In History, Today on May 3

Christopher Columbus discovered the island of Jamaica during his second voyage to the Americas.

Washington, D.C. was incorporated as a city.

The poem 'In Flanders Fields' was written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae during World War I.

Gone with the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The new post-war Constitution of Japan went into effect, establishing a parliamentary system and renouncing war.

The Anne Frank House museum opened in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The first unsolicited bulk commercial email (later known as spam) was sent by Gary Thuerk to 393 recipients on ARPANET.

The southwestern portion of Oklahoma City was devastated by an F5 tornado, the strongest recorded in the area.

The United States loses its seat on the United Nations Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.

A military coup attempt takes place in the Central African Republic, led by François Bozizé, against President Ange-Félix Patassé. The coup ultimately fails, but it sets the stage for Bozizé's successful coup in 2003.

New Hampshire's famous Old Man of the Mountain, a series of granite cliff ledges on Cannon Mountain that resembled the profile of a face, collapses.

The International Criminal Court issues its first-ever arrest warrants, targeting leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, including Joseph Kony, for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Madeleine McCann, a three-year-old British girl, disappears from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, sparking a high-profile international search and media frenzy.

Osama bin Laden's death is confirmed by al-Qaeda, five days after he was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

A gunfight erupts at a 'Draw Muhammad' cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, resulting in the deaths of two gunmen and the injury of a security guard.

A wildfire begins in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, leading to the evacuation of over 80,000 residents and becoming one of the costliest disasters in Canadian history.

The eruption of Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii begins, leading to the destruction of hundreds of homes and the evacuation of thousands of residents.

Cyclone Fani makes landfall in Odisha, India, causing widespread damage and leading to the evacuation of over a million people.