TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

April 19, 1995

A truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1775

The American Revolutionary War began with the battles of Lexington and Concord.

1865

A funeral was held at the White House for President Abraham Lincoln, assassinated five days earlier; his coffin was then taken to the U.S. Capitol for a private memorial service in the Rotunda.

1939

Connecticut became the last of the original 13 colonies to ratify the Bill of Rights, 147 years after it took effect.

1943

During World War II, tens of thousands of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant but ultimately futile battle against Nazi forces.

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.”

1966

Bobbi Gibb, 23, became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon at a time when only men were allowed to participate.

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.

1989

47 sailors were killed when a gun turret exploded aboard the USS Iowa in the Caribbean.

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; about 80 people, including two dozen children and sect leader David Koresh, were killed.