Today in history
On April 19, 1775, the American Revolutionary War began with the battles of Lexington and Concord.
In 1892 the prototype of the first commercially successful American automobile was completed in Springfield, Mass., by Charles Duryea and his brother Frank.
In 1897 the first Boston Marathon was run from Ashland, Mass., to Boston. (Winner John McDermott ran the course in 2 hours, 55 minutes, 10 seconds.)
In 1903 Eliot Ness, who became a federal agent and led the “Untouchables,” the unit that captured Al Capone on tax charges, was born in Chicago.
In 1910 after weeks of being viewed through telescopes, Halley’s Comet was reported visible to the naked eye in Curacao.
In 1933 the U.S. went off the gold standard. Also in 1933, actress Jayne Mansfield was born in Bryn Mawr, Pa.
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 Harry Truman, bid farewell to Congress, quoting a line from a ballad: “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”
In 1982 astronauts Sally Ride and Guion Bluford Jr. became the first woman and first African-American to be tapped for U.S. space missions.
In 1989 47 sailors were killed when a gun turret exploded aboard the USS Iowa.
In 1991 Evander Holyfield won a unanimous decision over George Foreman to retain boxing’s heavyweight title in Atlantic City.
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 1994 a Los Angeles jury awarded $3.8 million to beaten motorist Rodney King. Also in 1994 the Supreme Court declared illegal the practice of excluding people from juries because of their gender.
In 1995 a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Okla., killing 168 people and injuring hundreds. (Timothy McVeigh was later convicted of federal murder charges and executed.)
In 1997 more than 50,000 residents abandoned Grand Forks, N.D., as the rising Red River overran sandbags.
In 1999 the German parliament inaugurated its new home in the restored Reichstag in Berlin, its prewar capital. Also in 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that a federal law aimed at limiting e-mail smut did not violate free-speech rights.
In 2000 President Bill Clinton knelt among168 empty chairs memorializing each victim of the Oklahoma City bombing and declared the site “sacred ground” in the soul of America during a fifth-anniversary dedication ceremony.
In 2001 the musical “The Producers” opened on Broadway. Also in 2001, pharmaceutical giants dropped a lawsuit against a South African law that could provide cheaper, generic AIDS drugs to millions of Africans, ending an international battle over patent rights and profit.
In 2002 the UN Security Council gave unanimous support to sending a UN fact-finding team to the Jenin refugee camp to determine what happened during Israel’s military assault.
In 2003 Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo won a new term in an election denounced by opponents as fraudulent.
In 2004 a Russian rocket roared into space carrying an American, a Russian and a Dutchman to the international space station on the third manned mission since the halt of the U.S. shuttle program. Also in 2004, McDonald’s Corp. chairman and CEO Jim Cantalupo died in Orlando; he was 60.
In 2005 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected pope in the first conclave of the new millennium; he took the name Benedict XVI. Also in 2005, a Spanish court convicted a former Argentine naval officer, Adolfo Scilingo, of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 640 years in prison for throwing 30 prisoners from planes during his country’s “dirty war.”
In 2006 White House political mastermind Karl Rove surrendered his role as chief policy coordinator and press secretary Scott McClellan resigned in an escalation of a Bush administration shakeup. Also in 2006, the U.S. government released a previously secret list of the names and nationalities of 558 people held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In 2013 authorities captured Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, hiding in a boat in the Boston suburb of Watertown after parts of the metro area were put under lockdown. His 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, died earlier at an area hospital after a gunbattle with police.