Category: Today

April 24

1183 BC – By reckoning of Eratosthenes, the chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria, Troy falls after Epeius’ Steed, the ‘Trojan Horse’, is taken into the city and 40 Greek warriors hidden inside open the city gates to let the rest of the Greek army attack.

1704 – The first regular newspaper in British Colonial America, The Boston News-Letter, is published by John Campbell.

1800 – The Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs into law an appropriation for $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress”.

1885 – Phoebe Ann Moses, better known as Annie Oakley, is hired by by Nate Salsbury to be an exhibition shooter in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show

1895 – Joshua Slocum, aboard the sloop Spray, sets sail from Boston, to be the first to sail single handedly around the world.

1913 – The 60 story Woolworth Building in Manhattan, for the next 17 years  the tallest building in the world, is opened.

1915 – The arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Istanbul marks the beginning of the Armenian Genocide by the Turks.

1918 –  During the second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux in World War I, 3 British Mark IV tanks engage 3 German A7V tanks in the first tank vs. tank combat action.

1967 – PER ARDUA AD ASTRA  Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies aboard Soyuz 1, when its parachute fails to open during reentry. The first man to die during a space mission.

1980 –  During Operation Eagle Claw, an attempt to rescue the American embassy members taken hostage by Iran, 8 U.S. servicemembers and 1 Iranian national are killed, and 5 U.S. servicemembers are injured at staging point Desert One, when RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter Bluebeard 3 collides on the ground with EC-130 Hercules aircraft Republic 4, causing a massive fire.

1990 – During shuttle mission STS-31, the Hubble Space Telescope is launched from Shuttle Discovery.

1996 – The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 Public Law No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 is signed into law by President Clinton.

1997 – Eugene Stoner, designer of a direct gas operating system for firearms and used in many different models, dies, age 74, at Palm City, Florida.

2011 – WikiLeaks starts publishing the Guantanamo Bay files; documents relating to detainees at the United States Guantánamo Bay detention camp.

April 23

1229 – During the Reconquista, King Ferdinand III of Castile conquers Cáceres, Spain.

1635 – The first public school in the United States, Boston Latin School, is founded in Boston. Salvete Discipuli.

1662 – Connecticut is chartered as an English colony

1879 – Fire burns down the second main building and dome of the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, results in the construction of the third main building.

1914 – The first baseball game is held at Wrigley Field in Chicago, then known as Weeghman Park, with the the Chicago Federals home team beating the Kansas City Packers 9-1.

1939 – Boston Red Sox’ left fielder Ted Williams hits his first major league home run off Philadelphia Athletics’ pitcher Bud Thomas at Fenway Park in Boston.

1940 –  A fire at the Rhythm Club dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi, kills 209 people.

1945 – Adolf Hitler’s designated successor, Hermann Göring, sends him a telegram asking permission to take over leadership of Nazi Germany

1946 – Manuel Roxas is elected as the last President of the transitional  Commonwealth of the Philippines government,

1951 – American journalist William N. Oatis is arrested for espionage by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia.

1954  – Milwaukee Braves’ right fielder, Hank Aaron hits his first major league home run off St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher Vic Raschi at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

1985 – Coca-Cola changes its formula and releases New Coke to vastly negative reviews. The original formula is back on the market in less than three months. There is speculation that the introduction of the new formula was actually to provide time for people to forget the taste of the original and replace the Cane Sugar used in the recipe with cheaper High Fructose Corn Syrup.

1992 – McDonald’s opens its first restaurant in Shenzhen, China.

1999 – NATO bombs the headquarters of Radio Television of Serbia. Some commentators see that as the starting point of the new ‘Clinton Doctrine’ where the rules of engagement include the political leaders, bureaucratic support structure, intellectual underpinning, and media infrastructure of an opponent as legitimate targets of war.

2005 – The first YouTube video is published by co-founder Jawed Karim.

2009 – NASA’s Swift Gamma Ray Burst Mission satellite observes Gamma ray burst (GRB) 090423, in the constellation Leo that lasts for 10 seconds, the most distant object of any kind observed in the universe with a spectroscopic redshift.

April 22

1500 – While following Vasco da Gama’s newly opened route around Africa to India, Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral sails too far to the west in the Atlantic Ocean, and lands in what is now Brazil, discovering the South American continent.

1529 – The Treaty of Zaragoza between the king of Spain and Emperor Charles V, and João III of Portugal, regarding the areas of influence of both countries in Asia, divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal along a line 297.5 leagues -892.5 nautical miles – east of the Molucca islands.

1836 – A day after the Texican victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, forces under General Sam Houston identify and take captive Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna who was hiding among the prisoners of war of the battle.

1864 – Congress passes the Coinage Act of 1864 that permits the inscription In God We Trust be placed on all coins minted as U.S. currency.

1876 – The first major league baseball game is played at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Boston baseball club

1889 – At noon, the first Land Rush into the Unassigned Lands of central Oklahoma Territory starts.

1898 – Off the Florida Keys, gunboat PG-7, the USS Nashville, the first U.S. Navy ship built by Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, fires the first shot of the Spanish-American War and captures the Spanish merchantman SS Buena Ventura.

1944 –US Army Air Force Lieutenant Carter Harman, of the 1st Air Commando Group, flying a Sikorsky R-4 helicopter, conducts the first combat rescue sortie, rescuing a downed liaison aircraft pilot and his 3 British soldier passengers in the China-Burma-India Theater.

1954 – The ABC and DuMont television networks provide the first live  coverage of Senate committee hearings by covering the Army–McCarthy hearings.

1970 – The first Earth Day is celebrated. Despite all prognostications of imminent doom, 52 years later the Earth and humanity are still here.

1977 – Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic.

1994 – Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States dies, age 81, at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, of a stroke suffered 3 days previously.

2005 – Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologizes for Japan’s World War 2 war record.

April 21

753 BC – URBS CONDITA EST Descended from Aeneas, a hero of Troy, Romulus founds Rome. ROMA SUMMUS AMOR

1509 – Henry VIII ascends the throne of England on the death of his father King Henry VII.

1789 – John Adams sworn in as 1st U.S. Vice President, 9 days before George Washington, who is still en route to New York City after being received and feted by the Ladies of Trenton.

1792 – Joaquim José da Silva Xavier Tiradentes, leader of the Inconfidência Mineira revolutionary movement for Brazil’s independence, is hanged, drawn and quartered.

1836 – In less than 18 minutes of battle, Republic of Texas forces under General Sam Houston defeat Mexican troops under General Antonio López de Santa Anna at San Jacinto.

1898 – During the Spanish–American War,  the U.S. Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports.

1918 – German fighter ace, Manfred, Baron von Richthofen, called the Red Baron, is shot down, and killed over Vaux-sur-Somme in France.

1945 – Soviet forces attack the German High Command headquarters at Zossen, 20 miles south of Berlin.

1946 – The U.S. Weather Bureau publish a paper which states the width of a tornado which struck the city of Timber Lake, South Dakota was 4 miles, making it the widest tornado ever documented in history.

1958 – United Airlines Flight 736, a Douglas DC-7, collides with a U.S. Air Force F-100 Super Saber fighter jet near Arden, Nevada killing all 47 passengers and crew aboard, along with the 2 Air Force pilots

1960 – The new capital of Brazil, Brasília is officially inaugurated.  At 09:30, the Three Powers of the Republic are simultaneously transferred from the old capital, Rio de Janeiro.

1962 – The first World’s Fair in the United States since World War II opens in Seattle, Washington.

1975 – President of South Vietnam Nguyễn Văn Thiệu flees Saigon, as Xuân Lộc, the last South Vietnamese outpost blocking a direct North Vietnamese assault on Saigon, falls.

1982 – Rollie Fingers of the Milwaukee Brewers becomes the first Major League relief pitcher to record 300 saves.

1985 – Members of the group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord in northern Arkansas, surrender to federal authorities after a 2 day siege of the compound.

2014 – During a budget crisis, the city of Flint, Michigan switches its water source from water supplied by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department water to the Flint River. Residents almost immediately being filing complaints about the taste, smell, and appearance of the water.

April 20

1775 – Following the battles at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts militias block land access to Boston, limiting British resupply and reinforcements to only come from the sea.

1789 – George Washington arrives at Grays Ferry, Philadelphia, while en route to Manhattan for his inauguration.

1836 – Congress passes an act creating the Wisconsin Territory.

1861 – Colonel Robert E. Lee, commander of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Regiment,  resigns his commission in the United States Army to avoid, as he saw it, the dishonor of disobeying official orders to engage his troops against Virginia.

1898 – President McKinley signs a joint resolution to Congress for a declaration of war against Spain.

1914 – 19 men, women, and children participating in a strike are killed in the Ludlow Massacre during the Colorado Coalfield War.

1945 – On his 56th birthday, Adolf Hitler makes his last trip to the surface from the Führerbunker  in Berlin, to award Iron Crosses to soldiers of the Hitler Youth.

1961 – The invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba by U.S. backed Cuban exiles fails.

1972 – The lunar module Orion, of Apollo 16, commanded by John Young and copiloted by Charles Duke, lands on the moon in the Descartes Highlands.

1998 – Air France Flight 422, a Boeing 727, crashes after taking off from El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, Colombia, killing all 53 people on board.

1999 – Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shoot and kill 13 people and wound 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.

2007 – William Phillips barricades himself in NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, shooting and killing a hostage before committing suicide.

2008 – Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.

2010 – The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that would last six months.

2021 – Derek Chauvin is found guilty of all charges in the murder of George Floyd by the Fourth Judicial District Court of Minnesota.

April 19

1529 – Accepted by many as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, a group of rulers and independent cities protests the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms after the Second Diet of Speyer bans Lutheranism.

1775 – At Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts militia confront British troops marching to confiscate arms and military supplies.

1782 – John Adams secures Dutch recognition of the United States as an independent government. The house which he had purchased in The Hague becomes the first American embassy.

1818 – French physicist Augustin Fresnel signs his preliminary “Note on the Theory of Diffraction” . The document ends with a set of mathematical equations now called the Fresnel Integrals which leads to the development of the Fresnel lens, a flat, thin, compact, more powerful and less expensive refractive lens.

1861 –In Baltimore, Maryland, a group of pro-Secession protesters attacks U.S. Army troops marching through the city.

1943 – In Warsaw, Poland, the Ghetto Uprising begins, after German troops enter the Warsaw Ghetto to round up the remaining Jews and holding off the Nazi force for nearly a month using only a handful of weapons.

1956 – Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco.

1971 – Charles Manson is sentenced to death, which is later commuted to life imprisonment, for conspiracy in the Tate–LaBianca murders.

1985 – 200 ATF and FBI agents lay siege to the compound of the survivalist group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord near Three Brothers, Arkansas

1989 – Aboard the USS Iowa, an explosion of the center 16 inch gun in Gun Turret 2, kills all 47 sailors in the turret.

1993 – The 51 day siege by the FBI of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, ends when a fire breaks out. 76 Davidians, including 18 children under the age of 10, die in the fire.

1995 –  In retaliation for the siege of the Branch Davidian compound, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, is bombed, killing 168 people, including 19 children under the age of 6.

2013 – In the city suburb of Watertown, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is killed in a shootout with police. His brother Dzhokhar is later captured hiding in a boat inside a backyard.

2021 – The Ingenuity helicopter flies off NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover becomes the first aircraft to achieve powered independent flight on another planet.

April 18

1506 – The cornerstone of the current St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome is laid.

1521 – The trial of Martin Luther continues into its second day during the assembly of the Diet of Worms.

1775 – Paul Revere and others ride to warn the leadership of the rebellion, and militia, that British troops are moving out from Boston towards Concord.

1783 – The first instance of slaves in the U.S. being counted as 3/5th of persons (at this time, for the purpose of taxation), is introduced as a resolution of the Congress of the Confederation to be part of the Articles of Confederation.

1831 – The University of Alabama is founded in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

1847 – U.S. troops under General Winfield Scott outflank General Santa Anna’s forces in battle at Sierra Gordo, near Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz,  during the Mexican-American War, opening the way for the further invasion of Mexico.

1906 – A magnitude 7.9 earthquake and fire destroy much of San Francisco, California, killing over 3000 people.

1912 – The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia brings 705 of the survivors from the RMS Titanic to New York City.

1923 – Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York opens for the Yankees’ first home game, hosting the Boston Red Sox.

1942 –  U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, leading 51 Officers and 28 Airmen, flying 16 specially modified B-25B Mitchell bombers, are launched from the U.S. Navy carrier, CV-8 USS Hornet on a mission to attack targets on the main islands of  Japan.

1943 – Over Bougainville Island in the Solomons, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto IJN is killed when his aircraft is shot down by U.S. P-38 Lightning fighters, after radio messages informing Japanese bases of the schedule of his inspection tour had been intercepted and decoded.

1983 – A suicide bomber in Lebanon destroys the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people.

1988 – In retaliation for the USS Samuel B. Roberts striking an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in the largest naval battle since World War II.

1997 – Due to heavy snow and ice melts up stream, several dikes are breached along the Red River of the North, causing flooding in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Southern Manitoba, resulting in over $3.5 billion in property damage.

2019 – A redacted version of the Mueller Report is released to the United States Congress and the public.

April 17

1492 – Queen Isabella, King Ferdinand and Christopher Columbus sign the negotiated Capitulations of Santa Fe for his voyage to Asia to acquire spices, granting him the titles of Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy, Governor General, the honorific Don, and also the tenth part of all riches to be obtained from his intended voyage.

1521 – The trial of Martin Luther over his religious teachings begins during the assembly of the Diet of Worms.

1524 – In the service of King Francis I of France, Florentine Giovanni da Verrazzano is the first European to reach New York harbor during his voyage of exploration of the Atlantic coast of North America between what is now Florida and New Brunswick.

1861 – The state of Virginia’s secession convention votes to secede from the United States, later becoming the eighth state to join the Confederate States of America.

1905 – In the case of Lochner v. New York, the Supreme Court decides that the “right to free contract” is implicit in the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

1907 – The Ellis Island immigration center sets a record processing 11,747 people in one day.

1961 – A group of Cuban exiles financed and trained by the CIA lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.

1969 – Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy and sentenced to death with the sentenced later commuted to life imprisonment.

1970 – The Apollo 13 astronauts return to Earth safely when their Command Module Odyssey splashed down in the Pacific ocean, southeast of American Samoa.

1978 – The leader of the Parcham faction of People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, Mir Akbar Khyber, is assassinated in Kabul.

2013 – While emergency services personnel were responding to a fire set by an arsonist at the West Fertilizer Company storage and distribution facility in West, Texas, ammonium nitrate in the structure explodes, killing 15 people and injuring 160 others.

2014 – NASA’s Kepler space telescope confirms the discovery of the first Earth-size planet, Kepler-186F orbiting in the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Kepler-186 in the constellation of Cygnus.

April 16

1457 BC – At the valley of Megiddo, Egyptian forces under the command of Pharaoh Thutmose III and a large rebellious coalition of Canaanite vassal states led by the king of Kadesh engage in a battle considered the first be accepted as recorded in reliable detail

73 – Masada, a Jewish fortress on the eastern edge of the Judaean Desert, falls to the Romans after several months of siege, ending the 1st Jewish–Roman War.

1582 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma founds the settlement of Salta, Argentina.

1746 – The Battle of Culloden is fought between the Jacobite Stuarts and the British Hanoverian forces. After the battle, many Highland traditions are banned and the Highlands of Scotland were cleared of inhabitants with many clan members moved to North America.

1818 – Following the end of The War of 1812, the U.S. Senate ratifies the Rush–Bagot Treaty, limiting naval armaments on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.

1862 – During the Civil War, the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia, becomes law.

1908 – The Natural Bridges National Monument is established in Utah.

1943 – First made by him in 1938 during experiments with ergot fungus found on grain,  Albert Hofmann accidentally discovers the hallucinogenic effects of the research drug Lysergic Acid Diethylamide  – LSD.

1945 – U.S. Army troops liberate Nazi prisoner of war camp Offizierslager IV-C at Castle Colditz.

1947 – An explosion on board the French registered vessel SS Grandcamp at Port of Texas City, Texas, Galveston Bay, causes the city to catch fire, killing almost 600 people.

1961 – In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist–Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.

1963 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pens his Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting against segregation.

1972 – Apollo 16 is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with astronauts
John Young, Thomas ‘Ken’ Mattingly and Charley Duke aboard.

1990 – “Doctor Death”, Jack Kevorkian, participates in his first assisted suicide, aiding Janet Elaine Adkins in a campground near Pontiac, Michigan.

2007 –  Seung-Hui Cho,  previously diagnosed with severe depression, uses two handguns to shoot and kill 32 people and wound 17 more at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, in Blacksburg, Virginia, before committing suicide.

2008 – In the case of Baze v. Rees, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that execution by lethal injection does not violate the 8th Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

April 15

1715 – The massacre of a colonial delegation to the Yamasee tribe at their main village of Pocotaligo, triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina.

1817 – Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc found the American School for the Deaf, the first American school for deaf students, in Hartford, Connecticut.

1861 – After the fall of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers to quell hostilities in South Carolina that soon become war between the state.

1865 – President Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by actor John Wilkes Booth.

1892 – The General Electric Company is formed in Schenectady, New York.

1896 – The Games of the first modern Olympiad in Athens, Greece end.

1900 – Filipino guerrillas launch a surprise attack on U.S. infantry and begin a siege of Catubig, Philippines during the Philippine-American War

1912 – RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., 2 hours and 40 minutes after hitting an iceberg. Only 710 of 2,224 passengers and crew on board survive.

1920 – During a robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in South Braintree, Massachusetts, 2 security guards are murdered. A few weeks later, anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested and charged with the crimes.

1922 – Senator John B. Kendrick of Wyoming introduces a resolution calling for an investigation of a secret land deal made a week earlier, which leads to the discovery of the Teapot Dome scandal.

1947 – Jackie Robinson starts as a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the New York Yankees in an pre-season game at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn.

1952 – The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress flies for the first time.

1969 – A North Korean MiG-21 shoots down a U.S  Navy Lockheed EC-121M Warning Star, call sign Deep Sea 129, of squadron VQ-1, Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One, over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 crew on board.

1986 – The U.S.  launches Operation El Dorado Canyon, a series of bombing raids against Libyan targets in response to a discotheque bombing in West Germany that killed 3 U.S. servicemen.

2013 – Near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, 2 pressure cooker improvised bombs explode, killing 3 people and injuring 264 others.

2019 – The cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris is seriously damaged by a large fire.

2021 – A former employee, fired the previous October, returns to a FedEx Ground facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, then shoots and kills 9 people,  wounding 7 more, before committing suicide

April 14

966 – Following his marriage to the Christian Doubravka of Bohemia, the pagan ruler of the Polans, Mieszko I, converts to Christianity, an event considered to be the founding of the Polish state.

1775 – British General, and Massachusetts provincial governor Thomas Gage receives orders from London authorizing action against colonial militia that are known to be stockpiling weapons at Concord, and orders British troops from the Boston garrison to march there on the night of 18 April to confiscate them.

1865 – While Secretary of State William Seward and his family are attacked at home by Lewis Powell, President Lincoln is shot in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth as part of a wider assassination conspiracy.

1881 – 2 days after taking the position of City Marshal, Dallas Stoudenmire and Country Constable Gus Krempkau are engaged in a running gunfight in El Paso, Texas, where in the space of 5 seconds, Stoudenmire kills 3 men,  including the one who had just shot and killed Constable Krempkau; known as “The 4 Dead In 5 Seconds Gunfight”.

1890 – The Pan-American Union is founded by the First International Conference of American States in Washington, D.C.

1894 – The first ever commercial motion picture house opens in New York City, using 10 Kinetoscopes for viewing movies.

1906 – The Azusa Street Revival opens in Los Angeles, California, launching Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement.

1909 – A massacre is organized by the moslem Ottoman Empire against the Christian Armenian population of Adana Vilayet, in Cilicia, eventually killing 25,000 people.

1912 – The White Star Line passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg off the Grand Banks in the North Atlantic Ocean at 23:40 hours ship’s time.

1935 – The Black Sunday dust storm, considered one of the worst storms of the Dust Bowl, sweeps across the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring areas.

1981 – STS-1, the first operational flight of a shuttle and of Shuttle Columbia is completed, landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

1988 – The Oliver Perry Class Guided Missile Frigate, FFG-58- USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a mine and is severely damaged in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will.

1994 – In a friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq, a US Air Force crewman aboard a E-3 AWACS aircraft  misidentifies 2 US Army Black Hawk helicopters as Iraqi Mi-24 Hind helicopters and directs 2 US F-15 fighters to intercept. The pilots of the F-15s also misidentify the helicopters and shoot them down, killing all 26 passengers and crews aboard both craft.

2003 – U.S. troops in Baghdad capture Muhammad Zaidan, known as Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner the MS Achille Lauro in 1985.

2005 – The Oregon Supreme Court nullifies marriage licenses issued to same sex couples a year earlier by Multnomah County.

April 13

1613 – Samuel Argall, having captured Pocahontas in Passapatanzy, Virginia, sets off with her to Jamestown with the intention of exchanging her for English prisoners held by her father.

1777 – 4000 British and Hessian troops under the command of Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis stage a surprise attack on a Continental forces of 500 troop at an outpost at Bound Brook, New Jersey and inflict heavy casualties as the outnumbered troops retreat before reinforcements arrive and retake the post.

1861 – After hours of artillery bombardment, Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederate forces.

1870 – The New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded.

1943 – The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C., on the 200th anniversary of President Jefferson’s birth.

1953 – CIA director Allen Dulles launches the mind control program Project MKUltra.

1958 – American pianist Van Cliburn is awarded first prize at the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

1960 – Transit 1-B, the world’s first navigation system satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1970 – While enroute to the Moon, an oxygen tank aboard the Apollo 13 Service Module explodes, damaging the Apollo command and service module Odyssey and causing the landing mission to change to one of survival.

1976 –  As part of the U.S. bicentennial celebration, the Treasury Department reintroduces the two-dollar bill with the portrait of Thomas Jefferson on the 233rd anniversary of his birthday.

1976 – 40 workers are killed and another 60 injured in an explosion at the Lapua, Finland ammunition factory, the deadliest accidental disaster in modern history in that nation.

1997 – Tiger Woods, at 21 years old, becomes the youngest golfer to win the Masters Tournament.

2017 – The US drops a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, the largest ever non-nuclear weapon in an airstrike against an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province tunnel complex in Achin District, Afghanistan.

April 12

1204 – The Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, instead of proceeding to Jerusalem, sack Constantinople after besieging it since July of the previous year in support of the deposed emperor Isaac II Angelos.

1776 – With the passage of the Halifax Resolves, the North Carolina Provincial Congress authorizes its Congressional delegation to vote for independence from Britain.

1861 – The first battle of the Civil War begins with South Carolina militia firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor.

1900 – One day after its enactment by the Congress, President William McKinley signs the Foraker Act into law, giving Puerto Rico limited self rule.

1927 – Rocksprings, Texas is hit by an F5 tornado, destroying 235 of the 247 buildings in the town, killing 72 people and injuring 205 more.

1934 – The strongest surface wind gust in the world, at the time, of 231 mph, is measured on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire.

1945 – Vice President Truman becomes President upon the death of President Roosevelt at Warm Springs, Georgia.

1955 – After results of a final field trial of over 1,800,000 subjects in the U.S. are tabulated, the first polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective and licensed for use.

1961 – Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space aboard Vostok 1.

1980 – Transbrasil Flight 303, a Boeing 727, crashes on approach to Hercílio Luz International Airport, in Florianópolis, Brazil with 55 of the 58 passengers and crew on board killed.

1981 – STS-1, the first orbital flight of the Space Shuttle takes place with Shuttle Columbia launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen aboard

1999 – President Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving “intentionally false statements” in a civil lawsuit.

2009 – Zimbabwe officially abandons the hyperinflated Zimbabwean dollar as its official currency.

April 11

1689 – William III and Mary II are crowned as joint sovereigns of Great Britain.

1713 – In the Dutch city of Utrecht, France signs a peace treaty with Great Britain and the Netherlands, formally ending ‘Queen Anne’s War’ in North America and the English colonies.

1876 – The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks club is organized in New York City.

1881 – Spelman College is founded in Atlanta, Georgia as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary.

1945 – A detachment of troops of the U.S. 9th Armored Infantry Battalion,  6th Armored Division, 3rd Army, and under the command of Captain Frederic Keffer, liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimar Germany.

1951 – President Truman relieves General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of the command of American forces in Korea and Japan.

1961 – The war crimes trial of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.

1964 – After a military coup d’é·tat, Brazilian Marshal Humberto de Alencar Branco is elected President by the National Congress.

1965 – The Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 51 tornadoes hits 6  midwestern states, killing 256 people.

1968 – President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968 into law, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.

1970 –The Apollo 13 mission is launched from Kennedy Space Center with astronauts, James Lovell, John Swigert and Fred W. Haise aboard.

1976 – The Apple Computer 1 desktop computer is released for sale by the Apple Computer Company.

1986 – In Dade County, Florida,  a gun fight breaks out between a pair of bank robbers and pursuing FBI agents. During the firefight, FBI agents Jerry L. Dove and Benjamin P. Grogan are killed, while 5 other agents are wounded before the bandits are finally killed. As a result, the FBI begins a search for a new round that ends with the development and adoption of the .40 S&W cartridge.

1993 – On Easter Sunday, approximately 450 prisoners riot over prison conditions at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, taking 8 guards hostage, later killing 1 guard and 9 other inmates before surrendering 10 days later.

2001 – The detained crew of a U. S. Navy EP-3E aircraft that landed in Hainan, China on April 1, after a collision with a Chinese jet fighter, is released.

2002 – In Caracas, Venezuela , 19 protesters are killed during a march of over 200,000 people demanding the resignation of president Hugo Chávez.

2021 – Daunte Wright is shot and killed in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota by officer Kimberly Potter, when the officer allegedly mistakes her own gun for her taser. She is later charged and convicted of manslaughter in the case.

 

Palma Domincus
Palm Sunday

XII in crastinum autem turba multa quae venerat ad diem festum cum audissent quia venit Iesus Hierosolyma
XIII acceperunt ramos palmarum et processerunt obviam ei et clamabant osanna benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini rex Israhel
XIV et invenit Iesus asellum et sedit super eum sicut scriptum est
XV noli timere filia Sion ecce rex tuus venit sedens super pullum asinae
XVI haec non cognoverunt discipuli eius primum sed quando glorificatus est Iesus tunc recordati sunt quia haec erant scripta de eo et haec fecerunt ei
XVII testimonium ergo perhibebat turba quae erat cum eo quando Lazarum vocavit de monumento et suscitavit eum a mortuis
XVIII propterea et obviam venit ei turba quia audierunt eum fecisse hoc signum
XIV Pharisaei ergo dixerunt ad semet ipsos videtis quia nihil proficimus ecce mundus totus post eum abiit

From the King James Version, Gospel of John, Chapter 12 v 12-19

On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,
Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.
And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written,
Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt.
These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him.
The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record.
For this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle.
The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him.

April 10

1606 – The Virginia Company of London is established by royal charter by James I of England with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America.

1815 – The Mount Tambora volcano in what is now Indonesia, begins a 3 month long eruption, lasting until July. The eruption kills 71,000 people, and causes the 1816 ‘Year without a summer’ in the northern hemisphere.

1816 – The Federal government charters the Second Bank of the United States.

1864 – Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg is proclaimed Emperor during the French intervention in Mexico.

1865 – A day after his surrender to Union forces, General Robert E. Lee issues General Order No. 9, explaining the terms of the surrender and his farewell to his troops.

1866 – The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is founded in New York City by Henry Bergh.

1872 – The first Arbor Day is celebrated in Nebraska City, Nebraska with 1 million trees being planted.

1887 – On Easter Sunday, Pope Leo XIII authorizes the establishment of the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C.

1912 – RMS Titanic sets sail from Southampton, England on her maiden  voyage.

1916 – The Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) is created in New York City.

1925 – The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is first published in New York City, by Charles Scribner’s Sons.

1939 – Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism, the organization’s “Big Book” and the source of its name, is first published.

1944 – Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler escape from Birkenau death camp and write a detailed report, published by the U.S. government War Refugee Board, about the mass murder being committed there.

1963 – U.S. submarine SSN-593, USS Thresher sinks at sea during deep-diving tests about 220 miles east of Boston, Massachusetts with all 129 hands aboard lost.

1971 – In an attempt to thaw relations with the United States, China hosts the U.S. table tennis team for a visit called ‘Ping-Pong diplomacy’.

1979 – The Red River Valley tornado outbreak has an F4 tornado hit Wichita Falls, Texas killing 42 people.

2019 – Scientists at Event Horizon Telescope, a global networked array of radio telescopes, announce the first image of a black hole, located in the center of the Messier 87 galaxy in the constellation of Virgo.

 

April 9

1682 – Robert Cavelier de La Salle discovers the mouth of the Mississippi River, claims the area for France and names it Louisiana in honor of King Louis IV

1768 – When customs agents board to search John Hancock’s ship Lydia in Boston Harbor since he had a reputation for smuggling, he has them forced off since they did not have a warrant for the search. By many, this is considered the first act of actual resistance to British authority in the colonies and initiating the Revolution.

1784 – The Treaty of Paris, ratified by Congress on January 14, is ratified by King George III of Great Britain, ending the American Revolutionary War.

1865 – Meeting with General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, General Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia.

1909 – The U.S. Congress passes the Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act, raising certain tariffs on goods entering the country.

1942 – Meeting with General Kameichiro Nagano, General Edward P. King surrenders the U.S and Filipino forces on the Bataan peninsula.

1945 – The United States Atomic Energy Commission is formed.

1947 – The Glazier–Higgins–Woodward tornado outbreak kills 181 people and injures 970 more across Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

1948 –Riots break out when socialist presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán is assassinated in Bogotá, Columbia.

1959 – NASA announces the selection of the first 7 astronauts for project Mercury.

1967 – The first Boeing 737 makes its maiden flight.

1969 – The first British built Concorde 002 makes its maiden flight from Filton to RAF Fairford.

1981 – About 110 nautical miles southwest of Sasebo, Japan, in the East China Sea, the U.S. Navy’s nuclear submarine USS George Washington accidentally collides with the Nissho Maru, a Japanese cargo ship, sinking it and killing 2 Japanese sailors.

1990 – Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2254, an Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia, enroute from Gadsden, Alabama, to Atlanta, Georgia, collides in midair with a Cessna 172 over Gadsden, Alabama, killing both of the Cessna’s occupants with the Embraer returning safely to Gadsden.

1992 – Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega is found guilty in U.S. federal court of drug and racketeering charges and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

2014 – A student  at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville, Pennsylvania knifes 20 other students and a security guard before being subdued by an assistant principal, aided by another student.

April 8

1271 – Using a forged letter purportedly from their Grand Master, Sultan Al-Malik Baibars of Egypt fools the crusader Knights Hospitallers at the Krak des Chevaliers fortress castle in Syria into surrendering after a short siege.

1730 – Shearith Israel, the first synagogue in New York City, is dedicated.

1820 – The Venus de Milo statue is discovered on the Aegean island of Milos.

1832 –  The U.S. 6th Infantry regiment is deploy into Illinois from St. Louis, Missouri to engage the Sauk tribe led by Chief Black Hawk who invaded from indian territory in Iowa.

1865 – At Appomattox Station, Virginia, Union cavalry under General Custer seize critical supplies needed by Confederate troops, also blocking General Lee’s line of march to the west.
General Lee receives a reply from General Grant about surrender terms and replies that he wishes to meet Grant in the morning of the next day.

1895 – In the case of Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. the Supreme Court rules unapportioned income tax imposed by the Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act of 1894, to be unconstitutional. This ruling provided the impetus for the 16th amendment and the current income tax scheme.

1913 – The 17th Amendment to the Constitution, changing election of Senators by state legislatures to a direct popular vote, becomes law when the legislature of the state of Connecticut votes to ratify it.

1924 –Kemal Atatürk abolishes Sharia law courts in Turkey.

1943 – President Roosevelt, in an attempt to check inflation, freezes wages and prices, prohibits workers from changing jobs unless the war effort would be aided thereby, and bars rate increases by common carriers and public utilities.

1952 – President Truman ‘nationalizes’ all domestic steel mills several hours before steelworkers plan on going out on strike. The Supreme Court rules in the case of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer that the seizure is unconstitutional and the steelworkers strike until late July.

1959 – The Organization of American States drafts an agreement to create the Inter-American Development Bank to provide financial services for central American and Caribbean nations.

1993 – The Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on mission STS-56.

2005 – A solar eclipse occurs, visible over areas of the Pacific Ocean and Latin American countries of Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela.

2013 – The Islamic State of Iraq enters the Syrian Civil War, merging with the Al-Nusra Front under the name Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham.

 

April 7

451 – Attila the Hun sacks the town of Metz and attacks other cities in Gaul.

529 – The Corpus Juris Civilis – The Civil Law- better known by the name of part of it; The Code of Justinian -one of the foundations of modern Law -is ordered to be compiled and issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.

1521 – Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Cebu in the Philippines on his voyage of circumnavigation.

1776 – After a fierce, hour long fight off the Delaware Capes, Captain John Barry, commanding USS Lexington, captures HMS Edward,  renamed USS Sachem and commanded by Captain Isaiah Robinson, for use by the Secret Committee of the Continental Congress.

1788 – American pioneers to the Northwest Territory establish Marietta, Ohio as the first permanent American settlement in the area.

1798 – The Mississippi Territory is organized from disputed territory claimed by both the United States and Spain.

1805 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition breaks winter camp at Fort Mandan near present day Washburn, North Dakota and resumes its journey west along the Missouri River in canoes, sending the keelboat back to St. Louis to return later.

1827 – John Walker, an English chemist, sells the first friction match that he had invented the previous year.

1831 – Emperor Pedro I of Brazil resigns to return to Portugal as King Pedro IV.

1865 – At the South Side Railroad’s bridges over the Appomattox River near Farmville, Virginia, Confederate Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s rear guard fails in the attempt to burn the bridges to prevent Union forces from following them across, allowing them to catch up with the Confederates north of the river at Cumberland Church north of Farmville.
Later that night General Lee receives a letter from General Grant proposing that the Army of Northern Virginia should surrender. Lee returns a letter asking about the surrender terms Grant might propose.

1922 – The United States Secretary of the Interior, Albert Bacon Fall, accepts bribes to lease federal petroleum reserves on the Teapot Dome in Wyoming to private oil companies on excessively generous terms.

1927 – The first long distance public television broadcast from Washington, D.C., to New York City, displays the image of then Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover.

1940 – Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.

1945 – During Operation Ten-Go, the last major Japanese naval operation of World War II, the battleship Yamato, sent on a suicide mission, is sunk by American aircraft shortly after getting underway.

1948 – The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.

1954 – President Eisenhower presents his “falling domino theory” of communist aggression during a news conference.

1964 – IBM introduces the mainframe System/360 computer system.

1978 – Development of the neutron, enhanced radiation nuclear bomb is canceled by President Carter.

1983 – During STS-6, the maiden flight of Shuttle Challenger, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the first Space Shuttle spacewalk.

1990 – Retired Admiral John Poindexter is found guilty of five counts of lying to Congress and obstruction of justice for his actions in the Iran–Contra scandal, which are all later reversed on appeal.

1994 – In Rwanda, members of the Hutu tribe begin nation wide massacres of members of the Tutsi tribe, apparently because they’re Tutsis and not Hutus.

1994 – Auburn Calloway attempts to destroy Federal Express Flight 705, a cargo DC-10, enroute from Memphis to San Jose, California, in order to allow his family to benefit from his life insurance policy. The crew manages to subdue him and at trial he is sentenced to consecutive life terms in prison for attempted murder and air piracy.

2001 – The Mars Odyssey robotic spacecraft is launched from Cape Canaveral to orbit Mars as a communications relay satellite for exploration craft on the surface.

2003 – During the invasion of Iraq, Baghdad falls to U.S. troops.

2017 – A moslem Uzbek terrorist deliberately drives a hijacked truck into a crowd in Stockholm, Sweden, killing 5 people and injuring 15 more before crashing into building and fleeing the scene and arrested a few hours later.

 

April 6

1250 – At Faraskur Egypt, the last major battle of the failed Seventh Crusade occurs, with moslem Ayyubids under Ghayath al-Din Turanshah capturing King Louis IX of France for ransom.

1453 – The Ottoman emperor Mehmed II begins his siege of Constantinople  which falls on May 29.

1712 – 23 enslaved Africans stage a rebellion in New York City, killing 9 people and wounding 6 more before being recaptured, with most of them being later executed.

1808 – In New York City, John Jacob Astor incorporates the American Fur Company, that would eventually make him America’s first millionaire.

1830 – The original church of the Latter Day Saints movement is organized by Joseph Smith and others in New York.

1841 –  2 days after having become President upon William Henry Harrison’s death,  John Tyler finally takes the oath of office.

1860 – The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is organized by Joseph Smith III and others at Amboy, Illinois.

1865 – Around Sayler’s Creek near Farmville, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia fights and loses its last major battle while in retreat from Richmond, Virginia.

1888 – Thomas Green Clemson dies, bequeathing his estate to the State of South Carolina to establish Clemson Agricultural College.

1896 – In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games are banned by Roman emperor Theodosius I.

1909 – Robert Peary and Matthew Henson become the first people to reach the North Pole.

1917 – Agreeing to President Woodrow Wilson’s request, Congress declares war on Germany.

1926 – Varney Airlines, the progenitor of United Airlines, makes its first commercial flight with pilot Leon D. Cuddeback flying an airmail delivery from Pasco, Washington to Elko, Nevada

1929 – Huey P. Long, Governor of Louisiana, is impeached by the Louisiana House of Representatives.

1930 – Mahatma Gandhi finishes his Salt March to the west coast of India and makes untaxed salt from the water of the Arabian sea at Dandi, Gujarat.

1936 – Another tornado from the same storm system as the Tupelo tornado hits Gainesville, Georgia, killing 203 people.

1965 – Intelsat 1 Early Bird, the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1968 – In Richmond, Indiana’s downtown district, a natural gas leak under the Marting Arms sporting goods store explodes, causing a secondary explosion of stored gunpowder, killing 41 people and injuring another 150.

1970 – In Valencia, California, 4 California Highway Patrol officers are killed in a shootout  with 2 heavily armed ‘career criminals’ after pulling them over for a previously reported crime. Both criminals escape from the 3 other officers arriving at the scene, but one later commits suicide while barricaded in house, while the other later surrenders and is sentenced to death, which is later reduced to life imprisonment. 39 years later, he commits suicide in his prison cell. As a result of this shootout, CHP completely revamps its weapons training program

1973 – The Pioneer 11 spacecraft is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida to explore the outer solar system, finally entering interstellar space in 1990.

1997 – In Greene County, Tennessee, a group of 6 young people carjack and kidnap the Lillelid family, murdering the parents and their 6 year old daughter, but only seriously wounding the 2 year old son. Later arrested in Arizona after being expelled from Mexico, the six are all sentenced at court in Tennessee to multiple life terms, with an additional 25 years in prison, after taking a plea bargain to take the death penalty off the table.

1998 – Travelers Group announces an agreement to merge with Citicorp, forming Citibank.

2017 – In response to a Syrian chemical attack on rebel forces 2 days previously, President Trump orders the U.S. military to attack the Shayrat Airbase in Syria that intelligence assets believed was where the Syrian air forces were based. The following morning, U.S. Naval forces launch 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles with 58 successfully striking their targets.