TODAY is Wednesday, April 19, the 109th day of 2005. There are 256 days left in the year.

ON THIS DATE<$>

In 1943, during the Second World War, tens of thousands of Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant but futile battle against Nazi forces.

In 1951, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his Far East command by US<\p>President Harry Truman, bid farewell to Congress, quoting a line from a ballad: “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”

In 1993, 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 David Koresh, were killed.

In 1995, a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds. (Timothy McVeigh was later convicted of federal murder charges and executed.)