#TodayInHistory – April 19

April 19 – Some important events on this day

607 👉🏼 Comet 1P/607 H1 (Halley) approaches within 0.0898 AUs of Earth ☄️
1770 👉🏼 British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia 🇦🇺

1775 👉🏼 American Revolution begins in Lexington, Massachusetts. The “Shot Heard Round the World” took place in Concord later that day.
The American Revolutionary War began on this day with a battle between British soldiers and American revolutionaries at Concord and Lexington in Massachusetts. The first shot of the war – the so-called “shot heard ’round the world” is not actually known to history, but its term comes from a poem, “Concord Hymn”, by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“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.”

The bridge in question is North Bridge, in Concord, where it is established that the first shots by American soldiers acting under orders were taken, as well as the first British fatalities and retreat.
The war would end eight years later with the independence of a new country born of the Thirteen Colonies – the United States of America.

1782 👉🏼 2nd US president John Adams secures Dutch Republic’s recognition of the United States as an independent government and house he purchased in The Hague, Netherlands became first American embassy.
1897 👉🏼 First Boston Marathon held 🏃‍♂️

1901 👉🏼 In the Philippines, recently captured insurgent leader Emilio Aguinaldo issues a proclamation advising his countrymen to end their rebellion and use of peaceful means to work with the US toward independence.

1909 👉🏼 Joan of Arc receives beatification by the Roman Catholic Church
1909 👉🏼 A convention with Turkey recognizes Bulgarian independence 🇧🇬
1919 👉🏼 Leslie Irvin of US makes first premeditated free-fall parachute jump

1927 👉🏼 Actress Mae West found guilty of “obscenity and corrupting the morals of youth” in a New York stage play entitled “Sex”. She is sentenced to 10 days in prison and fined $500, the resulting publicity launches her Hollywood career.

1932 👉🏼 31st US President Herbert Hoover suggests 5 day work week
1943 👉🏼 Bicycle Day: Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time.
1947 👉🏼 French ship explodes in Texas City harbor, kills about 522
1995 👉🏼 Oklahoma City bombing – a truck bomb at Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building kills 168 & injures 500

1989 👉🏼 Central Park jogger attack shocks New York City.
On this day, a 28-year-old female investment banker is severely beaten and sexually assaulted while jogging in Central Park. Five teenagers from Harlem were convicted of the crime, which shocked New Yorkers for its randomness and viciousness and became emblematic of the perceived lawlessness of the city at the time. The case was also racially divisive, as the teens were black and Hispanic and the victim was white.

2005 👉🏼 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger elected Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of the Papal conclave.
2011 👉🏼 Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba’s central committee after 45 years of holding the title.