May 10 is the 130th day of the year (131st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 235 days remain until the end of the year.
1503 - Christopher Columbus discovered the Cayman Islands.
1676 - In Virginia, Bacon's Rebellion began. Nathaniel Badon led the the rebellion which pitted frontiersmen against the government.
1768 - The imprisonment of the journalist John Wilkes as an outlaw provoked violence in London. Wilkes was returned to parliament as a member for Middlesex.
1773 - The English Parliament passed the Tea Act, which taxed all tea in the American colonies. The legislation led to the Boston Tea Party.
1774 - Louis XVI ascended the throne of France.
1775 - Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold led an attack on the British Fort Ticonderoga and captured it from the British.
1840 - Mormon leader Joseph Smith moved his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities they had experienced in Missouri.
1865 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis was captured by Union troops near Irvinville, GA.
1869 - Central Pacific and Union Pacific Rail Roads meet in Promontory, UT. A golden spike was driven in at the celebration of the first transcontinental railroad in the U.S.
1878 - Paul Hines made baseball's first unassisted triple play.
1915 - H.P. Whitney's Regret became the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby.
1933 - The Nazis staged massive public book burnings in Germany.
1940 - Germany invaded Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
1941 - England's House of Commons was destroyed by a German air raid.
1941 - Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, parachuted into Scotland on what he claimed was a peace mission.
1942 - U.S. forces in the Philippines began to surrender to the Japanese.
1943 - U.S. troops invaded Attu in the Aleutian Islands to expel the Japanese.
1963 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy offered Israel assistance against aggression.
1968 - Preliminary Vietnam peace talks began in Paris.
1969 - The National and American Football Leagues announced their plans to merge for the 1970-71 season.
1970 - The Beatles album 'Let it Be' was released.
1978 - Britain's Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon announced they were divorcing after 18 years of marriage.
1984 - Kirby Puckett (Minnesota Twins) debuted with four singles.
1986 - Navy Lt. Commander Donnie Cochran became the first black pilot to fly with the Blue Angels team.
1994 - Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa’s first black president.
1997 - An earthquake in northeastern Iran killed at least 2,400 people.