Local history

50 years ago: In ceremonies at the Holiday Inn, Joseph R. Emeigh was installed as president of the Altoona Jaycees and Debbie Walker was installed as president of the Jaycee-Ettes. Franklin M. Finelli was named Jaycee of the year, earning the William H. Prosser Memorial Award. The late William Prosser was a former Altoona mayor.

25 years ago: The Aviation Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y., landed a Blackhawk helicopter in front of the Van Zandt VA Medical Center in Altoona for Armed Forces Day. Norfolk Southern Railroad donated a railroad bell to the center for The Wall That Heals.

10 years ago: In Armed Forces Day ceremonies at the Van Zandt VA Medical Center, Staff Sgt. Glenn H. English Jr., formerly of Williamsburg, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism in Vietnam, was honored. The Flood City Brass Band was to play patriotic music.

– Compiled by Tim Doyle

World history

Today is Tuesday, May 19, the 139th day of 2026. There are 226 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On May 19, 1920, 10 people were killed in a gunbattle between coal miners, who were led by a local police chief, and a group of private security guards hired to evict them for joining a union in Matewan, West Virginia.

Also on this date:

– In 1536, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, was beheaded at the Tower of London after being convicted of adultery.

– In 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House, where the two leaders agreed on May 1, 1944, as the date for the D-Day invasion of France (expansion plans for the invasion caused the date of the landing to be delayed by a month).

– In 1962, film star Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday to You” to President John F. Kennedy during a Democratic fundraiser at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

– In 1974, Hungarian architecture professor Erno Rubik debuted the Rubik’s Cube, his multicolored invention that would go from a classroom teaching tool to a global phenomenon.