2019 in the United States

Events from the year 2019 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government President: Donald Trump (R-New York, then R-Florida) Vice President: Mike Pence (R-Indiana) Chief Justice: John Roberts (Maryland) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) (until January 3) Nancy Pelosi (D-California) (starting January 3) Senate Majority Leader: Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) Congress: 115th (until January 3), 116th (starting January 3)

State governments Governors and lieutenant governors Governors

Lieutenant governors

Events

January January 1 Public Domain Day: All works published in 1923 except sound recordings enter the public domain in the United States, the first works to do so since the passage of the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Washington state bans all persons under 21 years of age from purchasing a semi-automatic assault rifle. January 2 – Adventist Health System rebranded its facilities to the trade name AdventHealth. January 3 – The Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, with a promise to end the government shutdown, but without funding for President Donald Trump's proposed border wall. The Republicans increase their control of the United States Senate. January 4 – Government data reveals that the U.S. economy added 312,000 jobs in December, far ahead of predictions of 177,000, and that manufacturing ended 2018 with the most jobs added in one year since 1997. January 6 - Six people, including an Arab American family from Michigan, are killed after an SUV and a pickup truck collide on Interstate 75 in Lexington, Kentucky, U.S., causing both vehicles to catch fire.https://abcnews.com/US/family-killed-car-driving-wrong-kentucky-interstate/story?id=60195090 January 8 – In a televised address to the nation, President Donald Trump makes the case for his proposed border wall. January 11 – Representative Tulsi Gabbard announces her candidacy for U.S. president. January 12 The ongoing government shutdown becomes the longest in U.S. history at 22 days, leaving 800,000 employees unpaid. Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro announces his candidacy for U.S. president. January 14 – J. B. Pritzker is sworn in as the 43rd governor of Illinois, replacing Bruce Rauner. January 15 – Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announces her candidacy for U.S. president. January 19 – President Trump offers a "compromise" of three years' additional protection for 700,000 Dreamers who entered the US illegally with their parents and the 300,000 people holding visas under Temporary Protection Status (TPS) in exchange for funding for his security wall, but the offer is rejected by Democrats. January 21 – The Supreme Court rules that the Trump administration is allowed to limit military service for transgender people. January 23 – South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg announces his candidacy for U.S. president. January 25 Political consultant Roger Stone is charged with seven counts in the 2017–2019 Special Counsel's investigation, including obstruction of justice and witness tampering. Flights are halted into New York's LaGuardia Airport due to shortages of air traffic control staff, as a result of the ongoing government shutdown. President Trump agrees to temporarily end the government shutdown as he backs a deal to fund federal agencies for three weeks. January 28 – The Justice Department charges Chinese tech firm Huawei with multiple counts of fraud, raising U.S.-China tensions. January 29 – Author Marianne Williamson announces her candidacy for U.S. president. January 30 Large portions of the United States are hit by a polar vortex, bringing "once-in-a-generation" low temperatures and heavy snow. A state of emergency is declared in several states and a number of cold-related deaths are reported. Teachers rally in Denver following a vote on January 22 to strike for higher pay.Denver teachers rally at State Capitol 9News, 2019-01-30. Sandusky, Ohio becomes the first city in the country to make Election Day a paid holiday while eliminating Columbus Day.

February February 1 President Donald Trump confirms that the U.S. will leave the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty. Senator Cory Booker announces his candidacy for U.S. president. February 3 – Super Bowl LIII is hosted at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. Tom Brady, the quarterback of the New England Patriots football team, wins his sixth championship, the most NFL world championships ever won by a single player, with the Patriots' six titles tying the Steelers for most Super Bowl wins. February 5 – State of the Union Address. February 9 – Senator Elizabeth Warren announces her candidacy for U.S. president. February 10 – Senator Amy Klobuchar announces her candidacy for U.S. president. February 12 – Mexican drug boss Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán is found guilty on all 10 counts at his drug-trafficking trial at a federal court in New York. February 15 Gary Montez Martin murders five people and injures six others in a mass shooting at Henry Pratt Company in Aurora, Illinois. President Trump declares a national emergency to free up funds for his proposed border wall. February 16 – Bishop Theodore Edgar McCarrick is defrocked, following historical sexual abuse allegations. He becomes the most senior Catholic figure to be dismissed from the priesthood in modern times. February 19 – Senator Bernie Sanders announces his candidacy for the 2020 presidential election. February 20 – U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant Christopher Paul Hasson, who planned a domestic terrorist attack targeting politicians and journalists, is arrested. February 21 Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax: Actor Jussie Smollett is arrested after being charged with disorderly conduct for staging a racist attack on himself in Chicago. Smollett maintains his innocence. Senator Kamala Harris declares her candidacy for U.S. president. February 22 Singer R. Kelly is charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for incidents dating back as far as 1998. National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System: The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas rules that male-only conscription breaches the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. February 23 – Atlas Air Flight 3591 crashed into Trinity Bay, near Anahuac, Texas, approximately 40 miles southeast of George Bush Intercontinental Airport, killing everyone onboard. February 24 – The 91st Academy Awards, the first since 1989 to have no official host, are held at Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, with Peter Farrelly's Green Book winning Best Picture. Bryan Singer's Bohemian Rhapsody wins four awards, among them Rami Malek for Best Actor, and both Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite and Alfonso Cuarón's Roma both lead with ten nominations. Cuarón wins his second Best Director award, Olivia Colman wins Best Actress for The Favourite, Mahershala Ali Best Supporting Actor for Green Book and Regina King Best Supporting Actress for If Beale Street Could Talk. The telecast garners nearly 29.6 million viewers. February 27 – President Trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen tells Congress that Trump had advanced knowledge of leaked Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential campaign. February 27–28 – The 2019 North Korea–United States Hanoi Summit is held in Vietnam. It is the second summit with a United States president and the North Korean leader.

March March 1 – Washington State governor Jay Inslee announces his candidacy in the 2020 presidential election. March 3 An unmanned demonstration flight of the SpaceX Dragon achieves successful autonomous docking with the International Space Station. A severe tornado outbreak hits the southern states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, leaving at least 23 people dead and leaving 10,000 homes and businesses without electricity.Tornadoes kill at least 23 in Lee County, Alabama BBC, March 4, 2019 March 4 – Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper announces his candidacy for the 2020 U.S. presidential election. March 8 – Captain Marvel, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, is released by Marvel Studios as the 21st film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It becomes the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2019 during its run, earning $1.128 billion worldwide. March 12 The 2019 college admissions bribery scandal becomes public; around 50 people are accused of bribery and fraud to secure admission to elite colleges, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin. California governor Gavin Newsom places a moratorium on California's death penalty, thus ordering a reprieve for the 737 people on death row. March 13 Boeing grounds its entire global fleet of 737 Max aircraft in response to evidence gathered following the crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610. Former Representative Beto O'Rourke announces his candidacy for the 2020 U.S. presidential election. March 15 President Trump issues the first veto of his presidency, striking down a Senate resolution to end his national emergency declaration to build a border wall. Hundreds of students stage a walkout and rally at the Capitol building, demanding legal action on climate change. They are joined by students in over 1,600 simultaneous protests in 100 countries around the world. Robert Gentile, 82, whom federal authorities believe is a person of interest in the $500 million Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft, is released from federal custody. The New Mexico legislature votes to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day. March 17 The Washington State Senate approves legislation that would legally require all presidential candidates to release the last five years of their personal tax returns in order to have their names featured on both primary and general election voting ballots. The University of Tennessee announces it will guarantee free tuition and fees to admitted in-state residents with a family household income of less than $50,000. March 18 – Floods across the Midwest kill at least three people and inflict hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. March 19 – American Karen Uhlenbeck is the first woman to win the Abel Prize for outstanding contributions to mathematics. March 20 – The International 2019 Major League Baseball season begins with the Oakland Athletics and the Seattle Mariners playing in Japan at the Tokyo Dome. March 21 – Cesar Sayoc, 57, the Florida man accused of the October 2018 United States mail bombing attempts, pleads guilty in Manhattan federal court to 65 felony counts, including using weapons of mass destruction in an attempted domestic terrorist attack. March 22 Jimmy Carter becomes the longest-living U.S. president at 94 years, 172 days old. Special Counsel Robert Mueller turns in the report of his nearly two-year investigation on whether the Trump campaign helped Russia interfere in the 2016 presidential election. The Department of Defense declares that the Islamic State militant group no longer controls any territory in Syria. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces declare victory over the group the following day. March 23 – For the second time in a week, a survivor of the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, commits suicide. On March 17, Sydney Aiello, 19, committed suicide after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. March 24 – Attorney General William Barr sends members of Congress a four page letter outlining the principle conclusions of the Mueller Report. March 25 Kentucky outlaws bestiality. Attorney Michael Avenatti is arrested in New York on charges of attempting to extort more than $20 million from sports company Nike. He is also charged with wire and bank fraud in a separate case in Los Angeles.