Historical Events on Monday, 19th May

19/05/2024

A helicopter crash in Iran leaves 8 people dead, including the country's president Ebrahim Raisi & foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

On 19 May 2024, an Iranian Air Force helicopter crashed near the village of Uzi, East Azerbaijan, Iran, killing President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Governor-General of East Azerbaijan Malek Rahmati, representative of the supreme leader in East Azerbaijan Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the head of the president's security team, and three flight crew. It was en route in a convoy of three helicopters from the Giz Galasi Dam to Tabriz.

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19/05/2018

The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is held at St George's Chapel, Windsor, with an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion.

The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was held on Saturday 19 May 2018 in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in the United Kingdom. The groom is a member of the British royal family; the bride is American and previously worked as an actress, blogger, charity ambassador, and advocate.

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19/05/2016

EgyptAir Flight 804 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea while traveling from Paris to Cairo, killing all on board.

EgyptAir Flight 804 was a regularly scheduled international passenger flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to Cairo International Airport, operated by EgyptAir. On 19 May 2016 at 02:33 Egypt Standard Time (UTC+2), the Airbus A320 crashed into the Mediterranean Sea, killing all 66 occupants on board.

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19/05/2015

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.

The Refugio oil spill occurred on May 19, 2015 along the Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. It contaminated one of the most biologically diverse areas of the West Coast of the United States with 142,800 U.S. gallons of crude oil. The corroded pipeline that caused the spill closed indefinitely, resulting in financial impacts to the county estimated as high as $74 million since it and a related pipeline remained out of service for three years. The cost of the cleanup was estimated by the company to be $96 million with overall expenses including expected legal claims and potential settlements to be around $257 million.

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19/05/2012

Three gas cylinder bombs explode in front of a vocational school in the Italian city of Brindisi, killing one person and injuring five others.

The Brindisi school bombing occurred on 19 May 2012, when three gas cylinder bombs hidden in a large rubbish bin exploded in front of the Morvillo Falcone high school in Brindisi, Italy, killing a 16-year-old female student and injuring five others, one seriously.

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

The 2012 Deir ez-Zor bombing involved a car bomb blast in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor killing 9 people on 19 May 2012 during the Syrian Civil War. The blast that reportedly struck a parking lot for a military intelligence complex also injured 100 people.

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19/05/2010

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

The Royal Thai Armed Forces are the armed forces of Thailand.

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19/05/2007

President of Romania Traian Băsescu survives an impeachment referendum and returns to office from suspension.

The president of Romania is the head of state of Romania. The president is directly elected by a two-round system, and, following a modification to the Romanian Constitution in 2003, serves for five years. An individual may serve two terms that may be consecutive. During their term in office, the president may not be a formal member of a political party. The president of Romania is the supreme commander of the Romanian Armed Forces.

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19/05/2000

Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on mission STS-101 to resupply the International Space Station.

Space Shuttle Atlantis is a retired Space Shuttle orbiter vehicle which belongs to NASA, the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States. Atlantis was manufactured by the Rockwell International company in Southern California and was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in Eastern Florida in April 1985. Atlantis is the fourth operational and the second-to-last Space Shuttle built. Its maiden flight was STS-51-J made from October 3 to 7, 1985.

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19/05/1997

The Sierra Gorda biosphere, the most ecologically diverse region in Mexico, is established as a result of grassroots efforts.

The Sierra Gorda is an ecological region centered on the northern third of the Mexican state of Querétaro and extending into the neighboring states of Guanajuato, Hidalgo and San Luis Potosí. Within Querétaro, the ecosystem extends from the center of the state starting in parts of San Joaquín and Cadereyta de Montes municipalities and covering all of the municipalities of Peñamiller, Pinal de Amoles, Jalpan de Serra, Landa de Matamoros and Arroyo Seco, for a total of 250 km2 of territory. The area is extremely rugged with high steep mountains and deep canyons. As part of the Huasteca Karst, it also contains many formations due to erosion of limestone, especially pit caves known locally as sótanos. The area is valued for its very wide diversity of plant and animal life, which is due to the various microenvironments created by the ruggedness of the terrain and wide variation in rainfall. This is due to the mountains’ blocking of moisture coming in from the Gulf of Mexico, which generally makes the east side fairly moist and the west semiarid scrub brush. Most of the region is protected in two biosphere reserves, with the one centered in Querétaro established in 1997 and the one centered in Guanajuato established in 2007. The Sierra Gorda is considered to be the far west of the La Huasteca region culturally and it is home to the Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda of Querétaro World Heritage Site. Sierra Gorda has become the first National Park in Mexico to join the EarthCheck Sustainable Destinations program.

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19/05/1996

Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on mission STS-77.

The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official program name was carried over from the 1969 plan for the Space Transportation System (STS) of reusable spacecraft. Only the shuttle and supporting rockets were funded for development; a proposed nuclear lunar shuttle in the plan was cancelled in 1972. It flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips.

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19/05/1993

SAM Colombia Flight 501 crashes on approach to José María Córdova International Airport in Medellín, Colombia, killing 132.

SAM Colombia Flight 501 was a Boeing 727-46 that crashed on 19 May 1993, killing all 132 on board. The aircraft collided with a mountain while on approach to Medellín, Colombia.

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19/05/1991

Croatians vote for independence in a referendum.

Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro to the southeast, and shares a maritime border with Italy to the west. The Croatian archipelago contains over 1,000 islands and islets, the largest overseas territory on the Adriatic Sea. Its capital, largest city and main cultural and economic centre is Zagreb. Major urban centers include Split, Rijeka, and Osijek. The country is composed of twenty counties spanning 56,594 square kilometres within four administrative regions. Croatia has a population of nearly 3.9 million as of 2026.

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19/05/1986

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

The Firearm Owners' Protection Act (FOPA) of 1986 is a United States federal law that revised many provisions of the Gun Control Act of 1968.

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19/05/1971

Mars probe program: Mars 2 is launched by the Soviet Union.

The Mars program was a series of uncrewed spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union between 1960 and 1973. The spacecraft were intended to explore Mars, and included flyby probes, landers and orbiters.

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19/05/1963

The New York Post Sunday Magazine publishes Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination, which most commonly affected African Americans.

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19/05/1962

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".

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president, at 43 years, and the first Catholic president. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the United States Congress before his presidency.

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19/05/1961

Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly by another planet by passing Venus (the probe had lost contact with Earth a month earlier and did not send back any data).

The Venera program was a series of space probes developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet Venus. A total of eighteen probes were sent, including two related Vega probes.

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At Silchar Railway Station, Assam, 11 Bengalis die when police open fire on protesters demanding state recognition of Bengali language in the Bengali Language Movement.

Silchar is a city and the headquarters of the Cachar district of the state of Assam, India. It is second largest city of Assam after Guwahati in terms of population and GDP. It is located 343 kilometres south east of Guwahati. It was founded by Captain Thomas Fisher in 1832 when he shifted the headquarters of Cachar to Janiganj in Silchar. It earned the moniker "Island of Peace" from Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India. Silchar is the site of the world's first polo club and the first competitive polo match. In 1985, an Air India flight from Kolkata to Silchar became the world's first all-women crew flight. Silchar was a tea town and Cachar club was the meeting point for tea planters.

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19/05/1959

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.

The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) is the national military force of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the armed wing of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). The PAVN is the backbone component of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces and includes: Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, Border Guard and Coast Guard. Vietnam does not have a separate and formally-structured ground force or army service. Instead, all ground troops, army corps, military districts and special forces are designated under the umbrella term combined arms and belong to the Ministry of National Defence, directly under the command of the CPV Central Military Commission, the Minister of National Defence, and the General Staff of the Vietnam People's Army.

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19/05/1950

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

Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. Islamabad is the nation's capital, while Karachi is its largest city and financial centre. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest country by area. Bounded by the Arabian Sea on the south, the Gulf of Oman on the southwest, and the Sir Creek on the southeast, it shares land borders with India to the east; Afghanistan to the west; Iran to the southwest; and China to the northeast. It shares a maritime border with Oman in the Gulf of Oman, and is separated from Tajikistan in the northwest by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor.

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Egypt announces that the Suez Canal is closed to Israeli ships and commerce.

Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Palestine and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan and the Sahara to the south, and Libya to the west. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northeast separates Egypt from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Cairo is the capital, largest city, and leading cultural centre, while Alexandria is the second-largest city and an important hub of industry and tourism. With over 107 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab world, third-most populous country in Africa, and 15th-most populated in the world.

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19/05/1945

Syrian demonstrators in Damascus are fired upon by French troops injuring twelve, leading to the Levant Crisis.

Syrians are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend of both indigenous elements and the foreign cultures that have come to rule the land and its people over the course of thousands of years. By the seventh century, most of the inhabitants of the Levant spoke Aramaic. In the centuries after the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 634, Arabic gradually became the dominant language, but a minority of Syrians retained Aramaic (Syriac), which is still spoken in its Eastern and Western dialects.

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19/05/1943

Winston Churchill's second wartime address to the U.S. Congress

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's 1943 address to Congress took place May 19 at 12:30 p.m. EWT before a joint meeting of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, roughly a year and a half after his 1941 speech to the same body. He noted that some 500 days had passed since then, during which the two Allies had been fighting "shoulder to shoulder." Sometimes called Churchill's Fighting Speech, the 55-minute address was made while Churchill and other Allied leaders were in Washington for the Trident Conference, which was organized to plan what became Operation Overlord.Sure I am that this day, now, we are the masters of our fate. That the task which has been set us is not above our strength. That its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our cause, and an unconquerable willpower, salvation will not be denied us.

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19/05/1942

World War II: In the aftermath of the Battle of the Coral Sea, Task Force 16 heads to Pearl Harbor for repairs.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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19/05/1934

Zveno and the Bulgarian Army engineer a coup d'état and install Kimon Georgiev as the new Prime Minister of Bulgaria.

Zveno, Politicheski krag "Zveno", officially Political Circle "Zveno" was a Bulgarian political organization that was founded in 1930 by Bulgarian politicians, intellectuals and Bulgarian Army officers and was associated with a newspaper with the same name.

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19/05/1933

Finnish cavalry general C. G. E. Mannerheim is appointed the field marshal.

Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was a Finnish military commander and statesman. He served as the military leader of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War (1918), as regent of Finland (1918–1919), as commander-in-chief of the Finnish Defence Forces during World War II (1939–1945), and as the president of Finland (1944–1946). He became Finland's only field marshal in 1933 and was appointed honorary Marshal of Finland in 1942.

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19/05/1922

The Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union is established.

The Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization, shortened to the Young Pioneers, was a youth organization of the Soviet Union for children and adolescents ages 9–14 that existed between 1922 and 1991.

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19/05/1921

The United States Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act establishing national quotas on immigration.

The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

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19/05/1919

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk lands at Samsun on the Anatolian Black Sea coast, initiating what is later termed the Turkish War of Independence.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was a Turkish field marshal and statesperson who was the founder of the Republic of Turkey and served as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He led sweeping reforms, turning Turkey into a secular, industrialising nation. Ideologically a secularist, republican and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism. Atatürk's personality cult and the Kemalist historiography developed around it have had significant and ongoing influences on Turkey's political culture and historical narrative.

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19/05/1917

The Norwegian football club Rosenborg BK is founded.

Rosenborg Ballklub, commonly referred to simply as Rosenborg or RBK, is a Norwegian professional football club from Trondheim that plays in Eliteserien. The club has won a record 26 league titles, a shared record 12 Norwegian Football Cup titles and have played more UEFA matches than any other Norwegian team. RBK play their home games at the all-seater Lerkendal Stadion which has a capacity of 21,421.

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19/05/1911

Parks Canada, the world's first national park service, is established as the Dominion Parks Branch under the Department of the Interior.

Parks Canada is the agency of the Government of Canada which manages the country's 37 National Parks, 11 national park reserves, 5 National Marine Conservation Areas, 171 National Historic Sites, one National Urban Park (Rouge), and one National Landmark (Pingo). Parks Canada is mandated to "protect and present nationally significant examples of Canada's natural and cultural heritage, and foster public understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment in ways that ensure their ecological and commemorative integrity for present and future generations".

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19/05/1900

Great Britain annexes Tonga Island.

Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland and Wales. With an area of 209,331 km2 (80,823 sq mi), it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island, and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is dominated by a maritime climate with narrow temperature differences between seasons. The island of Ireland, with an area 40 per cent that of Great Britain, is to the west. These islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands and named substantial rocks, comprise the British Isles archipelago.

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Second Boer War: British troops relieve Mafeking.

The Second Boer War, also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the Boer republics over Britain's influence in Southern Africa.

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19/05/1883

Buffalo Bill's first Buffalo Bill's Wild West opens in Omaha, Nebraska.

William Frederick Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, was an American soldier, bison hunter, and showman. One of the most famous figures of the American Old West, Cody began performing at the age of 23. He performed in shows that displayed cowboy themes and episodes from the frontier and Indian Wars. He founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1883, taking his large company on tours in the United States and, beginning in 1887, in Europe.

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19/05/1848

Mexican–American War: Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo thus ending the war and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States for US$15 million.

The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, was an invasion of Mexico by the United States. It followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its territory because it refused to recognize the Treaties of Velasco, signed by President Antonio López de Santa Anna after he was captured by the Texian Army during the 1836 Texas Revolution. The Republic of Texas was de facto an independent country, but most of its Anglo-American citizens who had moved from the United States to Texas after 1822 wanted to be annexed by the United States.

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19/05/1845

Captain Sir John Franklin and his ill-fated Arctic expedition depart from Greenhithe, England.

Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer and colonial administrator. After serving in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, during the Coppermine expedition of 1819 and the Mackenzie River expedition of 1825, and served as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1837 to 1843. During his third and final expedition, an attempt to traverse the Northwest Passage in 1845, Franklin's ships became icebound off King William Island in what is now Nunavut, where he died in June 1847. The icebound ships were abandoned ten months later, and the entire crew died from causes such as starvation, hypothermia, and scurvy.

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19/05/1828

U.S. President John Quincy Adams signs the Tariff of 1828 into law, sparking outrage in the South and leading to the Nullification crisis.

John Quincy Adams was the sixth president of the United States, serving from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States secretary of state from 1817 to 1825; minister to Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia; and senator for Massachusetts. After his presidency, Adams uniquely returned to Congress as a member of the lower house, where he died in 1848. He was the eldest son of John Adams, the second president, and First Lady Abigail Adams. Among his children were Charles Francis Adams Sr. Initially a Federalist like his father, Adams spent his presidency as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, and later, in the mid-1830s, became affiliated with the Whig Party.

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19/05/1802

Napoleon Bonaparte founds the Legion of Honour.

Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815. He rose to prominence as a general during the French Revolution and led a series of military campaigns across Europe and North Africa during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As a statesman, he implemented numerous legal and administrative reforms in France and Europe.

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19/05/1780

New England's Dark Day, an unusual darkening of the day sky, was observed over the New England states and parts of Canada.

New England's Dark Day occurred on May 19, 1780, when an unusual darkening of the daytime sky was observed over the New England states and parts of eastern Canada. The primary cause of the event is believed to have been a combination of smoke from forest fires, a thick fog, and cloud cover. The darkness was so complete that candles were required from noon on. It did not disperse until the middle of the next night.

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19/05/1776

American Revolutionary War: A Continental Army garrison surrenders in the Battle of The Cedars.

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

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19/05/1749

King George II of Great Britain grants the Ohio Company a charter of land around the forks of the Ohio River.

George II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 (O.S.) until his death in 1760.

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19/05/1743

Jean-Pierre Christin developed the centigrade temperature scale.

Jean-Pierre Christin was a French physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and musician. His proposal in 1743 to reverse the Celsius thermometer scale was widely accepted and is still in use today.

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19/05/1655

The Invasion of Jamaica begins during the Anglo-Spanish War.

An English expeditionary force captured Spanish Jamaica in May 1655, during the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–1660). It was part of an ambitious plan by Oliver Cromwell to undermine or obliterate Spanish dominance in the Americas and to acquire new colonies there, known as the Western Design.

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19/05/1649

An Act of Parliament declaring England a Commonwealth is passed by the Long Parliament. England would be a republic for the next eleven years.

An act of parliament, as a form of primary legislation, is a text of law passed by the legislative body of a jurisdiction. In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of parliament begin as a bill, which the legislature votes on. Depending on the structure of government, this text may then be subject to assent or approval from the executive branch.

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19/05/1643

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.

The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from the effects of battle, famine, or disease, with parts of Germany reporting population declines of over 50%. Related conflicts include the Eighty Years' War, the War of the Mantuan Succession, the Franco-Spanish War, the Torstenson War, the Dutch–Portuguese War, and the Portuguese Restoration War.

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19/05/1542

The Prome Kingdom falls to the Taungoo Dynasty in present-day Myanmar.

The Prome kingdom also known as Pyay kingdom was a kingdom that existed for six decades between 1482 and 1542 in present-day central Burma (Myanmar). Based out of the city of Prome (Pyay), the minor kingdom was one of the several statelets that broke away from the dominant Ava kingdom in the late 15th century. Throughout the 1520s, Prome was an ally of the Confederation of Shan States, and together they raided Avan territory. After Ava fell to the Confederation armies in 1527, Prome itself became a tributary of the Confederation in 1532. In the late 1530s, Prome became ensnarled in the Toungoo–Hanthawaddy War (1534–1541). Despite military assistance from the Confederation and the Mrauk U kingdom, the small kingdom fell to the Toungoo (Taungoo) forces in 1542.

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19/05/1536

Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, is beheaded for adultery, treason, and incest.

Anne Boleyn was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and execution, by beheading for treason, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked the start of the English Reformation.

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19/05/1535

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).

Jacques Cartier was a French maritime explorer from Brittany. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas" after the Iroquoian names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona and at Hochelaga.

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19/05/1499

Catherine of Aragon is married by proxy to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Catherine is 13 and Arthur is 12.

Catherine of Aragon was Queen of England as the first wife of Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until its annulment on 23 May 1533. She had previously been Princess of Wales as the wife of Henry's elder brother Arthur, Prince of Wales for a short time before his death.

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19/05/1445

John II of Castile defeats the Infantes of Aragon at the First Battle of Olmedo.

John II of Castile was King of Castile and León from 1406 to 1454. He succeeded his older sister, Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon, as Prince of Asturias in 1405.

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19/05/1051

Henry I of France marries the Rus' princess, Anne of Kiev.

Henry I was King of the Franks from 1031 to 1060. The royal demesne of France reached its smallest size during his reign, and for this reason he is often seen as emblematic of the weakness of the early Capetians. This is not entirely agreed upon, however, as other historians regard him as a strong but realistic king, who was forced to conduct a policy mindful of the limitations of the French monarchy.

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19/05/0934

The Byzantine Empire reconquers Melitene under the leadership of John Kourkouas.

The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, it endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The term 'Byzantine Empire' was coined only after its demise; its citizens used the term 'Roman Empire' and called themselves 'Romans'.

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19/05/0715

Pope Gregory II is elected.

Pope Gregory II was the bishop of Rome from 19 May 715 to his death on 11 February 731. His defiance of Emperor Leo III the Isaurian as a result of the iconoclastic controversy in the Eastern Empire prepared the way for a long series of revolts, schisms, and civil wars that eventually led to the establishment of the temporal power of the popes.

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19/05/0639

Ashina Jiesheshuai and his tribesmen assaulted Emperor Taizong at Jiucheng Palace.

Ashina Jiesheshuai was a member of the Ashina clan of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate and general (Zhonglangjiang) of the Tang dynasty.

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