How many days and weeks until May 2nd?

On May 2nd 1536 Anne Boleyn was arrested at Greenwich and taken by barge to the Tower of London, where she was lodged in the same rooms she had occupied before her coronation three years earlier. She asked, according to one account, whether she was to be put into a dungeon, and was told that she was not. She was tried on the 15th and executed on the 19th.

Blackpool beat Bolton Wanderers 4-3 in the FA Cup final on May 2nd 1953, a match universally remembered as the Matthews Final although Stan Mortensen scored the only hat-trick in an FA Cup final at Wembley and Stanley Matthews scored nothing at all. Blackpool were 3-1 down with twenty-two minutes to play. Matthews was thirty-eight and had lost two finals already.

The Argentine cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by the submarine HMS Conqueror on May 2nd 1982, during the Falklands conflict, with the loss of 323 lives. No nuclear-powered submarine has sunk a ship in action before or since, and the decision to attack was argued over in Parliament for a decade afterwards.

Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2nd 1519 at Amboise in the Loire valley, aged sixty-seven, in the service of the French king and with the Mona Lisa still among his effects. The date is also shared by the footballer David Beckham, who captained England; the singer Engelbert Humperdinck, known for his romantic ballads; the actor and former professional wrestler Dwayne Johnson; and Catherine the Great, who ruled Russia longer and more consequentially than almost any monarch before or since.

Born on May 2nd: star sign, birthstone and birth flower

David Beckham and Engelbert Humperdinck — both named above — share this star sign with everyone else born in the same window.

None of this is settled fact in the way the history above is — zodiac dates, birthstones and birth flowers are conventions rather than laws, and different sources hedge them slightly differently. The birthstone is the most standardised of the three (set by the trade in 1912 and revised since); the birth flower is the least, resting on Victorian tradition rather than any governing body.

Gift ideas for a May 2nd birthday

A small, themed starting point rather than a shopping list — emerald for the stone, Taurus for the sign, and the sky itself on the day.

May birthstone necklace

A simple pendant in the actual May birthstone colour, from a long-running UK jewellery brand.

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Taurus constellation necklace

Stainless steel, sign selectable at checkout — choose Taurus for a May 2nd birthday.

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Personalised birth flower & birthstone disc

Engraved with a name, the May birthstone and the lily of the valley — both in one pendant, in a gift box.

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Personalised star map print

The actual night sky over a chosen place on May 2nd, whichever year — a print rather than jewellery.

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