- 419 [Etalius] ends his reign as Catholic Pope
Royal Coronation
1043 Edward the Confessor crowned King of England
Edward the Confessor
Battle of Navarrete
1367 Battle of Navarrete [Nájera], La Rioja, Castile: alliance of King Peter of Castile and the English defeats Count Henry of Castile
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Event of Interest
1657 English Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell refuses crown
Oliver Cromwell
Meeting of Interest
1679 Edmond Halley meets Johannes Hevelius in Danzig
Edmond Halley
Event of Interest
1721 Robert Walpole becomes Britain's 1st Lord of the Treasury - effective Prime Minister, although that term was never officially used (indeed, it was considered an insult) until much later
Robert Walpole
- 1764 Austrian Archduke Jozef crowned himself Holy Roman Emperor Josef II
Event of Interest
1776 George Washington receives honorary Ll.D. degree from Harvard College
George Washington
Historic Expedition
1848 German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt is seen for the last time at McPherson's Station, Coogoon, before he disappears on the same expedition to reach the Swan River in Australia
Ludwig Leichhardt
- 1856 Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes badly damaged by gunpowder explosion, kills 4,000 on island of Rhodes
- 1860 Pony Express began between St Joseph Mo & Sacramento, California
- 1864 Skirmish at Okolona, Arkansas
- 1865 Battle at Namozine Church, Virginia (Appomattox Campaign)
- 1865 Union forces occupy Confederate capital of Richmond & Petersberg, Virginia
- 1868 A Hawaiian surfs on highest wave ever - a 50-foot tidal wave
- 1882 Wood block alarm invented, when alarm rang, it dropped 20 wood blocks
Event of Interest
1882 American outlaw Jesse James is killed by Robert Ford at home in St Joseph
Jesse James
- 1889 Savings Bank of Order of True Reformers opens in Richmond, Virginia
- 1893 1st NSW v Queensland F-C game, at Brisbane Exhibition Ground
- 1910 Highest mountain in North America, Alaska's Mt McKinley claimed to have been 1st climbed by 4 local men
- 1911 Harry James Smith's "Mrs Bumsted-Leigh" premieres in NYC
Event of Interest
1913 British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst sentenced to 3 years in jail
Emmeline Pankhurst
Event of Interest
1917 Vladimir Lenin arrives in Petrograd from Switzerland [NS=April 16]
Vladimir Lenin
Event of Interest
1917 Alfred Stieglitz opens 1st one-person show of Georgia O'Keeffee's work at 291 art gallery in New York
Georgia O’Keeffe
Alfred Stieglitz
Event of Interest
1922 Joseph Stalin appointed General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party by Vladimir Lenin
Joseph Stalin
Vladimir Lenin
Historic Invention
1926 Second flight of a liquid-fueled rocket by Robert Goddard
Robert H. Goddard
- 1926 Italy establishes corp of force in order to break powerful unions
- 1927 Interstate Commerce Comm transfers Ohio to Eastern time zone
- 1929 Persia agrees to Litvinov Pact
- 1929 RMS Queen Mary is ordered from John Brown & Company Shipbuilding and Engineering by Cunard Line.
- 1933 1st airplane flight over Mt Everest
- 1933 Then longest North American hockey game requires a 1:44:46 overtime as Maple Leaf Ken Doraty scores to beat Canadiens 1-0
- 1936 Al Carr KOs Lew Massey on 1 punch, :07 of 1st round
- 1941 Churchill warns Stalin of German invasion
- 1941 Rasjid al-Gailani forms pro-German regime in Iraq
- 1941 Walton's overture "Scapino" premieres in Chicago
- 1943 Jan Dieters (leader of illegal CPN) arrested
- 1944 British dive bombers attack battle cruiser Tirpitz
- 1944 US Supreme Court (Smith v Allwright) "white primaries" unconstitutional
- 1945 Hengelo freed from Nazi control by Canadian army
- 1945 Nazis begin evacuation of camp Buchenwald
- 1945 US 1st army conquers Hofgeismar
- 1946 Netherlands-German postal relations resume
- 1948 1st US figure skating championships held
Event of Interest
1948 US President Harry Truman signs Marshall Plan ($5B aid to 16 European countries)
Harry Truman
- 1948 US female Figure Skating championship won by Gretchen Merrill
- 1948 US male Figure Skating championship won by Richard Button
- 1951 Christopher Fry's "Sleep of Prisoners" premieres in Oxford
- 1952 Dutch Queen Juliana speaks to US Congress
- 1954 Don Perry climbs a 20' rope in under 2.8 seconds (AAU record)
- 1955 Fire in cinema in Sclessin, Belgium, kills 39
- 1955 Night express train in Guadalajara derails, killing 300
Event of Interest
1955 The American Civil Liberties Union announces it will defend Allen Ginsberg's book Howl against obscenity charges
Allen Ginsberg
Event of Interest
1957 Samuel Beckett's "Endgame" premieres in London
Samuel Beckett
- 1957 USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test
Event of Interest
1958 Fidel Castro's rebels attacked Havana
Fidel Castro
- 1960 Earthquake at Havre, Belgium
- 1961 Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia is sold to J Schleifer Properties
- 1962 Lt General Marshall S Carter, USA, becomes deputy director of CIA
- 1964 US & Panama agree to resume diplomatic relations
- 1965 1st atomic powered spacecraft (snap) launched
- 1966 Soviet Luna 10 completes its first orbit of the Moon
- 1966 Tom Seaver signs with the Mets for a reported $50,000 bonus
- 1967 113 East Europeans attending World Amateur hockey championships in Vienna, ask for political asylum
- 1968 N Vietnam agrees to meet US reps to set up preliminary peace talks
- 1968 "Planet of the Apes" United States wide premiere
- 1969 Vietnam War: U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announces that the United States will start a policy of "Vietnamization", reducing American involvement
- 1970 Miriam Hargrave of England passes her drivers test on 40th attempt
- 1970 As part of a new 'get tough' policy in Northern Ireland, Ian Freeland of the British Army, warned that those throwing petrol bombs could be shot dead
- 1971 The Temptations score their second US No. 1 with "Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)"
- 1973 1st mobile phone call is made in downtown Manhattan, NYC by Motorola employee Martin Cooper to the Bell Labs headquarters in New Jersey
- 1974 Gold hits record $197 an ounce in Paris
- 1974 The Super Outbreak: 2nd largest tornado outbreak over 24hr period with 148 confirmed tornadoes in 13 US states, killing approximately 315 people and injuring nearly 5,500
- 1975 James Rupers kills his family to inherit
- 1976 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
Event of Interest
1977 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's 1st meeting with US President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
Anwar Sadat
- 1977 Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg adopt summer time
- 1978 European market & China signs trade agreement
- 1979 Belgium's Martens government forms
- 1979 Jane M Byrne (D), elected 1st woman mayor of Chicago, Illinois
- 1980 France performs nuclear test
- 1980 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1981 Arnie Boldt of Saskatchewan jumps 6' 8.25," with 1 leg
- 1981 Race riots in London's Brixton area, England
- 1982 UN Security Council demanded Argentina withdraw from Falkland Islands
- 1984 Bombay beat Delhi on 1st innings to win Ranji Trophy
- 1984 Guinea suspends constitution after coup
- 1984 Soyuz T-11 carries 3 cosmonauts (1 Indian-Rakesh Sharma) to Salyut 7
- 1985 French government adopts equal electoral system
- 1985 Players' Association agrees to expand LCS from 5 to 7 games
- 1985 Vic Elliot pockets 15,780 pool balls in 24 hours in London
- 1986 Maureen O'Boyle (future host of "A Current Affair") is raped
- 1986 US national debt hits $2,000,000,000,000
- 1987 Duchess of Windsor's jewels auctioned for £31,380,197
- 1987 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1988 Somalia & Ethiopia sign accord about Ogaden desert
- 1988 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1989 "Sunrise" a Gannett newspaper begins publishing for Bronx
- 1989 Mets win 11th consecutive home opener 8-4 over St Louis at Shea Stad
- 1991 Thomas Bos skates world record 3 km (3:65.16)
- 1991 UN Security Council adopts Gulf War truce resolution
Event of Interest
1995 Howard Stern gets in trouble for disparaging remarks about Selena
Howard Stern
- 1997 Thalit massacre begins in Algeria; all but 1 of the 53 inhabitants of Thalit are killed by guerrillas
- 2004 Islamic terrorists involved in the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks are trapped by the police in their apartment and kill themselves
- 2007 Conventional train world speed record: a French TGV train on the LGV Est high speed line sets an official new world speed record.
- 2009 Australia formally adopts the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
- 2012 Spanish unemployment reaches record high, youth unemployment stands at 50%
- 2012 Moscow fire kills 17 migrant workers
Election of Interest
2012 US President Barack Obama officially secures Democratic presidential nomination
Barack Obama
- 2013 46 people are killed and 100 are injured by a court-house suicide bombing in Farah, Afghanistan
- 2013 50 people are killed by flooding across Argentina
- 2013 24 people are killed after a bus plunges off a cliff in Papua New Guinea
- 2014 Marie Louise Coleiro Preca is elected President of Malta
- 2016 Panama Papers published - 11.5 million confidential documents from offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca expose widespread illegal activities including fraud, kleptocracy, tax evasion and the violation of international sanctions by the world's elite in the world's largest ever data leak
- 2017 Bomb on St Petersburg metro kills 11, 2nd bomb defused
- 2019 Lori Lightfoot elected first female African American Mayor of Chicago
- 2019 Brunei brings into force new Sharia laws punishing gay sex and adultery with death by stoning, prompting widespread condemnation
Event of Interest
2019 Ex-Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak goes on trial for the 1MDB corruption scandal in Kuala Lumpur, pleads not guilty
Najib Razak
April in History
![Giant Achievements of King Kong Creator]()
Giant Achievements of King Kong Creator
Edgar Wallace, born on this day in history, was one of the world’s most prolific authors. His theme was usually crime and mystery but he also created King Kong.
April 1, 1875![Flash! Bang! It's the Human Cannonball!]()
Flash! Bang! It's the Human Cannonball!
An excited crowd looked up in astonishment and wonder when, in 1877, the first human cannonball flew above their heads.
April 2, 1877![The Computer That Came By Truck]()
The Computer That Came By Truck
It didn't have the sleek lines that Steve Jobs would admire and it needed to be carried on a truck, but the computer age had finally arrived in rural England.
April 3, 1957![Lionheart Richard, The Stranger King]()
Lionheart Richard, The Stranger King
Richard the Lionheart, Robin Hood’s king is considered one of the great English monarchs. Yet he cost his country a fortune and barely lived there.
April 6, 1199
