Today in History, May 19

Highlights in history on this date:

1536 - Anne Boleyn, second wife of England's King Henry VIII, is beheaded.

1585 - English shipping in Spanish ports is confiscated, serving as declaration of war.

1588 - The Spanish Armada sets sail for England, where it is soundly defeated the following August.

1635 - In the Thirty Years War, France declares war on Spain.

1643 - The French, under the Duke of Enghien, heavily defeats the Spanish at the battle of Rocroi, destroying the Spanish infantry.

1649 - England is declared a commonwealth.

1792 - Russia invades Poland.

1802 - Napoleon Bonaparte's Order of Legion of Honour is created in France - an order of distinction for civil or military service.

1839 - First Roman Catholic mass is conducted in Melbourne in a roofless store in Elizabeth Street, by the Rev Father Patrick Geoghegan.

1849 - Irishman William Hamilton is arrested after firing blank shots at Queen Victoria in London.

1897 - Armistice is signed in Greece-Turkey War.

1898 - William Gladstone, four-time British prime minister, dies.

1900 - Britain annexes Tongan Islands in South Pacific.

1906 - Simplon Tunnel through the Alps between Italy and Switzerland is officially opened by the King of Italy and the president of the Swiss Republic.

1915 - John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the stretcher bearer who with donkey Duffy saved many Australian lives at Gallipoli, is killed by a sniper's bullet; Turkish counter-attack on Gallipoli fails with 10,000 killed or wounded in the biggest disaster of the Turks' campaign.

1924 - Aviators Stanley Globre and Ivor McIntyre complete first round-Australia flight, taking 93 hours.

1935 - TE Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia, dies in England from injuries after a motorcycle crash.

1943 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill tells US Congress that America has Britain's full support in war against Japan.

1945 - More than 40 US superfortress bombers attack Tokyo in World War II.

1967 - The Soviet Union ratifies a treaty with the US and Britain banning nuclear weapons from outer space.

1973 - Soviet Union and West Germany sign 10-year agreement calling for economic, industrial and technical cooperation.

1981 - Five British soldiers are killed in ambush by Irish Republican Army men in Newry, Northern Ireland.

1986 - South African soldiers attack alleged African National Congress targets in capitals of three neighbouring black-ruled countries: Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

1992 - Two doctors who performed an autopsy on John F Kennedy confirm the president died from two bullets fired from above and behind.

1993 - Colombian jetliner crashes near Medellin, killing 132.

1994 - Former US first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis dies.

1997 - More than 350 people are killed when a cyclone sweeps coastal Bangladesh.

1998 - Indonesian students storm the Parliament in Jakarta, demanding President Suharto's resignation.

1998 - Bandits steal three of Rome's most important paintings, two by van Gogh and one by Cezanne, from the National Gallery of Modern Art.

1999 - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accepts "principles" of a Kosovo peace plan while NATO jets bomb Belgrade suburbs.

2000 - Masked men storm Fiji's parliament and seize the island's prime minister, his Cabinet ministers and lawmakers of the ruling coalition in a coup, claiming the government discriminated against ethnic Fijians.

2002 - John Gorton, former Australian prime minister, dies.

2003 - Indonesia's military launches a big offensive on rebel bases in Aceh after peace talks failed the day before.

2004 - The world's first embryonic stem cell bank opens in Britain.

2005 - Egyptian authorities arrest 75 members of the Muslim Brotherhood and extend the detention of four leaders jailed earlier in a government crackdown.

2006 - The UN anti-torture watchdog calls for the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

2008 - Disgraced music entrepreneur Glenn Wheatley is released from a Victorian prison after serving 10 months of a minimum 15-month jail term for tax evasion.

2016 - EgyptAir Flight MS804 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea while flying from Paris to Cairo. All 66 people on board the Airbus 320 are killed.

Today's Birthdays:

Dame Nellie Melba, Australian opera singer (1861-1931); Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey (1881-1938); King Faisal I, first king of independent Iraq (1883-1933); Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese communist leader, (1890-1969); Malcolm X, militant US civil rights leader (1925-1965); Pol Pot, Cambodian dictator (1925-1998); James Fox, British actor (1939-); Nora Ephron, US director and screenwriter (1941-2012); Carla Zampatti, Australian fashion designer (1942-); Pete Townshend, British rock singer-composer (1945-); Phil Rudd, Australian drummer for band AC/DC (1954-); James Reyne, Australian musician (1957-); Jodi Picoult, American writer (1966-); Jenny Berggren, Swedish rock singer-Ace of Base (1972-); Andrew Johns, Australian rugby league player (1974-).

Thought For Today:

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it - Mark Twain (1835-1910).

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