1. On August 19, 1838, the Cherokee Nation in Texas signed the Treaty of Camp Tahlequah, which ceded their land to the government and moved them farther west. This was a result of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forced Native American tribes to move from their ancestral lands to designated Indian Territory.

2. On the same day in 1862, the Battle of Cedar Mountain took place during the American Civil War. Confederate forces under General Stonewall Jackson attacked Union forces led by General Nathaniel Banks in Culpeper County, Virginia. The battle was a Confederate victory.

3. In 1916, August 19 became known as the Black Sunday Dust Storm in the Texas Panhandle. A severe drought caused large dust storms that destroyed crops and led to a mass migration of people out of the area. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s was also caused by similar weather conditions.

4. On August 19, 1966, Charles Whitman went to the top of the University of Texas Tower in Austin and opened fire on the campus, killing 14 people and injuring over 30. This event is still considered one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history.

5. In 1977, a jury found David Owen Brooks guilty of murder in the Houston Mass Murders case. Brooks, along with Dean Corll and Elmer Wayne Henley, was responsible for the kidnapping, torture, and murder of at least 28 teenage boys in Houston. Corll was killed by Henley, who later testified against Brooks.