Boy’s Club Day
Malcolm X Day (United States)
May 19, 1536 – Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII of England, was executed. The day after Anne’s execution, the 45-year-old Henry became engaged to Jane Seymour, who had been one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. They were married ten days later.
Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven formed United Colonies of New England, also called the New England Confederation on May 19, 1643. It was revoked in the early 1680’s. Its primary purpose was to unite the Puritan colonies in support of the church, and for defense against the American Indians and the Dutch colony of New Netherland.
1802 – French Order of Legion d’Honneur formed.
1828 – U.S. President John Quincy Adams signed the Tariff of 1828, also called the Tariff of Abominations, into law to protect industry in the North. It set a 38% tax on some imported goods and a 45% tax on certain imported raw materials.
1862 – Homestead Act became law to provide cheap land for settlement of West.
President Jefferson Davis was captured by Union Cavalry in Georgia May 19, 1865.
1884 – Ringling Brothers’ Circus premiered. It was founded by five of the seven Ringling brothers.
First mass production of shoes developed by African-American, Jan Matzeliger, in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1885. Production of shoes went from 50 pairs to 700 pairs per day.
Post Office authorized use of postcards in 1898 but they had to be called “souvenir cards”.
Congress sharply curbed immigration, setting a national quota system in 1921.
German occupiers in Holland in 1941 forbade bicycle taxis.
1941 – New Nazi battleship Bismarck left Gdynia, Poland.
1943 – Berlin was declared “Judenrien” (free of Jews).
US and Canada formed North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) in 1958.
1967 – USSR ratified treaty with England and the U.S. banning nuclear weapons in space.
1971 – USSR launched Mars 2 on May 19, 1971. It is the first spacecraft to crash land on Mars.