April 19

Historic Events

2021

The Ingenuity helicopter becomes the first aircraft to achieve flight on another planet. ›

2020

A killing spree in Nova Scotia, Canada, leaves 22 people and the perpetrator dead, making it the deadliest rampage in the country's history. ›

2013

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is killed in a shootout with police. His brother Dzhokhar is later captured hiding in a boat inside a backyard in the suburb of Watertown. ›

2011

Fidel Castro resigns as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba after holding the title since July 1961. ›

2008

The Quito Ultratumba nightclub fire in Quito, Ecuador, kills 19 people and injures at least 24 more. ›

2005

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected to the papacy and becomes Pope Benedict XVI. ›

2001

Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on STS-100 carrying the Canadarm2 to the International Space Station. ›

2000

Air Philippines Flight 541 crashes in Samal, Davao del Norte, killing all 131 people on board. ›

1999

The German Bundestag returns to Berlin. ›

1995

Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, US, is bombed, killing 168 people including 19 children under the age of six. ›

1993

The 51-day FBI siege of the Branch Davidian building in Waco, Texas, US, ends when a fire breaks out. Seventy-six Davidians, including 18 children under age 10, died in the fire. ›

1989

A gun turret explodes on the USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors. ›

1985

Two hundred ATF and FBI agents lay siege to the compound of the white supremacist survivalist group The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord in Arkansas; the CSA surrenders two days later. ›

1976

A violent F5 tornado strikes around Brownwood, Texas, injuring 11 people. Two people were thrown at least 1,000 yards (910 m) by the tornado and survived uninjured. ›

1975

India's first satellite Aryabhata launched in orbit from Kapustin Yar, Russia. ›

1975

South Vietnamese forces withdraw from the town of Xuan Loc in the last major battle of the Vietnam War. ›

1973

The Portuguese Socialist Party is founded in the German town of Bad Münstereifel. ›

1971

Sierra Leone becomes a republic, and Siaka Stevens the president. ›

1971

Launch of Salyut 1, the first space station. ›

1971

Charles Manson is sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment) for conspiracy in the Tate–LaBianca murders. ›

1960

Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign. ›

1956

Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco. ›

1943

World War II: In German-occupied Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins, after German troops enter the Warsaw Ghetto to round up the remaining Jews. ›

1942

World War II: In German-occupied Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is established, situated between the Lublin Ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp. ›

1936

The Jaffa riots commence, initiating the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. ›

1927

Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex. ›

1925

Colo-Colo, the most successful and popular soccer football team in the South American nation of Chile, was founded at the El Llano Stadium in San Miguel, Santiago, by footballer David Arellano and some of his teammates who had also left the Deportes Magallanes club. ›

1903

The Kishinev pogrom in Kishinev (Bessarabia) begins, forcing tens of thousands of Jews to later seek refuge in Palestine and the Western world. ›

1839

The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom and guarantees its neutrality. ›

1818

French physicist Augustin Fresnel signs his preliminary "Note on the Theory of Diffraction" (deposited on the following day). The document ends with what we now call the Fresnel integrals. ›

1810

Venezuela achieves home rule: Vicente Emparán, Governor of the Captaincy General is removed by the people of Caracas and a junta is installed. ›

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. ›

1782

John Adams secures Dutch recognition of the United States as an independent government. The house which he had purchased in The Hague becomes the first American embassy. ›

1775

American Revolutionary War: The war begins during the Battles of Lexington and Concord with a victory of American minutemen and other militia over British forces, later referred to as the "shot heard round the world". ›

1775

American Revolutionary War: Following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Siege of Boston begins with American militias blocking land access to the British-held city. ›

1770

Captain James Cook, still holding the rank of lieutenant, sights the eastern coast of what is now Australia. ›

1770

Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI in a proxy wedding. ›

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 inheritable by a female; his daughter and successor, Maria Theresa, was not born until 1717. ›

1677

The French army captures the town of Cambrai held by Spanish troops. ›

1608

In Ireland, O'Doherty's Rebellion is launched by the Burning of Derry. ›

1572

England and France sign an alliance against Spain in the treaty of Blois. ›

1539

The Treaty of Frankfurt between Protestants and the Holy Roman Emperor is signed. ›

1529

Beginning of the Protestant Reformation: After the Second Diet of Speyer bans Lutheranism, a group of rulers (German: Fürst) and independent cities protest the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms. ›

1506

The Lisbon Massacre begins, in which about two thousand Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity are slaughtered by Portuguese Catholics. ›

1042

Following the attempt of Byzantine Emperor Michael V Kalaphates to depose his wife and empress Zoe Porphyrogenita, a popular uprising in Constantinople breaks out with the intention to restore her. ›

1024

Election of Pope John XIX following the death of his brother Pope Benedict VIII. ›

531

Battle of Callinicum: A Byzantine army under Belisarius is defeated by the Persians at Raqqa (northern Syria). ›

65

The freedman Milichus betrays Piso's plot to kill the Emperor Nero and all of the conspirators are arrested. ›