Important Events From This day in History April 19

 

1995 USA Oklahoma Bombing

1995: A truck full of explosives destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168 people. In 1997, Timothy McVeigh was convicted of the bombing and on June 11, 2001 he was executed by lethal injection.

1943 Poland Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

1943: On the eve of Passover, April 19, 1943, the police and SS auxiliary forces entered the Ghetto under the command of SS-Oberführer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg, planning to clean out insurgents who had begun an uprising in January. But Jewish insurgents, who shot and launched Molotov cocktails and hand grenades at them from alleyways forced them to halt the exercise and withdraw. SS-Oberführer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg was replaced by Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop who proceeded with a better organized assault that included artillery support and on April 29, 1943, the Jewish resistance was crushed. Following two years of misery for thousands of Jews forced to live in the Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazi's where they had been starved, and living with disease and deportations to concentration camps and extermination camps which had dropped the population of the ghetto from an estimated 450,000 to approximately 71,000. The Nazi's planned effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the Treblinka extermination camp caused the Jewish people to begin a revolt against the Nazi's beginning on January 18th, 1943.

1993 USA Waco Cult Raid

1993: An assault on the Waco cult headquarters of the Branch Davidian sect near Waco, Texas ends in a deadly fire (believed to have been started by those inside) and ends with the death of 70 cult members including the cults leader Mr Koresh. The buildings have been surrounded since February when four agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) were killed as they attempted to arrest Mr Koresh on firearms charges.

1897 USA Boston Marathon

1897: The Worlds oldest annual marathon run in Boston, Massachusetts, United States races for the first time. The Boston Marathon ranks as one of the world's most prestigious road racing events with an average of 20,000 taking part. The marathon is one of five members of the World Marathon Majors which include the cities of Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York City.

1927 Mae West Sentenced

1927: Mae West was sentenced for an obscene stage performance to ten days in a work house and fined $500.

1928 China Civil War

1928: The combined nationalist Northern Armies under Chiang continue drive onto Peking as part of the Civil war continuing in China.

1934 USA Shirley Temple

1934: Shirley Temple appears in the American musical movie with many well known actors and actresses steals the show and goes on to appear in 10 movies in 1934 , including 4 starring roles in major feature-length films.

1936 German Military

1936: In the biggest show of military strength since World War I Germany pays homage to Hitler with a show of 300 tanks.

1940 Jimmy Dorsey

1940: Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra record the song "Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga."

1942 France Vichy Government

1942: The New Vichy Government Headed by Pierre Laval at the bidding of his German masters in an attempt to bring the insurgent french people back into line with Nazi ruling by promising to protect the people from the Nazi Regime by gaining concessions.

1945 Popular Musical Carousel

1945: The popular musical "Carousel" opens at the prominent Majestic Theatre in New York City. The production was based on the 1909 play by Ferenc Molnar about a man named Liliom and his lover, Julie.

1956 Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier Honeymoon

1956: Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier start their honeymoon on Deo Javante II 138 ft Yacht but due to heavy seas spent the night in the harbor.

1961 Cuba Bay of Pigs

1961: On April 17th 1,500 CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles invade southern Cuba at the "Bay of Pigs" by the 19th 118 are killed and 1,202 are captured by Cuban forces. President Kennedy inherited the operation from US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and approved the operation but it has to be one of the worst planned and executed covert invasions in modern times poorly thought out, as Cuban and Soviet Forces knew almost to the day where and when the operation would occur.

1969 Students Occupy Willard Straight Hall

1969: Militant black students at Cornell Univ. use force to take over Willard Straight Hall demanding a black studies program, after a deal was reached with the administration the news showed students leaving the hall carrying rifles although they were never used.

1972 Lunar Rover Apollo 16

1972: Apollo 16 the fifth mission to land on the Moon with astronauts John W Young and Charles M Duke are preparing to descend from lunar orbit and land on the moons surface in the Descartes Mountains, When landed they drove an electric powered Lunar Rover to explore fully the Descartes Plateau. Young and Duke spent three days exploring the Descartes highland region and testing the Lunar Rover getting up to a top speed of eleven miles per hour which still stands as the record speed for any wheeled vehicle on the Moon.

1987 USA The Simpsons

1987: The Simpsons which had originally been created as a series of shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show with the first showing on This Day 1987

1989 Central Park Attack on Jogger

1989: On the 19th approximately 30 teenage perpetrators committed several attacks, assaults, and robberies in the northernmost part of New York City's Central Park. Around the same time an attack on Trisha Meili occurred, who was jogging on her own on her usual path in Central Park shortly before 9 pm. She was raped and beaten almost to death, at 1:30 AM she was found naked, gagged, and tied up, covered in mud and blood. Five juveniles (called the "Central Park 5") were interviewed for hours about the crime and intimidated into confessions. Since no DNA evidence tied the suspects to the crime, the prosecution's case rested almost entirely on the confessions. They were all found guilty but the convictions were overturned in 2002 after Matias Reyes, a convicted rapist and murderer, confessed to the crime and was linked to it with DNA evidence. The city was forced to pay out $41 million in damages.

2001 South Africa Aids Drugs Profit Before The Lives Of Millions

2001: The world's biggest pharmaceutical companies bring legal action to fight legislation which would allow generic versions of their patented drugs being made in or imported to South Africa. Following uproar around the world and the pharmaceutical industry accused of putting profit before the lives of millions of people in the developing world, they have backed out of the court battle over cheap, non-branded anti-Aids drugs and also after dropping the case, agree to sell Aids drugs at cost price in developing countries - a discount of up to 90%.

2005 Vatican Pope Benedict XVI

2005: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has been elected as the successor to Pope John Paul II The new Pope has taken the name Pope Benedict XVI and is the head of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics.

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