May 03

General Strike began at midnight, the first in British history

IRA troops under Tom Maguire fight off 600 English troops in Tourmakeady, Co. Mayo

Patrick Pearse, Thomas Clarke and Thomas MacDonagh executed by firing squad in Kilmainham jail

Walter Macken, novelist, born in Galway

Bing Crosby, descendant of Irish immigrants, is born in Tacoma, Washington

Welsh Thomas Coke, a Methodist cleric and missionary, died

The Irish Academy, later to become the Royal Irish Academy, meets for the first time

Sir Wentworth Harman, MP for Lanesborough, dies

John Knox began the Reformation in Scotland.

John Knox (1505, 1513 or 1514 – 1572) was a Scottish religious reformer who played the lead part in reforming the Church in Scotland in a Presbyterian manner. He is widely regarded as the father of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, and of the Church of Scotland. He died in Edinburgh on November 24, 1572.