Today in history, May 19: Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle

Prince Harry married Meghan Markle on this day in 2018, in a star-studded ceremony at Windsor Castle.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wave during their carriage procession as they head back towards Windsor Castle after their wedding ceremony. Picture: Aaron Chown/Pool/AFP

Highlights in history on this date:

1536: Anne Boleyn, second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, is beheaded.

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

1588: The Spanish Armada sets sail for England, where it is soundly defeated the following August.

1635: In the Thirty Years War, France declares war on Spain.

1643: The French, under the Duke of Enghien, heavily defeats the Spanish at the battle of Rocroi, destroying the Spanish infantry.

1649: England is declared a commonwealth.

1792: Russia invades Poland.

1802: Napoleon Bonaparte’s Order of Legion of Honour is created in France – an order of distinction for civil or military service.

French statesman and military leader Napoleon Bonaparte.

1839: First Roman Catholic mass is conducted in Melbourne in a roofless store in Elizabeth Street, by the Rev Father Patrick Geoghegan.

1849: Irishman William Hamilton is arrested after firing blank shots at Queen Victoria in London.

1897: Armistice is signed in Greece-Turkey War.

1898: William Gladstone, four-time British prime minister, dies.

1900: Britain annexes Tongan Islands in South Pacific.

1906: Simplon Tunnel through the Alps between Italy and Switzerland is officially opened by the King of Italy and the president of the Swiss Republic.

1915: John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the stretcher bearer who with donkey Duffy saved many Australian lives at Gallipoli, is killed by a sniper’s bullet; Turkish counter-attack on Gallipoli fails with 10,000 killed or wounded in the biggest disaster of the Turks’ campaign.

1924: Aviators Stanley Globre and Ivor McIntyre complete first round-Australia flight, taking 93 hours.

1935: TE Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia, dies in England from injuries after a motorcycle crash.

TE Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia.

1943: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill tells US Congress that America has Britain’s full support in war against Japan.

1945: More than 40 US super fortress bombers attack Tokyo in World War II.

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

1973: Soviet Union and West Germany sign 10-year agreement calling for economic, industrial and technical co-operation.

1981: Five British soldiers are killed in ambush by Irish Republican Army men in Newry, Northern Ireland.

1986: South African soldiers attack alleged African National Congress targets in capitals of three neighbouring black-ruled countries: Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

1992: Two doctors who performed an autopsy on John F Kennedy confirm the president died from two bullets fired from above and behind.

1993: Colombian jetliner crashes near Medellin, killing 132.

1994: Former US first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis dies.

Former US first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, widow of late US President John F Kennedy.

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; Bandits steal three of Rome’s most important paintings, two by van Gogh and one by Cezanne, from the National Gallery of Modern Art.

1999: Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accepts “principles” of a Kosovo peace plan while NATO jets bomb Belgrade suburbs.

2000: Masked men storm Fiji’s parliament and seize the island’s prime minister, his Cabinet ministers and politicians of the ruling coalition in a coup, claiming the government discriminated against ethnic Fijians.

2002: John Gorton, former Australian prime minister, dies.

2003: Indonesia’s military launches a big offensive on rebel bases in Aceh a day after peace talks fail.

2004: The world’s first embryonic stem cell bank opens in Britain.

Ampoules containing a medium for stem cell storage are displayed at the world’s first embryonic stem cell bank in north London. Picture: Reuters/Peter Macdiarmid

2005: Egyptian authorities arrest 75 members of the Muslim Brotherhood and extend the detention of four leaders jailed earlier in a government crackdown.

2006: The UN anti-torture watchdog calls for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

2008: Disgraced music entrepreneur Glenn Wheatley is released from a Victorian prison after serving 10 months of a minimum 15-month jail term for tax evasion.

2016: EgyptAir Flight MS804 crashes into the Mediterranean Sea while flying from Paris to Cairo. All 66 people on board the Airbus 320 are killed.

2018: Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle in a star-studded ceremony at Windsor Castle. The couple then step out of the chapel and kiss in front of an adoring crowd.

2019: Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese announces he will contest the party’s leadership following Bill Shorten’s resignation.

Happy Birthday to Nora Ephron, who would have turned 79 today. Picture: Charles Sykes/AP

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:

Dame 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, (1890-1969); Malcolm X, militant US civil rights leader (1925-1965); Pol Pot, Cambodian dictator (1925-1998); James Fox, British actor (1939); Nora Ephron, US director and screenwriter (1941-2012); Carla Zampatti, Australian fashion designer (1942); Pete Townshend, British rock singer-composer (1945); Phil Rudd, Australian drummer for band AC/DC (1954); James Reyne, Australian musician (1957); Jodi Picoult, American writer (1966); Jenny Berggren, Swedish rock singer-Ace of Base (1972); Andrew Johns, Australian rugby league player (1974).

THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

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