1922 – The first Aggie Muster is held as a remembrance for fellow Aggies who had died in the previous year
1940 – 1st $64 Question, “Take It or Leave It,” on CBS Radio
1967 – Evangelical Broadcasting begins in Netherlands
1975 – 79th Boston Marathon: American Bill Rodgers wins men’s section in race record 2:09:55; Liane Winter of West Germany women’s champion in 2:42:24 (female world record)
1976 – Swine Flu vaccine, for non-epidemic, enters testing
1977 – Billy Martin pulls Yankee line-up out of a hat, beats Blue Jays 8-6
1987 – Milwaukee Brewers lose after 13th straight victory to start season
1989 – Thousands of Chinese crowd into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square cheering students demanding greater political freedom
1995 – British sitcom “Father Ted” written by Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, starring Dermot Morgan premieres on Channel 4
1997 – Ashes of psychologist and author Timothy Leary and “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry launched into space orbit
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 20th April 2024
1818 – Napoleon Bonaparte bids emotional farewell to his old guard at Palace of Fontainebleau
1896 – John Philip Sousa’s operetta “El Capitan” premieres on Broadway at Broadway Theatre, NYC
1912 – Tiger Stadium in Detroit opens, Tigers beat Cleveland Indians 6-5
1936 – 40th Boston Marathon won by Ellison Brown in 2:33:40.8
1982 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army explode bombs in Belfast, Derry, Armagh, Ballymena, Bessbrook and Magherafelt; 2 civilians are killed and 12 injured
1987 – US deports Karl Linnas to USSR, charged with Nazi war crimes
1997 – “Gin Game” opens at Lyceum Theater NYC for 144 performances
2004 – In Iraq, 12 mortars are fired on Abu Ghraib Prison by insurgents, killing 22 detainees and wounding 92.
2007 – Johnson Space Center Shooting: A man with a handgun barricades himself in NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself.
2023 – Colombian President Gustavo Petro meets with US President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington
Historical Events for 19th April 2024
1775 – New England militiamen begin the siege of Boston, hemming in the British army garrison
1825 – 33 patriotic exiles return to Uruguay
1919 – French assembly decides on 8 hour work day
1928 – New York Yankees are out of 1st place for 1st time since May 1926
1956 – 1st MLB baseball game in New Jersey – Brooklyn Dodgers beat Philadelphia Phillies, 5-4, at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City
1993 – After a 51 day siege by the FBI 76 Branch Davidians die in a fire near Waco Texas (accident, suicide, tear gas are disputed causes)
1995 – Oklahoma City bombing: Timothy McVeigh sets a truck bomb at Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168. including 19 children, and injuring 500
2015 – Boat carrying approx. 850 migrants is shipwrecked in the Mediterranean between Italian and Libya, with only 27 migrants rescued.
2020 – UK COVID-19 death toll reaches 16,060 (hospitals only), as “The Sunday Times” criticizes Boris Johnson’s government’s response, saying they “sleepwalked into disaster”
2022 – US Biden administration restores climate impacts and community say to the National Environmental Policy Act, previously removed by Donald Trump
Historical Events for 18th April 2024
1861 – Colonel Robert E. Lee turns down offer to command Union armies (US Civil War)
1881 – Natural History Museum opens in South Kensington, England
1904 – 8th Boston Marathon won by Michael Spring in 2:38:04.4
1916 – Edith Wharton is appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest award, for her contribution to the war effort
1939 – Franz von Papen becomes German ambassador in Turkey
1942 – “Stars and Stripes” paper for US armed forces starts
1945 – 1 armed outfielder, St Louis Brown Pete Gray, 1st game he goes 1 for 4
1955 – 1st “Walk”/”Don’t Walk” lighted street signals installed
1958 – A United States federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound is to be released from an insane asylum.
2017 – British Prime Minister Teresa May announces she will seek a “snap” election
Historical Events for 17th April 2024
1711 – Charles VI becomes Holy Roman Emperor after the death of his brother Joseph I
1758 – Francis Williams, 1st US black college graduate, publishes poems
1797 – Sir Ralph Abercromby attacks San Juan, Puerto Rico, one of the largest invasions of Spanish territories in America
1860 – Champion of England Tom Sayers and American John Heenan fight out brutal 2 hour, 27 minute draw near Farnborough, England; police stop fight acknowledged as first world title bout
1865 – Mary Surratt is arrested as a conspirator in Abraham’ Lincoln’s assassination
1875 – Modern Snooker invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain, a bored British officer in Jabalpur, India
1969 – People’s Democracy activist Bernadette Devlin becomes the youngest woman Member of Parliament ever elected to Westminster at 21 years old
1979 – Four Royal Ulster Constabulary officers are killed by a Provisional Irish Republican Army van bomb in Bessbrook, County Armagh; the bomb is believed to be the largest PIRA bomb used up to that point
1979 – Brian Clark’s stage drama “Whose Life is it Anyway?” starring Tom Conti and Phillip Bosco, and directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, opens at the Trafalgar Theatre, NYC; runs for 223 performances, winning Conti a Tony Award
1983 – 1st National Coin Week begins
Historical Events for 16th April 2024
1849 – Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera “Le prophète” premieres in Paris
1917 – 21st Boston Marathon won by Bill Kennedy in 2:28:37.2
1943 – 40 NZ bombers attack Haarlem, Netherlands (85 killed)
1948 – Organization for European Economic Cooperation (EEC) forms in Paris
1962 – 66th Boston Marathon won by Eino Oksanen of Finland in 2:23:48; second straight win and 3rd title overall
1962 – Brazil nationalizes US businesses
1975 – Cambodian Red Khmer occupy Phnom Penh
1992 – NY Rangers win team record 50th game
1994 – Circus performers Marissa Young (24) and Matt Richardson (21) wed
2020 – New study claims a multi-decade megadrought is already under way in the western US, published in journal “Science”
Historical Events for 15th April 2024
1450 – Battle of Formigny: French defeat the English decisively in the Hundred Years’ War, paving the way for the capture of English strongholds in Normandy
1621 – Hugo Grotius arrives in France after escaping prison in a book chest
1912 – 16th Boston Marathon won by Mike Ryan in race record 2:21:18.2
1915 – Manuel de Falla’s ballet “El Amor Brujo” premieres in Madrid
1945 – British Army liberates Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen
1947 – Operations begin at Radio Netherlands World radio
1963 – Steve Allen’s musical “Sophie”, based on the life of American singer, and comic actress Sophie Tucker, opens at Winter Garden Theater, NYC; runs for 8 performances
1991 – Sacramento Kings set NBA record, losing 35th consecutive game on road
1997 – America Online (AOL) begins service in Japan
2012 – TV comedy drama “Girls” created by and starring Lena Dunham premieres on HBO
Historical Events for 14th April 2024
1570 – Polish Calvinists, Lutherans and Hernhutters unify against Jesuits
1756 – Governor Glen of South Carolina protests against 900 Acadia indians
1841 – 1st detective story published, Edgar Allan Poe’s “Murders in Rue Morgue” (April 1841)
1861 – Formal Union surrender of Fort Sumter (US Civil War)
1890 – Pan American Day-1st conference of American states (Washington, D.C.)
1950 – 1st edition of British comic “Eagle”
1956 – Ampex Corp demonstrates 1st commercial videotape recorder
1958 – Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 with space dog Laika aboard burns up during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere
1992 – UN imposes embargo against Libya takes effect
1994 – Turner Classic Movies cable channel launches; media mogul Ted Turner hosts ceremony in NYC’s Times Square district at 6PM marking “the exact centennial anniversary of the first public movie showing in New York City”
Historical Events for 13th April 2024
1055 – Bishop Gebhard van Eichstattt named Pope Victor II
1560 – Giovanni, son of Italian mathematician Girolamo Cardano is executed for poisoning his wife, despite his father’s efforts to save him
1908 – Groundbreaking for Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, home of MLB Athletics (AL), 1909-54, MLB Phillies (NL), 1938-70, and NFL Eagles, 1940-57
1921 – Foundation of the Spanish Communist Workers’ Party.
1934 – 4.7 million US families report receiving welfare payments
1976 – 1st NBA playoff game for Cleveland Cavliers, they lose 100-95 to Washington
1992 – Great Chicago Flood – Chicago’s underground tunnels flood
1992 – Lou Carnesecca retires as coach of St John’s basketball team
1996 – Ottawa Senators eliminate Stanley Cup Champs NJ Devils from playoff
1997 – 61st US Masters Tournament, Augusta National GC: Tiger Woods wins his first major title, a record 12 strokes ahead of Tom Kite; 4-round total 270 (−18) is tournament record
Historical Events for 12th April 2024
1545 – French King Francis I orders the Waldensian Protestants of the village of Mérindol to be punished, setting off a massacre
1892 – George C Blickensderfer patents portable typewriter
1916 – Irish nationalist activist and poet Roger Casement boards submarine U-19 at Wilmshaven, Germany, bound for a rendezvous with the Aud at Tralee
1924 – WLS-AM in Chicago begins radio transmissions
1930 – Wilfred Rhodes ends Test Cricket career aged 52 years 165 days
1955 – Polio vaccine tested by Jonas Salk announced to be ‘safe and effective’ and is given full approval by the US Food and Drug Administration
1979 – Soyuz 33 returns to Earth
1998 – 62nd US Masters Tournament, Augusta National GC: Mark O’Meara claims his first major title with a 20-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win by 1 stroke from David Duval and Fred Couples
2020 – Huge storm system produces more than 40 tornadoes in the US from Texas to South Carolina killing 32 people across six states
2023 – US Environmental Protection Agency proposes landmark set of pollution regulations to drive down greenhouse-gas emissions, including electric vehicles making up 67% of new passenger-car sales by 2032