Portal:History of science/Selected anniversaries/May 1
- 1753 - Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature
- 1772 - Death of Gottfried Achenwall, German statistician (b. 1719)
- 1824 - Birth of Julius von Haast, German geologist (d. 1887)
- 1851 - The Great Exhibition is opened in London by Queen Victoria.
- 1852 - Birth of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish histologist, neuroscientist and Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1934)
- 1881 - Birth of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French palaeontologist and philosopher (d. 1955)
- 1893 - The World's Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago, Illinois.
- 1899 - Death of Ludwig Büchner, German philosopher and physiologist (b. 1824)
- 1901 - The Pan-American Exposition opens in Buffalo, New York.
- 1918 - Birth of Gersh Budker, Russian physicist (d. 1977)
- 1930 - The planet Pluto is officially named.
- 1956 - The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.
- 1978 - The Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council is created to administer government research grants.