May 1: The Unification Church is founded in South Korea.

May 4: General Alfredo Stroessner seizes power in a coup d'etat in Paraguay.

May 6: Roger Bannister runs the first sub-four minute mile, in Oxford, England.

May 7: Vietnam War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat (the battle began on March 13).

May 8: Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is formed in Manila, Philippines.

May 11: U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles declares that Indochina is important but not essential to the security of Southeast Asia thus ending any prospect of American intervention on the side of France.

May 14: The Boeing 707 is released after about two years of development.

May 15: Latin Union (Union Latina) created by the Convention of Madrid. Its member countries use the five Romance languages: Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian.

May 17: Brown v. Board of Education (347 US 483 1954): The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously that segregated schools are unconstitutional. - The Royal Commission on the Petrov Affair in Australia begins its inquiry. - Adnan Menderes of the Democrat Party forms the new (21st) government of Turkey.

May 20: Chiang Kai-shek is reelected as the president of the Republic of China by the National Assembly.

May 22: The common Nordic Labour Market act is signed.

May 26: A fire on board the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Bennington off Narragansett Bay, Massachusetts, kills 103 sailors.

May 29: Robert Menzies's government is reelected for a fourth term in Australia. - Creation and first meeting of the Bilderberg Group. - Diane Leather becomes the first woman to run a sub-five minute mile, in Birmingham, England. (source: Wikipedia)