Once Upon A Time – April 19 – 1854 – 19-Year-Old English Baptist Preacher, Charles Spurgeon, Is Called To Pastor New Park Chapel In London

1770 British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia. Writes in his logbook that “what we have as yet seen of this land appears rather low, and not very hilly, the face of the Country green and Woody, but the Seashore is all a white Sand.”

1775 American Revolution begins in Lexington, Massachusetts. The “Shot Heard Round the World” takes place later that day in Concord

1854 Nineteen-year-old English Baptist preacher, C.H. (Charles Haddon) Spurgeon, is called to pastor the New Park Chapel in London, one of the city’s largest churches.

1909 Joan of Arc receives beatification by the Roman Catholic Church

1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh sets a truck bomb at Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 and injuring 500

2011 Fidel Castro resigns his position of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba after 45 years of holding the title

Historical Events Today

Today In Film & Tv

1934 Shirley Temple appears in her 1st feature-length film, “Stand Up & Cheer”

Today In Music

1774 CW Glucks opera “Iphigenia in Aulis” premieres in Paris

Today In Sport

1897 1st Boston Marathon (B.A.A. Road Race), won by John J. McDermott in 2:55:10; the world’s oldest annual marathon inspired by success of the first marathon at the 1896 Summer Olympics

Do You Know This Fact About Today?

1943 Bicycle Day – Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time

Would You Believe This Fact About Today?

1919 Leslie Irvin of US makes first premeditated free-fall parachute jump