April 1, 1865 - During the U.S. Civil War,
Confederate troops of Gen. George Pickett were defeated and cut off at Five
Forks, Virginia. This sealed the fate of Gen. Robert E. Lee's armies at
Petersburg and Richmond and hastened the end of the war
April 1, 1998 - A federal judge in Little Rock,
Arkansas, dismissed a sexual harassment case against President Bill Clinton,
stating the case has no "genuine issues" worthy of trial. A former
Arkansas state employee had claimed that in 1991 then-Governor Clinton asked her
for sex in a Little Rock hotel room and charged that Clinton's actions amounted
to sexual harassment. President Clinton denied any wrongdoing. A unanimous
ruling by the U.S. Supreme in May of 1997 allowed the case to precede against
President Clinton, thus establishing a precedent allowing sitting presidents to
be sued for personal conduct that occurred before taking office. In 1982, the
Court had ruled that a president cannot be sued for civil damages for carrying
out official duties - as a result of a suit brought against President Richard
Nixon by a fired Air Force manager.
April 2, 1513 - Spanish explorer Ponce De Leon
sighted Florida and claimed it for the Spanish Crown after landing at the site
of present day St. Augustine, now the oldest city in the continental U.S.
April 2, 1792 - Congress established the first
U.S. Mint at Philadelphia.
April 2, 1863 - A bread riot occurs in the
Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, as angry people demanded bread from a
bakery wagon then wrecked nearby shops. The mob dispersed only after Confederate
President Jefferson Davis made a personal plea and threatened to use force.
April 2, 1865 - Gen. Robert E. Lee informed
Confederate President Jefferson Davis that he must evacuate the Confederate
capital at Richmond, Virginia. Davis and his cabinet then fled by train.
April 2, 1982 - The beginning of the Falkland
Islands War as troops from Argentina invaded and occupied the British colony
located near the tip of South America. The British retaliated and defeat the
Argentineans on June 15, 1982, after ten weeks of combat, with about 1,000 lives
lost.
April 3, 1860 - In the American West, the Pony
Express service began as the first rider departed St. Joseph, Missouri. For $5
an ounce, letters were delivered 2,000 miles to California within ten days. The
famed Pony Express riders each rode from 75 to 100 miles before handing off to
the next rider. There were a total of 190 way stations located about 15 miles
apart. The service lasted less than two years until the completion of the
overland telegraph.
April 3, 1865 - The Confederate capital of
Richmond surrendered to Union forces after the withdrawal of Gen. Robert E.
Lee's troops.
April 3, 1944 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8
to 1 that African Americans can not be barred from voting in the Texas
Democratic primaries. The Court stated that discrimination against blacks
violates the 15th Amendment and that political parties are not private
associations.
April 3, 1948 - President Harry S. Truman signs
the European Recovery Program, better known as the Marshall Plan, to stop the
spread of Communism and restore the economic life of European countries
devastated by World War II. Over four years, the program distributed $12 billion
to the nations of Western Europe. The program was first proposed by Secretary of
State George C. Marshall during a historic speech at Harvard University on June
5, 1947.
April 3, 1995 - Supreme Court Justice Sandra
Day O'Connor became the first woman to preside over the Court, sitting in for
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist who was out of town.
April 3, 1887 - The first woman mayor was
elected in the U.S. as Susanna M. Salter became mayor of Argonia, Kansas.
April 4, 1949 - Twelve nations signed the
treaty creating NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The nations united
for common military defense against the threat of Soviet expansion in Western
Europe.
April 4, 1968 - Civil Rights leader Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King was shot and killed by a sniper in Memphis, Tennessee. As
head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he championed non-violent
resistance to end racial oppression and had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1964. He is best remembered for his I Have a Dream speech delivered at
the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington. That march and King's other efforts
helped the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of
1965. In 1986, Congress established the third Monday in January as a national
holiday in his honor.
April 4 1884 - Japanese Admiral Isoroku
Yamamoto (1884-1943) was born in Nagaoko, Honshu. He was the main strategist
behind the failed Japanese attack on Midway Island in June of 1942, which turned
the course of the war against Japan. He was killed on April 18, 1943, after
Americans intercepted radio reports of his whereabouts and shot down his plane.
April 5, 1986 - A bomb exploded at a popular
discotheque frequented by American military personnel in West Berlin, killing
two U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman. U.S. intelligence attributed the attack
to Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya. On April 14, President Reagan ordered a
retaliatory air strike against Libya.
April 5, 1856 - African American educator
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was born a slave in Franklin County, Virginia.
Freed by the Civil War, he taught himself the alphabet and eventually graduated
from an agricultural institute. In June of 1881, he was asked to become the
principal of a new training school for blacks at Tuskegee, Alabama. The Tuskegee
Institute began in single building with 30 students but through his efforts grew
into a modern university.
April 6, 1896 - After a break of 1500 years,
the first Olympics of the modern era was held in Athens, Greece.
April 6, 1917 - Following a vote by Congress
approving a declaration of war, the U.S. entered World War I in Europe.
April 6, 1994 - The beginning of genocide in
Rwanda as a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down.
They had been meeting to discuss ways of ending ethnic rivalries between the
Hutu and Tutsi tribes. After their deaths, Rwanda descended into chaos,
resulting in genocidal conflict between the tribes. Over 500,000 persons were
killed with two million fleeing the country.
April 7, 1712 - In New York City, 27 black
slaves rebelled, shooting nine whites as they attempted to put out a fire
started by the slaves. The state militia was called out to capture the rebels.
Twenty one blacks were executed and six committed suicide.
April 8 - Among Buddhists, celebrated as the
birthday of Buddha (563-483 B.C.). An estimated 350 millions persons currently
profess the Buddhist faith.
April 8, 1952 - President Harry S. Truman
seized control of America's steel mills to prevent a shutdown by strikers.
However, on April 29, the seizure was ruled unconstitutional by a U.S. District
Court. Workers immediately began a strike lasting 53 days, ending it when they
received a 16 cents per hour wage increase and additional benefits.
April 8, 1913 - The 17th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution was ratified requiring direct popular election of U.S. senators.
Previously, they had been chosen by state legislatures.
April 8, 1990 - Ryan White died at age 18 of
complications from AIDS. As a young boy, White, a hemophiliac, contracted
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome from a blood transfusion. At age ten, he was
banned from school. He then moved with his mother to Cicero, Indiana, where he
was accepted by the students. As his plight was publicized, he gained
international celebrity status and helped promote understanding of the dreaded
disease.
April 9, 1865 - After 500,000 American deaths,
the U.S. Civil War effectively ended as Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen.
Ulysses S. Grant in the village of Appomattox Court House. The surrender
occurred in the home of Wilmer McLean. Terms of surrender, written by Gen.
Grant, allowed Confederates to keep their horses and return home. Officers were
allowed to keep their swords and side arms.
April 9, 1866 - Despite a veto by President
Andrew Johnson, the Civil Rights Bill of 1866 was passed by Congress granting
blacks the rights and privileges of U.S. citizenship.
April 10, 1942 - During World War II in the
Pacific, the Bataan Death March began as American and Filipino prisoners were
forced on a six day march from an airfield on Bataan to a camp near Cabanatuan.
76,000 Allied POWs including 12,000 Americans were forced to walk 60 miles under
a blazing sun without food or water to the POW camp, resulting in over 5,000
American deaths.
April 10, 1945 - The Nazi concentration camp at
Buchenwald
was liberated by U.S. troops. Located near Weimar in Germany, Buchenwald was
established in July of 1937 to hold criminals and was one of the first major
concentration camps. It later included Jews and homosexuals and was used as a
slave labor center for nearby German companies. Of a total of 238,980 Buchenwald
inmates, 56,545 perished. Following its liberation, Supreme Allied Commander,
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and other top U.S. commanders visited
the subcamp at Ohrdruf. U.S. Troops also forced German civilians from nearby
towns into the camp to view the carnage.
April 10, 1998 - Politicians in Northern
Ireland reached an agreement aimed at ending 30 years of violence which had
claimed over 3,400 lives. Under the agreement, Protestants and Catholics in
Northern Ireland would govern together in a new 108-member Belfast assembly,
thus ending 26 years of ''direct rule'' from London.
April 10, 1847 - Publisher Joseph Pulitzer
(1847-1911) was born in Budapest, Hungary. He came to America in 1864 and fought
briefly in the Civil War for the Union. He then began a remarkable career in
journalism and publishing. His newspapers included the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch and the New York World. He also endowed the journalism
school at Columbia University and established a fund for the Pulitzer Prizes,
awarded annually for excellence in journalism.
April 11, 1968 - A week after the assassination
of Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was signed into law by
President Lyndon B. Johnson. The law prohibited discrimination in housing,
protected civil rights workers and expanded the rights of Native Americans.
April 11, 1970 - Apollo 13 was launched from
Cape Kennedy at 2:13 p.m. Fifty six hours into the flight an oxygen tank
exploded in the service module. Astronaut John L. Swigert saw a warning light
that accompanied the bang and said, "Houston, we've had a problem
here." Swigert, James A. Lovell and Fred W. Haise then transferred
into the lunar module, using it as a "lifeboat" and began a perilous
return trip to Earth, splashing down safely on April 17.
April 11, 1983 - Harold Washington became the
first African American mayor of Chicago, receiving 51 percent of the vote.
Re-elected in 1987, he suffered a fatal heart attack at his office seven months
later.
April 11, 1794 - American orator Edward Everett
(1794-1865) was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts. In 1863, at the dedication of
the Gettysburg Battlefield, he delivered the main address, lasting two hours. He
was then followed by President Abraham Lincoln who spoke for just about two
minutes delivering the Gettysburg Address.
April 12, 1861 - The U.S. Civil War began as
Confederate troops under the command of Gen. Pierre Beauregard opened fire at
4:30 a.m. on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina.
April 12, 1945 - President Franklin D.
Roosevelt died suddenly at Warm Springs, Georgia. He had been President since
March 4, 1933, elected to four consecutive terms and had guided America out of
the Great Depression and through World War II.
April 12, 1981 - The first space shuttle flight
occurred with the launching of Columbia with astronauts John Young and
Robert Crippen aboard. Columbia spent 54 hours in space, making 36
orbits, then landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
April 13, 1743 - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was born
in Albermarle County, Virginia. He was an author, inventor, lawyer, politician,
architect, and one of the finest minds of the 1700s. He authored the American
Declaration of Independence and later served as the 3rd U.S. President from 1801
to 1809. He died on July 4, 1826, the same day as his old friend and political
rival John Adams.
April 14, 1775 - In Philadelphia, the first
abolition society in American was founded as the 'Society for the relief of free
Negroes unlawfully held in bondage.'
April 14, 1828 - The first dictionary of
American English was published by Noah Webster as the American Dictionary of
the English Language.
April 14, 1865 - President Abraham Lincoln was
shot and mortally wounded while watching a performance of Our American Cousin
at Ford's Theater in Washington. He was taken to a nearby house and died the
following morning at 7:22 a.m.
April 14, 1986 - U.S. warplanes, on orders from
President Ronald Reagan, bombed the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghaze in
retaliation for the April 5 terrorist bombing of a discotheque in West Berlin in
which two American soldiers were killed. Among the 37 person killed in the air
raid was the infant daughter of Muammar al-Qaddafi, head of state.
April 15, 1817 - The first American school for
the deaf was founded by Thomas H. Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc in Hartford,
Connecticut.
April 15, 1912 - In the icy waters off
Newfoundland, the luxury liner Titanic with 2,224 persons on board sank
at 2:27 a.m. after striking an iceberg just before midnight. Over 1,500 persons
drowned while 700 were rescued by the liner Carpathia which arrived about
two hours after Titanic went down.
April 16, 1862 - Congress abolished slavery in
the District of Columbia and appropriated $1 million to compensate owners of
freed slaves.
April 16, 1995 - Iqbal Masih, the young boy
from Pakistan who spoke out against child labor, was shot to death. At age four,
he had been sold into servitude as a carpet weaver and spent the next six years
shackled to a loom. At age ten, he escaped and began speaking out, attracting
worldwide attention as a speaker at an international labor conference in Sweden.
April 16, 1867 - American aviation pioneer
Wilbur Wright (1867-1912) was born in Millville, Indiana. On December 17, 1903,
along with his brother Orville, the Wright brothers made the first successful
flight of a motor driven aircraft. It flew for 12 seconds and traveled 120 feet.
By 1905, they built a plane that could stay airborne for half an hour,
performing figure eights and other maneuvers. Wilbur died of Typhoid fever in
May of 1912.
April 16, 1889 - Film comedian Charlie Chaplin
(1889-1977) was born in London. He began in vaudeville and was discovered by
American film producer Mack Sennett. He then went to Hollywood to make silent
movies, developing the funny 'Little Tramp' film character. Chaplin's classics
include The Kid, The Gold Rush, City Lights and Modern
Times. In 1940, he made The Great Dictator poking fun at Adolf
Hitler, who bore a remarkable resemblance to Chaplin. In his later years,
Chaplin had a falling out with Americans, but returned in 1972 to receive a
special Academy AwardŽ. In 1975, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
April 17, 1989 - The Polish labor union
Solidarity was granted legal status after nearly a decade of struggle, paving
the way for the downfall of the Polish Communist Party. In the elections that
followed, Solidarity candidates won 99 out of 100 parliamentary seats and
eventually forced the acceptance of a Solidarity government led by Lech Walesa.
April 18, 1775 - The Midnight Ride of Paul
Revere and William Dawes occurred as the two men rode out of Boston about 10
p.m. to warn patriots at Lexington and Concord of the approaching British.
April 18, 1906 - The San Francisco Earthquake
struck at 5:13 a.m. followed by a massive fire from overturned wood stoves and
broken gas pipes. The fire blazed for three days resulting in the destruction of
over 10,000 acres of property and 4,000 lives lost.
April 18, 1942 - The first air raid on mainland
Japan during World War II occurred as Gen. James Doolittle led a squadron of
B-25 bombers taking off from the carrier Hornet to bomb Tokyo and three other
cities. Damage was minimal, but the raid boosted Allied morale following years
of unchecked Japanese military advances.
April 18, 1982 - Queen Elizabeth II of England
signed the Canada Constitution Act of 1982 replacing the British North America
Act of 1867, providing Canada with a new set of fundamental laws and civil
rights.
April 19, 1775 - At dawn in Massachusetts,
about 70 armed militiamen stood face to face on Lexington Green with a British
advance guard unit. An unordered 'shot heard around the world' began the
American Revolution. A volley of British rifle fire followed by a charge with
bayonets left eight Americans dead and ten wounded.
April 19, 1943 - Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto
staged an armed revolt against Nazi SS troops attempting to forcibly deport them
to death camps.
April 19, 1989 - Forty seven U.S. sailors were
killed by an explosion in a gun turret on the USS Iowa during gunnery
exercises in the waters off Puerto Rico.
April 19, 1993 - At Waco, Texas, the compound
of the Branch Davidian religious cult burned to the ground with 82 persons
inside, including 17 children. The fire erupted after federal agents battered
buildings in the compound with armored vehicles following a 51 day standoff.
April 19, 1995 - At 9:02 a.m., a massive
car-bomb explosion destroyed the entire side of a nine story federal building in
Oklahoma City, killing 168 persons, including 19 children inside a day care
center. A decorated Gulf War veteran was later convicted for the attack.
April 20, 1914 - Miners in Ludlow, Colorado,
were attacked by National Guardsmen paid by the mining company. The miners were
seeking recognition of their United Mine Workers Union. Five men and a boy were
killed by machine gun fire while 11 children and two women burned to death as
the miners' tent colony was destroyed.
April 20, 1999 - The deadliest school shooting
in U.S. history occurred in Littleton, Colorado, as two students armed with guns
and explosives stormed into the high school at lunch time then killed 12
classmates and a teacher and wounded more than 20 other persons before killing
themselves.
April 20, 1889 - Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was
born in Braunau am Inn, Austria. As leader of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, he
waged a war of expansion in Europe, precipitating the deaths of an estimated 50
million persons through military conflict and through the Holocaust
in which the Nazis attempted to exterminate the entire Jewish population of
Europe.
April 21, 1836 - The Battle of San Jacinto
between Texans led by Sam
Houston and Mexican forces led by Santa Anna took place near present day
Houston. The Texans decisively defeated the Mexican forces thus achieving
independence.
April 21, 1918 - During World War I, the Red
Baron (Manfred von Richtofen) was shot down and killed during the Battle of the
Somme. He was credited with 80 kills in less than two years, flying a red Fokker
triplane. Allied pilots recovered his body and buried him with full military
honors.
April 22, 1864 - "In God We Trust"
was included on all newly minted U.S. coins by an Act of Congress.
April 22, 1889 - The Oklahoma land rush began
at noon with a gunshot signaling the start of a mad dash by thousands of
settlers seeking to claim part of nearly two million acres made available by the
federal government. The land originally belonged to Creek and Seminole Indian
tribes.
April 23 - Established by Israel's Knesset as
Holocaust Day in remembrance of the estimated six million Jews killed by Nazis.
April 23, 1564 - William Shakespeare
(1564-1616) was born at Stratford-on-Avon in England. Renowned as the most
influential writer in the English language, he created 36 plays and 154 sonnets,
including Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice.
April 23, 1791 - James Buchanan (1791-1868) the
15th U.S. President and only life-long bachelor to occupy the White House was
born in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania. He served just one term from 1857 to 1861.
April 24, 1800 - The Library of Congress was
established.
April 24, 1915 - In Asia Minor during World War
I, the first modern-era genocide began with the deportation of Armenian leaders
from Constantinople and subsequent massacre by Young Turks. In May, deportations
of all Armenians and mass murder by Turks began, resulting in the complete
elimination of the Armenians from the Ottoman Empire and all of the historic
Armenian homelands. Estimates vary from 800,000 to over 2,000,000 Armenians
murdered.
April 25, 1967 - The first law legalizing
abortion was signed by Colorado Gov. John Love, allowing abortions in cases in
which a panel of three doctors unanimously agrees.
April 26, 1937 - During the Spanish Civil War,
the ancient town of Guernica was attacked by German warplanes. After destroying
the town in a three hour bombing raid, the planes machine-gunned fleeing
citizens.
April 26, 1944 - Federal troops seized the
Chicago offices of Montgomery Ward and removed its chairman after his refusal to
obey President Roosevelt's order to recognize a CIO union. The seizure ended
when unions won an election to represent the company's workers.
April 26, 1986 - At the Chernobyl nuclear power
plant in the Ukraine, an explosion resulted in a meltdown of the nuclear fuel
and a radioactive cloud spreading into the atmosphere, eventually covering most
of Europe. A 300 square mile area around the plant was evacuated. Thirty one
persons were reported to have died with an additional thousand cases of cancer
expected. The plant was then encased in a concrete tomb to prevent the release
of further radiation.
April 26, 1994 - Multiracial elections were
held for the first time in the history of South Africa. With approximately 18
million blacks voting, Nelson Mandela was elected president and F.W. de Klerk
vice president.
April 26, 1785 - American artist and naturalist
John J. Audubon (1785-1851) was born in Haiti. He drew lifelike illustrations of
all of the birds of North America.
April 26, - Nazi Rudolf Hess (1894-1987) was
born in Alexandria, Egypt. He was Deputy Führer of Nazi Germany and a member of
Hitler's inner circle. On May 10, 1941, he made a surprise solo flight and
parachuted into Scotland intending to negotiate peace with the British. However,
the British promptly arrested him and confined him for the duration. Following
the war, he was taken to Nuremberg and put on trial with other top Nazis. He
died in captivity in 1987, the last of the major Nuremberg war criminals.
April 27, 1865 - On the Mississippi River, the
worst steamship disaster in U.S. History occurred as an explosion aboard the Sultana
killing nearly 2,000 passengers, mostly Union solders who had been prisoners of
war and were returning home.
April 27, 1791 - Telegraph inventor Samuel F.B.
Morse (1791-1872) was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He developed the idea
of an electromagnetic telegraph in the 1830s and tapped out his first message
"What hath God wrought?" in 1844 on the first telegraph line, running
from Washington D.C. to Baltimore. The construction of the first telegraph line
was funded by Congress ($30,000) after Morse failed to get any other financial
backing. After Western Union was founded in 1856, telegraph lines were quickly
strung from coast to coast in America.
April 27, 1822 - U.S. Civil War General and
18th U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) was born in Point Pleasant,
Ohio. During the war, he earned the nickname "Unconditional Surrender"
Grant and was given command of the Union armies. He served as President from
1869 to 1877 in an administration plagued by scandal. He then went on to write
his memoirs and died in 1885, just days after completing them.
April 28, 1789 - On board the British ship Bounty,
Fletcher Christian led a mutiny against Captain William Bligh, setting him and
18 loyal crew members adrift in a 23 foot open boat. Bligh survived a 47 day
voyage sailing over 3,600 miles before landing on a small island. Christian
sailed the Bounty back to Tahiti, eventually settling on Pitcairn Island
and burning the ship.
April 28, 1945 - Twenty three years of Fascist
rule in Italy abruptly ended as Italian partisans shot Benito Mussolini. Other
leaders of the Fascist Party and friends of Mussolini were also killed along
with his mistress, Clara Petacci. The bodies were then hung upside down and
pelted with stones by jeering crowds in Milan.
April 28, 1758 - James Monroe (1758-1831) the
5th U.S. President was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He served two
terms from 1817 to 1825 and is best known for the Monroe Doctrine which declared
the U.S. would not permit any European nation to extend its holdings or use
armed force in North or South America.
April 29, 1992 - Riots erupted in Los Angeles
following the announcement that a jury in Simi Valley, California, failed to
convict four Los Angeles police officers accused in the videotaped beating of an
African American man.
April 29, 1863 - American publisher William
Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) was born in San Francisco. The son of a gold miner,
in 1887 he dropped out of Harvard to take control of the failing San
Francisco Examiner which his father had purchased. He saved the Examiner,
then went to New York and bought the New York Morning Journal to compete
with Joseph Pulitzer. Hearst's sensational style of "yellow"
journalism sold unprecedented numbers of newspapers and included promoting a war
with Cuba in 1897-98. He expanded into other cities and into magazine
publishing, books and films. He also served in Congress and nearly became mayor
of New York City.
April 29, 1901 - Japan's Emperor Hirohito
(1901-1989) was born in Tokyo. In 1926, he became the 124th in a long line of
monarchs and then presided over wartime Japan which was led by militarist Prime
Minister Hideki Tojo. Following the dropping of two atomic bombs by the U.S., he
made a radio address urging his people to stop fighting. After the war he
remained as the symbolic head of state in Japan's new parliamentary government.
In 1946, he renounced his divinity and then pursued his interest in marine
biology, becoming a recognized authority in the subject.
April 30, 1789 - George Washington became the
first U.S. President as he was administered the oath of office on the balcony of
Federal Hall at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in New York.
April 30, 1948 - Palestinian Jews declared
their independence from British rule and established the new state of Israel.
The country became a destination for tens of thousands of Nazi Holocaust
survivors and a strong U.S. ally.
April 30, 1967 - Boxer Muhammad Ali was
stripped of his world heavyweight boxing championship after refusing to be
inducted into the American military. He had claimed religious exemption.
