April 23rd
 

1348 ~ King Edward the Third of England established the Order of the Garter.

1564 ~ Traditional birthday of William Shakespeare, Playwright.

1772 ~ Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle wrote the French National Anthem, "La Marseillaise".

1858 ~ Birthday of Max Planck, Physicist. (1918 Nobel Prize)

1891 ~ Birthday of Sergei Prokofiev, Composer.

1933 ~ The Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) established.

1936 ~ Birthday of Roy Orbison, Musician.

1948 ~ Birthday of Bernadette Devlin, MP.

1954 ~ Hank Aaron hit his first major league home run.

2003 ~ Beijing closed all schools for two weeks due to the SARS virus.

April 24th
 

1800 ~ The United States Library of Congress established.

1814 ~ British troops burn Washington, DC.

1856 ~ Birthday of Philippe Pétain, General.

1905 ~ Birthday of Robert Penn Warren, Author.

1916 ~ Easter Uprising in Ireland.

1934 ~ Birthday of Shirley MacLaine, Actress & Author.

1942 ~ Birthday of Barbra Streisand, Entertainer.

1953 ~ Winston Churchill knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

1967 ~ Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died in Soyuz 1.

1990 ~ The Hubble Space Telescope launched aboard Space Shuttle “Discovery”.

April 25th
 

1599 ~ Birthday of Oliver Cromwell, Protector.

1719 ~ ”Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe is published.

1840 ~ Birthday of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer.

1859 ~ Ground is broken for the Suez Canal.

1874 ~ Birthday of Guglielmo Marconi, Electrical engineer and Nobel Prize laureate.

1900 ~ Birthday of Wolfgang Pauli, physicist and Nobel Prize laureate.

1953 ~ In an article in "Nature", James Watson and Francis Crick described the structure of a chemical called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.

1917 ~ Birthday of Ella Fitzgerald, Jazz Singer.

1959 ~ The St. Lawrence Seaway linking the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean officially opened.

1961 ~ Robert Noyce is granted the first patent for an integrated circuit.


ANZAC Day (Australia, New Zealand)

April 26th
 

1607 ~ An expedition of English colonists, including Captain John Smith, went ashore at Cape Henry, Virginia, to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.

1787 ~ Birthday of John Audubon, Naturalist.

1865 ~ John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln, was surrounded and killed by federal troops near Bowling Green, Virginia.

1895 ~ Birthday of Rudolf Hess, Reichsminister/SS-Obergruppenführer

1900 ~ Birthday of Charles Richter, Seismologist.

1937 ~ Planes from Nazi Germany raided the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. Pablo Picasso used this event for his tour de force “Guernica”.

1964 ~ The African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania.

1986 ~ The world's worst nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union.

1992 ~ Christians officially celebrated the first Russian Orthodox Easter in Moscow in 74 years.

1994 ~ Voting began in South Africa's first all-race elections.

April 27th
 

1667 ~ The blind, impoverished John Milton sold the copyright of “Paradise Lost” for £10.

1737 ~ Birthday of Edward Gibbon, Historian.

1773 ~ The British Parliament passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.

1791 ~ Birthday of Samuel Morse, Inventor.

1820 ~ Birthday of Herbert Spencer, Philosopher, editor of “The Economist”, who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest".

1822 ~ Birthday of Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. General & President.

1908 ~ The 1908 Summer Olympics opened in London.

1960 ~ Togo gains independence from French-administered UN trusteeship.

1961 ~ Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom.

1981 ~ Xerox PARC introduced the computer mouse.

April 28th

1442 ~ Birthday of King Edward IV of England.

1788 ~ Maryland became the 7th state to ratify the Constitution of the United States.

1889 ~ Birthday of António de Oliveira Salazar, Dictator.

1920 ~ Azerbaijan was added to the Soviet Union.

1906 ~ Birthday of Kurt Gödel, Mathematician.

1952 ~ The United States occupation of Japan ended.

1908 ~ Birthday of Oskar Schindler, Businessman.

1969 ~ Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of France.

1937 ~ Birthday of Saddam Hussein, Dictator.

2003 ~ Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store released, sells 1,000,000 songs in first week.

April 29th
 

1429 ~ Joan of Arc relieved Orleans from English siege.

1770 ~ James Cook discovered Botany Bay, Australia.

1863 ~ Birthday of William Randolph Hearst, Publisher.

1879 ~ Birthday of Sir Thomas Beecham, Conductor.

1899 ~ Birthday of Edward "Duke" Ellington, Jazz Pianist, Bandleader.

1901 ~ Birthday of Michinomiya Hirohito, Emperor

1936 ~ Birthday of Zubin Mehta, Conductor.

1945 ~ Adolf Hitler married his long-time partner Eva Braun and designated Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor.

1946 ~ Former Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tojo and 28 former Japanese leaders were indicted for war crimes.

1988 ~ Glasnost: Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev promised increased religious freedoms.

April 30th
 

313 ~ Roman emperor Licinius unified the entire Eastern Roman Empire under his rule.

1777 ~ Birthday of Carl Friedrich Gauss, Mathematician, Astronomer and Physicist.

1803 ~ Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation overnight.

1870 ~ Birthday of Franz Lehár, Composer.

1877 ~ Birthday of Alice B. Toklas, Muse.

1893 ~ Birthday of Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi Foreign Minister.

1938 ~ Birthday of Larry Niven, Science Fiction Author.

1945 ~ Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commited suicide after being married for one day.

1948 ~ The Land Rover unveiled at the Amsterdam Auto Show.

1975 ~ Vietnam War: North Vietnamese troops occupied Saigon, ending the war.

May 1st
 

305 ~ Diocletian and Maximian retired from the office of Roman Emperor.

1707 ~ The Act of Union joined England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1786 ~ Premier night of the opera “The Marriage of Figaro” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

1830 ~ Birthday of Mother Jones, Labor Activist.

1852 ~ Birthday of Calamity Jane, Riflewoman.

1840 ~ The Penny Black, the world's first official adhesive postage stamp went on sale

1923 ~ Birthday of Shimon Peres, Israeli Statesman.

1932 ~ Birthday of Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League.

1944 ~ Birthday of Rita Coolidge, singer

2004 ~ Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia join the European Union.



Day of the International Solidarity of Workers (particularly in Communist countries).

May 2nd
 

1660 ~ Birthday of Alessandro Scarlatti, Composer.

1670 ~ The Hudson's Bay Company formed in England.

1729 ~ Birthday of Empress Catherine II of Russia.

1892 ~ Birthday of Manfred von Richthofen, Pilot.

1903 ~ Birthday of Dr. Benjamin Spock, pediatrician, Olympic gold medalist, Author.

1904 ~ Birthday of Bing Crosby, Actor and Singer.

1933 ~ The first modern sighting of the Loch Ness monster reported.

1939 ~ Lou Gehrig's streak of 2,130 consecutive baseball games played came to an end. The record stood for 57 years before Cal Ripken, Jr. broke it.

1952 ~ The first commercial jet plane, the BOAC Comet, entered service.

1997 ~ Tony Blair became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, ending 18 years of Conservative Party rule. At 44, he was the youngest prime minister in 185 years.

May 3rd
 

612 ~ Birthday of Constantine III, Byzantine Emperor.

1469 ~ Birthday of Nicolò Machiavelli, Historian and Political Author.

1810 ~ Lord Byron swims the Hellespont. It was one of those things that couldn’t be done.

1889 ~ Birthday of Golda Meir, PM of Israel.

1906 ~ Birthday of Mary Astor, Actress.

1912 ~ The first victims of the RMS Titanic are buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

1951 ~ London's Royal Festival Hall opens.

1959 ~ Birthday of Ben Elton, Comedian & Author.

1982 ~ Falklands War: The HMS Sheffield is hit by an Exocet missile and sinks.

2000 ~ Datapoint, the company that commissioned the Intel 8008 microprocessor, declares bankruptcy.


Today is World Press Freedom Day.

May 4th
 

1825 ~ Birthday of Thomas Henry Huxley, Scientist and staunch defender of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

1928 ~ Birthday of Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt.

1936 ~ Birthday of El Cordobes, Bullfighter.

1930 ~ British police arrest Mahatma Gandhi.

1941 ~ Birthday of George Will, Writer.

1942 ~ Battle of the Coral Sea began.

1942 ~ Birthday of Tammy Wynette, Country Musician.

1961 ~ American civil rights movement: The "Freedom Riders" began a bus trip through the South.

1970 ~ Kent State massacre: The Ohio National Guard opened fire on students protesting the United States' invasion of Cambodia. Four students are killed, 9 wounded.

1979 ~ Margaret Thatcher appointed PM of the United Kingdom.

May 5th
 

1809 ~ Mary Kies became the first woman to be awarded a US patent.

1813 ~ Birthday of Søren Kierkegaard, Philosopher.

1818 ~ Birthday of Karl Marx, Political philosopher.

1821 ~ Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor.

1891 ~ Carnegie Hall had its grand opening and first public performance (Tchaikovsky was the guest conductor).

1843 ~ Birthday of Michael Palin, comedian ("Monty Python").

1925 ~ Biology teacher John Scopes arrested for teaching Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

1961 ~ Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into space. He made a space flight of 15 minutes, making less than one complete orbit.

1980 ~ The Special Air Service stormed the Iranian embassy in London after a time of siege.

1995 ~ Death of Mikhail Botvinnik, world chess champion.

May 6th
 

1758 ~ Birthday of Maximilian Robespierre, Revolutionary.

1856 ~ Birthday of Sigmund Freud, Psychiatrist.

1889 ~ The Eiffel Tower officially opened to the public.

1915 ~ Birthday of Orson Welles, Director.

1915 ~ Birthday of Theodore H. White, Writer.

1931 ~ Birthday of Willie Mays, Athlete.

1937 ~ The German zeppelin “Hindenburg” caught fire and was destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

1954 ~ Roger Bannister became the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.

1994 ~ Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand officially opened the Chunnel.

2004 ~ The last episode of the television sitcom Friends aired.

May 7th
 

558 ~ In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapsed. Justinian immediately ordered the dome rebuilt.

1812 ~ Birthday of Robert Browning, Poet.

1832 ~ Greece became independent.

1833 ~ Birthday of Johannes Brahms, Composer.

1840 ~ Birthday of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer.

1909 ~ Birthday of Edwin H. Land, inventor and founder of Polaroid.

1915 ~ The RMS “Lusitania” is sunk by a German U-boat killing 1,198.

1919 ~ Birthday of Eva Peron, wife of Argentina's President Juan Peron.

1945 ~ General Alfred Jodl signed unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document took effect the next day.

1998 ~ Apple Computer unveiled the iMac.