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By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wikiquote (Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.)
(The Battles of Lexington and Concord were fought on April 19, 1775)
April 19th, 65
Roman Empire:
65 - The freedman Milichus betrayed Piso’s plot to kill the Roman Emperor Nero and all the conspirators were arrested.
Wikipedia Image: Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
April 19th, 531
Byzantine Empire (East Roman Empire):
531 - Battle of Callinicum; A Byzantine army under Belisarius is defeated by the Persian at Ar-Raqqah (northern Syria.
Wikipedia Image: The Baptism of Constantine painted by Raphael's pupils (1520–1524, fresco, Vatican City, Apostolic Palace); Mural of Saints Cyril and Methodius, 19th century, Troyan Monastery, Bulgaria; Justinian I depicted on one of the famous mosaics of the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna; The Greek fire was first used by the Byzantine Navy during the Byzantine-Arab Wars (from the Madrid Skylitzes, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid); Alexios I, founder of the Komnenos dynasty.
Photo: Byzantine Empire is the great church of Hagia Sophia (Church of the Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople (562).
April 19th, 1012
1012 - Martyrdom of Ælfheah in Greenwich, London.
Wikipedia Painting: Ælfheah, Archbishop of Canterbury: A 15th-century illuminated manuscript showing Ælfheah being asked for advice.
April 19th, 1529
Diet of Worms: 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.
Wikipedia Painting: Diet of Worms 1521 ("Luther at the Diet of Worms"): was a diet (a formal deliberative assembly, specifically an Imperial Diet) that took place in Worms, Germany, and is most memorable for the Edict of Worms (Wormser Edikt), which addressed Martin Luther and the effects of the Protestant Reformation.
April 19th, 1677
Franco-Dutch War:
1677 - Siege of Cambrai; The French army captures the town of Cambrai held by Spanish troops.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Solebay, The Burning of the Royal James at the Battle of Solebay, 7 June 1672 by Willem van de Velde the younger.
April 19th, 1770
British Captain James Cook sights the eastern coast of what is now Australia.
Wikipedia Painting: James Cook, portrait by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, c. 1775, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; British explorer James Cook's ship was named the HMS Endeavour; Captain James Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, Lord Sandwich, Dr Daniel Solander and Dr John Hawkesworth, credit National Library of Australia (NLA) digital collections; Captain James Cook (1728-1779) is shown meeting Nootka leader Muquinna (died 1798) at Nootka Sound on what is now Vancouver Island, in 1778, during his explorations of Canada’s northwest coast, credit Canadian Military History.
April 19th, 1770
Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI in a proxy wedding.
Wikipedia Painting: Marie Antoinette, credit Marie-antoinette.org.
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette Visiting Medellin Colombia by Fernando Botero.
April 19th, 1775
American Revolutionary War:
1775 - Battles of Lexington and Concord; The war begins with an American victory.
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.
Wikipedia Paintings: Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutz; Battle of the Chesapeake, French (left) and British (right) lines; Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley; Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781; "The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder; Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).
Grand Union - Stars and Stripes Flag
April 19th, 1809
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1809 - Battle of Raszyn; Austrian corps is defeated by the forces of the Duchy of Warsaw.
1809 - Battle of Teugen-Hausen; The Austrian main army is defeated by a First French Empire.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar;
Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806;
Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet;
Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani);
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo;
Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807;
Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars;
Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen;
Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford;
Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).
April 19th, 1861
American Civil War:
1861 - Baltimore riot of 1861; a pro-Secession mob in Baltimore, Maryland, attacks United States Army troops marching through the city.
Wikipedia Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● First Battle Between Ironclads: CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.
April 19th, 1892
Charles Duryea claims to have driven the first automobile in the United States, in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Wikipedia Photo: 1894 Duryea Automobile at the Tallahassee Antique Car Museum ● Duryea four-wheeler, manufactured in Reading, PA, in 1901. credit: Courtesy of the Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles.
April 19th, 1919
Leslie Irvin of the United States, makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute.
Wikipedia Photo: Felix Baumgartner prepares to skydive from an unofficial altitude of 128,097 feet (39 km) (Photo: Red Bull Stratos) ● Russian soldiers make parachute jumps during a training session during Peace Mission-2009, (Reuters) ● United States parachute jumps ● A parachute deploys as the space shuttle Endeavour touches down at Edwards Air Force Base, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008 in California. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
April 19th, 1927
Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex.
Wikipedia Photo: Mae West; I'm No Angel (1933) ● as Mae West Lady Lou in She Done Him Wrong (1933) ● Diamond Lil (1928) ● My Little Chickadee (1940).
April 19th, 1942
World War II: Holocaust;
1942 - In Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is established, situated between the Lublin Ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp.
1943 - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; In Poland, German troops enter the Warsaw ghetto to round up the remaining Jews, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Wikipedia Photo: World War II, The Holocaust. Sources: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum USHMM, History 1900s, Internet Masters of Education Technology IMET, Techno Friends, Veterans Today, Concern.
April 19th, 1943
Bicycle Day: Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) for the first time.
Wikipedia Image: Effects of LSD, A Day at Work; displaying nine drawings that were done by an artist under the influence of LSD over the course of 8-hours as an experiment.
April 19th, 1956
Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco.
Wikipedia Photo: Grace Kelly; in High Society (1956) ● To Catch a Thief ● with Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief ● Grace Kelly in her wedding dress.
April 19th, 1951
General Douglas MacArthur retires from the military.
Wikipedia Photo: General Douglas MacArthur in Manila, 1945
April 19th, 1971
Vietnam War:
1971 - Vietnam Veterans Against the War begin a five-day demonstration in Washington, D.C..
Wikipedia Photo: Vietnam_War; Side view of an HH-53 helicopter of the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron as seen from the gunner's position on an A-1 of the 21st Specialist Operations Squadron. (USAF Photo by Ken Hackman), Boston Globe;
Vietnam War: The Big Picture / Boston Globe.
April 19th, 1971
Soviet Union launches its Salyut 1, the first space station.
Wikipedia Image: Mir Space Station endured 15 years in orbit, three times its planned lifetime, credit NASA.
U2, Lockheed TR-1 in flight.
April 19th, 1971
Charles Manson is sentenced to death for conspiracy to commit the Tate-LaBianca murders.
Wikipedia Photo: 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders that terrorized Los Angeles
April 19th, 1987
The The Simpsons premieres as a short cartoon on The Tracey Ullman Show.
Wikipedia Image: The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company (The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie).
April 19th, 1993
1993 - Waco siege: The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.
Wikipedia Photo: Time Cover, credit Time Topics ● David Koresh ● Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas on fire ● Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States, from 1993 to 2001.
April 19th, 1993
Aviation accidents and incidents:
1993 - South Dakota governor George Mickelson and seven others are killed when a state-owned aircraft crashes in Iowa.
Wikipedia Photo: ● Pan AM 747 ● U.S. Airways flight 1549 also known as the "Miracle on the Hudson" navigates an exit ramp near Burlington, New Jersey, June 5, 2011 ● Passengers stand on the wings of a U.S. Airways plane as a ferry pulls up to it after it landed in the Hudson River in New York, Reuters ● US Airways plane crashes into New York Hudson River, Photo: AP
April 19th, 1995
Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is bombed, killing 168.
On the same day, convicted murderer Richard Wayne Snell, who had ties to one of the bombers, Timothy McVeigh, is executed in Arkansas.
Wikipedia Photo: Oklahoma City bombing; was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. ● McVeigh and Nichols cited the federal government's actions against the Branch Davidian compound in the 1993 Waco Siege (shown above) as a reason they perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing ● The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building two days after the bombing. ● Charles Porter's photograph of firefighter Chris Fields holding the dying infant Baylee Almon won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography in 1996. A similar photo was taken by Lester LaRue.
April 19th, 2011
Cuban Revolution:
2011 - Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba's central committee after 45 years of holding the title.
Wikipedia Photo / Map: The leadership of the Cuban revolution; Fidel Castro played the leading role in the Cuban revolution against Fulgencio Batista (1957) AFP; Fidel Castro leads men in a cheer, Cuba, 1957, Bettmann/ Corbis; Cuban Airlift to the United States (1959 and 1962); Resiste Cuba, homenaje a la revolución cubana y sus héroes música: Protesta-Por Cuba; Che Guevara and Fidel Castro ; Official caption: "Off loading Cuban refugees at the Miami sea buoy", photo dated 4 May 1964; Photo No. 7CGD-050464 #12; Guerrillero Heroico - Alberto Korda's famous photograph of Che Guevara; The popularized cropped version.
April 19th, 2013
Boston Marathon bombings: suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev killed in a shootout with police. His brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is captured while hiding in a boat inside a backyard in Watertown, Massachusetts
Wikipedia Photo: Rolling Stone “The Bomber” / Bill Iffrig, 78-Year-Old Runner Knocked Down In Boston Explosion, Got Up And Finished Race (John Tlumacki, The Boston Globe, Getty Images) / of Charlotte, NC, sits injured at the scene of the first explosion that went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. (John Tlumacki, The Boston Globe - Getty Images) / Tamerlan (front) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as seen on security camera footage just prior to the bombing.