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. Four
days of battles between Japanese and American aircraft
carriers resulted in 70 Japanese and 66 American warplanes
destroyed.

Atlanta magazine writer Margaret Mitchell (above) earned the
Pulitzer Prize in Novels for her breathtaking work of historical
fiction, "Gone with the Wind," on this day in history, May 3, 1937.

"Gone with the Wind," Mitchell’s 1,000-page Civil War saga, is
one of the world’s most successful novels. Even today, it enjoys
a global following.

“Soul Brother #1,”The Godfather of Soul,” “Mr. Dynamite,”
“Sex Machine,” “The Minister of the New New Super Heavy
Funk.” These are some of the names by which the world
would eventually know James Joseph Brown, Jr., the
revolutionary musical figure who was born on May 3, 1933.

James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006)

The modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster is born when a
sighting makes local news on May 2, 1933. The newspaper
Inverness Courier relates an account of a local couple who
claim to have seen “an enormous animal rolling and plunging
on the surface.” The story of the “monster” (a moniker chosen
by the Courier editor) becomes a media phenomenon, with
London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and
a circus offering a 20,000 pound sterling reward for capture of
the beast.

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11,
20011, 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.

Bin Laden’s body was flown by helicopter to Afghanistan for
official identification, then buried at an undisclosed location
in the Arabian Sea less than 24 hours after his death, in
accordance with Islamic practice.

The grounds of the compound are seen after US Navy Seal
commandos raid.