May 19 - Events

Events

• 1445 – John II of Castile defeats the Infantes of Aragon at the First Battle of Olmedo.
• 1499 – Catherine of Aragon is married by proxy to Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales. Catherine is 13 and Arthur is 12.
• 1535 – French explorer Jacques Cartier sets sail on his second voyage to North America with three ships, 110 men, and Chief Donnacona's two sons (whom Cartier had kidnapped during his first voyage).
• 1536 – Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, is beheaded for adultery, treason, and incest.
• 1542 – Prome Kingdom falls to Toungoo Dynasty.
• 1568 – Queen Elizabeth I of England orders the arrest of Mary, Queen of Scots.
• 1643 – Thirty Years' War: French forces under the duc d'Enghien decisively defeat Spanish forces at the Battle of Rocroi, marking the symbolic end of Spain as a dominant land power.
• 1649 – An Act of Parliament declaring England a Commonwealth is passed by the Long Parliament. England would be a republic for the next eleven years.
• 1749 – King George II of Great Britain grants the Ohio Company a charter of land around the forks of the Ohio River.
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: A Continental Army garrison surrenders in the Battle of The Cedars.
• 1780 – New England's Dark Day: A combination of thick smoke and heavy cloud cover causes complete darkness to fall on Eastern Canada and the New England area of the United States at 10:30 A.M.
• 1802 – Napoleon Bonaparte founds the Legion of Honour.
• 1828 – U.S. President John Quincy Adams signs the Tariff of 1828 into law, protecting wool manufacturers in the United States.
• 1845 – Captain Sir John Franklin and his ill-fated Arctic expedition depart from Greenhithe, England.
• 1848 – Mexican-American War: Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo thus ending the war and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States for US$15 million.
• 1864 – American Civil War: the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House ends.
• 1897 – Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Gaol Prison.
• 1911 – Parks Canada, the world's first national park service, is established as the Dominion Parks Branch under the Department of the Interior.
• 1919 – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk lands at Samsun on the Anatolian Black Sea coast, initiating what is later termed the Turkish War of Independence.
• 1921 – The U.S. Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act establishing national quotas on immigration.
• 1922 – The Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union is established.
• 1934 – Zveno and the Bulgarian Army engineer a coup d'état and install Kimon Georgiev as the new Prime Minister of Bulgaria.
• 1943 – World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set Monday, May 1, 1944 as the date for the Normandy landings ("D-Day"). It would later be delayed over a month due to bad weather.
• 1950 – A barge containing munitions destined for Pakistan explodes in the harbor at South Amboy, New Jersey, devastating the city.
• 1959 – The North Vietnamese Army establishes Group 559, whose responsibility is to determine how to maintain supply lines to South Vietnam; the resulting route is the Ho Chi Minh trail.
• 1961 – Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (the probe had lost contact with Earth a month earlier and did not send back any data).
• 1961 – 11 Bengali martyrs gave up their life in a police firing in Silchar Railway Station, Assam, while demanding state recognition of Bengali language in the Bengali Language Movement.
• 1962 – A birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, New York City. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's rendition of "Happy Birthday".
• 1971 – Mars probe program: Mars 2 is launched by the Soviet Union.
• 1986 – The Firearm Owners Protection Act is signed into law by U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
• 1991 – Croatians vote for independence in a referendum.
• 1997 – The Sierra Gorda Biosphere, the most ecologically diverse region in Mexico, is established as a result of grassroots efforts.
• 2001 – Apple Store, the first two Apple Stores opened in Tysons Corner, Virginia and the same day in Glendale, California at Glendale Galleria.
• 2007 – President of Romania Traian Băsescu survives an impeachment referendum and returns to office from suspension.
• 2010 – The Royal Thai Armed Forces concludes its crackdown on protests by forcing the surrender of United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship leaders.