On this day, May 19
1536 Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, was beheaded after being convicted of adultery.
1780 A mysterious darkness enveloped much of New England and part of Canada in the early afternoon.
1913 California Gov. Hiram Johnson signed the Webb-Hartley Law prohibiting “aliens ineligible to citizenship” from owning farm land, a measure targeting Asian immigrants, particularly Japanese.
1920 Ten people were killed in a gun battle between coal miners, who were led by a local police chief, and a group of private security guards hired to evict them for joining a union in Matewan, a small “company town” in West Virginia. 1921 Congress passed, and President Warren G. Harding signed, the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.
1943 In his second wartime address to the U.S. Congress, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pledged his country’s full support in the fight against Japan; that evening, Churchill met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House, where the two leaders agreed on May 1, 1944, as the date for the D-Day invasion of France (the operation ended up being launched more than a month later).
1962 Film star Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday to You” to President John F. Kennedy during a Democratic fundraiser at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
1967 The Soviet Union ratified a treaty with the United States and Britain, banning nuclear and other weapons from outer space.
1993 The Clinton White House set off a political storm by abruptly firing the entire staff of its travel office; five of the seven staffers were later reinstated and assigned to other duties.
1994 Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died in New York at age 64.
2003 WorldCom Inc. agreed to pay investors $500 million to settle civil fraud charges.
2013 Taylor Swift won eight awards, including artist of the year and album of the year for “Red,” at the Billboard Music Awards.
2017 Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., whose penchant for sexting strangers ended his political career, pleaded guilty in Manhattan to a sex charge, tearfully apologizing for communications with a 15-year-old girl. (Weiner received a 21-month prison sentence.) 2018 Britain’s Prince Harry wed American actor Meghan Markle.
2020 A Trump administration policy of quickly expelling most migrants stopped along the border because of the COVID19 pandemic was indefinitely extended. 2023 British novelist Martin Amis died at age 73.
Today’s birthdays: TV personality David Hartman, 89. Actor James Fox, 85. Actor Nancy Kwan, 85. Rock singer-composer Pete Townshend (The Who), 79. Concert pianist David Helfgott, 77. College Football Hall of Famer and former NFL player Archie Manning, 75. Singeractor Grace Jones, 73. Rock musician Phil Rudd, 70. Actor Steven Ford, 68. Actor Toni Lewis, 64. Rock musician Iain Harvie (Del Amitri), 62. Actor Polly Walker, 58. Actor Jason Gray-Stanford, 54. Gospel singer Israel Houghton, 53. Rock singer Jenny Berggren (Ace of Base), 52. Former race car driver Dario Franchitti, 51. TV personality Kim Zolciak Biermann (TV: “Real Housewives of Atlanta”), 46. Country/rock singer Shooter Jennings, 45. Actor Drew Fuller, 44. Actor-comedian Michael Che (chay) (TV: “Saturday Night Live”), 41. Christian rock musician Tim McTague (Underoath), 41. Actor Eric Lloyd, 38. Pop singer Sam Smith, 32. Actor Nolan Lyons, 23.