Friday, May 19, 2017

THIS DAY IN HISTORY ― MAY 19

May 19 is the 139th day of the year (140th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 226 days remaining until the end of the year.

NATIONAL MAY RAY DAY 



1499 – Catherine of Aragon is married by proxy to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Catherine is 13 and Arthur is 12. She was the Queen of England from June 1509 until May 1533 as the first wife of King Henry VIII. 

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 had kidnapped during his first voyage).


1643 – Thirty Years' War: French forces under the duc d'Enghien decisively defeat Spanish forces at the Battle of Rocroi, marking the symbolic end of Spain as a dominant land power only five days after the accession of Louis XIV of France to the throne of France.

1649 – An Act of Parliament declaring England a Commonwealth is passed by the Long Parliament. 
After the purge carried out by elements of the New Model Army in 1648, the Long Parliament was left with a small number of MPs approved by the radicals. This later became known as the Rump Parliament. Members of the Rump set up the High Court of Justice, which presided over the trial and execution of King Charles in January 1649. After the King's execution, the Rump abolished the monarchy and the House of Lords. The Council of State was appointed as an executive body, which was subordinate to the legislative House of Commons. England was declared a republican "Commonwealth and Free State" in May 1649. England would be a republic for the next eleven years.

1776 – American Revolutionary War: A Continental Army garrison surrenders in the Battle of The CedarsBrigadier General Benedict Arnold, commanding the American military garrison at Montreal, had placed a detachment of his troops at The Cedars in April 1776, after receiving rumors of British and Indian military preparations to the west of Montreal. The garrison surrendered on May 19 after a confrontation with a combined force of British and Indian troops led by Captain George Forster. American reinforcements on their way to The Cedars were also captured after a brief skirmish on May 20. All of the captives were eventually released after negotiations between Forster and Arnold, who was bringing a sizable force into the area. The terms of the agreement required the Americans to release an equal number of British prisoners. However, the deal was repudiated by Congress, and no British prisoners were freed.

1828 – U.S. President John Quincy Adams signs the Tariff of Abominations (1828) into law, protecting wool manufacturers in the United States. The major goal of the tariff was to protect industries in the northern United States which were being driven out of business by low-priced imported goods by taxing them. The South, however, was harmed directly by having to pay higher prices on goods the region did not produce, and indirectly because reducing the exportation of British goods to the U.S. made it difficult for the British to pay for the cotton they imported from the South. The reaction in the South, particularly in South Carolina, would lead to the Nullification Crisis that began in late 1832. The tariff marked the high point of U.S. tariffs. It was approached, but was not exceeded.

1921 – The United States Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act establishing national quotas on immigration. Although intended as temporary legislation, the Act "proved in the long run the most important turning-point in American immigration policy" because it added two new features to American immigration law: numerical limits on immigration and the use of a quota system for establishing those limits. These limits came to be known as the National Origins Formula.

1941 – The Viet Minh, a communist coalition, formed at Cao Bằng Province, Vietnam. The Việt Nam Độc Lập Đồng Minh Hội had previously formed in Nanjing, China, at some point between August 1935 and early 1936 when the non-communist Vietnamese Nationalist or other Vietnamese nationalist parties formed an anti-imperialist united front. This organization soon lapsed into inactivity, only to be revived by the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) and Hồ Chí Minh in 1941.

1942 – World War II: In the aftermath of the Battle of the Coral Sea, Task Force 16 heads to Pearl Harbor. It was formed in mid-February 1942 around Enterprise (CV-6), with Vice Admiral William F. Halsey in command of the force, and supported by cruisers Salt Lake City (CA-25) and Northampton (CA-26), along with a half-dozen destroyers.

1943 – World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set Monday, May 1, 1944 as the date for the Normandy landings ("D-Day"). It would later be delayed over a month due to bad weather.

1950 – A barge containing munitions destined for Pakistan explodes in the harbor at South Amboy, New Jersey, devastating the city. – From gendisastyers.com


1959 – The North Vietnamese Army establishes Group 559, whose responsibility is to determine how to maintain supply lines to South Vietnam; the resulting route is the Ho Chi Minh trail.

1962 – A birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, New York City. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's rendition of "Happy Birthday".

1984 – Michael Larson, a contestant on the television game show Press Your Luck exploits a bug in the prize board, and wins over US$110,000.

1986 – The Firearm Owners Protection Act is signed into law by U.S. President Ronald Reagan.


2010 – The Royal Thai Armed Forces concludes its crackdown on protests by forcing the surrender of United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship leaders.

2012 – Three gas cylinder bombs explode in front of a vocational school in the Italian city of Brindisi, killing 1 and injuring 5 others.


2012 – A car bomb explodes near a military complex in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, killing 9 people.


2015 – The Refugio oil spill deposited 142,800 U.S. gallons (3,400 barrels) of crude oil onto an area in California considered one of the most biologically diverse coastlines of the west coast.



BORN TODAY 

1795Johns Hopkins, American businessman and philanthropist, founded Johns Hopkins University (d. 1873)

1890Ho Chi Minh (born, Nguyễn Sinh Cung), Vietnamese revolutionary and politician, (d. 1969)

From Wikipedia and Google (images), ex as noted.   

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