Wednesday, May 1, 1850

The evacuation of nearly 88,000 people began when a wildfire swept through Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, and burned for another 14 months, becoming the costliest disaster in Canadian history.

Faisal Shahzad attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, New York City, but it failed to explode.

The Horncastle boar's head (pictured), which probably once formed part of the crest of an Anglo-Saxon helmet, was found.

In Major League Baseball, Rickey Henderson broke the record for stolen bases on the same night that Nolan Ryan broke his own record for no-hitters.

Argentine president Juan Perón expelled Montoneros from a demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, forcing the group to become a clandestine organization.

Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Sicilian separatist Salvatore Giuliano and his gang fired into a crowd of May Day marchers near Piana degli Albanesi, Sicily, killing 11 and wounding 33.

Second World War: British and Indian forces conducted a successful airborne assault on a Japanese artillery battery during the advance to liberate Rangoon, Burma.

Citizen Kane, a widely acclaimed film by actor and director Orson Welles, premiered.

New York City's Empire State Building (pictured), at the time the tallest building in the world, opened.

A dust explosion at a coal mine near Scofield, Utah, U.S., killed at least 200 miners.

The Ramakrishna Mission was founded by Swami Vivekananda to serve as the humanitarian counterpart to the Hindu monastic order Ramakrishna Math.