Today in History
May 19
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Today in History |
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May 19 |
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| 1469 Giovanni della Robbia, Ital's sculptor was born | ||
| 1506 Columbus selects his son Diego as sole heir | ||
| 1515 George van Saksen-Meissen sells Friesland for 100,000 gold guilders to arch duke Charles | ||
| 1517 Philip van Bourgondie installed as bishop of Utrecht | ||
| 1536 Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII of England, was beheaded for adultery. | ||
| 1547 Monarch Johan Frederik surrenders to Karel | ||
| 1568 English queen Elizabeth I arrests Scottish queen Mary | ||
| 1571 Miguel Lopez de Lagazpi founded Manilla in the Phillipines | ||
| 1585 Spain confisquates English ships | ||
| 1588 King Philip II's Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon on its ill-fated attempt to conquer England. | ||
| 1608 Matthias von Habsburgs army reaches Lieben, at Prague | ||
| 1611 Pope Innocent XI was born in Italy as Benedetto Odescalchi. His 1676-89 pontificate was marked by continuing quarrels with Louis XIV of France. | ||
| 1635 In the Thirty Years War, France declared war on Spain. | ||
| 1643 The French under the Duke of Enghien heavily defeated the Spanish at the battle of Rocroi, destroying the Spanish infantry. | ||
| 1643 The towns of Connecticut, Plymouth and New Haven formed a Confederation of the United Colonies of New England as protection in the wars with American Indians. | ||
| 1652 Spanish troops occupy Grevelingen | ||
| 1662 Uniformity Act of England goes into effect | ||
| 1792 Russian army enters Poland | ||
| 1793 Netherlands captures French island of St Maarten (held until 1795) | ||
| 1795 James Boswell, Scottish diarist, biographer and companion to Dr. Samuel Johnson, died. His "Life of Johnson" was published in 1791. | ||
| 1802 In France, Napoleon created the Legion d'Honneur, an order of distinction for civil or military service. | ||
| 1848 Mexico gives Texas to US, ending the war | ||
| 1849 Irishman William Hamilton was arrested after firing blank shots at Queen Victoria in London. | ||
| 1853 Dutch prince Henry marries princess Amalia of Saxony-Weimar | ||
| 1858 Roland Napoleon Bonaparte, French officer/traveller (Surinam) was born | ||
| 1865 President Jefferson Davis is captured by Union Cavalry in Georgia | ||
| 1878 Blanche Kelso Bruce appointed register of treasury by Pres Garfield | ||
| 1885 German chancellor Bismarck takes possession of Cameroon & Togoland | ||
| 1890 Ho Chi Minh, Vietnames communist leader, was born as Nguyen That Thanh. He led the struggle that ended with the French defeat in 1954. He was president of North Vietnam from 1954 until his death in 1969. | ||
| 1892 National Society of Colonial Dames of America founded | ||
| 1893 Heavy rain wash "quick clay" into a deep valley, kills 111 (Norway) | ||
| 1898 William Ewart Gladstone, British statesman and four-time prime minister, died. An advocate of social and political reform, he tried without success to bring home rule to Ireland. | ||
| 1900 Britain officially annexed the Tonga (Friendly) islands in the southwest Pacific. | ||
| 1900 World's longest railroad tunnel (Simplon) links Italy & Switz, opens | ||
| 1902 Great Britain & Boers resume peace talks in Pretoria | ||
| 1906 The Simplon Tunnel through the Alps between Italy and Switzerland was officially opened by the King of Italy and the president of the Swiss Republic. | ||
| 1906 Federated Boys' Club (Boys' Club of America) organizes | ||
| 1906 Portugal's King Carlos I names Joao Franco premier | ||
| 1916 Escadrille Americaine (Lafayette) transfered to Verdun | ||
| 1923 KPD (communist revolts) in German Ruhr cities occupied by Allies | ||
| 1925 Malcolm X, militant U.S. civil rights leader who advocated race pride and black nationalism, was born as Malcolm Little. | ||
| 1926 French air force bombs Damascus Syria | ||
| 1928 "Firedamp" explodes in Mather Pa coal mine killing 195 of 273 miners | ||
| 1929 General Feng Yu-Xiang of China declares war on Chiang Kai-Shek govt | ||
| 1930 White woman win voting rights in South-Africa | ||
| 1931 Ironclad cruiser Germany launched in Kiel | ||
| 1934 Bulgaria came under authoritarian rule after General Kimon Gheorgiev and the nationalist organization Zveno seized power in a coup. | ||
| 1935 T.E. (Thomas Edward) Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, died after a motorcycle accident. He described his military exploits during World War I in "Seven Pillars of Wisdom." | ||
| 1939 Churchill signs British-Russian anti-nazi pact | ||
| 1940 Amsterdam time becomes MET (Middle European Time) | ||
| 1940 French counter attack at Peronne under Gen De Gaulle | ||
| 1941 Germany occupiers in Holland forbid bicycle taxis | ||
| 1941 New nazi battleship Bismarck leaves Gdynia, Poland | ||
| 1943 Berlin is declared "Judenrien" (free of Jews) | ||
| 1943 Churchill pledges England's full support to US against Japan | ||
| 1944 240 gypsies transported to Auschwitz from Westerbork Neth | ||
| 1944 German defense line in Italy collapsed | ||
| 1951 UN begins counter offensive in Korea | ||
| 1957 Adone Zoli forms Italian govt | ||
| 1958 US & Canada form North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) | ||
| 1958 Ronald Colman, English actor of stage and screen, died. He was best known for his roles in "Random Harvest," "The Lost Horizon" and "A Double Life" for which he won an Oscar. | ||
| 1959 Jan de Quay becomes premier of Netherlands | ||
| 1960 Belgian parliament requires rest day for self employed | ||
| 1961 New pier opens in Scheveningen | ||
| 1962 Indonesian paratroopers land in New Guinea | ||
| 1964 US diplomats find at least 40 secret microphones in Moscow embassy | ||
| 1967 US bombs Hanoi | ||
| 1967 USSR ratifies treaty with Engl & US banning nuclear weapons in space | ||
| 1974 In France, Valery Giscard d'Estaing defeated Francois Mitterrand for the presidency in a runoff vote. | ||
| 1975 Farm truck packed with wedding party struck by a train, killing 66 | ||
| 1976 Gold ownership legalized in Australia | ||
| 1982 Sophia Loren jailed in Naples for tax evasion | ||
| 1983 NASA launches Intelsat V | ||
| 1986 South African forces raided what they claimed were ANC bases in Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. | ||
| 1992 Two doctors who performed an autopsy on John F. Kennedy confirmed the U.S. president died from two bullets fired from above and behind. | ||
| 1993 Boeing 727 crashes into mountain at Medell¡n Colombia, kills 132 | ||
| 1993 The U.S. government recognized the Angolan government after it made democratic reforms and urged UNITA to negotiate peace. | ||
| 1994 Omar Sharif suffers a mild heart attack | ||
| 1994 Malawi's aged, autocratic President Kamuzu Banda conceded victory to opposition leader Bakili Muluzi after more than 30 years of iron-fisted rule. | ||
| 1994 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, queen of a long-lost American "Camelot" and a world-wide symbol of jet-set glamour, died. In 1953, she married the future President John F. Kennedy and in 1968, five years after his assassination, wed shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. | ||
| 1995 World's youngest doctor, Balamurali Ambati, 17, graduates Mount Sinai | ||
| 1997 A huge cyclone struck Bangladesh, killing 105, damaging 400,000 houses and making more than a million homeless. |