April
19
Events
65 – The
freedman Milichus betrayed Piso’s plot to kill the Emperor Nero
and all the conspirators were arrested.
1012 – Martyrdom of Ælfheah in Greenwich, London.
1529 – The Second Diet of Speyer bans Lutheranism; a group of
rulers (German: Fürst) and independent cities (German: Reichsstadt)
protests the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms, beginning
the Protestant Reformation.
1677 – The French army captures the town of Cambrai held by
Spanish troops.
1713 – With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor,
issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 to ensure that Habsburg
lands and the Austrian throne would be inherited by his daughter,
Maria Theresa of Austria (not actually born until 1717).
1770 – Captain James Cook sights the eastern coast of what is
now Australia.
1770 – Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI in a proxy wedding.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: The war begins with an American
victory in Concord during the battles of Lexington and Concord.
1782 – John Adams secures the Dutch Republic's recognition of
the United States as an independent government. The house which
he had purchased in The Hague, Netherlands becomes the first
American embassy.
1809 – An Austrian corps is defeated by the forces of the Duchy
of Warsaw in the Battle of Raszyn, part of the struggles of
the Fifth Coalition. On the same day the Austrian main army
is defeated by a First French Empire Corps led by Louis-Nicolas
Davout at the Battle of Teugen-Hausen in Bavaria, part of a
four day campaign that ended in a French victory.
1810 – Venezuela achieves home rule: Vicente 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.
1855 – Visit of Napoleon III to Guildhall, London
1861 – American Civil War: Baltimore riot of 1861: 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.
1919 – Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful
voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained
parachute.
1927 – Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenity
for her play Sex.
1928 – The 125th and final fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary
is published.
1942 – World War II: In Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is
established, situated between the Lublin Ghetto and a Majdanek
subcamp.
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.
1945 – Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Guatemala
are established.
1948 – Burma joins the United Nations.
1950 – Argentina becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright
treaty.
1951 – General Douglas MacArthur retires from the military.
1954 – The Constituent Assembly of Pakistan recognises Urdu
and Bengali as the national languages of Pakistan.
1955 – The German automaker Volkswagen, after six years of selling
cars in the United States, founds Volkswagen of America in Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey to standardize its dealer and service network.
1956 – Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco.
1960 – Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy
protest against president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him
to resign.
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, D.C..
1971 – Launch of Salyut 1, the first space station.
1971 – Charles Manson is sentenced to death for conspiracy to
commit the Tate/LaBianca murders.
1975 – India's first satellite Aryabhata is launched.
1984 – Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed as Australia's national
anthem, and green and gold as the national colours.
1985 – FBI siege on the compound of The Covenant, The Sword,
and the Arm of the Lord (CSAL) in Arkansas
1985 – U.S.S.R performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalatinsk.
Heavy smoke pours from USS Iowa’s #2 Turret following an internal
explosion
1987 – The Simpsons premieres as a short cartoon on The Tracey
Ullman Show
1989 – A gun turret explodes on the USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors.
1993 – The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside
Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people
die.
1993 – South Dakota governor George Mickelson and seven others
are killed when a state-owned aircraft crashes in Iowa.
1995 – Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168. That
same day convicted murderer Richard Wayne Snell, who had ties
to one of the bombers, Timothy McVeigh, is executed in Arkansas.
1997 – The Red River Flood of 1997 overwhelms the city of Grand
Forks, North Dakota. Fire breaks out and spreads in downtown
Grand Forks, but high water levels hamper efforts to reach the
fire, leading to the destruction of 11 buildings.
1999 – The German Bundestag returns to Berlin, the first German
parliamentary body to meet there since the Reichstag was dissolved
in 1945.
2005 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected the 265th Pope of
the Catholic Church following the death of Pope John Paul II.
The new Pope takes on the regnal name Benedict XVI.
2011 – Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba's
central committee after 45 years of holding the title.
Holidays
and observances
Beginning
of the Independence Movement (Venezuela)
Bicycle Day
Christian Feast Day:
Ælfheah of Canterbury
Emma of Lesum
Expeditus
George of Antioch
Pope Leo IX
April 19 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Dutch-American Friendship Day (United States)
Earliest day on which First Day of Summer or Sumardagurinn fyrsti
can fall, while April 25 is the latest; celebrated on the first
Thursday after April 18. (Iceland)
King Mswati III's birthday (Swaziland)
Landing of the 33 (Uruguay)
National Health Day (Kiribati)
Primrose Day (United Kingdom)
For details, contact Datacentre
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