On this day in history - April 19

What Happened On This Day – April 19

• 1995 168 die in the Oklahoma City bombing

  Timothy McVeigh, the mastermind behind the attack, was executed on June 11, 2001. The motives for the bombing, which also killed 19 babies and children, remain somewhat unclear.

• 1987 The first installment of The Simpsons is aired

  The hugely popular animated sitcom debuted on the Tracey Ullman Show in the form of one-minute shorts.

• 1971 The Soviet Union launches the world's first manned space station

  Salyut 1 was 23 meters long and offered 100 cubic meters of pressurized space.

• 1919 Leslie Irvin makes the world's first free-fall parachute jump

  The jump was executed to test a new kind of parachute, which was also the first featuring a ripcord. The Hollywood stuntman broke a leg on landing.

• 1775 The American Revolutionary War begins

  The Battles of Lexington and Concord marked the beginning of the armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and 13 colonies of British North America. The war resulted in U.S. independence.