Today In History

Today is Thursday, May 19, the 139th day of 2011. There are 226 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1535 - Jacques Cartier sails from St. Malo on his second voyage to Canada, to explore the St. Lawrence River and discover the future site of Montreal.

1554 - France's King Henry II invades the Netherlands.

1585 - English shipping in Spanish ports is confiscated, serving as declaration of war on England.

1588 - The Spanish Armada sets sail for England; it is soundly defeated by the English fleet the following August.

1649 - England is declared a republic after King Charles I is executed by parliamentarians.

1792 - Russia invades Poland at the behest of Polish conservatives, resulting in the second partition of Poland.

1881 - The American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton.

1897 - Armistice ends Thirty Days' War, with Greece conceding defeat to newly modernized Turkish army.

1898 - Postcards are first authorized by the U.S. Post Office.

1900 - The Tonga Islands in the South Pacific becomes a British protectorate; the world's longest railroad tunnel, the 19-kilometer (12-mile) long Simplon Tunnel opens. The Tunnel links Switzerland to Italy through the Alps.

1916 - Britain introduces Daylight Savings Time, originally called "summer time."

1930 - White women are enfranchised in South Africa.

1935 - T.E. Lawrence, also known as "Lawrence of Arabia," dies in England from injuries sustained in a motorcycle crash.

1943 - In an address to the U.S. Congress, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pledges his country's full support in the war against Japan.

1962 - Actress Marilyn Monroe performs a rendition of "Happy Birthday" for U.S. President John F. Kennedy during a fund-raiser at New York's Madison Square Garden.

1964 - The U.S. State Department discloses that 40 hidden microphones had been found in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

1967 - The Soviet Union ratifies a treaty with the United States and Britain banning nuclear weapons from outer space.

1973 - The Soviet Union and West Germany sign 10-year agreement calling for economic, industrial and technical cooperation.

1981 - Five British soldiers are killed in an ambush by the outlawed Irish Republican Army in Newry, Northern Ireland.

1990 - U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III says all major obstacles to U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms agreement have been cleared.

1991 - Thousands of protesters wielding pipes battle riot police for more than 12 hours in Kwangju, South Korea, in fiercest fighting in three weeks of anti-government protests.

1992 - Pro-democracy protests break out across Thailand despite a bloody government crackdown on demonstrators in the capital. Hundreds disappear at the hands of soldiers in a month of rioting.

1993 - Colombian jetliner crashes near Medellin, killing 132.

1994 - Kamuzu Banda of Malawi, with 30 years at the helm as Africa's longest ruling dictator, concedes defeat to Bakili Muluzi in the country's first multi-party election.

1997 - More than 350 people are killed when a cyclone sweeps coastal Bangladesh.

1998 - Indonesian students storm the Parliament in Jakarta, demanding President Suharto's resignation.

1999 - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accepts "principles" of a Kosovo peace plan as NATO jets bomb Belgrade suburbs.

2000 - Masked men storm Fiji's parliament and seize the island's prime minister, his Cabinet ministers and lawmakers of the ruling coalition. The coup leader claims the coalition discriminated against ethnic Fijians.

2001 - The World Health Organization adopts diluted proposal on wider international access to cheap HIV/AIDS drugs. The WHO urges tackling the epidemic instead.

2005 - Egyptian authorities arrest 75 members of the Muslim Brotherhood and extend the detention of four leaders jailed earlier in a government crackdown sparked by a wave of pro-reform protests by the banned movement believed to be Egypt's largest Islamist group.

2006 - The U.N. panel that monitors compliance with the world's anti-torture treaty says the United States should close its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and avoid using secret detention facilities in the war on terror.

2007 - British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on his last visit to Iraq before stepping down in June, urges Iraq's leaders to speed up reconciliation efforts — after three blasts rock the compound in Baghdad's Green Zone where he met with Iraq's leaders.

2008 - The Dalai Lama meets with Germany's development minister, provoking criticism within Angela Merkel's government after the chancellor angered China by inviting the Dalai Lama to the chancellory.

2009 - President Barack Obama's promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison suffers a blow when his allies in the Senate said they would refuse to finance the move until the administration delivers a satisfactory plan for what to do with the detainees there.

2010 - Top U.S. scientists urge the government to take drastic action to raise the cost of using coal and oil to slow global warming.

Today's Birthdays:

Nellie Melba, Australian opera singer (1861-1931); Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey (1881-1938); King Faisal I, first king of independent Iraq (1883-1933); Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese Communist leader and president of North Vietnam (1890-1969); Pol Pot, Cambodian communist leader (1925 or 1928-1998); Pete Townshend, British rock singer-composer of The Who (1945--); Grace Jones, Jamaican-born singer-actress (1952--).

Thought For Today:

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it — Mark Twain (1835-1910).