REMEMBERING May 19 birthdays

1861 NELLIE MELBA Australian soprano

Born Helen Mitchell, Melba became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and early 20th century. She took the pseudonym Melba from her home town of Melbourne.

1890 HO CHI MINH Vietnamese revolutionary

Ho Chi Minh led the Communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945, and defeated the French Union in 1954 at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which ended the first Indo-China Wa.

1918 FLORENCE CHADWICK American swimmer

Chadwick was the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions, and set a record time each way. She was also the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Bosporus (one way) and the Dardanelles.

1925 MALCOLM X American activist

An African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist, Malcolm X was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement in the US. He was assassinated on February 19, 1965, in New York.

1925 POL POT Cambodian dictator

Under his administration, Cambodia was converted to a one-party communist state. His administration perpetrated the Cambodian genocide, the persecution and killing of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge left up to two million dead.