Historical Events on May 19

Events 1 - 200 of 203

• 715 St Gregory II begins his reign as Catholic Pope
• 1182 The high altar of Paris cathedral Notre Dame is consecrated by Cardinal Henri de Château-Marçay and Maurice de Sully

• 1515 George van Saksen-Meissen sells Friesland for 100,000 gold guilders to arch duke Charles
• 1517 Philip van Bourgondie installed as bishop of Utrecht

• 1547 Monarch Johan Frederik surrenders to Karel

• 1571 Miguel Lopez de Lagazpi founds Manilla in the Philippines
• 1585 Spain confiscates English ships in Spanish harbors - beginning of the Anglo-Spanish War
• 1608 Matthias von Habsburg's army reaches Lieben, at Prague
• 1635 France's First Minister, Cardinal Richelieu declares war on Spain (Franco-Spanish War 1635–59)
• 1643 Battle at Rocroi/Allersheim: French forces destroy a Spanish army
• 1643 Dutch expedition to southern Chile led by Hendrik Brouwer captures Spanish-held islands of Chiloë and massacres its garrison [1]
• 1643 Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Harbor form the United Colonies of New England
• 1649 England is declared a Commonwealth by an act of the Rump Parliament making England a republic for the next 11 years
• 1652 Spanish troops occupy Grevelingen
• 1662 Act of Uniformity comes into effect, re-introducing a revised Book of Common Prayer after the Restoration

• 1780 About midday, near-total darkness descends on New England, now known to be caused by forest fires in Canada
• 1792 Russian army enters Poland
• 1793 Netherlands captures French island of St Maarten (held until 1795)
• 1796 Game protection law restricts encroachment on Indian hunting grounds
• 1802 French Order of Legion d'Honneur forms

• 1856 Senator Charles Sumner of Massachesetts speaks out against slavery
• 1857 Americans William Francis Channing and Moses G. Farmer patent the electric fire alarm
• 1863 Siege of Vicksburg, investment of city complete
• 1864 Battle of Port Walthall Junction, Virginia (Bermuda Hundred)
• 1864 Last engagement in series of battles known as Spotsylvania
• 1864 Skirmish at Cassville, Georgia
• 1878 Blanche Kelso Bruce appointed register of treasury by President Garfield
• 1883 William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody opens Buffalo Bill's Wild West show in Omaha, Nebraska
• 1884 Ringling Brothers circus premieres in Baraboo, Wisconsin
• 1885 1st mass production of shoes (Jan Matzeliger's Consolidated Lasting Machine Company in Lynn, Massachusetts)

• 1891 Rice Institute, which became Rice University in Houston, Texas, is chartered
• 1892 American engineer Charles Brady King invents the pneumatic hammer
• 1892 National Society of Colonial Dames of America founded
• 1893 Heavy rain washes "quick clay" into a deep valley killing 111 in Norway

• 1898 US Congress passes the Private Mailing Card Act, allowing private publishers and printers to produce postcards, had to be labelled "Private Mailing Cards" until 1901, known as "souvenir cards"
• 1902 Great Britain and Boers resume peace talks in Pretoria
• 1905 Tom Jenkins beats Frank Gotcha for heavyweight wrestling champ
• 1906 Federated Boys' Club (Boys' Club of America) organizes
• 1906 Italian King Victor Emmanuel & Swiss President Ludwig Forrer open Simplon Tunnel; the railroad tunnel trough the Alps is world's longest until 1982
• 1906 Portugal's King Carlos I names Joao Franco premier

• 1910 Passage of Earth through tail of Halley's Comet causes near-panic

• 1913 Webb Alien Land-Holding Bill passes, forbidding Japanese from owning land
• 1918 Washington's 1st Sunday game, Senators beat Cleveland 1-0 in 18 innings
• 1919 Kelud volcano on Java, erupts killing 5,160

• 1921 US Congress sharply curbs immigration, setting a national quota system
• 1923 KPD (communist revolts) in German Ruhr cities occupied by Allies
• 1926 French air force bombs Damascus, Syria
• 1928 "Firedamp" explodes in Mather coal mine, Pennsylvania, killing 195 of 273 miners
• 1928 51 frogs enter 1st annual "Frog Jumping Jubilee" (Angel's Camp, California)

• 1929 Cloudburst causes stampede in Yankee Stadium, crushes 2 people to death
• 1930 White women win voting rights in South Africa
• 1931 Cruiser Deutschland launched in Kiel
• 1934 Military coup by Colonel Damian Veltsjev in Bulgaria
• 1934 Sherlock Holmes crossword puzzle in "Saturday Review of Literature"; males who solved puzzle became members of Baker Street Irregulars [1]

• 1935 NFL adopts an annual college draft to begin in 1936
• 1940 Amsterdam time becomes MET (Middle European Time)

• 1941 Germany occupiers in Holland forbid bicycle taxis
• 1941 New Nazi battleship Bismarck leaves Gdynia, Poland
• 1942 Braves Paul Waner is 3rd NLer to get 3,000 hits (Anson & Wagner)
• 1943 Berlin is declared "Judenrien" (free of Jews)
• 1943 Churchill pledges Britain's full support to US against Japan

• 1944 German defense line in Italy collapses

• 1945 Start of the 1st Victory Test Cricket between England & Aust Services
• 1946 Dutch Cooperation for Sexual Reform (NVSH) forms in Amsterdam
• 1950 NY Times reports of worlds smallest & dumbest mechanical brain

• 1953 Nuclear explosion in Nevada (fall-out in St George, Utah)
• 1953 US House of Representatives votes to ratify the state constitution and admit Ohio to the Union retroactively as of March 1, 1803, 150 years after overlooking the paperwork [1]
• 1954 Postmaster General Summerfield approves CIA mail-opening project
• 1955 Atkinson & Depeiaza make 347 stand for 7th wkt WI v Australia
• 1956 Pittsburgh Pirates Dale Long hits 9th-inning HR, 1st HR in 8 straight games
• 1957 Adone Zoli forms Italian government

• 1958 Rogers and Hammerstein "South Pacific" soundtrack album goes #1 & stays #1 for 31 weeks
• 1959 Jan de Quay becomes premier of the Netherlands
• 1959 The USS Triton, the first submarine with two nuclear reactors, is completed
• 1960 Alan Freed & eight other radio DJs accused of taking radio payola (bribes from record companies)
• 1960 Belgian parliament requires rest day for self employed

• 1960 USAF Major Robert M. White takes X-15 to 33,222 m
• 1961 New pier opens in Scheveningen, the Netherlands
• 1961 Soviet dancer Rudolf Nureyev makes his Paris stage debut with the Kirov Ballet
• 1962 "John Birch Society" single by Chad Mitchell Trio hits #99
• 1962 Indonesian paratroopers land in New Guinea

• 1962 US performs nuclear test at Christmas Island (atmospheric)
• 1964 US diplomats find at least 40 secret microphones in Moscow embassy
• 1965 Patricia R. Harris named 1st US black female ambassador (Luxembourg)
• 1967 USSR ratifies treaty with Britain & US banning nuclear weapons in space
• 1968 20th Emmy Awards: "Get Smart", "Mission Impossible" & Barbara Bain win
• 1968 Frank Howard fails to homer, after hitting 10 in 6 consecutive games
• 1968 Pirate Radio Brumble of Northern England 1st heard
• 1971 USSR launches Mars 2, becomes the 1st spacecraft to crash land on Mars
• 1972 25th Cannes Film Festival: "The Working Class Goes to Heaven" directed by Elio Petri and "The Mattei Affair" directed by Francesco Rosi jointly awarded the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film
• 1972 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1972 WMAV TV channel 18 in Oxford, MS (PBS) begins broadcasting
• 1973 Sentimental ballad "Daisy A Day" single by Jud Strunk hits #14
• 1974 Stanley Cup Final, The Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA: Goaltender Bernie Parent and the Flyers shut out the Boston Bruins, 1-0, to win series 4-2, become 1st "expansion" team to win Stanley Cup; Parent named playoff MVP
• 1974 Valeri Giscard d'Estaing wins French presidential election

• 1975 Farm truck packed with wedding party struck by a train, killing 66 in truck, 40 miles south of Poona, India

• 1976 Gold ownership legalized in Australia
• 1976 Senate establishes permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
• 1976 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan

• 1979 "In The Navy" single by Village People hits #3

• 1981 5 British Army soldiers are killed when their armoured vehicle is ripped apart by a Provisional Irish Republican Army roadside bomb near Bessbrook, County Armagh
• 1981 Pirate Jim Bibby gives up a leadoff single to Brave Terry Harper, then retires next 27 batters

• 1983 36th Cannes Film Festival: "Narayama Bushiko" directed by Shohei Imamura wins the Palme d'Or
• 1983 NASA launches Intelsat V satellite, no. 506

• 1984 "King Of Suede" single by Weird Al Yankovic hits #62

• 1984 STS 41-D vehicle moves to launch pad
• 1986 39th Cannes Film Festival: "The Mission" directed by Roland Joffe wins the Palme d'Or
• 1986 Anti-apartheid activist Hélène Pastoors sentenced to 10 yrs in South Africa
• 1987 40th Cannes Film Festival: "Sous le soleil de Satan" directed by Maurice Pialat wins the Palme d'Or
• 1988 Carlos Lehder Rivas, of Colombia's Medellin drug cartel, is convicted in Florida for smuggling more than 3 tons of cocaine into US

• 1989 Dow Jones Avg passes 2,500 mark for 1st time, closes at 2,501.1

• 1991 Willy T. Ribbs overcomes numerous mechanical problems in qualifying to become first African-American driver to make Indianapolis 500 starting grid

• 1992 27th Amendment ratified, prohibits Congress from raising its salary

• 1992 Englishman Dave Gauder, 224 lbs, pulls 196 ton jumbo jet, 3 inches
• 1992 US VP Dan Quayle attacks Murphy Brown for being a single mother and as a poor example of family values
• 1993 Boeing 727 crashes into mountain at Medellín, Colombia, kills 132
• 1993 Dow Jones closes above 3,500 for 1st time (3,500.03)

• 1994 Final episode of American TV drama "LA Law" after 8 year run
• 1995 World's youngest doctor, Balamurali Ambati, 17, graduates Mount Sinai
• 1996 STS 77 (Endeavour 11), launches into orbit

• 1999 Andrew Motion is appointed British Poet Laureate for 10 years, the first to request a definite term
• 2001 Manchester United lose 3-1 to Tottenham at White Hart Lane but win English Premier League title for the 3rd consecutive season
• 2005 TV political comedy "The Thick of It" created by Armando Iannucci, starring Peter Capaldi and Chris Langham premieres on BBC 4
• 2006 Rock for the Rainforest benefit concert held at Carnegie Hall, NYC; performers include: Sting, James Taylor, Billy Joel, Sheryl Crow, and Lenny Kravitz

• 2007 In an all South African final the Bulls (Pretoria) edge the home team Sharks, 20-19 in Durban for their first Super 14 Rugby title; Bulls flyhalf Derick Hougaard boots 2 penalties & 2 conversions
• 2009 Sri Lanka announces victory in its 25-year war against the terrorist organization, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

• 2014 Decorated Dutch coach Louis van Gaal confirmed as manager of Manchester United; Ryan Giggs named assistant, confirms retirement as a player at age 40 after 963 games and English record 22 major trophies

• 2015 UK inflation is recorded as a negative for the first time since 1960
• 2016 EgyptAir flight MS804 goes missing over the Mediterranean on route Paris to Cairo
• 2018 71st Cannes Film Festival: Japanese film "Shoplifters" by Hirokazu Kore-eda wins the Palme d'Or

• 2019 Sprinter Dutee Chand comes out as India's first openly gay professional athlete
• 2019 US billionaire Robert F. Smith announces he will pay off college loans of nearly 400 students of the graduating class of Morehouse College, Atlanta
• 2020 Greenhouse gas emissions dropped 17% worldwide in April 2020 when world was in lockdown, in study published in "Nature Climate Change"
• 2020 Two dams on Tittabawassee River in central Michigan breached by floodwaters, forcing evacuation of thousands of residents
• 2021 Argentine President Alberto Fernandez announces a 'circuit-breaker lockdown' as the country records over 39,000 daily COVID-19 cases
• 2021 BBC investigation finds their 1995 Princess Dianna interview was secured through 'deceitful behavior' by journalist Martin Bashir [1]
• 2021 New York City begins re-opening after 423 days (March 2020) with the COVID-19 death toll at 33,000
• 2021 New York Yankees pitcher Cory Kluber no-hits Texas Rangers, 2-0 at Globe Life Field, Arlington, Texas
• 2021 The EU agrees to open its borders to vaccinated travelers from safe countries
• 2022 Argentine landmark criminal trial finds state responsible for massacre of more than 400 Qom and Moqoit people in 1924 in the Chaco region. First trial of its kind in Latin America. [1]
• 2022 Environmental pollution caused by “obesogen" toxins is having a significant effect on the obesity crisis and can be passed down through the generations according to major new study [1]
• 2022 Mercedes confirms the sale of world's most expensive car - a 1955 Mercedes-Benz SLR coupe for €135 million ($142 million) [1]
• 2022 Oklahoma passes a bill banning nearly all abortions, the most restrictive in the country [1]

• 2023 Pop-R&B vocal group the Spinners donate nearly 400 stage outfits to the Motown Museum in Detroit, Michigan
• 2024 Attempted Coup in Congo foiled after a group attacks the President's Palace in Kinshasa [1]
• 2024 Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi dies in a helicopter crash in foggy conditions, along with his foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other officials [1]
• 2024 Manchester City beats West Ham 3-1 at Etihad Stadium to become the first team to win the English Premier League title for 4 consecutive seasons

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