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April 5th
1588 ~ Birthday of Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher.
1614 ~ In Virginia, Pocahontas marries English colonist John Rolfe. 1792 ~ U.S. President George Washington vetoed a bill. This was the first time the presidential veto was used. 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.
1652 ~ Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp at the Cape of Good Hope, which eventually developed into Cape Town. 1804 ~ The first scientifically recorded meteor landed in Possil, in north Glasgow, Scotland. 1866 ~ Birthday of Butch Cassidy, Outlaw. 1890 ~ Birthday of Anthony Fokker, Dutch Aircraft Designer. 1895 ~ Oscar Wilde was arrested after losing a libel case against the John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry. 1928 ~ Birthday of James D. Watson, Geneticist, co-discoverer of structure of DNA, winner 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. 1930 ~ Hostess Twinkies were invented. 1992 ~ Death of Isaac Asimov, Author. 1994 ~ The Rwandan Genocide began when the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down. |
April 7th
1614 ~ Death of El Greco (Domenikos Theotocopoulos), artist.
1770 ~ Birthday of William Wordsworth, English poet. 1795 ~ France adopted the metre as the unit of length 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 im Clark, racing driver. 1969 ~ The Internet's symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1. 2003 ~ U.S. troops captured Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's regime fell two days later. |
April 8th
1848 ~ Death of Gaetano Donizetti, Italian composer.
1889 ~ Birthday of Sir Adrien Boult, English conductor. 1899 ~ Martha Place became the first woman to be executed in an electric chair. 1913 ~ The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified requiring direct election of Senators. 1919 ~ Birthday of Ian Smith, former Prime Minister of Rhodesia. 1950 ~ Death of Vaslav Nijinsky, ballet dancer. 1953 ~ Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta was convicted by Kenya's British rulers. 1973 ~ Death of Pablo Picasso, artist. 1983 ~ Death of Omar Bradley, general. 1992 ~ Retired tennis great Arthur Ashe announced to the world that he had AIDS, acquired from blood transfusions during one of his two heart surgeries. |
April 9th
1682 ~ Robert de LaSalle discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River, claimed it for France and named it Louisiana.
1865 ~ American Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, effectively ending the war. 1906 ~ Birthday of Antal Dorati, Hungarian conductor. 1919 ~ Birthday of J. Presper Eckert, inventor of the ENIAC computer. 1926 ~ Birthday of Hugh Hefner, Editor & Publisher. 1928 ~ Birthday of Tom Lehrer, Musician & Satirist., 1940 ~ World War II: Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. 1959 ~ Death of Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect. 1991 ~ Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union. 1992 ~ John Major won the UK general election. |
April 10th
1794 ~ Birthday of Matthew Perry, American Commodore who forced the opening of Japan to the West
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 shot dead by government forces. 1931 ~ Death of Khalil Gibran - Lebanese Poet 1941 ~ World War II: The Axis Powers in Europe established the Independent State of Croatia from occupied Yugoslavia. 1954 ~ Death of Auguste Lumière, Cinema Pioneer. 1966 ~ Death of Evelyn Waugh, Writer. 1970 ~ Paul McCartney announced that The Beatles have broken up. 1998 ~ The Belfast Agreement was signed. |
April 11th
1774 ~ Last execution for witchcraft in Germany.
1814 ~ Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to Elba. 1893 ~ Birthday of Dean Acheson, former United States Secretary of State. 1899 ~ Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States. 1906 ~ Death of James Anthony Bailey, co-founder with Phineas Taylor Barnum of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. 1945 ~ World War II: United States forces liberated Buchenwald concentration camp. 1951 ~ Korean War: President Harry S. Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of overall command in Korea. 1961 ~ Bob Dylan made his singing début in New York City. 1970 ~ Apollo 13 was launched. 1979 ~ Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was deposed. |
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 ~ American Civil War: The war began with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. 1884 ~ Birthday of Otto Meyerhof, biochemist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1922. 1895 ~ Birthday of Lily Pons, Opera Soprano. 1937 ~ Sir Frank Whittle ground-tested the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at the British Thomson-Houston factory in Rugby, England. 1940 ~ Birthday of Herbie Hancock, Musician. 1944 ~ Birthday of John Kay, of Steppenwolf. 1961 ~ Russians win space race: 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.
1598 ~ King Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, allowing freedom of religion to the Huguenots. 1743 ~ Birthday of Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States. 1826 ~ Death of Franz Danzi, German composer. 1829 ~ The British Parliament granted freedom of religion to Roman Catholics. 1861 ~ American Civil War: Fort Sumter surrendered 1892 ~ Birthday of Arthur Travers 'Bomber' Harris, commander of RAF's Bomber Command in World War II. 1943 ~ World War II: The discovery of a mass grave of Polish prisoners-of-war executed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre was announced in Germany. 1987 ~ Portugal and China signed an agreement in which the island of Macao would be returned to China in 1999. 1990 ~ The Soviet Union admitted committing the Katyn Massacre. |
April 14th
Information prepared by jseal, who is visiting a college with his son.
1629 ~ Birthday of Christiaan Huygens, Mathematician. 1759 ~ Death of Georg Friedrich Handel, Composer. 1828 ~ Noah Webster copyrighted the first edition of his dictionary. 1865 ~ Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. 1904 ~ Birthday of Sir John Gielgud, Actor. 1912 ~ RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg on its maiden voyage. 1935 ~ Death of Amalie Emmy Noether, Mathematician. 1964 ~ Death of Rachel Carson, Writer & Ecologist. 1969 ~ At the Academy Awards, a tie between Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand results in the two sharing the Best Actress Oscar. 2003 ~ Jean Charest's Parti libéral du Québec defeated Bernard Landry and the Parti Québécois in Quebec's general elections. |
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. 1920 ~ Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti allegedly murder two security guards while robbing a shoe store. 1924 ~ Birthday of Sir Neville Marriner, Conductor & Violinist. 1924 ~ Rand McNally published its first road atlas. 1947 ~ Jackie Robinson started for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team. 1980 ~ Death of Jean-Paul Sartre, Philosopher & Writer. 1994 ~ Globalization: Representatives of 124 countries and the European Communities signed the Marrakesh Agreements revising the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and created the World Trade Organization. 1998 ~ Death of Pol Pot, Cambodian Dictator. |
April 16th
1071 ~ Bari fell to Robert Guiscard, ending Byzantine rule in Italy.
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, Cardinal. 1943 ~ Dr. Albert Hofmann discovered the psychedelic effects of LSD. 1947 ~ Bernard Baruch coined the term Cold War to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. 2001 ~ First 3G voice call on Vodafone UK's 3G network. |
April 17th
1521 ~ Martin Luther spoke at the Diet of Worms, and refused to recant his teachings.
1790 ~ Death of Benjamin Franklin, Politician, Inventor, Diplomat, & Printer. 1837 ~ Birthday of J.P. Morgan, Financier, Art Collector, & Philanthropist 1861 ~ American Civil War: Virginia seceded 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 ~ Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of American financed and trained Cuban refugees landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. 1984 ~ Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher was killed by automatic gunfire coming from the Libyan People's Bureau in central London. She had been policing a small demonstration outside the embassy. 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 dissolved itself. 1955 ~ Death of Albert Einstein, Scientist. 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. 2005 ~ Papal conclave begins in the Sistine Chapel. |
April 19th
1587 ~ Sir Francis Drake sank the Spanish fleet in Cadiz Harbor.
1770 ~ Captain James Cook spotted Australia. 1861 ~ 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 ~ The 50-day siege of the Branch Davidian complex outside Waco, Texas ended when a fire broke out. Eighty-one people die. 1995 ~ Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was bombed, killing 168. |
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