MILESFORTIS

April 1

527 – Byzantine Emperor Justin I names his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne.

1789 – The first quorum of the U.S. House of Representatives’ 1st Congress meets at Federal Hall in New York City, electing Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as its first Speaker.

1833 – 56 delegates of Mexican Texas meet at the Convention of 1833 in San Felipe de Austin to draft a series of petitions to the government in Mexico City for redress of grievances and submitting a state constitution.

1865 – At the Battle of Five Forks, southwest of Petersburg Virginia, Union troops led by Philip Sheridan defeat Confederate troops led by George Pickett, cutting the Army of Northern Virginia’s last supply line.

1924 – Adolf Hitler is sentenced to 5 years imprisonment for his participation in the “Beer Hall Putsch” of November 1923 in Munich, but spends only 9 months behind bars at Landsberg prison.

1945 – The 10th United States Army, consisting of the U.S. Army’s 7th, 27th, 77th and 96th Infantry Divisions and the US Marine Corps’ 1st, 2nd, and 6th Marine Divisions, invade the Japanese island of Okinawa.
A few hours into the invasion, the cruiser USS Vincennes is attacked by Kamikaze aircraft, the Gunner’s Mates Guns aboard shooting down one that crashes less than 50 feet from the stern.

1946 – A 8.6 Mw  earthquake strikes the Aleutian Islands, injuring over 165 people, also causing a tsunami reaching the Hawaiian Islands resulting in 173 deaths, mostly in Hilo, Hawaii.

1960 – NASA’s TIROS-1  Television InfraRed Observation Satellite transmits the first television picture to Earth, of the Earth, from space.

1970 – President Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law, revising the warning on cigarette packaging and banning cigarette advertisements on American radio and television.

1976 – Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak found Apple Computer, Inc.

1997 – Comet Hale–Bopp is seen passing at perihelion, it’s closest approach to the Sun. No spacecraft is detected in its vicinity.

2001 – An EP-3E U. S. Navy surveillance aircraft collides with a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Shenyang J-8 fighter jet, with the resulting loss of the Chinese pilot. The Navy crew makes an emergency landing in Hainan, China where they are detained for 10 days.

2004 – Google launches its Email service Gmail.

2011 – After protests against the burning of a Quran turn violent, a mob attacks a United Nations compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of 13 people, including 8 foreign workers. None of the U.S. troops and their supporting civil service employees deployed there  come under threat of attack.

March 31

1146 – During a council convoked by French King Louis VII at Vézelay, France, the Benedictine monk Bernard of Clairvaux preaches a sermon urging a Second Crusade due to the fall of the crusader state of Edessa in southern Turkey, causing the entire assembly to take up the pilgrim cross.

1492 – Queen Isabella of Castile issues the Alhambra Decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish and Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.

1685 – Johann Sebastian Bach is born in Eisenach, Thuringia, Duchy of Saxe-Eisenach in modern Germany.

1774 – In response to the ‘Boston Tea Party’, the British parliament passes the Boston Port Act, the first of the Intolerable Acts closing down the port of Boston on June 1st.

1854 – Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Japanese Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened.

1899 – During  the Phillipine-American War, Malolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, is captured by American forces.

1906 – The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (later the National Collegiate Athletic Association – NCAA) is established to set rules for college sports in the U.S.

1917 – By the terms of the Treaty of the Danish West Indies, The Virgin Islands are sold to the U.S. for $25 million in gold.

1918 – Daylight saving time goes into effect in the U.S. for the first time.

1930 – The Motion Picture Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in film in the U.S.

1931 – A Transcontinental & Western Air Fokker F-10 airliner crashes near Bazaar, Kansas, killing all 8 passengers and crew aboard, including University of Notre Dame head football coach, Knute Rockne.

1933 – The Civilian Conservation Corps, a voluntary public work relief program, is established with the mission of relieving rampant unemployment in the United States.

1951 – Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.

1959 – Fleeing Chinese communist persecution in Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum.

1968 – During a televised speech on “Steps to Limit the War in Vietnam” President Lyndon B. Johnson concludes by announcing “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”

1992 – BB-63, USS Missouri, the last active U.S. Navy battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California.

1995 – Singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez is murdered by her fan club’s president Yolanda Saldívar at a Days Inn motel in Corpus Christi, Texas

1998 – Netscape releases Mozilla source code under an open source license.