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Thursday April 19, 2012

1775 - Lexington & Concord (highlighted story below)
1775 - Lexington & Concord (highlighted story below)
  • 110th Day of 2012 / 256 Remaining
  • 62 Days Until Summer Begins
  • Sunrise:6:28
  • Sunset:7:50
  • 13 Hr 22 Min
  • Moon Rise:5:24am
  • Moon Set:6:44pm
  • Moon’s Phase: 2 %
  • The Next Full Moon
  • May 5 @ 8:36pm
  • Full Flower Moon
  • Full Corn Planting Moon
  • Full Milk Moon

In most areas, flowers are abundant everywhere during this time. Thus, the name of this Moon. Other names include the Full Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon.

  • Tides
  • High:10:59am/10:38pm
  • Low:4:41am/4:28pm
  • Rainfall
  • This Year:15.33
  • Last Year:24.77
  • Normal To Date:22.52
  • Annual Seasonal Average: 23.80
  • Holidays
  • John Parker Day
  • National Hanging Out Day
  • Patriots' Day (Fla)
  • National Amaretto Day
  • Garlic Day
  • Horseless Carriage Day
  • National High Five Day
  • Republic Day-Sierra Leone
  • Victory at Gir-n-Cuba
  • Dia do Indio (Day of The Indian)-Brazil
  • Birthday of the Sultan of Perak-Malaysia
  • Landing of the 33 Patriots-Uruguay
  • King's Birthday-Swaziland
  • On This Day In …
  • 1775 --- 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. By 1775, tensions between the American colonies and the British government approached the breaking point, especially in Massachusetts, where Patriot leaders formed a shadow revolutionary government and trained militias to prepare for armed conflict with the British troops occupying Boston. In the spring of 1775, General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, received instructions from England to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents. On April 18, he ordered British troops to march against the Patriot arsenal at Concord and capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington. The Boston Patriots had been preparing for such a military action by the British for some time, and upon learning of the British plan, Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes were ordered to set out to rouse the militiamen and warn Adams and Hancock. When the British troops arrived at Lexington, Adams, Hancock, and Revere had already fled to Philadelphia, and a group of militiamen were waiting. The Patriots were routed within minutes, but warfare had begun, leading to calls to arms across the Massachusetts countryside. When the British troops reached Concord at about 7 a.m., they found themselves encircled by hundreds of armed Patriots. They managed to destroy the military supplies the Americans had collected but were soon advanced against by a gang of minutemen, who inflicted numerous casualties. Lieutenant Colonel Frances Smith, the overall commander of the British force, ordered his men to return to Boston without directly engaging the Americans. As the British retraced their 16-mile journey, their lines were constantly beset by Patriot marksmen firing at them Indian-style from behind trees, rocks, and stone walls. At Lexington, Captain Parker's militia had its revenge, killing several British soldiers as the Red Coats hastily marched through his town. By the time the British finally reached the safety of Boston, nearly 300 British soldiers had been killed, wounded, or were missing in action. The Patriots suffered fewer than 100 casualties. The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first battles of the American Revolution, a conflict that would escalate from a colonial uprising into a world war that, seven years later, would give birth to the independent United States of America.
  • 1892 --- Charles Duryea (and his brother Frank) turned the final screw in the first automobile in America. He then took it out for a drive around Springfield, Massachusetts. Duryea called his vehicle a "buggyaut."
  • 1897 --- John J. McDermott of New York won the first Boston Marathon with a time of 2:55:10. The Boston Marathon was the brainchild of Boston Athletic Association member and inaugural U.S. Olympic team manager John Graham, who was inspired by the marathon at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. With the assistance of Boston businessman Herbert H. Holton, various routes were considered, before a measured distance of 24.5 miles from the Irvington Oval in Boston to Metcalf's Mill in Ashland was eventually selected. Fifteen runners started the race but only 10 made it to the finish line. John J. McDermott, representing the Pastime Athletic Club of New York City, took the lead from Harvard athlete Dick Grant over the hills in Newton. Although he walked several times during the final miles, McDermott still won by a comfortable six-minute, fifty-two-seconds. McDermott had won the only other marathon on U.S. soil the previous October in New York. The marathon's distance was changed in 1908 in accordance with Olympic standards to its current length of 26 miles 385 yards.
  • 1927 --- Actress Mae West was convicted of "indecent behavior" in her Broadway production of "Sex." She was sentenced to 10 days in jail and fined $500.
  • 1956 --- Prince Rainier III married American actress Grace Kelly, transforming her into Princess Grace of Monaco.
  • 1980 --- For the first time in history, women took the top five spots on Billboard’s country music chart. #1: Crystal Gayle, "It’s Like We Never Said Goodbye." #2: Dottie West, "A Lesson In Leavin’." #3: Debby Boone, "Are You on the Road to Lovin’." #4: Tammy Wynette (with George Jones), "Two Story House," #5: Emmylou Harris, "Beneath Still Waters."
  • 1988 --- Chinese radio began playing western pop music for the first time, ranging from Glenn Miller to Madonna. "Roll Over Beethoven" was banned for being disrespectful to Beethoven.
  • 1990 --- Fearing his staff of eight lawyers and seven Ph.D.s was too brainy, Vice President Dan Quayle told them to start reading People magazine to get in touch with the real world.
  • 1995 --- The Supreme Court ruled that alcohol content could be listed on beer labels, overturning a 1935 law which had prohibited it.
  • 1995 --- Just after 9 a.m., a massive truck bomb explodes outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The blast collapsed the north face of the nine-story building, instantly killing more than 100 people and trapping dozens more in the rubble. Emergency crews raced to Oklahoma City from across the country, and when the rescue effort finally ended two weeks later the death toll stood at 168 people killed, including 19 young children who were in the building's day-care center at the time of the blast. On April 21, the massive manhunt for suspects in the worst terrorist attack ever committed on U.S. soil by an American resulted in the capture of Timothy McVeigh, a 27-year-old former U.S. Army soldier who matched an eyewitness description of a man seen at the scene of the crime. On the same day, Terry Nichols, an associate of McVeigh's, surrendered at Herington, Kansas, after learning that the police were looking for him. Both men were found to be members of a radical right-wing survivalist group based in Michigan, and on August 8 John Fortier, who knew of McVeigh's plan to bomb the federal building, agreed to testify against McVeigh and Nichols in exchange for a reduced sentence. On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy, and on August 14, under the unanimous recommendation of the jury, was sentenced to die by lethal injection. Michael Fortier was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about McVeigh's bombing plans. Terry Nichols was found guilty on one count of conspiracy and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter, and was sentenced to life in prison. In December 2000, McVeigh asked a federal judge to stop all appeals of his convictions and to set a date for his execution. Federal Judge Richard Matsch granted the request. On June 11, 2001, McVeigh, 33, died of lethal injection at the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was the first federal prisoner to be put to death since 1963.
  • 2001 --- A 24-year-old German man climbed down a 50-foot-deep unused well to retrieve his mobile phone on the grounds of a mediaeval castle at Stolberg. He got the phone, but then got stuck and had to use it to call for help. Emergency workers pulled the man from the well . He was not injured.
  • 2005 --- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected pope. He took the name Benedict-the-16th.
  • Birthdays
  • Ole Evinrude
  • Jayne Mansfield
  • Mark Volman
  • Ashley Judd
  • Kate Hudson
  • Maria Sharapova
  • Jiroemon Kimura(115)
  • Richard Pough