• 1494 - Christopher Columbus first sights land that will later be named "Jamaica"
• 1808 - Washington D.C. is incorporated as a city
• 1921 - West Virginia imposes the first state sales tax
• 1973 - On This Day in History, The Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois becomes the tallest building in the United States, surpassing the World Trade Center in New York

May 3rd in black history:

• 1948 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to African-Americans and other minorities are legally unenforceable.
• 1963 - New attention is brought to the African-American Civil Rights Movement when images come out of Birmingham, Alabama showing the police using physical violence to stop the "Birmingham campaign" protestors
• 1967 - African-American students seize the finance building at Northwestern University and demand black-oriented curriculum and campus reforms

May 3rd tragedies in history:

• 1901 - The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, Florida
• 1986 - Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one injured after a terrorist bomb explodes in an airliner at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka, India
• 1999 - On this day in History an F5 tornado devastates Oklahoma City, Oklahoma killing 42 people, injuring 665 more and causing $1 billion in damage. It is the strongest tornado ever recorded with winds of up to 318 mph

May 3rd in war history:

• 1815 - In the Neapolitan War, Joachim Murat, King of Naples, is defeated by the Austrians at the battle of Telentino, the decisive engagement of the war.
• 1942 - Today in History, Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands, during the first part of Operation Mo that results in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia
• 1947 - New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect

May 3rd in sports history:

• 1877 - Labatt Park, the oldest continually operating baseball grounds in the world, hosts its first game
• 1951 - The Kentucky Derby is televised for the first time
• 1957 - Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn, New York to Los Angeles, California

May 3rd birthdays:

• 1898 - Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel
• 1903 - Bing Crosby, American singer and actor
• 1933 - James Brown, American singer
• 1946 - Greg Gumbel, American sports broadcaster
• 1957 - Rod Langway, American hall of fame ice hockey player

May 3rd deaths:

• 1616 - William Shakespeare, English writer
• 2000 - John Joseph O'Connor, Archbishop of New York
• 2004 - Darrel Johnson, American baseball player
• 2006 - Earl Woods, athlete and father of golf legend, Tiger Woods