On this day in history - May 19

What Happened On This Day – May 19

• 1963 Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail is published

  King used the open letter to defend his nonviolent resistance against racism and segregation. It became one of the central texts for the civil rights movement in the United States.

• 1962 Marilyn Monroe performs her famous rendition of Happy Birthday

  Monroe gave her sultry performance, which was to be her last, at a party for U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The two are believed to have been engaged in an affair.

• 1959 The North Vietnamese Army begins organizing the Ho Chi Minh trail

  According to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the system of supply routes used by the “Vietcong” was “one of the greatest achievements of military engineering of the 20th century.”

• 1919 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk sets off the Turkish War of Independence

  The fight against the allies of the Triple Entente ended some four years later. The Republic of Turkey was founded, and Atatürk became its first President.

• 1743 Jean-Pierre Christin invents the Celsius thermometer

  The centigrade temperature scale, which is based on the freezing and boiling point of water, is used by most countries around the world. Exceptions include the United State, Belize, and Palau.