Today is May 19. On this date in:
1536
Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, was beheaded after being convicted of adultery.
1649
England was declared a republic by Parliament following the execution of King Charles I. (The monarchy was restored in 1660.)
1780
A mysterious darkness enveloped much of New England and part of Canada in the early afternoon.
1825
The Marquis de Lafayette arrived at Cincinnati’s Public Landing as part of the Revolutionary War general’s tour of the United States.
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.
1921
Congress passed, and President Warren G. Harding signed, the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.
1935
T.E. Lawrence, also known as “Lawrence of Arabia,” died in Dorset, England, six days after being injured in a motorcycle crash.
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
Actress Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday to You” to President John F. Kennedy during a Democratic fundraiser at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
1973
Secretariat won the Preakness Stakes, the second of his Triple Crown victories.
1981
Five British soldiers were killed by an Irish Republican Army land mine in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.
1992
In a case that drew much notoriety, Mary Jo Buttafuoco of Massapequa, New York, was shot and seriously wounded by her husband Joey’s teenage lover, Amy Fisher.
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.
1999
George Lucas’s “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” the first of the Star Wars prequel fils, was released in theaters.
2016
EgyptAir Flight 804 flying from Cairo to Paris disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea. (The wreckage was found a month later.)
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 actress Meghan Markle.
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