Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2017 day arrangement |
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April 1: National Day in Iran (1979); Edible Book Day
The 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
- 1293 – Robert Winchelsey left England for Rome to be consecrated by the Pope, only to find that he could not be consecrated immediately because of a papal vacancy.
- 1871 – The 3rd Duke of Buckingham (pictured) opened the Brill Tramway, a short railway line to transport goods between his lands and the national rail network.
- 1924 – William Wrigley Jr. founded the Wrigley Company, currently the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of chewing gum.
- 1947 – The only mutiny in the history of the Royal New Zealand Navy began.
- 1997 – The Netherlands legalised same-sex marriage.
Cynthia Lennon (d. 2015) ·
April 2: World Autism Awareness Day
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William James' ships capture Suvarnadurg
- 1755 – A naval fleet (pictured) led by Commodore William James of the East India Company captured the fortress Suvarnadurg from the Marathas.
- 1885 – North-West Rebellion: Led by Wandering Spirit, young Cree warriors attacked the village of Frog Lake, North-West Territories (now in Alberta), where they killed nine settlers.
- 1911 – The Australian Bureau of Statistics conducted the country's first national census.
- 1992 – Bosnian War (Yugoslav Wars): At least 48 civilians were killed in the town of Bijeljina.
- 2015 – Gunmen attacked Garissa University College in Kenya, killing at least 148 people and wounding 79 others.
Prince George of Denmark (b. 1653) · Max Ernst (b. 1891) · Elizabeth Catlett (d. 2012)
Osborne 1 portable computer
- 1860 – The Pony Express, a mail service that became the most direct means of long distance communication to the American West, began operation.
- 1888 – The first of eleven unsolved brutal murders of women committed in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London, occurred.
- 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.
- 1961 – An individual Leadbeater's possum, thought to have been extinct for over 50 years, was discovered in New South Wales, Australia.
- 1981 – The Osborne 1 (pictured), the first successful portable computer, was unveiled at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.
Mary Carpenter (b. 1807) · Tony Benn (b. 1925) · Graham Greene (d. 1991)
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World Trade Center
- 1841 – William Henry Harrison became the first U.S. President to die in office, sparking a brief constitutional crisis regarding questions of presidential succession that were left unanswered by the U.S. Constitution.
- 1949 – Twelve nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty, creating NATO, an organization that constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.
- 1973 – The World Trade Center (pictured) in New York City was officially dedicated, about a year after the second of the building complex's twin towers was completed.
- 1976 – Norodom Sihanouk abdicated from the role of leader of Cambodia and was arrested by the Khmer Rouge.
- 2002 – The Angolan government and UNITA rebels signed a peace treaty, agreeing to follow the 1994 Lusaka Protocol and ending the decades-long Angolan Civil War.
Liu Yin (d. 911) · Robert III of Scotland (d. 1406) · Jonathan Agnew (b. 1960)
April 5: Rama Navami (Hinduism, 2017); Feast Day of Vincent Ferrer
Akashi Kaikyō Bridge
- 1081 – The Komnenian dynasty came to full power when Alexios I Komnenos was crowned Byzantine Emperor.
- 1614 – Native American Pocahontas married English colonist John Rolfe in Virginia, and was christened Rebecca.
- 1936 – Tupelo–Gainesville tornado outbreak: An F5 tornado hit Tupelo, Mississippi, killing at least 216 people.
- 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).
- 2009 – The North Korean satellite Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 was launched from the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground and passed over Japan, sparking concerns by other nations that it may have been a trial run of technology that could be used to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Jane Asher (b. 1946) · Olek (b. 1978) ·
Cover of the official report of the 1896 Olympics
- 1250 – Seventh Crusade: Egyptian Ayyubids annihilated the crusader army and captured King Louis IX of France as a hostage.
- 1886 – Vancouver, one of British Columbia's youngest cities, was incorporated.
- 1896 – The first modern Olympic Games (official report pictured) opened in Athens, with 241 athletes from 14 nations participating in 43 events.
- 1947 – The first Tony Awards, recognizing achievement in American theatre, were handed out at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
- 2012 – The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad unilaterally declared the region of Azawad independent from Mali.
Raphael (d. 1520) · Nadar (b. 1820) · Rose O'Neill (d. 1944)
April 7: World Health Day; National Beer Day in the United States
Demonstrators in Chișinău, Moldova
- 1348 – Charles, King of Bohemia, issued a Golden Bull to establish Charles University in Prague, the first university in Central Europe.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Union forces defeated Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh, the bloodiest battle in U.S. history at the time, in Hardin County, Tennessee.
- 1945 – World War II: American forces sank Japan's Yamato, the largest battleship in the world, during Operation Ten-Go.
- 1947 – The Arab Ba'ath Party was founded in Damascus, Syria.
- 2009 – Mass protests (pictured) began across Moldova under the belief that results from the parliamentary election were fraudulent.
Berengar I of Italy (d. 924) · El Greco (d. 1614) · Dave Arneson (d. 2009)
Times Square
- 217 – Roman emperor Caracalla was assassinated at a roadside near Harran and succeeded by his Praetorian Guard prefect Macrinus.
- 876 – Forces of the Abbasid Caliphate defeated the army of the Saffarid amir Ya'qub ibn Laith, forcing Ya'qub to halt his advance into what is now Iraq.
- 1904 – Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, was renamed Times Square (pictured) after The New York Times building.
- 1961 – A large explosion on board the MV Dara in the Persian Gulf killed 238 people on board.
- 2013 – Two Sunni Muslim Islamic extremist groups, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Al-Nusra Front, merged to become the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS.
John II Komnenos (d. 1143) · Philip IV of Spain (b. 1605) · Sara Northrup Hollister (b. 1924)
April 9: 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).
- 1917 – First World War: The Canadian Corps began the first wave of attacks at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in Vimy, France.
- 1947 – Sixteen white and black men began a two-week journey in the American South, acting in defiance of local laws that enforced segregated seating on public buses.
- 1967 – The first Boeing 737 took its maiden flight, eventually becoming the most ordered and produced commercial passenger jet airliner in the world.
- 2005 – Charles, Prince of Wales, married his long-time mistress Camilla Parker Bowles.
Francis Bacon (d. 1626) · Jørn Utzon (b. 1918) · Mary Jackson (b. 1921)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
- 1809 – Napoleonic Wars: The War of the Fifth Coalition began when Austria invaded Bavaria.
- 1858 – Big Ben, the bell in the Palace of Westminster's clock tower in London, was cast after the original bell had cracked during testing.
- 1925 – The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (pictured) was first published.
- 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.
Gabrielle d'Estrées (d. 1589) · Stuart Sutcliffe (d. 1962) · Evelyn Waugh (d. 1966)
Emir Abdullah of Transjordan
- 1544 – Italian War of 1542–46: French and Spanish forces fought a massive pitched battle in the Piedmont region of Italy.
- 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.
- 1908 – Blücher, the last armored cruiser built by the Imperial German Navy, was launched.
- 1921 – Emir Abdullah (pictured) established the first centralised government in the recently created British protectorate of Transjordan.
- 2002 – In a coup attempt, members of the Venezuelan military detained President Hugo Chávez and demanded his resignation.
Llywelyn the Great (d. 1240) · Christopher Smart (b. 1722) · Ewelina Hańska (d. 1882)
April 12: Yuri's Night; Cosmonautics Day in Russia
Terry Fox
- 1776 – The fourth North Carolina Provincial Congress passed the Halifax Resolves, the first official action in the American colonies calling for independence from Britain during the American Revolution.
- 1831 – Broughton Suspension Bridge in Manchester, England, collapsed, reportedly because of mechanical resonance induced by troops marching in step over the bridge.
- 1910 – SMS Zrínyi, one of the last pre-dreadnoughts built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy, was launched.
- 1980 – Terry Fox (pictured) dipped his artificial leg in the Atlantic Ocean at St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, and began running his "Marathon of Hope" towards the Pacific Ocean at Vancouver, British Columbia, to raise funds across Canada for cancer research.
- 2007 – The canteen of the Council of Representatives of Iraq building was attacked by a suicide bomber, killing one Member of Parliament and wounding 23 other people.
Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood (d. 1866) · Beverly Cleary (b. 1916) · Xin Fengxia (d. 1998)
Tiger Woods
- 1111 – Henry V, the last ruler of the Salian dynasty, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1742 – Messiah, an oratorio by baroque composer George Frideric Handel, premiered in Dublin.
- 1829 – The Roman Catholic Relief Act was granted Royal Assent, removing the most substantial restrictions on Catholics in the United Kingdom.
- 1973 – Catch a Fire, the landmark reggae album by Bob Marley and the Wailers, was released.
- 1997 – In golf, twenty-one-year-old Tiger Woods (pictured) became the youngest player to win the US Masters, breaking the tournament's record for the lowest four-round score (270 strokes, 18 under par).
Catherine de' Medici (b. 1519) ·
April 14: Bengali New Year, Tamil New Year, and other New Year festivals in Asia (2017); Day of the Georgian language in Georgia (1978)
Gnassingbé Eyadéma
- 1471 – Wars of the Roses: The Yorkists under Edward IV defeated the Lancastrians near the town of Barnet, killing Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick.
- 1865 – Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth fatally shot U.S. President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.
- 1944 – The freighter SS Fort Stikine, carrying a mixed cargo of cotton bales, gold and ammunition, exploded in the harbour in Bombay, India, sinking surrounding ships and killing about 800 people.
- 1967 – After leading a military coup three months earlier, Gnassingbé Eyadéma (pictured) installed himself as President of Togo, a post which he held until 2005.
- 1999 – A storm dropped an estimated 500,000 tonnes of hailstones in Sydney and along the east coast of New South Wales, causing about A$2.3 billion in damages, the costliest natural disaster in Australian insurance history.
Rod Steiger (b. 1925) · Rachel Carson (d. 1964) · Sarah Michelle Gellar (b. 1977)
April 15: Day of the Sun in North Korea
Jackie Robinson
- 1802 – English poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy encountered a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring him to pen his most famous work, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud".
- 1927 – Torrential rains caused the Mississippi River to break out of its levee system in at least 145 places, resulting in the worst flooding in the history of the United States.
- 1947 – Jackie Robinson (pictured), the first African American to break the baseball color line, played his first game in Major League Baseball.
- 1989 – A human crush during an FA Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, caused 96 deaths, making it the worst disaster in British sporting history.
Emma Watson (b. 1990)
Bernard Baruch
- 1520 – Citizens of Toledo, Castile, who were opposed to the rule of the foreign-born Charles V, rose up in revolt when the royal government attempted to unseat radical city councilors.
- 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.
- 1917 – World War I: A massive assault by several French army corps against the German-occupied Chemin des Dames ridge began south of Laon, France.
- 1947 – American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch (pictured) first described the post–World War II tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States as a "cold war".
- 2007 – In one of the deadliest shooting incidents in United States history, a gunman killed 32 people and wounded over 20 more before committing suicide at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Molly Brant (d. 1796) ·
April 17: Patriots' Day in Maine and Massachusetts (2017)
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Kaunas Castle (reconstructed)
- 1362 – Lithuanian Crusade: After a month-long siege, the Teutonic Order captured and destroyed Kaunas Castle (reconstruction pictured) in Lithuania.
- 1907 – Brazil became the third country in the world to start construction on a dreadnought battleship, sparking a vastly expensive South American naval arms race.
- 1961 – Armed Cuban exiles backed by the CIA invaded Cuba, landing in the Bay of Pigs, with the aim of overthrowing the Cuban government under Fidel Castro.
- 1975 – The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot captured Phnom Penh, ending the Cambodian Civil War, and established Democratic Kampuchea.
- 2014 – NASA announced the discovery of Kepler-186f, the first exoplanet with a radius similar to Earth's discovered in the habitable zone of another star.
Karen Blixen (b. 1885) · Sean Bean (b. 1959) · Elda Emma Anderson (d. 1961)
April 18: Tax Day in the United States (2017)
Bolesław I of Poland
- 1025 – Bolesław I the Brave (pictured) became the first King of Poland.
- 1689 – Provincial militia and citizens gathered in Boston, and arrested officials of the Dominion of New England.
- 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 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 more than 100 civilians and injuring more than 110 others at a UN compound.
Lucrezia Borgia (b. 1480) · John Leland (d. 1552) · Albert Einstein (d. 1955)
April 19: Feast of Saint Alphege (Western Christianity)
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Pope Benedict XVI
- 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.
- 1775 – The American Revolutionary War began with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the British colony of Massachusetts.
- 1809 – War of the Fifth Coalition: The French won a hard-fought victory over Austria in Lower Bavaria when their opponents withdrew from the field of battle that evening.
- 1984 – Scottish-born composer Peter Dodds McCormick's "Advance Australia Fair", a patriotic song that was first performed in 1878, officially replaced "God Save the Queen" as Australia's national anthem.
- 2005 – Joseph Alois Ratzinger (pictured) was elected Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of the papal conclave.
Sarah Bagley (b. 1806) · Benjamin Disraeli (d. 1881) · Jiroemon Kimura (b. 1897)
April 20: Ridván begins at sunset (Bahá'í Faith); 4/20 (cannabis culture)
Enoch Powell
- 1537 – Bacatá, the main settlement of the Muisca Confederation, was conquered by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada during the Spanish conquest of the Muisca, effectively ending the Confederation in the Colombian Eastern Andes.
- 1809 – War of the Fifth Coalition: Napoleon led a Franco-German force to victory over a reinforced Austrian corps in the Battle of Abensberg.
- 1939 – Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday was celebrated as a national holiday in Nazi Germany.
- 1968 – British Member of Parliament Enoch Powell (pictured) made his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech in opposition to immigration and anti-discrimination legislation, resulting in his removal from the Shadow Cabinet.
- 2010 – An explosion on Deepwater Horizon, an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, caused the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.
Cædwalla of Wessex (d. 689) · Allegra Byron (d. 1822) · Frances Ames (b. 1920)
Manfred von Richthofen
- 900 – A debt was pardoned by the Datu of Tondo on the island of Luzon, as inscribed on the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, the earliest known written document found in the Philippines.
- 1802 – Twelve thousand Wahhabis from the first Saudi State invaded the city of Karbala, killed several thousand inhabitants, and sacked the city.
- 1863 – After the Ottoman Empire exiled him from Baghdad, Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, began his twelve-day stay in the Garden of Ridván where he declared his mission as "He whom God shall make manifest".
- 1918 – Manfred von Richthofen (pictured), known as the "Red Baron", was shot down and killed near Vaux-sur-Somme in France, after a career as the most successful fighter pilot of First World War with 80 confirmed air combat victories.
- 1962 – The Century 21 Exposition, the first world's fair in the United States since World War II, opened in Seattle.
Max Weber (b. 1864) · John Maynard Keynes (d. 1946) · Dorothy Eady (d. 1981)
An 1864 two-cent coin
- 1500 – Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral and his crew landed in present day Brazil and claimed the land for Portugal.
- 1622 – An Anglo-Persian force combined to capture the Portuguese garrison at Hormuz Island in the Persian Gulf.
- 1864 – The U.S. Congress passed the Coinage Act, authorizing the minting of a two-cent coin (pictured), the first U.S. coin to bear the phrase "In God We Trust".
- 1969 – The British yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston won the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race to complete the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world.
- 1983 – The West German news magazine Stern published excerpts from what purported to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler, which were subsequently revealed to be forgeries.
Lewis Powell (b. 1844) · Kathleen Ferrier (b. 1912) · Emilio Segrè (d. 1989)
Hank Aaron
- 1014 – Irish forces led by Brian Boru clashed with the Vikings in the Battle of Clontarf.
- 1516 – The most well-known version of the Reinheitsgebot, the German Beer Purity Law, was adopted across the entirety of Bavaria.
- 1942 – Second World War: In retaliation for the Royal Air Force bombing of Lübeck several weeks prior, the Luftwaffe began a series of bombing raids in England, starting with Exeter.
- 1954 – Batting against Vic Raschi of the St. Louis Cardinals, Hank Aaron (pictured) of the Milwaukee Braves hit the first of his record-setting 755 home runs in Major League Baseball.
- 2009 – Gamma-ray burst GRB 090423 was detected, coming from the most distant known astronomical object of any kind at the time.
Joan of France (b. 1464) · Shirley Temple (b. 1928) · Satyajit Ray (d. 1992)
April 24: Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day; Yom HaShoah in Israel (2017)
Thutmose III
- 1479 BC – Thutmose III (statue pictured) became the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, although during the first 22 years of the reign he was co-regent with his aunt, Hatshepsut.
- 1547 – Schmalkaldic War: Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, led Imperial troops to a decisive victory in the Battle of Mühlberg over the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League of Protestant princes.
- 1915 – The Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire began with the arrest and deportation of hundreds of prominent Armenians in Constantinople.
- 1933 – Nazi Germany began its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg.
- 1993 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a truck bomb in London's financial district in Bishopsgate, killing one person, injuring forty-four others, and causing damage that cost £350 million to repair.
Mellitus (d. 624) · Mimi Smith (b. 1906) · Laurentia Tan (b. 1979)
Violeta Chamorro
- 775 – Forces of the Abbasid Caliphate won a decisive victory over rebelling Armenian princes in the Battle of Bagrevand.
- 1644 – The Ming dynasty of China fell when the Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide during a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng.
- 1849 – After Lord Elgin, the Governor General of Canada, signed the Rebellion Losses Bill into law to compensate the residents of Lower Canada for losses incurred in Rebellions of 1837, protestors rioted and burned down the Parliament buildings in Montreal.
- 1920 – At the San Remo conference, the principal Allied Powers of World War I decided upon the League of Nations mandates for administration of the former Ottoman-ruled lands of the Middle East.
- 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.
Edward II of England (b. 1284) · Emer de Vattel (b. 1714) · Al Pacino (b. 1940)
April 26: World Intellectual Property Day; Feast day of Our Lady of Good Counsel (Roman Catholic Church)
Statue of Sybil Ludington
- 1777 – American Revolutionary War: Sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington (statue pictured) is claimed to have ridden forty miles through the night to warn militiamen under the control of her father that British troops were planning to invade Danbury, Connecticut.
- 1865 – U.S. Army soldiers cornered and fatally shot John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of US President Abraham Lincoln, in rural northern Virginia, ending a twelve-day manhunt.
- 1945 – World War II: Both the German and Polish–Soviet sides claimed victory as major fighting in the Battle of Bautzen ended.
- 1989 – An editorial was published in the People's Daily denouncing the growing unrest in Tiananmen Square, which would remain contentious through the remainder of the protests.
- 2007 – Controversy surrounding the relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, a Soviet Red Army World War II memorial in Tallinn, Estonia, erupted into mass protests and riots.
Alice Ayres (d. 1885) · I. M. Pei (b. 1917) · Morihei Ueshiba (d. 1969)
April 27: King's Day in the Netherlands
Airbus A380
- 629 – Shahrbaraz usurped the throne of the Sasanian Empire from Ardashir III, but was himself deposed only forty days later.
- 1522 – Italian War of 1521–26: The combined forces of Spain and the Papal States defeated a French and Venetian army at the Battle of Bicocca.
- 1865 – An explosion destroyed the steamboat Sultana on the Mississippi River, killing an estimated 1,700 of the 2,400 passengers.
- 1904 – Chris Watson became the first Australian Prime Minister from the Australian Labour Party.
- 2005 – The Airbus A380 (pictured), the largest passenger airliner in the world, made its maiden flight from Toulouse, France.
Mary Wollstonecraft (b. 1759) · Sergei Prokofiev (b. 1891) · Olivier Messiaen (d. 1992)
April 28: International Workers' Memorial Day
Guillaume Schnaebelé
- 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.
- 1887 – A week after being arrested by the Prussian Secret Police, French police inspector Guillaume Schnaebelé (pictured) was released on the order of William I, the German Emperor, defusing a possible war.
- 1910 – Frenchman Louis Paulhan won the London to Manchester air race, the first long-distance aeroplane race in England.
- 1952 – Japan and the Republic of China signed the Treaty of Taipei to officially end the Second Sino-Japanese War, seven years after fighting in that conflict ended due to World War II.
- 2008 – The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, the world's highest residence above ground-level at the time (1,389 feet (423 m)), held its full service grand opening.
Shajar al-Durr (d. 1257) · Jane Cobden (b. 1851) · Bradley Wiggins (b. 1980)
1991 Bangladesh cyclone
- 1862 – American Civil War: Union forces under David Farragut captured New Orleans, securing access into the Mississippi River.
- 1944 – Second World War: British agent Nancy Wake parachuted into Auvergne, becoming a liaison between the Special Operations Executive and the local Maquis group
- 1975 – Vietnam War: North Vietnam concluded its East Sea Campaign by capturing all of the Spratly Islands that were being held by South Vietnam.
- 1991 – A powerful tropical cyclone (pictured) struck Chittagong, Bangladesh, killing at least 138,000 people and leaving as many as 10 million homeless across the region.
- 1997 – The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention went into effect, outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons in those countries that ratified the arms control agreement.
George Farquhar (d. 1707) · Harold Urey (b. 1893) · Ludwig Wittgenstein (d. 1951)
April 30: National Persian Gulf Day in Iran; Consumer Protection Day in Thailand
American Falls
- 1557 – Arauco War: Spanish forces of the Governor Francisco de Villagra launched a surprise dawn attack against the Mapuche headed by their toqui Lautaro in what is now Chile.
- 1636 – Eighty Years' War: Dutch Republic forces recaptured a strategically important fort from Spain after a nine-month siege.
- 1883 – Governor of New York Grover Cleveland signed legislation that led to the creation of Niagara Falls State Park (American Falls pictured), the United States' first state park.
- 1963 – The Bristol Omnibus Company's refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews led to a bus boycott in Bristol, drawing national attention to racial discrimination in the United Kingdom.
- 2009 – A Dutch man drove his car at high speed into a parade in an attempt to kill the Dutch royal family.
Dorival Caymmi (b. 1914) · Alben W. Barkley (d. 1956) · Kirsten Dunst (b. 1982)
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 03:28 on Friday, May 26, 2017 (UTC) – Purge cache for this page
