Portal:Tennessee/Selected anniversaries/May

May 1, 1945 - Rita Coolidge, a Grammy Award-winning American singer of Cherokee heritage, was born in Lafayette, Tennessee.
May 1, 1982 - The 1982 World's Fair opened in Knoxville. The theme of the exposition was "Energy Turns the World".
May 12, 1892 - Completion of the Memphis Bridge (now called the Frisco Bridge) across the Mississippi River at Memphis.
May 18, 1933 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Act of Congress that created the Tennessee Valley Authority, an electricity provider and regional economic development agency chartered to modernize the economy and society of the Tennessee Valley.
May 19, 1902 - 216 coal miners lost their lives in an explosion at the Fraterville Mine in Anderson County, the deadliest mining accident in Tennessee history.
May 26, 1790 - The Southwest Territory (formally known as the Territory South of the River Ohio), which was later to become the state of Tennessee, was formed by the Southwest Ordinance from land ceded to the U.S. federal government by North Carolina.