History Events on April 19

Captain James Cook, still holding the rank of lieutenant, sights the eastern coast of what is now Australia.

#James_Cook

Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, USA, is bombed, killing 168 people including 19 children under the age of six.

#Oklahoma_City_bombing

The German Bundestag returns to Berlin.

#Bundestag

India's first satellite Aryabhata launched in orbit from Kapustin Yar, Russia.

#India

World War II: In Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins, after German troops enter the Warsaw Ghetto to round up the remaining Jews.

#Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising

American Revolutionary War: The war begins with an American victory in Concord during the battles of Lexington and Concord.

#American_Revolutionary_War

Launch of Salyut 1, the first space station.

#Salyut_1

Albert Hofmann deliberately doses himself with LSD for the first time, three days after having discovered its effects on April 16.

#Albert_Hofmann

French physicist Augustin Fresnel signs his preliminary "Note on the Theory of Diffraction" (deposited on the following day). The document ends with what we now call the Fresnel integrals.

#Augustin-Jean_Fresnel

The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom and guarantees its neutrality.

#Treaty_of_London_(1839)

With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 to ensure that Habsburg lands and the Austrian throne would be inheritable by a female; his daughter and successor, Maria Theresa was not actually born until 1717.

#Charles_VI,_Holy_Roman_Emperor

Fidel Castro resigns as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba after holding the title since July 1961.

#Fidel_Castro

The Simpsons first appear as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, first starting with Good Night.

#The_Simpsons

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is killed in a shootout with police. His brother Dzhokhar is later captured hiding in a boat inside a backyard in the suburb of Watertown.

#Boston_Marathon_bombing

Venezuela achieves home rule: Vicente Emparán, Governor of the Captaincy General is removed by the people of Caracas and a junta is installed.

#Venezuela

Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex.

#Mae_West

Empress Irene organizes a conspiracy against her son, the Byzantine emperor Constantine VI. He is deposed and blinded. Shortly after, Constantine dies of his wounds; Irene proclaims herself basileus.

#Irene_of_Athens

A gun turret explodes on the USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors.

#Gun_turret

American Civil War: Baltimore riot of 1861: A pro-Secession mob in Baltimore attacks United States Army troops marching through the city.

#American_Civil_War

Charles Manson is sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment) for conspiracy in the Tate-LaBianca murders.

#Charles_Manson

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.

#John_Adams

Air Philippines Flight 541 crashes in Samal, Davao del Norte, killing all 131 people on board.

#Air_Philippines_Flight_541

The Kishinev pogrom in Kishinev (Bessarabia) begins, forcing tens of thousands of Jews to later seek refuge in Palestine and the Western world.

#Kishinev_pogrom

Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed as Australia's national anthem, and green and gold as the national colours.

#Advance_Australia_Fair

An Austrian corps is defeated by the forces of the Duchy of Warsaw in the Battle of Raszyn, part of the struggles of the Fifth Coalition. On the same day the Austrian main army is defeated by a First French Empire Corps led by Louis-Nicolas Davout at the Battle of Teugen-Hausen in Bavaria, part of a four-day campaign that ended in a French victory.

#Duchy_of_Warsaw

World War II: In Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is established, situated between the Lublin Ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp.

#World_War_II

The 51-day FBI siege of the Branch Davidian building in Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. 76 Davidians, including eighteen children under the age of ten, died in the fire.

#Waco_siege

Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco.

#Grace_Kelly

Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign.

#April_Revolution

Sierra Leone becomes a republic, and Siaka Stevens the president.

#Sierra_Leone

Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI of France in a proxy wedding.

#Marie_Antoinette

The French army captures the town of Cambrai held by Spanish troops.

#Siege_of_Cambrai_(1677)

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected to the papacy and becomes Pope Benedict XVI.

Two hundred ATF and FBI agents lay siege to the compound of the white supremacist survivalist group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord in Arkansas; the CSA surrenders two days later.

The Portuguese Socialist Party is founded in the German town of Bad Münstereifel.

In Ireland: O'Doherty's Rebellion is launched by the Burning of Derry.

Treaty of Frankfurt signed.

Beginning of the Protestant Reformation: After the Second Diet of Speyer bans Lutheranism, a group of rulers (German: Fürst) and independent cities protests the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms.

The Lisbon Massacre begins, in which accused Jews are being slaughtered by Portuguese Catholics.

Martyrdom of Ælfheah in Greenwich, England.

Battle of Callinicum: A Byzantine army under Belisarius is defeated by the Persians at Raqqa (northern Syria).

The freedman Milichus betrays Piso's plot to kill the Emperor Nero and all the conspirators are arrested.