May 19

Events
Up to 1900
715 - Pope Gregory II is elected.
1051 - Henry I of France marries Anne of Kiev.
1314 - Visby, on the Swedish island of Gotland, is almost completely destroyed by fire.
1364 - Charles V of France and Jeanne de Bourbon are crowned French King and Queen respectively.
1445 - John II of Castile defeats the Infantes of Aragon at the First Battle of Olmedo.
1499 - Catherine of Aragon is married by proxy to Arthur Tudor.
1535 - Jacques Cartier sets sail on his third voyage to North America.
1536 - Anne Boleyn is beheaded.
1542 - The Prome Kingdom falls to the Taungoo Dynasty in present-day Burma.
1568 - Elizabeth I of England orders the arrest of Mary, Queen of Scots.
1643 - Thirty Years' War: French forces defeat Spain in the Battle of Rocroi.
1649 - An Act of Parliament declares England a Commonwealth in a law passed by the Long Parliament, making England a republic.
1655 - The Invasion of Jamaica begins during the Anglo-Spanish War.
1743 - Jean-Pierre Christin develops the Centigrade temperature scale, similar to the Celsius scale, which was later flipped round to the same as the centigrade scale.
1749 - George II of Great Britain grants a charter of land to the Ohio Company around the Forks of the Ohio River.
1776 - American Revolutionary War: A Continental Army garrison surrenders in the Battle of the Cedars.
1780 - New England's Dark Day: thick smoke and heavy cloud causes darkness to fall over parts of Eastern Canada and New England.
1781 - King Louis XVI of France surprisingly fires his economic advisor Jacques Necker.
1792 - George Vancouver and members of his expedition become the first Europeans known to have seen Mount St. Helens, in present-day Washington in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
1802 - Napoleon Bonaparte founds the Legion of Honour.
1845 - John Franklin's ill-fated Arctic expedition leaves England.
1848 - Mexican-American War: Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, therefore ending the war and ceding the territories of several current Southwestern United States, including California, Nevada and Utah, to the US for 15 million US dollars.
1864 - American Civil War: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House ends.
1897 - Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Gaol Prison.
1901 2000
1903 - David Dunbar Buick founds the auto firm the Buick Motor Company.
1911 - Parks Canada, the world's first National Park Service, is founded as the Dominion Parks Branch.
1917 - Norwegian football club Rosenborg BK is founded.
1919 - Mustafa Kemal Ataturk lands at Samsun, on the Anatolian Black Sea coast.
1934 - Zveno and the Bulgarian army engineer a coup d'etat and install Kimo Georgiev as the new Prime Minister of Bulgaria.
1950 - Egypt closes the Suez Canal to Israeli ships.
1959 - The North Vietnamese Army creates Group 559, whose responsibility is to determine how to maintain supply lines to South Vietnam.
1961 - The Venera 1 space probe flies by Venus.
1962 - Marilyn Monroe sings Happy Birthday, Mr. President to John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in New York. Kennedy's actual birthday was on May 29.
1969 - Future-Chancellor of Germany Helmut Kohl becomes Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate.
1971 - The Mars 2 probe is launched by the Soviet Union.
1974 - Valery Giscard d'Estaing is elected President of France over Francois Mitterrand, following the death of Georges Pompidou on April 2.
1991 - Croatians vote overwhelmingly for independence from Yugoslavia.
1993 - Heide Simonis becomes Minister-President of Schleswig-Holstein, as the first female Minister-President of a state of the Federal Republic of Germany.
1993 - Shortly after take-off from Panama City, on the way to Medellin, Colombia, a Boeing 727 of the SAM Colombia airline crashes against a mountain in poor weather, killing all 133 people on board.
1997 - The Sierra Gorda Biosphere, the most ecologically diverse region in Mexico, is created.
1997 - A cyclone in Bangladesh kills around 500 people.
From 2001
2004 - Fathers 4 Justice activists hit Tony Blair with purple flour at the House of Commons in London, prompting questions about security.
2007 - Romania's President Traian Basescu survives an impeachment attempt and returns to work.
2010 - A violent military crackdown ends protests by the anti-government Red Shirts in Thailand.
2011 - Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigns as head of the International Monetary Fund, after he was arrested and charged with sexual assault in New York.
2016 - EgyptAir Flight 804, travelling from Paris to Cairo, crashes in the southeastern Mediterranean Sea, killing all 66 people on board.
2017 - Hassan Rouhani is re-elected President of Iran, defeating Ebrahim Raisi.
2018 - The wedding of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex takes place in Windsor, Berkshire.
2023 - The 49th G7 summit is held in Hiroshima.
Births
Up to 1900
1593 - Jacob Jordanes, Flemish painter (d. 1678)
1700 - Jose de Escandon, Spanish governor (d. 1770)
1724 - Augustus Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol, English admiral and politician (d. 1779)
1744 - Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen Consort of Great Britain and Ireland (d. 1818)
1762 - Johann Gottlieb Fichte, German philosopher (d. 1814)
1767 - George Prevost, British officer and diplomat, Governor-General of Canada (d. 1816)
1771 - Rahel Varnhagen, German writer (d. 1833)
1773 - Arthur Aikin, English mineralogist (d. 1854)
1795 - Johns Hopkins, American university benefactor (d. 1873)
1797 - Maria Isabel of Portugal (d. 1818)
1827 - Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour, French statesman (d. 1896)
1849 - Adrien Lachenal, Swiss Federal Councillor (d. 1918)
1857 - John Jacob Abel, American biochemist and pharmacologist (d. 1938)
1860 - Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1952)
1861 - Nellie Melba, Australian opera singer (d. 1931)
1862 - Joao do Canto e Castro, President of Portugal (d. 1934)
1870 - Albert Fish, American serial killer (d. 1936; executed by electrocution)
1871 - Walter Russell, American artist (d. 1963)
1874 - Gilbert Jessop, English cricketer (d. 1955)
1878 - Alfred Laliberte, Canadian sculptor and painter (d. 1953)
1879 - Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, American-born British politician (d. 1964)
1879 - Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, American-born British politician and newspaper proprietor (d. 1952)
1880 - Albert Richardson, English architect, writer and educator (d. 1964)
1881 - Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, President of Turkey (d. 1938) (May 19 is symbolic birthday)
1882 - Mohammad Mosaddegh, Prime Minister of Iran (d. 1967)
1886 - Francis Biddle, 58th United States Attorney General (d. 1968)
1887 - Ion Jalea, Romanian sculptor (d. 1983)
1889 - Tan Da, Vietnamese poet (d. 1939)
1890 - Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese political leader (d. 1969)
1891 - Oswald Boelcke, German pilot (d. 1916)
1893 - H. Bonciu, Romanian novelist, poet, journalist and translator (d. 1950)
1896 - Jorge Alessandri, President of Chile (d. 1986)
1897 - Frank Luke, American pilot (d. 1918)
1898 - Julius Evola, Italian philosopher (d. 1974)
1899 - Lothar Radaceanu, Romanian journalist, linguist and politician (d. 1955)
1901 1950
1906 - Bruce Bennett, American actor (d. 2007)
1908 - Manik Bandopadhyay, Indian Bengali novelist (d. 1956)
1908 - Percy Williams, Canadian athlete (d. 1982)
1909 - Nicholas Winton, British man who organised the Czech Kindertransport to save hundreds of Jewish children (d. 2015)
1910 - Nathuram Godse, assassin of Mahatma Gandhi (d. 1949)
1913 - Bill Sinkin, American equality and alternative energy activist (d. 2014)
1914 - Go Seigen, Chinese-Japanese Go player (d. 2014)
1914 - Max Perutz, Austrian-British molecular biologist (d. 2002)
1915 - Renee Asherson, English actress (d. 2014)
1916 - Blair Lee III, acting Governor of Maryland (d. 1985)
1918 - Abraham Pais, Dutch-American physicist (d. 2000)
1919 - Mitja Ribicic, former Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (d. 2013)
1921 - Yuri Kochiyama, American activist (d. 2014)
1924 - Sandy Wilson, English composer and lyricist (d. 2014)
1925 - Malcolm X, American civil rights activist (d. 1965)
1925 - Pol Pot, Cambodian dictator (d. 1998)
1926 - Peter Zadek, German theatre director (d. 2009)
1926 - David Jacobs, British broadcaster (d. 2013)
1926 - Fernand Raynaud, French actor and singer (d. 1973)
1928 - George Sinner, 29th Governor of North Dakota (d. 2018)
1928 - Colin Chapman, English automobile designer, inventor and builder (d. 1982)
1928 - Dolph Schayes, American basketball player (d. 2015)
1931 - Alfred Schmidt, German philosopher (d. 2012)
1932 - Alma Cogan, British singer (d. 1966)
1932 - Paul Erdman, American economist and writer (d. 2007)
1933 - Edward de Bono, Maltese-British lateral thinker
1934 - Bill Fitch, American basketball coach
1934 - Jim Lehrer, American journalist
1938 - Girish Karnad, Indian writer, playwright, screenwriter, actor and movie director (d. 2019)
1938 - Livio Berruti, Italian athlete
1938 - Tom Gilbey, British fashion designer (d. 2017)
1939 - Dick Scobee, American astronaut (d. 1986)
1939 - Jamie Fox, British actor
1940 - Jan Janssen, Dutch cyclist
1941 - Igor Judge, Baron Judge, Maltese-British lawyer and judge
1941 - Tania Mallet, English model and actress (d. 2019)
1941 - Nora Ephron, American screenwriter and movie director (d. 2012)
1942 - Gary Kildall, American computer scientist (d. 1994)
1942 - Robert Kilroy-Silk, English television presenter and politician
1944 - Peter Mayhew, English-American actor (d. 2019)
1945 - Pete Townshend, English musician (The Who)
1946 - Michele Placido, Italian actor and director
1946 - Andre the Giant, French-American wrestler and actor (d. 1993)
1946 - John D. Waihee III, 4th Governor of Hawaii
1947 - Steve Currie, English musician (T. Rex) (d. 1981)
1948 - Grace Jones, Jamaican singer and actress
1949 - Dusty Hill, American singer-songwriter and musician (ZZ Top and American Blues) (d. 2021)
1950 - Austin Stevens, South African herpetologist, photographer, moviemaker and author
1951 1975
1951 - Joey Ramone, American singer (The Ramones) (d. 2001)
1952 - Bert van Marwijk, Dutch football manager
1953 - Victoria Wood, English actress, singer and comedienne (d. 2016)
1954 - Phil Rudd, Australian drummer
1955 - James Gosling, Canadian computer scientist
1956 - Oliver Letwin, British politician
1959 - Nicole Brown Simpson, American murder victim (d. 1994)
1960 - Yazz, British singer and model
1963 - Filippo Galli, Italian footballer and manager
1964 - Miloslav Mecir, Slovakian tennis player
1965 - Boris, French singer-songwriter
1966 - Jodi Picoult, American writer
1967 - Alexia, Italian singer
1967 - Massimo Taccon, Italian painter and sculptor
1968 - Kyle Eastwood, American musician
1969 - Thomas Vinterberg, Danish film director
1969 - Dan Lee, Canadian animator (d. 2005)
1970 - Stuart Cable, Welsh musician (d. 2010)
1972 - Jenny Berggren, Swedish singer (Ace of Base)
1973 - Dario Franchitti, Scottish racing driver
1973 - Alice Roberts, English anthropologist and television presenter
1975 - Jonas Renkse, Swedish singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer
From 1976
1976 - Kevin Garnett, American basketball player
1977 - Manuel Almunia, Spanish footballer
1978 - Marcus Bent, English footballer
1979 - Diego Forlan, Uruguayan footballer
1979 - Andrea Pirlo, Italian footballer
1980 - Dean Heffernan, Australian footballer
1981 - Luciano Figueroa, Argentine footballer
1982 - Rebecca Hall, British actress
1984 - Inna Modja, Maliian-French singer
1985 - Chris Loudon, Scottish darts player
1986 - Mario Chalmers, American basketball player
1987 - Mariano Torres, Argentine footballer
1987 - David Edgar, Canadian footballer
1989 - Jasmine, Japanese singer-songwriter and producer
1991 - Jordan Pruitt, American singer
1992 - Sam Smith, British singer and songwriter
1992 - Heather Watson, British tennis player
1992 - Ola John, Dutch footballer
1994 - Carlos Guzman, Mexican footballer
Deaths
Up to 1900
804 - Alcuin, English monk and scholar (b. 735)
988 - Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 909)
1102 - Stephen, Count of Blois (b. 1045)
1125 - Vladimir II Monomakh, Russian prince (b. 1053)
1218 - Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1175)
1296 - Pope Celestine V (b. 1215)
1389 - Dmitry Donskoy, son of Ivan II of Moscow (b. 1350)
1526 - Emperor Go-Kashiwabara of Japan (b. 1464)
1531 - Jan Laski, Polish statesman and diplomat (b. 1456)
1536 - Anne Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII (b. 1501)
1601 - Constanzo Porta, Italian composer (b. 1528)
1637 - Isaac Beeckman, Dutch philosopher (b. 1588)
1648 - Stefan Potocki, Polish nobleman (b. 1624)
1715 - Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, English politician and poet (b. 1661)
1795 - Josiah Bartlett, signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1729)
1795 - James Boswell, Scottish biographer (b. 1740)
1821 - Camille Jordan, French politician (b. 1771)
1825 - Claude Henry de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, French philosopher (b. 1760)
1831 - Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz, Estonian-German physician, botanist and entomologist (b. 1793)
1840 - John Adair, Governor of Kentucky (b. 1757)
1860 - Ang Duong, King of Cambodia (b. 1796)
1864 - Nathaniel Hawthorne, American writer (b. 1804)
1865 - Sengge Rinchen, Mongol nobleman and general (b. 1811)
1895 - Jose Marti, Cuban writer and revolutionary (b. 1853)
1896 - Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria (b. 1833)
1898 - William Ewart Gladstone, British Prime Minister (b. 1809)
1898 - Oran M. Roberts, 18th Governor of Texas (b. 1815)
1901 2000
1901 - Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, South African politician (b. 1819)
1904 - Jamsetji Tata, Indian industrialist (b. 1831)
1907 - Benjamin Baker, English engineer (b. 1840)
1912 - Boleslaw Prus, Polish writer (b. 1842)
1935 - T. E. Lawrence, English soldier known as Lawrence of Arabia (b. 1888)
1943 - Kristjan Raud, Estonian painter (b. 1865)
1950 - Daniel Ciugureanu, Moldovan politician and Prime Minister (b. 1884)
1950 - Giuseppe Garibaldi II, Italian adventurer, grandson of Giuseppe Garibaldi (b. 1879)
1954 - Charles Ives, composer (b. 1874)
1955 - Concha Espina, Spanish writer (b. 1869)
1962 - Gabriele Munter, German painter (b. 1877)
1963 - Walter Russell, American artist (b. 1880)
1965 - Maria Dobrowska, Polish writer (b. 1889)
1965 - Tu'i Malila, world's oldest tortoise (b. 1877)
1966 - Theodore F. Green, American politician, 57th Governor of Rhode Island (b. 1867)
1969 - Coleman Hawkins, American jazz saxophonist (b. 1901)
1971 - Ogden Nash, American poet (b. 1902)
1975 - Robert E. Quinn, Governor of Rhode Island (b. 1894)
1978 - Albert Kivikas, Estonian writer and journalist (b. 1898)
1983 - Jean Ley, Belgian lawyer and politician (b. 1902)
1984 - John Betjeman, British poet (b. 1906)
1986 - Jimmy Lyons, American saxophonist (b. 1931)
1994 - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, First Lady of the United States (b. 1929)
1998 - Sosuke Uno, Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1922)
1999 - Candy Candido, American actor and singer (b. 1913)
2000 - Yevgeny Khrunov, Soviet cosmonaut (b. 1933)
From 2001
2001 - Susannah McCorkle, American singer (b. 1946)
2002 - John Gorton, Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1911)
2006 - Freddie Garrity, English singer and actor (b. 1940)
2008 - Vijay Tendulkar, Indian playwright and screenwriter (b. 1928)
2009 - Robert F. Furchgott, American scientist (b. 1916)
2011 - Garret FitzGerald, Irish Taoiseach (b. 1926)
2012 - Ian Burgess, English racing driver (b. 1930)
2014 - Jack Brabham, Australian racing driver (b. 1926)
2014 - Zbigniew Pietrzykowski, Polish boxer (b. 1934)
2014 - Simon Andrews, British motorcycle racer (b. 1982)
2014 - Mario Missiroli, Italian movie director (b. 1934)
2015 - Ahmad Alasgarov, Azerbaijani footballer (b. 1935)
2015 - Robert S. Wistrich, Kazakh-born British-Israeli professor (b. 1945)
2015 - Happy Rockefeller, Second Lady of the United States (b. 1926)
2015 - Gerald Gotting, German politician (b. 1923)
2015 - Edmond J. Gong, American politician (b. 1930)
2015 - Dale D. Myers, American aerospace engineer (b. 1922)
2015 - Burhan Muhammad, Indonesian diplomat (b. 1957)
2016 - Alexandre Astruc, French film critic and director (b. 1923)
2016 - John Berry, American guitarist (Beastie Boys) (b. 1963)
2016 - Jim Ray Hart, American baseball player (b. 1941)
2016 - Marco Pannella, Italian politician (b. 1930)
2016 - Morley Safer, Canadian-American broadcast journalist (b. 1931)
2016 - Alan Young, English-born Canadian-American actor (b. 1919)
2017 - Rich Buckler, American comic book artist (b. 1949)
2017 - Huub Ernst, Dutch Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1917)
2017 - Nawshirwan Mustafa, Iraqi Kurdish politician (b. 1942)
2017 - Stanislav Petrov, Soviet-Russian lieutenant colonel (b. 1939)
2017 - Kid Vinil, Brazilian musician and record producer (b. 1955)
2017 - Wayne Walker, American football player (b. 1936)
2018 - Harvey Hall, American businessman and politician, 25th Mayor of Bakersfield, California (b. 1941)
2018 - Maya Jribi, Tunisian politician (b. 1960)
2018 - Robert Indiana, American artist (b. 1928)
2018 - Bernard Lewis, British-American historian (b. 1916)
2018 - Reggie Lucas, American songwriter (b. 1953)
2018 - Ernst Sieber, Swiss pastor and social activist (b. 1927)
2018 - Roland Vogt, German politician (b. 1941)
2019 - Carlos Altamirano, Chilean politician (b. 1922)
2019 - Nilda Fernandez, Spanish-French singer (b. 1957)
2019 - Amedee Grab, Swiss Roman Catholic bishop (b. 1930)
2019 - Nickey Iyambo, Vice president of Namibia (b. 1936)
2019 - Julio Cesar Trujillo, Ecuadorean lawyer and politician (b. 1931)
Observances
Youth and Sports Day (Turkey)
Pontic Greek genocide Remembrance Day (Greece)
Ho Chi Minh's birthday (Vietnam)
Malcolm X Day (United States)
Days of the year