(CNN) — It didn’t take long Monday for speculation to ramp up online over the timing of the Boston Marathon bombings, which came on Patriots Day, a state holiday in Massachusetts and Maine marking the anniversary of the opening battles of the American Revolutionary War.
The American uprising against British authority in Lexington, Massachusetts, was on April 19, 1775, but Patriots Day is celebrated on the third Monday in April, falling this year on April 15.
“It’s a day that celebrates the free and fiercely independent spirit that this great American city of Boston has reflected from the earliest days of our nation,” President Obama said Monday, a few hours after a pair of bombs rocked the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing at least three and injuring dozens more.
For many New Englanders, it is a day of pride that comes with historical re-enactments, the Boston Marathon, baseball and a day off for schools and government employees.
It’s now a day that will go down in history along with other violent U.S. incidents in April, including the 1993 FBI siege of David Koresh’s compound in Waco, Texas, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, a mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999 and the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007.
The Waco siege and the Oklahoma City bombing fell on April 19, the actual anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. To some people following Monday’s bombing online and through social media, the proximity of Monday’s incident to those anniversaries was enough to suggest an act of domestic terrorism…. (read more)