- 1124 David I becomes King of Scots
- 1518 Treaty of St Truiden: anti-French Trapdoors and Bourgondisch covenant
- 1522 Battle of Bicocca: a combined French and Venetian force is decisively defeated by a Spanish-Imperial and Papal army
- 1539 Re-founding of the city of Bogotá, New Granada (nowadays Colombia), by Nikolaus Federmann and Sebastián de Belalcázar.
- 1565 1st Spanish settlement in the Philippines forms at Cebu City
- 1576 Peace of Beaulieu and Paix de Monsieur
- 1578 Duel of the Mignons claims the lives of two favorites of Henry III of France and two favorites of Henry I, Duke of Guise.
- 1643 Tirso de Molina's "Bellaco Sois, Gomez" premieres in Madrid
Historic Publication
1667 Blind and impoverished, English poet John Milton sells the copyright of "Paradise Lost" for £10
- 1694 Frederik August I "the Strong" becomes monarch of Saksen
Music Premiere
1749 First performance of George Frideric Handel's "Music For The Royal Fireworks"in Green Park, London
Music Recording
1810 Ludwig van Beethoven composes his famous piano piece "Für Elise"
Palace of Westminster
1840 Foundation stone for new Palace of Westminster, London, laid by Sarah Barry wife of its architect Charles Barry
Historic Event
1860 Thomas Jackson is assigned to command Harpers Ferry
Historic Event
1861 US President Abraham Lincoln suspends writ of habeas corpus (US Civil War)
- 1861 West Virginia secedes from Virginia after Virginia secedes from Union (US Civil War)
- 1863 Battle of Streight's raid: Tuscumbia to Cedar Bluff, AL
- 1865 Cornell University (Ithaca NY) is chartered
- 1865 Steamboat "SS Sultana" explodes in the Mississippi River, killing up to 1,800 of the 2,427 passengers in the greatest maritime disaster in United States history. Most were paroled Union POWs on their way home.
- 1867 Charles Gounod's opera "Romeo et Juliette" is premieres at the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, France
- 1874 White League, Paramilitary white supremacist organization, forms
Music Premiere
1877 Jules Massenet's opera "Le Roi de Lahore" (The King of Lahore) premieres at the Palais Garnier, Paris, France
Historic Event
1877 Rutherford B. Hayes removes Federal troops from Louisiana, Reconstruction ends
- 1881 Pogroms against Russian Jews start in Elisabethgrad
- 1890 French troops under Capt Archinard occupy Oussebougou, West Sudan
- 1893 Richard "King Dick" Seddon succeeds John Balance as premier of New Zealand and leader of Liberal Party
- 1897 Grant's Tomb (famed of song & legend) dedicated
- 1899 Foundation of the Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Science, the world's first research sound archive (added to UNESCO's Memory of the World 1999) [1]
- 1903 1st Highlander (Yankee) shut-out, Philadelphia A's win 6-0
- 1903 Long Island's Jamaica Race Track opens
First Labour Government
1904 The Australian Labor Party under Prime Minister Chris Watson becomes the first Labor government in the world
Historic Event
1910 Louis Botha and J. B. M. Hertzog establish the moderately nationalist South African Party promising equality of Britons and Boers
- 1911 Following the resignation and death of William P. Frye, a compromise is reached to rotate the office of President pro tempore (for the time being) of the United States Senate
Historic Event
1911 Indian passive resistance is suspended when General J.C. Smuts enters into negotiations with Mahatma Gandhi
Historic Event
1915 Counterattack launched by Turkish forces under the command of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against allied troops
- 1916 The British renew their assault on the Irish Volunteer position in Mount Street; shelling also sets the buildings on fire
- 1918 Giants' 9-0 winning start & Dodgers' 0-9 losing streak are stopped
- 1920 Pogrom leader Petljoera declares Ukraine Independence
- 1920 Sweden takes the figure skating double at the Antwerp Olympics when Gillis Grafström wins his first of 3 consecutive men's gold medals; Magda Julin earlier wins the women's singles event
- 1921 Hadjememaar, [Corn de Gelder] elected in Amsterdam
- 1922 Fritz Lang's "Dr Mabuse, der Spieler" premieres in Berlin
- 1922 Yakut ASSR formed in Russian SFSR
- 1924 Antwerp soccer tie Belgium-Netherlands 1-1
- 1926 In the Giants' 9-8 win over Phillies, Mel Ott, 17, 1st appearance
- 1927 Carabineros de Chile (Chilean national police force and gendarmery) created
- 1929 Ryder Cup Golf, Moortown GC: Great Britain beats US, 7-5 in bitterly cold and snowy conditions
- 1930 White Sox 1st baseman Bud Clancy didn't handle ball at all in a 9 inning game vs St Louis Browns [1]
- 1931 100°F (38°C), Pahala, Hawaii (state record)
Historic Event
1933 Adolf Hitler authorizes creation of Ministry of Aviation, in part to revive the German Luftwaffe, under Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering
- 1933 Karl Jansky reports reception of cosmic radio signal in Washington, D.C.
- 1933 Jessop & Son department store in Nottingham, England, acquired by John Lewis Partnership. The partnership's first shop outside London.
- 1935 Brussels World Exposition opens
- 1935 Yanks pull a 1st inning triple-play & beat Philadelphia A's 9-8
- 1937 1st US social security payment made
Historic Event
1943 Witold Pilecki escapes from Auschwitz after having voluntarily been imprisoned there to gain information about the Holocaust
Historic Event
1945 Italian partisans capture Benito Mussolini at Dongo (Lake Como)
- 1948 Arab legion attacks Gesher bridge on Jordan River
- 1950 "Tickets, Please" opens at Coronet Theater NYC for 245 performances
- 1950 South Africa passes Group Areas Act segregating races
- 1952 "4 Saints in 3 Acts" closes at Broadway Theater NYC after 15 performances
- 1953 1st general elections in British Guiana, won by the People's Progressive Party with Cheddi Jagan first person of Indian descent to be elected head of government outside South Asia
- 1953 Wrestler Freddie Blassie coins term "Pencil neck geek"
- 1956 Burma Premier U Nu's Volksliga voor Vrijheid loses election
Sports History
1956 Undefeated world heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano, retires from the ring
- 1959 "Today" show goes abroard 1st time (Paris France)
Historic Event
1959 Mao Zedong resigns as Chairman of the PRC after the disastrous failure of the Great Leap Forward
Historic Event
1960 South Korean President Syngman Rhee resigns after 12 years in power
- 1960 Togo (formerly French Togo) declares independence from French administration
- 1961 NASA launches Explorer 11 into Earth orbit to study gamma rays
- 1961 NFL officially recognizes Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio
- 1961 Sierra Leone declares independence from UK
- 1962 Arnold Wesker's "Chips with Everything" premieres in London
- 1962 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island
- 1963 "Jopie" Pengel forms government in Suriname
Historic Event
1963 Cuban premier Fidel Castro arrives in Moscow
Historic Publication
1964 John Lennon's book of poetry and sketches "In His Own Write" is published in US
Music Concert
1966 Dmitri Shostakovich completes his 2nd Cello Concert
- 1967 Expo 67 opens in Montreal, Canada, featuring a giant Biosphere designed by Buckminster Fuller
- 1967 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1968 "Education of Hyman Kaplan" closes at Alvin NYC after 28 performances
- 1968 Baltimore Oriole Tom Phoebus no-hits Boston, 6-0
- 1968 Congress of Political Party Radicals (PPR) forms in Netherlands
- 1968 The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) hold a rally to protest the banning of a Republican Easter parade
- 1971 Curt Flood resigns Senators after 13 games & departs for Denmark
- 1972 Apollo 16 returns to Earth
- 1972 NYC Mayor John Lindsey appeals that John Lennon not be deported
- 1973 KC Royals pitcher Steve Busby no-hits Detroit Tigers, 3-0
- 1974 Pan Am 707 crashes into mountains of Bali, killing 107
- 1975 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1976 "So Long 174th St" opens at Harkness Theater NYC for 16 performances
- 1976 Arabic Monetary Fund established in Abu Dhabi
- 1977 Bloody riots in Soweto, South Africa
- 1977 HCC, Hobby Computer Club, forms in Netherlands
- 1977 28 people are killed in the Guatemala City air disaster.
- 1978 Cooling tower collapses at a coal-fired power plant at Willow Island, West Virginia, kills 51
- 1978 Afghanistan revolution (National Day), pro-Russian military coup
Music Single
1979 George Harrison releases single "Love Comes to Everyone"
Music History
1981 Paul McCartney's solo rock band Wings breaks-up
Ronald Reagan is Shot
1982 Trial of John Hinckley begins for the attempted assassination of US President Ronald Reagan
- 1982 NFL Draft: University of Texas defensive end Kenneth Sims first pick by New England Patriots
Baseball Record
1983 Nolan Ryan becomes strikeout king (3,509), passing Walter Johnson
- 1984 Cleveland Indians beat Detroit Tigers, 8-4, in 19 innings
- 1984 Over 70 inches of snow falls on Red Lake Montana
- 1986 Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields' musical "Sweet Charity" starring Gwen Verdon, opens at the Minskoff Theatre, NYC; runs for 368 performances, and wins a Tony Award for choreographer Bob Fosse
- 1986 Captain Midnight (John R MacDougall) hacks into and interrupts HBO
Pripyat: Nuclear Wasteland
1986 Soviet authorities order the evacuation of the city of Pripyat (pop. 50,000) 1 day after the Chernobyl nuclear accident
Historic Event
1987 US Justice Department bars Austrian Chancellor Kurt Waldheim from entering US, due to his aid of Nazi Germany during WW II
Sports History
1990 Dodger Orel Hershiser undergoes career-threatening shoulder surgery
- 1990 Villanova's women set a 6,000 m relay world record of 17:18:10
- 1991 "Lucifer's Child" closes at Music Box Theater NYC after 28 performances
- 1991 Firestone World Bowling Tournament of Champions won by David Ozio
- 1992 "Small Family Business" opens at Music Box Theater NYC for 48 performances
- 1992 NY Mets trade David Cone to Toronto Blue Jays for Jeff Kent
- 1992 The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro, is proclaimed
- 1992 Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history.
- 1993 Afghan Antonov AN-32 crashes at Tashqurgan, kills 76
- 1994 "An Inspector Calls" opens at Royale Theater NYC for 454 performances
- 1994 29.0°C in Genevad, Sweden (Swedish April high temperature record)
- 1994 7th longest NHL game at 125 min 43 sec: Buffalo Sabres beat New Jersey Devils 1-0 on a goal by Dave Hannan
- 1994 Graeme Obree bicycles world record time (52,713 km)
Historic Event
1994 Former US President Richard Nixon buried in Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California
- 1994 Twins righty Scott Erickson no-hits Brewers 6-0
- 1994 Freedom Day: day 2 of South Africa's 1st multi-racial elections and day most voted - some queuing for 10 hours
- 1995 "Indiscretions" opens at Ethel Barrymore Theater NYC for 221 performances
- 1996 Brunswick World Tournament of Champions won by Dave D'Entremont
- 1997 "Little Foxes" opens at Vivian Beaumont NYC for 56 performances
- 1997 "Stanley" closes at Circle in the Square Theater, NYC
- 1997 Frank Nobilo wins Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic at Forest Oaks
Music Concert
1998 Rock for the Rainforest benefit concert held at Carnegie Hall, NYC; performers include: Sting, Elton John, James Taylor, Madonna, Billy Joel, Joe Cocker, Emmylou Harris, Roberta Flack, Wynonna Judd, and Tsidii Leloka
- 2002 The last successful telemetry from the NASA space probe Pioneer 10
- 2005 The superjumbo jet aircraft Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France
- 2006 Construction begins on the Freedom Tower for the new World Trade Center in New York City
- 2007 Estonian authorities remove the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet Red Army war memorial in Tallinn, amid political controversy with Russia.
- 2011 Deadliest day of the 2011 super outbreak of tornadoes, the largest tornado outbreak in United States history
Historic Event
2011 U.S. President Barack Obama, coerced by incessant false "birther" accusations, publicly releases a copy of his birth certificate
Music Single
2014 Ariana Grande's first single from her album, "Problem" featuring Iggy Azalea, is released
Television Premiere
2014 "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" late-night talk and news show fronted by John Oliver premieres on HBO
- 2017 NFL Draft: Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett first pick by Cleveland Browns
Summit of Interest
2018 Historic Korean summit, the North's Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in of South Korea agree to officially end Korean war and rid peninsula of nuclear weapons
- 2018 Swedish band ABBA announce they have recorded new songs for the first time since 1982
Historic Event
2018 German leader Angela Merkel has a 1-day trip to Washington meeting US President Donald Trump
Historic Event
2019 Pope Francis donates $500,000 for migrants stranded in Mexico trying to reach the US
- 2019 Shooter opens fire in a synagogue in Poway, California, killing one and injuring three
- 2020 US Defense Department declassifies and releases videos of unidentified "aerial phenomena" from 2004 and 2015
COVID-19 Pandemic
2021 Brazil's Senate orders an official inquiry into President Jair Bolsonaro' and government official's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic
