Today in history
Today is Wednesday, April 19, the 109th day of 2017. There are 256 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlights in History
On April 19, 1967, Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon (at that time, a men-only event) under an official number by registering without mentioning her gender; by her own estimate, she finished in 4 hours and 20 minutes. (Bobbi Gibb, running unofficially for the second time, finished in 3:27:17.) Former West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer died at age 91.
On this date
In 1775, the American Revolutionary War began with the battles of Lexington and Concord.
In 1897, the first Boston Marathon was held; winner John J. McDermott ran the course in two hours, 55 minutes and 10 seconds.
In 1935, the Universal Pictures horror film “Bride of Frankenstein,” starring Boris Karloff with Elsa Lanchester in the title role, had its world premiere in San Francisco.
In 1943, during World War II, tens of thousands of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant but ultimately futile battle against Nazi forces.
In 1951, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his Far East command by President Harry S. Truman, bade farewell in an address to Congress in which he quoted a line from a ballad: “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”
In 1966, Bobbi Gibb, 23, became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon at a time when only men were allowed to participate. (Gibb jumped into the middle of the pack after the sound of the starting pistol and finished in 3:21:40.)
In 1977, the Supreme Court, in Ingraham v. Wright, ruled 5-4 that even severe spanking of schoolchildren by faculty members did not violate the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.
In 1989, 47 sailors were killed when a gun turret exploded aboard the USS Iowa in the Caribbean. (The Navy initially suspected that a dead crew member had deliberately sparked the blast, but later said there was no proof of that.)
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 sect leader David Koresh, were killed.
In 1995, a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. (Bomber Timothy McVeigh was later convicted of federal murder charges and executed.)
In 1997, two pizza deliverymen, Giorgio Gallara and Jeremy Giordano, were shot to death outside an abandoned house in Franklin, New Jersey; two teenagers, Thomas Koskovich and Jayson Vreeland, were later convicted of what prosecutors called a thrill killing and were sentenced to life in prison. In 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected pope in the first conclave of the new millennium; he took the name Benedict XVI.
Ten years ago: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offered a bleak assessment of Iraq, saying the war was “lost,” triggering an angry backlash by Republicans. A jury in Selmer, Tennessee, convicted Mary Winkler of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of her preacher-husband, Matthew. (Mary Winkler spent seven months in custody, with two months served in a mental facility.)