Today in history: May 19

A look at the events which helped shape history on this day.

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

Today in History: Birthdays

Last Updated: May 15, 2010

Nellie Melba Australian opera singer (1861-1931)

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk the founder of modern Turkey (1881-1938)

King Faisal I first king of independent Iraq (1883-1933)

Ho Chi Minh Vietnamese Communist leader and president of North Vietnam (1890-1969)

Pol Pot Cambodian communist leader (1925 or 1928-1998)

Pete Townshend British rock singer-composer of The Who (1945--)

Grace Jones Jamaican-born singer-actress (1952--)

1554 France's King Henry II invades the Netherlands.

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

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

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

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

1881 The American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton.

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

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

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

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

1930 White women are enfranchised in South Africa.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1993 Colombian jetliner crashes near Medellin, killing 132.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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