Events in History
- Apr 11 Flyers, scores short-handed into an empty net beating Caps 8-5
Historic Event
Apr 12 Peter Ueberroth deal to purchase Eastern Airlines falls through
- Apr 14 1,100,000,000th Chinese born
Historic Event
Apr 14 In the Iran-Contra trial, Oliver North's case goes to the jury
- Apr 15 Students in Beijing pro-democracy protests
- Apr 15 Then largest lottery in North America ($69M) drawn in Illinois
- Apr 16 Berendrechtsluis opens in Antwerp, biggest flood lock in world
- Apr 17 Maximum NY State unemployment benefits raised to $245 per week
- Apr 17 Polish labor union granted legal status
- Apr 17 Soviet-US agreement allows Soviets to fight US pros
- Apr 19 Gun turret explodes on USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors
- Apr 19 Republic Day in Sierra Leone
- Apr 19 Central Park Five: Violent rape of jogger Trisha Meili in NYC's Central Park becomes one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980s. Five teenagers are wrongfully convicted and spend between 6-12 years in prison.
- Apr 21 Thousands of Chinese crowd into Beijing's Tiananmen Square cheering students demanding greater political freedom
- Apr 23 Students in Beijing China announce class boycotts
Historic Event
Apr 23 Wine merchant William Sokolin breaks a bottle of 1787 Château Margaux, possibly belonging to Thomas Jefferson, worth $500,000 at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York
- Apr 24 10s of thousands of student strikes in Beijing, China
- Apr 24 Massachusetts declares today "New Kids on the Block Day"
- Apr 26 AT&T announces NJ's 201 area code will split into 908 & 201
- Apr 27 Beijing students take over Tiananmen Square in China
- Apr 27 Hurricane in Bangladesh kills 500
- Apr 27 Mandatory seatbelt law goes into effect in Italy
- Apr 28 Argentina, hit by rocketing inflation, runs out of money
Historic Event
Apr 28 Iran protests sale of "Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie
- Apr 29 2nd government of Lubbers falls in the Netherlands
Beatification
Apr 30 Pope John Paul II beatifies Victoire Rasoamanarivo of Madagascar
Historic Event
Apr 30 World Wide Web (WWW) is first launched in the public domain by CERN scientist Tim Berners-Lee
Birthdays in History
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima
Apr 25 Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, 11th Panchen Lama, born in Lhari County, Tibet, China
Deaths in History
- Apr 1 Henk Gortzak [Hendricus Gortzak], Dutch carpenter and politician (CPN/PSP), dies at 57
- Apr 5 María Cristina Gómez, Salvadoran teacher, literacy and civil rights activist, murdered at 46
- Apr 8 John Wyer, English sports car racing team manager, dies at 79
- Apr 10 Joan Barry, dies at 85
- Apr 11 Henk van Galen Last, Dutch journalist, dies at 68
- Apr 12 Abbie Hoffman, yippie peace activist of the 60's, dies at 52
Hu Yaobang
Apr 15 Hu Yaobang, Chinese communist official and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (1982–87), dies of a heart attack at 73
Emilio G. Segrè
Apr 22 Emilio G. Segrè, Italian physicist & Nobel laureate (discovered the elements technetium, astatine and the sub-atomic antiparticle antiproton), dies at 84 of a heart attack
- Apr 27 Kōnosuke Matsushita, Japanese industrialist (founded Panasonic), dies at 94
- Apr 28 Olaf J. de Landell, Dutch writer, dies at 77
- Apr 30 Sergio Leone, Italian director who invented spaghetti westerns (The Man with No Name trilogy), dies of a heart attack at 60
- Apr 30 Yi Bangja, Crown Prince Euimin of Korea (1926-70), dies at 87
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists