On May 4, 1970, in Kent, Ohio, 28 National Guardsmen fire their
weapons at a group of anti-war demonstrators on the Kent State University campus, killing four students and wounding nine.

The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the
conflict in Vietnam, and further galvanized the anti-war movement.

Two days earlier, on May 2, National Guard troops were called to
Kent to suppress students rioting in protest of the Vietnam War
and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.

Some of the protesters, refusing to yield, responded by throwing
rocks and verbally taunting the troops (below).

On May 3, 1942, during World War II, the first modern naval
engagement in history, the Battle of the Coral Sea, began. A
Japanese invasion force succeeds in occupying Tulagi of the
Solomon Islands in an expansion of Japan’s defensive perimeter.

The United States, having broken Japan’s secret war code and forewarned of an impending invasion of Tulagi and Port Moresby,
attempted to intercept the Japanese armada.

The American aircraft carrier USS Lexington explodes on 8
May 1942, several hours after being damaged by a Japanese carrier air attack.

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11,
2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, was killed by U.S.
forces during a raid on his compound hideout in Pakistan.

The notorious, 54-year-old leader of Al Qaeda, the terrorist
network of Islamic extremists, had been the target of a nearly
decade-long international manhunt.

The raid began around 1 a.m. local time (4 p.m. EST on May 1,
2011 in the United States), when 23 U.S. Navy SEALs in two
Black Hawk helicopters descended on the compound in
Abbottabad, a tourist and military center north of Pakistan’s
capital, Islamabad. One of the helicopters crash-landed into
the compound but no one aboard was hurt.

During the raid, which lasted approximately 40 minutes, five
people, including bin Laden and one of his adult sons, were
killed by U.S. gunfire. No Americans were injured in the assault.

A vendor walks past a sand sculpture of al-Qaeda leader
Osama bin Laden created by Indian sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik on a beach in Puri in the eastern Indian state of
Orissa on May 2, 2011. (Reuters)

Ulysses S. Grant (April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885)

Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War leader and 18th president of the
United States, was born on April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant,
Ohio.

The son of a tanner, Grant showed little enthusiasm for joining
his father’s business, so the elder Grant enrolled his son at
West Point in 1839.

Though Grant later admitted he had no interest in the military
apart from honing his equestrian skills, he graduated in 1843
and went on to serve in the Mexican-American War, though
he opposed it on moral grounds. He then left his beloved wife
and children again to fulfill a tour of duty in California and
Oregon.

On April 24, 1980, an ill-fated military operation to rescue
the 52 American hostages held in Tehran ended with eight
U.S. servicemen dead and no hostages rescued.

With the Iran Hostage Crisis stretching into its sixth month
and all diplomatic appeals to the Iranian government ending
in failure, President Jimmy Carter ordered the military mission
as a last ditch attempt to save the hostages.

The next day, a somber Jimmy Carter gave a press conference
in which he took full responsibility for the tragedy. The hostages
were not released for another 270 days.

President Carter flew to West Germany to greet the Americans
on their way home.