little, a future civil rights leader who eventually changed his name to Malcolm X, was born in Omaha.
1938 - Evelyn Sharp, 19, flew the first airmail flight into Ord, becoming the first woman airmail pilot in the United States.
2008 - In a pilot project supported by the state Supreme Court, media cameras were allowed in a Beatrice courtroom for a criminal trial.
May 20
1862 - President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, opening millions of acres to settlement.
2013 - Omaha police said a federal, state and local task force was investigating the possibility that the killings of a Creighton University professor and his wife may be linked to the unsolved 2008 stabbing deaths of an 11-year-old boy and his family housekeeper.
May 21
1854 - The Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would organize the Kansas and Nebraska territories, passed in the U.S. House.
May 22
1884 - The Congregation Church was organized in Ogallala. It was the only church between North Platte and Sidney at the time.
1964 - The Combs School near Homer in Dakota County, one of the oldest schools in the state, closed for the last time.
May 23
1949 - A tornado and hailstorms did $2.3 million damage in Hitchcock County.
May 24
1931 - A pilot and a passenger in the only airplane in Wayne were killed when the plane crashed into a creek bank and burst into flames.
May 25
1854 - Congress approved the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which organized the Kansas and Nebraska territories.
May 26
1937 - George W. Norris, a grocery store worker who tried in 1930 to run against U.S. Sen. George W. Norris, was sent to the Lincoln city jail to begin serving a sentence for perjury during a Senate inquiry into the case.
May 27
1899 - Several thousand people gathered at the Burlington railroad station in Lincoln to meet a train carrying the body of Col. John M. Stotsenburg, commander of Nebraska volunteer troops fighting a revolt against U.S. rule of the Philippines.
May 28
1891 - A representative of the Indian Defense Association arrived in Rushville to investigate the causes of the Battle of Wounded Knee in nearby South Dakota.
May 29
1931 - Regents at the Omaha Municipal University set tuition at $110 a year for city residents and $150 for nonresidents.
1940 - The first oil well in the state to produce oil, Bucholz No. 1 near Falls City, began pumping oil.
May 30
1854 - President Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act into law, creating the Kansas and Nebraska territories.
May 31
1935 - The Republican River flooded in southwest Nebraska, killing more than 100 people.
1953 - Nebraska Safety Patrolman Vernon Rolfs of North Platte was shot to death after stopping a man for speeding.
1985 - Four banks in Nebraska and three banks in other states were closed. The closings were blamed on unpaid farm loans.
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