On this day, May 19

1913 California Gov. Hiram Johnson signed the Webb-Hartley Law prohibiting “aliens ineligible to citizenship” from owning farmland, a measure targeting Asian immigrants, particularly Japanese.

1921 Congress passed, and President Warren G. Harding signed, the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.

1925 The fund for the construction of the Cathedral of Learning reached $5.59 million — more than twice as much money as was ever raised in Pittsburgh for an educational or philanthropic purpose.

2006 A key United Nations panel joined European and U.N. leaders in urging the George W. Bush administration to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, saying the indefinite detention of terror suspects there violated the world’s ban on torture. Some items are from Stefan Lorant’s “Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City” (digital.library.pitt.edu/chronology).

— Compiled by Alyssa Brown Today’s birthdays: PBS newscaster Jim Lehrer, 85. Rock singer-composer Pete Townshend (The Who), 74. College Football Hall of Famer and former NFL player Archie Manning, 70. TV personality Kim Zolciak Biermann (TV: “Real Housewives of Atlanta”), 41. Actor-comedian Michael Che (TV: “Saturday Night Live”), 36. Actor Eric Lloyd, 33. Pop singer Sam Smith, 27. Actor Nolan Lyons, 18.

Thought for today: “The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.”

— Ogden Nash, American poet (born in 1902, died this date in 1971)