May 19

• May 19, 1536
  Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII, being convicted of adultery and incest with her brother, Lord Rochford, is beheaded on Tower Green, the day before Henry VIII's marriage to Jane Seymour
• May 19, 1565
  The Turkish army of 40,000 men under Suleyman the Magnificent begin 5-month siege of the Knights of Malta, led by Grand Master Jean de la Valette with 2,500 troops at their garrison Fort Saint Elmo
• May 19, 1568
  Defeated by the Scottish Protestants and escaped to England, Queen of Scotland Mary is imprisoned by English Queen Elizabeth I, who perceives her as a threat
• May 19, 1608
  The Protestant states form the Evangelical Union of Lutherans and Calvinists under the direction of the elector of Brandenburg
• May 19, 1635
  Cardinal Richelieu of France declares war on the Hapsburgs in Spain and enters Thirty Years' War as an active combatant
• May 19, 1643
  A French army destroy Spanish army at the Battle at Rocroi in France during Thirty Years' War, which becomes the turning point of the perceived invincibility of the Spanish Empire
• May 19, 1643
  Delegates from four New England colonies, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Harbor, meet in Boston to form New England Confederation
• May 19, 1690
  English troops of William Phips conquer Port Royal in Acadia near Canada from the French, which becomes the first major engagement of King William's War
• May 19, 1749
  George II grants a charter to the Ohio Company to settle Ohio Valley
• May 19, 1792
  Russian army enters Poland
• May 19, 1793
  Netherlands captures French island of Saint Maarten
• May 19, 1798
  A French armada of 335 ships carrying nearly 40,000 men set sail for Alexandria, Egypt, which Napoleon plans to conquer
• May 19, 1919
  Turkish War of Independence begins between the Turkish nationalists and the proxies of the Allies, namely Greece on the Western front and Armenia on the Eastern
• May 19, 1919
  Mount Kelud in Indonesia erupts, boiling crater lake which breaks through crater wall killing 5,000 people in 104 small villages
• May 19, 1988
  Carlos Lehder, of Colombia's Medellín drug cartel, is convicted in Florida for smuggling more than three tons of cocaine into US
• May 19, 2010
  Protests in Bangkok, Thailand end with a bloody military crackdown, killing 91 and leaving more than 2,100 injured

April 23

• April 23, 303
  Saint George, a soldier in the Roman, is executed by decapitation after some torture sessions near Nicomedia's city wall
• April 23, 871
  Alfred the Great becomes the King of Wessex after death of his brother ?thelred
• April 23, 1014
  The Battle of Clontarf ends Danish rule in Ireland but a Dane kill Irish King Brian Boru
• April 23, 1154
  Damascus surrenders to sultan Nur ad-Din van Aleppo
• April 23, 1348
  King Edward III of England establishes the Order of the Garter, the first English order of knighthood
• April 23, 1500
  Pedro Alvares Cabral, a Portuguese navigator and explorer, lands at Terra da Vera Cruz, on the northeast coast of what later became known as Brazil, and claims Brazil for Portugal
• April 23, 1516
  In Bavaria, Germany, the Reinheitsgebot is enacted, which requires that beer be made from malt, hops, yeast, water and nothing else
• April 23, 1635
  The first public school in America, Boston Latin School, is founded in Boston, Massachusetts
• April 23, 1660
  Sweden concludes peace with Poland at Oliva, near Danzig ending the Second Northern War. The Polish king renounces claims on the Swedish throne, and on Livonia, Brandenburg is accepted as sovereign in Ducal Prussia
• April 23, 1661
  King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland is crowned in Westmister Abbey
• April 23, 1795
  In Britain the trial to impeach Warren Hastings, first Governor-General of Bengal, on 21 charges for high crimes and misdemeanors ends after 7 years acquitting Hastings on all charges
• April 23, 1798
  The first Dutch Constitution is accepted
• April 23, 1899
  Some 2000 people gather to watch torture and the lynching Sam Hose, a black man questionably accused of murdering a white planter and raping his wife
• April 23, 1920
  Turkish Grand National Assembly, the unicameral Turkish legislature, first meets in the midst of the war of Independence in Turkey<>, in Ankara
• April 23, 1938
  Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia demand self-government
• April 23, 1941
  Greece surrenders to the Italians and the Germans, who managed to ally due to the stalled Italian invasion known as the Greco-Italian War
• April 23, 1992
  McDonald's opens its first fast-food restaurant in China
• April 23, 1993
  The World Health Organization declares tuberculosis a Global Emergency
• April 23, 2003
  Beijing closes all of its schools for two weeks due to the SARS virus