Events
of the day
65
– The freedman Milichus betrayed Piso’s plot
to kill the Emperor Nero and all the conspirators
were arrested.
1012 – Martyrdom of Ælfheah in Greenwich,
London.
1529 – The Second Diet of Speyer bans Lutheranism;
a group of rulers (German: Fürst) and independent
cities (German: Reichsstadt) protests the
reinstatement of the Edict of Worms, beginning
the Protestant Reformation.
1677 – The French army captures the town of
Cambrai held by Spanish troops.
1713 – With no living male heirs, Charles
VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Pragmatic
Sanction of 1713 to ensure that Habsburg lands
and the Austrian throne would be inherited
by his daughter, Maria Theresa of Austria
(not actually born until 1717).
1770 – Captain James Cook sights the eastern
coast of what is now Australia.
1770 – Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI
in a proxy wedding.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: The war
begins with an American victory in Concord
during the battles of Lexington and Concord.
1782 – John Adams secures the Dutch Republic's
recognition of the United States as an independent
government. The house which he had purchased
in The Hague, Netherlands becomes the first
American embassy.
1809 – An Austrian corps is defeated by the
forces of the Duchy of Warsaw in the Battle
of Raszyn, part of the struggles of the Fifth
Coalition. On the same day the Austrian main
army is defeated by a First French Empire
Corps led by Louis-Nicolas Davout at the Battle
of Teugen-Hausen in Bavaria, part of a four
day campaign that ended in a French victory.
1810 – Venezuela achieves home rule: Vicente
Emparan, Governor of the Captaincy General
is removed by the people of Caracas and a
junta is installed.
1839 – The Treaty of London establishes Belgium
as a kingdom.
1855 – Visit of Napoleon III to Guildhall,
London
1861 – American Civil War: Baltimore riot
of 1861: a pro-Secession mob in Baltimore,
Maryland, attacks United States Army troops
marching through the city.
1892 – Charles Duryea claims to have driven
the first automobile in the United States,
in Springfield, Massachusetts.
1919 – Leslie Irvin of the United States makes
the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute
jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute.
1927 – Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in
jail for obscenity for her play Sex.
1928 – The 125th and final fascicle of the
Oxford English Dictionary is published.
1942 – World War II: In Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski
ghetto is established, situated between the
Lublin Ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp.
1943 – World War II: In Poland, German troops
enter the Warsaw ghetto to round up the remaining
Jews, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
1943 – Bicycle Day – Swiss chemist Dr. Albert
Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first
time.
1945 – Diplomatic relations between the Soviet
Union and Guatemala are established.
1948 – Burma joins the United Nations.
1950 – Argentina becomes a signatory to the
Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1951 – General Douglas MacArthur retires from
the military.
1954 – The Constituent Assembly of Pakistan
recognises Urdu and Bengali as the national
languages of Pakistan.
1955 – The German automaker Volkswagen, after
six years of selling cars in the United States,
founds Volkswagen of America in Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey to standardize its dealer
and service network.
1956 – Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince
Rainier of Monaco.
1960 – Students in South Korea hold a nationwide
pro-democracy protest against president Syngman
Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign.
1971 – Sierra Leone becomes a republic, and
Siaka Stevens the president.
1971 – Vietnam War: Vietnam Veterans Against
the War begin a five-day demonstration in
Washington, D.C..
1971 – Launch of Salyut 1, the first space
station.
1971 – Charles Manson is sentenced to death
for conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca
murders.
1975 – India's first satellite Aryabhata is
launched.
1984 – Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed
as Australia's national anthem, and green
and gold as the national colours.
1985 – FBI siege on the compound of The Covenant,
The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSAL)
in Arkansas
1985 – U.S.S.R performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakhstan/Semipalatinsk.
Heavy smoke pours from USS Iowa’s #2 Turret
following an internal explosion
1987 – The Simpsons premieres as a short cartoon
on The Tracey Ullman Show
1989 – A gun turret explodes on the USS Iowa,
killing 47 sailors.
1993 – The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian
building outside Waco, Texas, USA, ends when
a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.
1993 – South Dakota governor George Mickelson
and seven others are killed when a state-owned
aircraft crashes in Iowa.
1995 – Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168. That
same day convicted murderer Richard Wayne
Snell, who had ties to one of the bombers,
Timothy McVeigh, is executed in Arkansas.
1997 – The Red River Flood of 1997 overwhelms
the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota. Fire
breaks out and spreads in downtown Grand Forks,
but high water levels hamper efforts to reach
the fire, leading to the destruction of 11
buildings.
1999 – The German Bundestag returns to Berlin,
the first German parliamentary body to meet
there since the Reichstag was dissolved in
1945.
2005 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected
the 265th Pope of the Catholic Church following
the death of Pope John Paul II. The new Pope
takes on the regnal name Benedict XVI.
2011 – Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist
Party of Cuba's central committee after 45
years of holding the title.
Holidays
and observances
Beginning
of the Independence Movement (Venezuela)
Bicycle Day
Christian Feast Day:
Ælfheah of Canterbury
Emma of Lesum
Expeditus
George of Antioch
Pope Leo IX
April 19 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Dutch-American Friendship Day (United States)
Earliest day on which First Day of Summer
or Sumardagurinn fyrsti can fall, while April
25 is the latest; celebrated on the first
Thursday after April 18. (Iceland)
King Mswati III's birthday (Swaziland)
Landing of the 33 (Uruguay)
National Health Day (Kiribati)
Primrose Day (United Kingdom)
For details, contact Datacentre
