Around this time, London's Globe Theatre stood at the center of English theatrical life, having hosted premieres of Shakespeare's greatest works. Though the original Globe would burn down the following year during a performance of Henry VIII, its stage had already reshaped English language and drama, launching phrases and characters still invoked four centuries later.

Admiral Edward Vernon's expedition of 186 ships and roughly 27,000 men — one of the largest amphibious forces assembled before the 20th century — failed to take Cartagena de Indias from a vastly outnumbered Spanish garrison under Blas de Lezo. Yellow fever and dysentery killed far more attackers than combat did. The British withdrawal marked a humiliating setback in the War of Jenkins' Ear and a defining Spanish colonial triumph.

After days of anti-war protests and a burned ROTC building, Ohio National Guard troops fired 67 rounds into a crowd of demonstrators and bystanders at Kent State University. Four students died, including two who were merely walking to class. The killings galvanized the anti-war movement, triggered a nationwide student strike involving millions, and became a defining image of the era's domestic turmoil.

The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher, won a 43-seat majority in the UK general election held on May 3, with results confirmed May 4, ending Labour's James Callaghan government. Thatcher became Britain's first female prime minister, ushering in over a decade of free-market reforms, privatization, and confrontation with trade unions that reshaped British political and economic life.

NASA launched the Magellan spacecraft from Space Shuttle Atlantis, the first planetary probe launched from a shuttle. Using synthetic aperture radar to pierce Venus's opaque cloud cover, Magellan eventually mapped 98% of the planet's surface in unprecedented detail, revealing volcanic plains, impact craters, and evidence of a geologically young surface.