April 19
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Featured Event
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On this day in 1943, a few days after he had accidentally discovered LSD’s effects, Albert Hofmann intentionally ingested the drug at his laboratory in Switzerland. About 40 minutes later, feeling restless and unable to speak clearly, he called it a day and rode his bike home. What proved to be the world’s first “acid trip” came to be celebrated, beginning in the 1980s, as Bicycle Day. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
From Charles Darwin. A Paper Contributed to the Transactions of the Shropshire Archeological Society, by Edward Woodall, 1884
English naturalist Charles Darwin, who died this day in 1882, had a revolutionary effect on modern society when he published his theory of evolution by natural selection in his book On the Origin of Species (1859).
Famous Birthdays
More on April 19
© Maximum Exposure PR/Shutterstock.com
2018
King Mswati III announced that he was changing his country’s name from the Kingdom of Swaziland to the Kingdom of Eswatini. [Can you match these African leaders to the countries they led?]
© Gasper Furman/Shutterstock.com
2005
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected to succeed Pope John Paul II, who had died some two weeks earlier; he took the name Benedict XVI. [Take our quiz about popes.]
© Justin Brotton/Dreamstime.com
1995
In what was the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history up to that time, a truck bomb nearly destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring more than 500.
Susan Weems/AP Images
1993
After a 51-day standoff with U.S. federal agents, some 80 members of the millennialist Branch Davidian religious group died in a fire at their compound near Waco, Texas.
ISRO/NASA
1975
Aryabhata, the first uncrewed Earth satellite built by India, was launched from the Soviet Union. It took its name from a 5th-century astronomer and mathematician. [Sort fact from fiction in our space objects quiz.]
Harris & Ewing Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital File Number: LC-DIG-hec-26756)
1960
Students in South Korea began demonstrating against President Syngman Rhee, who had declared victory in the national election, which many claimed was marred by fraud. The unrest grew over the next week, ultimately forcing Rhee to resign. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Korea.]
National Archives and Records Administration/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org
1943
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a ferocious act of armed resistance by Polish Jews against efforts by Nazi troops to destroy the ghetto and its residents, began. It lasted four weeks. Although more than 40,000 Jews were ultimately killed or deported, the uprising was a revolution in Jewish history.
© 1933 Paramount Pictures
1927
Mae West was sentenced to several days in jail, convicted of “corrupting the morals of youth” with her portrayal of a prostitute in the Broadway play Sex, which she also wrote. The incident made her famous across the United States. [How much do you know about the first roles of famous actors?]
© 1903 John H. Daniels & Son, Boston/ Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (pga-00995)
1775
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were fought, marking the beginning of the American Revolution. Total losses for the day were British 273, American 95, with the colonists proving that guerrilla warfare was going to be their most effective defense strategy. [Explore a timeline of the American Revolution.]
Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London
1772
David Ricardo, who gave systematized and classical form to the rising social science of economics in the 19th century, was born in London on this day (or the day before). [Take our economics quiz.]