Today in History
Today is Thursday, April 19, the 109th day of 2007. There are 256 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 19, 1775, the American Revolutionary War began with the battles of Lexington and Concord.
On this date:
In 1897, the first Boston Marathon was held; winner John J. McDermott ran the course in 2:55:10.
In 1933, the United States went off the gold standard.
In 1943, during World War II, tens of thousands of Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant but futile battle against Nazi forces.
In 1951, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his Far East command by President Truman, bid farewell in an address to Congress in which he quoted a line from a ballad: “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”
In 1975, India launched its first satellite atop a Soviet rocket.
In 1982, astronauts Sally K. Ride and Guion S. Bluford Jr. became the first woman and first black to be tapped for U.S. space missions.
In 1989, 47 sailors were killed when a gun turret exploded aboard the USS Iowa.
In 1993, the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ended as fire destroyed the structure after federal agents began smashing their way in; dozens of people, including David Koresh, were killed.
In 1995, a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. (Timothy McVeigh was later convicted of federal murder charges and executed.)