On April 19th...

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1721 Roger Sherman, signer of four of the most important documents in U.S. history, was born.

1770 Captain James Cook first sighted Australia.

1775 The Battles of Lexington and Concord were fought.

1782 The Netherlands recognized the independence of the American colonies from British rule.

1810 Venezuela achieved home rule.

1813 Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence, died.

1824 Poet Lord Byron died.

1832 Lucretia Rudolph, wife of U.S. President James A. Garfield, was born.

1835 King Leopold II of Belgium was born.

1839 The Treaty of London established Belgium as an independent kingdom and Luxembourg as a Grand Duchy.

1861 U. S. President Abraham Lincoln ordered a blockade of Confederate ports.

1868 "Outlaw" Harry Longabaugh, aka the "Sundance Kid," was born.

1881 Benjamin Disraeli, two-time Prime Minister of Great Britain, died.

1882 Naturalist Charles Darwin died.

1892 Charles Duryea took the first American-made automobile for a test drive.

1897 John J. McDermott won the first Boston Marathon.

1898 The United States recognized Cuba's independence from Spain.

1903 Treasury agent Eliot Ness was born.

1921 Yitzhak Navon, the fifth President of Israel, was born.

1906 Physicist Pierre Curie died.

1930 Actor Dick Sargent was born.

1933 Actress Jayne Mansfield was born.

1935 Actor Dudley Moore was born.

1939 Connecticut ratified the Bill of Rights.

1940 The "Lake Shore Limited" derailed near Little Falls, New York, killing 34 persons.

1945 The Rodgers & Hammerstein musical "Carousel" opened on Broadway.

1946 Actor Tim Curry was born.

1951 Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands signed a treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community.

1956 American actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco.

1959 Dick Linder was killed during a USAC Champ Car event at Trenton (New Jersey) Speedway.

1960 A Colombian airliner crashed while landing at Bogotá, Colombia, killing 37 of the 51 persons aboard.
1960 Baseball uniforms began displaying players' names on their backs.

1962 Auto racer Al Unser, Jr., was born.

1964 Prince Souvanna Phouma of Laos was overthrown by a Rightist military group.

1967 Konrad Adenauer, the first Chancellor of West Germany, died.

1968 Actress Ashley Judd was born.

1969 Motorcycle builder Jesse James was born.

1975 India launched its first satellite.

1977 The U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the spanking of students by teachers or school officials was not a violation of the students' constitutional rights.

1979 Actress Kate Hudson was born.

1992 Comedian Benny Hill died.

1993 After a 51-day siege by the FBI, 76 Branch Davidians died in a fire near Waco, Texas.

1995 A truck bomb at the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killed 168 and injured 500.

2012 Drummer Levon Helm died.

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This page was last updated on September 02, 2018.