|
April 20th
1653 ~ Oliver Cromwell disbanded Parliament.
1657 ~ Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City) granted freedom of religion. 1862 ~ The first pasteurization test completed by Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard. 1889 ~ Birthday of Adolf Hitler, German (Austrian-born) dictator, "Der Führer". 1912 ~ Death of Bram Stoker, Author. 1918 ~ Manfred von Richthofen (The Red Baron) shot down his 79th and 80th victims - his final victories. 1945 ~ U.S. troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to cede the city to the U.S.S.R. 1968 ~ English politician Enoch Powell made his controversial Rivers of Blood Speech. 1972 ~ Apollo 16 landed on the Moon. 1999 ~ Columbine High School Massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves. |
April 21st
1816 ~ Birthday of Charlotte Brontë, Author.
1836 ~ Texas Revolution: Battle of San Jacinto - Republic of Texas forces under Sam Houston defeated troops under Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna. 1838 ~ Birthday of John Muir, Environmentalist. 1910 ~ Death of Mark Twain, Author, Humorist. 1912 ~ The New York Giants and New York Yankees played an exhibition game to benefit survivors of the RMS Titanic. 1918 ~ World War I: German fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, The Red Baron, was shot down and killed. 1944 ~ Women in France were enfranchised. 1946 ~ Death of John Maynard Keynes, Economist. 1956 ~ Elvis Presley's song Heartbreak Hotel became his first song to reach the top of the music charts. 1994 ~ 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. 1899 ~ Birthday of Vladimir Nabokov, Writer. 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. 1996 ~ Death of Erma Bombeck, Humorist & Writer. 1997 ~ A 126-day hostage crisis at the residence of the Japanese ambassador in Lima, Peru came to an abrupt conclusion after commandos stormed and captured the building, rescuing 71 hostages. One hostage died of a heart attack, two soldiers were killed, and interestingly, all 14 rebels died. 2000 ~ In a morning raid, federal agents seize six-year-old Elián González from his relatives' home in Miami, Florida, and fly him to his Cuban father in Washington, DC, ending what has to have been one of the most publicized custody battles in US history. |
April 23rd
1850 ~ Death of William Wordsworth, Lake Poet.
1858 ~ Birthday of Max Planck, Physicist and recipient of 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. 1971 ~ The Rolling Stones released the classic album Sticky Fingers. 1994 ~ Physicists discoved the top quark. 1993 ~ Death of César Chávez, Labor Activist. 1998 ~ Death of James Earl Ray, Assassin. 2002 ~ Death of Linda Lovelace, Porn Star. |
April 24th
1731 ~ Death of Daniel Defoe, English Writer
1856 ~ Birthday of Henri Philippe Pétain, Soldier & Statesman 1905 ~ Birthday of Robert Penn Warren, Writer, Pulitzer Prize winner, first American Poet Laureate 1916 ~ Easter Uprising began: The Irish Republican Brotherhood led by nationalist Patrick Pearse started a rebellion in Ireland. 1967 ~ Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died in Soyuz 1. 1975 ~ The Baader-Meinhof Gang blew up the West German embassy in Stockholm. 1986 ~ Death of Wallis Simpson, Mistress and Wife of The Duke of Windsor 1990 ~ The Hubble Space Telescope was launched by Space Shuttle Discovery. 1993 ~ An IRA bomb devastated the Bishopsgate area of City of London. 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 Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer. 1900 ~ Birthday of Wolfgang Pauli, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics 1945. 1915 ~ The ANZAC tradition began during World War I with a landing at Gallipoli on the Turkish coast. 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. 1989 ~ James Richardson was freed from a Florida prison 21 years after being wrongfully convicted of the murder of his seven children. Holidays and observances Australia, New Zealand ~ ANZAC Day |
April 26th
1607 ~ Colonists made landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia, later moving up the James River to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America.
1711 ~ Birthday of David Hume, Philosopher & Historian. 1785 ~ Birthday of John Audubon, Naturalist & Illustrator. 1865 ~ Death of John Wilkes Booth, shot while trying to avoid capture for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. 1935 ~ Birthday of Carol Burnett, Singer, Actress & Comedienne. 1937 ~ Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain was bombed by German Luftwaffe. 1964 ~ Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania. 1986 ~ In Ukraine, a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded, creating the world's worst nuclear disaster. 1989 ~ Death of Lucille Ball, Actress & Comedienne. 1994 ~ South Africa held its first multiracial elections. |
April 27th
1667 ~ John Milton sold the copyright of Paradise Lost for Ł10.
1737 ~ Birthday of Edward Gibbon, historian. 1773 ~ The British Parliament passed 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 F. B. Morse, inventor of Morse code. 1813 ~ War of 1812: United States troops captured York, the capital of Ontario (present day Toronto, Ontario). 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. 1986 ~ Captain Midnight (John R. MacDougall) hijacked HBO's satellite and transmitted his own message to HBO viewers. 1999 ~ Death of Al Hirt, Musician. |
April 28th
1788 ~ Maryland became the 7th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1789 ~ Mutiny on the Bounty. Captain William Bligh and 18 sailors set adrift and rebel crew set sail for Pitcairn Island. 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 are 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 to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. 1952 ~ Occupied Japan: The United States occupation of Japan ended. 1969 ~ Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of France. 1990 ~ After 6,237 performances, the Broadway musical A Chorus Line closed. |
April 29th
1770 ~ James Cook arrived at and named Botany Bay, Australia.
1861 ~ American Civil War: Maryland's House of Delegates voted not to secede from the Union. 1863 ~ Birthday of William Randolph Hearst, American publisher. 1893 ~ Birthday of Harold Urey, American chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. 1936 ~ Birthday of Zubin Mehta, Indian-born American conductor. 1945 ~ The Dachau concentration camp was liberated by troops of the U.S. Seventh Army. 1958 ~ The Broadway musical, My Fair Lady, opened in London to a rapturous reception. 1980 ~ Death of Alfred Hitchcock, director. 1992 ~ Rioting broke out in Los Angeles following the acquittal of four white police officers accused of beating black motorist Rodney King. 1997 ~ The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 came into force, outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons among its signatories. |
April 30th
1777 ~ Birthday of Carl Friedrich Gauss, Mathematician, Astronomer & Physicist.
1789 ~ George Washington took the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States from the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City. 1877 ~ Birthday of Alice B. Toklas, Muse and Brownie Chef. 1883 ~ Death of Édouard Manet, Impressionist Painter. 1916 ~ Birthday of Claude Shannon, the "father of information theory” 1938 ~ Birthday of Larry Niven, Science Fiction author. 1945 ~ Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide after being married for one day. 1948 ~ The Land Rover is introduced. 1975 ~ The war in Vietnam same to an end as the South Vietnamese government in Saigon announced its unconditional surrender to the Vietcong. 1993 ~ CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free to everyone. |
May 1st
1786 ~ Opening night of W.A.M.’s opera, The Marriage of Figaro in Vienna.
1840 ~ The Penny Black postage stamp is put on sale in the United Kingdom. 1869 ~ The Folies Bergčres opened in Paris. 1904 ~ Death of Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer. 1939 ~ Birthday of Judy Collins, American folk singer. 1941 ~ Orson Welles's Citizen Kane premiered in New York City. 1944 ~ Birthday of Rita Coolidge, American singer. 1960 ~ Cold War: Francis Gary Powers, in a U-2 spyplane, was shot down over the Soviet Union, beginning a crisis. 1978 ~ Death of Aram Khachaturian, Armenian composer. 1982 ~ RAF aircraft attack two airstrips near the Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands in the war to rid the islands of Argentine forces |
May 2nd
1519 ~ Death of Leonardo da Vinci, inventor, painter.
1660 ~ Birthday of Alessandro Scarlatti, Italian Composer. 1729 ~ Birthday of Empress Catherine II of Russia. 1892 ~ Birthday of Manfred von Richthofen, "The Red Baron" German World War I pilot. 1933 ~ The first modern sighting of the Loch Ness monster was reported. 1939 ~ Lou Gehrig's streak of 2130 consecutive Major League Baseball games played came to an end. The record would stand for 56 years before Cal Ripken, Jr. broke it. 1952 ~ The world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1, launched the jet age with its maiden flight from London to Johannesburg. 1955 ~ Tennessee Williams won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. 1982 ~ Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano. 1997 ~ The Labour Party's Tony Blair became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, ending 18 years of Conservative Party rule. At 44, he was the youngest prime minister for 185 years. |
May 3rd
1496 ~ Birthday of Niccolň Machiavelli, Italian historian and political author.
1616 ~ Death of William Shakespeare Playwright & Poet 1810 ~ Lord Byron swam the Hellespont. 1844 ~ Birthday of Richard D'Oyly Carte, English theatrical impresario. 1898 ~ Birthday of Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel. 1937 ~ Gone With the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. 1946 ~ World War II: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East began in Tokyo against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. 1982 ~ Falklands War: The Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield is hit by an Exocet missile. 1991 ~ The last episode of the soap opera Dallas aired. 2000 ~ The sport of Geocaching began with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS were posted on Usenet. |
May 4th
1825 ~ Birthday of Thomas Henry Huxley, English scientist.
1852 ~ Birthday of Alice Liddell, for whom Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland. 1928 ~ Birthday of Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt. 1930 ~ British police arrest Mahatma Gandhi and place him in Yeravda Central Prison. 1970 ~ Vietnam War: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after the ROTC building was burnt down, opened fire on students protesting at the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. 1975 ~ Death of Moe Howard, actor, comedian; member of the Three Stooges. 1979 ~ Election victory for Margaret Thatcher, England’s first woman Prime Minister. 1980 ~ Death of Josip Tito, President of Yugoslavia. 1990 ~ Latvia proclaims independence. 2000 ~ Ken Livingstone elected London mayor |
| All times are GMT -5. The time now is 06:05 PM. |
Powered by: vBulletin Version 3.0.10
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.