19 May

Jacob Jordaens
19 May 1593 – 18 October 1678
Flemish Baroque Era artist. Paintings can be seen in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; Louvre, Paris; Royal Academy & The Wallace Collection, London; Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht; National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. » more

Arthur Aikin
19 May 1773 – 15 April 1854
English chemist who founded the Chemical Society of London (1841) and co-founded the Geological Society of London (1807). » more

Dame Nellie Melba (Helen Mitchell)
19 May 1861 – 23 February 1931
Australian opera soprano. » more

Mustafa Atatürk
19 May(regarded) 1881 – 10 November 1938
Founder of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. » more

Colin Chapman
19 May 1928 – 16 December 1982
English engineer who established the Lotus Car company in 1952. » more

Paul Erdman
19 May 1932 – 23 April 2007
American economist and authority on international finance. » more

Ruskin Bond
19 May 1934
Indian renowned author of children’s books. » more

David Helfgott
19 May 1947
Australian concert pianist, whose life the film ‘Shine’ (1996) is based. » more

Today’s Quote
Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves.
 … Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936)

Today’s No. 1 Hit
1958 – All I Have to Do Is Dream by The Everly Brothers.

Today’s events
19 May 1571 – The city of Manilla (Phillipines) founded by Miguel Lopez de Lagazpi.
19 May 1802 – France’s highest award, the Légion d’honneur, is established by Napoleon.
19 May 1884 – Premiere of the Ringling Brothers circus in Baraboo, Wisconsin (America).
19 May 1906 – Opening of the Simplon Tunnel, longest railway tunnel at 19·8 km (12·4 miles) linking Italy & Switzerland.
19 May 1961 – First man-made object to fly-by the planet Venus: the Russian planetary probe the ‘Venera 1′.
19 May 1971 – First man-made object designed to land on Mars launched by the Russians, the ‘Mars-2′.