by April 19th commemorates a number of things.
The Battles of Lexington and Concord was fought on this day in 1775 and thus began the Revolutionary War. It is the day in which farmers, shopkeepers, and Minutemen united as a citizen militia to battle Gen. Thomas Gage’s British regulars when the latter came for the former’s guns and ammo. It is an official holiday in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where officials have long forgotten what the spark was that ignited the war.
76 men, women, and children died a fiery death in Waco, Texas when the FBI launched their attack on the Branch Davidian compound on this day in 1993. Regardless of who actually started the gun battle between the Branch Davidians and the ATF in February, no one can deny that many innocents died in the fire.
Two years later in 1995 (corrected), Timothy McVeigh “commemorated” Waco by blowing up the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. 168 men, women, and children died in the bombing and scores more were injured.
Dave Hardy at Of Arms and the Law notes that the Washington Post only remembers one of these events.
Frankly, we should remember all three as each event imparts a lesson we should learn. I’ll leave it to you and to history to figure out those lessons.