This Day in History

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May 19

1499 – Catherine of Aragon is married by proxy to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Catherine is 13 and Arthur is 12.

1536 – Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, is beheaded for adultery, treason, and incest.

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.

1845 – Captain Sir John Franklin and his ill-fated Arctic expedition depart from Greenhithe, England. The entire expedition, 129 men, is lost.

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.

1897 – Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Gaol.

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.

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".

1984 – Michael Larson, a contestant on the television game show Press Your Luck exploits a bug in the prize board, and wins over US$110,000.

Births

1795 – Johns Hopkins; 1861 – Nellie Melba (Melba Toast, Peach Melba); 1870 – Albert Fish (serial killer); 1890 – Ho Chi Minh; 1925 – Pol Pot; 1925 – Malcolm X; 1928 – Colin Chapman (founded Lotus); 1934 – Jim Lehrer; 1935 – David Hartman; 1939 – Dick Scobee; 1941 – Nora Ephron; 1945 – Pete Townshend; 1946 – André the Giant; 1947 – Steve Currie; 1948 – Grace Jones; 1949 – Dusty Hill (ZZTop); 1949 – Archie Manning; 1951 – Joey Ramone; 1953 – Jimmy Thackery; 1953 – Victoria Wood; 1954 – Phil Rudd (AC/DC); 1956 – Steven Ford; 1959 – Nicole Brown Simpson; 1968 – Kyle Eastwood (one of Clint's boys)

Deaths

1536 – Anne Boleyn; 1795 – Josiah Bartlett (signatory of the Declaration of Independence); 1864 – Nathaniel Hawthorne; 1935 – T. E. Lawrence; 1946 – Booth Tarkington; 1971 – Ogden Nash; 1994 – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; 2014 – Jack Brabham