Today in History: May 19

Today is Sunday, May 19, the 140th day of 2024. 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 Webb-Hartley 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, 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.

In 1967, the Soviet Union ratified a treaty with the United States and Britain, banning nuclear and other weapons from outer space.

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 2013, Taylor Swift won eight awards, including artist of the year and album of the year for “Red,” at the Billboard Music Awards.

In 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.)

In 2018, Britain’s Prince Harry wed American actor Meghan Markle.

In 2020, a Trump administration policy of quickly expelling most migrants stopped along the border because of the COVID-19 pandemic was indefinitely extended.

In 2023, British novelist Martin Amis died at age 73.

Today’s Birthdays: TV personality David Hartman is 89. Actor James Fox is 85. Actor Nancy Kwan is 85. Rock singer-composer Pete Townshend (The Who) is 79. Concert pianist David Helfgott is 77. College Football Hall of Famer and former NFL player Archie Manning is 75. Singer-actor Grace Jones is 73. Rock musician Phil Rudd is 70. Actor Steven Ford is 68. Actor Toni Lewis is 64. Rock musician Iain Harvie (Del Amitri) is 62. Actor Polly Walker is 58. Actor Jason Gray-Stanford is 54. Gospel singer Israel Houghton is 53. Rock singer Jenny Berggren (Ace of Base) is 52. Former race car driver Dario Franchitti is 51. TV personality Kim Zolciak Biermann (TV: “Real Housewives of Atlanta”) is 46. Country/rock singer Shooter Jennings is 45. Actor Drew Fuller is 44. Actor-comedian Michael Che (TV: “Saturday Night Live”) is 41. Christian rock musician Tim McTague (Underoath) is 41. Actor Eric Lloyd is 38. Pop singer Sam Smith is 32. Actor Nolan Lyons is 23.