On May 11
On May 11, 2 pivotal events are recorded in the Human Saga, including Constantine dedicates Constantinople as a new capital (330 CE).
On this day
On 11 May 330 CE Constantine formally dedicated the rebuilt Greek city of Byzantium as Constantinople, his 'New Rome', after years of construction on a strategic site commanding the Bosporus between Europe and Asia.
Dated to 11 May 868 by its own colophon, the Chinese Diamond Sutra is the earliest complete, dated printed book known to survive, produced by woodblock printing during the late Tang dynasty.
Also this week in history (May 8 – May 14)
On 14 May 1796, the English physician Edward Jenner performed a landmark experiment in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, that established the practice of vaccination.
On 14 May 1948, as the British Mandate over Palestine expired, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel in Tel Aviv.
On 8 May 1980 the World Health Assembly officially declared that smallpox had been eradicated, the first and so far only human disease to be eliminated worldwide through deliberate effort.
On 14 May 1607 roughly a hundred settlers sent by the Virginia Company of London established a fort on Jamestown Island in the Chesapeake Bay, founding the first permanent English settlement in North America.
On 13 May 1888 Princess Isabel, acting as regent for her father Emperor Pedro II, signed the Lei Áurea, or Golden Law, which declared slavery abolished in Brazil with immediate effect and without compensation to slaveholders.
On 14 May 1955 the Soviet Union and seven Eastern European communist states signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in Warsaw, creating the Warsaw Pact.
On 9 May 1960 the US Food and Drug Administration approved Enovid, manufactured by G.D. Searle, as the first oral contraceptive, and it reached the market in June 1960.