April 2015 in History

Events in History

Meeting of Interest

Apr 11 Barack Obama and Raúl Castro meet in Panama, the 1st meeting of US and Cuban heads of state since the Cuban Revolution

Event of Interest

Apr 12 Hillary Clinton announces she will run for the Democratic nominee for US President for the 2nd time

Apr 13 Migrant ship carrying around 550 sinks off the Libyan coast, about 400 drown
Apr 14 Archaeologists announce they have found at Lomekwi in Kenya 3.3 million-year old stone tools, the oldest ever discovered and which pre-date the earliest humans

Event of Interest

Apr 16 Elizabeth Holmes, American entrepreneur, inventor, and founder and CEO of Theranos, is named one of TIME's "100 Most Influential People" of 2015

Apr 19 Boat carrying approx. 850 migrants is shipwrecked in the Mediterranean between Italian and Libya, with only 27 migrants rescued.
Apr 20 Pulitzer Prize awarded to Anthony Doerr's for his novel "All the Light We Cannot See" and to Elizabeth Kolbert for "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History"

Appointment of Interest

Apr 23 Loretta Lynch is confirmed as the first African-American woman as US Attorney-General, succeeding Eric Holder

Apr 24 Armenia commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire

Gallipoli: Guts, Glory and Defeat

Apr 25 100 year anniversary of the Gallipoli Peninsula landings in Turkey by ANZAC forces during WWI

Anzac Cove where Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli in 1915

Apr 25 7.8-magnitude earthquake near Kathmandu in Nepal, killing 8000, leaving over 100,000 homeless, destroying many historic sites

Election of Interest

Apr 26 Nursultan Nazarbayev is re-elected President of Kazakhstan with 97.7% of the vote

Apr 29 German Measles is declared eradicated from North and South America - 1st world region to do so
Apr 29 Indonesia executes 8 prisoners, including 7 foreigners, for drug offences at Besi Prison on the island of Nusakambangan
Apr 30 MESSENGER spacecraft is intentionally deorbited and destroyed

Event of Interest

Apr 30 US senator Bernie Sanders announces he will seek the Democratic Party's nomination for President

Deaths in History

Apr 1 John Paul Hammerschmidt, American politician (Rep-R-AR, 1967-93), dies at 92
Apr 2 Robert Schuller, American Christian televangelist (Glass Cathedral, Hour of Power), dies at 88
Apr 3 Sarah Brady, American gun-control activist, dies at 73
Apr 4 John Read, British businessman, CEO (TSB Group), dies at 97
Apr 6 Dave Ulliott, English poker player (World Series of Poker bracelet 1997; World Poker Open 2003), dies of colon cancer at 61
Apr 7 Kardam, Prince of Turnovo, eldest son of King Simeon II of Bulgaria and his wife Doña Margarita Gómez-Acebo y Cejuela, dies at 52
Apr 9 Pim Lier, Dutch lawyer and illegitimate son of Prince Consort Henry, dies at 96
Apr 12 Sheila Kitzinger, British author, anthropologist & child birth educator, dies at 86
Apr 13 Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan journalist & writer, dies at 74

Günter Grass (1927-2015)

Apr 13 German writer, playwright (The Tin Drum) and Nobel Prize laureate (1999), dies at 87

Apr 18 Joseph Lechleider, American electrical engineer (invented DSL/high speed internet technology), dies at 82
Apr 19 Roy Mason [Baron Mason of Barnsley], British defense secretary and Labour MP, dies at 91
Apr 20 Aharon Lichtenstein, Orthodox Jewish rabbi, dies at 81
Apr 20 Raymond Carr, English historian and warden (St Antony's College Oxford), dies at 96
Apr 29 Brian Sedgemore, British MP (Labour Party 1974-79 and 1983-2005), dies at 78
Apr 29 Jean Nidetch, American businesswoman and founder of Weight Watchers, dies at 91