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From Wikipedia's newest articles:

• ... that Benjamin Motte published many famous works such as Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (pictured) and the first English edition of Isaac Newton's Principia, an edition that became the standard translation for over 200 years?
• ... that the obscure mealybug, a pest of vineyards in New Zealand and California, is believed to have been introduced from Australia or South America?
• ... that the present-day city of Davenport, Iowa is named after George Davenport, a 19th century American frontiersman, trader and US Army officer?
• ... that the Tamil film Thyagabhoomi is the only Indian film banned by the British Raj for propagating the cause of India's freedom struggle?
• ... that Daniel Carter Beard's boyhood home was a nurses' dormitory when it became a National Historic Landmark?
• ... that it was rumored that some seals escaped Minneapolis's Longfellow Zoological Gardens into nearby Minnehaha Creek?
• ... that the forthcoming Tamil film Guru En Aalu, starring Madhavan and Mamta Mohandas, is a remake of the 1997 film Yes Boss?
  

• An international relief operation begins after Cyclone Nargis (pictured) strikes Burma, with at least 63,500 people reported killed or missing.
• In Zimbabwe, results of the presidential election held in March 2008 are announced with no outright winner, necessitating a run-off between Morgan Tsvangirai and incumbent Robert Mugabe.
• HP Labs announces the creation of a memristor, the fourth basic element of electronic circuits with the resistor, capacitor, and inductor.
• A train collision near Zibo, China, kills at least 72 people.
• Maoists win a plurality of seats in the Nepalese Constituent Assembly election, the first election in Nepal in nine years.
• Researchers discover what is believed to be the first use of oil painting at Bamyan in Afghanistan, predating European oil painting by some six centuries.

May 8: Yom Ha'atzmaut in Israel (2008); Victory in Europe Day; World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day

• 1429 – Siege of Orléans: French troops led by Joan of Arc lifted the English siege and turned the tide of the Hundred Years' War.
• 1541 – The expedition led by Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River.
• 1794 – French chemist and economist Antoine Lavoisier, a former royal tax collector with the Ferme Générale, was tried, convicted, and guillotined on the same day during the Reign of Terror.
• 1886 – In Atlanta, Georgia, American druggist John Pemberton first sold his carbonated beverage Coca-Cola as a patent medicine, claiming that it cured a number of diseases.
• 1945 – Most armed forces under German control ceased active operations by 23:01 hours CET at the end of World War II in Europe, in accordance with the capitulation documents signed by General Alfred Jodl (pictured) on behalf of Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz the day before.

More events: May 7 – May 8 – May 9