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#1 Today in history - April 19
Today is Saturday, April 19, the 110th day of 2008. There are 256 days left in the year. The Jewish holiday of Passover begins at sunset.
Today's Highlight in History:
On April 19, 1775, the American Revolutionary War began with the battles of Lexington and Concord.
On this date:
In 1897, the first Boston Marathon was held; winner John J. McDermott ran the course in 2 hours, 55 minutes and 10 seconds.
In 1933, the United States went off the gold standard.
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 Truman, bid farewell in an address to Congress in which he quoted a line from a ballad: "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."
In 1975, India launched its first satellite atop a Soviet rocket.
In 1982, astronauts Sally K. Ride and Guion S. 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 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 1995, a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. (Timothy McVeigh was later convicted of federal murder charges and executed.)
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: Wang Dan, a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, arrived in the United States after being freed by China. Mexican poet-philosopher Octavio Paz died at age 84.
Five years ago: Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo won a new term in an election denounced by opponents as fraudulent.
One year 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, Tenn., 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.) Luis Posada Carriles, suspected in a decades-old Cuban airliner bombing, was released from U.S. custody pending an immigration trial. (Posada's immigration case was later thrown out by a federal judge, but the government is appealing.)
Today's Birthdays: Actor Hugh O'Brian is 83. Actress Elinor Donahue is 71. Actor Tim Curry is 62. Pop singer Mark "Flo" Volman (The Turtles; Flo and Eddie) is 61. Former tennis player Sue Barker is 52. Recording executive Suge Knight is 43. Singer-songwriter Dar Williams is 41. Actress Ashley Judd is 40. Singer Bekka Bramlett is 40. Latin pop singer Luis Miguel is 38. Actor James Franco is 30. Actress Kate Hudson is 29. Actor Hayden Christensen is 27. Actress Catalina Sandino Moreno is 27. Actor Courtland Mead is 21. Tennis player Maria Sharapova is 21.
Thought for Today: "The crisis you have to worry about most is the one you don't see coming." — Mike Mansfield, American statesman (1903-2001).
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