May 3

Events

1494 - Christopher Columbus first sights land that will be called Jamaica.
1802 – Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city.
1915 – The poem In Flanders Fields is written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.
1921 - Ireland is partitioned.
1937 – Gone with the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
1945 - World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay.
1973 – The Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out as the world's tallest building.
1979 – Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher becomes the United Kingdom's first female prime minister as the Labour government is ousted in parliamentary elections.
2006 - Terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui is sentenced to life in prison in Alexandria, Virginia.