Posted by
Defend America on Sunday, April 19, 2009 4:29:25 PM
April 19,
1775
The American Revolution begins
At
about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot
leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77
armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the
town's common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the
outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment's hesitation the
Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the "shot heard
around the world" was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of
musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington
ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded.
Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had
begun.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=4934
April 19,
1861
First blood in the Civil War
On
April 19, 1861, the first blood of the American Civil War is shed when
a secessionist mob in Baltimore attacks Massachusetts troops bound for
Washington, D.C. Four soldiers and 12 rioters were killed.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6872
1933 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a proclamation that removed the U.S. went off of the gold standard.
1939 - Connecticut approved the Bill of Rights for the U.S. Constitution after 148 years.
1995 - The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK, was
destroyed by a bomb. It was the worst bombing on U.S. territory. 168
people were killed including 19 children, and 500 were injured. Timothy
McVeigh was found guilty of the bombing on June 2, 1997.
2000 - The Oklahoma City National Memorial was dedicated on the fifth
anniversary of the bombing in Oklahoma that killed 168 people.
2002 - The
USS Cole was relaunched. In Yemen, 17 sailors
were killed when the ship was attacked by terrorists on October 12,
2000. The attack was blamed on Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.