Today is Sunday, May 19, the 139th day of 2013. There are 226 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlights in History:
On May 19, 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 same day, top U.S. and British officials meeting in Washington reached agreement 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).
On this date:
In 1536, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, was beheaded after being convicted of adultery.
In 1780, a mysterious darkness enveloped much of New England and part of Canada in the early afternoon.
In 1909, the Ballets Russes (Russian Ballets), under the direction of Sergei Diaghilev, debuted in Paris.
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 1921, Congress passed, and President Warren G. Harding signed, the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.
In 1935, T.E. Lawrence, also known as “Lawrence of Arabia,” died in Dorset, England, six days after being injured in a motorcycle crash.
In 1962, actress Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday to You” to President John F. Kennedy during a Democratic fundraiser at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
In 1964, the State Department disclosed that 40 hidden microphones had been found in the U.S. embassy in Moscow.
In 1973, Secretariat won the Preakness Stakes, the second of his Triple Crown victories.
In 1981, five British soldiers were killed by an Irish Republican Army landmine in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.
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.
Today’s Birthdays
PBS newscaster Jim Lehrer is 79. TV personality David Hartman is 78. Actor James Fox is 74. Actress Nancy Kwan is 74. Actor Peter Mayhew is 69. Rock singer-composer Pete Townshend is 68. Concert pianist David Helfgott is 66. Rock singer-musician Dusty Hill (ZZ Top) is 64. Singer-actress Grace Jones is 61. Rock musician Phil Rudd (AC-DC) is 59. Actor Steven Ford is 57. Rock musician Iain Harvie (Del Amitri) is 51. Actress Polly Walker is 47. Actor Jason Gray-Stanford is 43. Rock singer Jenny Berggren (Ace of Base) is 41. Country/rock singer Shooter Jennings is 34. Actor Drew Fuller is 33. Christian rock musician Tim McTague is 30. Rock musician James Richardson (MGMT) is 30. Actor Eric Lloyd is 27.
Thought for Today
“We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.” — Carson McCullers, American author (1917-1967).
Associated Press
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