April 19
Events
Pre-1600
- AD 65 - The freedman Milichus betrays Piso's plot to kill the Emperor Nero and all of the conspirators are arrested.
- 531 - Battle of Callinicum: A Byzantine army under Belisarius is defeated by the Persians at Raqqa.
- 1506 - The Lisbon Massacre begins, in which about two thousand Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity are slaughtered by Portuguese Catholics.
- 1529 - Beginning of the Protestant Reformation: After the Second Diet of Speyer bans Lutheranism, a group of rulers and independent cities protest the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms.
- 1539 - The Treaty of Frankfurt between Protestants and the Holy Roman Emperor is signed.
1601–1900
- 1608 - In Ireland, O'Doherty's Rebellion is launched by the Burning of Derry.
- 1677 - The French army captures the town of Cambrai held by Spanish troops.
- 1713 - With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 to ensure that Habsburg lands and the Austrian throne would be inheritable by a female; his daughter and successor, Maria Theresa, was not born until 1717.
- 1770 - Captain James Cook, still holding the rank of lieutenant, sights the eastern coast of what is now Australia.
- 1770 - Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI in a proxy wedding.
- 1775 - American Revolutionary War: The war begins during the Battles of Lexington and Concord with a victory of American minutemen and other militia over British forces, later referred to as the "shot heard round the world".
- 1775 - American Revolutionary War: Following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Siege of Boston begins with American militias blocking land access to the British-held city.
- 1782 - John Adams secures Dutch recognition of the United States as an independent government. The house which he had purchased in The Hague becomes the first American embassy.
- 1809 - An Austrian corps is defeated by the forces of the Duchy of Warsaw in the Battle of Raszyn, part of the struggles of the Fifth Coalition. On the same day the Austrian main army is defeated by a First French Empire Corps led by Louis-Nicolas Davout at the Battle of Teugen-Hausen in Bavaria, part of a four-day campaign that ended in a French victory.
- 1810 - Venezuela achieves home rule: Vicente Emparán, Governor of the Captaincy General is removed by the people of Caracas and a junta is installed.
- 1818 - French physicist Augustin Fresnel signs his preliminary "Note on the Theory of Diffraction". The document ends with what we now call the Fresnel integrals.
- 1839 - The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom and guarantees its neutrality.
- 1861 - American Civil War: Baltimore riot of 1861: A pro-Secession mob in Baltimore attacks United States Army troops marching through the city.
1901–present
- 1903 - The Kishinev pogrom in Kishinev begins, forcing tens of thousands of Jews to later seek refuge in Palestine and the Western world.
- 1925 - Colo-Colo, the most successful and popular soccer football team in the South American nation of Chile, was founded at the El Llano Stadium in San Miguel, Santiago, by footballer David Arellano and some of his teammates who had also left the Deportes Magallanes club.
- 1927 - Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex.
- 1936 - The Jaffa riots commence, initiating the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine.
- 1942 - World War II: In German-occupied Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is established, situated between the Lublin Ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp.
- 1943 - World War II: In German-occupied Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins, after German troops enter the Warsaw Ghetto to round up the remaining Jews.
- 1943 - Albert Hofmann deliberately doses himself with LSD for the first time, three days after having discovered its effects on April 16, an event commonly known and celebrated as Bicycle Day.
- 1956 - Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco.
- 1960 - Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign.
- 1971 - Sierra Leone becomes a republic, and Siaka Stevens the president.
- 1971 - Launch of Salyut 1, the first space station.
- 1971 - Charles Manson is sentenced to death for conspiracy in the Tate–LaBianca murders.
- 1973 - The Portuguese Socialist Party is founded in the German town of Bad Münstereifel.
- 1975 - India's first satellite Aryabhata launched in orbit from Kapustin Yar, Russia.
- 1975 - South Vietnamese forces withdraw from the town of Xuan Loc in the last major battle of the Vietnam War.
- 1976 - A violent F5 tornado strikes around Brownwood, Texas, injuring 11 people. Two people were thrown at least by the tornado and survived uninjured.
- 1984 - Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed as Australia's national anthem, and green and gold as the national colours.
- 1985 - Two hundred ATF and FBI agents lay siege to the compound of the white supremacist survivalist group The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord in Arkansas; the CSA surrenders two days later.
- 1987 - The Simpsons first appear as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, first starting with "Good Night".
- 1989 - A gun turret explodes on the, killing 47 sailors.
- 1993 - The 51-day FBI siege of the Branch Davidian building in Waco, Texas, US, ends when a fire breaks out. Seventy-six Davidians, including 18 children under age 10, died in the fire.
- 1995 - Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, US, is bombed, killing 168 people including 19 children under the age of six.
- 1999 - The German Bundestag returns to Berlin.
- 2000 - Air Philippines Flight 541 crashes in Samal, Davao del Norte, killing all 131 people on board.
- 2001 - Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on STS-100 carrying the Canadarm2 to the International Space Station.
- 2005 - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected to the papacy and becomes Pope Benedict XVI.
- 2008 - The Factory nightclub fire in Quito, Ecuador, kills 19 people and injures at least 24 more.
- 2011 - Fidel Castro resigns as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba after holding the title since July 1961.
- 2013 - Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is killed in a shootout with police. His brother Dzhokhar is later captured hiding in a boat inside a backyard in the suburb of Watertown.
- 2020 - A killing spree in Nova Scotia, Canada, leaves 22 people and the perpetrator dead, making it the deadliest rampage in the country's history.
- 2021 - The Ingenuity helicopter becomes the first aircraft to achieve flight on another planet.
Births
Pre-1600
- 1452 - Frederick IV, King of Naples
- 1593 - Sir John Hobart, 2nd Baronet, English politician
1601–1900
- 1603 - Michel Le Tellier, French politician, French Minister of Defence
- 1613 - Christoph Bach, German musician
- 1633 - Willem Drost, Dutch painter
- 1655 - George St Lo, Royal Navy officer and administrator
- 1658 - Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, German husband of Archduchess Maria Anna Josepha of Austria
- 1665 - Jacques Lelong, French author
- 1686 - Vasily Tatishchev, Russian ethnographer and politician
- 1715 - James Nares, English organist and composer
- 1721 - Roger Sherman, American lawyer and politician
- 1734 - Karl von Ordóñez, Austrian violinist and composer
- 1757 - Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth, English admiral and politician
- 1758 - William Carnegie, 7th Earl of Northesk, Scottish admiral
- 1785 - Alexandre Pierre François Boëly, French pianist and composer
- 1787 - Deaf Smith, American soldier
- 1793 - Ferdinand I of Austria
- 1806 - Sarah Bagley, American labor organizer
- 1814 - Louis Amédée Achard, French journalist and author
- 1831 - Mary Louise Booth, American writer, editor and translator
- 1832 - José Echegaray, Spanish poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1835 - Julius Krohn, Finnish poet and journalist
- 1861 - Amalie Andersen, Norwegian actress
- 1863 - Hemmo Kallio, Finnish actor
- 1872 - Alice Salomon, German social reformer
- 1873 - Sydney Barnes, English cricketer
- 1874 - Ernst Rüdin, Swiss psychiatrist, geneticist, and eugenicist
- 1877 - Ole Evinrude, Norwegian-American engineer, invented the outboard motor
- 1879 - Arthur Robertson, Scottish runner
- 1882 - Getúlio Vargas, Brazilian lawyer and politician, 14th President of Brazil
- 1883 - Henry Jameson, American soccer player
- 1883 - Richard von Mises, Austrian-American mathematician and physicist
- 1885 - Karl Tarvas, Estonian architect
- 1889 - Otto Georg Thierack, German jurist and politician
- 1891 - Françoise Rosay, French actress
- 1892 - Germaine Tailleferre, French composer and educator
- 1894 - Elizabeth Dilling, American author and activist
- 1897 - Peter de Noronha, Indian businessman and philanthropist
- 1897 - Jiroemon Kimura, Japanese super-centenarian, oldest verified man ever
- 1898 - Constance Talmadge, American actress and producer
- 1899 - George O'Brien, American actor
- 1899 - Cemal Tollu, Turkish lieutenant and painter
- 1900 - Iracema de Alencar, Brazilian film actress
- 1900 - Richard Hughes, English author, poet, and playwright
- 1900 - Roland Michener, Canadian lawyer and politician, 20th Governor General of Canada
- 1900 - Rhea Silberta, American Yiddish songwriter and singing teacher