On this day: 05/01/1477

Battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold is defeated and killed in a conflict with René II, Duke of Lorraine; Burgundy subsequently becomes part of France.

On this day: 05/01/1675

Battle of Colmar: The French army beats Brandenburg.

On this day: 05/01/1757

Louis XV of France survives an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, the last person to be executed in France by drawing and quartering, the traditional form of capital punishment used for regicides.

On this day: 05/01/1781

American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia, is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.

On this day: 05/01/1875

The Palais Garnier, one of the most famous opera houses in the world, is inaugurated in Paris.

On this day: 05/01/1895

Dreyfus affair: French army officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.

On this day: 05/01/1900

Irish nationalist leader John Edward Redmond calls for revolt against British rule.

On this day: 05/01/1911

Kappa Alpha Psi, the world's third oldest and largest black fraternity, is founded at Indiana University.

On this day: 05/01/1912

The sixth All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Prague Party Conference) opens. In the course of the conference, Vladimir Lenin and his supporters break from the rest of the party to form the Bolshevik movement.

On this day: 05/01/1913

First Balkan War: The Battle of Lemnos begins; Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it did not venture for the rest of the war.