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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| << | Selected anniversaries for April | >> | ||||
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2019 day arrangement | ||||||
April 1: Iranian Islamic Republic Day; Edible Book Day
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Hawker Siddeley Harrier taking off
- 1293 – Robert Winchelsey left England for Rome to be consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, but a papal vacancy delayed the ceremony.
- 1865 – American Civil War: The Union Army inflicted over 2,900 casualties on the Confederates in the Battle of Five Forks.
- 1947 – The main mutiny in a series of mutinies of the Royal New Zealand Navy began.
- 1969 – The Hawker Siddeley Harrier (pictured), the first operational fighter aircraft with V/STOL capabilities, entered service with the Royal Air Force.
Aimery of Cyprus (d. 1205) · Giuditta Pasta (d. 1865) · Henri Cochet (d. 1987)
April 2: World Autism Awareness Day
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Norodom Sihanouk
- 1513 – Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León became the first European to sight Florida, purportedly while searching for the Fountain of Youth.
- 1863 – About 5,000 people, mostly poor women, rioted in Richmond, Virginia, protesting the exorbitant price of bread.
- 1976 – Norodom Sihanouk (pictured) resigned as leader of Cambodia and was arrested by the Khmer Rouge.
- 1979 – Spores of anthrax were accidentally released from a military research facility near the city of Sverdlovsk, causing around 100 deaths.
- 2015 – Four elderly men burgled items worth up to £200 million from a safe deposit facility in London's Hatton Garden area.
Wilhelmine Reichard (b. 1788) · Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet (d. 1803) · Juanito (d. 1992)
Oscar Wilde
- 1559 – Henry II of France and Philip II of Spain signed a treaty to end the Italian War of 1551–1559.
- 1860 – The Pony Express, a mail service that became the most direct means of long distance communication to the American West, began operation.
- 1895 – The libel trial instigated by Irish author Oscar Wilde (pictured) began, eventually resulting in his arrest, trial and imprisonment on charges of gross indecency.
- 1946 – Imperial Japanese Army officer Masaharu Homma was executed for war crimes relating to the Bataan Death March.
- 2009 – A gunman opened fire at an American Civic Association immigration center in Binghamton, New York, U.S., killing thirteen and wounding four before committing suicide.
Al-Adil ibn al-Sallar (d. 1154) · Gus Grissom (b. 1926) · Mary Cartwright (d. 1998)
William Henry Harrison
- 1268 – The Byzantine Empire and the Republic of Venice signed a treaty that brought seven years of hostilities to a temporary end.
- 1841 – William Henry Harrison (pictured) 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.
- 2013 – A building collapsed on tribal land in Mumbra, a suburb of Thane in Maharashtra, India, causing 74 deaths.
Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours (b. 1752) · Philippa Fawcett (b. 1868) · Xu Lai (d. 1973)
April 5: Hansik in North and South Korea
Pocahontas
- 1614 – Native American Pocahontas (pictured) married English colonist John Rolfe in Virginia.
- 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.
- 1986 – The Libyan secret service bombed a discotheque in West Berlin, killing 3 people and injuring 229 others.
- 2000 – Before a semi-final of the 2000 UEFA Cup in Istanbul, violence broke out that resulted in two Leeds United fans being stabbed to death.
- 2009 – The North Korean satellite Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 was launched from the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground and passed over Japan, sparking concerns it may have been a trial run of technology that could be used to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Sir Thomas Hardy, 1st Baronet (b. 1769) · Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine (b. 1863) · María Blanchard (d. 1932)
April 6: Tartan Day in Canada and the United States
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Earthquake damage in L'Aquila
- 402 – A Roman army led by Stilicho turned back an attempted Gothic invasion led by Alaric I.
- 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.
- 1941 – World War II: The Axis Powers began both Operation Marita and Operation 25, invading Greece and Yugoslavia, respectively.
- 1970 – Four California Highway Patrol officers were killed in a shootout after a traffic stop in the Newhall area, north of Los Angeles.
- 2009 – A 6.3 Mw earthquake struck the region of Abruzzo in central Italy (damage pictured), killing 308 people and injuring more than 1,500 others.
Arvid Horn (b. 1664) · Jeanne Hébuterne (b. 1898) · Anita Borg (d. 2003)
April 7: Cheti Chand in various parts of India (2019); National Beer Day in the United States
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Juvénal Habyarimana
- 1141 – Empress Matilda became the first female claimant to the throne of England, adopting the title 'Lady of the English'.
- 1949 – The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, based on Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener, opened on Broadway.
- 1994 – The Rwandan genocide began, a few hours after the assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana (pictured); an estimated 500,000–1,000,000 Rwandans were killed in the following 100 days.
- 2017 – A hijacked truck was deliberately driven into crowds along Drottninggatan in Stockholm killing five people.
John Sheffield (b. 1648) · Joseph Lyons (d. 1939) · Dave Arneson (d. 2009)
Capture of Princesa
- 217 – Roman emperor Caracalla was assassinated near Harran and succeeded by his Praetorian Guard prefect Macrinus.
- 1271 – The Knights Hospitaller surrendered the Krak des Chevaliers to the army of the Mamluk sultan Baibars.
- 1740 – War of the Austrian Succession: The Royal Navy captured the Spanish ship of the line Princesa (pictured), which was later mustered into British service.
- 1904 – France and the United Kingdom signed the Entente Cordiale, agreeing to a peaceful coexistence after centuries of intermittent conflict.
- 1959 – A team of computer scientists and others met to discuss the creation of a common business-oriented programming language that became COBOL.
Niels Juel (d. 1697) · Marie Byles (b. 1900) · Sara Northrup Hollister (b. 1924)
April 9: Vimy Ridge Day in Canada; Day of National Unity in Georgia (1989)
The Mercury Seven
- 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.
- 1917 – First World War: The Canadian Corps began the first wave of attacks at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in Vimy, France.
- 1942 – World War II: Japanese forces defeated Allied troops at the Battle of Bataan on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines before beginning to forcibly transfer more than 90,000 prisoners of war to prison camps in the Bataan Death March.
- 1959 – NASA announced the selection of the Mercury Seven (pictured), the first astronauts in Project Mercury.
- 1999 – President of Niger Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara was shot dead by soldiers in Niamey.
François Rabelais (d. 1553) · Charles Proteus Steinmetz (b. 1865) · Natascha Engel (b. 1967)
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Big Ben in 1858
- 1809 – Napoleonic Wars: The War of the Fifth Coalition began when Austria invaded Bavaria.
- 1858 – Big Ben (pictured), the bell in the Palace of Westminster's clock tower in London, was cast after the original bell cracked during testing.
- 1925 – The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was first published.
- 1959 – Crown Prince Akihito, the future Emperor of Japan, wedded Michiko, the first commoner to marry into the Japanese Imperial Family.
- 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.
Michael Tarchaniota Marullus (d. 1500) · Thomas Jones (d. 1619) · Kishori Amonkar (b. 1932)
The Concertgebouw
- 1809 – Napoleonic Wars: A hastily assembled Royal Navy fleet launched an assault against the main strength of the French Atlantic Fleet, which resulted in political turmoil in both England and France.
- 1888 – The Concertgebouw (pictured) in Amsterdam, considered one of the world's finest concert halls, was inaugurated.
- 1921 – Emir Abdullah established the first centralised government in the recently created British protectorate of Transjordan.
- 1963 – Pope John XXIII issued Pacem in terris ("Peace on Earth"), the first papal encyclical addressed to "all men of good will", rather than only to Catholics.
- 2001 – In a FIFA World Cup qualifying match, Australia defeated American Samoa by a score of 31–0, the largest margin of victory ever in an international football match.
Edward Wightman (d. 1612) · Ferdinand Lassalle (b. 1825) · Kurt Vonnegut (d. 2007)
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 Great Britain during the American Revolution.
- 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 and executed.
- 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), an athlete with an artificial leg, began running his "Marathon of Hope" from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, intending to reach Vancouver, to raise funds for cancer research.
George N. Briggs (b. 1796) · Imogen Holst (b. 1907) · Karim Fakhrawi (d. 2011)
Tiger Woods
- 1742 – Messiah, an oratorio by baroque composer George Frideric Handel, premiered in Dublin.
- 1777 – American Revolutionary War: British and Hessian forces conducted a surprise attack against a Continental Army outpost at Bound Brook, New Jersey.
- 1948 – Civil war in Mandatory Palestine: A convoy bringing supplies and personnel to Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital was ambushed by Arab forces, leaving seventy-nine people dead.
- 1973 – Catch a Fire, the landmark reggae album by Bob Marley and the Wailers, was released.
- 1997 – In golf, 21-year-old Tiger Woods (pictured) became the youngest player to win the Masters Tournament, breaking its record for the lowest four-round score (270 strokes, 18 under par).
Catherine de' Medici (b. 1519) · Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington (d. 1716) · Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)
April 14: Vaisakhi (Sikhism), Tamil New Year, and other New Year festivals in Asia (2019); Day of the Georgian language in Georgia (1978); N'Ko Alphabet Day in West Africa
Hailstones from the 1999 Sydney hailstorm
- 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.
- 1906 – The Azusa Street Revival, the primary catalyst for the spread of Pentecostalism in the 20th century, opened in Los Angeles.
- 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.
- 1999 – A storm dropped an estimated 500,000 tonnes of hailstones in Sydney (examples pictured) 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.
Lucia Visconti (d. 1424) · William Whitehead (d. 1785) · Berry Berenson (b. 1948)
April 15: Day of the Sun in North Korea; Patriots' Day in various U.S. states (2019); Tax Day in the United States (2019)
The Titanic's sinking, as depicted by Willy Stöwer
- 769 – The Lateran Council concluded proceedings intended to rectify abuses in the papal electoral process that had led to the elevation of the antipopes Constantine II and Philip.
- 1912 – More than 1,500 people died after the passenger liner RMS Titanic sank as a result of colliding with an iceberg (pictured) southeast of Newfoundland.
- 1952 – The B-52 Stratofortress, a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered, strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force for most of the aircraft's history, made its first flight.
- 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.
Richard Poore (d. 1237) · Wilhelm Busch (b. 1832) · Arsenio Lacson (d. 1962)
April 16: Education and Sharing Day in the United States (2019)
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.
- 1862 – Slavery in Washington, D.C., ended when the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act became law.
- 1919 – Polish–Soviet War: The Polish army launched the Vilna offensive to capture Vilnius (now in Lithuania) from the Red Army.
- 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".
- 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.
John Hastings, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (d. 1375) · Francisco Goya (d. 1828) · Khalil al-Wazir (d. 1988)
April 17: Evacuation Day in Syria (1946)
Artist's impression of Kepler-186f
- 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.
- 1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: British Lieutenant General Ralph Abercromby and a force of 7,000 invaded Spanish-controlled Puerto Rico.
- 1969 – Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of the assassination of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
- 1986 – Having supposedly been at war for 335 years without a single shot having been fired and no casualties incurred, the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly declared peace.
- 2014 – NASA announced the discovery of Kepler-186f (artist's impression shown), the first exoplanet with a radius similar to Earth's discovered in the habitable zone of another star.
Hannah Webster Foster (d. 1840) · Neville McNamara (b. 1923) · Sean Bean (b. 1959)
Roland Garros
- 1738 – By royal decree, Philip V of Spain established the Real Academia de la Historia.
- 1775 – American Revolutionary War: Colonists Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott began a "midnight ride" from Boston to Lexington to warn residents about the impending arrival of British troops.
- 1915 – World War I: French aviator Roland Garros (pictured) landed his aircraft behind enemy lines and was taken prisoner.
- 1949 – The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 came into force and Ireland officially left the British Commonwealth and became a republic.
- 1955 – Representatives from 29 African and Asian countries met in the inaugural Bandung Conference in Indonesia to promote economic and cultural cooperation.
Theobald of Bec (d. 1161) · Clara Elsene Peck (b. 1883) · Universo 2000 (b. 1963)
April 19: Feast of Saint Alphege (Western Christianity)
Grace Kelly
- 1782 – The States General of the Dutch Republic received John Adams, and the house he had purchased in The Hague became the first United States embassy.
- 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.
- 1956 – Actress Grace Kelly (pictured) became Princess consort of Monaco upon marrying Rainier III, Prince of Monaco.
- 1971 – The first space station, Salyut 1, was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakh SSR, USSR.
- 2015 – In Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., Freddie Gray died of injuries sustained a week earlier while in the custody of the Baltimore Police Department.
Eanflæd (b. 626) · Benjamin Rush (d. 1813) · Hermine Braunsteiner (d. 1999)
April 20: First day of Passover (Judaism, 2019); 4/20 (cannabis culture)
René Caillié
- 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.
- 1657 – Anglo-Spanish War: An English fleet sank much of a Spanish treasure fleet at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands but was unable to capture the treasure.
- 1828 – French explorer René Caillié (pictured) became the first European to enter Timbuktu and return safely, for which he received a 10,000-franc prize from the Société de Géographie.
- 1939 – Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday was celebrated as a national holiday in Nazi Germany.
- 1999 – Students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold embarked on a massacre, killing 13 people and wounding over 20 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.
Elizabeth Barton (d. 1534) · Paul Poiret (b. 1879) · Nina Davuluri (b. 1989)
April 21: First day of Ridván (Bahá'í Faith, 2019); Easter (Western Christianity, 2019); Mid-Sha'ban (Islam, 2019); Grounation Day in the Rastafari movement
Wignacourt Aqueduct
- 43 BC – Forces led by Mark Antony fought the Battle of Mutina against those of Decimus Brutus, one of Julius Caesar's assassins.
- 1615 – The Wignacourt Aqueduct (pictured) in Malta was inaugurated and was used to carry water to Valletta for about 300 years.
- 1914 – Mexican Revolution: The United States detained a German steamer carrying materiel for the Mexican federal government.
- 1934 – The "Surgeon's Photograph", purportedly showing the Loch Ness Monster (later revealed to be a hoax), was published in the Daily Mail.
- 1970 – In response to a dispute over wheat production quotas, the Principality of Hutt River proclaimed its secession from Western Australia.
Bardas (d. 866) · Petrus Apianus (d. 1552) · Cheryl Gillan (b. 1952)
The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889
- 1622 – An Anglo-Persian force combined to capture the Portuguese garrison at Hormuz Island in the Persian Gulf.
- 1889 – More than 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, founding Oklahoma City.
- 1951 – Korean War: The People's Volunteer Army of China attacked positions occupied mainly by Australian and Canadian forces, starting the Battle of Kapyong.
- 2004 – Flammable cargo exploded at Ryongchon Station in Ryongchon, North Korea, killing at least 54 people and injuring more than a thousand.
Pope Caius (d. 296) · Emily Davies (b. 1830) · Jack Nicholson (b. 1937)
Main Building of the University of Notre Dame
- 1348 – The first appointments to the Order of the Garter, an order of chivalry founded by King Edward III of England, were announced.
- 1516 – The best-known version of the Reinheitsgebot, the German Beer Purity Law, was adopted across the entirety of Bavaria.
- 1879 – A fire destroyed the second version of the Main Building (pictured) of the University of Notre Dame.
- 1979 – Activist Blair Peach suffered fatal head injuries when he was knocked unconscious during an Anti-Nazi League demonstration in Southall, London, against a National Front election meeting in the town hall.
- 2009 – Gamma-ray burst GRB 090423 was detected, coming from the most distant astronomical object of any kind known at the time.
William Shakespeare (d. 1616) · Pandita Ramabai (b. 1858) · Halston (b. 1932)
April 24: Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day; Administrative Professionals Day in various countries (2019)
Hubble Space Telescope
- 1704 – John Campbell released the first issue of The Boston News-Letter, the first continuously published newspaper in British North America.
- 1904 – Realizing that the Russification of Lithuania was not working, the Russian Empire lifted the 40-year-old ban on publications written in Lithuanian language using the Latin alphabet.
- 1932 – An estimated 400 ramblers committed a wilful trespass of Kinder Scout in the Peak District of England to highlight the denial of access to areas of open country.
- 1990 – The Hubble Space Telescope (pictured) was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in mission STS-31.
Vincent de Paul (b. 1581) · Axel von Fersen the Elder (d. 1794) · Estée Lauder (d. 2004)
April 25: Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand (1915)
USS Triton (SSRN-586)
- 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.
- 1644 – The Ming dynasty of China fell when the Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide during a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng.
- 1792 – The French highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier became the first person to be executed by guillotine.
- 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.
- 1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton (SSRN-586) (pictured) completed the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.
Géza I of Hungary (d. 1077) · Charles Sumner Tainter (b. 1854) · Stefanie Zweig (d. 2014)
April 26: World Intellectual Property Day
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Statue of Sybil Ludington
- 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.
- 1777 – American Revolutionary War: Sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington (statue pictured) rode forty miles through the night to warn militiamen under the control of her father that British troops were planning to invade Danbury, Connecticut.
- 1944 – World War II: U.S. Navy submarines began attacks on Japan's Take Ichi convoy as it sailed in waters between Taiwan and the Philippines, eventually sinking four vessels and killing more than 4,000 troops.
- 1989 – A tornado struck the Manikganj District of Bangladesh, killing an estimated 1,300 people, making it the deadliest tornado in history.
- 2002 – An expelled student murdered sixteen people and wounded seven others before committing suicide at the Gutenberg-Gymnasium Erfurt in Erfurt, Germany.
Jean Fernel (d. 1558) · Margaret Gowing (b. 1921) · Morihei Ueshiba (d. 1969)
April 27: King's Day in the Netherlands
Für Elise
- 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.
- 1810 – Ludwig van Beethoven composed his Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor, better known as "Für Elise" (audio featured), one of his most popular compositions.
- 1865 – An explosion destroyed the steamboat Sultana on the Mississippi River, killing an estimated 1,700 of the 2,400 passengers.
- 1949 – In response to the treatment of Lorenzo Gamboa under the White Australia policy, the Philippine House of Representatives passed a bill banning Australians from the country.
- 2012 – Unknown perpetrators committed a series of four bombings in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine.
Pope Leo XI (d. 1605) · Mary Wollstonecraft (b. 1759) · Coretta Scott King (b. 1927)
April 28: Workers' Memorial Day; Easter (Eastern Christianity, 2019)
Aurora Quezon
- 224 – The Parthian Empire in ancient Iran fell to the Sasanids after being defeated at the Battle of Hormozdgan.
- 1887 – A week after being arrested by the Prussian Secret Police, French police inspector Guillaume Schnaebelé was released on the order of William I, the German Emperor, defusing a possible war.
- 1949 – Former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon (pictured), her daughter, and ten others were assassinated by the military arm of the Philippine Communist Party.
- 1973 – The album The Dark Side of the Moon by the British progressive rock band Pink Floyd entered the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart, on which it spent a record 942 weeks.
- 1999 – A 14-year-old former student in Taber, Alberta, walked into his high school and opened fire, killing one student and wounding another in Canada's first fatal school shooting in more than two decades.
James Monroe (b. 1758) · Antoine Samuel Adam-Salomon (d. 1881) · Alf Ramsey (d. 1999)
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.
- 1945 – The Holocaust: The Seventh U.S. Army liberated Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, and allegedly wounded and killed German prisoners of war.
- 1975 – Vietnam War: North Vietnam concluded its East Sea Campaign by capturing all of the Spratly Islands that were being held by South Vietnam.
- 2011 – A worldwide television audience of tens of millions of people watched the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London.
Catherine of Siena (d. 1380) · James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde (b. 1665) · Rae Johnstone (d. 1964)
April 30: Reunification Day in Vietnam
Coxey's Army
- 1557 – Arauco War: Spanish forces of Governor Francisco de Villagra launched a surprise dawn attack against the Mapuche headed by their toqui Lautaro in what is now Chile.
- 1894 – A crowd of workers (pictured), unemployed due to the Panic of 1893, conducted the first significant popular protest march on Washington, D.C.
- 1945 – World War II: As Allied forces were closing in on Berlin, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in the Führerbunker after being married for one day.
- 1982 – Sixteen monks and a nun belonging to Ananda Marga in Calcutta, India, were dragged out of taxis by persons unknown in three different locations, beaten to death and then set on fire.
- 2009 – A Dutch man drove his car at high speed into a parade in an attempt to kill the Dutch royal family.
Robert Plot (d. 1696) · Dadasaheb Phalke (b. 1870) · Meredith L. Patterson (b. 1977)
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 08:27 on Monday, June 24, 2019 (UTC) – Purge cache for this page
