- 1 Origin of Dionysian Incarnation of the Word
- 31 Christians celebrate the first Easter, according to calendar maker Dionysius Exiguus
- 421 City of Venice is founded, at noon on a Friday
- 708 Constantine begins his reign as Catholic Pope
- 1150 Tichborne family of Hampshire England start tradition of giving gallon of flour to residents to keep deathbed promise
Richard I
1199 King Richard I (the Lion Heart) of England, is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France, leads to his death on April 6
- 1305 Consecration of the Scrovegni Chapel (Arena Chapel) in Padua, Italy, with fresco masterpiece by Florentine painter Giotto
Robert the Bruce
1306 Robert the Bruce crowned Robert I, King of Scots, having killed his rival John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch
- 1409 Council of Pisa opens - elects Antipope Alexander V
1436 Florence Cathedral (Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore), started in 1296, is consecrated by Pope Eugene IV. Designed by Filippo Brunelleschi with support from Cosimo de' Medici, it features the largest dome in the world at the time.
- 1505 7th Spanish India Armada of 21 ships led by Francisco de Almeida, departs Lisbon, aiming to establish a Portuguese Viceroy in India
- 1571 Catholic Italian businessman Roberto Ridolfi leaves England
Philip II
1581 Portuguese Cortes (King's Court) calls Philip II King of Portugal, further legitimatizing his rule
Raleigh's Royal Charter
1584 English explorer Walter Raleigh granted seven-year royal charter by Elizabeth I to explore and colonize North America, after Humphrey Gilbert's death at sea
- 1593 Recantation of Loos, Dutch scholar Coinelius Loos recants his earlier written protest against witchcraft persecution in Trier, Germany before officials in Brussels
Second Dutch Expedition to East Indies
1598 Cornelis de Houtman's fleet departs Amsterdam for the East Indies (Indonesia) on his second voyage in search of the then exotic spices, cloves, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon and pepper
Henry Hudson Sets Sail
1609 Henry Hudson embarks on an attempt to find northwest passage to Asia for the Dutch East India Company - will explore North America instead
- 1634 Under charter granted to Lord Baltimore and led by his brother Leonard Calvert first settlers found Catholic colony of Maryland
- 1647 Dutch East India Company ship Nieuw Haarlem is shipwrecked without loss of life in shallow waters in Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope, leading to the founding of the Dutch Cape Colony [1]
- 1669 Mount Etna erupts in Sicily, destroying Nicolosi and killing about 20,000 people
Whitefield's Bethesda Orphanage
1740 Construction begins on evangelist George Whitefield's Bethesda Orphanage in Georgia
Voltaire leaves Prussia
1753 Voltaire leaves the court of Frederik II of Prussia
- 1802 Great Britain and the French Republic sign the Treaty of Amiens
1807 British Parliament abolishes the slave trade throughout the British Empire; a penalty of £120 per slave is introduced for ship captains
- 1807 First fare-paying, passenger railway service in the world established on the Oystermouth Railway in Swansea, Wales
Canning Foreign Secretary
1807 George Canning becomes British Foreign Secretary, serving until 1809
The Necessity of Atheism
1811 Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for his publication of the pamphlet "The Necessity of Atheism"
- 1813 The first US flag is flown in battle in the Pacific by the frigate Essex
- 1814 The Bank of the Netherlands is established
- 1817 Tsar Alexander I recommends the formation of the Society of Israelite Christians
- 1821 The Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire is officially declared, after hostilities begin two months earlier
Exploration of the Northern Territory
1846 German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt arrives in Sydney to a hero's welcome after completing his exploration of Australia's Northern Territory
- 1847 Pope Pius issues IX encyclical "On aid for Ireland"
- 1851 Yosemite Valley discovery made public by Major James D. Savage and Captain John Boling after being shown by Indian guides in California
- 1852 Friedrich Hebbel's tragedy "Agnes Bernauer" premieres in Munich
- 1856 Ambrose E. Burnside patents the Burnside carbine
- 1857 Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville receives a patent for his phonautograph, a device which created visual images of sound
1st Army Medals of Honor
1863 1st US Army Medal of Honor awarded to six army soldiers by US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in Washington
- 1863 Skirmish at Brentwood, Tennessee
- 1864 Battle of Paducah, Kentucky (Forrest's raid)
- 1865 American steamship General Lyon catches fire and sinks off Cape Hatteras, killing about 500 people
- 1865 Battle of Bluff Spring, Florida
- 1865 Battle of Mobile, Alabama (Spanish Fort, Fort Morgan, Fort Blakely)
- 1865 Battle of Petersburg: Confederate forces launch an unsuccessful counterattack on Fort Stedman
Agostino Depretis Prime Minister
1876 Agostino Depretis becomes Prime Minister of Italy for the first time as head of a left-leaning government
- 1876 Glasgow hosts Wales' first international soccer match, Scotland defeats Wales 4 to 0
- 1882 First demonstration of pancake making held at a department store in NYC
- 1888 Socialist leader Domela Nieuwenhuis elected to Dutch 2nd Chamber
- 1889 First Test cricket match is played at Newlands in Cape Town between South Africa and England
- 1894 Coxey's Army of the unemployed sets out from Massillon, Ohio, for Washington, D.C.
- 1895 Italian troops invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
- 1898 Swami Vivekananda initiates Margaret Noble (Sister Nivedita) into the vow of Brahmacharya, the first Western woman received into an Indian monastic order
- 1898 The Intercollegiate Trapshooting Association forms in New York City
1898 Writer O. Henry sentenced to 5 years in prison for embezzling $854 from a bank reportedly to pay for his sick wife's medical bills. Goes on to write many classics while in jail including "Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking".
- 1900 The Socialist Party of America forms in Indianapolis
- 1901 55 die as Rock Island train derailed near Marshalltown, Iowa
- 1902 In Russia, 567 students are tried for rioting and 'political disaffection' are found guilty; 95 are banished to Siberia
- 1902 Irving W. Colburn patents sheet glass drawing machine
- 1903 Racing Club de Avellaneda, one of Argentina’s Big Five clubs, is founded
- 1905 Confederate battle flags captured during the American Civil War are returned to South
- 1907 Stanley Cup, Winnipeg Auditorium, Winnipeg, Manitoba: Montreal Wanderers lose to Kenora Thistles, 6-5 but win on 2 game aggregate, 12-8
- 1908 Clube Atletico Mineiro, Founded in Belo Horizonte, Brazil
- 1910 Chalmers Auto Co offers a new car to each league's batting champion
- 1911 L. D. Swamikannu publishes "Manual of Indian Chronology" in Bombay
- 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory catches fire 145 die, all but 13 girls in Greenwich Village, New York
- 1913 Great Dayton Flood: winter rains cause Great Miami River to flood, Ohio's greatest natural disaster
- 1913 Home of vaudeville, the Palace Theatre opens in New York City with Ed Wynn
- 1915 First US submarine disaster: Submarine F-4 sinks off Hawaii, killing 21
- 1915 German U boat torpedoes Netherlands merchant ship Medea
- 1916 Jess Willard fights Frank Moran to no decision in 10 for heavyweight boxing title in NYC
Bill Bishop's 1st Victory
1917 Canadian flying ace Billy Bishop claims his first victory, shooting down and mortally wounding German Leutnant Theiller
- 1918 Belarusian People's Republic is established
League of Nations
1919 Woodrow Wilson's dream of a League of Nations becomes a reality after the League Covenant is adopted at the Paris Peace Conference
- 1920 Greek Independence Day
- 1923 British government grants Trans-Jordan autonomy
- 1924 Greek Parliament selects Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis as prime minister
- 1924 Stanley Cup Final, Ottawa Auditorium, Ottawa, ON: Montreal Canadiens (NHL) beat Calgary Tigers (WCHL), 3-0 for a 2-0 series sweep
- 1931 Hal Kemp & his Orchestra record "Whistles", with Skinnay Ennis as vocalist, in NYC
- 1931 Scottsboro Boys arrested in Alabama, accused of raping a white woman
1934 1st Augusta National Invitation Tournament (Masters) Golf: Horton Smith wins with 20-foot birdie putt at the 17th hole, 1 stroke ahead of Craig Wood
- 1935 The first Belgian government led by Paul van Zeeland resigns
- 1936 200-inch mirror blank to build the Hale telescope leaves Corning New York for California (then largest telescopic mirror ever made)
Babe Ruth's Quaker Ads
1937 It is revealed Quaker Oats pays Babe Ruth $25,000 per year for ads
- 1937 Italy & Yugoslavia sign non-aggression treaty (Pact of Belgrade)
- 1937 Lionel Conacher misses the first penalty shot in Stanley Cup Final history
- 1937 Washington Daily News is 1st US newspaper with perfumed advertising page
- 1939 Billboard Magazine introduces the hillbilly (country) music chart
- 1941 Carolina Paprika Mills in Dillon, South Carolina, incorporated
- 1942 1st 700 Jews from Polish Lvov district reach the Bełżec Concentration camp
- 1943 97% of all Dutch physicians strike against Nazi registration
- 1944 German troops execute 335 residents of Rome
- 1945 US 1st army breaks out bridgehead near Remagen, Germany after crossing the Rhine
- 1945 US 4th Armored Division arrives in Hanau and Aschaffenburg
- 1945 US Northern Tractor Flotilla departs Ulithi for Okinawa
Ebony Concerto
1946 First performance of Igor Stravinsky's "Ebony Concerto" by Woody Herman and His Thundering Herd at Carnegie Hall in New York City
- 1947 Agreement of Linggadjati is ratified in Batavia
- 1947 Coal mine explosion in Centralia, Illinois kills 111
- 1947 Walter Hammond plays his final Test cricket match against New Zealand in Christchurch
- 1949 The Soviet Union begins Operation Pribioi, the mass deportation of 90,000 Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians to inhospitable areas in the Soviet Union
- 1951 5th Tony Awards: "Guys & Dolls" (musical) and "The Rose Tattoo" (play) win
- 1951 Edward Mills Purcell and Harold I. Ewen detect 21-cm radiation at Harvard physics lab
Catholic Encyclical
1954 Pope Pius XII issues the encyclical "Sacra Virginitas" on consecrated virginity
- 1954 RCA manufactures the first color TV set, featuring a 12.5-inch screen and costing $1,000
- 1955 East Germany granted full sovereignty by occupying power, USSR
- 1957 NBA modifies the free-throw rule
- 1957 Treaty of Rome establishes European Economic Community (Common Market)
- 1958 West German parliament expresses support for German nuclear weapons
- 1959 French President De Gaulle acknowledges Oder-Neisse boundary
- 1959 New York Giants first baseman Bill White traded to St Louis Cardinals for pitchers Sam Jones and Don Choate
- 1960 First guided missile launched from a nuclear powered submarine (USS Halibut)
Sports History
1960 Ford Frick voids the Indians-Red Sox trade after Sam White announces his retirement
- 1960 Italian government of Fernando Tambroni forms
Event of Interest
1960 US Court of Appeal Judge Frederick van Pelt Bryan, in New York City, rules D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" is not obscene, overturning ban imposed by US postal Service
- 1961 3rd place game is one of the wildest contests in NCAA Tournament history as St Joseph's defeats Utah, 127-120 in quadruple overtime
Music Concert
1961 Elvis Presley performs live at Pearl Harbor’s Bloch Arena in a benefit for the USS Arizona Memorial; his return to the concert stage after a stint in the US Army raises $60K and worldwide awareness of the project [1]
- 1961 Explorer 10 launches into a highly elongated Earth orbit of about 177 by 181,000 km
- 1961 Sputnik 10 carries a dog into Earth orbit; later recovered
- 1962 French OAS-leader ex-general Jouhaud arrested
- 1963 KWHY TV channel 22 in Los Angeles, CA (IND) begins broadcasting
- 1964 Egypt ends state of siege (1952-64)
- 1965 West German Bondsdag extends war crimes retribution
- 1966 Beatles pose for photographer Robert Whitaker with mutilated dolls and butchered meat for album cover of "Yesterday & Today", it is later pulled from circulation and replaced with a different photo
- 1966 US Supreme court rules "poll tax" unconstitutional
- 1967 The Turtle's "Happy Together" goes #1
- 1967 The Who and Cream make their US debut at Murray the K's Easter Show
- 1967 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1968 KLVX TV channel 10 in Las Vegas, NV (PBS) begins broadcasting
- 1968 Members of the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC) disrupt a meeting of Londonderry Corporation to protest at the lack of housing provision in the city, Northern Ireland
- 1968 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Music Concert
1969 American singer Judy Garland’s gives what becomes her very last concert, at Falkoner Centret in Copenhagen, Denmark
- 1969 Andes Pact signed in Peru
Music History
1969 Beatle John Lennon and new wife Yoko Ono stage their 1st bed-in for peace, at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Event of Interest
1969 Ian Paisley and Ronald Bunting, loyalists in Northern Ireland are jailed for organising an illegal counter demonstration in Armagh on 30 November 1968
- 1969 Pakistan General Agha Mohammed Jagja Khan succeeds Ayub Chan as president
- 1970 Concorde makes its 1st supersonic flight (700 MPH/1,127 KPH)
- 1971 European council accepts Mansholt Plan laying off 5 million farmers
Event of Interest
1971 James Callaghan speaks at a rally of the Northern Ireland labour movement, but rejects calls for the Labour Party to open membership to those living in N. Ireland
- 1971 NFL football team Boston Patriots become New England Patriots as they relocate to Foxboro. Massachusetts
Sports History
1972 Chicago Black Hawks Bobby Hull becomes the 2nd NHLer to score 600 goals, with a goal in Boston assisted by his brother Dennis
- 1972 Soft rock trio America's debut album "America" goes #1
- 1973 27th Tony Awards: "That Championship Season" (play) and "A Little Night Music" (musical) win
- 1973 AIAW Women's Basketball Tournament, Immaculata beats Queens College, 59-52, Immaculata 1st undefeated team in New York
- 1974 Chipko forest conservation movement begins in Reni Village, Western Himalayas, India, when local woman Gaura Devi hugs a tree to prevent its logging [1]
When Will I Be Loved
1975 Linda Ronstadt releases cover of the Everly Brothers' 1960 song "When Will I Be Loved" as a single; climbs to No. 2 in the charts
- 1975 St Catherine's Monastery on the Sinai peninsula, discovers a cache of manuscript fragments including pages of the Codex Sinaiticus and a palimpsest with the first ever example of Caucasian Albanian [1]
- 1976 Argentine military junta bans leftist political parties
- 1978 AIAW Women's Basketball Tournament, UCLA beat Maryland 90-74 in Los Angeles
- 1979 AIAW Women's Basketball Tournament, Old Dominion beat Louisiana Tech 75-65 in Greensboro
- 1979 Major riot at Bourda prevents day's play in the WSC Supertest
- 1979 Space Shuttle Columbia arrives at Kennedy Space Centre to prepare for its first launch, which would eventually happen in 1981
- 1982 First broadcast of "Cagney & Lacey," starring Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly, airs on CBS
Sports History
1982 Wayne Gretzky becomes the first NHL player to score 200 points in a single season
- 1983 Christa Rothenburger sets the women's 500 m speed skating world record at 39.69 seconds
Music History
1983 Motown 25, a concert celebrating the anniversary of Motown records is taped for broadcast at the Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, California; performers include: The Miracles; The Temptations; The Four Tops; Diana Ross and the Supremes; The Jackson 5; and Michael Jackson, who unveils his "moonwalk" dance move
- 1983 Pavel Pegov skates a world-record 1000 m in 1:12.58
Sports History
1986 Canadian Kurt Browning becomes the first figure skater to land a quadruple jump
- 1986 The Supreme Court rules that the Air Force can ban the wearing of yarmulkes (brimless Jewish skullcaps)
- 1987 The US Supreme Court rules that gender-based workplace affirmative action plans do not constitute discrimination on the basis of sex under the Civil Rights Act 1964
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
1988 "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas is released
- 1990 Fire at an illegal New York City social club kills 87
1991 Country singer Reba McEntire performs as scheduled at the Academy Awards ceremony, just 9 days after nearly her entire band dies in a plane crash
- 1991 Nigerian crude becomes competitive in US Gulf Coast as Nigeria cuts crude prices
- 1992 British scientists find new largest perfect # (2 756839 -1 * 2 756839)
- 1992 Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returns to Earth after a 10-month stay aboard the Mir space station
1992 ICC Men's Cricket ODI World Cup, Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia: Pakistan beats England by 22 runs for their first trophy; Player of the Match: Wasim Akram (PAK) 33 (18) & 3/49
- 1992 Russian manned spacecraft TM-14 lands
- 1994 Gunda Niemann skates ladies world record 3 km (4:09.32)
- 1994 Yasunori Miyabe skates world record 1000 m (1:12.37)
- 1995 Boxer Mike Tyson released from jail after serving 3 years
- 1996 Comet C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake) approaches within 0.1018 AUs of Earth
- 1996 Ice Dance Championship at Edmonton won by Gritshuk & Platov (RUS)
- 1996 Ice Pairs Championship at Edmonton won by Eltsova & Bushkov (RUS)
- 1996 The European Union's Veterinarian Committee bans the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of "mad cow disease" (BSE).
- 1996 US issues a redesigned $100 bill
Life After Death
1997 "Life After Death" second studio album by The Notorious B.I.G. is released (Billboard Song of the Year 1997)
Baseball Trade
1997 MLB Cleveland Indians trade Lofton & Embree to Braves for Marquis Grissom & David Justice
- 2002 TV reality show "The Bachelor" hosted by Chris Harrison debuts on ABC in the US
Rules of Travel
2003 Capitol/Nashville Records releases "Rules of Travel", the tenth studio album by singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash; produced by husband John Leventhal, it includes a duet with her father Johnny Cash
- 2006 Capitol Hill massacre: A gunman kills six people before taking his own life at a party in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood
- 2006 Protesters demand a re-election in Belarus following a rigged presidential election and clash with riot police. Opposition leader Aleksander Kozulin is among several protesters arrested.
- 2009 Gay dating site Grindr launched by Joel Simkhai, first ever dating application to combine dating information and location
Film & TV History
2012 Peter Cruddas, treasurer of Britain's Conservative Party, resigns after being caught on film selling access to British Prime Minister David Cameron
Sports History
2013 Golfer Tiger Woods returns to his world number one ranking
- 2016 Suicide attack during a football match in Iskandariya, Iraq kills at least 32 people, ISIS claim responsibility
Music Concert
2016 The Rolling Stones perform a free outdoor concert at the Ciudad Deportiva de la Habana sports complex, in Havana, Cuba, before an estimated crowd of 500,000
- 2016 Zayn's [Zayn Malik] solo debut album "Mind of Mine" is released, 1st British male artist to debut at No. 1 in US
- 2017 Largest banana split ever, at 8,040 meters long, is made in Innisfail, Australia
- 2018 Australian cricket captain Steve Smith handed one-match ban after admitting Australian team tampered with the ball in 3rd test against South Africa in South Africa
- 2018 Fire in a shopping mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo, Russia, kills at least 64
- 2018 First scheduled non-stop flight between Australia and the UK, leaves Perth for Heathrow airport in London, arrives after 17 hours
Event of Interest
2018 North Korean leader Kim Jong-un begins surprise trip to Beijing by train to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping
- 2019 Apple introduces new TV streaming platform Apple TV+, news service Apple News+ and an Apple credit card at star-studded event featuring Oprah
- 2019 British Airways flight from London mistakenly flies to Edinburgh, Scotland, instead of Düsseldorf, Germany, when the wrong flight plan is submitted
- 2019 First organ transplant between a live HIV donor and an HIV recipient with a kidney transplant in Boston, Massachusetts
- 2019 First rocket fired from Gaza since 2014 toward Tel Aviv prompts Israeli return air strikes on Gaza
- 2019 Further power blackouts in Caracas, Venezuela, prompt government to tell workers and students to stay at home
- 2019 NASA cancels a planned historic all-female spacewalk because it doesn't have enough spacesuits to fit women
- 2019 Teacher of the Year awarded to rural Kenyan math and physics teacher and Franciscan brother Peter Tabichi in Dubai, United Arab Emirates
- 2020 Spain's death toll from COVID-19 overtakes China's at 3,434 to become then second worldwide behind Italy with 7,503 deaths with a worldwide toll of 20,836
- 2021 Renaissance masterpiece The Ghent Altarpiece (1432) by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck goes on display, after seven-year restoration, in Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium [1]
Event of Interest
2021 Republican-led Georgia State Senate passes restrictive changes to state voting. President Joe Biden calls it "Jim Crow in the 21st Century" and "a blatant attack on the Constitution".
- 2021 US President Joe Biden announces a new goal of 200 million vaccinations in his administration's first 100 days (previously 100 million)
- 2022 Sydney forward Lance "Buddy" Franklin kicks 4 goals to become only 6th player in VFL/AFL history to kick 1,000 career goals; Swans overrun Geelong, 107-77 at the SCG
- 2023 Rare, long-track tornado travels 170 miles from Rolling Fork to Armory, Mississippi; trail of devastation kills at least 25
Titanic Door Auction
2024 Door from "Titanic" that saved Kate Winslet's character (and killed Leo DiCaprio’s) sells for US$718,750 at Planet Hollywood auction, beating Indiana Jones‘ bullwhip and ax from "The Shining" [1]
- 2024 Europe's centre for particle research, Cern, approves experiment to find evidence for 'ghost particles' by smashing particles against a hard surface [1]
- 2024 First widespread outbreak of bird flu in cows reported at farms in six US states, including one person at a Texas dairy farm [1]
Diddy's Homes Searched
2024 Homes belonging to Sean "Diddy" Combs searched by federal authorities amid allegations of sex trafficking, sexual assault, against the rap singer and producer [1]
- 2024 UN Security Council issues its first demand for a cease-fire in Gaza, with the US abstaining from the vote, angering Israel [1]
- 2024 UN-appointed expert says there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in report "Anatomy of a Genocide" [1]
