April 19

April 19 is the 109th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (110th in leap years). There are 256 days remaining.

Births:

Deaths:

Events: On April 19,

In 1775, British and American soldiers exchanged fire in the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord. On the night of April 18, the royal governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, commanded by King George III to suppress the rebellious Americans, had ordered 700 British soldiers, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith and Marine Major John Pitcairn, to seize the colonists' firearms. A system of signals and word-of-mouth communication set up by the colonists was effective in forewarning American volunteer militia men of the approach of the British troops. At Lexington Green the next morning, the British were met by 77 American Minute Men led by John Parker. At the North Bridge in Concord, the British were confronted again, this time by 300 to 400 armed colonists, and were forced to march back to Boston with the Americans firing on them all the way. The American Revolution had begun.

In 1919, Leslie Irvin of the United States made the first successful parachute jump and free fall.

In 1933, President {Franklin Delano Roosevelt]] announced the US would be leaving the gold standard.

In 1943, German troops during World War II entered the Warsaw Ghetto to round up the remaining Jews.

In 1971, Charles Manson was sentence to life in prison for the Sharon Tate murders.

In 1993, the 50-day seige of the Branch Davidian complex outside Waco, [[Texas}} ended when a fire broke out. Eighty-one people died in the fire.

In 1995, Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people in the largest terrorist attack to that time on American soil when he blew up a car bomb outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

See Also: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December April 18 - April 19 - April 20 - March 19 - May 19 - more historical anniversaries