1691 – French troops occupy Mons
1768 – John Hancock refuses to allow two British customs agents to go below deck of his ship, considered by some to be the first act of physical resistance to British authority in the colonies
1838 – UK National Gallery re-opens in its new dedicated building in Trafalgar Square, London
1931 – Chicago Cy Wentworth beats Montreal Canadiens at 13:50 of 6th period
1945 – Liberty ship at Bari Italy carrying aerial bombs explodes, kills 360
1988 – US imposes economic sanctions on Panama
1988 – 142nd Grand National: Irish jockey Brendan Powell wins aboard 10/1 shot Rhyme ‘n’ Reason by 4 lengths from Durham Edition
1995 – 59th US Masters Tournament, Augusta National GC: Ben Crenshaw wins his 2nd Masters title, 1 stroke ahead of runner-up Davis Love III
1999 – Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, President of Niger, is assassinated at the airport in Niamey, Niger
2011 – 164th Grand National: Jason Maguire wins aboard Irish 14/1 shot Ballabriggs; first GN win for trainer Donald McCain Jr., son of 4-time winning trainer Ginger McCain
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 8th April 2023
1232 – Mongol army under General Subedei begins the siege of Chinese Jin capital of Kaifeng – 1st occasion gunpowder used in a major engagement
1500 – Battle of Novara: King Louis XII of France defeats Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan
1866 – Italy and Prussia ally against Austria-Hungary.
1879 – Milk sold in glass bottles for 1st time
1886 – William Ewart Gladstone introduces the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons.
1935 – Béla Bartók’s 5th String quartet premieres in Washington, D.C.
1969 – Expansion teams Royals, Expos, Padres and Pilots win their 1st games
1979 – People’s Republic of China joins IOC
1985 – Amdahl releases UTS/V, 1st mainframe Unix
1990 – “Twin Peaks” created by David Lynch and starring Kyle MacLachlan premieres on ABC-TV
Historical Events for 7th April 2023
1862 – Grant defeats Confederates at Battle of Shiloh, Tenn, Island #10 falls
1968 – Riots continue in over 100 US cities following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
1969 – Ted Williams begins managing Washington Senators, they lose to Yanks 8-4
1971 – WCJB TV channel 20 in Gainesville, FL (ABC/NBC) begins broadcasting 3-judge US Circuit Court of Appeals
1973 – Doug Walters’ best Test Cricket bowling, 5-66 v WI Georgetown
1973 – Cleveland sets day-game and opening-game attendance records of 74,420
1974 – Herb Gardner’s “Thieves” premieres in NYC
1985 – Nabisco Dinah Shore Women’s Golf, Mission Hills CC: Alice Miller shoots a final round 67 (−5) to win her only major title, 3 strokes ahead of Jan Stephenson of Australia
1987 – Al Campanis, Dodger executive for more than 40 years, resigns, after making racial remarks on “Nightline”
1992 – Republika Srpska (aka the Bosnian Serb Republic) announces its independence.
Historical Events for 6th April 2023
1757 – British King George II dismisses minister William Pitt the Elder, Secretary of State for the Southern Department
1920 – To force German evacuation of the Ruhr area, the French occupy Frankfurt, Darmstadt, and Hanau
1924 – 4 planes leave Seattle on 1st successful around-the-world flight
1931 – 1st Scottsboro (Alabama) trial begins – 9 blacks accused of rape
1934 – 418 Lutheran ministers arrested in Germany
1938 – Teflon invented by Roy J. Plunkett
1957 – NYC ends trolley car service
1975 – Fastest hat trick by a Wash Cap 3 mins 26 secs (Stan Gilbertson)
1994 – Liberal Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun (Roe v Wade) resigns
2019 – Tampa Bay Lightning beats Boston Bruins, 6-3 in the season finale for their 62nd regular season win, tying the NHL record held by Detroit Red Wings (1995-96); 128 points, 4th in NHL history
Historical Events for 5th April 2023
1804 – High Possil Meteorite: The first recorded meteorite in Scotland falls in Possil
1905 – James Barrie’s “Alice-sit-by-the-fire” premieres in London
1946 – 100th Grand National: Capt. Robert Petre wins aboard 25/1 shot Lovely Cottage; first true GN since 1940 due to World War II; last on a Friday
1967 – ATS II launched but fails to reach orbit
1969 – Massive anti-Vietnam War demonstrations occur in many U.S. cities
1982 – 43 year old St. Louis reliever Jim Kaat pitches 1 inning for the Cardinals in a season-opening, 14-3 rout of Houston; sets a MLB record for pitchers by playing in his 24th consecutive season
1991 – Space Shuttle STS 37 (Atlantis 8) launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida
1994 – Miami Heat beat NY Knicks ending 15 game NBA winning streak
1998 – The Arizona Diamondbacks record their first win in team history with a 3-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants in Phoenix, AZ; ends second-worst start ever (0-5) by an expansion team
2022 – Shanghai lockdown extended to cover the whole city as COVID-19 cases increase, as China remains one of the last to employ a “zero-Covid” system
Historical Events for 4th April 2023
1859 – Bryant’s Minstrels debut “Dixie” in New York City in the finale of a blackface minstrel show
1870 – Golden Gate Park forms by City Order #800
1912 – Army fires on striking mine workers at Lena-gold fields in Siberia
1932 – George Bernard Shaw’s comedy play “Too True To Be Good” premieres in NYC; runs for 59 performances
1968 – US civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee
1994 – 1st game played at Jacobs Field, Indians beat Mariners 4-3 in 11 inn
1994 – 56th NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship: Arkansas beats Duke, 76-72; Razorbacks’ first title in first title game
1999 – The Tradition Senior Men’s Golf, GC at Desert Mountain: Graham Marsh of Australia wins his second Champions Tour major by 3 strokes from Larry Nelson
2013 – 9 people have been killed on an axe-murdering rampage in Chhattisgarh state, India
2019 – US Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pledges to roll back anti-LGBT policies, including not baptizing children of gay parents
Historical Events for 3rd April 2023
1856 – Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes badly damaged by gunpowder explosion, kills 4,000 on island of Rhodes
1882 – Wood block alarm invented, when alarm rang, it dropped 20 wood blocks
1948 – US female Figure Skating championship won by Gretchen Merrill
1948 – 1st US figure skating championships held
1980 – France performs nuclear test
1987 – MLB Chicago Cubs trade Dennis Eckersley to Oakland A’s for 3 minor league players
1987 – Duchess of Windsor’s jewels auctioned for £31,380,197
1992 – 1st exhibition game at Camden Field – Orioles beat NY Mets
1994 – The Tradition Senior Men’s Golf, GC at Desert Mountain: Ray Floyd wins first of 4 Champions Tour majors with birdie on first playoff hole against Dale Douglass
2013 – 50 people are killed by flooding across Argentina
Historical Events for 2nd April 2023
1453 – Turkish forces under Sultan Mehmed II begin the siege of Constantinople (İstanbul), which falls May 29
1865 – Battle of Fort Blakely Alabama, last major battle of the US Civil War
1902 – Dutch football club Maatschappelijke Voetbal Vereniging (MVV) is established in Maastricht, Netherlands
1932 – “Tarzan the Ape Man” released starring Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller in the first of his 12 Tarzan films
1977 – Montreal Canadiens rout the Washington Capitals, 11-0 at the Montreal Forum to set an NHL record of 34 straight home games without a loss
1985 – US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1993 – Cleveland Cavaliers guard Mark Price has his consecutive free throw streak end at 77, during a 114-113 loss at Charlotte; falls 1 short of Calvin Murphy’s NBA record of 78 straight free throws
1993 – Venezuelan DC-10 crashes at Margarita, killing 10
2019 – 70 villages evacuated in Khuzesta province, Iran, after at least 45 killed in flooding after unprecedented rainfall
2020 – Spain’s death toll passes 10,000 (10003), as it posts a record single-day rise of 950 deaths
Historical Events for 1st April 2023
1792 – Gronings feminist Etta Palm demands women’s right to divorce
1868 – Hampton Institute opens
1891 – The Wrigley Company is founded in Chicago, Illinois.
1933 – Heinrich Himmler becomes Police Commander of Germany
1942 – Allied air raid on Japanese occupied harbor city Kupang, Timor, Indonesia
1972 – 30,000 attend Mar Y Sol rock concert, Vega Baja, Puerto Rico
1972 – MLB players stage first ever collective strike; play resumes (13/4/72) when owners and players agree to $500,000 increase in pension fund payments
1993 – Alan Bennett’s play “The Madness of George III” premieres in London
2000 – Michelle Kwan pushes through all 7 triple jumps at the Palais des Exposition in Nice, France to become the first American since Peggy Flemming to win 3 world figure skating titles
2016 – The Golden State Warriors NBA record winning home run ends at 54 games with a 109-106 defeat to the Boston Celtics; the loss at Oracle Arena was the Warriors’ first since January 2015
Historical Events for 31st March 2023
1683 – Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and King John III Sobieski of Poland sign a covenant against Turkey, beginning of the Holy League
1808 – French created Kingdom of Westphalia orders Jews to adopt family names
1906 – GB Shaw’s German version of “Caesar and Cleopatra” premieres in Berlin
1922 – KFI-AM in Los Angeles CA begins radio transmissions
1946 – First election is held in Greece after World War II
1968 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces in an address to the nation that he will not seek re-election
1973 – Philadelphia Flyers score an NHL record tying 8 goals from an astounding 60 shots in the 2nd period of a 10-2 win over New York Islanders
1979 – 24th Eurovision Song Contest: Gali Atari and Milk and Honey for Israel wins singing “Hallelujah” in Jerusalem
1996 – Space Shuttle STS 76 (Atlantis 16), lands
2021 – Paul Simon sells his entire songwriting catalog of over 400 songs to Sony Music Publishing for an undisclosed sum