What happened on May 31 ?

1246 - Isabella of Angouleme, queen of John of England

1349 - Thomas Wake, English politician (b. 1297)

1408 - Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, Japanese shogun (b. 1358)

1410 - King Martin I of Aragon (b. 1356)

1495 - Cecily Neville, mother of Edward IV of England and Richard III of England, (b. 1415)

1558 - Philip Hoby, English politician (b. 1505)

1594 - Tintoretto, Italian painter (b. 1518)

1680 - Joachim Neander, German clergyman (b. 1650)

1740 - King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia (b. 1688)

1747 - Andrei Osterman, Russian statesman (b. 1686)

1799 - Pierre Lemonnier, French astronomer (b. 1715)

1809 - Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer (b. 1732)

1809 - Jean Lannes, French marshal (mortally wounded in battle) (b. 1769)

1831 - Samuel Bentham, British mechanical engineer (b. 1757)

1832 - ÿvariste Galois, French mathematician (b. 1811)

1837 - Joseph Grimaldi, english clown (b. 1779)

1846 - Philip Marheineke, German clergyman (b. 1780)

1847 - Thomas Chalmers, Scottish pastor, social reformer, educator, author, and scientist (b. 1780)

1848 - Eugénie de Guérin, French writer (b. 1805)

1908 - Louis-Honoré Fréchette, French Canadian poet (b. 1839)

1910 - Elizabeth Blackwell, American physician (b. 1821)

1957 - Leopold Staff, Polish poet (b. 1878)

1960 - Walther Funk, Nazi leader (b. 1890)

1960 - Willem Elsschot, Flemish writer (b. 1882)

1970 - Terry Sawchuk, Professional ice hockey goaltender (b. 1929)

1976 - Jacques Monod, French biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1910)

1977 - William Castle, American director (b. 1914)

1978 - József Bozsik, Hungarian footballer (b. 1925)

1983 - Jack Dempsey, American boxer (b. 1895)

1986 - James Rainwater, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1917)

1996 - Timothy Leary, American professor and free-thinker (b. 1920)

1996 - Paul Peter Piech, American artist (b. 1920)

1997 - James Bennett Griffin, American archaeologist (b. 1905)

2000 - Tito Puente, American musician (b. 1923)

2000 - Johnnie Taylor, American singer (b. 1938)

2004 - Robert Quine, American guitarist (b. 1941)