| 50431 | May.02 | Event | 1982 – Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano. |
| 50432 | May.02 | Event | 1986 – Chernobyl disaster: The City of Chernobyl is evacuated six days after the disaster |
| 50433 | May.02 | Event | 1989 – Hungary begins dismantling its border fence with Austria, which allows a number of East Germans to defect. |
| 50434 | May.02 | Event | 1994 – A bus crashes in Gdańsk, Poland killing 32 people. |
| 50435 | May.02 | Event | 1995 – During the Croatian War of Independence, the Army of the Republic of Serb Krajina fires cluster bombs at Zagreb, killing seven and wounding over 175 civilians. |
| 50436 | May.02 | Event | 1998 – The European Central Bank is founded in Brussels in order to define and execute the European Union's monetary policy. |
| 50437 | May.02 | Event | 1999 – Panamanian election, 1999: Mireya Moscoso becomes the first woman to be elected President of Panama. |
| 50438 | May.02 | Event | 2000 – President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military. |
| 50439 | May.02 | Event | 2004 – Yelwa massacre ended. It began on 4 February 2004 when armed Muslims attacked the Christians of Yelwa killing more than 78 Christians including at least 48 who were worshipping inside a church compound. More than 630 nomad Muslims were killed by Ch |
| 50440 | May.02 | Event | 2008 – Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Burma killing over 138,000 people and leaving millions of people homeless. |
| 50441 | May.02 | Event | 2008 – Chaitén Volcano begins erupting in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,500 people. |
| 50442 | May.02 | Event | 2011 – Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI's most wanted man is killed by the United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan. |
| 50443 | May.02 | Event | 2011 – An E. coli outbreak strikes Europe, mostly in Germany, leaving more than 30 people dead and many others sick from the bacteria outbreak. |
| 50444 | May.02 | Event | 2012 – A pastel version of The Scream, by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, sells for $120 million in a New York City auction, setting a new world record for a work of art at auction. |
| 50445 | May.02 | Event | 2014 – Two mudslides in Badakhshan, Afghanistan, leave up to 2,500 people missing. |
| 50446 | May.02 | Birth | 1360 – Yongle Emperor of China (d. 1424) |
| 50447 | May.02 | Birth | 1451 – René II, Duke of Lorraine (d. 1508) |
| 50448 | May.02 | Birth | 1458 – Eleanor of Viseu (d. 1525) |
| 50449 | May.02 | Birth | 1533 – Philip II, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen (d. 1596) |
| 50450 | May.02 | Birth | 1551 – William Camden, English historian and topographer (d. 1623) |
| 50451 | May.02 | Birth | 1601 – Athanasius Kircher, German priest and scholar (d. 1680) |
| 50452 | May.02 | Birth | 1660 – Alessandro Scarlatti, Italian composer (d. 1725) |
| 50453 | May.02 | Birth | 1695 – Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni, Italian-French painter and architect (d. 1766) |
| 50454 | May.02 | Birth | 1702 – Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, German theologian and theosopher (d. 1782) |
| 50455 | May.02 | Birth | 1707 – Jean-Baptiste Barrière, French cellist and composer (d. 1747) |
| 50456 | May.02 | Birth | 1729 – Catherine the Great, Russian wife of Peter III of Russia (d. 1796) |
| 50457 | May.02 | Birth | 1737 – William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, Irish-English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1805) |
| 50458 | May.02 | Birth | 1740 – Elias Boudinot, American lawyer and politician, 10th President of the Continental Congress (d. 1821) |
| 50459 | May.02 | Birth | 1750 – John André, English soldier and spy (d. 1780) |
| 50460 | May.02 | Birth | 1752 – Ludwig August Lebrun, German oboe player and composer (d. 1790) |