April 19
1775 - The "shot heard around the world" was fired as Colonial Minute Men took on British Army soldiers at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, starting America's Revolutionary War.
1824 - Lord Byron died of a fever while helping the Greeks fight the Turks.
1865 - A funeral was held at the White House for President Abraham Lincoln, assassinated five days earlier; his coffin was then taken to the U.S. Capitol for a private memorial service in the Rotunda.
1882 - Naturalist Charles Darwin, developer of the theory of evolution, died.
1912 - A special subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee opened hearings in New York into the Titanic disaster.
1933 - The United States went off the gold standard.
1943 - The Warsaw ghetto uprising began, one of the first mass rebellions against the Nazis during World War II.
1977 - The Supreme Court, in Ingraham v. Wright, ruled 5-4 that even severe spanking of schoolchildren by faculty members did not violate the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.
1989 - 47 sailors were killed when a gun turret exploded aboard the USS Cockeye in the Caribbean. (The Navy initially suspected that a dead crew member had deliberately sparked the blast, but later said there was no proof of that.)
1993 - The 51-day siege at Waco, Texas ended when FBI agents moved into the Branch Davidian compound with tear gas; cult members set fire to the compound, killing over 80 people.
1995 - The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was destroyed by a car bomb, killing 168 people, including 19 children. The attack was the worst terrorist event in U.S. history to date. (Bomber Timothy McVeigh, who prosecutors said had planned the attack as revenge for the Waco siege of two years earlier, was convicted of federal murder charges and executed in 2001.)
2005 - Germany's Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.
2013 - Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings, was taken into custody after a manhunt that had left the city virtually paralyzed; his older brother and alleged accomplice, 26-year-old Tamerlan, was killed earlier in a furious attempt to escape police.
2015 - Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, died a week after suffering a spinal cord injury in the back of a Baltimore police van while he was handcuffed and shackled. (Six police officers were charged; three were acquitted and the city’s top prosecutor eventually dropped the three remaining cases.)
2018 - Raul Castro turned over Cuba’s presidency to Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez, the first non-Castro to hold Cuba’s top government office since the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro and his younger brother Raul.
2018 - Fox News Channel’s parent company fired Bill O’Reilly following an investigation into harassment allegations, bringing a stunning end to cable news’ most popular program.
2022 - Former Vice President Walter Mondale, a liberal icon who served as a Democratic senator from Minnesota and as Jimmy Carter’s vice president before losing one of the most lopsided presidential elections in the nation’s history to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1984, died at the age of 93.
2022 - The D.C. medical examiner’s office ruled that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was injured during the Jan. 6 insurrection, suffered a stroke and died from natural causes.
Birthdays
21 - Loren Gray (singer)
33 - Kim Chiu (actress)
34 - Patrik Laine (hockey player)
35 - Maria Sharapova (tennis player)
35 - Courtland Mead (actor)
37 - Zack Conroy (actor)
37 - Candace Parker (basketball player)
39 - Victoria Yeates (actress)
40 - Ali Wong (actress/comedian)
41 - Catalina Sandino Moreno (actress)
41 - Hayden Christensen (actor)
42 - Troy Polamalu (football player)
43 - Kate Hudson (actress)
44 - James Franco (actor)
45 - Joanna Gaines (TV host)
50 - Jennifer Taylor (actress)
50 - Jennifer Esposito (actress)
54 - Jesse James (TV host/reality star)
54 - Bekka Bramlett (singer)
54 - Ashley Judd (actress)
54 - Kim Hawthorne (actress)
59 - Tom Wood (actor)
60 - Al Unser Jr. (race car driver)
70 - Tony Plana (actor)
76 - Tim Curry (actor)
85 - Elinor Donahue (actress)
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Today in Sports History - April 19
1897 - The Boston Marathon was run for the first time; John J. McDermott won the inaugural race in 2 hours, 55 minutes and 10 seconds.
1947 - The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Montreal Canadiens to win the Stanley Cup.
1960 - Baseball uniforms began displaying player's names on their backs.
1968 - The National League approved expansion to Montreal and San Diego. Dallas-Fort Worth failed in its bid for an NL franchise.
1987 - The Los Angeles Clippers end their season with one of the worst records in NBA history at 12-70.
1988 - The Philadelphia 76ers retired Julius Erving's #6.
1991 - Evander Holyfield defeats George Foreman in 12 rounds for the heavyweight boxing championship.
1992 - Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls won his sixth consecutive NBA scoring title with an average of 30.1.
1997 - The St. Louis Rams select Ohio State offensive tackle Orlando Pace with the first pick in the NFL Draft.
1999 - Cal Ripken Jr. (Baltimore Orioles) was placed on the disabled list for the first time in his 19 year career. He was suffering from a back problem.
2018 - Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, 27, who was serving a life sentence for a 2013 murder, hanged himself in his cell in a maximum-security prison in Massachusetts five days after being acquitted of murder charges in the shooting deaths of two men in Boston in 2012.
2021 - In Las Vegas, Nevada: San Jose Sharks forward Patrick Marleau breaks Gordie Howe's NHL record for most games played, now at 1,768 and counting.
1775 - The "shot heard around the world" was fired as Colonial Minute Men took on British Army soldiers at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, starting America's Revolutionary War.
1824 - Lord Byron died of a fever while helping the Greeks fight the Turks.
1865 - A funeral was held at the White House for President Abraham Lincoln, assassinated five days earlier; his coffin was then taken to the U.S. Capitol for a private memorial service in the Rotunda.
1882 - Naturalist Charles Darwin, developer of the theory of evolution, died.
1912 - A special subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee opened hearings in New York into the Titanic disaster.
1933 - The United States went off the gold standard.
1943 - The Warsaw ghetto uprising began, one of the first mass rebellions against the Nazis during World War II.
1977 - The Supreme Court, in Ingraham v. Wright, ruled 5-4 that even severe spanking of schoolchildren by faculty members did not violate the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.
1989 - 47 sailors were killed when a gun turret exploded aboard the USS Cockeye in the Caribbean. (The Navy initially suspected that a dead crew member had deliberately sparked the blast, but later said there was no proof of that.)
1993 - The 51-day siege at Waco, Texas ended when FBI agents moved into the Branch Davidian compound with tear gas; cult members set fire to the compound, killing over 80 people.
1995 - The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was destroyed by a car bomb, killing 168 people, including 19 children. The attack was the worst terrorist event in U.S. history to date. (Bomber Timothy McVeigh, who prosecutors said had planned the attack as revenge for the Waco siege of two years earlier, was convicted of federal murder charges and executed in 2001.)
2005 - Germany's Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.
2013 - Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings, was taken into custody after a manhunt that had left the city virtually paralyzed; his older brother and alleged accomplice, 26-year-old Tamerlan, was killed earlier in a furious attempt to escape police.
2015 - Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, died a week after suffering a spinal cord injury in the back of a Baltimore police van while he was handcuffed and shackled. (Six police officers were charged; three were acquitted and the city’s top prosecutor eventually dropped the three remaining cases.)
2018 - Raul Castro turned over Cuba’s presidency to Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez, the first non-Castro to hold Cuba’s top government office since the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro and his younger brother Raul.
2018 - Fox News Channel’s parent company fired Bill O’Reilly following an investigation into harassment allegations, bringing a stunning end to cable news’ most popular program.
2022 - Former Vice President Walter Mondale, a liberal icon who served as a Democratic senator from Minnesota and as Jimmy Carter’s vice president before losing one of the most lopsided presidential elections in the nation’s history to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1984, died at the age of 93.
2022 - The D.C. medical examiner’s office ruled that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was injured during the Jan. 6 insurrection, suffered a stroke and died from natural causes.
Birthdays
21 - Loren Gray (singer)
33 - Kim Chiu (actress)
34 - Patrik Laine (hockey player)
35 - Maria Sharapova (tennis player)
35 - Courtland Mead (actor)
37 - Zack Conroy (actor)
37 - Candace Parker (basketball player)
39 - Victoria Yeates (actress)
40 - Ali Wong (actress/comedian)
41 - Catalina Sandino Moreno (actress)
41 - Hayden Christensen (actor)
42 - Troy Polamalu (football player)
43 - Kate Hudson (actress)
44 - James Franco (actor)
45 - Joanna Gaines (TV host)
50 - Jennifer Taylor (actress)
50 - Jennifer Esposito (actress)
54 - Jesse James (TV host/reality star)
54 - Bekka Bramlett (singer)
54 - Ashley Judd (actress)
54 - Kim Hawthorne (actress)
59 - Tom Wood (actor)
60 - Al Unser Jr. (race car driver)
70 - Tony Plana (actor)
76 - Tim Curry (actor)
85 - Elinor Donahue (actress)
=======================
Today in Sports History - April 19
1897 - The Boston Marathon was run for the first time; John J. McDermott won the inaugural race in 2 hours, 55 minutes and 10 seconds.
1947 - The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Montreal Canadiens to win the Stanley Cup.
1960 - Baseball uniforms began displaying player's names on their backs.
1968 - The National League approved expansion to Montreal and San Diego. Dallas-Fort Worth failed in its bid for an NL franchise.
1987 - The Los Angeles Clippers end their season with one of the worst records in NBA history at 12-70.
1988 - The Philadelphia 76ers retired Julius Erving's #6.
1991 - Evander Holyfield defeats George Foreman in 12 rounds for the heavyweight boxing championship.
1992 - Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls won his sixth consecutive NBA scoring title with an average of 30.1.
1997 - The St. Louis Rams select Ohio State offensive tackle Orlando Pace with the first pick in the NFL Draft.
1999 - Cal Ripken Jr. (Baltimore Orioles) was placed on the disabled list for the first time in his 19 year career. He was suffering from a back problem.
2018 - Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, 27, who was serving a life sentence for a 2013 murder, hanged himself in his cell in a maximum-security prison in Massachusetts five days after being acquitted of murder charges in the shooting deaths of two men in Boston in 2012.
2021 - In Las Vegas, Nevada: San Jose Sharks forward Patrick Marleau breaks Gordie Howe's NHL record for most games played, now at 1,768 and counting.
