- 837 Comet 1P/837 F1 (Halley) approaches within 0.0334 AU of Earth
- 847 Leo IV begins his reign as Catholic Pope
- 879 Louis III becomes King of West Francia
- 1407 Lama Deshin Shekpa visits the Ming Dynasty capital at Nanjing and receives the title Great Treasure Prince of Dharma
- 1589 Spanish troops conquer Geertruidenberg after the garrison of English and Dutch troops surrenders
- 1607 The British colonial expedition that would found Jamestown departs Puerto Rico for the American mainland
1633 First bananas go on sale in London in the shop window of Thomas Johnson's apothecary
- 1656 Dutch fleet occupiers Colombo, Ceylon
- 1710 The first law regulating copyright is issued in Great Britain
- 1741 War of the Austrian Succession: Prussia defeats Austria in the Battle of Mollwitz
- 1790 US patent system is formed
- 1802 Great Trigonometrical Survey begun to survey entire Indian subcontinent, led by William Lambton and the East India Company (completed 1871)
- 1815 Austria declares war on Kingdom of Naples
1815 Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies experiences a cataclysmic eruption, one of the most powerful in history, killing around 71,000 people and causing a global volcanic winter
- 1816 Second Bank of the United States is chartered
- 1821 Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople is hanged by the Turks from the main gate of the Patriarchate, his body thrown into the Bosphorus
- 1825 First hotel in Hawaii opens
- 1825 Nicaraguan Constituent Assembly meets in León, Nicaragua
- 1826 10,500 inhabitants of the Greek town Messolonghi start leaving the town after a year's siege by Turkish forces. Very few of them survive.
George Canning Prime Minister
1827 British Foreign Secretary George Canning becomes British Prime Minister upon the resignation of Robert Jenkinson, lives to serve only 119 days
- 1841 New York Tribune begins publishing under editor Horace Greeley
- 1845 More than 1,000 buildings damaged by fire in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Safety Pin
1849 Safety pin is patented by Walter Hunt in NYC; he sells the rights for $400
- 1856 The Theta Chi Fraternity is founded at Norwich University, Vermont
- 1858 Big Ben, a 13.76-tonne bell, is recast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
- 1861 Massachusetts Institute of Technology is established by William Barton Rogers as a private land grant university in Cambridge, Massachusetts
- 1863 Confederate General Earl Van Dorn attacks at Franklin, Tennessee
Lee's Farewell Address
1865 At Appomattox, Confederate General Robert E. Lee issues General Order #9, his last
- 1866 American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is formed
- 1868 British defeat King of Abyssinia at Magdala
A German Requiem
1868 Composer Johannes Brahms conducts the first performance of his choral masterwork "A German Requiem" at the Bremen Cathedral
- 1869 Congress increases the number of Supreme Court judges from seven to nine
- 1869 Cuban nationalist José Martí founds the Cuban Revolutionary Party
- 1871 William Hammond Hall's maps and surveys of Golden Gate Park are accepted
- 1872 1st Arbor Day celebrated in Nebraska, later changed to Apr 22
- 1872 First National Colored Convention meets in New Orleans
- 1877 Federal troops withdrawn from Columbia, SC
- 1878 California Street Cable Car Railroad Co starts service
- 1882 Captain William Matson founds his shipping company (San Francisco & Hawaii)
- 1884 US Senate accepts Belgian administration of Congo
- 1887 Soccer team Be Quick forms in Hairs Groningen
Lincoln Reburied
1887 US President Abraham Lincoln's re-buried with his wife in Springfield, Illinois
- 1896 American athlete Thomas Burke claims the sprint double at the Athens Olympics winning the 100m final in 12.0s; his 2nd victory of the Games after success in the 400m
- 1896 High jumper Ellery Clark leads an American sweep of the placings with a leap of 1.81m at the Athens Olympics; his 2nd victory of the Games after taking out the long jump
1st Olympic Marathon
1896 Spyridon Louis of Greece wins the inaugural Olympic marathon (2:58:50) in Athens, running the last lap accompanied by Constantine I
- 1898 First Navy Law is passed by the German Reichstag
Titanic Sets Sail
1912 RMS Titanic sets sail from Southampton for her maiden (and final) voyage
- 1913 During the Montenegrin siege of Scutari, the Montenegrin coastline is blockaded
Sports History
1913 New York Highlanders play first MLB game as the New York Yankees; lose to the Washington Senators, 2-1 at Griffith Stadium, President Woodrow Wilson throws out 1st ball
- 1915 Castbergian Child Laws adopted in Norway - one of the first laws in the world to protect the welfare of extra-martial children [1]
- 1916 The Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA) is founded in New York City
- 1917 Munition factory explosion at Eddystone, Pennsylvania, kills 133 workers
Hatred and More Hatred
1923 Adolf Hitler demands "hatred & more hatred" in Berlin, Germany
- 1924 Tubular steel golf club shafts approved for championship play
- 1925 Tsaritsyn renamed Stalingrad (now Volgograd)
Music History
1930 First full performance of ballet "Le Sacre du Printemps" (The Rite of Spring) featuring Martha Graham; Igor Stravinsky's score provided by the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Leopold Stokowski at the Metropolitan Opera House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania [1]
- 1930 Thiokol Corporation begins producing the first synthetic rubber in Yardley, New Jersey; product is based on the earlier accidental discovery by chemists, Joseph C. Patrick and Nathan Mnookin
Hindenburg President
1932 Paul von Hindenburg is re-elected President of Germany in a runoff election against Adolf Hitler
- 1934 Stanley Cup Final, Chicago Stadium, Chicago, IL: Chicago Blackhawks beat Detroit Red Wings, 1-0 in double OT for a 3-1 series win; Black Hawks' first Stanley Cup
- 1935 Vaughan Williams' 4th Symphony premieres in London
- 1936 200" mirror blank arrives from Corning Glass Works of New York at Caltech's optical shop in Pasadena, California for use in Palomar Observatory's Hale Telescope; the work takes 11-1/2 years [1]
- 1938 Austria becomes a state of Germany
- 1938 NY makes syphilis test mandatory in order to get a marriage license
Government of Édouard Daladier
1938 Second government of Blum replaced by Édouard Daladier's government in France
- 1939 Grens mobilization due to Italian invasion in Albania
- 1939 Prime Minister Hendrikus Colijn's Dutch government opens camp Westerbork for German Jews
- 1941 German troops conquer Libyan county Cyrenaica
Croatia German Puppet Statete
1941 Independent State of Croatia led by Ante Pavelić established as fascist German puppet state
- 1942 Cigarettes & candy rationed in Holland
- 1943 12 Jewish patients of Herren Loo-Lozenoord escape Nazis
- 1943 General Montgomery occupies Sfax, Tunisia
- 1944 "Patrolling the Ether" is shown on 3 TV stations simultaneously
- 1944 Soviet forces liberate Odessa from the Axis powers
- 1945 Antony Tudor's ballet "Undertow," set to the music of William Schuman premieres Metropolitan Opera House in NYC
- 1945 Canadian troops conquer Deventer
- 1945 General Blaskowitz becomes nazi leader of "Fort Holland"
- 1945 German troops attack Ijsselbrug
- 1945 NFL's Boston Yanks & Brooklyn Tigers merge
- 1945 US troops land on Tsugen Shima Okinawa
- 1946 1st election for Japanese Parliament
Jackie Robinson's MLB Contract
1947 Jackie Robinson becomes first black player of the 20th century to sign a MLB contract; Brooklyn GM, Branch Rickey announces Dodgers had bought Robinson’s contract from Montreal Royals
- 1947 King Frederik IX of Denmark crowned
- 1948 Jewish Hagana repels an Arab attack on Mishmar HaEmek
- 1953 "House of Wax," the first color 3-D movie, premieres in New York
Hammarskjöld Secretary General
1953 Dag Hammarskjöld becomes the 2nd Secretary-General of the United Nations
- 1954 KRGV TV channel 5 in Weslaco, TX (ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1955 Ruth Ellis shoots jilting lover David Blakely (last woman to be executed in the UK)
- 1956 Philips broadcasts 1st Dutch color TV programs
1956 Stanley Cup Final, Montreal Forum, Montreal, Quebec: Jean Béliveau has a goal and 2 assists as Montreal Canadiens beat Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 for a 4-1 series win
12 Angry Men
1957 Feature film adadptation of Reginald Rose's teleplay "12 Angry Men", directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall is released by United Artists
- 1957 John Osborne's stage drama "The Entertainer" premieres at the Royal Court Theatre in London's West End
- 1957 Jordan's Arabist government of Suleiman Nabulsi is forced to resign after escalating policy disputes with the royal family
- 1957 USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan
- 1958 Northern strip of Spanish Sahara ceded to Morocco
- 1959 Chicago White Sox second baseman Nellie Fox gets a MLB Opening Day record tying 5 hits in 7 at-bats in a 14-inning, 9–7 win in Detroit
- 1960 Senate passes landmark Civil Rights Bill
Event of Interest
1961 Dutch foreign minister Luns talks to JFK about New Guinea
- 1961 Washington Senators play first game in franchise history with President John F. Kennedy in attendance; lose a 4-3 decision to the Chicago White Sox
- 1962 52,564 fans attend first MLB game at LA's Dodger Stadium at Chavez Ravine, a 6-3 loss to the Cincinnati Reds
- 1962 Houston Colt .45s make their MLB debut with an 11-2 win over the Chicago Cubs at Colt Stadium; outfielder Román Mejías hits a pair of 3-run homers
- 1963 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1963 USS Thresher, a nuclear powered submarine, sinks 220 miles east of Boston killing 129 men, including 17 civilians
- 1964 Demolition begins in Upper Manhattan, New York City on Polo Grounds sports stadium (home to MLB Giants, 1891-1957, Mets, 1962-63, and NFL Jets, 1960-63) to clear way for housing project
- 1964 Iranian motor launch catches fire & sinks killing 113 (Persian Gulf)
- 1968 Ferry Wahine sinks in Wellington harbour, New Zealand on route from Lyttelton (51 killed)
- 1968 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Music History
1970 Paul McCartney officially announces the breakup of The Beatles in a press release promoting his solo album
- 1971 Philadelphia Phillies open their new home, Veterans Stadium, with a 4-1 win over the Montreal Expos; 55,352, largest ever crowd to watch a MLB game in Pennsylvania
- 1971 The Republican commemorations is held in Belfast of the Easter Rising (in 1916 in Dublin), revealing conflicts between the two wings of the Irish Republican Army
- 1971 US table tennis team arrives in People's Republic of China
- 1972 20 days after he was kidnapped in Buenos Aires, Oberdan Sallustro is executed by communist guerrillas
- 1972 7.0 earthquake kills 1/5 of population of Iranian province of Fars
- 1972 Two British soldiers are killed in a bomb attack in Derry
- 1972 US, USSR and 70 other nations agree to ban biological weapons at the Biological Weapons Convention
- 1973 BEA flight to Basel Switzerland, crashes on landing, killing 104 of 143
- 1973 Kansas City Royals open their new park, Royals Stadium with 12-1 rout of the Texas Rangers; attendance 39,476
- 1973 Pakistan suspends constitution
- 1974 American Boccaccio Association forms
- 1975 Rangers score 8 goals against Islanders in playoffs
- 1976 Cleveland Cavaliers win their 1st NBA Central Division title
- 1976 MLB Milwaukee Brewers' Don Money's grand slammer disallowed; New York Yankees win 9-7
- 1977 Cleveland Indians set club record for longest, 9 inn game (3:17)
- 1978 Formation of Major Indoor Soccer League announced
- 1979 J. R. Richard of the Houston Astros pitches a complete game but sets a MLB record by throwing 6 wild pitches in 2-1 win over the LA Dodgers at the Astrodome
- 1979 Red River Valley Tornado Outbreak: 22 tornadoes occur between Oklahoma and Texas, killing 61 people
- 1979 Soyuz 33 launched with a Russian & a Bulgarian
- 1981 Computer glitch keeps Space Shuttle Columbia grounded
- 1981 France performs nuclear test
Election of Interest
1981 Imprisoned Provisional IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands elected to British Parliament for Northern Ireland county of Fermanagh and South Tyrone
- 1982 LA Kings losing 5-0 to Edmonton in 3rd period, win in OT 6-5
- 1983 Jordan king Hussein ceases negotiations with PLO
- 1984 Damaged Solar Max satellite snared by Challenger shuttle
- 1984 US Senate condemns CIA mining of Nicaraguan harbors
- 1985 At 80 Leo Sites becomes oldest bowler to score a 300 game
- 1985 Challenger moves to Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) for mating of STS 51-B mission
- 1986 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1988 Herschel Walker performs Fort Worth Ballet
- 1988 Islanders beat Devils 5-4 (OT) 1st round tied at 2-2
Historic Invention
1989 Intel announces the shipment of the 486 microprocessor
- 1990 CUNY/Lehman College, Bronx, opens a branch campus in Hiroshma, Japan
- 1991 Boat rams a tanker in Livorno Italy fog, killing about 138
- 1991 Last automat (coin operated cafeteria) closes (3rd & 42nd St, NYC)
- 1991 Martin Zubero swims world record 200m backstroke (1:52.51)
- 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is awarded to John Updike for novel 'Rabbit At Rest'
- 1991 Rare tropical storm develops in the Southern Hemisphere near Angola; first to be documented by satellites
- 1992 25 die in a bus bombing in Sri Lanka
- 1992 Floriade (Flower Show) opens at The Hague, Netherlands
- 1992 NHL strike ends after 10 days
- 1993 BPAA US Open by Del Ballard Jr
- 1993 Ottawa Senators win 1st road game (Islanders) after 38 straight loses
- 1993 Pittsburgh Penguins win their NHL record 17 game winning streak
- 1995 NYC bans smoking in all restaurants that seat 35 or more
- 1996 Fastest wind speed ever recorded (not a tornado) is 408 km/h (220 kn; 253 mph; 113 m/s) during Tropical Cyclone Olivia on Barrow Island, Australia
- 1998 The Good Friday Agreement (Belfast Agreement) for Northern Ireland is signed by the British and Irish governments
- 2005 At 16 years, 271 days James Vaughan scores for Everton in a 4-0 win against Crystal Palace at Goodison Park; becomes youngest goalscorer in EPL history
- 2006 Hundreds of thousands protest against US immigration reforms contained in H.R. 4437, also known as the "Sensenbrenner Bill"
- 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154M crashes near Smolensk, Russia, killing all 96 people on board including President Lech Kaczyński
- 2012 Apple Inc claims a value of $600 billion making it the largest company by market capitalization in the world
Election of Interest
2012 Rick Santorum suspends his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination making Mitt Romney the overwhelming favourite
- 2012 United Nations deadline for Syrian troop withdrawal passes as violence continues
- 2013 Japan and Taiwan sign an agreement on fishing rights around the Senkaku Islands
- 2014 88 civilians are killed by barrel bombs from Syrian war planes in Aleppo, Syria
- 2014 The Council of Europe suspends Russia's right to vote
- 2016 Explosions and a fire caused by fireworks at Puttingal Temple in Kerala, India, kills more than 100 and injures nearly 400
Event of Interest
2016 Hong Kong pro-democracy political party Demosistō established by Nathan Law, Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow
- 2017 "British Vogue" magazine announces Edward Enninful as new editor; first male and Black person to hold position
- 2017 Alabama Governor Robert Bentley resigns over relationship with an aide and possible misuse of state funds to cover it up
Event of Interest
2018 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg begins testifying before US Congress about data use and security
- 2019 China announces move to cull more than 1 million pigs in effort to eliminate African swine fever
- 2019 First home delivery service by drone begins in Canberra, Australia by Wing, part of Google's Alphabet company
2019 First-ever photo of a black hole announced, taken by The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration in 2017 in galaxy M87, 6.5 billion times the mass of earth, 55 million light-years away
- 2019 Four tiny sweat bees removed alive from a woman's eye in world's first operation of its kind at Fooyin University Hospital, Taiwan
- 2019 New species of human announced named Homo luzonensis, 3ft tall, remains dated 50-60,000 years old found in cave on island of Luzon, Philippines
- 2019 New York declares a public health emergency and compulsory vaccinations after a measles outbreak in Brooklyn with 285 cases
Event of Interest
2021 China orders Alibaba pay a record fine of 18.2 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) after anti-trust regulations say it has been acting as a monopoly
Sports History
2022 Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan removed from power after losing a no-confidence vote in parliament [1]
Music History
2022 Revival of "Cabaret" starring Eddie Redmayne wins best musical at UK's Olivier Awards, "Life of Pi" wins best play [1]
- 2023 Rare California poppy superbloom of orange poppies begins in Southern California around Lake Elinsore [1]
Dalai Lama Apologizes
2023 The Dalai Lama apologizes for a video showing him asking a boy to suck his tongue, after widespread criticism [1]
- 2024 Avi Wigderson announced as the winner of the 2023 Turing Prize for his work in clarifying the role of randomness in algorithms [1]
South Korean Election
2024 South Korea's liberal opposition party wins landslide majority in the country's general election - a defeat for President Yoon Suk Yeol, amid claims he was brought down by a spring onion [1]
US and Japan Counter China
2024 US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announce moves to counter Chinese aggression at a meeting at the White House [1]
