Template:On this day - May 10

Amerigo Vespucci

• 1026 – The Amirid generals Muyahid Al-Muwaffaq and Khayran enter Córdoba (present-day Spain).
• 1497 – Amerigo Vespucci sets out from Cádiz (Spain) on his first transatlantic voyage.
• 1503 – In the Caribbean Sea, Christopher Columbus and his men reach the Cayman Islands and name them Islas de las Tortugas (Turtle Islands), because of the great number of these reptiles they find.
• 1547 – Death of Francisco de los Cobos y Molina, Secretary of State of Emperor Charles I, and one of the most influential and powerful figures of his time in Spain (b. 1477).
• 1569 – Death of Juan de Ávila, Spanish priest and ascetic writer (b. 1500).
• 1655 – In the Caribbean Sea, the British under the command of Robert Venables seize the Island of Santiago, which they renamed Jamaica.
• 1713 – In Spain the Salic Law is enacted (originating with one of the ancient Frankish peoples who inhabited Germania Inferior), which among other provisions included a succession mechanism to prevent a woman from reigning while there was a male available in the line of succession.
• 1720 – In Salamanca (Spain) the construction of the Plaza Mayor begins.
• 1735 – Birth of Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro, Spanish Jesuit, linguist and philologist, forerunner of comparative linguistics (d. 1809).
• 1808 – Napoleon Bonaparte attempts to illegally cede to his brother Joseph the Spanish Crown obtained after the forced abdications of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII. The maneuver would be invalidated by the native organs of power, which hastened to issue a Declaration of War on the Emperor of France.
• 1840 – In Spain the Society of Weavers of Barcelona, the first Spanish trade union, is founded.
• 1843 – Birth of Benito Pérez Galdós, Spanish writer and playwright (d. 1920).
• 1850 – The Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of Costa Rica sign the Treaty of Recognition, Peace and Friendship with the Kingdom of Spain.
• 1886 – In Spain the first Cortes of the Regency of Maria Christina of Habsburg, widow of Alfonso XII of Spain, open.
• 1891 – In Spain the first issue of the illustrated magazine Blanco y Negro, founded by Torcuato Luca de Tena y Álvarez Ossorio, comes out.
• 1900 – In Buenos Aires Atahualpa, an opera in four acts by Ferruccio Cattelani, premieres.
• 1911 – The bill to divide the Canary archipelago into two provinces is accepted in Las Palmas and rejected in Tenerife.
• 1911 – In the course of the Mexican Revolution, the Maderista troops take Ciudad Juárez.
• 1915 – In El Salvador the newspaper La Prensa Gráfica is founded.
• 1928 – The aircraft Jesús del Gran Poder takes off from the city of Seville bound for the East with the aim of beating the world straight-line distance record.
• 1924 – In Madrid (Spain), King Alfonso XIII inaugurates the Motor Show.
• 1933 – Paraguay declares war on Bolivia. The Chaco War will be the bloodiest armed conflict of the 20th century in South America (100,000 dead on both sides).
• 1936 – In the Spanish Second Republic the Cortes appoint Manuel Azaña president.
• 1973 – In Western Sahara the Polisario Front is created.
• 1984 – The International Court at The Hague rules that the United States must lift the blockade of the ports of Nicaragua and remove the mines.
• 1984 – The King and Queen of Spain arrive in the USSR on an official visit, the first made by a Spanish head of state to that country.
• 1997 – Death of Carmen Herrero Ayllón, Spanish chemist, researcher and sportswoman (b. 1913).
• 2013 – The former Guatemalan dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt is sentenced to 80 years in prison for the genocide perpetrated during his rule against the Ixil indigenous people.