April 19
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Events on This Day
1892 - The Duryea gasoline buggy was first driven in the United States.1897 - The first annual Boston Marathon -- the first of its type in the United States -- was run. John J. McDermott of New York City won (in 2:55:10).
1924 - A new show joined the airwaves. The Chicago Barn Dance aired on WLS radio in the Windy City. Later, the famous program would be renamed The National Barn Dance. This program was the first country music jamboree on radio. (The Grand Ole Opry on WSM Radio in Nashville, TN began in 1925.) National Barn Dance continued for many years on the radio station that was owned by retailer, Sears Roebuck & Co. WLS, in fact, stood for ‘World’s Largest Store’. Though the Barn Dance gave way to rock music and now, talk radio, The Grand Ole Opry continues each weekend in Nashville.
1934 - One of America’s most beloved child stars made her debut. Shirley Temple debuted in Stand Up and Cheer, which opened in New York City. Moviegoers would rave about her song and dance routine, Baby, Take a Bow, for many years.
1940 - Paavo Nurmi, a runner from Finland, predicted that a four-minute mile would be run within the next decade. He was off by only 4 years! Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile at Oxford, England in a time of 3:59.4 on May 6, 1954. Don Bowden was the first American runner to break the mark with a 3:58.7 mile at Stockton, California on June 1, 1957. Jim Beatty became the first sub-four-minute indoor mile runner with a 3:58.9 mark in Los Angeles on February 10, 1962.
1943 - The Nazi German massacre of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto began.
1945 - The musical Carousel, based on Molnar’s Liliom, opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York City. John Raitt and Jan Clayton starred in the show which ran for 890 performances. Music was by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.
1951 - General Douglas MacArthur spoke before Congress. The highlight of this memorable address was General MacArthur stating, “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.”
1951 - Shigeki Tanaka, who survived the atomic blast at Hiroshima, Japan in World War II, won the Boston Marathon.
1956 - Actress Grace Kelly became Princess Grace of Monaco on this day. The beloved U.S. actress from Philadelphia married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in a storybook wedding. More than 1,500 radio, TV, newspaper and magazine reporters were on hand for the event in Monaco, as were most of the citizens of the tiny country.
1956 - Major-league baseball came to New Jersey for the first time as the Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 5-4 at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City. Walter O’Malley’s Dodgers played several games in New Jersey during the 1956 season, taking a major step toward vacating Ebbets Field and moving to LA. The Dodgers broke the hearts of many in Flatbush who rallied around the team. Many still talk about the team like it was just yesterday when they played in Brooklyn. Ebbets Field was named for Charles Ebbets and was built, beginning in 1912, on a plot of land he purchased for $500.
1958 - The San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers met for the first time as major-league baseball came to the West Coast.
1959 - Singer Harry Belafonte appeared in the first of two benefit concerts for charity at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
1960 - The Chicago White Sox began displaying uniforms with player’s names on the back. Baseball fans liked the idea and almost every team has adopted the practice. The most notable holdout being the tradition-bound NY Yankees (ironically, the same Yankees who introduced numbers on the back in 1929).
1965 - Electronics magazine ran a feature by future Intel Chairman Gordon Moore, who noted that computer chips seemed to double in power every year. Thus was born Moore’s Law.
1967 - Nancy Sinatra and her dad, Frank, found a gold record award in the mailbox, for their collaboration on the hit single, Something Stupid.
1967 - Konrad Adenauer, West Germany chancellor (1949-1963), died. He was 91 years old.
1970 - (24th annual) Tony Awards show was held at the at the Mark Hellinger Theatre, New York. Winners included Borstal Boy (best Play); Applause (best Musical); Fritz Weaver in Child’'s Play (best Actor Dramatic); Tammy Grimes in Private Lives (best Actress Dramatic); Cleavon Little in Purlie (best Actor Musical); and Lauren Bacall in Applause (best Actress Musical).
1971 - The Soviet Union launched its first space station, Salyut 1.
1975 - India announced it had launched its first satellite, Aryabhatta, from the Soviet Union atop a Soviet rocket. The satellite was used to make solar and ionosphere observations and to measure X-rays from Milky Way and extragalactic regions.
1977 - Author Alex Haley received a special Pulitzer Prize for his Roots: The Saga of an American Family.
1981 - The first major-league baseball team to win 11 straight games at the beginning of a season was the Oakland A’s. Win number 11 came with a few fireworks, as a brawl or two became a part of a 6-1 victory over Seattle in the first game of a doubleheader. In the second game, however, Seattle ended the A’s win streak with a 3-2 win.
1989 - A gun turret on the battleship USS Iowa exploded during a test-firing in the Atlantic about 33 miles northeast of Puerto Rico; forty-seven sailors were killed. It was one of the worst naval disasters since the war in Vietnam.
1991 - Evander Holyfield retained his heavyweight title in a unanimous decision over George Foreman in Atlantic City, NJ.
1993 - The Branch-Davidian’s compound in Waco, Texas burned to the ground. It was the anticlimax of a 51-day standoff between the religious cult led by David Koresh and U.S. federal agents (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms). 86 perished including 17 children. Koresh and his followers opted not to surrender themselves and the children to the agents; exchanging gun fire, instead. Nine members of the cult escaped.
1993 - South Dakota Governor George Mickelson (age 52) and seven others were killed when their plane crashed in Iowa. The propeller hub of their private plane fractured, damaging the engine, wing, and fuselage. The pilot tried to make an emergency landing but crashed into a silo near Zwingle, Iowa.
1995 - The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK was destroyed by a bomb estimated at 5,000 pounds, hidden in a rent-a-truck. The blast was the worst bombing on U.S. soil. Timothy McVeigh was charged with terroristic murder. 168 people including 19 children died in the blast. 490 were injured. On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty on 11 different counts, including several first degree murder convictions for the deaths of federal officers. He was executed (lethal injection) on June 11, 2001 at the Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Terry L. Nichols, an Army buddy of McVeigh, was sentenced to life in prison.
1996 - Movies opening in U.S. theatres: Celtic Pride, starring Damon Wayans, Daniel Stern, Dan Aykroyd and Gail O’Grady; Mystery Science Theatre 3000, with Trace Beaulieu, Michael J. Nelson, Jim Mallon (also the director), Kevin Murphy, Trace Beaulieu and John Brady; The Substitute, starring Tom Berenger, Ernie Hudson, Dianne Venora, Glenn Plummer, Marc Anthony and Raymond Cruz; Mrs. Winterbourne, with Shirley Maclaine Ricki Lake Brendan Fraser Miguel Sandoval Loren Dean Susan Haskell.
2000 - “The empty chairs are a simple yet powerful portrayal of someone’s absence. Like an empty chair at a dinner table, we are always aware of the presence of a loved one’s absence,” said architects Hans and Torrey Butzer and Sven Berg, explaining their inclusion of 168 bronze and stone chairs, each inscribed with a victim's name and mounted on a glass base, the focus at the opening of the Oklahoma City National Memorial. The memorial marks the place where the 168 people died in 1995 in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. A new expanse of green lawn was once the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, and a 320-foot-long reflecting pool lined with black stone has replaced the bombed-out street. The chairs, symbolic of tombstones, are also placed in symbolic positions: Nine rows representing the nine floors of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, with each victim's chair placed in the row according to the floor on which he or she worked or was visiting at the time of the blast. 19 of the chairs are smaller, representing the children who were murdered in the attack. Ironically, A 70-year-old elm tree survived the bombing. “The Survivor Tree” is now protected by the Rescuer's Orchard: Fruit trees symbolic of the many rescue workers who pulled survivors from the rubble.
2001 - The Mel Brooks-produced musical The Producers opened on Broadway. The stage show was adapted by Brooks and Thomas Meehan from Brooks’s 1967 film of the same name. The Broadway show won a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards and ran for six years and 2,502 performances, closing Apr 22, 2007.
2002 - These films debuted in the U.S.: Chelsea Walls, with Kevin Corrigan, Rosario Dawson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Kris Kristofferson, Robert Sean Leonard, Natasha Richardson, "Little" Jimmy Scott, Uma Thurman, Mark Webber, Tuesday Weld, Frank Whaley and Steve Zahn; Murder by Numbers, starring Sandra Bullock, Ben Chaplin, Ryan Gosling, Michael Pitt, Agnes Bruckner, Chris Penn and R.D. Call; and The Scorpion King, with The Rock, Michael Clarke Duncan, Steven Brand and Kelly Hu.
2003 - Hong Kong reported twelve patients died from SARS in a single day, bringing the region’s death toll to 81 -- the highest of any location affected by the outbreak.
2004 - The Boston Marathon was won by Timothy Cherigat of Kenya won (2:10:37); Catherine Ndereba of Kenya won the women’s competition (2:24:27).
2004 - Norris McWhirter, co-creator of the Guinness Book of Records, died in England of a heart attack. He was 78 years old.
2005 - The U.S. government threw out its one-size-fits-all food pyramid in favor of a dozen different guides geared to individual nutritional needs and lifestyles.
2005 - General Motors reported a loss of $1.1 billion for the three months ending in March 2005; it was the auto giant’s worst quarterly performance since 1992.
2005 - Headlines around the world read, “German Cardinal Elected New Pope,” as Joseph Ratzinger of Germany appeared on a Vatican balcony, making his first appearance as the 265th pontiff. The 78-year-old Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, had just been picked by the church to head the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics. Tens of thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square to cheer him.
2006 - Cuba agreed to buy $30 million in food from Nebraska, strengthening trade relations with the U.S. farm state already selling corn, wheat, soybeans and other products to the island nation.
2007 - Former Qwest Communications CEO Joe Nacchio was found guilty of insider trading; he had illegally sold $52 million in stock. The criminal case stemmed from a lengthy government investigation into an accounting scandal at the Denver-based primary telephone service provider.
2007 - Helen Robson Walton, widow of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, died at 87 years of age in Bentonville, AR. Helen Walton played a major role in Wal-Mart’s creation and in the family’s philanthropy. “She devoted much of her life to helping others, and to improving the quality of life in northwest Arkansas,” Wal-Mart Chairman Rob Walton, eldest of the couple’s three surviving children, said in a statement.
2008 - Flames started by fireworks swept through a nightclub in Quito, Ecuador, killing 14 people who were unable to escape through the club’s padlocked doors.
2009 - Porsche kicked off the Shanghai Motor Show by unveiling the Panamera, the German luxury carmaker’s first sedan.
2009 - During a trip-ending news conference at the site of the Summit of the Americas (where Cuba’s exclusion and the U.S. embargo were highly-contentious issues), U.S. President Barack Obama said his concerns about Cuba were “not simply something to be brushed aside.” He said the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba “hasn't worked the way we wanted it to” although it’s been in effect for nearly 50 years. And Obama went out of his way to disavow a reported plot to assassinate leftist President Evo Morales of Bolivia.
2010 - Arizona lawmakers passed an immigration bill requiring police in the state to determine if people are in the United States illegally. Opponents of the law said it was unconstitutional and would discriminate against Latinos.
2011 - India’s Supreme Court told state governments to “ruthlessly” stamp out so-called “honour killings” and warned that officials who fail to deal with the practice would be prosecuted. The Court said ruled the brutal tradition of parents killing their children to protect their so-called reputation is “barbaric” and “shameful”.
2012 - A 1792 Silver Center Penny, one of the first pennies produced by the U.S. Mint, was put up for auction and sold for $1.15 million.
2012 - American rock musician and actor Levon Helm died at 71 years of age. Helm achieved fame as the drummer and frequent lead and backing vocalist for The Band. He was known for his deeply soulful, country-accented voice, multi-instrumental ability, and creative drumming style that were highlighted on many of the Band’s recordings, such as The Weight, Up on Cripple Creek, and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Helm also had a successful career as an actor, appearing in such films as Coal Miner’s Daughter and The Right Stuff.
2013 - Movies debuting in the U.S.: Oblivion, starring Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Olga Kurylenko, Melissa Leo, Andrea Riseborough, Zoe Bell, James Rawlings, Jaylen Moore, Lindsay Clift and John L. Armijo; Filly Brown, with Resmine Atis, Baby Bash and David Bianchi; Home Run, starring Scott Elrod, Dorian Brown, Charles Henry Wyson, James Devoti, Nicole Leigh, Drew Waters, Robert Peters, Vivica A. Fox, Elvin John Rosa Jr. and Samantha Isler; Kon-Tiki, with Pål Sverre Hagen, Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Gustaf Skarsgård, Odd Magnus Williamson, Tobias Santelmann, Jakob Oftebro and Agnes Kittelsen; and The Lords of Salem, starring Sheri Moon Zombie, Bruce Davison, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Ken Foree, Dee Wallace, Patricia Quinn, Judy Geeson and Maria Conchita Alonso.
2013 - Federal agents swarmed into Watertown, Massachusetts, after local police were involved in a car chase and shootout with two men identified by the FBI as Suspects 1 and 2 in the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings. The shootout occurred after a gunfight erupted near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Suspect 1, later identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev (26), was killed. Suspect 2 (Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19), a second-year student, was wounded but escaped. He was eventually found to be hiding in a boat, under a tarp in a neighborhood backyard. He had been shot and was bleeding badly from wounds to his left ear, neck and thigh, and was taken into federal custody. Thus ended the massive manhunt that had kept the Boston area on vertual lockdown all day.
2014 - Nigerian officials said another 14 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamists in the northeast had escaped, leaving 85 missing. Some of the girls who escaped within a day of the April 15 attack said the militants had taken the hostages to the Sambisa Forest area of Borno state, where Boko Haram is known to have well-fortified camps. The unprecedented mass abduction (129 teenage girls were taken) sparked global outrage against Boko Haram, blamed for killing thousands since 2009.
2015 - An Egyptian court sentenced 11 football fans to death in a retrial over a February 2012 stadium riot in Port Said that had left 74 people dead. The riot erupted in February 2012 when fans of home team Al Masry and Cairo’s Al Ahly clashed after a match between the two clubs.
2015 - Fun Home opened on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre. Based on Alison Bechdel’s autobiographical graphic novel, the musical traces Bechdel’s discovery of her own sexuality. Fun Home was nominated for twelve Tony Awards, winning five, including Best Musical of 2015, and its cast album received a nomination for the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. The production closed on September 10, 2016. A U.S. national tour and foreign productions followed.
2016 - 21-year-old Swiss snowboarder Estelle Balet was killed in an avalanche while filming above Orsieres, near Switzerland’s southern border with France and Italy.
2016 - A U.S. federal judge approved an agreement between Ferguson, MO and the Justice Dept. The new deal called for sweeping changes in the city where Michael Brown (18) was fatally shot (8/9/2014) by a Ferguson police officer.
2017 - Fox ‘News’ Channel fired Bill O’Reilly amid a swirl of harassment allegations against the conservative broadcaster. Rupert Murdoch and sons, who run 21st Century Fox, made the announcement. O’Reilly’s ouster shocked the TV news industry, including Fox’s own employees. While the broadcaster was not well-liked inside the network, he was thought to have been invincible.
2017 - China and the European Union held their first high-level talks since POTUS Donald Trump took office in January. Top diplomats pledged closer cooperation, highlighting their common interests in peace and security and pushing a message of free trade and open engagement. This, in contrast to fears that the U.S. was turning inward.
2018 - A California state appeals court approved the state’s listing of the herbicide glyphosate as a possible cause of cancer. The court also backed California’s prohibition against discharging glyphosate into public waterways. The chemical is the main ingredient in Monasanto’s Roundup weed killer. (A few months later, the California Supreme Court refused to hear Monsanto’s appeal.)
2018 - Puerto Rico’s power company announced that it had restored electricity to more than 80 percent of customers affected by an island-wide blackout that was caused by an excavator hitting a transmission line. But tens of thousands of families were still without normal service seven months after hurricanes Maria and Irma.
2019 - Motion pictures opening in the U.S. included: the extremely creepy The Curse of La Llorona, with Linda Cardellini, Raymond Cruz and Marisol Ramirez; Daddy Issues, with Madison Lawlor, Montana Manning and Andrew Pifko; Drunk Parents, starring Salma Hayek, Joe Manganiello and Alec Baldwin; Little Woods, with Tessa Thompson, Lily James and Lance Reddick; and Under the Silver Lake, starring Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough and Topher Grace.
2019 - American Media Inc. sold the National Enquirer and other tabloids to James Cohen, CEO of Hudson Media Inc. -- for $100 million. AMI Chairman David Pecker, a longtime friend of Donald Trump, had admitted employing ‘catch-and-kill’ techniques to protect Trump from unfavorable stories. The Enquirer had admitted to paying hush money to help POTUS Trump get elected and had been accused of attempting to blackmail Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
2020 - COVID-19 news: The coronavirus had infected more than 2.3 million people and killed at least 163,000 worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.
2020 - Wyoming’s Democratic Party reported that former Vice President Joe Biden won the state Democratic presidential caucus with 72 percent of the vote. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders got 27.8% of the vote.
2020 - Pirates off the coast of Benin (a bight in the Gulf of Guinea area on the western African coast) attacked the Tommi Ritscher container ship, a Portugal-flagged vessel, and kidnapped its Bulgarian captain and seven sailors. The eight were freed by the Nigerian Navy in a rescue operation -- but not until May 26.
2020 - A gunman dressed in a police uniform went on a 12-hour killing spree in Nova Scotia province, Canada, killing 22 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in Canadian history. Suspect Gabriel Wortman (51) died in a standoff with police after a car chase. The mass shooting erupted after an argument between Wortman and his girlfriend (she survived).
2021 - 42nd U.S. V.P. Walter Mondale died at his home in Minneapolis. He was 93 years old. Mondale was vice president (1977-1981) under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota (1964-1976), he was the Democratic Party’s nominee in the 1984 presidential election, but lost to incumbent Ronald Reagan in an Electoral College and popular vote landslide.
2021 - NASA’s miniature robot helicopter Ingenuity performed a successful takeoff and landing on Mars, achieving the first powered, controlled flight by an aircraft over the surface of another planet.
2021 - Rocker Ted Nugent revealed he was in agony after testing positive for coronavirus. Nugent was a supporter of ex-POTUS Donald Trump and had previously called the pandemic a scam -- and had railed against public health restrictions. Nugent, 72, said he had had “flu symptoms for the last 10 days” and “thought I was dying.”
2021 - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had signed a deal to buy millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccinations from Pfizer through 2022.
2022 - The Department of Education said it planned to cancel student loan debt for 40,000 people and offer credits to help another 3.6 million pay off their loans. The plan was designed to aid low-income borrowers.
2022 - The last M55 rocket containing the deadly VX nerve agent was destroyed at the Blue Grass Chemical Agent plant. The Kentucky Army depot still had 277 tons of other chemical agents left to be destroyed.
2022 - The Mexican Senate approved a mining law to nationalize the country’s lithium reserves. The lithium reform outlawed all direct private investment and production in the lithium sector and created a state-owned entity to extract, process and sell Mexican lithium.
2023 - Eighteen tornadoes struck the U.S., leaving thousands without power and many trapped inside shelters. The storms hit Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa, with Oklahoma the hardest hit. The most significant tornado rolled through Cole, OK, heavily damaging or destroying homes, mobile homes, and other structures, and killing one person.
2024 - Movies opening in the U.S. included: Abigail, with Giancarlo Esposito, Dan Stevens and Kathryn Newton; The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, starring Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson and Alex Pettyfer; Villains Inc., with Mallory Everton, Colin Mochrie and Jason Gray; Wildfire: The Legend of the Cherokee Ghost Horse (inspired by the hit song by Michael Martin Murphey), starring Anne Heche, Adrian Paul and Mo Brings Plenty; and Sasquatch Sunset, with Jesse Eisenberg, Riley Keough and Christophe Zajac-Denek.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day April 19
1772 - David Ricardo
economist, author: The High Price of Bullion, a Proof of the Depreciation of Bank Notes, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation; died Sep 11, 18231903 - Eliot Ness
U.S. treasury agent, famous for his efforts in enforcing Prohibition in Chicago as the leader of a legendary team nicknamed ‘The Untouchables’; died May 16, 19571905 - Tommy Benford
drummer: with Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers; died Mar 24, 19941920 - Frank Fontaine
comedian, actor, singer: The Jackie Gleason Show; died Aug 4, 19781925 - Hugh O’Brian (Krampke)
actor: In Harm’s Way, Little Big Horn, There’s No Business like Show Business, Twins, Broken Lance, Ten Little Indians, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp; died Sep 5, 20161927 - Don Barbour
singer: group: The Four Freshmen [1953-1960]: Graduation Day, Charmaine, Blue World; died Oct 5, 19611928 - Alexis Korner
musician: guitar, singer: Whole Lotta Love; died Jan 1, 19841930 - Dick Sargent (Richard Cox)
actor: Bewitched, That Touch of Mink, Body Count, Fantasy Island; died July 8, 19941931 - Alex Webster
football: North Carolina State Univ., NY Giants; died Mar 3, 20121933 - Jayne Mansfield (Vera Jane Palmer)
actress: Pete Kelly’s Blues, It Takes a Thief, The Girl Can’t Help It; killed in car crash near New Orleans, LA June 29, 19671934 - Dickie Goodman (Richard Dorian Goodman)
entertainer: group: Buchanan and Goodman: Flying Saucer [Parts 1 & 2], Mr. Jaws; died Nov 6, 19891935 - Dudley Moore
actor: Arthur, Arthur 2, 10, Crazy People, Parallel Lives, Bedazzled, The Hound of the Baskervilles; died Mar 27, 20021936 - Wilfried Martens
Belgium Prime Minister; died Oct 9, 20131937 - Elinor Donahue
actress: Father Knows Best, The Andy Griffith Show, Get a Life, Pretty Woman1940 - Arthur Bloom
TV director: CBS: 60 Minutes [donated his stopwatch to create the show’s ticking image]; political conventions for both U.S. parties [1976-1988]; Ford-Carter and Reagan-Mondale debates; election night coverage [1974-1990]; died Jan 28, 20061941 - Alan Price
musician: keyboards, singer: groups: Alan Price Combo, The Animals: House of the Rising Sun, We Gotta Get Out of This Place1942 - Larry (Hilario) Ramos Jr.
musician: guitar, singer: group: The Association: Along Comes Mary, Cherish, Windy, Everything that Touches You, soundtrack for film, Goodbye Columbus; died Apr 30, 20141943 - Eve Graham (Evelyn May Beatsom)
singer: group: The New Seekers: Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma, I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing1943 - Czeslaw Bartkowski
jazz composer, musician: drums: has recorded over 80 LPs1944 - Bernie Worrell
musician: keyboards, composer, singer: group: Parliament-Funkadelic: One Nation Under a Groove, Atomic Dog, Flashlight, Maggot Brain, Cosmic Slop; died Jun 24, 20161946 - Tim Curry
actor: Muppet Treasure Island, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Oscar, Stephen King’s It, The Hunt for Red October, Oliver Twist, Annie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, My Favorite Year, Amadeus, Hair, Wiseguy, The Legend of Prince Valiant, voice of King Chicken in cartoon: Duckman, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events1947 - Mark Volman
musician: saxophone, singer: groups: Nightriders, Crossfires, The Turtles: It Ain’t Me Babe, Let Me Be, You Baby, Happy Together, She’d Rather be with Me, Elenore, You Showed Me; duo: Phlorescent Leech and Eddie aka Flo and Eddie: LP: Rock Steady with Flo and Eddie1949 - Lynn Powis
hockey: NHL: Chicago Blackhawks, Kansas City Scouts1956 - Sue Barker
tennis: French Open Champion: Women’s Singles [1976]1956 - Randy Carlyle
hockey: Toronto Maple Leafs, Pittsburgh Penguins, Winnipeg Jets; coach: Winnipeg Jets, Washington Capitals, Anaheim Mighty Ducks1958 - Darryl Sutter
hockey: NHL: Chicago Black Hawks [1979-1987]; head coach: Chicago Blackhawks [1992-1995]; San Jose Sharks [1997-2003]; Los Angeles Kings [2011-2017: 2012 Stanley Cup champs]; Calgary Flames[2020–2023]1960 - Frank Viola
baseball [pitcher]: St. John’s Univ; Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Toronto Blue Jays1962 - Al Unser Jr
race car driver: Indiapolis 500 champ [1992, 1994]; CART-IndyCar national champion [1990, 1994]; 31 CART wins in 18 years; son of race car driver Al Unser Sr.; nephew of race car driver Bobby Unser1964 - Scott Kamieniecki
baseball [pitcher]: Univ of Michigan; New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves1967 - Dar Williams
songwriter, singer: What Do You Hear in These Sounds, Are You Out There, The World’s Not Falling Apart, Mercy of the Fallen, Iowa [Traveling III]1968 - Ashley Judd
actress: Sisters, Till Death Us Do Part, The Locusts, Double Jeopardy, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood; mother and sister are country singers Naomi and Wynonna Judd1968 - Brent Mayne
baseball [catcher, third base]: Cal State-Fullerton Univ; KC Royals, New York Mets, Oakland Athletics, SF Giants, Colorado Rockies, LA Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks
1970 - Kelly Holmes
track & field runner: won a gold medal in 800 metres and 1500 metres events at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens; has set British records in numerous events and still holds the records over the 600, 800, 1000, and 1500 metre distances1972 - Jeff Wilkins
football [kicker]: Youngstown State Univ; NFL: Dallas Cowboys [1994], Philadelphia Eagles [1994], San Francisco 49ers [1995–1996], St. Louis Rams [1997–2007]1974 - Jose Cruz Jr.
baseball [center field]: Rice Univ; Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners, SF Giants, TB Devil Rays, Arizona Diamondbacks1976 - Scott Padgett
basketball [forward]: Univ of Kentucky; NBA: Utah Jazz, Houston Rockets, New Jersey Nets1976 - Aaron Smith
football [defensive end]: Northern Colorado Univ; NFL: Pittsburgh Steelers1977 - Dennys Reyes
baseball [pitcher]: Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds, Texas Rangers, Colorado Rockies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Arizona Diamondbacks, Kansas City Royals, San Diego Padres, Minnesota Twins1978 - James Franco
actor: Spider-Man series, Deuces Wild, Whatever It Takes, Never Been Kissed, To Serve and Protect, Freaks and Geeks1979 - Kate Hudson
actress: Almost Famous, 200 Cigarettes, Dr. T & the Women, The Cutting Room, Four Feathers, Le Divorce ; daughter of actress Goldie Hawn1981 - Hayden Christensen
actor: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Life as a House, The Virgin Suicides, No Greater Love, Higher Ground1981 - Troy Polamalu
football [safety]: Univ of Southern California; NFL: Pittsburgh Steelers [2003-2014]: Super Bowl XL, XLIII champs; more1982 - Ali Wong
comedian, actress: Baby Cobra, Black Box, Hard Knock Wife, Are You There, Chelsea?, Inside Amy Schumer, Always Be My Maybe1983 - Joe Mauer
baseball [catcher]: Minnesota Twins: only catcher to win the batting crown three times1987 - Maria Sharapova
tennis champ: Wimbleton [2004]; U.S. Open [2006]; Austrailian Open [2008]; 2012 Olympics silver medalist2002 - Loren Gray
songwriter, singer: Queen, Breadcrumbs, Anti-Everything, Nobody to Love, Kick You Out, Told You So
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day April 19
1949Cruising Down the River (facts) - The Russ Morgan Orchestra (vocal: The Skyliners)
Red Roses for a Blue Lady (facts) - Vaughn Monroe
1958
1967
1976
1985
1994
2003
2012
2021
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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