May 19
It’s Boy’s Club Day and Bike to Work Day and National Devil’s Food Cake Day and Be a Millionaire Day
ON THIS DAY…
1535 French explorer Jacques Cartier sets sail on his second voyage to North America with three ships, 110 men, and Chief Donnacona’s two sons (whom Cartier kidnapped during his first voyage)
1568 Queen Elizabeth I of England has Mary Queen of Scots arrested
1643 Representatives from four New England colonies meet in Boston to form a military alliance
1749 King George II of Great Britain grants the Ohio Company a charter of land around the forks of the Ohio River
1796 A game protection law was passed by Congress to restrict encroachment by whites on Indian hunting grounds
1802 The Légion d’Honneur is founded by Napoleon Bonaparte
1828 President John Quincy Adams signs the Tariff of 1828 into law, protecting wool manufacturers in the US
1848 With the ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the war between the US and Mexico ends and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of five other modern-day US states to the USA for $15 million
1862 Homestead Act became law and provided cheap land for settlement of West
1885 Jan Matzeliger began the first US mass production of shoes, in Lynn, MA
1897 Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Gaol
1900 The Tonga Islands are made a British protectorate; they become an independent nation in 1970
1906 The 12-mile-long Simplon Tunnel was officially opened as the world’s longest railroad tunnel; cutting through the Alps between Italy and Switzerland
1910 The Earth passed through the tail of Halley’s Comet, the most intimate contact between the Earth and any comet in recorded history
1913 The Webb Alien Land-Holding Bill was signed in California, excluding Japanese from owning land
1921 Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants entering the US
1928 The first annual Frog Jumping Jubilee was held in Angel’s Camp, CA with 51 frogs entered to compete
1935 National Football League adopted an annual college draft to begin in 1936
1943 Berlin was declared “Judenrien” (free of Jews)
1951 Patrick McGoohan married Joan Drummond
1958 The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman was released in US movie theaters
1958 Bobby Darins single, “Splish Splash,” was released as the first eight-track master recording pressed to a plastic 45-RPM disc
1958 The United States and Canada formally established the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)
1959 The first submarine with two nuclear reactors was completed; the Triton was 447 feet long, 37 feet wide and was manned by 148 officers and crew
1960 Alan Freed, the man who coined the term “rock ‘n roll”, along with eight other disc-jockeys were accused of taking payola; payola was money privately paid to DJs by record companies or record promoters to get their records played on the radio
1960 Walt Disney’s movie Pollyanna was released in US movie theaters
1962 Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden while wearing a dress described as “skin and beads”
1967 The Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States ratify a treaty banning nuclear weapons in space
1968 Pirate Radio Brumble, out of Northern England began broadcasting
1977 Smokey and the Bandit opened in US movie theaters
1987 A patent for “keeping a head alive” was issued to Chet Fleming; the cabinet provides physical and biochemical support for an animal’s head severed from its body
1990 Madonna’s single “Vogue” hit number one in the US pop singles charts
1991 Willy T. Ribbs becomes the first African-American driver to qualify for the Indianapolis 500
1992 The 27th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibited Congress from giving itself mid-term pay raises, went into effect as it was certified by the archivist of the United States, two centuries after it was first proposed by James Madison
1992 In San Francisco, Vice President Dan Quayle denounced what he called the “poverty of values” in America’s inner cities, and criticized the TV show Murphy Brown for having its title character decide to bear a child out of wedlock
1992 In Massapequa, NY, Mary Jo Buttafuoco was shot and seriously wounded by 17-year-old Amy Fisher
1994 The final episode of LA Law aired on NBC-TV after a eight year run
1994 The US FDA approved of the first genetically engineered tomato
1995 AMC Entertainment Inc. opened the first multi-theater film megaplex, The Grand 24, in Dallas, TV
1997 Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker were married
1997 An indictment was filed against NBC sportscaster Marv Albert for biting a woman in an Arlington, VA, hotel on Feb 12 as many as 15 times and forcing her to perform oral sex; at trial, Albert ended up pleading guilty to assault and battery but he served no jail time
1999 Star Wars: Episode One – The Phantom Menace opened in US theaters
1999 The US Justice Department moved to revoke the citizenship of John Demjanjuk, a retired Cleveland autoworker, and said it had new evidence that he was a death camp guard, known as “Ivan the Terrible,” at Treblinka during World War II
2004 Britain opened the worlds first stem cell bank
2004 US Army Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits received the maximum penalty, one year in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge, in the first court-martial stemming from mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison
2005 Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith opened in US theaters
2005 J.P. Morgan Chase introduced a no-swipe plastic credit card that used an embedded chip and RFID technology as well as the usual magnetic strip
2005 The US Federal Communications Commission voted to require internet phone companies to offer 911 service
2005 British researchers reported the creation of the country’s first, and the world’s second, cloned human embryo
BORN:
1795 Johns Hopkins, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and abolitionist of 19th century Baltimore, now most noted for his philanthropic creation of the institutions that bear his name, namely the Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
1864 Carl E. Akeley, naturalist and explorer who developed the taxidermic method for mounting museum displays to show animals in their natural surroundings
1868 John Fillmore Hayford, civil engineer and early geodesist who established the modern science of geodesy, and made a precise determination of the ellipsoidal shape and size of the earth
1870 Albert Fish, sado-masochistic pedophile, torture murderer, serial killer and cannibal
1871 Reginald Aldworth Daly, geologist who independently developed the theory of magmatic stoping, whereby molten magma rises through the Earth’s crust and shatters, but does not melt, the surrounding rocks
1879 Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor, CH, the first woman to serve as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the British House of Commons
1890 Ho Chi Minh, revolutionary and statesman, who later became prime minister (19461955) and president (19461969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam)
1914 Max Ferdinand Perutz, biochemist, corecipient of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his X-ray diffraction analysis of the structure of haemoglobin, the protein that transports oxygen from the lungs to the tissues via blood cells
1918 Abraham Pais, physicist and science historian whose research became the building blocks of the theory of elemental particles
1925 Malcolm X (Malcolm Little), Black Muslim minister, a spokesman for the Nation of Islam, civil rights activist
1925 Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge and Prime Minister of Cambodia (officially renamed Democratic Kampuchea under his rule) from 1976 to 1979, having been de facto leader since mid-1975; responsible for the deaths of 750,000 to 1.7 million or approximately 26% of his countrymen
1937 Pat Roach, actor (Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Kull the Conqueror, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Red Sonja, Conan the Destroyer, Clash of the Titans, Never Say Never Again, A Clockwork Orange)
1939 James Fox, actor (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sexy Beast, The Remains of the Day, Patriot Games, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes)
1941 Nora Ephron, writer-director (Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, Michael, When Harry Met Sally, Silkwood)
1941 Bobby Burgess, dancer-actor (The Mickey Mouse Club, The Lawrence Welk Show)
1944 Peter Mayhew, actor best known for his role as Chewbacca in the Star Wars series of films
1945 Pete Townshend, musician, singer, songwriter, composer, writer, member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (The Who)
1947 David Helfgott, concert pianist who is as well-known for having schizoaffective disorder; his life story was the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film Shine
1948 Grace Jones, model, singer and actress (A View to a Kill, Conan the Destroyer, Vamp, Straight to Hell)
1953 Victoria Wood, OBE, BAFTA TV Award-winning actress and writer (Housewife, 49, Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Dinnerladies, The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse)
1966 Polly Walker, actress (Cane, Rome, Emma, State of Play, Enchanted April)
1967 Geraldine Somerville, actress (Harry Potter, Cracker, Gosford Park, The Black Velvet Gown)
DIED:
1536 Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England and the mother of Queen Elizabeth I, is beheaded on charges of incest, adultery and high treason (even though the “evidence” against her was unconvincing) at 29
1795 James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck and 1st Baronet, lawyer, diarist, and author who is best known as Samuel Johnsons biographer, dies at 54
1864 Nathaniel Hawthorne, novelist and short story writer (The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance), dies at 59
1935 Lieutenant-Colonel T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”), a British soldier renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt of 1916-18, but whose vivid personality and writings, along with the extraordinary breadth and variety of his activities and associations, have made him the object of fascination throughout the world, dies at 46 after being fatally injured in a motorcycle accident
1987 Alice Bradley Sheldon (her pen name was James Tiptree, Jr.), 2-time Hugo, 3-time Nebula and World Fantasy Award-winning author who was most notable for breaking down the barriers between writing perceived as inherently “male” or “female” it was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree, Jr. was a woman (“The Girl Who Was Plugged In”, “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?”, “Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death”, “The Screwfly Solution”, Tales of the Quintana Roo), commits suicide at 71
1994 Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, First Lady of the United States (1961-1963); she she initiated publication of the first White House guidebook, whose sales further funded the restoration of the White House, she initiated a Congressional bill establishing that White House furnishings would be the property of the Smithsonian Institution, she oversaw redesign and replanting of the White House Rose Garden and the East Garden, and efforts on behalf of restoration and preservation at the White House left a lasting legacy in the form of the White House Historical Association, the Committee for the Preservation of the White House which was based upon her White House Furnishings Committee, a permanent Curator of the White House, the White House Endowment Trust, and the White House Acquisition Trust; she died at 64 of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
2002 Walter Lord, author, best known for his documentary-style non-fiction account A Night to Remember, about the sinking of the RMS Titanic, dies at 84