ALMANAC

Tribune staff report

May 19, 2008

On May 19, 1536, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII, was beheaded after being convicted of adultery.

In 1643 delegates from four New England colonies met in Boston to form a confederation.

In 1921 Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.

In 1930 playwright Lorraine Hansberry ("A Raisin in the Sun") was born in Chicago.

In 1958 the United States and Canada formally established the North American Air Defense Command.

In 1962, during a Democratic fundraiser in New York, actress Marilyn Monroe performed a sultry rendition of "Happy Birthday" for President John F. Kennedy.

In 1967 the Soviet Union ratified a treaty with the U.S. and Britain banning nuclear weapons from outer space.

In 1994 former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died in New York; she was 64.

In 1999 the much-anticipated movie prequel "Star Wars: Episode One—The Phantom Menace" opened.

In 2000 China and the European Union reached a market-opening trade deal, clearing Beijing's largest remaining hurdle to joining the World Trade Organization.

In 2006 a key UN panel joined European and United Nations leaders in urging the Bush administration to close its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying the indefinite detention of terror suspects there violated the world's ban on torture.