Today In History: What Happened On This Day? - HistoryExtra

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What happened on this day in history? We round up the events, births and deaths that happened this week…

Featured anniversary | 19 May

1536: Anne Boleyn is executed

Having climbed the scaffold erected within the walls of the Tower of London, Anne Boleyn gave a short speech, ending with “I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never, and to me he was ever a good, a gentle, and sovereign lord. And if any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me.”

Anne Boleyn's execution.

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Why we should remember

Historians consider key anniversaries and why they should be remembered

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circa 1923: A Remembrance Day poster issued by the British Legion after World War One, reminding people to wear a Flanders poppy on November 11th. (Photo by Bob Thomas/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)

Why we should remember... When the paper poppy became a symbol of remembrance . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Scene of the 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' at the Disney World in Orlando, Florida, 1971

Why we should remember... The day Walt Disney World Resort in Florida welcomed its first guests

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1907 re-enactment of the demonstration of ether anesthesia by W.T.G. Morton on October 16, 1846. Operating room of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Why we should remember... The pioneering use of ether . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Why we should remember… the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent

A 1773 allegorical engraving of the three powers partitioning Poland

Why we should remember… the first Partition of Poland

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Why we should remember… The 19th amendment

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Why we should remember… Direct Action Day

Youths throw stones at the Royal Ulster Constabulary in the Catholic Bogside area

Why we should remember… The battle of the Bogside

Rosalind Franklin as seen in a 1956 photo

Why we should remember… Rosalind Franklin’s pioneering scientific career

Count von Stauffenberg

Why we should remember… The plot to assassinate Hitler and install a new German government

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Why we should remember The Roswell Incident

Woman wearing a bikini

Why we should remember The launch of the swimsuit that scandalised the world

The Spanish flee Tenochtitlan under fierce fire during La Noche Triste.

Why we should remember… When Spanish conquistadors were forced to flee the Aztec capital

New Yorkers outside the Stonewall Inn in June 1969.

Why we should remember… The 1969 raid on the Stonewall Inn

A policeman searches an African-American man, 1970s

Why we should remember… Richard Nixon's war on drugs

Charles Babbage's Difference Engine marked the start of automatic computing. (Image by Getty Images)

Why we should remember… Charles Babbage's Difference Engine

Coco Chanel in Paris, 1929

Why we should remember… How Chanel No 5 revolutionised the beauty business

Dr DA Henderson examines children’s smallpox vaccination scars in Ethiopia

Why we should remember… Target Zero Day

A group of formerly enslaved African-Americans around the time of the US Civil War

Why we should remember… The Amnesty Act of 1872

Anne Frank writing at her desk, c1942

Why we should remember… the translation of Anne Frank’s diary