ON THIS DAY MAY 19
1536 The Queen of England, Anne Boleyn, and second wife of Henry VIII, is beheaded on trumped up charges of infedlity and incest, Boleyn had failed to become the obedient wife the king expected and ignore his infidelities This smart, aggressive woman stirred passionate emotions in all who knew her – no less so, Henry VIII, who first begged for her love and then condemned her to death for failing to produce a male heir. Her daughter, Elizabeth, becomes one of England’s greatest rulers.
1743 French physicist Jean-pierre Christin develops the centigrade temperature scale. 1887 Britain’s Natal governor, Sir Arthur Havelock annexes Zululand.
1953 The nuclear bomb ‘Dirty Harry’ explodes over Nevada, leaving a coating of radioactive dust on valleys and towns downwind in Nevada, Arizona and Utah, and wreaking a terrible toll as cancer rate start to increase.
(It was one of 100 tests above ground, that, despite official denials, turned swathes of the desert radioactive, and raised the question: how much should you trust your government? Shot downwind a year later, near the town of St George where the fallout was reportedly heavy, the film The Conqueror allegedly killed its star, John Wayne, leading lady Susan Hayward, director Dick Powell and dozens of others – of the 220 film crew members, 91 (41% of the crew) developed cancer, while 46 (20.91%) died from it. Claudia Peterson, a ‘Downwinder’ activist and resident, who lost many relatives, had an epiphany when visiting Kazakhstan where the USSR did its testing: ‘I was afraid of these people my whole childhood and then discovered they weren’t monsters. It was our governments that were killing us’. 1962 Sex kitten actress and performer Marilyn Monroe’s rendition of Happy Birthday steals the limelight at a party for US President John F Kennedy.
2022 Mercedes confirms the sale of world’s most expensive car – a 1955 Mercedes-benz SLR coupe – one of only two in existence – for an eye-watering €135 million. Its price tag far outdoes the €11 million paid by soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo for Bugatti’s oneoff La Voiture Noire.