April 18 · This Day in America
Late on the night of April 18, 1775, Dr. Joseph Warren learns the British regulars are moving — out toward Concord, to seize the colonists' powder and guns. He sends for Paul Revere. A friend climbs the steeple of Christ Church in Boston's North End and hangs two lanterns: by sea. Revere is rowed across the Charles, past the dark hull of a British warship, borrows a horse in Charlestown, and rides into the country shouting that the regulars are coming out. He is not alone — William Dawes rides another road, Samuel Prescott carries the word the last miles after Revere is briefly caught. By dawn the militia of a hundred towns are awake and arming. No nation has been declared yet. No army exists. Just farmers, a borrowed horse, and a warning passed hand to hand through the dark — fast enough to change everything.
Source: www.paulreverehouse.org
Also on this day · 1906
On April 18, 1906, a great rupture of the San Andreas Fault throws San Francisco out of its beds at dawn. The shaking lasts about a minute; the fires that follow burn for days, fed by broken water mains. Some 28,000 buildings are destroyed and roughly 3,000 people die. Yet within weeks tents become storefronts and the rebuilding begins almost defiantly. The city would put the year of its disaster on its seal, beside a phoenix.
Source: earthquake.usgs.gov
“The Regulars are coming out.”Paul Revere, recalling the night of April 18, 1775