April 19
April 19 Gregorian calendar (110th in leap years ). There are 256 days remaining.
Events
1012 - Martyrdom of St Alphege in Greenwich, London .
1529 - At the Diet of Speyer , a group of rulers (German: Fürst ) and independent cities (German: Reichsstadt ) protests the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms , beginning the Protestant movement.
1587 - Sir Francis Drake sinks the Spanish fleet in Cádiz Harbor.
1713 - With no living male heirs , Emperor Charles VI issues the Pragmatic Sanction to ensure that Habsburg lands and the Austrian throne would be inherited by his daughter, Maria Theresa .
1770 - Captain James Cook first spots Australia .
1775 - American Revolutionary War : The Battle of Lexington and Concord – British General Thomas Gage attempts to confiscate American colonists ' firearms. The British are driven back to Boston, Massachusetts , thus beginning the American Revolutionary War .
1809 - The army of Austria attacks and is defeated by the forces of the Duchy of Warsaw in the Battle of Raszyn , part of the struggles of the Fifth Coalition .
1810 - Venezuela achieves home rule: Emparan, Governor of the Captaincy General is removed by the people of Caracas and a Junta is installed.
1839 - The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom.
1861 - American Civil War : A pro-Secession mob in Baltimore, Maryland , attacks United States Army troops marching through the city.
1892 - Charles Duryea claims to have driven the first automobile in the United States , in Springfield, Massachusetts .
1904 - Much of Toronto, Ontario , Canada , is destroyed by fire.
1909 - Joan of Arc is declared a saint.
1919 - Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful parachute jump and free fall .
1927 - Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenity Sex 1928 - The final volume of the Oxford English Dictionary 1933 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announces that the United States will be abandoning the gold standard .
1934 - Shirley Temple debuts in Stand Up and Cheer .
1938 - RCA –NBC begins regular television broadcasts.
1943 - World War II : In Poland , German troops enter the Warsaw ghetto to round up the remaining Jews , beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising .
1943 - Bicycle Day Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time.
1951 - General Douglas MacArthur retires from the military.
1956 - Actress Grace Kelly marries Rainier III of Monaco .
1960 - Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against their president Syngman Rhee , eventually forcing him to resign.
1961 - The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in failure.
1971 - Sierra Leone becomes a republic , and Siaka Stevens the president .
1971 - Vietnam War : Vietnam Veterans Against the War begin a five-day demonstration in Washington, DC .
1971 - Charles Manson is sentenced to life in prison for the Sharon Tate murders.
1971 - Launch of Salyut 1 , first human-made space station .
1978 - Lagumot Harris is elected President of Nauru .
1980 - In The Hague , Netherlands , Johnny Logan wins the twenty-fifth Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland singing "What's Another Year".
1989 - A gun turret explodes on the USS Iowa , killing 47 sailors.
1989 - Trisha Meili , the "Central Park Jogger" is raped.
1992 First attempted raid on the Weaver Family - Ruby Ridge , Idaho
1993 - The 50-day siege of the Branch Davidian complex outside Waco, Texas , USA , ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.
1995 - Oklahoma City bombing : The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City , Oklahoma , USA , is bombed, killing 168.
1999 - The German parliament returns to Berlin .
2000 - An Air Philippines Boeing 737 -200 crashes near Davao airport, killing 131.
2005 - Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger is elected the 265th Pope by the College of Cardinals . He takes the name Pope Benedict XVI .
Births
1320 - King Peter I of Portugal (d. 1367 )
1721 - Roger Sherman , signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence (d. 1793 )
1721 - Thomas McKean , signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence (d. 1817 )
1883 - Richard von Mises , mathematician (d. 1953 )
1892 - Germaine Tailleferre , composer (d. 1983 )
1897 - Constance Talmadge , actress (d. 1973 )
1900 - Richard Hughes , novelist (d. 1976 )
1903 - Eliot Ness (d. 1957 )
1912 - Glenn Seaborg , American chemist and Nobel Prize winner (d. 1999 )
1928 - Alexis Korner , rock musician (d. 1984 )
1930 - Dick Sargent , actor (d. 1994 )
1933 - Jayne Mansfield , actress (d. 1967 )
1933 - Dickie Bird , cricket umpire
1935 - Dudley Moore , actor, musician, comedian, composer (d. 2002 )
1942 - Frank Elstner , television producer
1944 - Bernie Worrell , keyboardist (originally with P Funk )
1946 - Tim Curry , British actor
1947 - Murray Perahia , American pianist
1949 - Paloma Picasso , Spanish painter
1949 - Larry Walters , floated 16,000 feet into the air on a lawn chair attached to helium-filled balloons (d. 1993 )
1952 - Alexis Arguello , boxer
1953 - Ruby Wax , British television personality
1962 - Al Unser, Jr. , automobile racer , two-time Indianapolis 500 winner
1965 - Suge Knight , record producer
1967 - Steven H Silver , science fiction editor
1968 - Ashley Judd , actress
1970 - Kelly Holmes , Olympian, double gold medalist
1972 - Rivaldo , football player
1979 - Kate Hudson , actress
1981 - Hayden Christensen , actor
1981 - Catalina Sandino Moreno , actress
1987 - Maria Sharapova , tennis player
1988 - Ted Kim , volleyball player
Deaths
1012 - Alphege , Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 954 )
1054 - Pope Leo IX (b. 1002 )
1390 - King Robert II of Scotland (b. 1316 )
1578 - Uesugi Kenshin , Japanese samurai and warlord (b. 1530 )
1632 - Sigismund , king of Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (b. 1561 )
1689 - Queen Christina of Sweden (b. 1626 )
1813 - Benjamin Rush , physician, activist (b. 1745 )
1824 - George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron , author, poet (b. 1788 )
1881 - Benjamin Disraeli , former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1804 )
1882 - Charles Darwin , biologist, author (b. 1809 )
1906 - Pierre Curie , physicist (b. 1859 )
1914 - Charles Sanders Peirce , pragmatic semiologist (b. 1839 )
1930 - Georges-Casimir Dessaulles , Canadian Senator (b. 1827 )
1937 - William Martin Conway , British art critic and mountaineer (b. 1856 )
1949 - Ulrich Salchow , Swedish figure skater (b. 1877 )
1958 - Robert Bentley , humorist, actor
1967 - Konrad Adenauer , former Bundeskanzler of West Germany (b. 1876 )
1971 - Earl Thomson , Canadian athlete (b. 1895 )
1973 - Hans Kelsen , Austrian -American legal theorist
1974 - Ayub Khan , former President of Pakistan (b. 1907 )
1975 - Percy L. Julian , chemist (b. 1899 )
1987 - Maxwell Taylor , general (b. 1901 )
1989 - Daphne du Maurier , author (b. 1907 )
1992 - Frankie Howerd , comedian, actor (b. 1917 )
1993 - David Koresh , cult leader (b. 1959 )
1998 - Octavio Paz , Mexican writer, diplomat and Nobel laureate (b. 1914 )
Holidays and observances
External links
April 18 - April 20 - March 19 - May 19 – listing of all days
