TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, May 19, the 139th day of 2023. There are 226 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight in history
On May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, was beheaded after being convicted of adultery.
On this date
In 1780, a mysterious darkness enveloped much of New England and part of Canada in the early afternoon.
In 1913, California Gov. Hiram Johnson signed the WebbHartley Law prohibiting “aliens ineligible to citizenship” from owning farm land, a measure targeting Asian immigrants, particularly Japanese.
In 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.
In 1921, Congress passed, and President Warren G. Harding signed, the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.
In 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).
In 1962, Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday to You” to President John F. Kennedy during a Democratic fundraiser at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
In 1967, the Soviet Union ratified a treaty with the
United States and Britain, banning nuclear and other weapons from outer space as well as celestial bodies such as the moon. (The treaty entered into force in October 1967.)
In 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.
In 1994, former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died in New York at age 64.
In 2003, WorldCom Inc. agreed to pay investors $500 million to settle civil fraud charges.
In 2020, a Trump administration policy of quickly expelling most migrants stopped along the border because of the COVID-19 pandemic was indefinitely extended.
Ten years ago: President Barack Obama, in a soaring commencement address on work, sacrifice and opportunity, told graduates of historically Black Morehouse College in Atlanta to seize the power of their example as Black men graduating from college and use it to improve people’s lives. At least one person was killed and dozens were injured as a series of tornadoes hit Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Illinois. Taylor Swift won eight awards, including album and artist of the year, at the Billboard Music Awards.
Five years ago: Britain’s Prince Harry wed American actress Meghan Markle.
Today’s birthdays
TV personality David Hartman is 88. Actor James Fox is 84. Actor Nancy Kwan is 84. Pete Townshend (The Who) is 78. Former NFL quarterback Archie Manning is 74. Singeractor Grace Jones is 72. Musician Phil Rudd (AC-DC) is 69. Actor Steven Ford is 67. Former race car driver Dario Franchitti is 50. Actor-comedian Michael Che (“Saturday Night Live”) is 40. Singer Sam Smith is 31.