History can be thought of as His Story

March 26th
 

1827 ~ Death of Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer.

1874 ~ Birthday of Robert Frost, Poet.

1881 ~ Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about industrial pollution.

1892 ~ Death of Walt Whitman, Poet.

1904 ~ Birthday of Joseph Campbell, Author & Mythologist.

1911 ~ Birthday of Tennessee Williams, Playwright.

1964 ~ The musical “Funny Girl”, starring Barbra Streisand, opened on Broadway.

1979 ~ Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter signed the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in Washington, DC.

1981 ~ The "Gang of Four", Roy Jenkins, David Owen, William Rodgers and Shirley Williams, founded the Social Democratic Party.

1999 ~ The Melissa worm infected e-mail systems around the world.

March 27th
 

1836 ~ Antonio López de Santa Anna ordered the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texans at Goliad, Texas.

1845 ~ Birthday of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, physicist, awarded the first Nobel Prize in physics.

1863 ~ Birthday of Sir Henry Royce, automobile pioneer.

1871 ~ First international rugby football match, England v. Scotland, played in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place.

1886 ~ Birthday of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Architect.

1958 ~ Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the USSR.

1968 ~ Death of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.

1972 ~ Death of M. C. Escher, Dutch artist.

1977 ~ A KLM Boeing 747, attempting to take off, crashed into a Pan Am 747 on the Canary Island of Tenerife, killing 582 people.

2002 ~ Passover Massacre: A suicide bomber killed 28 people in Netanya, Israel.

March 28th
 

1854 ~ Crimean War: The UK and France declared war on Russia.

1881 ~ Death of Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer.

1903 ~ Birthday of Rudolf Serkin, Austrian pianist.

1910 ~ Henri Fabre becomes the first man to fly a seaplane after taking off from a water runway near Martigues, France.

1939 ~ Generalissimo Franco entered Madrid, essentially ending the Spanish Civil War.

1943 ~ Death of Sergei Rachmaninoff, composer and pianist.

1947 ~ The last episode of the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century played on radio.

1979 ~ One of the nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island was severely damaged in what remains as the largest nuclear incident in U.S. history.

1987 ~ Death of Maria von Trapp, Singer.

2004 ~ Death of Peter Ustinov, Actor.

March 29th
 

1799 ~ New York passed a law aimed at gradually abolishing slavery in the state.

1867 ~ Queen Victoria gave Royal Assent to the British North America Act which established the Dominion of Canada on July 1.

1899 ~ Birthday of Lavrenty Beria, Soviet Communist leader.

1912 ~ Death of Robert Falcon Scott, Explorer.

1973 ~ The last U.S. troops left South Vietnam, ending America's direct military involvement in the Vietnam War.

1981 ~ First running of the London Marathon.

1982 ~ Queen Elizabeth gave Royal Assent to the Canada Act 1982, setting the stage for the Queen of Canada to proclaim the Constitution Act, 1982.

1984 ~ The Baltimore Colts of the NFL moved to Indianapolis in the middle of the night.

2004 ~ Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia join NATO as full members.

2004 ~ Death of Alistair Cook, Journalist.

March 30th
 

1746 ~ Birthday of Francisco Goya, Spanish painter and engraver.

1842 ~ Anesthesia (ether) was used for the first time in an operation.

1853 ~ Birthday of Vincent van Gogh, Painter.

1870 ~ Texas was readmitted to the Union following Reconstruction.

1951 ~ Julius and Ethel Rosenberg convicted of espionage.

1951 ~ Remington Rand delivered the first UNIVAC I computer to the U.S. Census Bureau.

1977 ~ Death of Sergey Ilyushin, Russian aerospace engineer.

1981 ~ President Reagan was shot and seriously injured.

1987 ~ Vincent Van Gogh's painting Sunflowers was bought for almost $40 million.

1998 ~ German automaker BMW bought Rolls-Royce for $570 million.

March 31st
 

1596 ~ Birthday of René Descartes, Mathematician.

1621 ~ Birthday of Andrew Marvell, English poet.

1732 ~ Birthday of Joseph Haydn, Composer.

1837 ~ Death of John Constable, Painter.

1855 ~ Death of Charlotte Brontë, Author.

1918 ~ Daylight Savings Time went into effect in the United States for the first time.

1959 ~ The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, crossed the border into India and was granted political asylum.

1968 ~ President Johnson announced he would not run for re-election.

1970 ~ After 12 years in orbit, Explorer 1 burns up when it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere.

1991 ~ The end of the Warsaw Pact.

April 1st
 

1815 ~ Birthday of Otto von Bismarck, Politician.

1884 ~ Birthday of Florence Blanchfield, the first woman to receive a regular commission in the U.S. Army.

1873 ~ Birthday of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Composer, Pianist & Conductor.

1917 ~ Death of Scott Joplin, Musician & Composer.

1918 ~ The Royal Flying Corps was replaced by the Royal Air Force.

1945 ~ World War II: U.S. forces invaded Okinawa.

1970 ~ President Nixon signed a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and TV.

1976 ~ Apple Computer Company was formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

2001 ~ Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was arrested and taken to prison.

2001 ~ A U.S. intelligence gathering plane collided with a PRC Army fighter jet. The Navy crew makes an emergency landing in Hainan, PRC and was detained.

Feastdays & Holidays

April Fools Day

April 2nd
 

1725 ~ Birthday of Giacomo Casanova, adventurer and writer.

1805 ~ Birthday of Hans Christian Andersen, Danish writer.

1875 ~ Birthday of Walter Chrysler, automobile pioneer.

1917 ~ President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany.

1917 ~ The first woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress, Jeannette Rankin, took her seat as a representative from Montana.

1966 ~ Death of C.S. Forester, Author.

1978 ~ Dallas premiered on CBS, beginning a 13-year run.

1982 ~ Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, starting the war.

1986 ~ A grandmother, her daughter and her granddaughter were sucked out of a TWA jet when it was bombed by a group calling itself the Ezzedine Kassam Unit of the Arab Revolutionary Cells

2005 ~ Death of Pope John Paul II.

April 3rd
 

1783 ~ Birthday of Washington Irving, Author.

1882 ~ Jesse James was shot in the back and killed for a $5,000 reward.

1885 ~ Gottlieb Daimler was granted a German patent for his engine design.

1895 ~ The libel trial started by Oscar Wilde against the Marquess of Queensbury began, eventually resulting in Wilde's arrest, trial and imprisonment on charges of homosexuality.

1897 ~ Death of Johannes Brahms, Composer.

1901 ~ Death of Richard D'Oyly Carte, Impresario.

1934 ~ Birthday of Jane Goodall, Zoologist.

1946 ~ Masaharu Homma, the Japanese general responsible for the Bataan Death March, was executed in the Philippines.

1948 ~ President Truman signed the Marshall Plan.

1996 ~ Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was arrested at his Montana cabin.

April 4th
 

1884 ~ Birthday of Isoroku Yamamoto, naval commander.

1885 ~ Birthday of Arthur Murray, dancer.

1902 ~ British financier Cecil Rhodes left £6 million in his will to provide scholarships for Americans at Oxford University in England.

1949 ~ Twelve nations signed The North Atlantic Treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

1964 ~ The Beatles occupied all of the top five positions on the Billboard singles chart in the United States.

1968 ~ Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated.

1979 ~ Death of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan Prime Minister (hanged).

1984 ~ President Reagan called for an international ban on chemical weapons.

1984 ~ Winston Smith, the main character of George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four, began writing in his secret diary.

1994 ~ Netscape Communications Corporation was founded by Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark.

April 5th
 

1588 ~ Birthday of Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher.

1614 ~ In Virginia, Pocahontas married English colonist John Rolfe.

1792 ~ President Washington cast the first presidential veto, rejecting a congressional measure for apportioning representatives among the states.

1827 ~ Birthday of Joseph Lister, Surgeon.

1908 ~ Birthday of Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor.

1930 ~ In an act of civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi breaks British law after marching to the sea and making salt.

1951 ~ Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were sentenced to death for spying for the Soviet Union.

1955 ~ Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister of the U.K. due to failing health.

1964 ~ Death of General Douglas MacArthur, US Army.

1976 ~ Death of Howard Hughes, aviation pioneer.

April 6th
 

1528 ~ Death of Albrecht Dürer, Artist.

1866 ~ Birthday of Butch Cassidy, Outlaw.

1895 ~ Oscar Wilde was arrested after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.

1909 ~ Robert Peary and Matthew Henson became the first men to reach the North Pole.

1928 ~ Birthday of James D. Watson, Geneticist, co-discoverer of structure of DNA, awarded 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

1933 ~ Hostess Twinkies were invented.

1971 ~ Death of Igor Stravinsky, Composer.

1992 ~ Death of Isaac Asimov, Science-fiction author.

1994 ~ The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed in a plane crash near Rwanda's capital.

2001 ~ Algerian national Ahmed Ressam, accused of bringing explosives into the U.S. days before the millennium celebrations, was convicted twice in the same day - first in France for belonging to a group supporting Islamic militants, then in Los Angeles on terror charges.

April 7th
 

1614 ~ Death of El Greco (Domenikos Theotocopoulos), artist.

1770 ~ Birthday of William Wordsworth, English poet.

1795 ~ France adopted the meter as the unit of length.

1862 ~ Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.

1891 ~ Death of P. T. Barnum, Circus Impresario.

1947 ~ Death of Henry Ford, automobile manufacturer and industrialist.

1953 ~ Dag Hammarskjöld was elected United Nations Secretary General.

1964 ~ IBM announced the System/360.

1968 ~ Death of Jim Clark, racing driver.

1969 ~ The Internet's symbolic birth date: publication of First Request for Comment (RFC).

April 8th

1820 ~ The Venus de Milo was discovered on the Aegean island of Melos.

1848 ~ Death of Gaetano Donizetti, Italian composer.

1889 ~ Birthday of Sir Adrien Boult, English Conductor.

1945 ~ Pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed at the POW camp at Flossenbürg.

1953 ~ Jomo Kenyatta was convicted of being a member of the Mau Mau.

1973 ~ Death of Pablo Picasso, artist.

1974 ~ Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit his 715th career home run, breaking Babe Ruth's record.

1975 ~ Frank Robinson managed his first game as major league baseball's first African American manager.

1983 ~ Death of Omar Bradley, general.

2005 ~ The funeral of Pope John Paul II.

April 9th
 

1682 ~ Robert de LaSalle discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River, claimed it for France and named it Louisiana.

1865 ~ Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

1906 ~ Birthday of Antal Dorati, Hungarian conductor.

1940 ~ Operation Weserübung: Germany invaded Denmark and Norway.

1942 ~ HMS Hermes and Royal Australian Navy Destroyer HMAS Vampire were sunk off Ceylon’s (Sri Lanka) east coast by Japanese naval aircraft.

1926 ~ Birthday of Hugh Hefner, Editor & Publisher.

1928 ~ Birthday of Tom Lehrer, Musician & Satirist.

1959 ~ Death of Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect.

1991 ~ Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

1992 ~ Iraqis celebrated the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, beheading a toppled statue of the dictator in downtown Baghdad.

2003 ~ Iraqis celebrated the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, beheading a toppled statue of the dictator in downtown Baghdad.

There we go. Sort of scared myself into thinking I had lost a couple of years there for a second. :p

:yikes: OOoooooooooooooooopppppppppppppssssssssssssssssss! :yikes:


Thank you IowaMan!

April 10th
 

1847 ~ Birthday of Joseph Pulitzer, Journalist & Publisher.

1912 ~ The RMS Titanic left port in Southampton, England.

1919 ~ Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata was ambushed and killed by government forces.

1931 ~ Death of Khalil Gibran - Lebanese Poet.

1947 ~ Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in MLB.

1954 ~ Death of Auguste Lumière, Cinema Pioneer.

1963 ~ The American submarine USS Thresher and its crew was lost off Cape Cod, Mass.

1966 ~ Death of Evelyn Waugh, Writer.

1970 ~ Paul McCartney announced that The Beatles had broken up.

1998 ~ The Belfast Agreement was signed.

April 11th
 

1814 ~ Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to Elba.

1893 ~ Birthday of Dean Acheson, former U.S. Secretary of State.

1899 ~ Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the U.S.

1906 ~ Death of James Bailey, co-founder with Phineas Barnum of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

1945 ~ U.S. forces liberated Buchenwald concentration camp.

1951 ~ President Truman replaced General MacArthur with Lieutenant-General Ridgway.

1961 ~ Bob Dylan made his singing début in New York City.

1961 ~ Start of war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann.

1979 ~ Idi Amin deposed as president of Uganda.

2001 ~ China agreed to free the crew of an American spy plane that had collided with a Chinese fighter plane.

April 12th
 

65 ~ Death of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Philosopher, Dramatist & Statesman.

1606 ~ The Union Jack was adopted as the national flag of Great Britain.

1861 ~ The Civil War began as Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

1895 ~ Birthday of Lily Pons, Opera Soprano.

1937 ~ Frank Whittle ground-tested the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft.

1940 ~ Birthday of Herbie Hancock, Musician.

1944 ~ Birthday of John Kay, of Steppenwolf.

1945 ~ President Franklin Roosevelt died.

1961 ~ Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space aboard Vostok 1.

1984 ~ Arthur Scargill, the man who led the destruction of the National Union of Mineworkers ruled out a national ballot of miners on whether to continue their strike.

April 13th
 

1570 ~ Birthday of Guy Fawkes, Gunpowder Plot conspirator.

1742 ~ George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah premiered in Dublin, Ireland.

1743 ~ Birthday of Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President.

1826 ~ Death of Franz Danzi, German composer.

1829 ~ The British Parliament granted freedom of religion to Roman Catholics.

1892 ~ Birthday of Arthur Harris, commander of RAF's Bomber Command in World War II.

1964 ~ Sidney Poitier broke the color barrier when he was awarded the “Best Actor” Oscar.

1970 ~ Apollo 13 was almost lost when a tank containing liquid oxygen burst.

1990 ~ The Soviet Union admitted committing the Katyn Massacre.

1997 ~ Tiger Woods became the youngest golfer to win golf's Masters Tournament.

April 14th
 

1629 ~ Birthday of Christiaan Huygens, Mathematician.

1759 ~ Death of Georg Friedrich Handel, Composer.

1865 ~ President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth.

1904 ~ Birthday of Sir John Gielgud, Actor.

1912 ~ RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage.

1935 ~ Death of Emmy Noether, Mathematician.

1939 ~ ''The Grapes of Wrath'' by John Steinbeck was published.

1964 ~ Death of Rachel Carson, Writer & Ecologist.

1988 ~ The USSR pledged to leave Afghanistan.

1970 ~ The Oregon Supreme Court nullified nearly 3,000 marriage licenses issued to homosexual couples a year earlier by Portland's Multnomah County.

Lincoln's unwell????

April 15th
 

1452 ~ Birthday of Leonardo da Vinci.

1707 ~ Birthday of Leonhard Euler, Mathematician.

1802 ~ William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy come across a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring him to write "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud".

1912 ~ The RMS Titanic sank.

1924 ~ Birthday of Sir Neville Marriner, Conductor.

1924 ~ Rand McNally published its first road atlas.

1945 ~ British & Canadian troops liberate Bergen-Belsen

1955 ~ The first McDonald's restaurant opened in Des Plaines, Illinois.

1994 ~ Representatives of 124 countries signed the Marrakesh Agreements which replaced the GATT with the WTO.

1998 ~ Death of Pol Pot, Cambodian Dictator.

I've got to add one more for today jseal.

1947 ~ Jack Roosevelt Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers to become the first African-American to play in a Major League Baseball game in the modern era.

Thank you Jackie, for everything. I'm a Cubs fan until my last breath but today I'm a Dodger wearing number 42. :thumb:

April 16th
 

1867 ~ Birthday of Wilbur Wright, Pioneer Pilot.

1889 ~ Birthday of Charlie Chaplin, Actor, Writer & Film Producer.

1912 ~ Harriett Quimby became the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel.

1918 ~ Birthday of Spike Milligan, Comedian.

1921 ~ Birthday of Peter Ustinov, Writer, Actor & Film Director.

1927 ~ Birthday of Joseph Ratzinger, German Shepard.

1943 ~ Dr. Albert Hofmann discovered the psychedelic effects of LSD.

1945 ~ The Red Army began the final assault on the Wehrmacht around Berlin.

1947 ~ Bernard Baruch coined the term Cold War to describe the relationship between the U.S. and the USSR.

1993 ~ The UN voted to make Srebrenica a 'safe haven'.

April 17th
 

1521 ~ Martin Luther appeared before the Holy Roman Emperor at Worms, Germany, and was cross-examined about his thoughts on religious reform.

1790 ~ Death of Benjamin Franklin, Politician, Inventor, Diplomat, & Printer.

1837 ~ Birthday of J.P. Morgan, Financier, Art Collector, & Philanthropist.

1861 ~ The Virginia State Convention voted to secede from the Union.

1894 ~ Birthday of Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet politician & Premier 1958-1964.

1903 ~ Birthday of Gregor Piatigorsky, Russian cellist.

1924 ~ Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios was formed from a merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and the Louis B. Mayer Company.

1961 ~ Cuba was invaded at the “Bay of Pigs” by a U.S. supported invasion force of 1,500 Cuban exiles, who were defeated by Fidel Castro's forces.

1984 ~ Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher was killed by gunfire coming from the Libyan People's Bureau in central London.

2003 ~ Death of Dr. Robert Atkins, noted for the Atkin's Diet.

April 18th
 

1480 ~ Birthday of Lucrezia Borgia, Renaissance ruler and daughter of Pope Alexander VI.

1772 ~ Birthday of David Ricardo, Economist.

1775 ~ Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott rode to warn of impending arrests of Samuel Adams and John Hancock and seizure of weapons.

1819 ~ Birthday of Franz von Suppé, Croatian /Austrian composer.

1946 ~ The League of Nations voted itself out of existence.

1955 ~ Death of Albert Einstein, Physicist.

1958 ~ A federal court ruled that poet Ezra Pound should be released from an insane asylum.

1978 ~ The U.S. Senate narrowly backed President Carter's controversial Panama Canal treaty.

1983 ~ A suicide bomber destroyed the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.

1999 ~ Wayne Gretzky played his last National Hockey League game, at Madison Square Garden in New York.

April 19th
 

1587 ~ Sir Francis Drake sank the Spanish fleet in Cadiz Harbor.

1861 ~ The first bloodshed of the American Civil War. A pro-Secession mob in Baltimore, Maryland attacked Federal Army troops marching through the city.

1881 ~ Death of Benjamin Disraeli, former Prime Minister of the U.K.

1882 ~ Death of Charles Darwin, Biologist & Author.

1912 ~ Birthday of Glenn Seaborg, Chemist and Nobel Prize winner.

1956 ~ Actress Grace Kelly married Rainier III of Monaco.

1989 ~ Death of Daphne du Maurier, Author.

1993 ~ A siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ended when fire destroyed the structure after federal agents smashed their way in.

1995 ~ Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was bombed, killing 168.

2005 ~ Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected pope; he took the name Benedict XVI.

April 20th
 

1653 ~ Oliver Cromwell disbanded Parliament.

1657 ~ Jews of New York City (then New Amsterdam) granted freedom of religion.

1862 ~ The first pasteurization test completed by Louis Pasteur.

1889 ~ Birthday of Adolf Hitler, German dictator, "Der Führer".

1912 ~ Death of Bram Stoker, Author.

1918 ~ Manfred von Richthofen shot down his 79th and 80th victims - his final victories.

1968 ~ Pierre Trudeau first became Prime Minister of Canada.

1968 ~ English politician Enoch Powell made his controversial Rivers of Blood speech.

1979 ~ U.S. President Carter was attacked by a Swamp Rabbit.

1999 ~ Columbine High School Massacre

April 21st
 

1649 ~ The Maryland Toleration Act, which provided for freedom of worship for all Christians, was passed by the Maryland assembly.

1816 ~ Birthday of Charlotte Brontë, Author.

1838 ~ Birthday of John Muir, Environmentalist.

1910 ~ Death of Mark Twain, author.

1912 ~ The New York Giants and New York Yankees played an exhibition game to benefit survivors of the RMS Titanic.

1926 ~ Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

1944 ~ Women in France were enfranchised.

1960 ~ Brazil inaugurated its new capital, Brasilia, transferring the seat of national government from Rio de Janeiro.

1986 ~ Geraldo Rivera opens Al Capone's vault on live television and finds nothing.

1992 ~ The first extrasolar planets were announced by astronomer Alexander Wolszczan.

April 22nd
 

1724 ~ Birthday of Immanuel Kant, Philosopher.

1870 ~ Birthday of Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionary.

1889 ~ The Oklahoma Land Rush began.

1904 ~ Birthday of Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist.

1943 ~ Albert Hofmann wrote his first report about the hallucinogenic properties of LSD.

1970 ~ First Earth Day celebrated.

1984 ~ Death of Ansel Adams, Photographer.

1997 ~ A four-month siege of the Japanese embassy in Peru ended when commandos stormed and captured the building, rescuing 71 hostages. Interestingly, all 14 rebels died.

2000 ~ In a pre-dawn raid, armed immigration agents seized Elian Gonzalez from his relatives' home in Miami; the 6-year-old boy was reunited with his father.

2002 ~ Death of Linda Lovelace, Porn Star.


Feastdays & Holidays

Earth Day : Canada, U.S.

April 23rd
 

1564 ~ Birthday of William Shakespeare, Playwright.

1858 ~ Birthday of Max Planck, Physicist. Awarded the Nobel Prize in physics 1918.

1891 ~ Birthday of Sergei Prokofiev, Soviet Composer.

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

1968 ~ Birthday of Timothy McVeigh, American Terrorist.

1969 ~ Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for assassinating Sen. Robert Kennedy.

1984 ~ American announcement of the isolation of the AIDS virus.

1994 ~ Physicists discover the top quark.

1998 ~ Death of James Earl Ray, Assassin.

2004 ~ President Bush eased Reagan-era sanctions against Libya in return for Moammar Gadhafi's giving up weapons of mass destruction.

2007 - Boris Yeltsin, Soviet strongman and the architect of the dismantling of the USSR died.

April 24th
 

1731 ~ Death of Daniel Defoe, English Writer.

1856 ~ Birthday of Henri Philippe Pétain, Soldier & Statesman.

1898 ~ Spain declared war on the U.S. over Cuba.

1905 ~ Birthday of Robert Penn Warren, Writer, Pulitzer Prize winner, first American Poet Laureate.

1916 ~ The Easter uprising began when some 1,600 Irish nationalists seized several key sites in Dublin.

1967 ~ Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died in Soyuz 1.

1986 ~ Death of Wallis Simpson, Mistress and Wife of The Duke of Windsor.

1990 ~ The Hubble Space Telescope was launched by Space Shuttle Discovery.

1996 ~ The main assembly of the Palestine Liberation Organization voted to revoke clauses in its charter that called for an armed struggle to destroy Israel.

2004 ~ Death of Estée Lauder, Cosmetics pioneer.

April 25th

1599 ~ Birthday of Oliver Cromwell, Military Leader & Politician.

1719 ~ Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe was published.

1792 ~ The French national anthem, “La Marseillaise” was composed.

1840 ~ Birthday of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Composer.

1900 ~ Birthday of Wolfgang Pauli, Physicist. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1945.

1915 ~ Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to remove the Ottoman Turkish Empire from WWI.

1917 ~ Birthday of Ella Fitzgerald, Jazz Singer.

1945 ~ The United Nations was organized in San Francisco, California, by 50 nations.

1953 ~ Francis Crick and James Watson published MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF NUCLEIC ACIDS: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid describing the double helix structure of DNA.

1980 ~ Tehran hostage rescue mission failed.

Feastdays & Holidays

Australia, New Zealand ~ ANZAC Day

April 26th
 

1607 ~ Colonists made landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia, to create the first permanent English settlement in North America.

1711 ~ Birthday of David Hume, Philosopher & Historian.

1785 ~ Birthday of John Audubon, Naturalist & Illustrator.

1935 ~ Birthday of Carol Burnett, Singer, Actress & Comedienne.

1937 ~ Planes from the Condor Legion, an adjunct of the Luftwaffe, bombed the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

1964 ~ Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania.

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

1989 ~ Death of Lucille Ball, Actress & Comedienne.

1994 ~ South Africa held its first multiracial elections.

2005 ~ Syria's 29-year military presence in Lebanon ended.

April 27th
 

1521 ~ Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed in the Philippines.

1667 ~ John Milton sold the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10.

1791 ~ Birthday of Samuel Morse, inventor of Morse code.

1813 ~ U.S. troops captured York (present day Toronto), the capital of Ontario.

1822 ~ Birthday of Ulysses S. Grant, 18th U.S. President.

1904 ~ The Australian Labor Party became the first such party to gain national government, under Chris Watson.

1965 ~ Death of Edward R. Murrow, Journalist.

1972 ~ Death of Kwame Nkrumah, first post-independence leader of Ghana.

1945 ~ Soviet and American armies link up at the Elbe.

1999 ~ Death of Al Hirt, Musician.

April 28th
 

1788 ~ Maryland became the 7th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1906 ~ Birthday of Kurt Gödel, mathematician.

1908 ~ Birthday of Oskar Schindler, Businessman.

1937 ~ Birthday of Saddam Hussein, former leader of Iraq.

1945 ~ Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were killed by members of the Italian resistance movement while trying to flee Italy.

1947 ~ Thor Heyerdahl and five crewmates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki.

1952 ~ The U.S. occupation of Japan ended.

1969 ~ Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of France.

2001 ~ Dennis Tito became the world's first space tourist.

2003 ~ Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store launched.