Return to home843 Apr 19,
Judith, French empress, 2nd wife of Louis de Vrome, died.
1524 Apr 19, Pope Clemens VII
fired the Netherlands inquisitor-general French Van de Holly.
1529 Apr 19, The 2nd Parliament
of Speyer banned Lutheranism. At the Diet of Speyer the Lutheran
minority protested against restrictions on their teachings and were
called "Protestant" for the first time.
1539 Apr 19, Emperor Charles V
reached a truce with German Protestants at Frankfurt, Germany.
1587 Apr 19, Sir Frances Drake
sailed into Cadiz, Spain, and sank the Spanish fleet.
1600 Apr 19, The Dutch ship
Liefde, piloted by Will Adams, reached Japan with a crew of 24 men.
6 of the crew soon died. 4 other ships in the expedition were lost.
(ON, 11/02, p.8)
1666 Apr 19, Sarah Kembel
Knight, diarist, was born.
1689 Apr 19, Residents of
Boston ousted their governor, Edmond Andros.
1689 Apr 19, Christina
(b.1626), Queen of Sweden (1644-54), died. In 2004 Veronica Buckley
authored “Christina: Queen of Sweden."
(www.sweden.se)(WSJ, 10/29/04, p.W10)
1721 Apr 19, Roger Sherman,
signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born.
1763 Apr 19, Teedyuscung, a
Lenape Indian, burned to death while sleeping in his cabin in the
Wyoming Valley, Pa. The fire destroyed the whole Indian village. A
few days later settlers from Connecticut arrived to resume their
construction of a town.
(ON, 1/03, p.6)
1764 Apr 19, The English
Parliament banned the American colonies from printing paper money.
1770 Apr 19, Capt. James Cook
first saw Australia. [see Apr 9]
1774 Apr 19, Gluck's opera
"Iphigenia in Aulis," premiered in Paris.
1775 Apr 19, Alerted by Paul
Revere the American Revolutionary War began at Lexington Common with
the Battle of Lexington-Concord. Capt. John Parker mustered 78
militiamen on the town green of Lexington to send a warning to the
700 British soldiers marching to Concord to seize weapons and
gunpowder. Maj. Gen. Thomas Gage sent a force of 700 British troops
to Concord, west of Boston, to capture colonial weapons and arrest
Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Arriving at Lexington
on their way to Concord, the British were met on the town common by
about 70 Minutemen. The “shot heard ‘round the world" ignited the
American Revolutionary War. No one knows who fired the first shot,
but when the smoke cleared, eight Americans lay dead. The British
suffered more than 250 casualties as they opposed more than 1,500
Massachusetts men. The events are documented in the 1997 book
“Liberty by Thomas Fleming." Isaac Davis was among the first to die
at Lexington and Concord.
(HFA, '96, p.28)(V.D.-H.K.p.224)(AP,
4/19/97)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14)(HN, 4/19/97)(HNPD, 4/19/99)(HNQ,
1782 Apr 19, Netherlands
recognized the United States.
1794 Apr 19, Tadeusz Kosciusko
forced Russians out of Warsaw.
1798 Apr 19, Franz Joseph
Glaser, composer, was born.
1802 Apr 19, Spain reopened the
New Orleans port to American merchants.
1813 Apr 19, Benjamin Rush
(67), physician, revolutionary (signed Declaration of Independence),
1817 Apr 19, David Ricardo
(1772-1823), British political economist, published "Principles of
Political Economy and Taxation." Here Ricardo argued for the labor
theory of value and explained why the best farmland often makes
money for the landlord, not the farmer.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.91)(Econ,
1819 Apr 19, The USS Alabama
and Louisiana destroyed a pirate base at the Patterson's Town Raid
on Breton Island, Louisiana.
1824 Apr 19, George Gordon,
(6th Baron Byron, b.1788) aka Lord Byron, English poet, died of
malaria in Greece at Missolonghi on the gulf of Patras preparing to
fight for Greek independence. In 1999 Benita Eisler published the
biography "Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame." In 2002 Fiona
MacCarthy authored "Byron: Life and Legend." In 2009 Edna O’Brien
authored “Byron in Love."
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.D3)(WSJ, 4/26/99, p.A16)(HN,
4/1901)(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.M2)(SSFC, 6/21/09, Books p.J5)
1832 Apr 19, Lucretia Rudolph,
President Garfield's first lady, was born.
1861 Apr 19, President Lincoln
ordered the blockade of Confederate ports.
1861 Apr 19, Baltimore riots
resulted in four Union soldiers, 9 civilians killed. The 6th
Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment, the first Union troops to pass
through pro-secessionist Baltimore, Md., entered Baltimore expecting
trouble. As they marched through the streets on their way to the
defense of Washington, D.C., the troops were attacked by
rock-throwing rioters bearing Confederate flags. Four soldiers and
nine civilians were killed in the daylong melee.
(HN, 4/19/97)(HNPD, 4/23/99)
1862 Apr 19, Simon Fraser,
Canadian explorer, died.
1864 Apr 19, Naval Engagement
at Cherbourg, France: USS Kearsarge vs. CSS Alabama. [see Jun 19]
1868 Apr 19, Paul P.
Harris, founder of the Rotary Club, was born in Racine, Wisconsin.
1877 Apr 19, Ole Evinrude,
inventor of the outboard marine engine, was born.
1880 Apr 19, The Times war
correspondent telephoned a report of the battle of Ahmed Khel, the
first time news was sent from a field of battle in this manner.
1881 Apr 19, Benjamin Disraeli,
1st Earl of Beaconsfield, British PM (1868, 1874-1880), novelist,
1892 Apr 19, The prototype of
the first commercially successful American automobile was completed
in Springfield, Mass., by Charles E. Duryea and his brother Frank.
1882 Apr 19, Charles R. Darwin
(b.1809), English naturalist (Origin of Species), died at Downe,
England, at age 73. In 1995 Janet Browne authored “Voyaging" the 1st
of her 3-part biography. In 2002 her 2nd volume “The Power of Place"
(MC, 4/19/02)(WBO, 2002)(FT, 12/14/02, p.IV)
1893 Apr 19, The Oscar Wilde
play "A Woman of No Importance" opened at the Haymarket Theatre in
(WSJ, 9/16/98, p.A20)(AP, 4/19/03)
1894 Apr 19, Jules Massenet's
opera "Werther," premiered in NYC.
1897 Apr 19, 1st performance of
Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande."
1897 Apr 19, The first Boston
Marathon was run from Ashland, Mass., to Boston. Winner John J.
McDermott ran the course in 2 hours, 55 minutes and 10 seconds.
1898 Apr 19, Congress passed a
resolution recognizing Cuban independence and demanding that Spain
relinquish authority over Cuba. President McKinley was also
authorized to use military force to put the resolution into effect.
1900 Apr 19, Richard Hughes,
English novelist and playwright (A High Wind in Jamaica), was born.
1903 Apr 19, Eliot Ness,
Treasury agent, was born. He fought for prohibition in Chicago, Ill.
1904 Apr 19, Much of Toronto
was destroyed by fire.
1905 Apr 19, Tom Hopkinson,
British writer, was born.
1906 Apr 19, Pierre Curie,
French physicist, chemist (Nobel 1903), died. Curie, was hit by a
truck and killed as he crossed a street in Paris.
(ON, 3/00, p.2)(MC, 4/19/02)
1909 Apr 19, The new Orpheum
Theater opened in San Francisco, Ca.
(SSFC, 3/8/09, DB p.45)
1909 Apr 19, In Persia Howard
Baskerville (b.1885), an American Presbyterian preacher, was shot
dead while trying to break the siege of Tabriz as a defender of the
new Iranian constitution.
1910 Apr 19, After weeks of
being viewed through telescopes, Halley's Comet was reported visible
to the naked eye in Curacao.
1912 Apr 19, Glenn T. Seaborg,
first head of Atomic Energy Commission, was born. He won a Nobel
Prize in 1951 for co-discovering Plutonium.
(HN, 4/19/97)(MC, 4/19/02)
1913 Apr 19, California passed
the Webb Bill, excluding Japanese from owning land. It was signed
into law on May 19, 1913.
1913 Apr 19, San Francisco’s
Chinatown was put under a partial blockade following the killing of
Lem Foon by Bing Kong tong highbinders. The blockade was the 2nd of
its kind in as many years.
(SSFC, 4/14/13, p.46)
1914 Apr 19, Charles Sanders
Peirce (b.1839), American polymath, philosopher and scientist, died
in Milford, Pa. In 1883 he used randomization in a psychological
experiment at Johns Hopkins Univ.
1922 Apr 19, Erich Hartmann,
German WW II pilot who later downed 352 Russian aircrafts, was born.
1924 Apr 19, The "National Barn
Dance" premiered on WLS in Chicago.
1925 Apr 19, Hugh O'Brian,
[Krampke], actor (Wyatt Earp), was born in Rochester, NY.
1927 Apr 19, Rudolf Friml's
"Vagabond King" opened in London.
1927 Apr 19, In China, Hankow
communists declared war on Chaing Kai-shek.
1933 Apr 19, Etheridge Knight,
poet, was born.
1933 Apr 19, The United States
went off the gold standard by presidential proclamation. FDR tied
this with orders that 445,000 newly minted gold $20 “Double Eagle"
coins be destroyed. Ten coins escaped and one was scheduled for
auction in 2002. The coin fetched $7.59 million. [see Jun 5]
(TMC, 1994, p.1933)(PCh, 1992, p.819)(AP,
4/19/97)(SSFC, 3/29/02, Par p.6)(SFC, 7/31/02, p.A2)
1934 Apr 19, Shirley Temple
appeared in her first movie.
1935 Apr 19, Dudley Moore
(d.2002), film actor, comedian and musician, was born in Dagenham,
(SFC, 3/28/02, p.A15)
1936 Apr 19, Clarence Darrow.
Lawyer and social reformer Clarence Darrow voiced the opinion that
“There is no such thing as justice—in or out of court" in an
interview for the New York Times.
1936 Apr 19, Anti-Jewish riots
broke out in Jaffa, Palestine.
1938 Apr 19, General Francisco
Franco declared victory in the Spanish Civil War.
1939 Apr 19, Connecticut
finally approved Bill of Rights.
1941 Apr 19, Michel Roux, chef
de cuisine, was born.
1941 Apr 19, B. Brecht's 1939
play "Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and her
Children)," premiered in Zurich.
1943 Apr 19, Willy Graf, Kurt
Huber and Alexander Schmorell, German resistance fighters, were
1943 Apr 19, Nazis entered the
Warsaw ghetto, the eve of the Passover holiday. Three days later
they set the ghetto ablaze, turning it into a fiery death trap.
Jewish fighters kept up their struggle for nearly a month before
they were brutally vanquished. Teenager Simcha Rotem (d.2018), aka
Kazik, served as a liaison between the bunkers and took part in the
1943 Apr 19, In Warsaw, Poland,
some 750 young Jews under Mordechai Anielewicz began their 1st urban
uprising against the Nazis. During World War II, tens of thousands
of Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant but futile
battle against Nazi forces. SS-Gen Jurgen Stroop led the destruction
of the ghetto of Warsaw: "The Warsaw Ghetto is no more!" he wrote
proudly to Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler. Stroop was hanged on
the site of the Warsaw ghetto after the war. Jacek Zlatka (Jack
Eisner, 1925-2003) smuggled arms for the revolt. Eisner made a
fortune in the import-export business after the war and in 1980
authored the autobiography "The Survivor."
(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.T11)(AP, 4/19/97)(HN,
4/19/97)(SSFC, 8/31/03, p.A29)
1943 Apr 19, Swiss chemist
Albert Hoffman, following up on an experiment on April 16,
deliberately ingested .25 milligrams of LSD and soon began to feel
its effects. Hallucinations continued on his bicycle ride home and
lasted for some 6 hours.
(SFC, 5/9/96, p.A-1)(Econ, 5/10/08, p.98)
1943 Apr 19-1943 Apr 20, Lance
Sgt. Haane Manahi (d.1987) of New Zealand performed gallant actions
against overwhelming odds in the bloody battle for Takrouna, a
fortified citadel in Tunisia, North Africa. In 2007 the Maori
trooper was posthumously honored he 64 years after he was denied a
top gallantry award despite a commendation signed by four commanding
1945 Apr 19, The Rodgers and
Hammerstein adopted Ferenc Molnar’s “Lilliom" and produced the
musical “Carousel" on Broadway.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, DB p.40)(AP, 4/19/97)
1945 Apr 19, US aircraft
carrier Franklin was heavily damaged in Japanese air raid.
1946 Apr 19, Tim Curry, actor
(Rocky Horror Show), was born in Cheshire, England.
1947 Apr 19, Murray Perahia,
pianist (Avery Fischer Prize-1975, Grammy 1988), was born in NYC.
1949 Apr 19, Paloma Picasso,
[Gilot], actress (Immoral Tales), was born Paris, France.
1949 Apr 19, The Foreign
Assistance Act authorized $5.43 billion for the European Recovery
(EWH, 1968, p.1207)
1949 Apr 19, The Amethyst
Affair began when the British frigate Amethyst came under fire from
Communist Chinese artillery and ran aground in the Yangtze River. A
tense, 103-day standoff followed until the frigate made a daring
escape on July 30. The Amethyst lost 22 men killed and 31 wounded in
the ordeal. Rescue attempts by the Royal Navy resulted in another 23
British sailors killed.
1951 Apr 19, Gen. Douglas
MacArthur, relieved of his command by President Truman, bid farewell
to Congress, quoting a line from a ballad: "Old soldiers never die;
they just fade away."
1956 Apr 19, In southern
England Cdr. Lionel "Buster" Crabb, a decorated Royal Navy veteran,
disappeared while diving near Portsmouth. Secret documents released
in 2006 showed that British authorities lied to cover up the fate of
a Crabb, who died during a scuba diving spy mission near a warship
used by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.78)(AP, 10/27/06)
1956 Apr 19, In Spain 12 people
died and about 70 were injured following earthquakes in the southern
1958 Apr 19, The last Key
System train left Oakland for SF. Ferry service from the Ferry
Building ended the next day when the Southern Pacific "Eureka" made
its last crossing from SF to Oakland.
(SFC, 8/10/98, p.A5)(SFC, 9/4/98, p.A25)(SFC,
8/7/07, p.A6)(SFC, 4/18/08, p.B1)
1960 Apr 19, Baseball uniforms
began displaying player's names on their backs.
1961 Apr 19, Cuba’s air force
by this time shot down 9 of the invader’s 16 aircraft and US
invaders, with ad death toll of 114, began to surrender.
Subsequently 36 died in Cuban prisons. Many survivors were released
between 1962 and 1965 after private donors paid $53 million in food
and medicine for Cuba.
(AH, 4/07, p.18)
1961 Apr 19, Howard Anderson
was executed in Cuba after being convicted of arms smuggling to
1961 Apr 19, Cuban forces shot
down a B-26 bomber piloted by Captain Thomas Ray north of Larga
beach, an area they controlled. Ray was flying the bomber from
Nicaragua while on contract to the US CIA. In a 2004 trial in the
US, forensics on Ray’s body proved that the cause of his death was a
small bullet entry thru the head.
(WSJ, 9/15/06, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/kzeh2)
1964 Apr 19, There was a
rightist coup in Laos. Suvanna Phuma remained premier.
1965 Apr 19, An article in
Electronics magazine by Gordon Moore, later Intel Chairman, noted
that chips seem to double in power every 18 months. Thus was born
Moore's Law. Moore later asserted that his claim was that the number
of components that can be packed on a computer chip doubles every 2
years. In 2005 Intel offered $10,000 for a pristine copy of the
(SFEC, 12/21/97, p.A2)(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC,
4/12/05, p.A1)(SFC, 4/18/05, p.E1)
1965 Apr 19, At a cost of
$20,000, the outer Houston Astrodome ceiling was painted because of
sun's glare. This in turn caused the grass to die.
1966 Apr 19, Lt. Lee Aaron
Adams of Willits, Ca., was killed when his F-105D Thunderchief
fighter plane was shot down in North Vietnam. His remains were
returned home in 2005. During 1966 the US Air Force lost 126
(SFC, 6/2/05, p.A1)
1967 Apr 19, Katherine Switzer
(b.1947) ran in the Boston Marathon registered under the name K.
Switzer. Up to this time women were not allowed to register for the
1967 Apr 19, Conrad Adenauer
(b.1876), West Germany chancellor (1949-63), died.
1968 Apr 19, Ralph S. Plaisted
(1927- 2008), insurance salesman turned explorer, reached the North
Pole by snowmobile with 3 other men. This was the first expedition
to indisputably reach the North Pole.
(SFC, 9/11/08, p.B4)
1968 Apr 19, The Secretary of
the National Assembly in Czechoslovakia promised rehabilitation of
political prisoners and freedom of the press, assembly and religion.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Apr 19, Makhosetive, later
King Mswati III of Swaziland, was born.
1969 Apr 19, In Ithaca N.Y.
some 80 armed, militant black students at Cornell Univ. took over
Willard Straight Hall. They demanded a black studies program and cut
a deal with frightened administrators for total amnesty. In 1999
Donald Alexander Downs described the events in his book: "Cornell
(WSJ, 5/20/99, p.A18)
1971 Apr 19, Charles Manson and
3 accomplices were sentenced to death for the Sharon Tate murders.
1971 Apr 19, The Soviet Union
launched Salyut 1, the world’s first space station into orbit.
1972 Apr 19, The Broadway
production Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope" opened at the Playhouse
Theatre, where it ran for two months before transferring to the
Edison. It had a total run of 1065 performances. The cast included
Grant, Alex Bradford, and Hope Clarke.
1974 Apr 19, In San Francisco
Angelo Pavageau brutally beat Frank Carlson (25) to death, raped his
wife and brutally beat her before setting the couple’s house on fire
at 1301 Kansas St. in Potrero Hill. Annette Carlson (24) survived.
Pavageau was found guilty of murder in 1974 and was sentenced to
death. In 1976 his sentence was reduced to life in prison with the
possibility of parole.
(SFC, 3/15/17, p.A7)
1975 Apr 19, India announced it
had launched its 1st satellite, from the Soviet Union atop a Soviet
1977 Apr 19, Alex Haley
received a special Pulitzer Prize for his book "Roots."
1982 Apr 19, Astronauts Sally
K. Ride and Guion S. Bluford Jr. became the first woman and first
African-American to be tapped by NASA for U.S. space missions.
(AP, 4/19/97)(HN, 4/19/97)
1987 Apr 19, The last
free-flying condor in California, a 19-pound, 7-year-old male, was
captured. He was released in 2002.
(SFC, 3/3/00, p.A21)(SFC, 5/2/02, p.A6)
1987 Apr 19, Maxwell D. Taylor
(85), US commander 101st airborne (WW II), died.
1987 Apr 19, Argentina’s
President Raul Alfonsin obtained the surrender of dozens of armed
rebel soldiers who had been holed up at a military base for three
1987 Apr 19, Antony Tudor
(b.1909), dancer, British choreographer (American Ballet Theater)
1988 Apr 19, Republican George
Bush and Democrat Michael Dukakis handily won the New York
1988 Apr 19, Sarah LaChapelle
(56) was found murdered at her home in East Oakland. Gregory Tate
(21) was arrested later that day in LaChapelle's stolen Oldsmobile
Cutlass. He was convicted in 1992 for her murder and in 1993 was
sentenced to death. He had cut off a finger to steal LaChapelle’s
wedding and engagement rings. In 2010 the California Supreme Court
upheld Tate’s sentence.
1989 Apr 19, A jogger was raped
and beaten in Central Park. 5 black and Latino youths (14-16) were
soon arrested and convicted. In 2002 DNA evidence identified Matias
Reyes (31) as the rapist. A judge then overturned the original
convictions. 3,254 other rapes were reported in the park in 1989. In
2003 Trisha Meili identified herself as the victim in her book “I Am
the Central Park Jogger." In 2014 the five men initially convicted
agreed to settle their civil rights lawsuit for about $40 million.
(NG, 5/93, p.16)(SFC, 9/6/02, p.A3)(SFC,
11/21/09, p.A7)(SFC, 6/20/14, p.A11)
1989 Apr 19, The battleship USS
Iowa's number 2 turret exploded while on maneuvers northeast of
Puerto Rico. 47 sailors were killed and a $4 million investigation
was launched. The Navy attempted to lay the blame on Clayton
Hartwig, a seaman described as gay soldier disappointed in a gay
affair. In 1999 Charles C. Thompson II published "A Glimpse of Hell:
The Explosion of the USS Iowa and Its Cover-Up."
(AP, 4/19/97)(SFEC, 6/13/99, BR p.1,8)(HN,
1989 Apr 19, Daphne Du Maurier
(82), English writer (Rebecca, Jamaica Inn), died.
1989 Apr 19, Adnan Khashoggi, a
Saudi financier, was arrested in Switzerland at the request of the
US Government, which is seeking his extradition to New York to stand
trial on charges of racketeering, fraud and obstruction of justice.
He faced charges stemming from ''illegal property dealings'' on
behalf of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the ousted President of the
Philippines, and his wife, Imelda. In 1992 Khashoggi and Imelda
Marcos were found not guilty of racketeering by a jury in Manhattan.
1990 Apr 19, Nicaragua's
nine-year-old civil war appeared near an end as Contra guerrillas,
leftist Sandinistas and the incoming government agreed to a truce
and a deadline for the rebels to disarm.
1991 Apr 19, Evander Holyfield
won a unanimous decision over George Foreman to retain boxing’s
heavyweight title in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
1991 Apr 19, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrived in South Korea for talks with President
1992 Apr 19, After six days,
engineers plugged the tunnel leak under the Chicago River that
caused an underground flood that had virtually shut down business in
the heart of the city.
1993 Apr 19, The 51-day siege
at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ended as fire
destroyed the structure after federal agents began smashing their
way in; dozens of people, including leader David Koresh (Vernon
Howell), were killed. In 1999 the FBI admitted that it used
incendiary tear gas canisters but still maintained that it did not
start the fire. An undisclosed tape recording of the assault was
also disclosed in 1999.
(TMC, 1994, p.1993)(AP, 4/19/97)(SFC, 8/25/99,
p.A3)(SFC, 9/2/99, p.A30)
1993 Apr 19, South Dakota Gov.
George S. Mickelson (52) died in an Iowa plane crash.
1994 Apr 19, A Los Angeles jury
awarded $3.8 million to beaten motorist Rodney King.
1994 Apr 19, The US Supreme
Court outlawed the practice of excluding people from juries because
of their gender.
1995 Apr 19, At 9:02 A.M.
Oklahoma City, USA, a large car bomb exploded at the Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building killing 168 people, and injuring 500
including many children in the building’s day care center. Within a
week a suspect, Timothy McVeigh, was caught and charged. Two
suspects, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, faced trial. McVeigh
was arrested during a routine traffic stop 78 miles from Oklahoma
City on weapons charges the same day. Timothy McVeigh and Terry
Nichols, were later convicted of charges related to the bombing.
Michael Fortier, a key government witness and friend of Nichols and
McVeigh, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 1998 for failing to
warn authorities, lying to the FBI, transporting stolen weapons and
conspiring to fence stolen weapons. In 1999 Fortier's sentence was
overturned and a more lenient sentence was ordered under
manslaughter guidelines. In Oct a new 12-year sentence was issued.
McVeigh was later convicted of federal murder charges and executed.
(NPR, 4/19/95)(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A2)(SFC, 5/28/98,
p.A3)(SFC, 7/1/99, p.A3)(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A7)(AP, 4/19/06)
1995 Apr 19, J. Peter Grace Jr.
(81), CEO (W R Grace), died.
1995 Apr 19, In Spain a failed
ETA car-bomb attempted to kill conservative opposition leader and
future Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
1995 Apr 19, In Sri Lanka the
Tigers broke the truce and blew up 2 navy boats and killed 12
sailors in the port of Trincomalee.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1996 Apr 19, On the first
anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, hundreds of mourners
paused for 168 seconds of silence at the site where the federal
building once stood.
1996 Apr 19, President Clinton,
visiting Russia, paid tribute to the hundreds of thousands of
Russians who died in the Nazi siege of Leningrad -- and to the
victims of the Oklahoma bombing as well.
1997 Apr 19, In Newton, New
Jersey, Giorgio Gallara, a Pizza shop owner, and employee Jeremy
Giordano, were killed after being lured to an abandoned house. [see
(SFC, 12/23/99, p.A9)
1997 Apr 19, In North Dakota
the Red River overran sandbags and broke dikes in Grand Forks and
floods sent nearly half of the 50,000 population into evacuation.
Damages were estimated at over $1.5 billion.
(AP, 4/19/97)(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A1)(Econ, 4/4/09,
1997 Apr 19, The British
drought was now two years old and London was the driest it had been
in 200 years.
(SFC, 4/19/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 19, In Bulgaria the
United Democratic Forces (UDF) under Ivan Kostov won elections with
52% of the vote. The former Communist’s renamed Socialist Party won
(SFC, 4/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 19, In India Inder
Kumar Gujral was chosen to lead the United Front Coalition
government. The Tamil Manila Congress withdrew from the coalition.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 19, In Spain a
Barcelona court found Jose Puignero, factory owner, guilty of
illegally dumping chemical dyes into a river in the town of Sant
Bartomeu del Grau. This was the first punishment for crimes against
the environment ever handed out.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A17)
1998 Apr 19, Wang Dan, the
noted dissident and student leader of Tiananmen Square, arrived in
the US after being freed by China and was taken to Henry Ford
Hospital in Detroit for medical evaluation.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A8)(AP, 4/19/99)
1998 Apr 19, In Madison, Wi.,
Salim Amara doused a fellow passenger on a city bus with gasoline
and ignited a fire burning himself and others severely.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A9)
1998 Apr 19, A small plane
crashed on the west side of Detroit. It was reported to have
contained cash and marijuana that neighbors quickly picked up. The
pilot was believed to be Douglas C. Dufresne (66) of Florida.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A4)
1998 Apr 19, In Austria Thomas
Klestil was re-elected president with 63% of the vote.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A10)
1998 Apr 19, In Bhutan a fire
destroyed the Taktsang Monastery, that dated back in some form to
the 9th century.
(SFC, 4/22/98, p.A9)
1998 Apr 19, In Chile leaders
of the 34 Western Hemisphere democracies at the second Summit of the
Americas agreed on a free-trade zone to be created by 2005. The
first summit met in Miami in 1994.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 19, An Israeli settler
was shot and killed and three others, including a Palestinian man,
were wounded. Dov Dribben (28) of Maon was killed when settlers
tried to force a group of Bedouin shepherds off a contested piece of
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A9)
1998 Apr 19, In Japan Pres.
Yeltsin held a summit with Prime Minister Ryutaro Hasimoto at the
Kawana resort. Yeltsin promised to hand over KGB documents of
interrogations of captured Japanese generals from WW II.
(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.A14)
1998 Apr 19, In Mexico Octavio
Paz (84), poet and essayist, died of cancer. His work included “The
Labyrinth of Solitude" and the poem “Sun Stone."
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A17)(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A12)
1998 Apr 19, In Nigeria police
shot dead at least 3 Shiite Muslims, supporters of Ibrahim El-Zak
Zaky, and wounded many more in Kaduna in clashes over 2 days.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A13)
1998 Apr 19-20, In Arizona
grasshoppers by the millions descended on communities along the
lower Colorado River.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A3)
1999 Apr 19, The 103rd Boston
Marathon was won by Joseph Chebet of Kenya in 2h:9m:52s. Fatuma Roba
of Ethiopia won the women's category in 2:23:25.
(WSJ, 4/20/99, A1)(AP, 4/19/00)
1999 Apr 19, The US Supreme
Court ruled that a federal law aimed at limiting e-mail smut does
not violate free-speech rights.
1999 Apr 19, The annual Goldman
Environmental Prize went to: Ka Hsaw Wa of Burma for reporting on
the plight of indigenous people and environmental abuses on a gas
pipeline across Thailand and Burma; Bernard Martin, a Canadian
fisherman, for his work opposing large factory trawlers; Jacqui
Katona and Yvonne Margarula, Australian aboriginal women, who have
led a fight against the mining of a uranium deposit by Kakadu
National Park on lands owned by the Mirrar people; Samuel Nguiffo, a
Cameroon lawyer, for his work in protecting rain forests and
opposition to the slaughter of chimpanzees and other rare wildlife;
Jorge Varela, a Honduran conservationist, for fighting the
destructive shrimp farming practices in the Gulf of Fonseca; and
Michal Kravcik, a Slovakian hydrologist, who successfully fought a
government plan to dam the Upper Torysa River in 1996.
(SFC, 4/19/99, p.A2)
1999 Apr 19, In Florida the
Everglades fire charred had 130,000 acres and continued to rage.
(SFC, 4/20/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 19, In Canada a
Toronto transit strike forced 800,000 commuters to seek alternate
(WSJ, 4/20/99, A1)
1999 Apr 19, In the Congo
Kabila in 1997 set this date for presidential and legislative
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A15)
1999 Apr 19, The German
parliament inaugurated its new home in the restored Reichstag in
Berlin, its prewar capital.
1999 Apr 19, India and
Bangladesh border guards had a shootout that left 6 people dead and
(WSJ, 4/20/99, A1)
1999 Apr 19, In Hallac, Kosovo,
20 Albanian men were killed by Serb paramilitaries. 11 were shot in
a vacant lot and 9 were killed in their homes. They were buried in a
mass grave and later reburied individually just before NATO forces
moved into Kosovo.
(SFC, 6/14/99, p.A12)
1999 Apr 19, In Puerto Rico two
US Marine jets in training dropped bombs over the island of Vieques
and missed their targets. One civilian, David Sanes Rodriguez, was
killed and 4 people were injured.
(SFC, 4/20/99, p.A3)(SFC, 7/26/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 19, Yugoslav
authorities shut down the Morini border crossing to Albania. NATO
bombing continued and a Serb government headquarters building in
Novi Sad was badly damaged. An estimated 500,000 to 850,000 ethnic
Albanians remained were still inside Kosovo.
(SFC, 4/20/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/20/99, A1)
2000 Apr 19, President Clinton
knelt among 168 empty chairs memorializing each victim of the
Oklahoma City bombing and declared the site “sacred ground" in the
soul of America during a fifth-anniversary dedication ceremony.
2000 Apr 19, The new Oprah
Winfrey magazine “O" hit the newsstands.
(WSJ, 4/20/00, p.A24)
2000 Apr 19, In Arizona Richard
Glassel killed 2 women and injured 4 others in a retirement
community in Peoria.
(SFC, 4/20/00, p.A10)(WSJ, 4/20/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 19, In Tennessee
Robert Glen Coe, convicted for the 1979 murder and rape of Cary Ann
Medlin (8), was executed by injection. This was the state’s first
execution in 40 years.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A3)(SFC, 3/24/00, p.A5)(SFC,
2000 Apr 19, In the Brittany
region of France a bomb exploded in a McDonald’s restaurant in Dinan
and one worker was killed.
(SFC, 4/20/00, p.A18)
2000 Apr 19, In southern Congo
6 Rwandan army officers and 4 Russian crew members were killed when
their Antonov-8 aircraft crashed on takeoff at Pepa.
(SFC, 4/21/00, p.A20)(WSJ, 4/21/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 19, In Israel 13
Lebanese prisoners, held as bargaining chips for an Israeli airman,
(SFC, 4/20/00, p.A14)
2000 Apr 19, In Nigeria dozens
of boat passengers were missing and feared dead after a boat
carrying as many as 500 villagers sank on the Nembe River.
(SFC, 4/21/00, p.A20)
2000 Apr 19, An Air Philippines
Boeing 737-200 jet crashed and all 131 people aboard were killed on
Samal Island following an attempted landing at Davao City. It was
the worst air crash in Philippine history
(SFC, 4/19/00, p.A1)(AP, 4/19/01)
2000 Apr 19, In Somalia over
110 people died over the last 2 days from an outbreak of cholera. 70
dead were in the Ufatest commune and 40 in the village of Bulo
(SFC, 4/20/00, p.C4)
2000 Apr 19, In Sri Lanka the
Defense Ministry reported 12 soldiers dead from fighting over the
causeway linking Jaffna to the mainland. Rebels reported 100
soldiers killed and 26 rebels dead.
(SFC, 4/20/00, p.C4)
2001 Apr 19, The musical "The
Producers" opened on Broadway.
2001 Apr 19, US and Chinese
negotiators failed to reach any agreement over the US spy plane. The
Chinese showed video images from flights last year and the US
presented a written proposal for the return of the plane.
(SFC, 4/20/01, p.A14)
2001 Apr 19, Pharmaceutical
giants dropped a lawsuit against a South African law that could
provide cheaper, generic AIDS drugs to millions of Africans, ending
an international battle over patent rights and profit.
2001 Apr 19, The space shuttle
Endeavour went into orbit with 7 astronauts on an 11-day mission to
install a billion-dollar robot arm on the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 4/20/01, p.A6)
2001 Apr 19, Former New
Hampshire Gov. Meldrim Thomson died at his home in Orford at age 89.
2001 Apr 19, Thousands of
protesters gathered in Quebec City to oppose the Summit of the
Americas and plans for a hemispheric free trade zone.
(SFC, 4/20/01, p.A14)
2001 Apr 19, A US cargo ship
departed from Jacksonville, Fla., for Cuba, the 1st scheduled ship
in 40 years. 2 days later the ship failed to dock in Cuba.
(SFC, 4/20/01, p.A13)(WSJ, 4/23/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 19, Israel removed
road blocks to Palestinian travel in the Gaza Strip.
(SFC, 4/20/01, p.A15)
2001 Apr 19, In Mexico there
was an execution style slaying of 8 peasants of the Fray Bartolome
Alliance in the Chiapas village of Canalucum. [see Jun 25]
(SFC, 6/26/01, p.C2)
2001 Apr 19, In Kosovo Nato
troops broke up Serb roadblocks set up to protest UN tax collections
on goods from elsewhere in Yugoslavia.
(WSJ, 4/20/01, p.A1)
2002 Apr 19, US and British
planes bombed Iraqi air defense systems in response to anti-aircraft
(SFC, 4/20/02, p.A13)
2002 Apr 19, Protesters
gathered in Washington DC and rallied against US policies in Latin
America ahead of weekend meetings of the IMF and World Bank.
(SFC, 4/20/02, p.A3)
2002 Apr 19, The space shuttle
Atlantis returned to Earth after installing the first girder in what
eventually will be a giant framework at the international space
2002 Apr 19, Israel announced
that “Operation Defensive Shield is over" and their forces completed
withdrawal from Jenin. Israeli military reported the capture of
Husam Ataf Ali Badran, a Hamas leader, near Nablus. 2 Palestinians
were reported killed by Israeli gunfire in Gaza. A suicide bomber
blew himself up in central Gaza. 3 Palestinians were reportedly
killed by Israeli fire in Gaza. The UN approved a fact-finding
mission into Israeli actions at Jenin.
(SFC, 4/19/02, p.A20)(SFC, 4/20/02, p.A1,14)
2002 Apr 19, In Colombia a
Russian-made Antonov jet, used to transfer inmates, crashed near
Popayan airport and at least 2 prison officials were killed.
(SFC, 4/20/02, p.A15)
2002 Apr 19, Congo peace talks
broke down over power-sharing.
(SFC, 4/20/02, p.A13)
2002 Apr 19, In Peru a prep
school collapsed in Puno and at least 13 people were killed.
(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A17)
2002 Apr 19, In Venezuela a
military helicopter crashed in fog-shrouded mountains north of
Caracas and 10 people were killed including 4 generals.
(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A16)
2003 Apr 19, In northeast
Pennsylvania Hadley Bilger (13) was abducted by her uncle after he
shot and killed her parents. Bilger was released the next day and
Robert Lee Hixson (42) surrendered to police.
(AP, 4/20/03)(SFC, 4/21/03, p.A3)
2003 Apr 19, US forces captured
Abd al-Khaliq Abd al-Ghafar (4 of hearts), Saddam's scientific
2003 Apr 19, In Brazil a
tourist schooner with 64 people on board sank in a canal east of Rio
de Janeiro, killing at least 11 people.
2003 Apr 19, In Burundi a
mortar shell apparently fired from rebel positions in the hills
northwest of Bujumbura crashed into a house, killing three children
and wounding a woman and another child. The latest fighting has
forced 50,000 people to flee their homes.
2003 Apr 19, Cameroon was
reported to have banned gorilla, chimpanzee and elephant meat from
its restaurants with prison terms and fines up to $16,000 for
violations. Extermination of the animals in a decade was feared if
hunting was not stopped.
(SFC, 4/19/03, p.B6)
2003 Apr 19, In Colombian
rebels kidnapped eight people on Mucura Island.
2003 Apr 19, Hong Kong reported
12 SARS patients died in a single day. Malaysia banned workers from
Vietnam, which considered sealing its border with China due to the
2003 Apr 19, India's prime
minister acknowledged the government had manipulated elections in
Indian-controlled Kashmir and promised residents it would not be
2003 Apr 19, Nazeh Darwazeh
(45), a cameraman with Associated Press TV News, was killed while
covering skirmishes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians who
were throwing rocks and firebombs. He died of a bullet wound to the
head and Palestinian witnesses said he was shot by an Israeli
2003 Apr 19, The Israeli army
killed 5 Palestinians and wounded around 70, many of them civilians,
in a raid on the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Near the West
Bank city of Qalqilya, soldiers shot dead a Palestinian who threw a
petrol bomb at them.
2003 Apr 19, In Nigeria
elections Pres. Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military ruler turned
civilian statesman, sought a second term against some 20 other
candidates. Obasanjo won 62% of 42 million votes. Opponents
denounced the elections as fraudulent and claimed serious rigging in
16 of 36 states.
(AP, 4/21/03)(WSJ, 4/22/03, A1)(Econ,
2003 Apr 19, Striking Nigerian
oil workers took about 100 foreign workers hostage on several
offshore oil installations.
2003 Apr 19, A Pakistani
helicopter flying over tribal areas in southern Pakistan came under
fire from the ground, injuring three US officials and four Pakistani
2003 cApr 19, In Sierra Leone
an international war crimes tribunal indicted Augustine Gbao, a
former rebel battlefield commander in the decade-long civil war
declared over in 2002. He was the 8th person indicted by the special
2004 Apr 19, In the Boston
Marathon Timothy Cherigat of Kenya won for the men at 2:10:37;
Catherine Ndereba of Kenya won for the women at 2:24:27.
(WSJ, 4/20/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 19, Researchers
reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine that fairly heavy
alcohol consumption appears to moderately increase the risk of
cancer in the colon and rectum.
2004 Apr 19, The annual
environmental Goldman Prizes were awarded in SF. Winners included
Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla of India for their work following
the Bhopal catastrophe; Margie Richard of the US for her work
following chemical leaks in Norco, Louisiana; Rudolf N. Amenga-Etego
of Ghana for his work in suspending a water privatization project;
Libia R. Grueso Castelblanco of Colombia for her work in securing
territorial rights for rural communities; Manana Kochladze of
Georgia for winning concessions to protect villagers and a pristine
gorge from an oil pipeline; Demetrio De Carvalho of East Timor for
his environmental efforts.
(SFC, 4/19/04, p.B5)
2004 Apr 19, Jim Cantalupo
(60), McDonald's Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive, died of an
apparent heart attack in Florida and the company named Chief
Operating Officer Charlie Bell to replace him as CEO.
2004 Apr 19, John Maynard
(1920-2004), a leading British evolutionary biologist widely
credited with taking the radical step of applying game theory to the
subject, died in Lewes, England. His books included "The Theory of
Evolution" (1958) and "The Evolution of Sex" (1978).
(SSFC, 4/25/04, p.B7)(AP, 4/29/04)
2004 Apr 19, Norris McWhirter
(78), co-creator of the Guinness Book of Records (1955), died in
England of a heart attack.
(WSJ, 4/21/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 19, In Brazil riot
police used tear gas and rubber bullets to eject hundreds of
squatters who had seized a vacant building in Sao Paulo to demand
the government speed up redistribution of land to the poor.
2004 Apr 19, Chilean troops
prepared to take up posts in central Haiti, extending the
peacekeeping presence where as many as 400 rebels still hold sway.
2004 Apr 19, Honduras President
Ricardo Maduro announced the pullout of his 370 troops from Iraq "in
the shortest time possible."
(AP, 4/20/04)(WSJ, 4/20/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 19, In Iraq US
officials and local leaders in Fallujah agreed to a number of
measures to reduce tensions.
(SFC, 4/20/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 19, Pierluigi Vigna,
Italy's national anti-Mafia prosecutor, said Italian mobsters and
Islamic terrorist groups have forged links in arms and drug
2004 Apr 19, North Korean
leader Kim Jong Il reportedly held talks with Chinese President Hu
Jintao about the North's nuclear arms program and requests for
2004 Apr 19, A Russian rocket
roared into space carrying an American, a Russian and a Dutchman to
the international space station on the 3rd manned mission since the
halt of the US shuttle program.
(SFC, 4/19/04, p.A5)(AP, 4/19/05)
2004 Apr 19, Saudi police
seized 2 explosives packed SUVs on a highway outside Riyadh. It the
3rd day in a row that such a seizure was announced.
(WSJ, 4/20/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 19, The Uzbek
government labeled the activities of George Soros' foundation
"undesirable" after the billionaire philanthropist said its office
was being forced to close and blasted human rights abuses in this
Central Asian nation.
2005 Apr 19, The US government
sacked its one-size-fits-all food pyramid in favor of a dozen
different guides geared to individual nutritional needs and
2005 Apr 19, The US Mint said
it will produce its 1st 24-karat gold coin in 2006.
(WSJ, 4/20/05, p.D2)
2005 Apr 19, General Motors
reported a loss of $1.1 billion for the 3 months ending in March,
its worst quarterly performance since 1992.
(Econ, 4/23/05, p.71)
2005 Apr 19, US forces killed
more than 12 insurgents in a clash in southeastern Afghanistan.
2005 Apr 19, Britain's GW
Pharmaceuticals announced its multiple sclerosis (MS) pain relief
drug Sativex, the world's first containing cannabis, has been
approved for use in Canada.
2005 Apr 19, Canada released a
federal policy statement that said it will use more soldiers, more
foreign aid and more diplomats to carve its own niche in a
2005 Apr 19, A car exploded in
the southern Russian region of Dagestan, killing two people in what
investigators believe was a botched attempt to kill a local
2005 Apr 19, Hours after
Ecuador's embattled President Lucio Gutierrez said he would not
resign, at least 30,000 people tried to march to the presidential
palace in the capital's largest demonstration yet against the
country's leadership, demanding that Gutierrez resign.
2005 Apr 19, Ethiopians
welcomed the return of the first piece of a giant, 1,700-year-old
granite obelisk that was looted from the African country 68 years
ago by Italian troops.
2005 Apr 19, India and its
eastern neighbor Bangladesh traded blame over a weekend border clash
that killed an Indian military officer and two Bangladeshi
2005 Apr 19, A suicide car bomb
outside an Iraqi army recruitment center and other attacks killed a
dozen people and wounded more than 50.
2005 Apr 19, In Kuwait
lawmakers agreed to permit women to vote and run in local council
elections, although the measure requires more legislative action
before it becomes law.
2005 Apr 19, Nepali soldiers
killed 22 Maoist guerrillas as the royalist government brushed aside
a rebel prediction of a victory in the nine-year civil war.
2005 Apr 19, Dutch authorities
arrested a Chechen citizen in the Netherlands in connection with the
November 2 slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. A 2nd suspect
was arrested May 18 in Tours, France. Both were believed to have
ties to a group of Islamic fundamentalists which prosecutors dubbed
the Hofstad network.
2005 Apr 19, A Spanish court
convicted Adolfo Scilingo (58), a former Argentine naval officer, of
crimes against humanity for throwing 30 naked and drugged prisoners
from planes during his country's "dirty war" more than two decades
ago. It sentenced him to 640 years in prison. During the trial,
Scilingo insisted he fabricated the taped testimony to trigger an
investigation into Argentina's "dirty war."
2005 Apr 19, Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger (78) of Germany became Pope Benedict XVI. As the 265th
pope he promised to enforce strictly conservative policies for the
world's Roman Catholics. In Germany Ratzinger's latest book, "Werte
in Zeiten des Umbruchs" (Values in Times of Upheaval), was already
sold out after its release a week ago. Ratzinger viewed secularism
and moral relativism as the chief adversaries of God and the church.
After Ratzinger was elected pope, the Holy See's No. 2 official,
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, signed a decree assigning "in perpetuity and
worldwide" the copyrights of all Benedict's works, including the
hundreds he wrote before becoming pope, to the Vatican's publishing
house, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (LEV).
(AP, 4/19/05)(WSJ, 4/20/05, p.A1)(AP, 2/19/06)
2006 Apr 19, White House press
secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation as part of a
shake-up of President George W. Bush's senior aides. White House
political mastermind Karl Rove surrendered his role as chief policy
2006 Apr 19, The US government
released the most extensive list yet of the hundreds of detainees
who have been held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. Nearly all 558 on
the list were labeled enemy combatants, but only a handful of whom
have faced formal charges.
2006 Apr 19, The 2006 US
estimated cost of the war in Iraq was put at $94 billion.
(SFC, 4/20/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 19, US Immigration
agents arrested 7 executives and 1,187 illegal immigrants employed
by IFCO Systems, a Netherlands-based manufacturer of crates and
pallets, as part of a crackdown on employers of illegal workers.
(AP, 4/19/06)(SFC, 4/21/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 19, In Croatia workers
who have been occupying a tobacco factory in Zagreb for nearly two
weeks asked the chief state prosecutor to investigate their claims
that the facility was illegally sold to a local tobacco giant.
2006 Apr 19, Cuba agreed to buy
another $30 million in food from Nebraska, strengthening trade
relations with the US farm state already selling corn, wheat,
soybeans and other products to the communist island.
2006 Apr 19, Ecuador approved
revisions to its Hydrocarbons Law to increase state revenue from
private crude-oil producers. The changes became effective on April
(WSJ, 4/21/06, p.A7)(WSJ, 4/26/06, p.A8)
2006 Apr 19, The Egyptian
government said it had arrested a group of 22 militant Islamists
planning bomb attacks on tourist targets, a gas pipeline near Cairo
and Muslim and Christian religious leaders. The statement listed 22
members, led by a 26-year-old humanities student named Ahmed Mohamed
2006 Apr 19, In Guatemala a mob
burned a man and a woman to death after accusing them of several
child abductions in the predominantly Mayan town of Sumpango, where
residents have long claimed youngsters are snatched and the police
2006 Apr 19, Militants broke
into two schools in a mainly Shiite district of Baghdad and
allegedly killed a school guard in front of students and a teacher
as he arrived. The attack occurred at the Amna and Shaheed Hamdi
elementary schools in Baghdad's Shaab neighborhood. Police in the
neighborhood denied that the attack occurred.
(AP, 4/19/06)(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 19, A top Italian
court confirmed the slim electoral victory of center-left economist
Romano Prodi over Premier Silvio Berlusconi, according to Italian
2006 Apr 19, Japan defied South
Korean protests and dispatched two ships to begin a maritime survey
near disputed islets between the two nations, raising the stakes in
the territorial standoff.
2006 Apr 19, In Kyrgyzstan
Pres. Bakiyev threatened to expel American troops from the Central
Asian nation unless the US agrees to pay more for its military
2006 Apr 19, The Mexican
Congress enacted a law that allows journalists to protect the
confidentiality of their sources.
(SFC, 4/20/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 19, In southeastern
Nepal security forces opened fire on thousands of pro-democracy
protesters, killing at least 4 and wounding several others.
2006 Apr 19, Nigerian militants
killed two people in a car bomb attack on an army barracks in the
southern city of Port Harcourt, extending a four-month onslaught
against the world's eighth largest oil exporter.
2006 Apr 19, Hyundai Motor Co.
said its chairman and his son will donate $1.1 billion worth of
personal assets to the public amid a slush fund scandal engulfing
South Korea's largest automaker.
2006 Apr 19, A UN spokesman
said Sudan has refused to grant visas for a UN military assessment
mission planning a UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur.
2006 Apr 19, In Venezuela a
riot erupted at a western prison, leaving 10 inmates dead and one
wounded. A day earlier authorities had seized weapons and illegal
drugs from gang members in the jail.
2007 Apr 19, US Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid offered a bleak assessment of Iraq, saying the war
was "lost," triggering an angry backlash by Republicans.
2007 Apr 19, One-time CEO Joe
Nacchio was found guilty of illegally selling $52 million in stock
amid an accounting scandal that nearly sank Qwest Communications.
The jury acquitted Nacchio of all 23 insider trading counts
involving sales before April 2001 but convicted him on 19 counts
tied to sales of 1.33 million shares for $52 million in gross
proceeds from April 26 to May 29, 2001.
2007 Apr 19, Luis Posada
Carriles (79), an anti-Castro exile wanted in Cuba for the 1976
bombing of a Cuban airliner, was freed from a New Mexico jail after
he posted $250,000 bond and his family put up another $100,000. He
must wear an electronic monitoring device while under house arrest
at his wife's home in Miami pending his May 11 trial on immigration
fraud charges. Posada's immigration case was later thrown out by a
federal judge, but the government appealed
(AP, 4/20/07)(AP, 4/19/08)
2007 Apr 19, A Brooklyn jury
convicted Gerald Garson, a former matrimonial court judge, of taking
bribes. His arrest in 2003 prompted investigations into judicial
2007 Apr 19, A jury in Selmer,
Tenn., convicted Mary Winkler of voluntary manslaughter in the
shooting death of her preacher-husband, Matthew. Winkler spent seven
months in custody, with two months served in a mental facility.
2007 Apr 19, The DJIA rose 4.79
to a record 12,808.63. Nasdaq fell 5.15 to 2,505.
(SFC, 4/20/07, p.D1)
2007 Apr 19, Helen Robson
Walton (b.1919), widow of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, died in
Bentonville, Ark. She had pushed for a profit-sharing plan for
employees in the Wal-Mart’s early days and demanded that the family
live in a small, rural town.
(WSJ, 4/21/07, p.A6)
2007 Apr 19, British aerospace
engine maker Rolls-Royce said that it will withdraw from Sudan,
citing "increasing international humanitarian concerns" in the
violence-scarred region of Darfur.
2007 Apr 19, China jailed
Huseyin Celil (37), a Uighur-Canadian, for life for separatism and
terrorism and warned Canada not to get involved even as Ottawa
announced it would send its foreign minister to discuss the case.
Celil was detained in Uzbekistan in March 2006 when he was visiting
relatives and sent to China last June.
2007 Apr 19, In Cuba the
Committee to Protect Journalists denounced the Apr 13 arrest and
sentencing of Oscar Sanchez Madan (44), an independent Cuban
journalist, who wrote critical articles about dissident groups and
the hardships of island life.
2007 Apr 19, European Union
members agreed to new rules to combat racism and hate crimes across
the 27-nation bloc, including setting jail sentences against those
who deny or trivialize the Holocaust.
2007 Apr 19, Former Rwandan
army major Bernard Ntuyahaga went on trial in Brussels, charged with
the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers and the Rwandan prime minister
2007 Apr 19, Iranian engineers
began filling a new dam as archaeologists warned that its reservoir
will flood newly discovered antiquities and could damage Iran's
grandest site, the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis.
2007 Apr 19, A Sunni insurgent
coalition posted Web videos naming the head of al-Qaida in Iraq as
"minister of war" and showing the execution of 20 men it said were
members of the Iraqi military and security forces. A suicide bomber
breached Baghdad's heavy security presence, killing at least 12
people and wounded 34 in a mostly Shiite district. A US Marine in a
rocket attack on a base south of Baghdad.
(AP, 4/19/07)(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 19, Israeli Knesset
speaker Dalia Yitzik arrived in Jordan, the second Israeli official
to visit the Arab kingdom this week for talks on ways to revive
2007 Apr 19, Kyrgyzstan police
used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse thousands of opposition
protesters who had marched to the president's office in Bishkek to
demand his resignation.
2007 Apr 19, President Sidi
Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi took over from a military junta as
Mauritania's civilian head of state.
2007 Apr 19, North and South
Korea formally opened economic aid talks, after a delay caused by
Pyongyang's insistence that Seoul pledge food assistance to the
impoverished nation despite its failure to live up to a pact on
2007 Apr 19, Chanting "down
with Talibanization," hundreds of human rights activists marched
through Pakistani cities, urging the government to rein in clerics
who have launched an anti-vice campaign in the capital.
2007 Apr 19, The heads of seven
men who were kidnapped by Muslim extremists on a volatile southern
island were delivered to a Philippine army detachment. The men, six
road project workers and a dried-fish factory worker, were kidnapped
at gunpoint in two separate incidents April 16 near the town of
Parang. A group of civilians was ordered to take the heads to Parang
by Muslim rebel commander Habier Malik.
2007 Apr 19, Romania's
parliament voted to suspend the popular president who ushered in
economic and social reforms to help the country join the European
Union, accusing him of abusing his constitutional powers. President
Traian Basescu had earlier vowed to resign "within five minutes" if
lawmakers voted to suspend him. His resignation would prompt a new
election within three months, and he has said he would run again for
office. Former president Nicolae Vacaroiu (1992-1996) became acting
(AP, 4/19/07)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.61)
2007 Apr 19, Rwanda filed a
case against France at the UN's highest court in The Hague over a
French request that President Paul Kagame be tried by the Rwanda war
2007 Apr 19, In Somalia
fighting between Ethiopian troops and insurgents left at least 12
people dead in Mogadishu, while a suicide car bomb exploded at an
Ethiopian army base.
2007 Apr 19, A Sudanese rebel
group said government aircraft destroyed a village in northern
Darfur in an air strike.
2007 Apr 19, Venezuela launched
a Zeppelin to patrol Caracas, seeking to fight crime in one of Latin
America's most dangerous cities but also raising fears that
President Hugo Chavez could be turning into Big Brother.
2007 Apr 19, In Zimbabwe 82
members of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise group were arrested in
Bulawayo during a protest against power outages. 18 of the women
were stripped and jailed for hours.
(SFC, 4/23/07, p.A10)
2008 Apr 19,
In NYC Pope Benedict XVI preached in St. Patrick's cathedral,
assuring priests and nuns that he was close to them as they battled
the damage left by the clergy sex scandal.
2008 Apr 19, Alfonso Lopez
Trujillo (b.1935), Vatican enforcer and former archbishop of
Medellin, died. In 1995, as head of the Pontifical council for the
Family, he published a “Lexicon of Ambiguous and Debatable Terms."
2008 Apr 19, In southern
Afghanistan a roadside bomb hit a civilian vehicle, killing three
people and wounding another. An Afghan policeman and two Taliban
fighters were killed in a firefight in Panjwayi, Kandahar province.
Afghan police clashed with Iranian forces at the southwestern border
with Iran, leaving one civilian dead and two Iranian officers
(AP, 4/19/08)(AFP, 4/20/08)(AP, 4/20/08)
2008 Apr 19, In Argentina
President Cristina Fernandez surveyed more than 200 raging brush
fires by air as a thick cloud of smoke covered Buenos Aires for a
fifth day. She vowed to prosecute anyone who lit the blazes that
have sent smoke clouding highways and grounding jetliners.
2008 Apr 19,
In Australia PM Rudd opened a summit of the nation's top minds
to discuss fresh policy ideas for the future.
2008 Apr 19,
In Austria 3 men posing as policemen were shot along S1
highway, one fatally, when they tried to rob two men who turned out
to be real officers.
2008 Apr 19,
In central Bangladesh a speeding bus plunged off a road,
killing at least 18 people and injuring dozens.
2008 Apr 19, In Ecuador flames
started by fireworks swept through a nightclub in Quito, killing at
least 14 people who were unable to escape through the club's
2008 Apr 19, In France the
charred body of Sussanna Zetterberg (19), a Swedish teenager, was
discovered in woods outside Paris just hours after she left a
nightclub. A postmortem showed she had been stabbed.
2008 Apr 19,
Twelve people died in overnight clashes in Baghdad's Sadr City
district. The US military said one of its attack helicopters located
and hit a mortar crew in Sadr City at 3:30 a.m., killing two gunmen
and destroying the weapon. In the town of Suq al-Shiyoukh a
firefight killed one militant and left six policemen injured. The US
military said an American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb
while on patrol in Salahuddin province.
2008 Apr 19, In northern
Kazakhstan a Soyuz capsule, carrying South Korean bioengineer Yi
So-yeon, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian flight
engineer Yuri Malenchenko, landed 260 miles off its mark.
2008 Apr 19,
Typhoon Neoguri swept through Macau, after it struck Hainan
island south of mainland China the night before.
2008 Apr 19,
Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, who went missing in
February in the Khyber region, appeared on Arabic television saying
he was being held by the Taliban and urged Islamabad to meet their
2008 Apr 19,
Hamas militants drove two cars laden with explosives to an
Israeli border crossing with Gaza under the cover of morning fog and
detonated one. 4 militants were killed in the huge blasts and
exchanges of fire with at least 13 Israeli soldiers wounded. Israel
killed 5 Hamas militants in a series of airstrikes after the group
detonated the explosives.
(AFP, 4/19/08)(AP, 4/20/08)
2008 Apr 19, In southern Spain
a crash of a bus filled with Finnish tourists left nine people dead
near the resort town of Benalmadena. Police arrested the driver of
the other vehicle, who was not seriously injured, after he failed a
blood alcohol test.
2008 Apr 19, In Syria defying
US and Israeli warnings, former President Jimmy Carter met again on
with Khaled Mashaal, the exiled leader of the militant Hamas group,
and his deputy, Moussa Abu Marzouk.
2008 Apr 19,
Zimbabwe held a partial recount of votes from last month's
general election as the opposition accused President Robert Mugabe
and his party of trying to rig their way back to power.
2009 Apr 19, The annual Goldman
Environmental Prize was awarded to 7 activists from 6 nations.
Rizwana Hasan (40) of Bangladesh was awarded for exposing
environmental damage and exploitative practices used in the
country’s ship dismantling industry; Marc Ona Essangui (45) of
Gabon, the founder of Brainforest, was awarded for exposing secret
agreements for a Chinese mine project that threatened Gabon’s rain
forests; Yuyun Ismawati of Indonesia was awarded for designing
environmentally safe waste management systems for poor Indonesia n
communities; Olga Speranskaya (46) of Eco-Accord in Russia was
awarded for her efforts to control and store chemicals in Russia and
former Soviet republics; Wanze Eduards (52) and Hugo Jabini (44) of
Suriname, leaders of the maroon community, were awarded for their
efforts that led to a landmark ruling ending tribal exploitation by
the government. Maria Gunnoe (40) of West Virginia was awarded for
her fight against the practice of removing of the tops of mountains
and filing valleys below with tailings.
(SSFC, 4/19/09, p.A18)
2009 Apr 19, In Arizona Doug
Georgianni (51) was shot and killed while collecting data from a
traffic enforcement camera inside an SUV in Phoenix. The next day
police arrested Thomas Patrick Destories (68) on 1st degree murder
(WSJ, 4/21/09, p.A7)(WSJ, 4/22/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 19, In Afghanistan
roadside bomb in Kandahar city killed one police officer and wounded
2009 Apr 19, Algerian President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika vowed to pursue national reconciliation, after
being sworn in for a third five-year term.
2009 Apr 19, Bolivia's leftist
president was headed to the airport when Barack Obama gave him what
he requested the day before: public repudiation of an alleged
attempt on his life.
2009 Apr 19, Author J.G.
Ballard (b.1930), a China-born author and survivor of a Japanese
prison camp, died in London. His vision was so dark and distinctive
it was labeled "Ballardian." His first novel, "The Wind From
Nowhere" (1962) sold well enough for Ballard to become a full-time
writer. Other works included the novels "The Drowned World" and "The
Crystal World" and the story collection "Vermilion Sands." He
reached a wide audience with the autobiographical "Empire of the
Sun" (1984), adapted as a film (1987) by Steven Spielberg.
(AP, 4/20/09)(WSJ, 4/25/09, p.W12)
2009 Apr 19, The Shanghai Motor
Show opened. Porsche kicked off the show by unveiling the Panamera,
the German luxury carmaker's first foray into the sedan segment.
2009 Apr 19, Turkish Cypriot
nationalists won a parliamentary election that could stifle a
promising effort to reunite Cyprus, an ethnically divided island.
The right-wing National Unity Party (UBP), led by Dervish Eroglu,
garnered 44% of the vote. The ruling leftist Republican Turkish
Party (CTP), of Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat, won 29%.
(AP, 4/19/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.56)
2009 Apr 19, In Haiti
clear-plastic ballot boxes were nearly as empty as Port-au-Prince's
unusually deserted streets as few voters turned out for Senate
elections in which candidates from a major populist party were not
allowed to run. Supporters of ousted former President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, whose Fanmi Lavalas party was disqualified from the
election by Haiti's provisional electoral council, had urged an
estimated 4 million registered voters not to participate.
2009 Apr 19, Iraq's parliament
ended months of political paralysis by electing Ayad al-Samarraie, a
prominent Sunni lawmaker, as its new speaker. Armed with pistols
equipped with silencers simultaneously raided two jewelry stores
near one another in northern Baghdad. At least 7 people were killed
in the daylight heist.
(AP, 4/19/09)(SFC, 4/20/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 19, Italy agreed to
accept 140 migrants stranded aboard a Turkish cargo ship that
rescued them in the Mediterranean, ending a four-day standoff with
Malta about who would take them in.
2009 Apr 19, In Jamaica Stephen
Fray (20) forced his way through Montego Bay airport security and
hijacked a Canadian jet, holding six crew members hostage. He fired
his father's licensed .38-caliber revolver into the air, stole money
from some of the 167 passengers aboard and demanded to be flown off
the island. After 6 hours police and soldiers stormed the aircraft
and captured Fray. On October 8 Fray was sentenced to 20 years in
(AP, 4/20/09)(AP, 10/9/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Pakistan a
suspected US missile attack aimed at Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels on
the outskirts of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan district
along the border with Afghanistan, killed at least three militants.
Pakistan helicopter gunships raided suspected militant hideouts near
Ghiljo in the semi-autonomous tribal district of Orakzai near the
Afghan border killing 20 insurgents and destroying their positions.
(AFP, 4/19/09)(AFP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 19, In central Somalia
two Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) workers were
seized by around 25 gunmen traveling in two trucks. Dutch national
Kees Keus (49) and Belgian Jorgen Stassijns (40) were released on
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Sudan 21 people
were killed when a bus they were travelling in collided with a truck
about 25 miles south of Khartoum.
2009 Apr 19, In Trinidad a
Western Hemisphere summit wrapped up with President Barack Obama
hopeful he'd boosted the image of the US among its friends in the
region and perhaps even made some new ones. Caribbean leaders asked
the US to expand a $1.4 billion program to help Mexico and Central
America fight drug trafficking and organized crime to include aid
for their island nations. The final declaration of the Summit of
Americas, which Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and his leftist bloc
refused to sign, turned out to have just one signatory. It was PM
Patrick Manning, host of the 34-nation summit.
2010 Apr 19, Arizona lawmakers
passed a controversial immigration bill requiring police in the
state that borders Mexico to determine if people are in the United
States illegally, a measure critics say is open to racial profiling.
2010 Apr 19, San Diego, Ca.,
Sheriff Bill Gore said that 24 documented gang members and eight
gang associates have been booked on suspicion of various offenses
following the two-day multi-agency operation called "Allied Shield."
2010 Apr 19, In Los Angeles
Brian Alexik (34) slipped out the back window of his apartment as
detectives interviewed local tenants regarding a gas odor.
Detectives found a cache of loaded weapons, including an AK-47, next
to a mosaic depicting the CIA seal. They found equipment for
counterfeiting money. High-powered binoculars were trained on the US
Federal Reserve building next door. Alexik had been paying about
$4,000 cash for his rent but had recently stopped paying and was on
the verge of getting evicted. He allegedly had been bleaching
low-denomination bills then using a printer to change the value to
$100 or $50. In all, police recovered about $15,000 in bogus bills.
Alexik was caught on June 3.
2010 Apr 19, Winners of the
2010 Goldman Environmental Prizes, known as the "green Nobels," were
honored in San Francisco. Sereivathana Tuy of Cambodia won for his
efforts in stopping farmers from killing elephants. Randall Arauz of
Costa Rica won for his campaign to halt the maiming and killing of
sharks for their fins. Humberto Rios Labrada (47) of Cuba won for
his campaign to shift farming practices toward increasing diversity
and reducing chemical use. Malgorzata Gorska of Poland won for her
fight to stop a highway through the Rospuda Valley, one of Poland’s
last vestiges of untouched wilderness. Thuli Makama of Swaziland won
for her efforts in getting citizen participation on the Swaziland
board in charge of the environment. She helped prompt investigations
into allegations of private park rangers killing suspected poachers
in sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarchy. Lynn Henning of the
USA won for exposing polluting practices of livestock ranches in
(AP, 4/19/10)(SFC, 4/19/10, p.A1)
2010 Apr 19, In Oregon Jorge
Ortiz-Oliva (40), the kingpin of one of the biggest drug
organizations in Oregon history, was sentenced to 30 years in
2010 Apr 19, In Tennessee a man
opened fire outside the Parkwest Medical Center in Knoxville killing
a woman and injuring 2 others before committing suicide.
(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A6)
2010 Apr 19, The Afghan
intelligence service said security forces have arrested nine members
of a terrorist cell and seized nearly a quarter-ton of explosives,
foiling a plot to stage suicide bombings and other attacks in Kabul.
In southern Kandahar province, a remote-controlled bomb planted on a
donkey exploded near a police checkpoint, killing three children
aged 11, 12 and 15. An American soldier was killed and several
wounded in an explosion at an Afghan National Army facility just
outside Kabul. 3 students and a police officer were killed in
crossfire between foreign soldiers and insurgents in eastern Khost
province. Insurgents killed Azizullah Yarmal, the vice mayor of the
southern city of Kandahar, as he prayed at a mosque.
(AP, 4/19/10)(AFP, 4/20/10)(AP, 4/20/10)(AP,
2010 Apr 19, Algeria's Energy
Minister Chakib Khelil said 11 major natural gas exporting countries
have decided to work towards a long term plan to index prices with
2010 Apr 19, In Australia Carl
Williams, known as the baby-faced killer, was killed in Victoria
state's highest security prison by a fellow inmate who attacked him
with part of an exercise bike.
2010 Apr 19, The chief of
British Airways said test flights have proven that the blanket
restrictions EU governments have imposed on flights because of
volcanic ash are unnecessary. The airline industry said it has lost
at least $1 billion due to five days of closed airports. A senior
Western diplomat says several NATO F-16 fighters suffered engine
damage after flying through the volcanic ash cloud covering large
parts of Europe.
2010 Apr 19, China’s government
passed amendments revising the Border Quarantine Law as well as
China's Law on Control of the Entry and Exit of Aliens. The changes
were effective immediately. This lifted a two-decade-old ban on
people with HIV and AIDS from entering the country, just as it is
about to welcome the world to the Shanghai Expo on May 1.
2010 Apr 19, In western India
police found 12 fetuses dumped near a garbage bin in Ahmadabad, the
main city of Gujarat state.
2010 Apr 19, Indonesia’s
Constitutional Court ruled 8-1 that a 45-year-old law banning
religious blasphemy was constitutional. The law limited officially
recognized religions to six: Buddhism, Catholicism, Confucianism,
Hinduism, Islam and Protestantism. Up to 5 years in prison could be
imposed for anyone found guilty of heresy.
(SFC, 4/20/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 19, In Iran a senior
adviser said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has approved the location
for a new uranium enrichment facility Iran plans to begin building
over the next year.
2010 Apr 19, In Iran the
semi-official Fars news agency reported that the Press Supervisory
Board ordered the pro-reform Bahar daily closed for "spreading
doubts on fundamental issues such as elections. The official IRNA
news agency reported that Iran has sentenced prominent political
activists Mohsen Mirdamadi, Mostafa Tajzadeh and Davood Soleimani to
six years in prison each for involvement in the country's
post-election turmoil. They were convicted of spreading propaganda
2010 Apr 19, An Iraqi panel
investigating election complaints ordered a recount of more than 2.5
million votes cast in Baghdad during the March 7 election, agreeing
to a demand by PM Nouri al-Maliki that could swing the outcome in
2010 Apr 19, Israeli Defense
minister Ehud Barak said Israel must recognize that the world will
not put up with decades more of Israeli rule over the Palestinian
2010 Apr 19, The Nigerian army
averted an attack by suspected Muslim extremists on a mainly
Christian village in the flashpoint central Plateau State, killing
two gunmen. 2 Christian farmers were killed and two others went
missing in fresh attacks by suspected Muslim-Fulani nomads in
central Plateau State.
2010 Apr 19, The Chosun Sinbo,
a pro-North Korean newspaper published in Tokyo, said mobile phone
subscriptions are spreading fast in North Korea and could number
600,000 by the end of this year. In December 2008, North Korea
introduced a 3G mobile phone network in a joint venture with
Cairo-based Orascom Telecom.
2010 Apr 19, In Pakistan at
least 23 people including police officials were killed in a suicide
bombing in the Qissa Khawani Bazaar in Peshawar. Hours earlier a boy
(8) was killed and at least ten people were injured in a bombing
outside a high school in Peshawar. A later explosion Boharh Bazaar
slightly damaged a parked car and two shops.
2010 Apr 19, In Puerto Rico the
naked body of Ashley Santiago Ocasio (31), born as Juan Antonio),
was found at his home in the town of Corozal. Rico Ashley Santiago
Ocasio (31), a transgender beauty salon owner with high cheekbones
and a flair for fashion, had been shot in the head. Her car was
missing and there were no signs of a break-in.
2010 Apr 19, The Slovenian
parliament ratified a border arbitration deal with Croatia vital for
Zagreb's EU membership bid, but the deal still faces a much tougher
test at a June referendum in Slovenia.
2010 Apr 19, In Venezuela
former boxing champ Edwin Valero committed suicide in his jail cell
just hours after he was arrested in his wife's killing.
2011 Apr 19, It was reported
that a US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by
Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and
video off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device
works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password
2011 Apr 19, A Virginia jury
convicted Lee Farkas (58), the majority owner of what had been one
of the nation's largest mortgage companies, on all 14 counts in a
$2.9 billion fraud trial. Prosecutors said Farkas led a fraud scheme
of staggering proportions for roughly eight years as chairman of
Florida-based Taylor Bean & Whitaker. The fraud not only caused
the company's 2009 collapse and put its 2,000 employees out of work,
but also contributed to the collapse of Alabama-based Colonial Bank,
the sixth-largest bank failure in US history.
2011 Apr 19, Sony Corp. in the
US noticed unauthorized activity on its network, and discovered that
data had been transferred off the network the next day. The
company's general counsel gave the FBI information about the breach
on April 22.
2011 Apr 19, In Afghanistan 17
insurgents, including foreign fighters, were killed in Kunar
province by Afghan and coalition forces searching for a senior
leader of the al-Qaida network.
2011 Apr 19, Brazilian police
swept through Rio de Janeiro's largest slum in a crackdown on
drug-related crime, arresting 11 people and seizing an estimated
three tons of marijuana.
2011 Apr 19, Britain said it
will send a team of up 20 senior military officers to Libya to help
organize the country's haphazard opposition forces.
2011 Apr 19, In Burkina Faso
Gen. Nabere Honore Traore, the recently appointed army chief, said
that the new government will work to resolve the issues behind the
military unrest that has plagued the country since last week.
2011 Apr 19, Cuban delegates to
a key Party Congress picked Raul Castro (79) to replace his ailing
brother at the helm, while weathered veterans moved up to the No. 2
and 3 positions. Raul acknowledged the lack of fresh faces, saying
the country had failed to develop young leaders because of errors
committed in the past.
2011 Apr 19, An Egyptian
government fact-finding mission said at least 846 people were killed
and over 6,400 injured during the popular uprising that toppled
longtime president Hosni Mubarak.
2011 Apr 19, India's Supreme
Court told state governments to "ruthlessly" stamp out so-called
honor killings and warned that officials who fail to deal with the
practice would be prosecuted.
2011 Apr 19, In India a mob
opposing a government plan to build a nuclear plant in the western
state of Maharashtra ransacked a hospital and set buses on fire
during a protest strike.
2011 Apr 19, In India a
helicopter hit a wall and burst into flames as it was trying to land
in the remote northeast, killing at least 17 people.
2011 Apr 19, Iran’s
intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi resigned following reported
internal disputes with Pres. Ahmadinejad and the president publicly
accepted it. But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei quickly
ordered that Moslehi remain on the job.
2011 Apr 19, In Iraq a senior
Education Ministry official was killed by a bomb that was hidden on
his car in Baghdad.
2011 Apr 19, Forty one Ivorians
were arrested by United Nations forces as they attempted to cross
the border into Liberia with cars, guns and ammunition shortly after
the capture of former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo.
2011 Apr 19, Laos announced
that it would defer a decision on erecting the $3.5 billion Xayaburi
dam, the first dam on the lower Mekong River in the face of
opposition from neighboring countries. In Dec the Mekong River
Commission (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam) members called for
(SFC, 4/20/11, p.A2)(Econ, 1/7/12, p.34)
2011 Apr 19, In Libya heavy
fighting raged in Misrata. A NATO commander complained the alliance
was having trouble destroying Gadhafi's mortars and rockets
attacking rebels there. 8 people were reported killed in Misrata.
The UN appealed for a ceasefire in Misrata, saying at least 20
children had been killed in attacks by besieging government forces
on rebel-held parts of the city. Rebels put the death toll from two
months of fighting at 10,000. NATO's commander in chief for the
operation in Libya announced military strikes against Kadhafi's
command centers, including Tripoli and a brigade accused of leading
attacks on civilians.
(AP, 4/19/11)(Reuters, 4/19/11)(AFP,
2011 Apr 19, A Malaysian
official said authorities have sent 66 Muslim schoolboys identified
by teachers as effeminate to a four-day camp where they will receive
counseling on masculine behavior to discourage them from being gay.
2011 Apr 19, Mexican troops
clashed with gunmen trying to establish a base in Veracruz, killing
10 alleged assailants.
2011 Apr 19, In Nigeria burned
corpses with machete wounds lay in roads and smoke rose above Kaduna
where rioting broke out again among Muslim opposition supporters who
were angered by the announcement that the Christian incumbent
president had won the election.
2011 Apr 19, Somali citizen
Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame was captured by the US military. He was
interrogated aboard a US warship for two months before facing
terrorism charges in NYC.
(SFC, 7/6/11, p.A6)
2011 Apr 19, Investors
announced that West Africa Cable System (WACS), a new $650 million
undersea telecommunications cable, has landed in South Africa,
saying the link would double the broadband capacity of the
continent's largest economy.
2011 Apr 19, Syria's government
approved lifting the country's nearly 50-year-old state of emergency
to meet a key demand of anti-government protesters. Syria imposed a
total ban on all demonstrations after warning of a crackdown on an
"armed revolt" by Islamist radicals. Security forces fired on
protesters in the city of Homs, killing at least 15.
(AP, 4/19/11)(AFP, 4/19/11)(Econ, 4/23/11, p.49)
2011 Apr 19, A Tunisian court
dropped charges against a policewoman whose dispute with fruit
vendor Mohamed Bouazizi sparked a chain of events that unleashed
uprisings around the Arab world. The case against Fedia Hamdi was
closed after the vendor's family withdrew its original complaint.
2011 Apr 19, In Turkey Kurdish
protesters clashed with police in two cities and the main Kurdish
party threatened to boycott the upcoming election because of a
decision the previous day to bar some Kurdish candidates.
2011 Apr 19, Yemeni security
forces opened fire on anti-government protesters in Taiz, the second
largest city, killing at least 3. Tens of thousands took to the
streets in the capital Sanaa later in the day and thousands
demonstrated in Aden, Ibb, al-Hudaydah and other cities where most
of the shops were closed in support of the protesters. The UN
children's fund said that at least 26 children have been killed
during the protests over the last two months.
(AP, 4/19/11)(SFC, 4/20/11, p.A2)
2012 Apr 19, The US military
said 2 ethnic Uighur men from western China, held for almost a
decade without charge at Guantanamo Bay, have been resettled in El
(SFC, 4/20/12, p.A2)
2012 Apr 19, One of the first
pennies ever produced by the US Mint, a 1792 Silver Center penny,
was put up for auction and reportedly sold for more than $1 million.
2012 Apr 19, Levon Helm (71),
drummer and singer for the Band, died in Albany, NY. The group,
which also backed Bob Dylan, was known for such songs as “Up on
Cripple Creek" (1969), “The Weight" (1968), and “The Night They
Drove Old Dixie Down" (1969).
(SFC, 4/20/12, p.C5)
2012 Apr 19, In Afghanistan a
US Army helicopter crashed in bad weather during a night flight to
the scene of a suicide bombing. All 4 American crew members were
killed. 4 Afghan police officers were killed and 7 others were
wounded in the suicide attack on the checkpoint in Helmand province.
2012 Apr 19, Australia vowed in
an apparent U-turn to keep combat troops in Afghanistan through 2014
after PM Julia Gillard had indicated they would come home earlier
2012 Apr 19, Bahraini police
fired buckshot and tear gas to disperse overnight demonstrations in
Shiite villages outside the capital Manama ahead of this weekend's
Formula One Grand Prix.
2012 Apr 19, The European Union
said it will suspend most sanctions against Myanmar for a year while
it assesses the country's progress toward democracy.
2012 Apr 19, Guinea-Bissau's
junta named Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo, a former parliamentary speaker
and independent presidential candidate, to head a two-year
transition government after a deal with the opposition, defying
world calls for a return to democracy.
2012 Apr 19, India successfully
tested a powerful new missile that can carry nuclear weapons 5,000
km (3,100 miles). The Agni-V took off from a small launcher on what
appeared to be railroad tracks from Wheeler Island off India's east
2012 Apr 19, In India 3
commuters hanging onto the outside of a train in Mumbai were killed
when they were hit by an iron pole in the latest accident on India's
2012 Apr 19, In Iraq bombings
struck several areas in Baghdad and to the north. Al-Qaida
extremists launched dozens of bombings and shootings in 7 different
provinces killing 38 people and wounding more than 170.
(AP, 4/19/12)(AFP, 4/20/12)
2012 Apr 19, Jamaica announced
a new government task force to fight proliferating lottery scams
that mainly target elderly Americans.
(SFC, 4/20/12, p.A2)
2012 Apr 19, Liberian President
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf issued a decree exempting schools, hospitals,
the national broadcaster and power company from paying customs
duties on fuel.
2012 Apr 19, Mali's police
announced a wave of arrests overnight after officers seized
container loads of weapons, as the country's new prime minister
considered who should form his transitional government. The junta
announced late today that it had released 22 people whose arrests
earlier this week had prompted international criticism.
(AFP, 4/19/12)(AP, 4/20/12)
2012 Apr 19, In northern
Nigeria 5 people were killed by gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram,
in a bakery in Maiduguri. A policeman was killed outside his house
in Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state.
2012 Apr 19, In Somalia
Burundian troops with the AU force seized areas of Mogadishu’s
Banadir district late today, including securing the Deynile
airstrip, part of long-running efforts to drive the militants from
2012 Apr 19, In South Africa a
man was killed by a shark while body boarding at a bay in Cape Town
in the country’s second deadly mauling this year.
2012 Apr 19, South Sudan said
it repulsed four attacks from Sudan over a 24-hour period as
fighting on the border showed no signs of slowing. A Sudanese air
raid struck a Heglig oil processing facility, setting it ablaze. A
pipeline was damaged and oil poured into the ground.
(AP, 4/19/12)(AFP, 4/24/12)
2012 Apr 19, Syria and the UN
signed a deal on the framework for observers to monitor a shaky
ceasefire, as Arab and Western ministers gathered in Paris to pile
pressure on Damascus. At least three people were reported killed in
violence across Syria today.
2012 Apr 19, The Vatican’s
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ordered an overhaul of
the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), based in Silver
Spring, Md. I cited radical feminist themes and questioned official
positions on homosexuality and the ordination of women.
(SFC, 4/20/12, p.A6)
2012 Apr 19, Yemeni government
troops launched a surprise attack in Abyan province. 32 Islamist
militants were reported killed.
2013 Apr 19, The US's annual
global human rights report was issued by the State Department. It
said China had imposed new registration requirements to prevent
groups from emerging that might challenge government authority.
2013 Apr 19, Federal agents
swarmed Watertown, Mass., after local police were involved in a car
chase and shootout with 2 men identified by the FBI as Suspect 1 and
Suspect 2 in the April 15 Boston bombings. The shootout occurred
after a gunfight erupted near the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Suspect 1, identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev (26), was
killed in the shootout. Suspect 2, identified as Dzhokhar A.
Tsarnaev (19), a second-year student, was wounded but escaped. He
was soon found hiding under a boat tarp in a neighborhood backyard.
The brothers' family was originally from Chechnya.
(AP, 4/19/13)(AP, 4/20/13)
2013 Apr 19, A fishing boat
owned by a Louisiana sea food company sank off the Texas Gulf Coast
after it was hit by a freak wave. 4 fishermen were lost and one was
(SFC, 4/22/13, p.A5)
2013 Apr 19, At the US
Guantanamo Bay detention facility the number of detainees deemed on
a hunger strike increased from 52 to 63 out of a total of 166.
(SFC, 4/20/13, p.A2)
2013 Apr 19, The Boy Scouts of
America proposed lifting a ban on gay scouts but maintaining a
prohibition on gay adults from leading troops.
2013 Apr 19, Floodwaters
swelled the Mississippi River and other Midwestern rivers following
days of torrential rains. In Quiincy, Ill., the river rose nearly 10
feet in 36 hours. Two flood related deaths were in Indiana, a 3rd in
(SFC, 4/20/13, p.A4)(SSFC, 4/21/13, p.A9)(SFC,
2013 Apr 19, David Rubenstein,
co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, announced his donation of $10 million
to help visitors see the full plantation of Thomas Jefferson’s home
at Monticello, Va.
(SSFC, 4/21/13, p.A9)
2013 Apr 19, Kenneth Appel
(80), American mathematician of maps, died. In 1976 he and Wolfgang
Haken used computer power to prove that four colors were sufficient
to ensure that no adjacent countries on a map would be the same
(Econ, 5/4/13, p.90)
2013 Apr 19, Al Neuharth
(b.1924), founder of USA Today (1982), died in Cocoa Beach, Fl.
(SFC, 4/20/13, p.A6)
2013 Apr 19, In Afghanistan
Taliban insurgents attacked a local police checkpoint in Andar, a
district of Ghazni province, killing 13 officers.
2013 Apr 19, Britain's credit
standing took a further blow when Fitch Ratings became the second
major international agency to strip the country of its top-notch
2013 Apr 19, In Egypt thousands
of supporters of Islamist Pres. Morsi took to the streets of Cairo,
calling on him to "cleanse the judiciary."
2013 Apr 19, In Georgia some
10,000 supporters of embattled pro-Western President Mikhail
Saakashvili gathered for a rally testing their strength ahead of
October's presidential vote.
2013 Apr 19, In Iraq mortar
fire and bombs targeting worshippers killed 9 people and wounded 29
others in two attacks north of Baghdad shortly after noon prayers.
The dead included 7 in Khalis and 2 in Kirkuk. An Iraqi soldier was
killed in Hawija.
(AP, 4/19/13)(Econ, 4/27/13, p.46)
2013 Apr 19, In Jordan about
100 Syrian refugees threw stones at Jordanian police for preventing
some of them from sneaking out of their desert camp.
2013 Apr 19, Kosovo and Serbia
reached a potentially historic agreement to normalize relations
between the Balkan neighbors, end years of acrimony and put them
both on a solid path to EU membership.
2013 Apr 19, Pakistan’s former
military ruler Pervez Musharraf was arrested overnight in Islamabad
in a case involving his decision to fire senior judges while in
power. Musharraf criticized allegations against him as "politically
2013 Apr 19, Poland inaugurated
its new $100 million Museum of the History of Polish Jews in the
heart of the former Warsaw ghetto.
(SFC, 4/19/13, p.A3)
2013 Apr 19, Syrian regime
troops and rebels fought fierce battles near the Lebanese border.
2013 Apr 19, Venezuela held
inauguration ceremonies for President Nicolas Maduro. Massive crowds
that used to pack the streets for late leader Hugo Chavez failed to
2014 Apr 19, In Algeria 11
soldiers were killed and a dozen wounded in an ambush in the restive
Kabylie region east of Algiers. On May 1 al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility.
(AFP, 4/20/14)(AFP, 4/21/14)(AFP, 5/1/14)
2014 Apr 19, In Bahrain an
apparent car bombing killed two people and wounded one in Mughsha, a
village west of Manama.
2014 Apr 19, In Brazil angry
residents of a city near Rio de Janeiro torched four buses to
protest the death of a man killed a day earlier by a bullet on his
way to a Good Friday church service. They said Anderson Santos Silva
(21) died while trying to protect his mother and 9-year-old sister
from bullets from a gunfight involving police.
2014 Apr 19, Tobias Bowen (47),
charged with raping a child in March 2010 when he lived in New
York’s Syracuse suburb of Liverpool, was arrested in London after
getting off a plane. He had fled to his native Liberia, where he was
administrator of a government hospital.
2014 Apr 19, A Chinese maritime
court in Shanghai seized a ship owned by Japanese shipping firm
Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, a move that Japan warned could have an adverse
impact on its businesses in China. The court said the company had
failed to pay compensation stemming from a WWII contractual
obligation. On April 24 China said Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd
has paid about $29 million for the release of the ship.
(Reuters, 4/21/14)(Reuters, 4/24/14)
2014 Apr 19, In Iraq two bombs
planted on a street full of shoppers in the Dora neighborhood of
Baghdad killed 4 people and wounded eight.
2014 Apr 19, In northern Mexico
a Hawker 800 jet crashed in Coahuila state killing all 8 people on
board. On the northwestern fringe of Mexico City a three-way car
collision in Naucalpan killed at least 8 people and injured 12
2014 Apr 19, Nigerian officials
said another 14 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamists in the
northeast have escaped, leaving 85 missing.
2014 Apr 19, In Pakistan Hamid
Mir, a famous host on the private TV broadcaster Geo, suffered three
gunshot wounds to the stomach and the upper legs in an attack near
Karachi's airport. His brother alleged the attack was planned by the
Inter-services Intelligence directorate (ISI). Mir survived the
(AP, 4/19/14)(Econ, 4/26/14, p.40)
2014 Apr 19, An earthquake with
a magnitude 7.8 was recorded off Papua New Guinea.
2014 Apr 19, In Peru a
nationwide ban on illegal mining took effect. Some 40,000 illegal
gold miners had until today to legalize their status in the
southeast in the face of a ban on illegal mining that has ravaged
rain forests and contaminated rivers.
(SSFC, 4/20/14, p.A6)
2014 Apr 19, In South Korea
Captain Lee Joon-seok (68) and two crew members of the Sewol ferry
that capsized on April 16 were arrested. The confirmed death toll
rose to 32 with some 270 people still missing.
2014 Apr 19, In South Africa
robbers broke into a provincial parks office in Nelspruit and used a
machine tool called a grinder to break into a safe holding several
dozen rhino horns worth a fortune on the illegal market in parts of
Asia. On June 9 police said two men have been arrested in connection
with the theft, worth about $5.2 million.
(AP, 4/22/14)(Reuters, 6/9/14)
2014 Apr 19, In central Syria
two rebel car bombs targeted Homs and Salamiya, two areas controlled
by government forces, killing at least ten people as opposition
forces fought fiercely to hold onto territory.
2014 Apr 19, In Yemen an
American drone strike killed 15 Al-Qaeda suspects and 3 civilians in
central Baida province, a stronghold of the extremist group.
2015 Apr 19, In Baltimore,
Maryland, Freddie Gray (25) died following his April 12 arrest when
he somehow suffered an 80 percent severed spinal cord and three
broken vertebrae. A video shot from nearby showed police restraining
Gray on a sidewalk, then dragging him while yelling in pain to a
police van. In September Gray’s family reached a tentative $6.4
million wrongful death settlement with the city. In 2017 the US
Justice Department said it would not bring federal civil rights
charges against six officers.
(AFP, 4/20/15)(SFC, 9/9/15, p.A12)(SFC, 9/14/17
2015 Apr 19, In eastern
Afghanistan 19 land mine removers were kidnapped by unknown gunmen
on the outskirts of Gardez, Paktia province. All 19 were reported
released on April 21. Insurgents armed with guns and explosives
entered a police station in Lashkar Gar, Helmand province, after a
suicide bomber detonated explosives at the gate of the compound
allowing the others to gain entry. 3 police were killed. Authorities
confirmed that 4 Hazara farmers kidnapped by the Taliban had been
found beheaded in Ghazni province.
(AP, 4/19/15)(Reuters, 4/20/15)(AP, 4/21/15)(SFC,
2015 Apr 19, Cuba held
municipal elections. Turnout fell almost 6% compared to the 2012
poll to about 88%.
(Econ., 4/25/15, p.36)
2015 Apr 19, In Cyprus Turkish
Cypriots voted for a new leader for the breakaway north in an
unpredictable contest as talks to reunify the ethnically split
island are expected to resume next month.
2015 Apr 19, An Egyptian court
sentenced 11 football fans to death after a retrial over a February
2012 stadium riot in Port Said that left 74 people dead. An appeals
court had ordered the retrial of 73 defendants in February last year
after rejecting a lower court verdict sentencing 21 people to death
for being involved in the incident.
2015 Apr 19, Finland held
elections. A three year recession has put Juha Sipila, a
self-effacing millionaire businessman and leader of the opposition
Center Party, in a clear lead in all recent opinion polls. The
Center Party took 49 seats of 200 seats. The Eurosceptic True Finns
party took 19% of the vote and 38 seats.
(AP, 4/19/15)(Econ., 4/25/15, p.50)
2015 Apr 19, In France Sid
Ahmed Ghlam (24) was arrested after police stumbled upon his plans
to attack churches when he called paramedics saying he had
accidentally shot himself in the leg. An arsenal of four Kalashnikov
rifles, several handguns and bulletproof vests were discovered in
his car and at his student flat as well as jihadist literature
mentioning Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. His DNA was linked
to the murder of Aurelie Chatelain (32), a young mother in
Villejuif, who was found shot dead today in the passenger seat of
(AFP, 4/23/15)(SFC, 4/24/15, p.A2)
2015 Apr 19, In India tens of
thousands of flag-waving farmers rallied in New Delhi to protest a
government plan to ease rules for obtaining land for industry and
development projects. Both Gandhi family scion Rahul and his mother,
party leader Sonia, addressed the rallying farmers at a protest
2015 Apr 19, In Iran some 500
people protested the killings of dogs and called for an
investigation. A short film showing several stray dogs dying after
apparently being injected with burning acid in Shiraz had gone viral
and prompted protests with celebrities joining animal lovers in
condemning the cruelty.
2015 Apr 19, In Iraq and Syria
the US and its coalition partners targeted Islamic State militants
with 13 air strikes over the last 24 hours with 12 of the strikes in
2015 Apr 19, The new video was
posted by the Islamic State appeared to show militants shooting and
beheading about 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya.
2015 Apr 19, The mayor of
Haifa, Israel's third largest city, ordered the closure of five
petrochemical plants following a health ministry warning linking
high cancer rates to air pollution.
2015 Apr 19, Jordan launched a
competition among elite anti-terrorism squads from 18 countries,
including fellow members of military coalitions fighting rebels in
Yemen and Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria.
2015 Apr 19, Russian security
forces killed the leader of an Islamist insurgency in the North
Caucasus during a raid on a house in the Dagestan region. Four other
suspected militants were also killed with Aliaskhab Kebekov, aka Ali
Abu Mukhammad. Kebekov (b.1972) became the leader of the Caucasus
Emirate group in early 2014 after Russian security forces killed his
predecessor, Doku Umarov.
2015 Apr 19, A Saudi border
guard was killed and two troops wounded by heavy gun and mortar fire
2015 Apr 19, Somalia's Shebab
militants killed 3 soldiers from the African Union force fighting
them Lower Shabelle district.
2015 Apr 19, In South Africa
Sister Gertrud Tiefenbacher (86), from the Sacred Heart Home Convent
in the village of Ixopo, southwest of Durban, was found murdered in
her room after being suffocated with a towel, and her hands tied
with an electric typewriter cord. On April 28 police said three
people have been arrested for her rape and murder. On May 12
Sibongiseni Phungula (25) and Mondli Shozi (26) pleaded guilty to
rape and murder saying they had broken into the convent to steal
2015 Apr 19, In South Africa
Emmanuel Sithole, a Mozambican street vendor, begged for his life as
four men beat him and stabbed him in the heart.
2015 Apr 19, Syrian government
airstrikes on three opposition-held towns near the Jordanian border
reportedly killed at least 16 people, including five children.
2015 Apr 19, In Yemen Brigadier
General Abdulrahman al-Halily of the First Military District
announced his support for constitutional legitimacy as represented
by President Hadi. He commanded at least 15,000 troops in a vast
military district covering half the country's border with Saudi
2015 Apr 19, In Yemen Saudi-led
coalition warplanes pounded Houthi positions in Taez. Air strikes on
Shiite rebel positions in the southern city of Daleh as well as
clashes killed 17 Houthis and 6 southern fighters. 7 more Houthis
were killed in an attack by tribesmen in the southern province of
Shabwa. In Aden 11 Houthis and 5 pro-Hadi fighters were killed in
overnight clashes. All together at least 60 people were killed.
2016 Apr 19, A US federal judge
approved an agreement between Ferguson, Mo., and the US Justice
Dept. that calls for sweeping changes in the city where Michael
Brown (18) was fatally shot on Aug 9, 2014, by a police officer.
(SFC, 4/20/16, p.A7)
2016 Apr 19, District of
Columbia law makers voted to enact a permanent ban on smoking
marijuana in private clubs.
(SFC, 4/20/16, p.A6)
2016 Apr 19, Intel said it
would cut 12,000 jobs, about 11% of its workforce, as demand for
personal computers continued to fall.
(SFC, 4/20/16, p.C6)
2016 Apr 19, In Afghanistan
Taliban attackers staged an assault on a government security agency
in Kabul, killing 64 people and wounding more than 320.
(AP, 4/19/16)(AP, 4/20/16)
2016 Apr 19, A soldier from the
Armenian-backed Nagorno-Karabakh region was reportedly killed by
gunfire from Azerbaijan.
2016 Apr 19, Australian
scientists said coral bleaching has been detected in Sydney Harbour
for the first time, blaming the damaging phenomenon also found in
the Great Barrier Reef on warming sea-surface temperatures.
2016 Apr 19, Chile’s former
Pres. Patricio Aylwin (97) died. He ruled from 1990 to 1994 and was
the country’s first elected president following 17 years of brutal
(SFC, 4/20/16, p.A2)
2016 Apr 19, China’s state
broadcaster CCTV said Huang Yu (41), a former computer technician at
a Chinese research firm specializing in encryption, has been
sentenced to death for selling 150,000 classified documents that
revealed key secrets about military and government data encryption
to an unidentified foreign spy agency.
2016 Apr 19, In Egypt a riot
erupted in a Cairo suburb after a policeman shot three people after
an argument over the price of a cup of tea, killing one of them. On
Nov 16 a court sentenced the policeman to life in prison.
(Reuters, 4/19/16)(AP, 11/16/16)
2016 Apr 19, Germany asked
Belgium to take two nuclear reactors temporarily off the grid while
questions about their safety are cleared up, an unusual diplomatic
move that underscores German concerns about the plants.
2016 Apr 19, Indian officials
said weeks of sweltering temperatures have caused more than 160
deaths in southern and eastern India.
2016 Apr 19, Indonesia said it
has called for joint maritime patrols with the Philippines and
Malaysia, after a spate of kidnappings in waters near the southern
Philippines by suspected militants.
2016 Apr 19, In Iraq arrested
Islamic State militants led authorities to two mass graves inside
the soccer stadium in Ramadi containing up to 40 bodies.
(SFC, 4/22/16, p.A2)
2016 Apr 19, Israeli actress
Ronit Elkabetz (51) died after battling cancer. She helped bring her
country's films to the world and became a star in France. Her films
included "The Girl on the Train" alongside Catherine Deneuve and
"Ashes and Blood".
2016 Apr 19, Japan's southern
quake-hit area was rattled by a strong aftershock and searchers
found a woman's body buried under landslide rubble. The death toll
soon rose to 48 from two powerful earthquakes last week. Three
people remained missing.
(AP, 4/19/16)(AP, 4/20/16)
2016 Apr 19, In northwestern
Pakistan a suicide bomber detonated his explosive device outside a
government tax office in the city of Mardan, killing at least one
person and wounding nine others. Hours after the attack, Ahsanullah
Ahsan, a spokesman for the Jamat-ul-Ahrar militant group, claimed
2016 Apr 19, Swiss snowboarder
Estelle Balet (21) was been killed in an avalanche while filming
above Orsieres, near Switzerland's southern border with France and
2016 Apr 19, In Syria bombing
by government forces killed 50 people in two towns of Idlib
(Econ, 4/23/16, p.40)
2016 Apr 19, Turkish
authorities detained 38 people suspected of "framing" soccer team
Fenerbahce's players and directors in a match-fixing investigation
2016 Apr 19, President Petro
Poroshenko said Ukraine has reached a deal with Russia to free a
jailed Ukrainian pilot, suggesting that she will be swapped for two
Russian servicemen jailed in Ukraine this week.
2017 Apr 19, In Pennsylvania
the new Museum of the American Revolution opened in Philadelphia.
2017 Apr 19, 21st Century Fox,
the parent of Fox News Channel, fired Bill O’Reilly following an
investigation into harassment allegations. In 2015 his show had
generated $178 million in advertising revenue.
(SFC, 4/20/17, p.A8)
2017 Apr 19, Scientists
reported the discovery of another planet, LHS 1140b, that may be
just right for life. Astronomers have now identified 52 potentially
(SFC, 4/20/17, p.A9)
2017 Apr 19, Algerian armed
forces foiled an attempted suicide bomb attack in the northeastern
city of Constantine, with one attacker killed and a second arrested.
2017 Apr 19, Chinese state
media said President Xi Jinping has announced a military restructure
of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to transform it into a leaner
fighting force with improved joint operations capability.
2017 Apr 19, China's foreign
ministry said that Interpol has issued a "red notice" seeking the
arrest of Guo Wengui (aka Miles Kwok), a billionaire who has
threatened to expose corruption at the highest levels of the ruling
Communist Party at a critical juncture. The South China Morning Post
reported that Guo is suspected of giving $8.8 million in bribes to
Ma Jian, a former deputy head of China's intelligence service who
was charged with corruption in February. His Voice of America
interview came to an abrupt end 80 minutes into the program, well
before the scheduled three hours was up.
(AP, 4/19/17)(Econ, 4/29/17, p.33)
2017 Apr 19, China and the EU
held their first high-level talks since US Pres. 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 in contrast to
fears that the US is turning inward.
2017 Apr 19, In Colombia at
least 11 people were killed after intense overnight rains provoked
several landslides in Manizales. About 20 people remained missing in
the mountainous, coffee-growing region.
2017 Apr 19, A Danish court
upheld a decision by the public prosecutor in Copenhagen to allow
the extradition of Chung Yoo-ra (20), the daughter of Choi Soon-sil,
the former confidante of South Korea's ousted president, to face
prosecution in her home country.
2017 Apr 19, The Dubai
government-owned Emirates airline slashed its flights to the United
States by 20%, blaming a drop in demand on tougher US security
measures a Trump administration attempts to ban travelers from some
Muslim majority nations.
(SFC, 4/20/17, p.C3)
2017 Apr 19, German utility
E.ON said it has launched a combined solar panel and battery storage
product for British customers which could cut rising electricity
bills by 50 percent.
2017 Apr 19, In northern India
a bus swerved off a mountain road and plunged into a deep ravine,
killing at least 44 people in Himachal Pradesh state.
2017 Apr 19, Former Indonesian
education minister Anies Baswedan won the race for Jakarta governor
after a polarizing campaign. Baswedan won with 58% of the votes
versus 42% for Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known by his Chinese nickname
as "Ahok", based on 100 percent of the votes in an unofficial "quick
count" by Indikator Politik.
2017 Apr 19, In Mexico leftist
politician Demetrio Saldivar was killed by gunmen in Chilpancingo.
He was the state general secretary of the PRD party in Guerrero
(SFC, 4/21/17, p.A2)
2017 Apr 19, Moroccan police
arrested a young Ferrari driver who triggered a scandal by posting
video footage of himself apparently drunk in front of his crashed
car and ridiculing officers.
2017 Apr 19, Nigeria's
President Muhammadu Buhari ordered an investigation into corruption
allegations against a senior civil servant related to the use of
funds intended for handling a humanitarian crisis in the northeast
of the country. Buhari suspended two key aides over an alleged
contract scam and for keeping an unauthorized stash of cash in a
(Reuters, 4/19/17)(AFP, 4/19/17)
2017 Apr 19, A Palestinian
assailant rammed his car into a West Bank bus stop, wounding an
Israeli man, before Israeli troops shot and killed the driver.
2017 Apr 19, Philippine
President Rodrigo Duterte offered a bounty for the capture of Muslim
extremists behind a foiled attack on a central resort island, and
said he ordered the navy to bomb militants who travel by boat in
search of kidnap victims.
2017 Apr 19, Russian
counterintelligence agency FSB said two suspects, both from Central
Asia, were killed in a shootout when they resisted arrest in a home
in the Vladimir region east of Moscow.
2017 Apr 19, Russian journalist
Nikolai Andrushchenko (73) died of his injuries six weeks after
being attacked in St. Petersburg. His assault was linked to articles
in the newspaper about corruption in St. Petersburg.
2017 Apr 19, Syria’s state
television reported that a bomb has killed six people and wounded
more than 30 in Aleppo, without giving the reason for the blast. A
large convoy of buses carrying evacuees from the government-held
towns of Fuaa and Kafraya reached the edge of the rebel-held transit
2017 Apr 19, Turkey's electoral
board rejected petitions by opposition parties to annul the outcome
of a recent referendum on expanding presidential powers because of
voting irregularities. Some 38 members of the political opposition
were arrested in dawn raids.
(AP, 4/19/17)(AFP, 4/19/17)(SFC, 4/20/17,
p.A2)(Econ, 4/22/17, p.44)
2017 Apr 19, The Ugandan army
said it has neutralized the Lord's Resistance Army, as troops began
withdrawing from the Central African Republic where they had been
hunting the group's feared leader Joseph Kony. The army said that
Kony now commands fewer than 100 fighters.
2017 Apr 19, In Uganda years of
growing animosity at Chinese traders turned into a protest by
hundreds in Kampala against what local businesses called unfair
competition. Mayor Erias Lukwago, who supported the protest, said
the government must protect local traders to prevent the protests
from escalating into attacks against foreign traders.
2017 Apr 19, The UN human
rights office said that investigators have confirmed another 17 mass
graves in central Congo, bringing the number to 40 discovered since
clashes between soldiers and a local militia intensified in August.
Congolese soldiers reportedly dug the 17 newly discovered mass
graves after fighting with suspected militia members in late March
and killing at least 74 people, including 30 children.
2017 Apr 19, Judges at the UN's
highest court rejected a Ukrainian interim request to order Russia
to stop supporting troops in the east of the country, saying its
request did not meet legal requirements under an international
terrorism treaty. The court ordered Russia to halt discrimination of
ethnic Crimean Tartars.
2017 Apr 19, UNESCO awarded its
prestigious Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize to migrant rescue
association SOS Mediterranee and Lampedusa Mayor Giuseppina
Nicolini, whose tiny Italian island is on the frontline of the
2017 Apr 19, Venezuela's
opposition staged the "mother of all marches," accusing President
Nicolas Maduro of resorting to dictatorial measures to quash popular
outrage over a deepening economic crisis. Two students were killed
in the demonstrations. A National Guard officer soon died from
(Reuters, 4/19/17)(Reuters, 4/20/17)
2017 Apr 19, Venezuelan
authorities took control of GM’s only factory there in what GM
called an illegal judicial seizure of its assets.
2018 Apr 19, Alabama executed
Wallace Leroy Moody Jr. (83). He had been convicted of the mail-bomb
slaying of a federal judge in 1989.
(SFC, 4/20/18, p.A5)
2018 Apr 19, Arizona teachers
voted to walk off the job in their first ever state wide strike set
for April 26 in a move for higher pay.
(SFC, 4/20/18, p.A5)
2018 Apr 19, A California state
appeals court backed the state's listing of the herbicide glyphosate
as a possible cause of cancer and the state's prohibition against
discharging it into public waterways. The chemical is the main
ingredient in Monasanto's Roundup weed killer.
(SFC, 4/20/18, p.D8)
2018 Apr 19, San
Francisco-based Lyft Inc. said it is launching a program to offset
emissions from the 1.4 million cars that drive for the US
ride-hailing service by investing in projects to reduce other
sources of greenhouse gas.
2018 Apr 19, In Florida John
Hubert Highnote (58) went into a restaurant in Trenton and killed
two Gilchrist County sheriff's deputies, then returned to his car
and killed himself.
(http://tinyurl.com/y8pekguz)(SFC, 4/21/18, p.A6)
2018 Apr 19, In Afghanistan two
police officers were killed and their weapons taken late today by
unknown gunman at a registration center in Jalalabad, Nangarhar
2018 Apr 19, Armenian police in
Yerevan detained dozens of anti-government demonstrators -- the
seventh day of large-scale protests against ex-president Serzh
Sarkisian's election as prime minister.
2018 Apr 19, The Belarus
parliament passed a measure prohibiting internet users from
commenting on forums without authorization and requiring online
publications to register with the government as mass media.
2018 Apr 19, Burundi police
arrested eight people for planning attacks to disrupt a
constitutional referendum next month that could keep President
Pierre Nkurunziza in power until 2034.
2018 Apr 19, It was reported
that Chinese traders are preparing to export alumina to reap the
profits from record prices for spot cargoes after the United States
imposed sanctions on Russia's United Company Rusal, among the
biggest producers of the aluminum raw material.
2018 Apr 19, Cuban Communist
Party stalwart Miguel Diaz-Canel replaced Raul Castro as president,
a new chapter for the island after nearly sixty years of rule by the
Castro brothers but a change that is aimed at preserving Cuban
2018 Apr 19, The European Union
imposed travel bans and asset freezes on four people suspected of
"deceptive financial practices" to benefit North Korea's arms
program. The EU did not name the four.
2018 Apr 19, The European Union
decided to ban meat imports from 20 Brazilian plants amid concerns
about sanitary controls.
2018 Apr 19, In France
thousands of people marched across the country to protest President
Emmanuel Macron's labor law changes, as rail strikes and student
protests continued to shake the country.
2018 Apr 19, Greece's highest
court approved the release from custody of one of eight Turkish
servicemen who have applied for asylum in Greece after fleeing
Turkey following a failed 2016 coup in the neighboring country.
2018 Apr 19, Guinea Bissau's
parliament met for the first time in nearly two years after the
appointment of a consensus prime minister to end a dragging
political crisis. Earlier this week President Jose Mario Vaz
appointed Aristide Gomes as premier, whom he described as a
2018 Apr 19, Iran's
semi-official ISNA news agency reported that Interior Minister
Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has requested an investigation after a video
surfaced showing police pushing and pulling a young woman who was
resisting arrest for not adhering to the Islamic dress code.
2018 Apr 19, Iran arrested a
senior official after a video posted online showed young boys and
girls dancing in public in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad.
2018 Apr 19, Iraq carried out
air strikes on Islamic State positions in Syria a week after PM
Haider al-Abadi said his country would defend itself from militant
threats across the border. 36 Islamic State militants were killed in
airstrikes by Iraq's air force in an area along the border. Six IS
leaders were among the dead.
(Reuters, 4/19/18)(AP, 4/22/18)
2018 Apr 19, Italian police
claimed progress in closing in on Italy's most-wanted Mafia
fugitive, Matteo Messina Denaro, arresting 21 suspected associates
in western Sicily, including family members to whom he had given
leadership roles in the clan.
2018 Apr 19, In southern Japan
the Mount Io volcano erupted for the first time in 250 years,
spewing steam and ash hundreds of meters into the air, as
authorities warned locals not to approach the mountain.
2018 Apr 19, In Nicaragua a
police officer, protester, and pro-government activist were killed
in clashes over a planned social security reform. The protests
started after the government increased payroll taxes and changed
pensions to try to shore up Nicaragua's troubled social security
system. The government ordered five independent TV channels that
have been covering the unrest off the air.
2018 Apr 19, Pakistan said
Afghan authorities have returned the bodies of five Pakistani
soldiers killed during a weekend clash along a disputed segment of
the two countries' border, and also released a sixth soldier
captured by the Afghans.
2018 Apr 19, Puerto Rico's
power company said that it has 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 a day earlier,
but tens of thousands of families still remain without normal
service seven months after hurricanes Maria and Irma.
2018 Apr 19, The WTO web site
posted a filing from Russia joining the European Union, India and
China in demanding compensation from the United States for its
tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum.
2018 Apr 19, The head of the
consular section of the US Embassy in Moscow told Nezavisimaya
Gazeta newspaper that it was having difficulties issuing urgent
visas to Russian pilots because of a shortage of staff.
2018 Apr 19, In Saudi Arabia
four policemen were killed after gunmen attacked a security
checkpoint in the southwestern province of Asir. Two of the three
gunmen were arrested following the attack. The 3rd gunman was
2018 Apr 19, Senegal police
fired tear gas to break up a protest in Dakar and arrested several
people, including former premier Idrissa Seck (2002-2004),
protesting against a move to raise the bar for presidential
2018 Apr 19, In South Sudan
government forces and opposition forces loyal to former military
chief Malong clashed in the town of Luri about 12 miles (19 km)
outside Juba. The opposition said one of its fighter was killed and
about 15 government soldiers lay dead beside a "destroyed tank".
2018 Apr 19, Sudanese state
news reported that President Omar al-Bashir has fired foreign
minister Ibrahim Ghandour. A day earlier Ghandour remarked about how
the diplomatic corps has not been paid for the past seven months.
2018 Apr 19, Swaziland King
Mswati III, one of the world's few absolute monarchs, declared a
name change at celebrations marking 50 years since independence from
British colonial rule. The new official name would now be
"eSwatini," meaning place of the Swazi. According the World Food
Program 63 percent of the 1.3 million population live below the
national poverty line.
2018 Apr 19, The Syrian
government stepped up its efforts to retake the opposition's last
besieged enclaves. Hundreds of Syrian rebels in Dumayr, a town
northeast of Damascus handed in their weapons and boarded buses to
leave under an evacuation deal. Inspectors from the Organization for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons were still not able to reach the
scene, 12 days after the suspected attack.
(Reuters, 4/19/18)(AP, 4/19/18)
2018 Apr 19, In Syria 36
Islamic State militants were killed in airstrikes by Iraq's air
force in an area along the border. Six IS leaders were among the
2018 Apr 19, In Thailand Jack
Ma, the founder of China-based Alibaba, met with PM Prayuth
Chan-ocha, and later signed several agreements, including one to
help set up a "smart digital hub" in a showcase project called the
Eastern Economic Corridor, to facilitate trade between Thailand,
China, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam.
2018 Apr 19, Turkey's
parliament said it had stripped two lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish
opposition HDP of their parliamentary status, further reducing the
party's strength in the assembly two months ahead of elections.
2018 Apr 19, In Yemen forces
loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh battled their former
Houthi allies over control of a key outpost, marking the first such
battle between the two sides since the veteran leader was killed
last year. The forces included a new unit set up by Saleh's nephew,
Brigadier-General Tareq Mohammed Saleh.
2018 Apr 19, In Yemen Saudi-led
coalition air strikes killed Saleh al-Samad, the top civilian leader
in the armed Houthi movement. The strikes also killed six others in
his retinue in the coastal province of Hodeida.
(Reuters, 4/24/18)(AP, 4/28/18)