History of Today in India – 19 May

Explore the history of today 19 May in India, including important events, famous personalities, and milestones for UPSC SSC,Banking & PSC exams.

Last updated on 19 May 2026, 09:10 AM

📜 Important Events on 19 May in World History

• 19 May 2024: A helicopter crash in Iran leaves 8 people dead, including the country's president Ebrahim Raisi & foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. Read more
• 19 May 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. Read more
• 19 May 2016: EgyptAir Flight 804 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea while traveling from Paris to Cairo, killing all on board. Read more
• 19 May 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. Read more
• 19 May 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. Read more
• 19 May 2012: A car bomb explodes near a military complex in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, killing nine people. Read more
• 19 May 2010: The Royal Thai Armed Forces concludes its crackdown on protests by forcing the surrender of United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship leaders. Read more
• 19 May 2007: President of Romania Traian Băsescu survives an impeachment referendum and returns to office from suspension. Read more
• 19 May 2007: A mass shooting starts in Moscow, Idaho, which would leave 3 non-shooters dead and 3 more injured, before the shooter committed suicide the next day. Read more
• 19 May 2000: Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on mission STS-101 to resupply the International Space Station. Read more
• 19 May 1997: The Sierra Gorda biosphere, the most ecologically diverse region in Mexico, is established as a result of grassroots efforts. Read more
• 19 May 1996: Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on mission STS-77. Read more
• 19 May 1993: SAM Colombia Flight 501 crashes on approach to José María Córdova International Airport in Medellín, Colombia, killing 132. Read more
• 19 May 1991: Croatians vote for independence in a referendum. Read more
• 19 May 1986: The Firearm Owners Protection Act is signed into law by U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Read more
• 19 May 1971: Mars probe program: Mars 2 is launched by the Soviet Union. Read more
• 19 May 1963: The New York Post Sunday Magazine publishes Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail. Read more
• 19 May 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". Read more
• 19 May 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). Read more
• 19 May 1961: 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. Read more
• 19 May 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. Read more
• 19 May 1950: A barge containing munitions destined for Pakistan explodes in the harbor at South Amboy, New Jersey, devastating the city. Read more
• 19 May 1950: Egypt announces that the Suez Canal is closed to Israeli ships and commerce. Read more
• 19 May 1945: Syrian demonstrators in Damascus are fired upon by French troops injuring twelve, leading to the Levant Crisis. Read more
• 19 May 1943: Winston Churchill's second wartime address to the U.S. Congress Read more
• 19 May 1942: World War II: In the aftermath of the Battle of the Coral Sea, Task Force 16 heads to Pearl Harbor for repairs. Read more
• 19 May 1934: Zveno and the Bulgarian Army engineer a coup d'état and install Kimon Georgiev as the new Prime Minister of Bulgaria. Read more
• 19 May 1933: Finnish cavalry general C. G. E. Mannerheim is appointed the field marshal. Read more
• 19 May 1922: The Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union is established. Read more
• 19 May 1921: The United States Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act establishing national quotas on immigration. Read more
• 19 May 1919: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk lands at Samsun on the Anatolian Black Sea coast, initiating what is later termed the Turkish War of Independence. Read more
• 19 May 1917: The Norwegian football club Rosenborg BK is founded. Read more
• 19 May 1911: Parks Canada, the world's first national park service, is established as the Dominion Parks Branch under the Department of the Interior. Read more
• 19 May 1900: Great Britain annexes Tonga Island. Read more
• 19 May 1900: Second Boer War: British troops relieve Mafeking. Read more
• 19 May 1883: Buffalo Bill's first Buffalo Bill's Wild West opens in Omaha, Nebraska. Read more
• 19 May 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. Read more
• 19 May 1845: Captain Sir John Franklin and his ill-fated Arctic expedition depart from Greenhithe, England. Read more
• 19 May 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. Read more
• 19 May 1802: Napoleon Bonaparte founds the Legion of Honour. Read more

🎂 Important Births on 19 May in World History

• 19 May 2003: Jojo Siwa, American dancer, singer, actress, and YouTube personality Joelle Joanie "JoJo" Siwa is an American singer, dancer, actress, and media personality. From 2015 to 2016, she appeared as a dancer on two seasons of the reality television show Dance Moms alongside her mother, Jessalynn Siwa. She was included on Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020. Read more
• 19 May 2002: Riccardo Calafiori, Italian footballer Riccardo Calafiori is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a defender for Premier League club Arsenal and the Italy national team. Read more
• 19 May 2002: Rafa Marín, Spanish footballer Rafael Marín Zamora is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for La Liga club Villarreal, on loan from Serie A club Napoli. Read more
• 19 May 2001: Elizabeth Mandlik, American tennis player Elizabeth Hana Mandlik is an American tennis player. She is the daughter of former major champion Hana Mandlíková. Read more
• 19 May 1996: Michael Carcone, Canadian ice hockey player Michael Carcone is a Canadian professional ice hockey player who is a forward for the Utah Mammoth of the National Hockey League (NHL). Undrafted, Carcone began his professional career in the American Hockey League (AHL) affiliates of NHL organizations including the Vancouver Canucks, Toronto Maple Leafs, Ottawa Senators, and Arizona Coyotes. Read more
• 19 May 1995: Taane Milne, New Zealand rugby league player Taane Milne is a Fiji international rugby league footballer who plays as a centre, second-row or loose forward for the Huddersfield Giants in the Super League. Read more
• 19 May 1994: Carlos Guzmán, Mexican footballer Carlos Alberto Guzmán Fonseca is a Mexican professional footballer who plays as a right-back for Canadian Premier League club Inter Toronto FC. Read more
• 19 May 1992: Michele Camporese, Italian footballer Michele Camporese is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Serie C Group B club Livorno. Read more
• 19 May 1992: Ola John, Dutch footballer Ola John is a professional footballer who plays for Al-Arabi as a left winger. Born in Liberia, he has represented the Netherlands national team. Read more
• 19 May 1992: Felise Kaufusi, New Zealand-Tongan rugby league player Felise Kaufusi is a professional rugby league footballer who plays as a second-row or prop forward for the Dolphins in the National Rugby League (NRL), and Tonga and Australia at international level. Read more
• 19 May 1992: Evgeny Kuznetsov, Russian ice hockey player Yevgeny Evgenyevich Kuznetsov is a Russian professional ice hockey player who is a forward for Salavat Yulaev Ufa of the KHL. He most recently played for Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). He previously played for the Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes in the National Hockey League (NHL) and Traktor Chelyabinsk and SKA Saint Petersburg of the KHL. He has represented Russia in junior and senior level competitions on numerous occasions, winning gold medals at the 2011 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships, as well as at the 2012 IIHF World Championship and 2014 IIHF World Championship. Read more
• 19 May 1992: Marshmello, American electronic music producer and DJ Christopher Comstock, known professionally as Marshmello and formerly as Dotcom, is an American DJ and record producer. His songs "Silence", "Wolves", "Friends", "Happier", and "Alone" have each received multi-platinum certifications in several countries, and peaked within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. His musical style includes groove-oriented, synth and bass-heavy electronic dance music. Read more
• 19 May 1992: Sam Smith, English singer-songwriter Samuel Frederick Smith is an English singer and songwriter. In 2012, they rose to prominence when they featured on Disclosure's breakthrough single "Latch", which peaked at number eleven on the UK Singles Chart. The following year, they featured on Naughty Boy's single "La La La", which became a number one single in the UK. Read more
• 19 May 1992: Heather Watson, British tennis player Heather Miriam Watson is a British professional tennis player. A former British No. 1, Watson has won ten titles over her career, including the mixed-doubles title at the 2016 Wimbledon Championships, partnering Henri Kontinen, making her the first British woman to win a major title since Jo Durie in 1991, and the first to win a Wimbledon title since Durie in 1987. In October 2012, Watson won her first WTA Tour singles title at the Japan Women's Open, becoming the first British woman to win a WTA tournament singles title since Sara Gomer in 1988. Read more
• 19 May 1992: Lainey Wilson, American singer-songwriter Lainey Denay Wilson is an American country singer-songwriter and actress. She performed at an early age, before going to Nashville to pursue a career as a pop music performer. In 2014, she released her first album on Cupit, followed by a second on Lone Chief in 2016. Wilson secured a publishing deal and later released an extended play (EP) in 2019 which included the song "Things a Man Oughta Know". In 2020, it was issued as a single through the BBR Music Group and eventually reached number one on the American country songs chart. Read more
• 19 May 1991: Jordan Pruitt, American singer-songwriter Jordan Pruitt Fuente is an American former singer-songwriter. She released two studio albums on Hollywood Records — No Ordinary Girl (2007) and Permission to Fly (2008) — and toured as an opening act for artists including the Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, and the Cheetah Girls. Her debut single, "Outside Looking In", reached number 77 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. In 2012, she appeared on the third season of The Voice as a member of Christina Aguilera's team. She retired from music in December 2017. Read more
• 19 May 1987: Michael Angelakos, American singer-songwriter and producer Michael John Angelakos is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the frontman of the indietronica band Passion Pit. Read more
• 19 May 1987: David Edgar, Canadian soccer player David Edward Edgar is a Canadian soccer coach and former professional player. Read more
• 19 May 1987: Mariano Torres, Argentinian footballer Mariano Néstor Torres is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for and captains Liga FPD club Saprissa. Read more
• 19 May 1986: Mario Chalmers, American basketball player Almario "Mario" Vernard Chalmers is an American former professional basketball player. He was selected as the 34th overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves after playing three seasons of college basketball for the University of Kansas. Chalmers was named the 2006–07 Co-Defensive Player of the Year and the Most Outstanding Player of the 2008 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament after winning the 2008 NCAA championship. Read more
• 19 May 1985: Malakai Black, Dutch professional wrestler Tom Büdgen is a Dutch professional wrestler. He is best known for his tenures in WWE as Aleister Black, and All Elite Wrestling (AEW) as Malakai Black. Read more
• 19 May 1984: Marcedes Lewis, American football player Marcedes Alexis Lewis, nicknamed "Big Dog", is an American professional football tight end. He played college football for the UCLA Bruins, earning consensus All-American honors. Lewis was selected by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the first round of the 2006 NFL draft. He has also played for the Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, and Denver Broncos. Read more
• 19 May 1983: Michael Che, American comedian Michael Che Campbell is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. Che is best known for his work on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, where he has served as co-anchor on Weekend Update alongside Colin Jost since 2014. Che and Jost were co-head writers at SNL from 2017 until 2022. The duo also co-hosted the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2018. Read more
• 19 May 1983: Jessica Fox, English actress Jessica Ann Fox is an English actress. She played Enid Nightshade in the children's television series The Worst Witch and later gained soap opera roles as Belle Wise in Crossroads and Nancy Hayton in Hollyoaks. Read more
• 19 May 1982: Kevin Amankwaah, English footballer Kevin Osei-Kuffour Amankwaah is an English former professional footballer who played as a defender. He enjoyed successful stints at Bristol City and Swindon Town. Read more
• 19 May 1982: Pål Steffen Andresen, Norwegian footballer Pål Steffen Andresen is a Norwegian football defender who plays for Strømmen. Read more
• 19 May 1982: Klaas Vantornout, Belgian cyclist Klaas Vantornout is a Belgian former professional racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 2006 and 2018 for the Fidea and Marlux–Bingoal teams. Vantornout was the winner of the Belgian National Cyclo-cross Championships in 2013 and 2015. Read more
• 19 May 1981: Luciano Figueroa, Argentinian footballer Luciano Gabriel "Lucho" Figueroa Herrera is an Argentine former professional footballer who played as a striker. Read more
• 19 May 1981: Yo Gotti, American rapper Mario Mims, known professionally as Yo Gotti, is an American rapper, singer, record executive, and record producer. Rooted in Memphis rap, he released five independent albums—Youngsta's on a Come Up (1996), From da Dope Game 2 da Rap Game (2000), Self-Explanatory (2001), Life (2003), and Back 2 da Basics (2006)—before signing with J Records in 2009. Two of his singles that year, "5 Star" and "Women Lie, Men Lie", received gold certifications by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and entered the Billboard Hot 100. Both songs were omitted from his sixth album and major label debut, Live from the Kitchen (2012), which, despite mixed critical reception, peaked at number 12 on the Billboard 200. Read more
• 19 May 1981: Michael Leighton, Canadian ice hockey player Michael W. Leighton is a Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Chicago Blackhawks, Nashville Predators, Philadelphia Flyers and Carolina Hurricanes. He is currently an assistant coach with the Detroit Red Wings. Read more
• 19 May 1981: Sina Schielke, German sprinter Sina Schielke is a German former sprinter. Her personal bests are 11.16 seconds in the 100 metres, 22.78 in the 200 metres, and 7.19 seconds in the indoor 60 metres. Read more
• 19 May 1981: Klaas-Erik Zwering, Dutch swimmer Klaas-Erik Zwering is a former Dutch swimmer and an Olympic medalist. He is currently studying MBO entrepreneurship as he trained in Eindhoven with the PSV Eindhoven swim club. His personal coach was Jacco Verhaeren, who is also coach for Dutch swimming phenom Pieter van den Hoogenband. Read more
• 19 May 1980: Tony Hackworth, English footballer Anthony Hackworth is an English retired footballer and manager, who played as an attacking midfielder.He was most recently manager of. Pickering Town. Read more
• 19 May 1979: Andrea Pirlo, Italian footballer Andrea Pirlo is an Italian football manager and former player who is currently the head coach of UAE First Division League club Dubai United. Considered one of the greatest midfielders of all time, Pirlo was known for his vision, technique, creativity, passing, and free kick ability. He is the all-time Italian top assist provider in the UEFA Champions League (15). Read more
• 19 May 1979: Diego Forlán, Uruguayan footballer Diego Forlán Corazo is a Uruguayan football manager and a former player, who played as a forward, and last served as head coach for Uruguayan Segunda División club Club Atlético Atenas. Widely regarded as one of the best forwards of his generation, Forlán was praised for his versatility, intelligence, technique, and shooting abilities. As of 2026, Forlán is a professional tennis player, having made his ATP debut at the 2024 Uruguay Open. Read more
• 19 May 1979: Shooter Jennings, American country singer, songwriter Waylon Albright "Shooter" Jennings is an American musician and record producer. He is the son of country singers Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter. In a career spanning three decades, Jennings has explored a variety of musical genres. Read more
• 19 May 1978: Marcus Bent, English footballer Marcus Nathan Bent is an English retired professional footballer. A former England under-21 international, the journeyman striker played 573 games and scored 113 goals for 14 different clubs. His numerous transfer fees totalled over £10 million. Read more
• 19 May 1978: Dave Bus, Dutch footballer David Bus is a Dutch former professional footballer who played as a defender. Read more
• 19 May 1977: Manuel Almunia, Spanish footballer Manuel Almunia Rivero is a Spanish former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Read more
• 19 May 1977: Wouter Hamel, Dutch singer and guitarist Wouter Hamel is a Dutch pop singer. He released his debut album Hamel in March 2007. Hamel's style has been compared to Jamie Cullum's. Read more
• 19 May 1977: Brandon Inge, American baseball player Charles Brandon Inge is an American former professional baseball third baseman and catcher and currently a volunteer assistant coach for the Michigan Wolverines baseball team and an assistant coach for the Brighton High School Varsity baseball team. He played 12 seasons with the Detroit Tigers, one with the Oakland Athletics and one with the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball (MLB). He bats and throws right-handed. Read more
• 19 May 1977: Natalia Oreiro, Uruguayan singer-songwriter and actress Natalia Marisa Oreiro Iglesias is a Uruguayan actress, singer, songwriter, model, television presenter and fashion designer. She began her career in telenovelas but since 2008 she has switched to work primarily in films. Oreiro has worked on social awareness shows and events for organizations like Greenpeace and UNICEF, the latter of which designated her as ambassador for Argentina and Uruguay in September 2011. Read more
• 19 May 1976: Ed Cota, American basketball player Eduardo Enrique Cota is a Panamanian-American former professional basketball player. Read more
• 19 May 1976: Kevin Garnett, American basketball player Kevin Maurice Garnett, commonly known by his initials KG, is an American former professional basketball player who played 21 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "the Big Ticket", Garnett is widely regarded as one of the greatest power forwards of all time, known for his intensity, versatility, and defensive ability. As of 2026, he is one of five NBA players to have won both the NBA Most Valuable Player Award and the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. Read more
• 19 May 1975: Pretinha, Brazilian footballer Delma Gonçalves, commonly known as Pretinha, is a Brazilian professional soccer coach and former forward. A longtime member of the Brazil national team, for whom she debuted in 1991, she played for clubs in Brazil, the United States and Japan before moving to Icheon Daekyo of South Korea's WK-League in 2009. Read more
• 19 May 1975: London Fletcher, American football player London Levi Fletcher-Baker is an American former professional football player who was a linebacker for 16 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the John Carroll Blue Streaks and signed with the St. Louis Rams as an undrafted free agent in 1998. After four seasons with the Rams, he was a member of the Buffalo Bills for five seasons and spent his last seven seasons with the Washington Redskins. He won Super Bowl XXXIV with the Rams in 1999 and made four Pro Bowls during his Redskins tenure. Read more
• 19 May 1975: Josh Paul, American baseball player and manager Joshua William Paul is an American former professional baseball catcher and professional coach. He most recently served as the quality control coach for the Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball (MLB). He played in MLB for the Los Angeles Angels, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, and Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He also coached the Angels and New York Yankees. Read more
• 19 May 1975: Jonas Renkse, Swedish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Jonas Petter Renkse is a Swedish musician in the bands Katatonia (1991–) as lead vocalist, founder, songwriter and formerly as drummer ; formerly in Bloodbath (1998–2023) as bassist, founder, songwriter; and in Wisdom of Crowds (2013–) as co-vocalist. Read more
• 19 May 1974: Andrew Johns, Australian rugby league player, coach, and sportscaster Andrew Gary Johns, also known by the nickname Joey, is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s. He is considered one of the greatest rugby league players of all time. Johns captained the Newcastle Knights in the National Rugby League and participated in the team's only two premiership victories in 1997 and 2001, playing a club record 249 games for the Knights. Johns also represented his country at two World Cups, and on one Kangaroo tour, playing in total 21 Test matches for the national side. He played in 23 State of Origin series matches for the New South Wales Blues, and played for the Country Origin side in 1995 and 2003. Read more
• 19 May 1974: Emma Shapplin, French soprano Emma Shapplin is a French soprano singer, composer and visual artist known for her fusion of operatic singing with electronic and pop music influences. She debuted in 1997 with the album Carmine Meo, which achieved multi‑platinum status and sold over two million copies worldwide. Read more
• 19 May 1974: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Indian actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui is an Indian actor known for his work in Hindi cinema. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a National Film Award, an IIFA Award, and two Filmfare Awards, as well as a nomination for an International Emmy. After studying acting at the National School of Drama, Siddiqui had minor roles in films such as Sarfarosh (1999), Shool (1999), and Munna Bhai M.B.B.S (2003). Read more
• 19 May 1973: Dario Franchitti, Scottish race car driver George Dario Marino Franchitti is a British motorsport commentator and semi-retired motor racing driver from Scotland. Franchitti won the IndyCar Series Drivers' Championship in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011; the Indianapolis 500 in 2007, 2010 and 2012; and the 2008 24 Hours of Daytona driving for Andretti Green Racing (AGR) and later Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR). Read more
• 19 May 1972: Jenny Berggren, Swedish singer-songwriter Jenny Cecilia Petrén, professionally known as Jenny Berggren and Jenny from Ace of Base is a Swedish mezzo-soprano singer and former lead singer in the Swedish pop band Ace of Base. Since 1995, she has also been writing songs and performing solo. In 2010, she released her debut album My Story. Read more
• 19 May 1972: Claudia Karvan, Australian actress, producer, and screenwriter Claudia Karvan is an Australian actress and producer. As a child actor, she first appeared in the film Molly (1983) and followed with an adolescent role in High Tide (1987). She portrayed a teacher who falls in love with her student in The Heartbreak Kid (1993). Karvan's roles in television series include The Secret Life of Us (2001–2005), Love My Way (2004–2007), Newton's Law (2017) and Halifax: Retribution (2020). She won Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Television Drama at the AFI Awards for her appearance in G.P. (1996). She won two similar AFI Awards for her role in Love My Way and in 2014 for her work in The Time of Our Lives (2013–2014). As a co-producer and co-writer on Love My Way, she won three further AFI Awards for Best Drama Series in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Karvan was inducted into the Australian Film Walk of Fame in 2007 in acknowledgment of her contributions to the Australian film and television industry. From 2010 to 2011, she starred in the drama series Spirited, which she co-created and was executive producer. She appeared as Judy Vickers in Puberty Blues. Karvan has co-produced House of Hancock and Doctor Doctor (2016–2021). In 2021 she co-created, co-produced and starred in the TV drama series, Bump. Read more
• 19 May 1971: Ross Katz, American director, producer, and screenwriter Ross Katz is an American film producer, screenwriter and film director. He has executive produced films including In the Bedroom and Lost in Translation, and has directed the films Adult Beginners (2014) and The Choice (2016), and the HBO film Taking Chance (2009). Read more
• 19 May 1971: Andres Salumets, Estonian biologist, biochemist, and educator Andres Salumets is an Estonian biologist, biochemist, and international infertility expert. He currently is Professor of Reproductive Medicine at the Karolinska Institute. Read more
• 19 May 1970: Stuart Cable, Welsh drummer (died 2010) Stuart James Cable was a Welsh rock drummer and broadcaster, best known as the original drummer for the band Stereophonics. Read more
• 19 May 1970: K. J. Choi, South Korean golfer Choi Kyung-Ju, commonly known as K. J. Choi, is a South Korean professional golfer who currently plays on the PGA Tour Champions. Since turning pro in 1994, he has won more than thirty professional golf tournaments worldwide, including eight on the PGA Tour. His most notable victory came at the 2011 Players Championship, and he has spent 40 weeks in the top-10 of the world rankings. Read more
• 19 May 1970: Regina Narva, Estonian chess player Regina Narva is an Estonian chess Woman FIDE Master (2007). Read more
• 19 May 1970: Nia Zulkarnaen, Indonesian actress, singer and producer Nia Zulkarnaen is an Indonesian singer, actress and producer. She is the daughter of the actor Dicky Zulkarnaen and veteran Indonesian actress Mieke Wijaya. Read more
• 19 May 1968: Kyle Eastwood, American actor and bass player Kyle Eastwood is an American jazz bassist, film composer and actor. He studied film at the University of Southern California for two years before embarking on a music career. After becoming a session player in the early 1990s and leading his own quartet, he released his first solo album, From There to Here, in 1998. His album The View from Here was released in 2013 by Jazz Village. In addition to his solo albums, Eastwood has composed music for nine of his father Clint Eastwood's films. Eastwood plays fretted and fretless electric bass guitar and double bass. Read more
• 19 May 1967: Alexia, Italian singer Alessia Aquilani, known professionally as Alexia, is an Italian singer-songwriter. Before recording in Italian in the 2000s, she made records in English in the 1990s. Many of those were international hits. Before her solo career, she was the vocalist of Ice MC. Read more
• 19 May 1967: Geraldine Somerville, Irish-born English actress Geraldine Margaret Agnew-Somerville is an Irish-British actress. She is known for her roles in the film Gosford Park (2001) and the Harry Potter film series as an adult Lily Potter (2001–2011). Her other roles have included Daphne (2007), My Week with Marilyn (2011) and Grace of Monaco (2014). In 1995, Somerville was nominated for a BAFTA Award for playing Jane Penhaligon in the television series Cracker. Read more
• 19 May 1966: Marc Bureau, Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster Marc Joseph Denis Bureau is a Canadian former ice hockey centre who played in the National Hockey League for the Calgary Flames, Minnesota North Stars, Tampa Bay Lightning, Montreal Canadiens and Philadelphia Flyers. Read more
• 19 May 1966: Jodi Picoult, American author and educator Jodi Lynn Picoult is an American writer. As of 2026, Picoult has published 28 novels, several short stories, and has also written several issues of Wonder Woman. Approximately 40 million copies of her books are in print worldwide and have been translated into 34 languages. In 2003, she was awarded the New England Bookseller Award for fiction. Read more
• 19 May 1966: Polly Walker, English actress Polly Alexandra Walker is an English actress. She has starred in the films Enchanted April (1991), Patriot Games (1992), Sliver (1993), Restoration (1995), The Gambler (1997), and Savage Messiah (2002). In 2006, she received a Golden Globe Award nomination for her role in the drama series Rome (2005–2007). She is also known for her roles in BBC One dramas Prisoners’ Wives (2012–2013), Line of Duty and Netflix's Bridgerton (2020-present). Read more
• 19 May 1965: Maile Flanagan, American actress, producer, and screenwriter Maile Flanagan is an American actress and comedian. She is best known as the voice of Naruto Uzumaki in the English dub of the Naruto franchise. Other prominent roles include voicing Piggley Winks in Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks, and portraying Principal Terry Perry in Lab Rats. Read more
• 19 May 1964: Peter Jackson, Australian rugby league player and sportscaster (died 1997) Peter Jackson was an Australian professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1980s and 1990s. Nicknamed 'Jacko', he was an Australia national and Queensland State of Origin representative centre or five-eighth. Jackson played club football in the Brisbane Rugby League for the Souths Magpies, before moving to the New South Wales Rugby League and playing for the Canberra Raiders, Brisbane Broncos and North Sydney Bears. He also played in the Rugby Football League for English club Leeds. Jackson worked in the media following his retirement in 1993, and died as the result of a drug overdose in 1997. Read more
• 19 May 1964: John Lee, South Korean-American football player John Lee is a Korean former player of American football who was a placekicker for the St. Louis Cardinals of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the UCLA Bruins, twice earning All-American honors, including a unanimous selection in 1985. Lee was selected by St. Louis in the second round of the 1986 NFL draft. He played one season with the Cardinals and was the first Korean to play in the NFL. He was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame in 2001. Read more
• 19 May 1964: Miloslav Mečíř, Slovak tennis player Miloslav Mečíř is a Slovak former professional tennis player. He won the singles gold medal at the 1988 Olympic Games, representing Czechoslovakia, and contested two major singles finals. In 1987 he won the WCT Finals, the season-ending championship for the World Championship Tennis tour. He reached a highest ranking of world No. 4 in singles in February 1988 and won 11 singles titles during his career. His son Miloslav Jr. is also a former professional tennis player. Read more
• 19 May 1963: Filippo Galli, Italian footballer and manager Filippo Galli is an Italian football manager and former player, who played as a defender. Read more
• 19 May 1961: Vadim Cojocaru, Moldovan politician (died 2021) Vadim Cojocaru was a Moldovan politician. Read more
• 19 May 1961: Gregory Poirier, American director, producer, and screenwriter Gregory Stephen Poirier is an American film and television writer, director, and producer. Read more
• 19 May 1961: Wayne Van Dorp, Canadian ice hockey player Wayne Van Dorp is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. He played for the Edmonton Oilers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Chicago Blackhawks and Quebec Nordiques. In The Netherlands he played for Feenstra Flyers Heerenveen and Gijs Groningen. He has a Stanley Cup ring with Edmonton for playing three regular season games and three playoff games in 1987. However, Van Dorp did not play enough regular season games (40) or a game in the finals to get his name on the Stanley Cup. Van Dorp played for the Netherlands national ice hockey team in the 1986 World Ice Hockey Championships, Pool B. Read more
• 19 May 1957: Bill Laimbeer, American basketball player and coach William J. Laimbeer Jr. is an American former professional basketball coach and player who spent the majority of his career with the Detroit Pistons. Known for his physical style of play, he played a big part in the Pistons earning the nickname the “Bad Boys" in the mid-1980s before helping them win back-to-back NBA championships. Read more
• 19 May 1957: James Reyne, Nigerian-Australian singer-songwriter James Michael Nugent Reyne OAM is an Australian musician. He achieved fame as the lead singer of Australian Crawl and Company of Strangers and subsequently went on to a successful solo career. Read more
• 19 May 1956: Oliver Letwin, English philosopher and politician, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Sir Oliver Letwin is a British politician, Member of Parliament (MP) for West Dorset from 1997 to 2019. Letwin was elected as a member of the Conservative Party, but sat as an independent after having the whip removed in September 2019. He was Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer under Michael Howard and Shadow Home Secretary under Iain Duncan Smith. He was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 2014 to 2016. Read more
• 19 May 1956: Martyn Ware, English keyboard player, songwriter, and producer Martyn Ware is an English musician, composer, arranger, record producer, and music programmer. As a founding member of both the Human League and Heaven 17, Ware co-wrote hit songs such as "Being Boiled" and "Temptation". Read more
• 19 May 1955: James Gosling, Canadian-American computer scientist, created Java James Arthur Gosling is a Canadian computer scientist, best known as the founder and lead designer behind the Java programming language. Read more
• 19 May 1954: Rick Cerone, American baseball player and sportscaster Richard Aldo Cerone is an American former professional baseball player, television sports color commentator and minor league baseball team owner. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher from 1975 to 1992 with the Cleveland Indians, Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee Brewers, Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, and Montreal Expos. Read more
• 19 May 1954: Lena Einhorn, Swedish director, writer and physician Lena Einhorn is a Swedish director and writer and former physician. Read more
• 19 May 1954: Hōchū Ōtsuka, Japanese voice actor Hōchū Ōtsuka is a Japanese voice actor and narrator affiliated with the talent management firm Crazy Box. Read more
• 19 May 1954: Phil Rudd, Australian-New Zealand drummer Phillip Hugh Norman Rudd is an Australian musician, best known as the drummer of AC/DC across three stints. On the 1977 departure of bass guitarist Mark Evans from AC/DC, Rudd became the only Australian-born member of the band. In 2003, he entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with the other members of AC/DC. In 2014, Rudd released his first solo album, Head Job. Due to ongoing legal problems in New Zealand, where he is a resident, Rudd was unable to join the band for the 2015 Rock or Bust World Tour and was replaced by Chris Slade. On 30 September 2020, AC/DC confirmed that Rudd would be rejoining the band for their comeback album Power Up. Read more
• 19 May 1953: Patrick Hodge, Lord Hodge, Scottish lawyer and judge Patrick Stewart Hodge, Lord Hodge, PC is a Scottish retired judge, who served as Deputy President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Read more
• 19 May 1953: Shavarsh Karapetyan, Armenian finswimmer Shavarsh Vladimiri (Vladimirovich) Karapetyan is a Soviet-Armenian former finswimmer. He was best known for saving the lives of 20 people in a 1976 incident in Yerevan. Read more
• 19 May 1953: Florin Marin, Romanian footballer and manager Florin Marin was a Romanian professional football manager and player. Marin had a total of 456 matches as a manager in the Romanian top-division, Divizia A consisting of 166 victories, 103 draws and 187 losses. Marin died from complications of dementia on 18 September 2025, at the age of 72. Read more
• 19 May 1953: Victoria Wood, English actress, singer, director, and screenwriter (died 2016) Victoria Wood was an English comedian, actress, musician, screenwriter, and director. Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades, and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to activities, attitudes and products that are considered to exemplify Britain. She was noted for her skills in observational comedy and in satirising aspects of social class. Read more
• 19 May 1952: Charlie Spedding, English runner Charles Spedding is an English former long-distance runner who competed at the 1984 Summer Olympics and the 1988 Summer Olympics. Read more
• 19 May 1952: Bert van Marwijk, Dutch footballer, coach, and manager Lambertus van Marwijk is a Dutch football manager who is a member of the supervisory board for MVV Maastricht. As a player, he played for the Go Ahead Eagles, AZ, MVV and Fortuna Sittard amongst other clubs and also represented the Netherlands once. Read more
• 19 May 1951: Joey Ramone, American singer-songwriter (died 2001) Jeffrey Ross Hyman, known professionally as Joey Ramone, was an American singer, songwriter, and the lead vocalist and founding member of the punk rock band Ramones, with Johnny Ramone and Dee Dee Ramone. His image, voice, and tenure with the Ramones made him a countercultural icon. Read more
• 19 May 1951: Dick Slater, American wrestler (died 2018) Richard Van Slater better known by his ring name "Dirty" Dick Slater, was an American professional wrestler who wrestled in the 1970s, 1980s, and mid-1990s for various promotions including Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Read more
• 19 May 1950: Tadeusz Ślusarski, Polish pole vaulter (died 1998) Tadeusz Ślusarski was a Polish Olympic gold medalist in pole vault at the 1976 Olympics, as well as a silver medalist at the 1980 Olympics. Read more
• 19 May 1949: Dusty Hill, American singer-songwriter and bass player (died 2021) Joe Michael "Dusty" Hill was an American musician who was the bassist of the rock band ZZ Top for more than 50 years. He also sang backing and lead vocals and played keyboards. Read more
• 19 May 1949: Philip Hunt, Baron Hunt of Kings Heath, English politician Philip Alexander Hunt, Baron Hunt of Kings Heath, is a former health administrator and a Labour Co-operative member of the House of Lords who served as Minister of State in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero from 2024 to 2025. Read more
• 19 May 1949: Archie Manning, American football player Elisha Archibald Manning III is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons, primarily with the New Orleans Saints. The patriarch of the Manning football dynasty, he is the father of quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning. Read more
• 19 May 1948: Grace Jones, Jamaican-American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress Grace Beverly Jones is a Jamaican singer, songwriter, model and actress. She began her modelling career in New York, signing with Wilhelmina Models. After moving to Paris, she worked for fashion houses such as Yves St. Laurent and Kenzo, while appearing on the covers of Elle and Vogue Hommes. Jones was photographed by Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, and Hans Feurer, and emerged as one of the most prominent Black models of the 1970s. She earned recognition for her androgynous appearance and bold features, and has been cited as influential in early discussions of gender expression. Read more
• 19 May 1947: Paul Brady, Irish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Paul Joseph Brady is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician from Strabane, Northern Ireland. His work straddles folk and pop. He was interested in a wide variety of music from an early age. Read more
• 19 May 1947: Christopher Chope, English lawyer and politician Sir Christopher Robert Chope is a British politician and former barrister who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Christchurch in Dorset since 1997. A member of the Conservative Party, he was first elected in 1983 for Southampton Itchen, but lost this seat in 1992 to Labour. He returned to Parliament in 1997 and has remained an MP ever since. Read more
• 19 May 1947: David Helfgott, Australian pianist David Helfgott is an Australian concert pianist whose life inspired the Academy Award-winning film Shine, in which he was portrayed by actors Geoffrey Rush, Noah Taylor and Alex Rafalowicz. Read more
• 19 May 1946: Claude Lelièvre, Belgian activist Claude Lelièvre is a Belgian government official. He is the Commissioner for Children Rights of the French community of Belgium, an office similar to the children's ombudsman agencies elsewhere. Read more
• 19 May 1946: Michele Placido, Italian actor and director Michele Placido is an Italian actor, director and screenwriter. He began his career on stage, and first gained mainstream attention through a series of roles in films directed by the likes of Mario Monicelli and Marco Bellocchio, winning the Berlinale's Silver Bear for Best Actor for his performance in the 1979 film Ernesto. He is known internationally for portraying police inspector Corrado Cattani on the crime drama television series La piovra (1984–2001). Placido's directorial debut, Pummarò, was screened Un Certain Regard at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. Three of his films have competed for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. He is a five-time Nastro d'Argento and four-time David di Donatello winner. In 2021, Placido was appointed President of the Teatro Comunale in Ferrara. Read more
• 19 May 1946: André the Giant, French-American wrestler and actor (died 1993) André René Roussimoff, better known by his ring name André the Giant, was a French professional wrestler and actor. Dubbed "the Eighth Wonder of the World", Roussimoff was known for his great size, which was a result of gigantism caused by excess human growth hormone. Read more
• 19 May 1945: Pete Townshend, English singer-songwriter and guitarist Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend is an English musician. He is the co-founder, guitarist, keyboardist, second lead vocalist, and principal songwriter of the Who, one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s. His aggressive playing style, poetic songwriting techniques and authorship of two rock operas with the Who, as well as other projects, have earned him critical acclaim. Read more
• 19 May 1944: Peter Mayhew, English-American actor (died 2019) Peter William Mayhew was a British-American actor. He was best known for portraying Chewbacca in the Star Wars film series. He played the character in all of his live-action appearances from the 1977 original to 2015's The Force Awakens before his retirement from the role. He also voiced the character in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and portrayed him in some non-canon television shows, including The Muppet Show. Read more
• 19 May 1943: Eddie May, English footballer and manager (died 2012) Edwin Charles May was an English football player and manager. May was born in Epping, and played for Dagenham, Southend United, Wrexham and Swansea City. Read more
• 19 May 1943: Shirrel Rhoades, American author, publisher, and academic Shirrel Rhoades is an American writer, publisher, professor, filmmaker, and the former executive vice president of Marvel Entertainment. Read more
• 19 May 1942: Gary Kildall, American computer scientist, founded Digital Research Inc. (died 1994) Gary Arlen Kildall was an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur. During the 1970s, Kildall created the operating system CP/M among other operating systems and programming tools, and subsequently founded Digital Research, Inc. to market and sell his software products. He is considered a pioneer of the personal computer revolution. Read more
• 19 May 1942: Robert Kilroy-Silk, English television host and politician Robert Michael Kilroy-Silk is an English former politician and broadcaster. After a decade as a university lecturer, he served as a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) from 1974 to 1986. He left the House of Commons in 1986 in order to present a new BBC Television daytime talk show, Kilroy, which ran until 2004. He returned to politics, serving as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2004 to 2009. He had a significant role in the mainstreaming of Eurosceptic politics in the UK and has been dubbed 'The Godfather of Brexit'. Read more
• 19 May 1941: Nora Ephron, American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 2012) Nora Ephron was an American writer, playwright, journalist, and filmmaker. Known for writing and directing romantic comedy films, she received numerous accolades including a BAFTA Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, and three Writers Guild of America Awards. Read more
• 19 May 1941: Igor Judge, Baron Judge, Maltese-English lawyer and judge, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales (died 2023) Igor Judge, Baron Judge, was an English judge who served as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, the head of the judiciary, from 2008 to 2013. He was previously President of the Queen's Bench Division, at the time a newly created post assuming responsibilities transferred from the office of lord chief justice. From 2019 to 2023, he served as Convenor of the Crossbench Peers in the House of Lords. Read more
• 19 May 1940: Jan Janssen, Dutch cyclist Johannes Adrianus "Jan" Janssen is a Dutch former professional cyclist. He was world champion and winner of the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, the first Dutch rider to win either. He rode the Tour de France eight times and finished all but the first time. He won seven stages and wore the yellow jersey for two days. He was easily spotted in the peloton because of his blond hair and his glasses. As of the death of Federico Bahamontes in August 2023, he is the oldest surviving winner of the Tour de France, but not the most ancient winner: Lucien Aimar won in 1966. Read more
• 19 May 1940: Mickey Newbury, American country/pop singer-songwriter (died 2002) Milton Sims "Mickey" Newbury Jr. was an American singer-songwriter. He is a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Read more
• 19 May 1939: Livio Berruti, Italian sprinter Livio Berruti is an Italian former athlete who was the winner of the 200-meter dash in the 1960 Summer Olympics. Read more
• 19 May 1939: James Fox, English actor James William Fox is an English actor, known for his work in film and television. He is a member of the Fox family of actors. Fox's career began in the 1960s through leading roles in films such as The Servant (1963), King Rat (1965), Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), and Performance (1970). Read more
• 19 May 1939: Nancy Kwan, Hong Kong-American actress and makeup artist Nancy Kwan Ka-shen is a Chinese-American actress whose career benefited from Hollywood's casting of more Asian roles in the 1960s, especially in comedies. She was considered an Eastern sex symbol in the 1960s. Read more
• 19 May 1939: Jānis Lūsis, Latvian javelin thrower and coach (died 2020) Jānis Lūsis was a Latvian track and field athlete who competed in javelin throw. Read more
• 19 May 1939: Dick Scobee, American pilot, and astronaut (died 1986) Francis Richard Scobee was an American pilot, engineer, and astronaut. He was killed while commanding the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986, which suffered catastrophic booster failure during launch of the STS-51-L mission. Read more
• 19 May 1938: Moisés da Costa Amaral, East Timorese politician (died 1989) Moisés da Costa Amaral was an East Timorese politician in the Timorese Democratic Union. Born in 1938 in Fahinihan, East Timor. Read more
• 19 May 1938: Herbie Flowers, English musician (died 2024) Brian Keith "Herbie" Flowers was an English musician specialising in bass guitar, double bass and tuba. He was a member of groups including Blue Mink, T. Rex and Sky and was also a prolific session musician. Read more
• 19 May 1938: Igor Ter-Ovanesyan, Ukrainian long jumper and coach Igor Aramovich Ter-Ovanesyan is a Soviet and Russian former long jumper and coach, of Armenian descent. Competing for the Soviet Union, he was a five-time European and two-time Olympic medalist in this event. In 1985, he was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour. Read more
• 19 May 1937: Pat Roach, English wrestler (died 2004) Francis Patrick Roach was an English professional wrestler, martial artist and actor. During an acting career between the 1970s and the 1990s, he appeared in multiple films, usually as a henchman. He appeared in the Indiana Jones film series, as the West Country bricklayer Brian "Bomber" Busbridge in the 1980s British television series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, and in the role of Petty Officer Edgar Evans in the television production The Last Place on Earth. Read more
• 19 May 1935: David Hartman, American journalist and television personality David Downs Hartman is an American journalist and media host who began his media career as an actor. He currently anchors and hosts documentary programs on History and PBS. Hartman is best known as the first host of ABC's Good Morning America, from 1975 to 1987. As an actor, he starred in the 1970s as a young resident, Dr. Paul Hunter, on The Bold Ones: The New Doctors and as a teacher in the series Lucas Tanner. He acted in the 1973 TV movie remake of Miracle on 34th Street. Read more
• 19 May 1934: Ruskin Bond, Indian author and poet Ruskin Bond is an Indian author and poet. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, published in 1956, received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Bond has authored more than 500 short stories, essays, and novels which include 69 books for children. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014. Read more
• 19 May 1934: Jim Lehrer, American journalist and author (died 2020) James Charles Lehrer was an American journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. He was the executive editor and a news anchor for the PBS News Hour on PBS and was known for his role as a debate moderator during U.S. presidential election campaigns, moderating 12 presidential debates between 1988 and 2012. Lehrer also wrote numerous fiction and non-fiction books that drew upon his experience as a newsman, along with his interests in history and politics. Read more
• 19 May 1933: Edward de Bono, Maltese physician, author, and academic (died 2021) Edward Charles Francis Publius de Bono was a Maltese physician and commentator. He originated the term lateral thinking, and wrote many books on thinking, including Six Thinking Hats. Read more
• 19 May 1932: Alma Cogan, English singer (died 1966) Alma Angela Cohen Cogan was an English singer of traditional pop in the 1950s and early 1960s. Dubbed the "Girl with the Giggle in Her Voice", she was the highest paid British female entertainer of her era. Read more
• 19 May 1932: Paul Erdman, American economist and author (died 2007) Paul Emil Erdman was a Canadian-born American economist and banker who became known for writing novels based on monetary trends and international finance. Read more
• 19 May 1932: Bill Fitch, American basketball player and coach (died 2022) William Charles Fitch was an American professional basketball coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He developed multiple teams into playoff contenders and won an NBA championship with the Boston Celtics in 1981. Before entering the professional ranks, he coached college basketball at the University of Minnesota, Bowling Green State University, the University of North Dakota, and his alma mater, Coe College. Fitch's teams twice qualified for the NCAA tournament. He won the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013, and was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019. Read more
• 19 May 1932: Elena Poniatowska, Mexican intellectual and journalist Hélène Elizabeth Louise Amélie Paula Dolores Poniatowska Amor, known professionally as Elena Poniatowska, is a French-born Mexican journalist and author, specializing in works on social and political issues focused on those considered disenfranchised, especially women and the poor. She was born in Paris to upper-class parents. Her mother's family fled Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. She left France for Mexico when she was ten to escape World War II. When she was 18, she began writing for the newspaper Excélsior, doing interviews and society columns. Despite the lack of opportunity for women from the 1950s to the 1970s, she wrote about social and political issues in newspapers and both fiction and nonfiction books. Her best-known work is La noche de Tlatelolco: Testimonios de historia oral, about the repression of the 1968 student protests in Mexico City. Due to her left-wing views, she has been nicknamed "the Red Princess". She is considered "Mexico's grande dame of letters" and is still an active writer. Read more
• 19 May 1931: Bob Anderson, English race car driver (died 1967) Robert Hugh Fearon Anderson was a British Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and racing driver. He competed in Grand Prix motorcycle racing from 1958 to 1960 and in Formula One from 1963 to the 1967 seasons. He was also a two-time winner of the North West 200 race in Northern Ireland. Anderson was one of the last independent privateer drivers in Formula One before escalating costs made it impossible to compete without sponsorship. Read more
• 19 May 1931: Trevor Peacock, English actor, screenwriter and songwriter (died 2021) Trevor Edward Peacock was an English actor and songwriter. He made his name as a theatre actor, including for his roles in Shakespeare. He later became known for playing Jim Trott in the BBC comedy series The Vicar of Dibley. Read more
• 19 May 1930: Eugene Genovese, American historian and author (died 2012) Eugene Dominic Genovese was an American historian of the American South and American slavery. He was noted for bringing a Marxist perspective to the study of power, class and relations between planters and slaves in the South. His book Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made won the Bancroft Prize. He later abandoned the left and Marxism and embraced traditionalist conservatism. He wrote during the Cold War and his political beliefs were viewed by some as highly controversial at the time. Read more
• 19 May 1930: Lorraine Hansberry, American playwright and director (died 1965) Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was an American playwright and writer. She was the first Black American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Hansberry's best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of Black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. The title of the play was taken from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" At the age of 29, Hansberry won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award – making her the first Black American dramatist, the fifth woman, and the youngest playwright to do so. Her family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant in the 1940 U.S. Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. Read more
• 19 May 1929: Helmut Braunlich, German-American violinist and composer (died 2013) Helmut Braunlich was a German-American violinist, composer, and musicologist. Read more
• 19 May 1929: Richard Larter, Australian painter (died 2014) Richard Larter was an Australian painter, often identified as one of Australia's few highly recognisable pop artists. Larter also frequently painted in a Pointillist style. He took advantage of unusual techniques with painting: using a syringe filled with paint to create his early works, and juxtaposing multiple images on to a canvas. Many of his works are brightly coloured and draw on popular culture for source materials, reproducing news photographs, film stills, and images from pornography. He was married to Pat Larter, an artist who was involved in the Mail art movement, then performance art and finally painting in a brightly coloured style similar to Richard's. The Larters emigrated to Australia in 1962. Richard Larter's pop art was less ironic than his American and English counterparts. In this Larter is similar to other noted Australian pop artists, such as, Mike Brown and Martin Sharp. Read more
• 19 May 1929: John Stroger, American politician (died 2008) John H. Stroger Jr. was an American politician who served from 1994 until 2006 as the first African-American president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. A member of the Democratic Party. Stroger also served as a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners from 1970 until 2006. He additionally served as president of the National Association of Counties from 1992 through 1993. Read more
• 19 May 1928: Colin Chapman, English engineer and businessman, founded Lotus Cars (died 1982) Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman was an English design engineer, inventor, and builder in the automotive industry, and founder of the sports car company Lotus Cars. Read more
• 19 May 1928: Thomas Kennedy, English air marshal (died 2013) Air Chief Marshal Sir Thomas Lawrie "Jock" Kennedy, was a senior Royal Air Force officer. He served as Deputy Commander of RAF Strike Command from 1979 to 1981, and Air Member for Personnel from 1983 to 1986. Following his retirement from the military, he served as Lord Lieutenant of Rutland. Read more
• 19 May 1928: Gil McDougald, American baseball player and coach (died 2010) Gilbert James McDougald was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) infielder who played for the New York Yankees from 1951 through 1960. Read more
• 19 May 1928: Dolph Schayes, American basketball player and coach (died 2015) Adolph Schayes was an American professional basketball player and coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA). A top scorer and rebounder, he was a 12-time NBA All-Star and a 12-time All-NBA selection. Schayes won an NBA championship with the Syracuse Nationals in 1955. He was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, and was also named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1973. Read more
• 19 May 1927: Serge Lang, French-American mathematician, author and academic (died 2005) Serge Lang was a French-American mathematician and activist who taught at Yale University for most of his career. He is known for his work in number theory and for his mathematics textbooks, including the influential Algebra. He received the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in 1960 and was a member of the Bourbaki group. Read more
• 19 May 1926: Edward Parkes, English engineer and academic (died 2019)

  Sir Edward Walter Parkes DL FREng was Vice-Chancellor of City University London from 1974 to 1978 and of the University of Leeds from 1983 to 1991. Read more

• 19 May 1926: Peter Zadek, German director and screenwriter (died 2009) Peter Zadek was a German director of theatre, opera and film, a translator and a screenwriter. He is regarded as one of the greatest directors in German-speaking theater. Read more
• 19 May 1925: Pol Pot, Cambodian general and politician, 29th Prime Minister of Cambodia (died 1998) Pol Pot was a Cambodian politician, revolutionary, and dictator who ruled Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 until his overthrow in 1979 during the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. Under his reign, his administration oversaw the Cambodian genocide, and he is widely believed to be one of the most brutal despots in modern world history. Ideologically a Maoist and Khmer ethnonationalist, Pot was a leader of Cambodia's Communist movement, known as the Khmer Rouge, from 1963 to 1997. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea from 1963 to 1981, during which Cambodia was converted into a one-party state. Between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge perpetrated the Cambodian genocide, in which an estimated 1.5–2 million people died—approximately one-quarter of the country's pre-genocide population. In December 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia to remove the Khmer Rouge from power. Within two weeks Vietnamese forces occupied most of the country, ending the genocide and establishing a new Cambodian government, with the Khmer Rouge restricted to the rural hinterlands in the western part of the country. Read more
• 19 May 1925: Malcolm X, American minister and activist (died 1965) Malcolm X was an African American revolutionary and Black nationalist leader, who came from a background of poverty, family disruption, and criminal activity, to a prominent figure during the civil rights movement until his assassination in 1965. He discovered the religious organization the Nation of Islam while in prison and served as its spokesperson from 1952 until 1964. He was also a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the African American community. A controversial figure accused of preaching violence, Malcolm X is also a celebrated figure with Black people and Muslims worldwide for his pursuit of racial justice. Read more
• 19 May 1924: Sandy Wilson, English composer and songwriter (died 2014) Alexander Galbraith "Sandy" Wilson was an English composer and lyricist, best known for his musical The Boy Friend (1953). Read more
• 19 May 1922: Arthur Gorrie, Australian hobby shop proprietor (died 1992) Arthur Dingwall Gorrie was an Australian hobbyist. He ran a small hobby shop in Woolloongabba and was involved with model aeronautical clubs including the Model Aeronautical Association of Australia and the Queensland Model Aeronautical Association from the early 1950s. He was involved with Toastmasters International and was honored by them on many occasions. He became a Distinguished Toastmaster in 1979 and Toastmaster of the Year on eight occasions. Read more
• 19 May 1921: Leslie Broderick, English lieutenant and pilot (died 2013) Leslie Charles James Broderick was a British World War II Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster bomber pilot and teacher who was a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft III and one of the last three survivors of the "Great Escape". Read more
• 19 May 1921: Harry W. Brown, American colonel and pilot (died 1991) Harry Winston Brown was an Army Air Corps second lieutenant assigned to the 47th Pursuit Squadron at Wheeler Field on the island of Oahu during the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. He was one of the five American pilots to score victories that day. Brown was awarded a Silver Star for his actions, and was the first Texan decorated for valor in the war. By the war's end, he was a flying ace. Read more
• 19 May 1921: Daniel Gélin, French actor, director, and screenwriter (died 2002) Daniel Yves Alfred Gélin was a French film and television actor. Read more
• 19 May 1921: Yuri Kochiyama, American activist (died 2014) Yuri Kochiyama was an American civil rights activist born in San Pedro, California. She was interned at the Jerome War Relocation Center in Arkansas during World War II, an experience that influenced her views on racism in the United States. While interned, she helped run a letter-writing campaign to Nisei (transl. 'second-generation') soldiers, wrote for the Jerome camp newspaper, and volunteered with the United Service Organizations (USO). Read more
• 19 May 1921: Karel van het Reve, Dutch historian and author (died 1999) Karel van het Reve was a Dutch writer, translator and literary historian, teaching and writing on Russian literature. Read more
• 19 May 1920: Tina Strobos, Dutch psychiatrist known for rescuing Jews during World War II (died 2012) Tina Strobos was a Dutch physician and psychiatrist from Amsterdam, known for her resistance work during World War II. While a young medical student, she worked with her mother and grandmother to rescue more than 100 Jewish refugees as part of the Dutch resistance during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Strobos provided her house as a hiding place for Jews on the run, using a secret attic compartment and warning bell system to keep them safe from sudden police raids. In addition, Strobos smuggled guns and radios for the resistance and forged passports to help refugees escape the country. Despite being arrested and interrogated nine times by the Gestapo, she never betrayed the whereabouts of a Jew. Read more
• 19 May 1919: Georgie Auld, Canadian-American saxophonist, clarinet player, and bandleader (died 1990) Georgie Auld was a Canadian jazz tenor saxophonist, clarinetist, and bandleader. Read more
• 19 May 1919: Mitja Ribičič, Italian-Slovenian soldier and politician, 25th Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (died 2013) Mitja Ribičič was a Slovenian and Yugoslav communist politician. He was the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia—the only Slovenian to hold the office—from 1969 to 1971. Read more
• 19 May 1918: Abraham Pais, Dutch-American physicist, historian, and academic (died 2000) Abraham Pais was a Dutch-American physicist and science historian. Pais earned his Ph.D. from University of Utrecht just prior to a Nazi ban on Jewish participation in Dutch universities during World War II. When the Nazis began the forced relocation of Dutch Jews, he went into hiding, but was later arrested and saved only by the end of the war. He then served as an assistant to Niels Bohr in Denmark and was later a colleague of Albert Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. His Subtle is the Lord, considered by many to be the definitive biography of Einstein, won the Science Writing Award. He followed it with Inward Bound: Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World, a history of modern physics, Niels Bohr's Times: In Physics, Philosophy, and Polity and Einstein Lived Here: Essays for the Layman. He was a physics professor at Rockefeller University until his retirement. He won the 1995 Lewis Thomas Prize for science writing. Read more
• 19 May 1915: Renée Asherson, English actress (died 2014) Dorothy Renée Ascherson, known professionally as Renée Asherson, was a British actress. Much of her theatrical career was spent in Shakespearean plays, appearing at such venues as the Old Vic, the Liverpool Playhouse, and the Westminster Theatre. Her first stage appearance was on 17 October 1935, aged 20 and her first major film appearance was in The Way Ahead (1944). Her last film appearance was in The Others (2001). Read more
• 19 May 1914: Max Perutz, Austrian-English biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2002) Max Ferdinand Perutz was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of haemoglobin and myoglobin. He went on to win the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1971 and the Copley Medal in 1979. At Cambridge he founded and chaired (1962–79) The MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), fourteen of whose scientists have won Nobel Prizes. Read more
• 19 May 1914: Alex Shibicky, Canadian ice hockey player (died 2005) Alexandre Dimitri Shibicky was a Canadian ice hockey forward who played for the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League from 1935 to 1946. Read more
• 19 May 1914: John Vachon, American photographer and journalist (died 1975) John Felix Vachon was an American photographer. Vachon is remembered most for his photography working for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) as part of the New Deal and for contributions to Look magazine. Read more
• 19 May 1913: Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, Indian lawyer and politician, 6th President of India (died 1996) Neelam Sanjiva Reddy was an Indian politician who served as the president of India from 1977 to 1982. Beginning a long political career with the Indian National Congress in the independence movement, he went on to hold several key offices in independent India – as deputy chief minister of Andhra state and the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, a two-time Speaker of the Lok Sabha and a Union Minister— before becoming the Indian president. Read more
• 19 May 1910: Alan Melville, South African cricketer (died 1983) Alan Melville was a South African cricketer who played in 11 Test matches from 1938 to 1949. He was born in Carnarvon, Northern Cape, South Africa and died at Sabie, Transvaal. Read more
• 19 May 1909: Nicholas Winton, English banker and humanitarian (died 2015) Sir Nicholas George Winton was a British stockbroker and humanitarian who helped to rescue refugee children, mostly Jewish, whose families had fled persecution by Nazi Germany. Born to German-Jewish parents who had immigrated to Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, Winton assisted in the rescue of 669 children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War. On a brief visit to Czechoslovakia, he helped compile a list of children in danger and, returning to Britain, he worked to fulfill the legal requirements of bringing the children to Britain and finding homes and sponsors for them.
  This operation was later known as the Czech Kindertransport. Read more
• 19 May 1908: Manik Bandopadhyay, Indian author, poet, and playwright (died 1956) Manik Bandyopadhyay [alias Banerjee] is an Indian author regarded as one of the major figures of 20th century Bengali literature. During a lifespan of 48 years and 28 years of literary career, battling with epilepsy from the age of around 28 and financial strains all along, he produced some masterpieces of novels and short stories, besides some poems, essays etc. One of the early neo-realist film shot in Pakistan, The Day Shall Dawn is based on his story. Read more
• 19 May 1908: Merriam Modell, American author (died 1994)
  Merriam Modell was an American writer of short stories, suspense and pulp fiction, who wrote primarily under the pen name Evelyn Piper. Many had a common theme: the domestic conflicts faced by American families. Read more
• 19 May 1908: Percy Williams, Canadian sprinter (died 1982) Percy Alfred Williams was a Canadian athlete, winner of the 100 and 200 metres races at the 1928 Summer Olympics and a former world record holder for the 100 metres sprint. Read more
• 19 May 1906: Bruce Bennett, American shot putter and actor (died 2007) Bruce Bennett was an American film and television actor who was a college athlete in football and in intercollegiate and international track-and-field competitions. In 1928, he won the silver medal for the shot put at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam. His acting career in film and television spanned more than 40 years. Read more
• 19 May 1904: Sven Thofelt, Swedish modern pentathlete and épée fencer (died 1993) Sven Alfred Thofelt was a Swedish modern pentathlete and épée fencer who competed at the 1928, 1932, 1936 and 1948 Summer Olympics. Read more
• 19 May 1903: Ruth Ella Moore, American scientist (died 1994) Ruth Ella Moore was an American bacteriologist and microbiologist, who, in 1933, became the first African-American woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in a natural science. She was a professor of bacteriology at Howard University. A decade later, she was installed as the head of the department of bacteriology, which she renamed to the department of microbiology. During that period she was promoted to associate professor of microbiology. Read more
• 19 May 1902: Lubka Kolessa, Ukrainian-Canadian pianist and educator (died 1997)

  Lubka Oleksandrivna Kolessa was a classical pianist and professor of piano. Read more

• 19 May 1899: Lothar Rădăceanu, Romanian journalist, linguist, and politician (died 1955) Lothar or Lotar Rădăceanu was a Romanian journalist and linguist, best known as a socialist and communist politician. Read more
• 19 May 1898: Julius Evola, Italian philosopher and painter (died 1974) Giulio Cesare Andrea "Julius" Evola was an Italian far-right philosopher and writer. Evola regarded his values as traditionalist, aristocratic, martial and imperialist. An esoteric thinker in Fascist Italy, he also had ties to Nazi Germany. In the post-war era, he was an ideological mentor of the Italian neo-fascist and militant right. Read more
• 19 May 1897: Frank Luke, American lieutenant and pilot, Medal of Honor recipient (died 1918) Frank Luke Jr. was an American fighter ace credited with 19 aerial victories, ranking him second among United States Army Air Service (USAAS) pilots during World War I, after Eddie Rickenbacker. Luke was the first airman to receive the Medal of Honor and first USAAS ace in a day. Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, a United States Air Force pilot training installation since World War II, is named in his honor. Read more
• 19 May 1893: H. Bonciu, Romanian author, poet, and journalist (died 1950) H. Bonciu, or Horia Bonciu, was a Romanian novelist, poet, journalist and translator, noted especially as an atypical figure on his country's avant-garde scene. His work, comprising several volumes of poetry and two novels, is a mixture of influences from the diverse literary schools of Europe's modernism, and, unusually in the context of Romanian literature, borrows heavily from German-born movements such as Expressionism. The autofictional and cruel detail in Bonciu's narratives makes him a senior figure among Romania's own Trăirist authors, while its capture of the unnaturally grotesque also finds him as one of the country's Neoromantics and Surrealists. Read more
• 19 May 1891: Oswald Boelcke, German captain and pilot (died 1916) Hauptmann Oswald Boelcke was a German professional soldier and pioneering flying ace credited with 40 aerial victories during World War I. Boelcke is honored as the father of the German fighter air force, and of air combat as a whole. He was a highly influential mentor, patrol leader, and tactician in the first years of air combat, 1915 and 1916. Read more
• 19 May 1890: Eveline Adelheid von Maydell, German-American illustrator (died 1962) Eveline Adelheid von Maydell was an ethnic German silhouette artist. Born in Iran, she studied drawing in Pärnu, Estonia, in Riga, Latvia and in St. Petersburg, Russia. She moved to the United States in 1922. Read more
• 19 May 1890: Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese politician, 1st President of Vietnam (died 1969) Hồ Chí Minh, colloquially known as Uncle Ho among other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman who founded the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945. He served as its first president from 1946 until his death in 1969 and as its first prime minister from 1945 to 1955. A committed Marxist–Leninist, Hồ played a central role in establishing the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930 and later led its successor, the Workers' Party of Vietnam, as chairman until his death. Read more
• 19 May 1889: Tản Đà, Vietnamese poet and author (died 1939) Nguyễn Khắc Hiếu (阮克孝), pen name Tản Đà was a Vietnamese poet. His pen name is a combination of Tản from Tản Viên Mountain and Đà from Đà River Read more
• 19 May 1889: Henry B. Richardson, American archer (died 1963) Henry Barber Richardson was an American archer. He won two Olympic bronze medals. Richardson was the first archer to win medals at two different editions of the Olympic Games as well as the youngest medallist at the 1904 Summer Olympics at the age of 15 years and 124 days. Read more
• 19 May 1887: Ion Jalea, Romanian soldier and sculptor (died 1983) Ion Jalea was a Romanian sculptor, monumentalist, teacher, and member of the Romanian Academy. Read more
• 19 May 1886: Francis Biddle, American lawyer and judge, 58th United States Attorney General (died 1968) Francis Beverley Biddle was an American lawyer and judge who was the United States Attorney General during World War II. He also served as the primary American judge during Nuremberg trials following World War II and a United States circuit judge of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Read more
• 19 May 1884: David Munson, American runner (died 1953) David Curtiss Munson was an American athlete who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics. Read more
• 19 May 1881: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (official birthday), Turkish field marshal and statesman, 1st President of Turkey (died 1938) 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. Read more
• 19 May 1880: Albert Richardson, English architect and educator, designed the Manchester Opera House (died 1964) Sir Albert Edward Richardson was a leading English architect, teacher and writer about architecture during the first half of the 20th century. He was Professor of Architecture at University College London, a President of the Royal Academy, editor of Architects' Journal, founder of the Georgian Group and the Guild of Surveyors and Master of the Art Workers' Guild. Read more
• 19 May 1879: Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, American-English politician (died 1964) Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Astor was born in Danville, Virginia, and raised in Greenwood, Virginia. Her first marriage, to socialite Robert Gould Shaw II, was unhappy and ended in divorce. She then moved to England and married American-born Englishman Waldorf Astor in 1906. Read more
• 19 May 1878: Alfred Laliberté, Canadian sculptor and painter (died 1953) Alfred Laliberté was a French-Canadian sculptor and painter based in Montreal. His output includes more than 900 sculptures in bronze, marble, wood, and plaster. Many of his sculptures depict national figures and events in Canada and France such as Louis Hébert, François-Xavier-Antoine Labelle, Adam Dollard des Ormeaux, and the Lower Canada Rebellion. Although he produced hundreds of paintings as well, he is chiefly remembered for his work as a sculptor. Read more
• 19 May 1874: Gilbert Jessop, English cricketer and soldier (died 1955) Gilbert Laird Jessop was an English cricket player, often reckoned to have been one of the fastest run-scorers cricket has ever known. He was Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 1898 and compiled the fastest century ever for England. Read more
• 19 May 1871: Walter Russell, American painter, sculptor, and author (died 1963) Walter Bowman Russell was an American impressionist painter, sculptor, property developer, and author. Russell wrote extensively on topics relating to science, but his ideas did not gain much attention from scientists. Read more
• 19 May 1861: Nellie Melba, Australian soprano and actress (died 1931) Dame Nellie Melba was an Australian operatic lyric coloratura soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early twentieth century, and was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. She took the pseudonym "Melba" from Melbourne, her home town. Read more
• 19 May 1857: John Jacob Abel, American biochemist and pharmacologist (died 1938) John Jacob Abel was an American biochemist and pharmacologist. He established the pharmacology department at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1893, and then became America's first full-time professor of pharmacology. During his time at Hopkins, he made several important medical advancements, especially in the field of hormone extraction. In addition to his laboratory work, he founded several significant scientific journals such as the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. Read more
• 19 May 1832: James Watney, Jr., English politician, brewer and cricketer (died 1886) James Watney Jr. was a prominent member of the Watney family and a Conservative Member of Parliament for East Surrey. Read more
• 19 May 1827: Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour, French academic and politician, French Minister of Foreign Affairs (died 1896) Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour was a French statesman. Read more

🕊️ Important Deaths on 19 May in World History

• 19 May 2024: Christian Malanga, Congolese politician, businessman and military officer (born 1983) Christian Malanga Musumari was a Congolese-American-French politician, businessman, and military officer. He was leader of the United Congolese Party (UCP), a national political party he formed in the United States after his experiences in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's widely disputed parliamentary elections in 2011. In 2017, he established the New Zaire Government in Exile and proclaimed himself its president. Malanga attempted to overthrow the government of the DRC on 19 May 2024. The attempt failed with Malanga being shot and killed and many other assailants, including his son Marcel, arrested. Read more
• 19 May 2024: Victims in the 2024 Varzaqan helicopter crash: Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was an Iranian politician and diplomat who served as foreign minister of Iran from 2021 until his death in a helicopter crash in 2024. He was the deputy foreign minister for Arab and African Affairs between 2011 and 2016. Read more
• 19 May 2024: Victims in the 2024 Varzaqan helicopter crash: Ebrahim Raisolsadati, better known as Ebrahim Raisi, was an Iranian cleric and politician who served as the eighth president of Iran from 2021 until his death in a helicopter crash in 2024. A protégé of supreme leader Ali Khamenei and a Principlist, Raisi was the second and most recent Iranian president to die in office after Mohammad-Ali Rajai. Read more
• 19 May 2023: Andy Rourke, English bassist (born 1964) Andrew Michael Rourke was an English musician best known as the bassist of the 1980s indie rock band the Smiths. Regarded as one of the greatest bassists of his generation, he was known for his melodic and funk-inspired approach to bass playing. Read more
• 19 May 2021: Paul Mooney, American comedian (born 1941) Paul Gladney, better known by the stage name Paul Mooney, was an American comedian, writer, and actor. He collaborated with Redd Foxx, Eddie Murphy and Dave Chappelle, wrote for comedian Richard Pryor and the television series Sanford and Son, In Living Color and Chappelle's Show, and acted in The Buddy Holly Story (1978), the Spike Lee-directed satirical film Bamboozled (2000), and Chappelle's Show. Read more
• 19 May 2018: Zhengzhang Shangfang, Chinese linguist (born 1933) Zhengzhang Shangfang was a Chinese linguist, known for his reconstruction of Old Chinese. Read more
• 19 May 2017: Nawshirwan Mustafa, General coordinator of the Movement for Change (Gorran) (born 1944) Nawshirwan Mustafa was an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the General Coordinator of the Movement for Change and the leader of the opposition in the Kurdistan Region from 1 April 2009 to his death on 19 May 2017. Read more
• 19 May 2017: Stanislav Petrov, Lt. Colonel in Soviet Air Defence Forces (born 1939) Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov was a Russian lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces who played a key role in the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident. On 26 September 1983, three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to four more. Petrov correctly judged the reports to be a false alarm. Read more
• 19 May 2016: Alan Young, English-born Canadian-American actor (born 1919) Alan Young was a British Canadian and American actor. Young is best known for portraying Wilbur Post in the television comedy Mister Ed (1961–1966) and voicing Disney's Scrooge McDuck for over 40 years, beginning in the 1974 Disneyland Records album An Adaptation of Dickens' Christmas Carol, Performed by The Walt Disney Players. He again voiced Scrooge in the Academy Award-nominated short film Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) and continued in the role in various other films, television series and video games up until his death. He was considered by TV Guide to be "the Charlie Chaplin of television". Read more
• 19 May 2016: Morley Safer, Canadian-born American journalist (born 1931) Morley Safer was a Canadian-American broadcast journalist, reporter, and correspondent for CBS News. He was best known for his long tenure on the news magazine 60 Minutes, whose cast he joined in 1970 after its second year on television, and where he became its longest-serving reporter. Read more
• 19 May 2015: Bruce Lundvall, American businessman (born 1935) Bruce Lundvall was an American record company executive, best known for his period as the President and CEO of the Blue Note Label Group, reporting directly to Eric Nicoli, the Chief Executive Officer of EMI Group. Read more
• 19 May 2015: Ted McWhinney, Australian-Canadian lawyer and politician (born 1924) Edward Watson McWhinney was a Canadian lawyer and academic specializing in constitutional and international law. He was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament from 1993 to 2000 for the electoral district of Vancouver Quadra. Read more
• 19 May 2015: Happy Rockefeller, American philanthropist, socialite; 31st Second Lady of the United States (born 1926) Margaretta Large "Happy" Rockefeller was a philanthropist who, as the wife of the 41st vice president of the United States, Nelson Rockefeller, served as second lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977. She was previously the first lady of New York from 1963 to 1973, during her husband's last three terms in office. Read more
• 19 May 2015: Robert S. Wistrich, English historian, author, and academic (born 1945) Robert Solomon Wistrich was a scholar of antisemitism, considered one of the world's foremost authorities on antisemitism. Read more
• 19 May 2014: Simon Andrews, English motorcycle racer (born 1982) Simon Neil Stuart Andrews was a British motorcycle racer. He competed in the British Superbike Championship for the MSS Kawasaki aboard a Kawasaki ZX10-R and RAF Reserves team, aboard a Honda CBR1000RR. He died as a result of a crash when racing on a road course in Northern Ireland. Read more
• 19 May 2014: Jack Brabham, Australian race car driver (born 1926) Sir John Arthur Brabham was an Australian racing driver and motorsport executive, who competed in Formula One from 1955 to 1970. Brabham won three Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles, which he won in 1959, 1960 and 1966, and won 14 Grands Prix across 16 seasons. He co-founded Brabham in 1960, leading the team to two World Constructors' Championship titles, and remains the only driver to have won the World Drivers' Championship in an eponymous car. Read more
• 19 May 2014: Sam Greenlee, American author and poet (born 1930) Samuel Eldred Greenlee, Jr. was an American writer of fiction and poetry. He is best known for his novel The Spook Who Sat by the Door, first published in March 1969 in London by the recently founded small imprint Allison & Busby, having been rejected by dozens of mainstream publishers, and received much critical attention, including extracts being printed in The Observer newspaper. The novel was subsequently made into the 1973 movie of the same name, directed by Ivan Dixon and co-produced and written by Greenlee, that is now considered a cult classic. Read more
• 19 May 2014: Vincent Harding, American historian and scholar (born 1931) Vincent Gordon Harding was an African-American pastor, historian, and scholar of various topics with a focus on American religion and society. A social activist, he was perhaps best known for his work with and writings about Martin Luther King Jr., whom Harding knew personally. Besides having authored numerous books such as There Is A River, Hope and History, and Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero, he served as co-chairperson of the social unity group Veterans of Hope Project and as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. When Harding died on May 19, 2014, his daughter, Rachel Elizabeth Harding, publicly eulogized him on the Veterans of Hope Project website.  Read more
• 19 May 2014: Gabriel Kolko, American historian and author (born 1932) Gabriel Morris Kolko was an American historian. His research interests included American capitalism and political history, the Progressive Era, and U.S. foreign policy in the 20th century. One of the best-known revisionist historians to write about the Cold War, he was also credited as "an incisive critic of the Progressive Era and its relationship to the American empire." U.S. historian Paul Buhle summarized Kolko's career when he described him as "a major theorist of what came to be called Corporate Liberalism…[and] a very major historian of the Vietnam War and its assorted war crimes." Read more
• 19 May 2014: Zbigniew Pietrzykowski, Polish boxer (born 1934) Zbigniew Jan Pietrzykowski was a Polish boxer. Read more
• 19 May 2013: G. Sarsfield Ford, American lawyer and jurist (born 1933) G. Sarsfield Ford was an American jurist. Read more
• 19 May 2013: Robin Harrison, English-Canadian pianist and composer (born 1932) Robin Keith Harrison was a British-born Canadian musician. Known as a composer and pianist, he served for over 20 years as head of the piano division at the University of Saskatchewan. He recorded several classical music albums, including three solo albums, and was a repeat guest performer with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra. Read more
• 19 May 2013: Neil Reynolds, Canadian journalist and politician (born 1940) Neil Reynolds was a Canadian journalist, editor and former leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada. Read more
• 19 May 2012: Bob Boozer, American basketball player (born 1937) Robert Louis Boozer was an American professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Boozer won a gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics and won an NBA Championship as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks in 1971. Boozer was a member of the 1960 U.S. Olympic team, which was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as a unit in 2010. Read more
• 19 May 2012: Tamara Brooks, American conductor and educator (born 1941) Tamara Brooks was an American choral conductor. Read more
• 19 May 2012: Ian Burgess, English race car driver (born 1930) Ian John Burgess was a British racing driver. He participated in 20 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 19 July 1958, and numerous non-Championship Formula One races. He scored no championship points. Read more
• 19 May 2012: Gerhard Hetz, German-Mexican swimmer (born 1942) Gerhard Hetz was a German Olympic swimmer. He competed in the 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics and won a silver medal in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay and a bronze medal in the 400 m individual medley in 1964. Read more
• 19 May 2012: Phil Lamason, New Zealand soldier and pilot (born 1918) Phillip John Lamason, was a pilot in the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) during the Second World War, who rose to prominence as the senior officer in charge of 168 Allied airmen taken to Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany, in August 1944. Raised in Napier, he joined the RNZAF in September 1940, and by April 1942 was a pilot officer serving with the Royal Air Force in Europe. On 8 June 1944, Lamason was in command of a Lancaster heavy bomber that was shot down during a raid on railway marshalling yards near Paris. Bailing out, he was picked up by members of the French Resistance and hidden at various locations for seven weeks. While attempting to reach Spain along the Comet line, Lamason was betrayed by a double agent within the Resistance and seized by the Gestapo. Read more
• 19 May 2011: Garret FitzGerald, Irish lawyer and politician, 8th Taoiseach of Ireland (born 1926) Garret Desmond FitzGerald was an Irish Fine Gael politician, economist, and barrister who served twice as Taoiseach, serving from 1981 to 1982 and 1982 to 1987. He served as Leader of Fine Gael from 1977 to 1987 and was twice Leader of the Opposition between 1977 and 1982; he was previously Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1973 to 1977. FitzGerald served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1969 to 1992 and was a Senator for the Industrial and Commercial Panel from 1965 to 1969. Read more
• 19 May 2011: Jeffrey Catherine Jones, American artist (born 1944) Jeffrey Catherine Jones was an American artist whose work is best known from the late 1960s through the 2000s. Jones created the cover art for more than 150 books through 1976, as well as venturing into fine art during and after this time. Fantasy artist Frank Frazetta supposedly described Jones as "the greatest living painter" and she included the quote on her website, but the source of the quote is unknown and Frazetta denied ever having said it when asked. Although Jones first achieved fame as simply Jeff Jones and later as Jeffrey Jones, she transitioned to female and added Catherine as a middle name in 1998. Read more
• 19 May 2009: Robert F. Furchgott, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1916) Robert Francis Furchgott was an American Nobel Prize winning biochemist who contributed to the discovery of nitric oxide as a transient cellular signal in mammalian systems. Read more
• 19 May 2009: Nicholas Maw, English composer and academic (born 1935) John Nicholas Maw was a British composer. Among his works are the operas The Rising of the Moon (1970) and Sophie's Choice (2002). Read more
• 19 May 2009: Clint Smith, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (born 1913) Clinton James "Snuffy" Smith was a Canadian professional ice hockey centre and head coach best known for his time spent in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a player with the New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks. Following Smith's 10-year NHL career, he served as both a head coach and player in the United States Hockey League (USHL) and American Hockey League (AHL). Read more
• 19 May 2008: Vijay Tendulkar, Indian playwright and screenwriter (born 1928) Vijay Dhondopant Tendulkar was an Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marathi. His Marathi plays established him as a writer of plays with contemporary, unconventional themes. He is best known for his plays Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe (1967), Ghashiram Kotwal (1972), and Sakharam Binder (1972). Many of Tendulkar's plays derived inspiration from real-life incidents or social upheavals, which provide clear light on harsh realities. He has provided guidance to students studying "play writing" in US universities. Tendulkar was a dramatist and theatre personality in Maharashtra for over five decades. Read more
• 19 May 2007: Bernard Blaut, Polish footballer and coach (born 1940) Bernard Adolf Blaut was a Polish footballer and manager. He is most famous for his 1960s performances in both Legia Warsaw and the Poland national team. Read more
• 19 May 2007: Dean Eyre, New Zealand politician (born 1914) Dean Jack Eyre was a New Zealand politician of the National Party. Read more
• 19 May 2004: Mary Dresselhuys, Dutch actress and screenwriter (born 1907) Mary Dresselhuys was primarily a Dutch stage actress, although she also appeared in a number of films. She was born in Tiel, the Netherlands, and died in Amsterdam. She and her husband, Cees Laseur, were the parents of actress Petra Laseur. Read more
• 19 May 2002: John Gorton, Australian lieutenant and politician, 19th Prime Minister of Australia (born 1911) Sir John Grey Gorton was an Australian politician, farmer and airman who served as the 19th prime minister of Australia from 1968 to 1971. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, having previously served as a senator for Victoria. He was the first and only member of the upper house of the Parliament to assume the office of prime minister. Read more
• 19 May 2002: Walter Lord, American historian and author (born 1917) John Walter Lord Jr. was an American author, lawyer, copywriter and popular historian known for his 1955 account of the sinking of the Titanic, A Night to Remember. Read more
• 19 May 2001: Alexey Maresyev, Russian soldier and pilot (born 1916) Aleksey Petrovich Maresyev was a Soviet and Russian military pilot who became a Soviet fighter ace during World War II despite becoming a double amputee. Read more
• 19 May 2001: Susannah McCorkle, American singer (born 1946) Susannah McCorkle was an American jazz singer. Read more
• 19 May 1998: Sōsuke Uno, Japanese soldier and politician, 75th Prime Minister of Japan (born 1922) Sōsuke Uno was a former Japanese politician who served as prime minister of Japan in 1989. Read more
• 19 May 1996: John Beradino, American baseball player and actor (born 1917) John Beradino was an American Major League Baseball infielder and actor. Known as Johnny Berardino during his baseball career, he was also credited during his acting career as John Berardino, John Baradino, John Barardino or John Barradino. Read more
• 19 May 1994: Jacques Ellul, French sociologist, philosopher, and academic (born 1912) Jacques Ellul was a French born philosopher, sociologist, lay theologian, resistance fighter and professor. Noted as a Christian anarchist, Ellul was a longtime professor of History and the Sociology of Institutions on the Faculty of Law and Economic Sciences at the University of Bordeaux. A prolific writer, he authored more than 60 books and more than 600 articles over his lifetime, many of which discussed propaganda, the impact of technology on society, and the interaction between religion and politics. Read more
• 19 May 1994: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, American journalist, 37th First Lady of the United States (born 1929) Jacqueline Lee "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis was the first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States. She redefined the mostly ceremonial role into a platform for arts and culture, by hosting multiple high-profile events at the White House and leading its restoration into a historical site. Through her fashion and cultural literacy, she improved the global standing of the United States during the politically volatile Cold War. Her personal style became known as the "Jackie Look", which inspired worldwide fashion trends during the 1960s. Read more
• 19 May 1994: Luis Ocaña, Spanish cyclist (born 1945) Jesús Luis Ocaña Pernía was a Spanish road bicycle racer who won the 1973 Tour de France and the 1970 Vuelta a España. During the 1971 Tour de France he launched an amazing solo breakaway that put him into the Yellow Jersey and stunned the rest of the main field, including Tour champion Eddy Merckx, but he abandoned in the fourteenth stage after a crash on the descent of the Col de Menté. Ocaña would abandon many Tours, but he finished every Vuelta a España he entered except for his first, and finished in the top 5 seven times in a row. Read more
• 19 May 1989: Yiannis Papaioannou, Greek composer and educator (born 1910) Yiannis Papaioannou was a Greek composer and teacher of the Modern Era. Read more
• 19 May 1987: James Tiptree, Jr., American psychologist and author (born 1915) Alice Bradley Sheldon, better known as James Tiptree Jr., was an American science fiction and fantasy author. It was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree Jr. was a pen name of a woman, which she used from 1967 until her death. From 1974 to 1985, she also occasionally used the pen name Raccoona Sheldon. Tiptree was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2012. Read more
• 19 May 1986: Jimmy Lyons, American saxophonist (born 1931) Jimmy Lyons was an American alto saxophone player. He is best known for his long tenure in the Cecil Taylor Unit. Lyons was the only constant member of the band from the mid-1960s until his death. Taylor never worked with another musician as frequently as he did with Lyons. Lyons' playing, influenced by Charlie Parker, kept Taylor's avant-garde music tethered to the jazz tradition. Read more
• 19 May 1985: Maqbular Rahman Sarkar, Bangladeshi academic (born 1928) Maqbular Rahman Sarkar, popularly known as M. R. Sarkar, was a Bangladeshi academic who served as the tenth vice-chancellor of the University of Rajshahi. Read more
• 19 May 1984: John Betjeman, English poet and academic (born 1906) Sir John Betjeman was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and first president of The Hackney Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, helping to save St Pancras railway station from demolition. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television. Read more
• 19 May 1983: Jean Rey, Belgian lawyer and politician, 2nd President of the European Commission (born 1902) Jean Rey was a Belgian Liberal politician who served as the second president of the European Commission from 1967 to 1970. He served as European Commissioner for External Relations from 1958 to 1967. The 1983–1984 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour. Read more
• 19 May 1980: Joseph Schull, Canadian playwright and historian (born 1906) Joseph Schull was a Canadian playwright and historian who wrote more than two dozen books and 200 plays for radio and television. Read more
• 19 May 1978: Albert Kivikas, Estonian-Swedish journalist and author (born 1898) Albert Kivikas was an Estonian writer and journalist. He is best known as the author of the book Names in Marble, the subject of which is the Estonian War of Independence. Read more
• 19 May 1971: Ogden Nash, American poet (born 1902) Frederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse, of which he wrote more than 500 pieces. With his unconventional rhyming schemes, he was declared by The New York Times to be the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry. Read more
• 19 May 1969: Coleman Hawkins, American saxophonist and clarinet player (born 1901) Coleman Randolph Hawkins, nicknamed "Hawk" and sometimes "Bean", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. One of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument, as Joachim E. Berendt explained: "There were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn." Hawkins biographer John Chilton described the prevalent styles of tenor saxophone solos prior to Hawkins as "mooing" and "rubbery belches". Hawkins denied being first and noted his contemporaries Happy Caldwell, Stump Evans, and Prince Robinson, although he was the first to tailor his method of improvisation to the saxophone rather than imitate the techniques of the clarinet. Hawkins's virtuosic, arpeggiated approach to improvisation, with his characteristic rich, emotional, and vibrato-laden tonal style, was the main influence on a generation of tenor players that included Chu Berry, Charlie Barnet, Tex Beneke, Ben Webster, Vido Musso, Herschel Evans, Buddy Tate, and Don Byas, and through them the later tenormen, Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, Flip Phillips, Ike Quebec, Al Sears, Paul Gonsalves, and Lucky Thompson. While Hawkins became known with swing music during the big band era, he had a role in the development of bebop in the 1940s. Read more
• 19 May 1963: Walter Russell, American painter, sculptor, and author (born 1871) Walter Bowman Russell was an American impressionist painter, sculptor, property developer, and author. Russell wrote extensively on topics relating to science, but his ideas did not gain much attention from scientists. Read more
• 19 May 1962: Gabriele Münter, German painter (born 1877) Gabriele Münter was a German expressionist painter who was at the forefront of the Munich avant-garde in the early 20th century. She studied and lived with the painter Wassily Kandinsky and was a founding member of the expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter. Read more
• 19 May 1958: Jadunath Sarkar, Indian historian (born 1870) Sir Jadunath Sarkar, was a prominent Indian historian and a specialist on the Mughal dynasty. Read more
• 19 May 1958: Archie Scott Brown, Scottish race car driver (born 1927) William Archibald Scott Brown, known as Archie, was a British Formula One and sports car racing driver from Scotland who had a prodigious racing ability despite having the fingers of his right hand missing and having to use his palm to drive. Read more
• 19 May 1958: Ronald Colman, English actor (born 1891) Ronald Charles Colman was an English actor who started his career in theatre and silent film in his native country, then emigrated to the United States, where he had a highly successful Hollywood film career. Colman starred in silent films and successfully transitioned to sound, aided by his distinctive, pleasing voice. He was most popular during the 1930s and 1940s. Colman received Oscar nominations for Bulldog Drummond (1929), Condemned (1929) and Random Harvest (1942). He starred in several classic films, including A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Lost Horizon (1937) and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). Colman also played the starring role in the Technicolor classic Kismet (1944), with Marlene Dietrich. In 1947, he won an Academy Award for Best Actor and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film A Double Life. Read more
• 19 May 1954: Charles Ives, American composer and educator (born 1874) Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer, actuary and businessman. Ives was among the earliest renowned American composers to achieve recognition on a global scale. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Later in life, the quality of his music was publicly recognized through the efforts of contemporaries like Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison, and he came to be regarded as an "American original". Read more
• 19 May 1950: Daniel Ciugureanu, Romanian physician and politician, Prime Minister of Moldova (born 1884) Daniel Ciugureanu was a Romanian politician from Bessarabia, deputy in Sfatul Țării from Chișinău, Prime Minister of the Moldavian Democratic Republic from 29 January [O.S. 16 January] 1918–21 April [O.S. 8 April] 1918, Minister for Bessarabia in four Romanian Governments, Deputy and Senator, vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies, vice-president and President of the Senate of Kingdom of Romania. Read more
• 19 May 1946: Booth Tarkington, American novelist and dramatist (born 1869) Newton Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and Alice Adams (1921). He is one of only four novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, along with William Faulkner, John Updike, and Colson Whitehead. In the 1910s and 1920s he was considered the greatest living author in the United States. Several of his stories were adapted to film. Read more
• 19 May 1945: Philipp Bouhler, German soldier and politician (born 1889) Philipp Bouhler was a German senior Nazi Party functionary who was both a Reichsleiter and Chief of the Chancellery of the Führer of the NSDAP. He was also the SS official responsible for the Aktion T4 euthanasia program that killed more than 250,000 disabled adults and children in Nazi Germany, as well as co-initiator of Aktion 14f13, also called Sonderbehandlung, that killed 15,000–20,000 concentration camp prisoners. Read more
• 19 May 1943: Kristjan Raud, Estonian painter and illustrator (born 1865) Kristjan Raud was an Estonian symbolist painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Estonian National Museum. Folklore elements figure heavily in his subject matter and his style is reminiscent of Primitivism. Read more
• 19 May 1939: Ahmet Ağaoğlu, Azerbaijani-Turkish journalist and publicist (born 1869) Ahmet Ağaoğlu, also known as Ahmed Bey Aghaoghlu (Azerbaijani: Əhməd bəy Ağaoğlu; or Ahmed Akif Aghaoghlu was a public and political figure of Azerbaijan and Turkey, thinker, publicist, educator, writer, Turkologist, and the founder of liberal Kemalism. Read more
• 19 May 1936: Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, British Islamic scholar (born 1875) Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall was an English Islamic scholar noted for his 1930 English translation of the Quran, called The Meaning of the Glorious Koran. His translation of the Quran is one of the most widely known and used in the English-speaking world. A convert from Christianity to Islam, Pickthall was a novelist, esteemed by D. H. Lawrence, H. G. Wells, and E. M. Forster, as well as journalists, political and religious leaders. He declared his conversion to Islam in dramatic fashion after delivering a talk on 'Islam and Progress' on 29 November 1917, to the Muslim Literary Society in Notting Hill, West London. Read more
• 19 May 1935: T. E. Lawrence, British colonel and archaeologist (born 1888) Thomas Edward Lawrence was a British Army officer, archaeologist, diplomat and writer known for his role during the Arab Revolt and Sinai and Palestine campaign against the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and Lawrence's ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title used for the 1962 film based on his wartime activities. Read more
• 19 May 1918: Gervais Raoul Lufbery, French-American soldier and pilot (born 1885) Gervais Raoul Victor Lufbery was a French and American fighter pilot and flying ace in World War I. Because he served in both the French Air Force, and later the United States Army Air Service in World War I, he is sometimes listed alternately as a French ace or as an American ace. All but one of his 17 confirmed combat victories came while flying in French units. Read more
• 19 May 1915: John Simpson Kirkpatrick, English-Australian soldier (born 1892) John Kirkpatrick, commonly known as John Simpson, was a stretcher bearer with the 3rd Australian Field Ambulance during the Gallipoli campaign – the Allied attempt to capture Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, during the First World War. Read more
• 19 May 1912: Bolesław Prus, Polish journalist and author (born 1847) Aleksander Głowacki, better known by his pen name Bolesław Prus, was a Polish journalist, novelist, a leading figure in the history of Polish literature and philosophy, and a distinctive voice in world literature. Read more
• 19 May 1907: Benjamin Baker, English engineer, designed the Forth Bridge (born 1840) Sir Benjamin Baker was an English civil engineer who worked in mid to late Victorian era. He helped develop the early underground railways in London with Sir John Fowler, but he is best known for his work on the Forth Bridge. He made many other notable contributions to civil engineering, including his work as an expert witness at the public inquiry into the Tay Bridge disaster. Later, he helped design and build the first Aswan Dam. Read more
• 19 May 1906: Gabriel Dumont, Canadian Métis leader (born 1837) Gabriel Dumont (1837–1906) was a Métis political figure best known for being a prominent leader of the Métis people. Dumont was well known for his movements within the North-West Rebellion at the battles of Batoche, Fish Creek, and Duck Lake as well as for his role in the signing of treaties with the Blackfoot tribe, the traditional main enemy of the Métis. Read more
• 19 May 1904: Auguste Molinier, French librarian and historian (born 1851) Auguste Molinier was a French historian. Read more
• 19 May 1904: Jamsetji Tata, Indian businessman, founded Tata Group (born 1839) Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata was an Indian industrialist and philanthropist who founded the Tata Group, India's largest conglomerate. He established the city of Jamshedpur. Read more
• 19 May 1903: Arthur Shrewsbury, English cricketer (born 1856) Arthur Shrewsbury was an English cricketer and rugby football administrator. He was widely rated as competing with W. G. Grace for the accolade of best batsman of the 1880s; Grace himself, when asked whom he would most like in his side, replied simply, "Give me Arthur". An opening batsman, Shrewsbury played his cricket for Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club and played 23 Test matches for England, captaining them in 7 games, with a record of won 5, lost 2. He was the last professional to be England captain until Len Hutton was chosen in 1952. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1890. He also organised the first British Isles rugby tour to Australasia in 1888. Read more
• 19 May 1901: Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, South African general and politician, 1st President of the South African Republic (born 1819) Marthinus Wessel Pretorius was a South African political leader. An Afrikaner, he helped establish the South African Republic, was the first president of the ZAR, and also compiled its constitution. Read more
• 19 May 1898: William Ewart Gladstone, English lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1809) William Ewart Gladstone was a British statesman who served four times as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He began in politics as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Newark and ended as the face of the Liberal Party.
  His four non-consecutive terms — the most of any British prime minister — took place between 1868 and 1894. He also served four times as Chancellor of the Exchequer, five times as Leader of the House of Commons, and MP for over 60 years, from 1832 to 1845 and from 1847 to 1895, representing a total of five constituencies. His political career thus spanned nearly the entire Victorian era. Read more
• 19 May 1895: José Martí, Cuban journalist, poet, and philosopher (born 1853) José Julián Martí Pérez was a Cuban nationalist, poet, philosopher, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher, who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the liberation of his country from Spain. He was also an important figure in Latin American literature. He was a political activist and is considered an important philosopher and political theorist. Through his writings and political activity, he became a symbol of Cuba's bid for independence from the Spanish Empire in the 19th century and is referred to as the "Apostle of Cuban Independence". From adolescence on, he dedicated his life to the promotion of liberty, political independence for Cuba, and intellectual independence for all Spanish Americans; his death was used as a cry for Cuban independence from Spain by both the Cuban revolutionaries and those Cubans previously reluctant to start a revolt. Read more
• 19 May 1885: Peter W. Barlow, English engineer (born 1809) Peter William Barlow was an English civil engineer, particularly associated with railways, bridges, the design of tunnels and the development of tunnelling techniques. In 1864 he patented a design for a cylindrical tunnelling shield, and obtained a provisional patent in 1868 for an improved design. Read more
• 19 May 1876: Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, Dutch historian and politician (born 1801) Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, was a Dutch politician and historian. Read more
• 19 May 1872: John Baker, English-Australian politician, 2nd Premier of South Australia (born 1813) John Baker was an early South Australian pastoralist and politician. He was the second Premier of the colony of South Australia, succeeding Boyle Travers Finniss; however, he only held office for 12 days from 21 August to 1 September 1857 before being succeeded by the third Premier of the colony, Robert Torrens. Read more
• 19 May 1865: Sengge Rinchen, Mongolian general (born 1811) Sengge Rinchen or Senggelinqin was a Mongol nobleman and general who served under the Qing dynasty during the reigns of the Daoguang, Xianfeng and Tongzhi emperors. He is best known for his role at the Battle of Taku Forts and at the Battle of Baliqiao during the Second Opium War and his contributions in helping the Qing Empire suppress the Taiping and Nian rebellions. Read more
• 19 May 1864: Nathaniel Hawthorne, American novelist and short story writer (born 1804) Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. Read more
• 19 May 1831: Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz, Estonian-German physician, botanist, and entomologist (born 1793) Johann Friedrich Gustav von Eschscholtz was a Baltic German physician, naturalist, and entomologist. He was one of the earliest scientific explorers of the Pacific region, making significant collections of flora and fauna in Alaska, California, and Hawaii. Read more
• 19 May 1825: Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, French philosopher and theorist (born 1760) Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, better known as Henri de Saint-Simon, was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on politics, economics, sociology and the philosophy of science. He was a younger relative of the famous memoirist the Duc de Saint-Simon. Read more
• 19 May 1821: Camille Jordan, French lawyer and politician (born 1771) Camille Jordan was a French politician born in Lyon of a well-to-do mercantile family. Read more

Why is 19 May Important in World History?

Several significant political, cultural, educational, and sporting events took place on 19 May, making it an important topic for general knowledge and competitive examinations.

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What happened on 19 May in World history?

On 19 May, several important historical events, notable births, and major milestones occurred in World history.

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