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”
Category: Historical Events
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
Historical Events for 11th April 2024
1471 – Wars of the Roses: King Edward IV of England seizes London from Henry VI
1933 – Hermann Goering becomes Premier of Prussia
1936 – George Abbott, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s musical “On Your Toes”, choreographed by George Balanchine, and starring Ray Bolger and Tamara Geva, opens at the Imperial Theatre (later transfers to Majestic), NYC; runs for 515 performances
1961 – 15th NBA Championship: Bos Celtics beat St Louis Hawks, 4 games to 1
1961 – Trial of Adolf Eichmann for war crimes in World War II begins in Jerusalem, Israel
1972 – Benjamin Hooks named to Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 1st African-American to serve
1974 – WW II war criminal JP Philippa arrested
1981 – Larry Holmes beats Trevor Berbick by unanimous decision in Las Vegas to retain his WBC heavyweight boxing title
1993 – 57th US Masters Tournament, Augusta National GC: Bernhard Langer of Germany wins his second green jacket by 4 strokes from Chip Beck
2023 – Myanmar military kill at least 133 civilians, including children, in an airstrike on Kanbalu township in an area not under control of the military junta
Historical Events for 10th April 2024
1845 – More than 1,000 buildings damaged by fire in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1884 – US Senate accepts Belgian administration of Congo
1919 – Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata is ambushed and shot dead by government forces in Morelos
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
1939 – Prime Minister Hendrikus Colijn’s Dutch government opens camp Westerbork for German Jews
1942 – Cigarettes and candy rationed in Holland
1968 – Musical “George M!”, based on the life of Broadway star George M. Cohan, opens at Palace Theater NYC for 435 performances
1972 – 7.0 earthquake kills 1/5 of population of Iranian province of Fars
1990 – CUNY/Lehman College, Bronx, opens a branch campus in Hiroshma, Japan
1991 – Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is awarded to John Updike for novel ‘Rabbit At Rest’
Historical Events for 9th April 2024
1816 – African Methodist Episcopal Church organizes (Philadelphia)
1864 – Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, Confederate assault repulsed by Union side with high cost of estimated 3,100 causalities
1928 – Eugene O’Neill’s play “Lazarus Laughed” premieres in Pasadena, with a masked chorus of over 100
1945 – Liberty ship at Bari Italy carrying aerial bombs explodes, kills 360
1968 – German DR adopts constitution
1985 – White Sox pitcher Tom Seaver starts a record 15th opening day game
1988 – US imposes economic sanctions on Panama
1990 – “Capital News” starring Lloyd Bridges premieres on ABC-TV
1997 – Cleveland Indians pitcher Jose Mesa is acquitted of rape
2014 – Stuart Parkin is awarded the Millennium Technology Prize for his work on magnetic storage
Historical Events for 8th April 2024
1767 – Ayutthaya kingdom falls to Burmese invaders
1929 – Indian Independence Movement: At the Delhi Central Assembly, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt throw handouts and bombs to court arrest
1961 – British liner “Dara” explodes in Persian Gulf, kills 236
1963 – 35th Academy Awards: “Lawrence of Arabia”, Anne Bancroft and Gregory Peck win
1966 – Time publishes its “Is God Dead” issue – its first issue without an image
1976 – 1976 NFL Draft: Lee Roy Selmon from University of Oklahoma first pick by Tampa Bay Buccaneers
2008 – 27th NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship: Tennessee beats Stanford, 64-48; Volunteers’ back-to-back titles; coach Pat Summitt, 8 national championships
2012 – German writer Günter Grass labelled ‘persona non grata’ by Israeli internal affairs minister Eli Yishai, due to his poem “What Must Be Said”
2017 – 170th Grand National: Derek Fox wins aboard 14/1 One For Arthur; second ever Scottish-trained winner of the event
2019 – 600 million birds die each year in the US after striking tall buildings with Chicago the worst city, according to Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Historical Events for 7th April 2024
1712 – Slave revolt in New York kills 6 white men, 21 African Americans executed
1818 – General Andrew Jackson conquers Spanish Fort San Marcos (St Marks), in Spanish Florida during his pursuit of the Native American Seminole Tribe, in what would become known as the First Seminole War
1831 – Dom Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil, passes the throne to his six year old son Dom Pedro II so that he can return to Portugal to support his daughter, Maria II, against the usurper Miguel I
1868 – Thomas D’Arcy McGee, one of the Canadian Fathers of Confederation is assassinated by the Irish, in one of the few Canadian political assassinations, and only federal politician
1901 – SDAP demands general voting right, abolishing First Chamber
1951 – US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak
1956 – France officially relinquished its protectorate in Morocco., Spain follows suit for regions of her protectorate in northern Morocco
1959 – Radar 1st bounced off Sun, Stanford Calif
1976 – Chinese Politburo fires vice-premier Deng Xiaoping
1983 – Oldest human skeleton, aged 80,000 years, discovered in Egypt
Historical Events for 6th April 2024
1830 – Joseph Smith and 5 others officially organize the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon church ) in Fayette, New York
1966 – Mihir Sen swims Palk Strait between Sri Lanka and India
1986 – Soccer ball juggled non-stop for 14:14 hrs
1992 – George Harrison performs his final full concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall, in a benefit for the transcendental mediation based Natural Law political party
2014 – ICC Women’s Cricket T20 World Cup, Dhaka: captain Meg Lanning’s 44 from 30 balls leads Australia to 106/4; beat England 105/8 to win by 6 wickets (with 29 balls remaining); 3rd consecutive T20 WC
2014 – 49th Academy of Country Music Awards: George Strait, Jason Aldean, and Miranda Lambert win
2016 – France passes legislation making it illegal to pay for sex
2019 – First ever “Marsquake” seismic event on planet Mars detected by NASA’s InSight lander
2020 – Nadia, a tiger at the Bronx Zoo (New York City), tests positive for COVID-19, 1st known case of human-to-cat transmission
2020 – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe announces state of emergency in seven prefectures and a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package as COVID-19 cases climb
Historical Events for 5th April 2024
1895 – Oscar Wilde loses libel case against Marquess of Queensberry, who accused him of homosexual practices
1927 – Johnny Weissmuller sets world records in both the 100m and 200m free style swimming events
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
1956 – Ceylon’s Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP), led by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike wins the general elections in a landslide
1965 – 37th Academy Awards: “My Fair Lady”, Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady) and Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins) win
1990 – NY Rangers beat NY Islanders 2-1 in 1st game of preliminary
1994 – Miami Heat beat NY Knicks ending 15 game NBA winning streak
2012 – A three-run homer by J.P. Arencibia off Jairo Asencio gives the Toronto Blue Jays a 7-4 win over the Cleveland Indians; 16 inning game duration a MLB Opening Day record
2012 – International internet group Anonymous hack several Chinese bureaus in opposition to censorship
2021 – India records over 100,000 new daily COVID cases for the first time, more than half in the state of Maharashtra, which begins a new lockdown