April 19th--What a Day in History!

Oklahoma City, Waco, the Revolutionary War.  What do they all have in common?  What do they have in common with me? 

They (and I) are all tied to April 19.  The Oklahoma City Bombing occurred on April 19, 1995, two years after and in retribution for the burning of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993.  And the first shot fired on Lexington Commons--the shot heard 'round the world--started the American Revolution on April 19, 1775.  And my birthday is April 19, 1957 (not that this is any kind of important date in history!).

Of course, today, we've seen the violent and futile pursuit of the sole remaining Boston Marathon bomber, after he killed a police officer and essentially held the entire city of Boston hostage.

Other events that happened on my birthday include:

•  In 1587, under direction from Queen Elizabeth I of England, Sir Frances Drake sailed into Cadiz harbor in Spain and sank the Spanish fleet.
• Captain James Cook, in his first round-the-world voyage, reached Australia on 19 April 1770.
• April 19 was a significant date for Abraham Lincoln.  In 1861, he ordered the blockade of all Confederate ports, the same day that  secessionist mobs in Baltimore attacked Union troops. This event has come to be called the Baltimore riots and is considered the first bloodshed in the Civil War.
• The first Boston Marathon was run in 1897.
• In 1904, an enormous fire destroyed most of Toronto, Canada.
• The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis occurred on April 19, the eve of Passover in 1943.
• Charles Manson was sentenced to death in 1971 by Judge Charles H. Older. 
• A 1993 fire in a psychiatric hospital in South Korea killed 40 people.
• A truck bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168  people and injuring hundreds more.
• In 2000, Air Philippines flight 541 crashed as it prepared to land in Davao International Airport, killing all 131 passengers and crew.  It was the deadliest air crash in Philippine history.

It is interesting to me that these kind of large-scale violent or disastrous events occur at this time of year.  April 19 usually finds the sun at 29 degrees of Aries.  The 29th degree of any sign is known as the anaretic degree. It is the last degree of the third decan (segments of ten degrees) of Aries.  Events that involve the victimization of people via propaganda (i.e. Nazism) and events that involve "valiant souls" coming to grips with "sordid conditions" (Revolutionary War, bombings, disasters) often occur during these last ten days of Aries.

Famous violent or disastrous events that have occurred in the final days of Aries include:

• This year, both the Boston Marathon Bombings and the West, Texas explosion of a fertilizer plant.
• Hitler's birthday (April 20).
• Texas City Disaster:  a ship carrying fertilizer exploded, starting a chain reaction of explosions and fires on other ships and oil facilities, killing at least 581 people, including all but one member of the Texas City fire department.
• In 1906, the great San Francisco Earthquake occurred on April 18.
• The Virginia Tech massacre took place April 16, 2007.
• April 18, 1983 saw the Beirut bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon.
• April 20 in 1985 sported an ATF raid on "The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord" compound in Arkansas.  
• The same date brought us the tragic shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999.
•  20 April 1985 - ATF raid on The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord compound in northern Arkansas. 
• And also on the 20th in 2007: two die when an armed man barricades himself  in a NASA building in the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.