Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April
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Selected anniversaries/On this day archive – All
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Recent changes to Selected anniversaries – Selected anniversaries editing guidelines
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2018 day arrangement | ||||||
April 1: Easter (Western Christianity, 2018); Iranian Islamic Republic Day; Edible Book Day
Adolf Hitler
- 528 – The unnamed daughter of Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei became the first female in Chinese history to ascend to the imperial throne and was dethroned the next day.
- 1833 – Mexican Texans met at San Felipe de Austin to begin the Convention of 1833.
- 1918 – The United Kingdom's Royal Air Force was founded.
- 1924 – As a result of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Adolf Hitler (pictured) was sentenced to five years in prison for treason.
- 1978 – By presidential decree, the Philippine College of Commerce was converted to a chartered state university and renamed the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
Joseph de Maistre (b. 1753) · Frederick Denison Maurice (d. 1872) · Cynthia Lennon (d. 2015)
Juan Ponce de León
- 1513 – Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León (pictured) sighted Florida, becoming the first European known to do so, purportedly while searching for the Fountain of Youth in the New World.
- 1863 – In Richmond, Virginia, U.S., about 5,000 people, mostly poor women, rioted in protest of the exorbitant price of bread.
- 1973 – The Liberal Movement broke away from the Liberal and Country League in South Australia.
- 1992 – Bosnian War: At least 48 civilians were killed in the town of Bijeljina.
- 2002 – Operation Defensive Shield: Approximately 200 Palestinian militants fled the advancing Israel Defense Forces into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, starting a month-long standoff.
Maria Sibylla Merian (b. 1647) · Clément Ader (b. 1841) · Ranjitsinhji (d. 1933)
Seal of Edward the Confessor
- 1043 – Edward the Confessor (depicted on seal) was crowned King of England, the last king of the House of Wessex.
- 1559 – Henry II of France and Philip II of Spain signed a treaty to end the Italian War of 1551–1559.
- 1922 – Joseph Stalin became the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
- 1948 – An uprising began on Jeju Island, eventually leading to the deaths of between 14,000 and 30,000 individuals due to fighting between its various factions, and the violent suppression of the rebellion by the South Korean army.
- 2008 – Texas law enforcement authorities raided the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' YFZ Ranch, eventually removing 533 women and children from the premises.
Ernst Chladni (d. 1827) · Thomas C. Kinkaid (b. 1888) · Pál Teleki (d. 1941)
Martin Luther King, Jr.
- 1859 – Bryant's Minstrels premiered the popular American song "Dixie" in New York City as part of their blackface minstrel show.
- 1968 – American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (pictured) was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
- 1988 – Governor of Arizona Evan Mecham was removed from office after being convicted in his impeachment trial.
- 1990 – The current flag of Hong Kong was adopted for post-colonial use during the Third Session of the Seventh National People's Congress.
- 2013 – A building collapsed on tribal land in Mumbra, a suburb of Thane in Maharashtra, India, causing 74 deaths.
William Strachey (b. 1572) · Maya Angelou (b. 1928) · Karen Spärck Jones (d. 2007)
April 5: Feast Day of Vincent Ferrer; Hansik in South Korea
Akashi Kaikyō Bridge
- 1081 – The Komnenian dynasty came to full power when Alexios I Komnenos was crowned Byzantine Emperor.
- 1710 – The Statute of Anne, the first fully fledged law regulating copyright, received royal assent and went into effect five days later in Great Britain.
- 1936 – Tupelo–Gainesville tornado outbreak: An F5 tornado hit Tupelo, Mississippi, U.S., killing at least 216 people.
- 1986 – The Libyan secret service bombed a discotheque in West Berlin, killing 3 people and injuring 229 others.
- 1998 – Japan's Akashi Kaikyō Bridge (pictured), linking Awaji Island and Kobe, opened to traffic, becoming the longest suspension bridge in the world to date with a main span length of 1,991 metres (6,532 ft).
Al-Mu'tadid (d. 902) · Thure de Thulstrup (b. 1848) · Olek (b. 1978)
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Jalal Talabani
- 1712 – In New York City, a group of 23 slaves set a building on fire and escaped, but were soon recaptured.
- 1812 – Peninsular War: After a three-week siege, the Anglo-Portuguese Army, under the Earl of Wellington, captured Badajoz, Spain, and forced the surrender of the French garrison.
- 1886 – Vancouver, one of British Columbia's youngest cities, was incorporated.
- 1945 – Second World War: The Battle of Slater's Knoll on Bougainville Island concluded with a decisive victory for the Australian Army's 7th Brigade.
- 2005 – Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani (pictured) was elected by the Iraqi National Assembly as the first non-Arab President of Iraq.
Basil of Trebizond (d. 1340) · James Mill (b. 1773) · Donald Wills Douglas Sr. (b. 1892)
April 7: National Beer Day in the United States
Fridtjof Nansen
- 1724 – Johann Sebastian Bach debuted the St John Passion, a musical representation of the Passion, at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.
- 1788 – American pioneers established the town of Marietta (now in Ohio), the first permanent American settlement in the Northwest Territory.
- 1896 – An Arctic expedition led by Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen (pictured) reached 86°13.6'N, almost three degrees beyond the previous Farthest North mark.
- 1948 – The United Nations established the World Health Organization to act as a coordinating authority on international public health.
- 2010 – Violent protests in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek resulted in the collapse of the Kurmanbek Bakiyev government.
Toussaint Louverture (d. 1803) · John Bernard Flannagan (b. 1895) · Dave Arneson (d. 2009)
Capture of Princesa
- 876 – Forces of the Abbasid Caliphate decisively defeated those of the Saffarid emir Ya'qub ibn Laith, forcing the latter to halt his advance into Iraq.
- 1740 – War of the Austrian Succession: The Royal Navy captured the Spanish ship of the line Princesa (pictured) and mustered her into British service.
- 1943 – Otto and Elise Hampel were executed in Berlin for their resistance activities against the Third Reich.
- 1968 – BOAC Flight 712 had an engine fire shortly after take-off from London Heathrow, leading to the deaths of five people on board, including flight attendant Jane Harrison, who was later awarded a posthumous George Cross for heroism.
- 2008 – On board Soyuz TMA-12, Yi So-yeon became the first Korean to go into space.
Thomas of Tolentino (d. 1321) · Mary Stuart (b. 1605) · Betty Ford (b. 1918)
April 9: Vimy Ridge Day in Canada; Day of National Unity in Georgia (1989)
"Au clair de la lune" by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville
- 1860 – On his phonautograph machine, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville made the oldest known recording of an audible human voice, when he recorded himself singing "Au clair de la lune" (audio featured).
- 1866 – The Civil Rights Act of 1866, the United States' first federal law to affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law, was enacted.
- 1940 – During the German invasion of Norway, Vidkun Quisling seized control of the government in a Nazi-backed coup d'état.
- 1948 – Fighters from the Zionist paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, killing over 100.
- 2003 – Invasion of Iraq: Coalition forces captured Baghdad and the statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square was toppled.
Samuel Fritz (b. 1654) · Isambard Kingdom Brunel (b. 1806) · Vilhelm Bjerknes (d. 1951)
April 10: Siblings Day in the United States
Big Ben
- 1815 – Mount Tambora in Indonesia began one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in recorded history, killing at least 71,000 people, and affecting worldwide temperatures for the next two years.
- 1858 – Big Ben (pictured), the bell in the Palace of Westminster's clock tower in London, was cast after the original bell had cracked during testing.
- 1944 – The Holocaust: Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler escaped from Auschwitz; their report was one of the earliest and most detailed descriptions of the mass killings in the camp.
- 1992 – Nagorno-Karabakh War: At least 40 Armenian civilians were massacred in Maraga, Azerbaijan.
- 2009 – Fijian President Ratu Josefa Iloilo announced that he had suspended the constitution and assumed all governance in the country after it was ruled that the government of Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama was illegal.
Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg (d. 1704) · Samuel Hahnemann (b. 1755) · Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri (b. 1917)
Nevill Ground's pavilion after the 1913 arson
- 1814 – The Treaty of Fontainebleau was signed, ending the War of the Sixth Coalition, and forcing Napoleon to abdicate as ruler of France and sending him into exile on Elba.
- 1913 – The Nevill Ground's pavilion was destroyed (damage pictured) in the only suffragette arson attack on a cricket ground.
- 1968 – Rudi Dutschke, the most prominent leader of the German student movement, survived an assassination attempt, which led to the largest protests to that date in Germany.
- 1993 – Inmates at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, Ohio, U.S., rioted and took over the facility for 11 days.
Anawrahta (d. 1077) · Arthur Shrewsbury (b. 1856) · Joseph Merrick (d. 1890)
April 12: Yuri's Night; Cosmonautics Day in Russia; Yom HaShoah (2018) in Israel
SMS Zrínyi
- 627 – King Edwin of Northumbria was converted to Christianity by Bishop Paulinus of York, who had previously saved his life.
- 1807 – The Froberg mutiny at Fort Ricasoli in Malta came to a close when the rebels blew up 600 barrels of gunpowder and escaped, although they were later caught.
- 1861 – Confederate forces began firing at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, starting the American Civil War.
- 1910 – SMS Zrínyi (pictured), one of the last pre-dreadnoughts built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy, was launched.
- 1994 – Husband-and-wife law partners Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel posted the first massive commercial spam on Usenet.
Charles VII of Sweden (d. 1167) · Alexander Ostrovsky (b. 1823) · Keiko Fukuda (b. 1913)
Van Cliburn
- 1111 – Henry V, the last ruler of the Salian dynasty, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1829 – The Roman Catholic Relief Act was granted royal assent, removing the most substantial restrictions on Catholics in the United Kingdom.
- 1943 – World War II: German news announced the discovery of a mass grave in Katyn, Russia, of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government-in-exile and the USSR.
- 1958 – In the midst of the Cold War, American pianist Van Cliburn (pictured) won the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
- 1984 – Indian forces launched Operation Meghdoot, a preemptive attack on the disputed Siachen Glacier region of Kashmir, triggering a military conflict with Pakistan.
Catherine de' Medici (b. 1519) · Thomas Jefferson (b. 1743) · Henry De la Beche (d. 1855)
April 14: Bengali New Year, Vaisakhi (Sikhism), Tamil New Year, and other New Year festivals in Asia (2018); Day of the Georgian language in Georgia (1978)
Illustration of celestial phenomena in Nuremberg
- 1561 – In Nuremberg, there was a mass sighting of celestial phenomena (illustration pictured) where observers described an "aerial battle" between odd-shaped objects.
- 1908 – The first Hauser Dam in the U.S. state of Montana failed and caused severe flooding and damage downstream.
- 1945 – The 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division deliberately destroyed the German town of Friesoythe on the orders of Major General Christopher Vokes.
- 2014 – Boko Haram kidnapped 276 female students from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria.
Christiaan Huygens (b. 1629) · Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom (b. 1857) · L. L. Zamenhof (d. 1917)
April 15: Day of the Sun in North Korea
"Ombra mai fù" performed by Enrico Caruso
- 1638 – A rebellion by Catholic Japanese peasants in Shimabara over increased taxes was put down by the Tokugawa shogunate, resulting in greater enforcement of the policy of national seclusion.
- 1738 – Serse (audio featured), an opera by Baroque composer George Frideric Handel loosely based on Xerxes I of Persia, premiered in London.
- 1936 – A group of Arabs in British Mandatory Palestine killed two Jews at a roadblock, an act widely viewed as the beginning of the violence within the Arab revolt.
- 1958 – On Walter O'Malley's initiative, the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants played in the first Major League Baseball game on the U.S. West Coast.
- 1994 – At a GATT ministerial meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, representatives of 124 countries and the European Communities signed an agreement to establish the World Trade Organization.
Guru Arjan (b. 1563) · Mikhail Lomonosov (d. 1765) · Emma Watson (b. 1990)
April 16: Patriots' Day in various U.S. states (2018)
Harriet Quimby
- 1818 – The United States Senate ratified the Rush–Bagot Treaty, which laid the basis for a demilitarized boundary between the U.S. and British North America.
- 1847 – New Zealand Wars: A minor Māori chief was accidentally shot by a junior British Army officer in the Petre settlement of New Zealand's North Island, triggering the Wanganui Campaign.
- 1912 – American Harriet Quimby (pictured) became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
- 1917 – Vladimir Lenin returned to Petrograd from Switzerland, and joined the Bolshevik movement in Russia.
- 2014 – The South Korean ferry MV Sewol sank 1.5 km (0.93 mi) offshore of Donggeochado, Jindo County, with around 300 of the 476 onboard killed.
Molly Brant (d. 1796) · Ponnambalam Ramanathan (b. 1851) · Khalil al-Wazir (d. 1988)
April 17: Evacuation Day in Syria (1946); Tax Day in the United States (2018)
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Kaunas Castle (reconstructed)
- 1080 – The death of Harald III allowed his brother Canute IV, who later became the first Dane to be canonized, to become King of Denmark.
- 1362 – Lithuanian Crusade: After a month-long siege, the Teutonic Order captured and destroyed Kaunas Castle (reconstruction pictured) in Lithuania.
- 1907 – The first of three dreadnought battleships for Brazil was laid down, sparking a vastly expensive South American naval arms race.
- 1951 – The Peak District was designated the first national park in the United Kingdom.
- 1973 – George Lucas began writing a 13-page film treatment entitled The Star Wars.
Marino Faliero (d. 1355) · Cap Anson (b. 1852) · Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu (d. 1954)
April 18: Yom Hazikaron in Israel (2018)
Ezra Pound
- 1738 – By royal decree, Philip V of Spain established the Real Academia de la Historia.
- 1915 – World War I: French aviator Roland Garros landed his aircraft behind enemy lines and was taken prisoner.
- 1938 – Superman, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, made his debut in Action Comics #1, the first true superhero comic book.
- 1958 – Controversial American poet Ezra Pound (pictured) was released from St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he had been incarcerated for twelve years.
- 1996 – Israeli forces shelled Qana, Lebanon, during Operation Grapes of Wrath, killing at least 100 civilians and injuring more than 110 others at a UN compound.
Stephen Lekapenos (d. 963) · Ludwig Levy (b. 1854) · Bertha Isaacs (b. 1900)
April 19: Feast of Saint Alphege (Western Christianity); Independence Day in Israel (2018)
Mae West
- 797 – Byzantine emperor Constantine VI was captured, blinded, and imprisoned by the supporters of his mother Irene.
- 1713 – With no living male heirs, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI issued the Pragmatic Sanction to ensure one of his daughters would inherit the Habsburg lands.
- 1903 – A two-day anti-Jewish riot began in Kishinev, Bessarabia (now in Moldova), causing the death of nearly 50 Jews and focusing worldwide negative attention on the persecution of Jews in Russia.
- 1927 – American actress Mae West (pictured) was sentenced to ten days in jail for "corrupting the morals of youth" for her play Sex.
- 1971 – The first space station, Salyut 1, was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakh SSR, USSR.
Uesugi Kenshin (d. 1578) · Sydney Barnes (b. 1873) · Denis O'Brien (b. 1958)
April 20: Ridván begins at sunset (Bahá'í Faith); 4/20 (cannabis culture)
Danica Patrick
- 1535 – The appearance of sun dogs over Stockholm, Sweden, inspired the painting Vädersolstavlan, the oldest colour depiction of the city.
- 1818 – Four days after the Court of King's Bench in England upheld a murder suspect's right to trial by battle in Ashford v Thornton, the plaintiff declined to fight, allowing the defendant to go free.
- 1968 – British Member of Parliament Enoch Powell made his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech in opposition to immigration and anti-discrimination legislation, resulting in his removal from the Shadow Cabinet.
- 1978 – Soviet fighters shot at Korean Air Lines Flight 902 after it violated Soviet airspace, forcing it to make an emergency landing due to damage.
- 2008 – American Danica Patrick (pictured) won the Indy Japan 300, becoming the first woman to win an IndyCar auto race.
Cædwalla of Wessex (d. 689) · John Abernethy (d. 1831) · Nina Davuluri (b. 1989)
Mausoleum of four Shia Imams
- 43 BC – Forces led by Mark Antony fought the Battle of Mutina against those of Decimus Brutus, one of Julius Caesar's assassins.
- 1509 – Henry VIII became King of England, following the death of his father Henry VII, eventually becoming a significant figure in the history of the English monarchy.
- 1925 or 1926 – Al-Baqi cemetery, former site of the mausoleum (pictured) of four of the Twelve Imams of Shia Islam, was demolished by Wahhabis.
- 1970 – In response to a dispute over wheat production quotas, the Principality of Hutt River proclaimed its secession from Western Australia.
- 2010 – Ukraine and Russia signed the Kharkiv Pact to extend the Russian lease on naval facilities in Crimea.
Bajkam (d. 941) · Jan Boeckhorst (d. 1668) · Ignatius Zakka I Iwas (b. 1931)
The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889
- 1500 – Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral and his crew landed in present day Brazil and claimed the land for Portugal.
- 1889 – Over 50,000 people rushed to claim (pictured) a piece of the available two million acres (8,000 km2) in the Unassigned Lands, the present-day U.S. state of Oklahoma, entirely founding the brand-new Oklahoma City.
- 1915 – The Germans released chlorine gas in the Second Battle of Ypres, causing over 6,000 casualties, with many deaths within ten minutes by asphyxiation in the first large-scale successful use of poison gas in World War I.
- 1948 – Civil War in Mandatory Palestine: The Jewish paramilitary group Haganah captured Haifa from the Arab Liberation Army.
- 2013 – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested two men who were plotting to commit terrorist attacks against Via Rail Canada operations.
Germaine de Staël (b. 1766) · James Hargreaves (d. 1778) · Wilhelm Cauer (d. 1945)
April 23: Confederate Memorial Day in Alabama and Mississippi (2018)
Can of New Coke
- 1516 – The best-known version of the Reinheitsgebot, the German Beer Purity Law, was adopted across the entirety of Bavaria.
- 1661 – Charles II, King of England, Ireland, and Scotland, was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
- 1918 – First World War: The British Royal Navy conducted an unsuccessful raid on the German-occupied port of Bruges-Zeebrugge in Belgium.
- 1951 – American journalist William N. Oatis was arrested for espionage by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia.
- 1985 – The Coca-Cola Company replaced its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola, with "New Coke" (pictured), which generated so much negative response that the company put the previous formula back on the market less than three months later.
William Shakespeare (d. 1616) · Karl Friedrich Bahrdt (d. 1792) · Kathy Lynch (b. 1957)
April 24: Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day
The original Library of Congress building, Washington, D.C.
- 1479 BC – Thutmose III became the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, with his aunt Hatshepsut as co-regent.
- 1800 – The Library of Congress (building pictured), the de facto national library of the United States, was established as part of an act of Congress providing for the transfer of the nation's capital from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
- 1914 – The Franck–Hertz experiment, the first electrical measurement to clearly demonstrate quantum mechanics, was presented to the German Physical Society.
- 1980 – Eight U.S. servicemen died in Operation Eagle Claw, a failed attempt to rescue the captives in the Iran hostage crisis.
- 2013 – A building in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed, killing 1,134 people, making it the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern history.
Xu Guangqi (b. 1562) · G. Stanley Hall (d. 1924) · Kelly Clarkson (b. 1982)
Violeta Chamorro
- 799 – Pope Leo III was attacked by partisans of his predecessor Adrian I, but was rescued and taken to Charlemagne, as described in the epic Karolus magnus et Leo papa.
- 1846 – An open conflict between the military forces of the United States and Mexico began over the disputed border of Texas north of the Rio Grande and south of the Nueces River, later serving as a primary justification for the Mexican–American War.
- 1915 – First World War: Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Anzac Cove while British and French troops landed at Cape Helles to begin the Allied invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire.
- 1990 – Violeta Chamorro (pictured) took office as the President of Nicaragua, the first woman elected in her own right as a head of state in the Americas.
- 2015 – A 7.8 MW earthquake struck Nepal, resulting in 8,964 deaths and 21,952 injuries.
Naresuan (d. 1605) · Georg Sverdrup (b. 1770) · Dinesh D'Souza (b. 1961)
April 26: World Intellectual Property Day
B&O Royal Blue
- 1478 – In a conspiracy to replace the Medici family as rulers of the Republic of Florence, the Pazzi family attacked Lorenzo de' Medici and killed his brother Giuliano during High Mass.
- 1865 – U.S. Army soldiers cornered and fatally shot John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, in rural northern Virginia, ending a twelve-day manhunt.
- 1958 – Service ended on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Royal Blue Line, one of the first major electrified train lines in the U.S. (train pictured).
- 1970 – The World Intellectual Property Organization came into being when its convention entered into force.
- 1994 – Just prior to landing at Nagoya International Airport, the copilot of China Airlines Flight 140 inadvertently selected the wrong throttle setting, causing the plane to crash and killing 264 of the 271 people on board.
Chen Jingxuan (d. 893) · Ludwig Wittgenstein (b. 1889) · Srinivasa Ramanujan (d. 1920)
April 27: King's Day in the Netherlands
Battle of Mactan
- 395 – Aelia Eudoxia married Byzantine emperor Arcadius without the knowledge or consent of Rufinus, the Praetorian prefect who had intended for his own daughter to wed the emperor.
- 1521 – Filipino natives led by chieftain Lapu-Lapu killed Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan at the Battle of Mactan (pictured).
- 1777 – American Revolutionary War: British Army regulars defeated Patriot militias in the Battle of Ridgefield, galvanizing resistance in the Connecticut Colony.
- 1967 – The Expo 67 world's fair opened in Montreal, with 62 nations participating and more than 50 million visitors ultimately attending.
- 1993 – Thirty people died, including players and staff of the Zambia football team and the crew, in a plane crash en route to play a World Cup qualifying match against Senegal.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (d. 1882) · Draža Mihailović (b. 1893) · Sheila Scott (b. 1922)
April 28: Workers' Memorial Day
Nichiren
- 1253 – Nichiren (pictured), a Japanese monk, expounded Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō for the first time and declared it to be the essence of Buddhism, in effect founding Nichiren Buddhism.
- 1789 – About 1,300 miles (2,100 km) west of Tahiti, Fletcher Christian, acting lieutenant on board the Royal Navy ship Bounty, led a mutiny against the commander, William Bligh.
- 1941 – Presaging a campaign of genocide against Serbs of Croatia, members of the Ustashe movement massacred around 190 people in Gudovac.
- 1988 – Aloha Airlines Flight 243 experienced an explosive decompression in flight between Hilo and Honolulu, Hawaii, with one fatality as a flight attendant was ejected from the aircraft.
Hertha Ayrton (b. 1854) · Penélope Cruz (b. 1974) · Regina Martínez Pérez (d. 2012)
April 29: Day of Remembrance for all Victims of Chemical Warfare; Pesach Sheni (Judaism, 2018)
Replica of HMS Endeavour
- 1770 – British explorer James Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour (replica pictured), the first European ship to land in eastern Australia, reached the coast of Botany Bay near present-day Sydney.
- 1910 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the People's Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public.
- 1968 – The controversial musical Hair, a product of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, opened at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway, with its songs becoming anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
- 1992 – The acquittal of policemen who had beaten African-American motorist Rodney King sparked six days of civil unrest in Los Angeles, during which 63 people were killed.
- 2015 – The ringleaders of the Bali Nine were executed in Indonesia for attempting to smuggle 8.3 kilograms (18 lb) of heroin to Australia.
Thomas Cooper (d. 1594) · Georgia Hopley (b. 1858) · Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman (b. 1882)
April 30: Consumer Protection Day in Thailand; Reunification Day in Vietnam
"Hoisting of American Colors over Louisiana" by Thure de Thulstrup
- 313 – By defeating the armies of his rival Maximinus II, Roman emperor Licinius unified the eastern half of the empire under his rule.
- 1598 – King Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, granting freedom of religion to the Huguenots.
- 1803 – The United States purchased France's claim to the Louisiana Territory (flag raising ceremony pictured) for 78 million francs, or less than US$.03 per acre ($.07/ha).
- 1943 – Second World War: The Royal Navy submarine HMS Seraph began Operation Mincemeat to deceive Germany about the upcoming invasion of Sicily.
- 2009 – A gunman went on a shooting spree at the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy, a public university in Baku, killing 12 people before committing suicide.
Marie of the Incarnation (d. 1672) · Eugen Bleuler (b. 1857) · Roger L. Easton (b. 1921)
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive – All
January – February – March – April – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – December
Recent changes to Selected anniversaries – Selected anniversaries editing guidelines
It is now 05:32 on Thursday, October 18, 2018 (UTC) – Purge cache for this page
