1 May 1998
Just like under Communism, 1 May continues to be a bank holiday in Bulgaria. There are some differences, however. The Zhivkov regime used to organise mass rallies, or manifestatsii, while now the Bulgarian Socialist Party and other leftist organisations put on open-air concerts and hand out free kebapcheta to their sympathisers, mainly pensioners.
13 May 1981
At 17:17, during his regular weekly audience in St Peter's Square in Rome, Pope John Paul II is shot with three 9-mm bullets. He survives after a five-hour operation. The assailant, 23-year-old Turk Mehmet Ali Agça, is arrested immediately after the shooting. During his trial he reveals his connections with Communist Bulgaria's secret services. This marks the beginning of the so-called Bulgarian Trail, where the assassination of the Pope was ordered by the KGB in Moscow and was to be carried out by the Bulgarians with the assistance of the Turkish mafia. Whether there was a Bulgarian connection or not remains a mystery to this day. In 1986 Agça was sentenced to life imprisonment, but Bulgarians Sergey Antonov, Todor Ayvazov and Zhelyo Vasilev were released for "lack of evidence."
17 May 1999
Members of the Socialist Youth Union "sentence" British Prime Minister Tony Blair to death and immediately "execute" him by burning an effigy of him in Central Sofia to protest against NATO's air strikes over Kosovo. At the same time Blair is giving a lecture at Sofia University and thanking Bulgaria for allowing NATO planes headed for Yugoslavia to use its air space. He also says that Bulgaria will one day become a member of both the EU and NATO.
24 May 1981
A Turkish Airlines DC-9 flying from Istanbul to Ankara with 112 passengers and eight crew lands at Burgas Airport. The plane has been hijacked by four Turks who demand the release of 47 prisoners, a ransom of $500,000, and the publication of a statement in the Turkish media. They threaten to kill the American citizens onboard the plane and then blow up the aircraft. The incident concludes on the following day. What remains as one of the few hostage crises on Bulgarian soil ends as the Bulgarian police convince two of the hijackers to get off the aircraft for talks, while some passengers overpower the other two. The incident gets very limited coverage in the state-controlled Communist media of the time.
25 May 1996
Alexander Nevskiy's bells toll for over two hours while former Bulgarian monarch Simeon Saxe-Coburg and his Spanish wife Margarita Gomez Acebo y Cejuela return to Bulgaria after almost 50 years in exile. "We want our king back!" shout thousands of Sofianites as they greet the former king near the Eagles' Bridge in Central Sofia. Socialist Zhan Videnov, then Bulgaria's prime minister, refuses to meet the king. No one dreams that five years later Simeon Saxe-Coburg will return for good and become prime minister himself.
30 May 2000
After a 12-year break the citizens of Sofia can again do their shopping at the Central Hali, the beautiful 1911 building opposite the Banyabasi Mosque in Central Sofia. An Israeli company redesigned it as a shopping centre after years of neglect had left it almost in ruins. Sofia Mayor Stefan Sofiyanski was accused of corruption over the deal, but a Sofia court pronounced him innocent in 2006.