Barlett dies, Wilde released, TE Lawrence dies

On May 19, 1795, Josi­ah Bartlett, a New Hamp­shire Patri­ot and sig­na­to­ry of the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence who also served as the state’s gov­er­nor and Supreme Court chief jus­tice, died.

On May 19, 1897, Oscar Wilde was released from jail after two years of hard labor. In 1891, the Mar­quess of Queens­bury denounced Wilde as a homo­sex­u­al. Wilde, who was involved with the mar­quess’ son, sued for libel but lost when evi­dence sup­port­ed the mar­quess’ alle­ga­tions. Because homo­sex­u­al­i­ty was a crime in Eng­land, Wilde was arrest­ed. His first tri­al result­ed in a hung jury, but a sec­ond jury sen­tenced him to two years. After his release, Wilde fled to Paris and began writ­ing The Bal­lad of Read­ing Gaol (1898). Wilde died just three years after his release.

On May 19, 1935, T.E. Lawrence, known to the world as Lawrence of Ara­bia, died as a retired Roy­al Air Force mechan­ic liv­ing under an assumed name. The leg­endary war hero, author, and archae­o­log­i­cal schol­ar suc­cumbed to injuries suf­fered in a motor­cy­cle acci­dent six days ear­li­er. Sent to join the Ara­bi­an army of Hus­sein’s son Faisal as a liai­son offi­cer in 1916, Lawrence prov­ing a gift­ed mil­i­tary strate­gist, help­ing the Arabs launch an effec­tive guer­ril­la war against the Ottoman Turks. After the war, he lob­bied hard for inde­pen­dence for Arab coun­tries, appear­ing at the Paris peace con­fer­ence in Arab robes.