On This Day
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From: Reference.com On This Day
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Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 3:00 AM
Subject: Sunday April 19, 2009: Reference.com On This Day
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On This Day:
Sunday April 19, 2009
This is the 109th day of the year, with 256 days remaining in 2009.
Fact of the Day: Switzerland
Why is Switzerland the site of neutrality in time of war? The nation's
geography determined its role as the guardian of Europe's natural trans-Alpine
routes. The country's neutrality was sanctioned by the Peace of Westphalia in
1648 and reinforced in 1919 at Versailles and in World War II was the only
democracy in central Europe to be left alone by Hitler.
Holidays
Feast day of St. Leo IX, pope, St. Alphege, St. Geroldus, and St.
Expeditus.
Sierra Leone: National Holiday.
Swaziland: King Mswati III's Birthday.
Events
1775 - The American Revolutionary War began with the Battles of Lexington
and Concord. Troops under the command of Brigadier General Hugh Percy, played
"Yankee Doodle" as they marched from Boston to reinforce British soldiers
already fighting the Americans.
1782 - The Netherlands recognized the United States.
1861 - The first blood was shed in the Civil War when a secessionist mob
in Baltimore attacked Massachusetts troops bound for Washington, D.C.
1892 - The prototype of the first commercially successful American
automobile was completed in Springfield, Massachusetts, by Charles E. Duryea
and his brother Frank Duryea.
1897 - The first Boston Marathon was run from Ashland to Boston,
Massachusetts.
1933 - The United States went off the gold standard.
1939 - Connecticut finally approved the Bill of Rights.
1943 - In Warsaw, Poland, Nazi forces attempting to clear out the city's
Jewish ghetto were met by gunfire from Jewish resistance fighters -- beginning
the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
1945 - The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Carousel" opened on Broadway.
1960 - Baseball uniforms began displaying player's names on the backs.
1989 - A freak explosion aboard the USS Iowa battleship killed 47 sailors.
1990 - The Contra guerrillas, the leftist Sandinistas, and the Chamorro
government ended the nine-year civil war with a truce.
1993 - The 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas,
ended. A fire destroyed the structure after federal agents moved in; dozens of
people including the leader, David Koresh, were killed.
1995 - A truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds. Timothy McVeigh was
later convicted and executed for the crime. His co-conspirator, Terry Nichols,
was sentenced to life in prison.
1999 - The German parliament inaugurated its new home in the restored
Reichstag in Berlin, its prewar capital.
2005 - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected Pope Benedict XVI.
Births
1903 - Eliot Ness, American Prohibition agent, and leader of a legendary
team nicknamed The Untouchables who helped take down gangster Al Capone.
1927 - Don Adams (Donald James Yarmy), actor.
1932 - Jayne Mansfield (Palmer), American actress.
1935 - Dudley Moore (born Dudley Stuart John Moore), English actor,
musician, comedian, composer.
1962 - Al Unser, Jr., American race car driver and two-time Indianapolis
500 winner.
1979 - Kate Hudson, American actress.
Deaths
1882 - Charles Darwin, English biologist who developed the theory of
evolution.
2004 - Norris McWhirter, London-born co-founder of the Guinness Book of
Records.
2006 - Scott Crossfield, American pilot, and first man to fly at Mach 2.
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