Ten things that happened on May 2:
- Buddy Baker wins the Winston Select 500 at the Alabama International Motor Speedway in Talladega, Alabama (1972)
- Peruvian defenders fight off Spanish fleet at the Battle of Callao (1866)
- William Camden, English historian, born (1551)
- Northern Dancer wins the Kentucky Derby (1964)
- John Carew Eccles, Nobel Prize-winning neurophysiologist, dies (1997)
- Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler bans trade unions (1933)
- J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, dies (1972)
- Hans Christian Lumbye, Danish composer, born (1810)
- Satyajit Ray, Indian director, born (1921)
- Northern Dancer wins the Kentucky Derby (1964)