Author: James Wesley Rawles

Today, April 19th, is a genuine Red Letter Day. April 19th is the original Patriot Day which marks the multiple anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord, known as “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World”. Today also marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis in 1943, the BATF’s costly raid on the Branch Davidian Church in Waco, the gun turret explosion on the USS Iowa in 1989, the capture of the Boston Marathon bomber in 2013, and very sadly also the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. April 19th is also the birthday of novelist Ralph …

On April 18, 1775, British troops marched out of Boston on a mission to confiscate the American arsenal at Concord and to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington. As the British departed, Boston Patriots Paul Revere (pictured) and William Dawes set out on horseback from the city to warn Adams and Hancock and rouse the Minutemen. The Doolittle Tokyo Raid was launched on April 18, 1942. April 18th is the birthday of pastor and former Washington Representative Matt Shea. (Born 1974). On April 18th, 1906, the San Francisco earthquake struck northern California, …

On April 17, 1970, the Apollo 13 command module—carrying James A. Lovell, Jr., Fred W. Haise, Jr., and John L. Swigert, Jr.—entered Earth‘s atmosphere and splashed down, ending one of the most tense chapters in space history; four days earlier an oxygen tank had exploded, threatening the lives of the three astronauts. — On April 17, 1961, about 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. Due to the Cuba/Soviet intelligence network as well as loose talk by members of the brigade, which was …

April 16, 1746: Battle of Culloden, the last battle on British soil: Royalist troops under the Duke of Cumberland defeat the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart. The Jacobite Rising — which began a year before — was an attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the British throne for his father, James Francis Edward Stuart. April 16th is the birthday of two notable novelists– the late J. Neil Schulman (pictured) and Samuel Youd. Agorist-Libertarian activist J. Neil Schulman (born April 16, 1953, died 2019) was best known as author of the novel Alongside Night. The late Samuel Youd (born …

On April 15, 1989, a small group of students initiated a pro-democracy protest on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The death of reformer Hu Yaobang triggered the demonstrations, which grew in size and were brutally dispersed in the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4. April 15th is traditionally Tax Day, but I prefer to remember it as Roy Clark‘s birthday. He was born April 15, 1933. April 15th, 1912, is the anniversary of the sinking of the “unsinkable” Titanic. 1,517 people lost their lives on the maiden voyage. As research into the incident has progressed over the last 100 years, it …