History of the Day for:
April 19
- 1775: The Revolutionary War began as the British fired the "shot heard 'round the world."
- 1892: A model of the first commercially successful American automobile was completed in Springfield, Mass.
- 1897: John J. McDermott won the first Boston Marathon in 2 hours, 55 minutes and 10 seconds.
- 1898: Congress passed a resolution recognizing Cuban independence and demanding that Spain relinquish its authority over Cuba.
- 1933: The United States went off the gold standard.
- 1943: Jews living in the Warsaw ghetto began a resistance against the Nazi occupation forces.
- 1945: The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Carousel" opened on Broadway.
- 1951: General Douglas MacArthur ended his military career by saying, "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."
- 1956: Prince Rainier of Monaco and actress Grace Kelly were married in a church ceremony.
- 1961 The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in success for the defenders.
- 1971: – Sierra Leone becomes a republic, and Siaka Stevens the president.
- 1971: Vietnam War: Vietnam Veterans Against the War begin a five-day demonstration in Washington, DC.
- 1971: Launch of Salyut 1, first human-made space station.
- 1971: Charles Manson is sentenced to death for the Sharon Tate murders.
- 1975: India's first satellite Aryabhata is launched.
- 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.
- 1985: U.S.S.R performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalatinsk U.S.S.R.
- 1987: The Simpsons premieres as a short cartoon on The Tracey Ullman Show.
- 1989: A gun turret explodes on the USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors.
- 1993: The 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, ended as fire burned the structure, killing dozens of people including leader David Koresh.
- 1995: A truck bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring 500.
- 1999: The German Bundestag returns to Berlin.
- 2005: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger elected Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of the Papal conclave.
- 2008: Bowie Seamount on the coast of British Columbia, Canada becomes a Marine Protected Area.