- 757 Paolo Orsini replaces his brother Pope Stephen II as Pope Paul I
Event of Interest
1220 King of the Germans Frederick II grants bishops sovereign rights
- 1336 Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarch famously climbs Mont Ventoux
- 1392 Korean Confucian scholar and statesman Jeong Mong-ju is assassinated on the Sonjuk Bridge in Gaeseong (now North Korea). A brown spot on the bridge is still said to be his blood.
- 1467 The miraculous image in Our Lady of Good Counsel appear in Genazzano, Italy
Copernicus Observes Saturn
1514 Copernicus makes his 1st observations of Saturn
- 1607 Jamestown expedition makes first landing in America at a place named Cape Henry, in what would become Virginia, but they quickly depart for a better site
- 1654 Jews are expelled from Brazil
- 1655 Dutch West Indies Company denies Peter Stuyvesant's desire to exclude Jews from New Amsterdam colony
- 1677 Emperor Leopold I forms University of Innsbruck
- 1755 First Russian university opens in Moscow
- 1777 Sybil Ludington aged 16, rides 40 miles in New York to warn her father's militia of the approach of the British
- 1803 Meteorites fall in L'Aigle, France
Louis XVIII Lands at Calais
1814 King Louis XVIII lands at Calais from England
- 1819 Odd Fellows Lodge forms
- 1828 Russia declares war on Turkey to support Greece's independence
- 1841 "Bombay Gazette" begins publishing on silk
Alfred Wallace for South America
1848 Alfred Russel Wallace departs the UK for South America, beginning four years of travel, collecting, and research in the region
- 1853 Dutch King William III disbands 2nd Chamber
Rossini Leaves Italy
1855 Composer Gioachino Rossini leaves Italy for the final time, returning to Paris, France
- 1859 US Congressman Daniel E. Sickles is acquitted in the murder of Philip Barton Key on grounds of "temporary insanity," the first time this defense is used successfully in the US [1]
Johnston Surrenders to Sherman
1865 Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston surrenders remaining forces to Union General William T. Sherman at Bennett Place in Durham, North Carolina, ending the American Civil War
- 1879 National Park (later renamed Royal National Park) established south of Sydney, Australia. World's second-oldest national park.
- 1887 Huntsville Electric Co forms to sell electricity
- 1893 First Cleveland Board of Park Commissioners forms
- 1900 Newly renamed American League opener in Cleveland draws 6,500 (still as a minor league, was Western League)
- 1901 Jimmy Collins, having left the Boston Beaneaters (NL), captains and manages his first game for the Boston Americans (loses 10-6 at Baltimore Orioles)
- 1904 Bell Telephone Company of Antwerp, Belgium, forms
1904 General Kuroko leads the Japanese Army against the large Russian force at the Yalu river during the Russo-Japanese War
- 1905 Cubs Jack McCarthy becomes only major league player to throw out 3 runners at plate in 1 game, all were ends of a double play
- 1906 Motion pictures begin regular showings at the Orpheum Theater in Honolulu, Hawaii
- 1907 Jamestown, Virginia Tercentenary Exposition opens
- 1912 First home run hit at Fenway Park by Hugh Bradley of the Red Sox
Sun Yet San Calls for Revolt
1913 Sun Yet San calls for revolt against President Yuan Shikai in China
- 1915 Italy secretly signs the "Treaty of London" with Britain, France and Russia, bringing Italy into World War I on the Allied side
- 1920 Harlow Shapley and Heber D. Curtis hold the "Great Debate" on the nature of nebulae, galaxies, and the size of the universe at the US National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
- 1920 Husband and wife team Ludowika & Walter Jakobsson representing Finland, win the pairs skating gold medal at the Antwerp Olympics; Ludowika is the only German-born athlete at the Games
- 1920 Ice hockey makes its Olympic debut at the Antwerp Games with center Frank Fredrickson scoring 7 goals in Canada's 12-1 drubbing of Sweden in the gold medal match
Diego Rivera Leaves Communist Party
1925 Artist Diego Rivera resigns from the Mexican Communist Party
- 1925 Pulitzer prize awarded to Edna Ferber for "So big"
- 1926 Germany and Russia sign a neutrality peace treaty
- 1926 Karachai Autonomous Region forms in RSFSR (until 1943)
Madame Tussauds Reopens
1928 Madame Tussaud's waxwork exhibition reopens in London after a fire
- 1929 First non-stop England to India flight lands
Lou Gehrig's Big Mistake
1931 Lou Gehrig hits a HR but is called out for passing a runner, mistake costs him AL home run crown; he & Babe Ruth tie for season
- 1933 Jewish students are barred from school in Germany
- 1935 Frank Boucher is given NHL's Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship permanently for winning it 7 of 11 years
- 1937 German Luftwaffe destroys Basque town of Guernica in Spain
- 1938 Austrian Jews required to register property above 5,000 Reichsmarks
- 1941 A tradition begins with the first organ at a baseball stadium (Chicago Cubs)
- 1941 Potatoes rationed in Holland
- 1942 Coal mine explosion kills 1,549 at Honkeiko, Manchuria
- 1944 First B-29 is attacked by Japanese fighters, one fighter shot down
- 1944 Papandreou government in Greece forms
Pétain Arrested for Treason
1945 Marshal Philippe Pétain, leader of France's Vichy collaborationist regime during World War II, is arrested for treason
- 1945 World War II: Battle of Bautzen - last successful German tank-offensive of the war and last noteworthy victory of the Wehrmacht
- 1947 Vivian Ellis and A. P. Herbert' musical "Bless the Bride" opena at the Adelphia Theatre in London; runs for 886 performances
- 1949 Transjordan is officially renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
- 1950 Last horse race at Havre de Grace Track in Md, is run
- 1950 U of Miami ends William & Mary straight tennis match victories at 82
Golf History
1952 Patty Berg scores 64, the best competitive round of golf by a woman
- 1952 US minesweeper Hobson rams aircraft carrier Wasp, kills 176
- 1954 Far Eastern Affairs conference opens in Geneva
1954 Mass trials of Jonas Salk's anti-polio vaccine begin; the first shot is delivered in Fairfax County, Virginia; more than 443,000 children receive shots over three months
- 1954 USSR Supreme Soviet transfer the Crimean oblast from Russian SFSR to Ukrainian SSR
- 1956 First modern container ship, the Ideal X, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas
- 1957 Jamestown, Virginia 350th Anniversary Festival opens
- 1961 French paratroopers' revolt suppressed in Algeria
Baseball History
1961 New York Yankees outfielder Roger Maris hits 1st of 61 homers in 1961
- 1962 First Lockheed A-12 flight
- 1962 Ranger 4 crash lands on (backside of) Moon
- 1962 US and UK launch Ariel, the first UK satellite and the first international payload
LPGA Titleholders Championship
1964 LPGA Titleholders Championship Women's Golf, Augusta CC: Marilynn Smith retains title; beats Mickey Wright by 1 stroke
- 1964 Tanganyika and Zanzibar form the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar
Music Premiere
1965 Charles Ives' 4th Symphony premieres at Carnegie Hall, New York, 11 years after the composer's death
- 1966 An earthquake of magnitude 7.5 destroys Tashkent, Uzbekistan
- 1966 International Olympic Committee votes to award German city of Munich the right to host the 1972 Summer Olympic Games
- 1967 KSPS TV channel 7 in Spokane, WA (PBS) begins broadcasting
- 1967 San Marco 2 Launch (1st Equatorial Launch)
- 1968 Students seize administration building at Ohio State
- 1968 US underground nuclear test, "Boxcar," 1 megaton device
- 1969 Firestone World Bowling Tournament (Mercury Open) won by Jim Godman
- 1971 Heaviest rains ever in Bahia district of Brazil, 15" in 24 hrs
- 1971 San Francisco lightship replaced by automatic buoy
- 1971 Turkey state of siege proclaimed
- 1973 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1974 Landslide in Huancavelica Province Peru creates a natural dam
- 1974 Malta adopts constitution
- 1974 Yankees trade Peterson, Beene, Kline & Buskey to Indians for Chambliss, Tidrow & Upshaw
Baseball Record
1975 MLB Philadelphia Phillies slugger Mike Schmidt's 2 home runs in 7-3 win over Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh ties NL record of 11 HRs in April
- 1976 Pan Am begins nonstop flights between NYC and Tokyo
- 1977 Opening of Studio 54 in New York, N.Y.
- 1978 France sends troops to Chad
- 1978 NASA launches space vehicle S-201
- 1980 Gerard Nijboer runs Dutch record marathon (2:09:01)
- 1980 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1980 Iran begins scattering US hostages from US Embassy
- 1980 Longest jump by a jet boat is set at 120 feet
Baseball Record
1980 MLB Philadelphia Phillies Steve Carlton pitches his 6th 1-hitter, in 7-0 win over St. Louis Cardinals, at Veterans Stadium; 1st National League to record 6 1-hitters
1982 Argentina surrenders to British forces on South Georgia Island, near the Falkland Islands
Music History
1982 Rod Stewart is mugged, gunman steals his $50,000 Porsche on Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
- 1983 Dow Jones Industrial Average breaks 1,200 for 1st time
NFL Draft
1983 NFL Draft: Stanford quarterback John Elway first pick by Baltimore Colts
- 1983 San Antonio spurs beat Denver Nuggets, 152-133 in NBA playoff game
- 1984 Liverpool's Cavern Club reopens
- 1986 Experimental aircraft Piasecki PA-97 Helistat - a combination of 4 helicopters and a blimp - crashes during first test flight, killing one pilot, at US Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey
- 1986 Firestone World Bowling Tournament of Champions won by Marshall Holman
- 1986 France performs nuclear test
- 1986 Game between Angels & Twins delayed for 9 minutes by strong winds
1986 The world's worst nuclear disaster occurs when the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet Union explodes, resulting in 31 deaths and radioactive contamination spreading to much of Western Europe
TNN Viewers Choice Awards
1988 1st TNN Viewers choice awards: Randy Travis wins in 5 categories
- 1988 NBA approves addition of 3rd referee in 1988-89 season
Sports History
1988 NY Mets Davey Johnson becomes 2nd manager in MLB history to record 400 victory in 1st 4 years (Al López was 1st)
- 1989 AT&T announces New Jersey's 201 area code will split into 908 and 201
Mike Tyson' Speeding Ticket
1989 Mike Tyson gets a speeding ticket for drag racing his Lamborghini in Albany, New York
- 1990 126 die in a (6.9) earthquake in China
- 1990 Danny Wood of New Kids, steps on a stuffed animal & twists his ankle
- 1990 NY court of appeals ends 2½ year legal battle over 1988 America's Cup by refusing jurisdiction of case
Baseball Record
1990 Texas Rangers Nolan Ryan ties Bob Feller's record of pitching 12 one-hitters in 1-0 win over Chicago White Sox at Arlington Stadium
- 1991 "Dinosaurs" premieres on ABC-TV
Maradona Suspended
1991 Soccer star Diego Maradona, suspended for using cocaine, arrested in Argentina for possession & distribution of illegal narcotics
- 1991 Twenty-three killed in Kansas and Oklahoma by tornadoes
- 1992 "Growing Pains" final episode on ABC TV
- 1992 "Who's The Boss" final episode after 8 years on ABC TV
Ellis Island Medal of Honor
1992 Alex Haley (Roots) wins 1992 Ellis Island Award, posthumously
Baseball Record
1992 MLB St. Louis Cardinals Ozzie Smith steals his 500th base
- 1992 NFL Draft: University of Washington defensive end Steve Emtman from first pick by Indianapolis Colts
- 1993 Indian Airlines Flight 491 (Boeing 737) crashes at Aurangabad, India, killing 55 and injuring 63
- 1993 Space Shuttle Columbia, mission STS-55, launches into orbit carrying Spacelab D2 laboratory
- 1994 26.9°C in Prestebakke Norway (Norwegian April high temperature record)
- 1994 China Airlines Flight 140 crashes in Nagoya, Japan, killing 264 of the 271 passengers
- 1994 First day of voting in the first-ever multiracial elections in South Africa, Dr. Nomaza Paintin in New Zealand is the first Black South African to vote
- 1994 Physicists announce the first evidence of the top quark subatomic particle
Due South Premieres
1994 TV series "Due South" about Canadian Mounties starring Paul Gross premieres in Canada
- 1995 Baseball season begins after lengthy strike
- 1995 Coors Field, opens in Denver, Rockies beat Mets 11-9 in 14 innings
- 1996 Shaun Pollock takes 4 wkts in 4 balls for Warwickshire in B&H
- 1998 Guatemalan human rights activist Juan José Gerardi is bludgeoned to death by army officers in his home in Guatemala City [1]
- 1999 BBC presenter Jill Dando shot and killed outside her London home - launches Metropolitan Police's largest murder enquiry, crime remains unsolved [1]
- 2002 Robert Steinhäuser infiltrates and kills 17 at Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt, Germany before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot.
- 2003 NFL Draft: USC quarterback Carson Palmer first pick by Cincinnati Bengals
Devils and Dust Released
2005 Columbia Records releases Bruce Springsteen's 13th studio album "Devils and Dust"
- 2005 Under international pressure, Syria withdraws the last of its 14,000 troops from Lebanon, ending its 29-year military domination of the country
- 2007 Queen's Pier is officially closed by the Hong Kong government to facilitate land reclamation in Hong Kong's Central district after a bitter struggle by conservationists
- 2008 NFL Draft: University of Michigan offensive tackle Jake Long first pick by Miami Dolphins
- 2012 70 people are killed by rocket attacks by the Syrian Army on the city of Hama
- 2012 Indonesia suspends imports of American beef after a confirmed case of mad cow disease in California
- 2012 NFL Draft: Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck first pick by Indianapolis Colts
- 2013 30 people are killed after a bus crashes following a Taliban attack in southern Afghanistan
Music History
2013 Cory Monteith is reported to have completed treatment at a drug rehabilitation facility
- 2014 Oratorio for chorus evoking Pennsylvania coal-mining life "Anthracite Fields" by composer Julia Wolfe premieres in Philadelphia (Pulitzer Prize for Music 2015) [1]
London Marathon
2015 35th London Marathon: Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge & Ethiopian Tigist Tufa win
FC Bayern Munich win the Bundesliga
2015 FC Bayern Munich wins the 2014–15 Bundesliga for a 25th time
- 2016 CEO of Chobani, Hamdi Ulukaya, announces that he will be giving his employees 10% of the shares in Chobani
- 2017 Gift Ngoepe becomes 1st black African to play in Major League Baseball, for the Pittsburgh Pirates
Film & TV History
2018 Comedian Bill Cosby is found guilty of sexual assault in Pennsylvania
- 2018 NFL Draft: Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield first pick by Cleveland Browns; 4 QBs taken in top 10 selections for first time in history
- 2018 Serial killer "Golden State Killer" identified after 40 years as a former police officer, responsible for 12 killings, 50 rapes in California
- 2019 "No religion" tops survey of American religious identity for the first time at 23.1% edging out Catholics 23.0% and evangelicals 22.5%, in long-running General Social Survey
- 2019 Six suspected militants connected to Sri Lankan terror attacks killed along with ten others in a shootout with police in Sainthamaruthu
- 2019 Waorani people of Pastaza win landmark environmental case against the Ecuadorian government to protect half a million acres of their territory in the Amazon rainforest
Music History
2021 Kanye West's Nike Air Yeezy 1 Prototype trainers sell for a record $1.8 million in a private sale at Sotheby's
Turkey Locks Down
2021 President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announces Turkey will go into full lockdown till May 17 to a curb COVID-19 surge and world's 4th highest caseload [1]
- 2021 The US, the EU and other countries announce they are sending pandemic aid to India as it's COVID-19 crisis continues to worsen
- 2021 US Census results shows its population growth second slowest in recorded history, population at 331,449,281 with only 7.4% increase on 2010 [1]
- 2022 Russia says it will stop supplying gas to Poland and Bulgaria, after the countries refused to pay in rubles, escalating the energy supply standoff between Russia and Europe [1]
2022 US infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says that the country is out of the "Pandemic Phase" - for the moment [1]
- 2022 World Bank warns the war in Ukraine will cause the "largest commodity shock" since the 1970s, with large economic and humanitarian effects [1]
Pelé Added to Dictionary
2023 Brazilian Portuguese-language Michaelis dictionary adds "pelé" as a new adjective to its online edition, meaning "exceptional, incomparable, unique" [1]
Biden Runs for Second Term
2023 US President Joe Biden announces his bid for a second term saying he has a “job to finish” [1]
E. Jean Carroll Trial
2023 Writer E. Jean Carroll testifies in a NY court that Donald Trump raped her in a department store in the 1990s [1]
- 2024 106 tornadoes tear through Nebraska, Iowa, Texas, Kansas and Missouri destroying hundreds of homes [1]
Burial of Pope Francis
2025 Pope Francis is buried at Rome's Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major after a Vatican ceremony; hundreds of thousands line the streets and fill Saint Peter's Square to pay tribute during the funeral
