1655 – Piedmontese Easter Massacre: Troops of Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, slaughter upwards of 4,000 Waldensian civilians for non-compliance with the Edict of 25 January 1655, which called for the expulsion or conversion of non-Catholic householders in Piedmont, Duchy of Savoy
1841 – Inventor and engineer Squire Temple of Utica, New York, granted a patent for an iron truss bridge
1865 – Fire alarm and police telegraph system put into operation in San Francisco
1895 – Canadian-American adventurer Joshua Slocum sets sail from Boston, Massachusetts on a solo around-the-world voyage aboard ‘Spray’, an 11.2-m oyster sloop
1962 – 1st Lockheed A-12 is taxi tested
1969 – US B-52’s drop 3,000 ton bombs at Cambodian boundary
1979 – US State of Georgia designates Ray Charles’ rendition of “Georgia On My Mind” (written by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell) as official state song
1996 – The UN and Iraq end a third round of negotiations over Iraq’s possible sale of $1 billion of oil for 90 days for a 180-day trial period
2018 – US President Donald Trump hosts his first state dinner for visiting French President Emmanuel Macron
2023 – India surpasses China as the worlds most populous country according to UN estimates, with 1,425,775,850 people (estimated to reach 1.7 billion by 2064)
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 23rd April 2024
1789 – President-elect George Washington moves into Franklin House, New York, first official resident of a US President
1849 – Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky and members of the Petrashevsky Circle are arrested in St. Petersburg
1860 – Democratic convention in Charleston, South Carolina divided over slavery
1924 – British Empire Exhibition opens at Wembley, London
1931 – US gangster film “The Public Enemy” starring James Cagney and Jean Harlow premieres
1952 – Crude oil pipeline from Kirkuk, Iraq to Banias, Syria completed
1959 – 1st heliport in Britain opens in London
1985 – Brooklyn College soccer team wins Nepal’s invitational
1989 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scores 10 points in his last game as a Laker in a 121-117 win over Seattle SuperSonics at the LA Forum
2015 – Kawhi Leonard is named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year for the first time
Historical Events for 22nd April 2024
1164 – Raynald of Dassel names Guido di Crema as anti-pope Paschalis III
1793 – President Washington attends opening of Rickett’s, 1st circus in US
1823 – Baltic Club (Exchange) forms in London
1969 – Robin Knox-Johnston ends 312 days of non-stop sailing to become the 1st person to perform a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the globe
1977 – Shimon Peres becomes Acting Prime Minister of Israel
1983 – Stern mag announces major historical find-discovery of 60 volume personal diaries written by Adolf Hitler (turned out to be a hoax)
1986 – US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1992 – Plane crash at Perris Valley Airport California, kills 16 parachutists
1993 – Seattle Mariner Chris Basio no-hits Boston Red Sox
2000 – In a pre-dawn raid, federal agents seize six-year-old Elián González from his relatives’ home in Miami, Florida.
Historical Events for 21st April 2024
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
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