April 19
1775
The “shot heard around the world” was fired. Colonial Minute Men took on British Army regulars at Lexington and Concord, Mass., starting the American Revolution
1824
Lord Byron died of a fever while helping the Greeks fight the Turks.
1882
Naturalist Charles Darwin, developer of the theory of evolution, died.
1897
The first Boston Marathon was run.
1933
The United States went off the gold standard.
1943
The Warsaw ghetto uprising began, one of the first mass rebellions against the Nazis.
1993
The siege at Waco, Texas, ended when FBI moved into the Branch Davidian compound with tear gas and cult members set fire to the compound killing over 80 people.
1995
The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Okla., was destroyed by a car bomb. 168 people, including 19 children were killed in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history up to that time.
2005
Germany’s Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.
Birthdays
Eliot Ness
1903–1957, Federal agent, born in Chicago.
Sarah Kemble Knight
teacher (1666)
Roger Sherman
political leader (1721)
Glenn Seaborg
chemist (1912)
Dudley Moore
actor, comedian, composer (1935)
Kate Hudson
actress (1979)