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26 March 1169 – Saladin becomes the emir of Egypt.

Saladin

Founder of the Ayyubid dynasty (c. 1137–1193)

For other uses, see Saladin (disambiguation).

Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub^[a] (c. 1137 – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin,^[b] was a Kurdish commander and political leader. He was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty and the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, he spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia.

Alongside his uncle Shirkuh, a Kurdish mercenary commander in service of the Zengid dynasty,^[9] Saladin was sent to Fatimid Egypt in 1164, on the orders of the Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din. With their original purpose being to help restore Shawar as the vizier to the teenage Fatimid caliph al-Adid, a power struggle ensued between Shirkuh and Shawar after the latter was reinstated. Saladin, meanwhile, climbed the ranks of the Fatimid government by virtue of his military successes against Crusader assaults and his personal closeness to al-Adid. After Shawar was assassinated and Shirkuh died in 1169, al-Adid appointed Saladin as vizier. During his tenure, Saladin, a Sunni Muslim, began to undermine the Fatimid establishment; following al-Adid's death in 1171, he abolished the Cairo-based Fatimid Caliphate who was an Isma'ili (a branch within Shia Islam), and realigned Egypt with the Baghdad-based Sunni Abbasid Caliphate.

In the following years, Saladin led forays against the Crusaders in Palestine, commissioned the successful conquest of Yemen, and staved off pro-Fatimid rebellions in Egypt. Not long after Nur ad-Din died in 1174, Saladin launched his conquest of Syria, peacefully entering Damascus at the request of its governor. By mid-1175, Saladin had conquered Hama and Homs, inviting the animosity of other Zengid lords, who were the official rulers of Syria's principalities; he subsequently defeated the Zengids at the Battle of the Horns of Hama in 1175 and was thereafter proclaimed the Sultan of Egypt and Syria by the Abbasid caliph al-Mustadi. Saladin launched further conquests in northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, escaping two attempts on his life by the Order of Assassins before returning to Egypt in 1177 to address local issues there. By 1182, Saladin had completed the conquest of Syria after capturing Aleppo but failed to take over the Zengid stronghold of Mosul.

Under Saladin's command, the Ayyubid army defeated the Crusaders at the decisive Battle of Hattin in 1187, capturing Jerusalem and re-establishing Muslim military dominance in the Levant. Although the Crusaders' Kingdom of Jerusalem persisted until the late 13th century, the defeat in 1187 marked a turning point in the Christian military effort against Muslim powers in the region. Saladin died in Damascus in 1193, having given away much of his personal wealth to his subjects; he is buried in a mausoleum adjacent to the Umayyad Mosque. Alongside his significance to Muslim culture, Saladin is revered prominently in Kurdish, Turkic, Arab and even Western culture. He has frequently been described as the most famous Kurdish figure in history.

1. ^ ^{a b} Nicolle 2011, p. 26: "This copper dirham, minted at Mayyafariqin in 587 AH (1190/01 AD) shows Saladin wearing the sharbush hat of a Saljuq-style Turkish ruler."
2. ^ Lesley Baker, Patricia (1988). A History of Islamic Court Dress in the Middle East (PDF) (phd). SOAS, London University. p. 119. doi:10.25501/SOAS.00033676. By the end of the 12th century, the wearing of the sharbush demonstrated support for Salah al-Din. Under the later Bahri Mamluks of Egypt and Syria it formed part of the khil'a given to an amir on his investiture.
3. ^ ^{a b} Balog (1980). The Coinage of the Ayyubids. London: Royal Numismatic Society. p. Coin 182., also Whelan Type III, 258-60; Album 791.4
4. ^ Mayall, Simon (12 September 2024). The House of War: The Struggle between Christendom and the Caliphate. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 92–93. ISBN 978-1-4728-6435-2. In a very short space of time, this had enabled him to consolidate his power swiftly and effectively enough to overthrow and dissolve the Fatimid Shia caliphate just two years later, in 1171. As a result, the Sunnis now, once again after 200 years, controlled the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Thus, Saladin founded the Ayyubid dynasty, and he could now concentrate on strengthening Egypt as a renewed bastion of Sunni Muslim power, with himself as governor, all in the name of Nur ed Din.
5. ^ Nicolle 2011, pp. 11–14: "In a very short space of time, this had enabled him to consolidate his power swiftly and effectively enough to overthrow and dissolve the Fatimid Shia caliphate just two years later, in 1171. As a result, the Sunnis now, once again after 200 years, controlled the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Thus, Saladin founded the Ayyubid dynasty, and he could now concentrate on strengthening Egypt as a renewed bastion of Sunni Muslim power, with himself as governor, all in the name of Nur ed Din."
6. ^ Riley-Smith, Jonathan Simon Christopher, ed. (1991). The atlas of the Crusades. New York, Oxford: Facts on File, Swanston Publishing Limited. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-8160-2186-4. Nur al-Din invaded the country and gained control of Egypt, and in 1169 one of his generals, Saladin, was appointed to administer it. Two years later, the Fatimids were deposed and orthodox Sunni Islam reinstated. Nur al-Din died in 1174. Saladin, a Kurd from northern Iraq, was by no means his undisputed successor, but he used his Egyptian power base to wrest control of Syria from his Zangid rivals.
7. ^ Richards 1995, p. 910.
8. ^ Lane-Poole 1906, p. 6.
9. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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27 March 1958 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union.

Nikita Khrushchev

Leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964

"Khrushchev" redirects here. For the surname and other people with the surname, see Khrushchev (surname).

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev^[c][d] (15 April [O.S. 3 April] 1894 – 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. As leader of the Soviet Union, he stunned the world by denouncing his predecessor Joseph Stalin, embarking on a campaign of de-Stalinization, and presiding over the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Nikita Khrushchev was born in a village in western Russia on 15 April 1894. He was employed as a metal worker during his youth and was a political commissar in the Russian Civil War. Under the sponsorship of Lazar Kaganovich, Khrushchev rose through the ranks of the Soviet hierarchy. During Stalin's rule, he actively supported the Great Purge and approved thousands of arrests. In 1938, Stalin sent him to govern the Ukrainian SSR, and he continued the purges there. During World War II, Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals. He was also present at the defense of Stalingrad, a fact in which he took great pride. After the war, Khrushchev returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers.

On 5 March 1953, the death of Stalin triggered a power struggle in which Khrushchev ultimately emerged victorious upon consolidating his authority as First Secretary of the party's Central Committee. On 25 February 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, he delivered the "Secret Speech", which denounced Stalin's purges and ushered in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union. His domestic policies, aimed at bettering the lives of ordinary citizens, were often ineffective, especially in agriculture. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for national defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite such cuts, Khrushchev's time in office saw the tensest years of the Cold War, culminating in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

As leader of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev enjoyed considerable popularity during the late 1950s due to the successful launching of Sputnik in 1957 as well as favorable outcomes in the 1956 Suez Crisis, 1957 Syrian Crisis, and the 1960 U-2 incident. However, by the early 1960s, Khrushchev's hold on power had been significantly weakened by his domestic policy failures and handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. As a result, his rivals consolidated enough support among the nomenklatura to oust him from the Soviet leadership on 14 October 1964. Following his forced retirement, Khrushchev spent much of his time composing a series of lengthy memoirs which were smuggled to the West and published in part in 1970. He died the next year in his dacha.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ Brown 2009, pp. 232–233.

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28 March 1809 – Peninsular War: France defeats Spain in the Battle of Medellín.

Battle of Medellín

1809 battle of the Peninsular War

For the 1936 Spanish Civil War battle, see Battle of the Sierra Guadalupe.

Peninsular War: Castile & Andalusia

110km
68miles

12

Tormes

11

10

Tamames

9

8

8

7

Talavera

6

Alcántara

5

Medellín

4

Ciudad Real

3

2

1

Uclés

   

  current battle

In the Peninsular War, the Battle of Medellín was fought on 28 March 1809 and resulted in a victory of the French under Marshal Victor against the Spanish under General Don Gregorio Garcia de la Cuesta.^[2] The battle marked the first major effort by the French to occupy Southern Spain, a feat mostly completed with the victory at the Battle of Ocaña later in the year.

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Bodart 1908, p. 395.
2. ^ Napier 1828b, pp. 221–224.

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29 March 1871 – Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria

Royal Albert Hall

Concert hall in South Kensington, London, England

This article is about the London concert hall. For other uses, see Albert Hall (disambiguation).

The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272.^[1]

Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres have appeared on its stage. It is the venue for the BBC Proms concerts, which have been held there every summer since 1941. It is host to more than 390 shows in the main auditorium annually, including classical, rock and pop concerts, ballet, opera, film screenings with live orchestral accompaniment, sports, awards ceremonies, school and community events, and charity performances and banquets. A further 1,000 events are held each year in the non-auditorium spaces. Over its 153-year history, the hall has hosted events of a wide variety, including meetings held by suffragettes; speeches from Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, and Albert Einstein; fights by Lennox Lewis; exhibition bouts by Muhammad Ali; and concerts from regular performers at the venue such as Eric Clapton and Shirley Bassey.^[2][3][4]

The hall was originally to have been called the Central Hall of Arts and Sciences, but the name was changed to the Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences by Queen Victoria upon laying the hall's foundation stone in 1867, in memory of her husband, Prince Albert, who had died six years earlier. It forms the practical part of a memorial to the Prince Consort; the decorative part is the Albert Memorial directly to the north in Kensington Gardens, now separated from the hall by Kensington Gore.

1. ^ ^{a b} Colson, Thomas. "A 12-seat Grand Tier box at the Royal Albert Hall is on sale for £2.5 million". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 24 October 2019. Retrieved 24 October 2019.
2. ^ Cite error: The named reference History was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
3. ^ "Exclusive photos: boxing makes historic return to the Royal Albert Hall". Royal Albert Hall. Archived from the original on 18 August 2022. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
4. ^ "Shirley Bassey". Royal Albert Hall. Archived from the original on 20 June 2022. Retrieved 20 June 2022.

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30 March 1842 – Ether anesthesia is used for the first time, in an operation by the American surgeon Dr. Crawford Long.

Crawford Long

American physician (1815–1878)

Crawford Williamson Long (November 1, 1815 – June 16, 1878) was an American surgeon and pharmacist best known for his first use of inhaled sulfuric ether as an anesthetic.^[1][2]

1. ^ Madden, M. Leslie (May 14, 2004). "Crawford Long (1815–1878)". New Georgia Encyclopedia. University of Georgia Press. Retrieved May 9, 2022.
2. ^ "Crawford W. Long". Doctors' Day. Southern Medical Association. Archived from the original on February 13, 2015. Retrieved February 13, 2015.

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31 March 1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened

Eiffel Tower

Tower in Paris, France

This article is about the landmark in Paris, France. For other uses, see Eiffel Tower (disambiguation).

"300-metre tower" and "Tour Eiffel" redirect here. For other tall towers, see List of tallest towers. For other uses, see Tour Eiffel (disambiguation).

The Eiffel Tower (/ˈaɪfəl/ ^ⓘ EYE-fəl; French: Tour Eiffel [tuʁ ɛfɛl] ^ⓘ) is a lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889.

Locally nicknamed "La dame de fer" (French for "Iron Lady") for its use of wrought iron, it was constructed as the centrepiece of the 1889 World's Fair, and to crown the centennial anniversary of the French Revolution. Although initially criticised by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, it has since become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world.^[5] The tower received 5,889,000 visitors in 2022.^[6] The Eiffel Tower is the most visited monument with an entrance fee in the world:^[7] 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015. It was designated a monument historique in 1964, and was named part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site ("Paris, Banks of the Seine") in 1991.^[8]

The tower is 330 metres (1,083 ft) tall,^[9] about the same height as an 81-storey building, and the tallest structure in Paris. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres (410 ft) on each side. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become by far the tallest human-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. It was the first structure in the world to surpass both the 200-metre and 300-metre mark in height. Due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres (17 ft). Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second tallest free-standing structure in France after the Millau Viaduct.

The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top level's upper platform is 276 m (906 ft) above the ground—the highest public observation deck in the European Union. Tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, as is the climb from the first level to the second, making the entire ascent a 600-step climb. Although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually accessible only by lift. On this top, third level, is a private apartment built for Gustave Eiffel, who decorated it with furniture made by Jean Lachaise and invited friends such as Thomas Edison.

1. ^ ^{a b} Bachman, Leonard R. (2019). Constructing the Architect: An Introduction to Design, Research, Planning, and Education. Routledge. p. 80. ISBN 9781351665421.
2. ^ ^{a b} "Eiffel Tower". CVU Skyscraper Center.
3. ^ "Intermediate floor of the Eiffel tower".
4. ^ "Eiffel Tower". Emporis. Archived from the original on 22 April 2016.
5. ^ SETE. "The Eiffel Tower at a glance". Official Eiffel Tower website. Archived from the original on 14 April 2016. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
6. ^ Tourism Statistics, "Visit Paris Region" site of the Paris Ile de France Visitors Bureau, retrieved 22 March 2022.
7. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
8. ^ Clayson, S. Hollis (26 February 2020), "Eiffel Tower", Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/obo/9780190922467-0014, ISBN 978-0-19-092246-7, retrieved 14 November 2021{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
9. ^ "Eiffel Tower grows six metres after new antenna attached". Reuters. 15 March 2022. Retrieved 15 March 2022.

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1 April 1947 – The only mutiny in the history of the Royal New Zealand Navy begins

1947 Royal New Zealand Navy mutinies

Series of mutinies in the New Zealand navy

During April 1947, the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) experienced a series of non-violent mutinies amongst the enlisted sailors of four ships and two shore bases. Over 20 per cent of the RNZN's enlisted personnel were punished or discharged for their involvement. The main cause was the poor rates of pay compared to the rest of the New Zealand Defence Force and equivalent civilian wages, exacerbated by the release of a long overdue government review which failed to address the issue. Sailors saw the new pay rates as still inferior to the other branches of the military, with the increases being consumed by taxes, inflation, and the cancellation of allowances and benefits. The poor living and working conditions aboard RNZN ships was another issue, compounded by sailors having no effective way to make dissatisfaction known to the higher ranks. Dissatisfaction with peacetime duties and opportunities also contributed, with many sailors locked into enlistment periods of up to 12 years, and demobilisation efforts prioritising those enlisted specifically for the duration of the Second World War.

On 1 April, around 100 sailors from the shore base HMNZS Philomel, in Devonport, declared their intent to refuse duty. They were joined by another 100 personnel from the cruiser HMNZS Black Prince and the corvette HMNZS Arbutus, who marched off the base. After campaigning for three days and winning the right to backdated pay, the mutineers were given a choice: return to duty and accept punishment, or be discharged. The majority chose the latter. These men were financially penalised, denied access to veterans' benefits, and suffered government bans on employing them. The 23 who returned to duty were punished through rank reductions, reductions in rank and pay, or short periods of imprisonment. On 8 April, seven sailors at the shore base HMNZS Tasman, in Lyttelton, refused to work and demanded to be discharged. Also that morning, the captain of the Castle-class minesweeper HMNZS Hautapu was presented a letter detailing sailor's dissatisfaction with the handling of lower-deck committees, and eleven sailors deserted. Some returned to duty voluntarily, but the rest were arrested by police. Punishment (for those who returned voluntarily and those arrested) consisted of sentences of 60 days imprisonment, commuted to 14 to 24 days.

At the time of the initial mutiny, the cruiser HMNZS Bellona was in Australian waters, and when the ship returned to New Zealand in late April, several sailors sought discharge. On Anzac Day (25 April), about 100 of Bellona's ship's company decided not to return to duty. They recruited 40 sailors waiting to be posted to the Philomel, and on 28 April, the group presented their demands to the captain. They were informed that anyone not reporting for duty the following day would be considered Absent Without Leave. The next morning, 52 sailors were marked as having deserted, although all but 20 returned before Bellona's next deployment two months later. The Bellona mutineers received punishments of up to 92 days imprisonment, while the deserters additionally lost all unpaid pay and allowances. Arrest warrants were issued for those who did not return, with one sailor at large for over two years. The mutinies and the resulting manpower shortage forced the RNZN to remove Black Prince from service, and set the navy's planned development and expansion back by a decade. Despite this impact, the size and scope of the events have been downplayed.^[1]

1. ^ Cite error: The named reference FrameBaker185 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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2 April 1792 – The Coinage Act is passed by Congress, establishing the United States Mint

Coinage Act of 1792

US legislation for a national currency and mint

The Coinage Act of 1792 (also known as the Mint Act; officially: An act establishing a mint, and regulating the Coins of the United States), passed by the United States Congress on April 2, 1792, created the United States dollar as the country's standard unit of money, established the United States Mint, and regulated the coinage of the United States.^[1] This act established the silver dollar as the unit of money in the United States, declared it to be lawful tender, and created a decimal system for U.S. currency.^[2]

By the Act, the Mint was to be situated at the seat of government of the United States. The five original officers of the U.S. Mint were a Director, an Assayer, a Chief Coiner, an Engraver, and a Treasurer (not the same as the secretary of the treasury). The Act allowed that one person could perform the functions of Chief Coiner and Engraver. The Assayer, Chief Coiner and Treasurer were required to post a $10,000 bond with the Secretary of the Treasury.

The Act pegged the newly created United States dollar to the value of the widely used Spanish silver dollar, saying it was to have "the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current".^[3]

1. ^ Nussbaum, Arthur (November 1937). "The Law of the Dollar". Columbia Law Review. 37 (7): 1059. doi:10.2307/1116782. JSTOR 1116782.
2. ^ "Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia: Money in Colonial Times". Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Archived from the original on November 21, 2011. Retrieved 2008-04-02.
3. ^ "Section 9 of the Coinage Act of 1792". Memory.loc.gov. Retrieved August 24, 2010.

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3 April 1895 – The trial in the libel case brought by Oscar Wilde begins, eventually resulting in his imprisonment on charges of homosexuality.

Oscar Wilde

Irish writer (1854–1900)

This article is about the Irish poet and playwright. For other uses, see Oscar Wilde (disambiguation).

Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde^[a] (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential dramatists in London in the early 1890s.^[3] He was a key figure in the emerging Aestheticism movement of the late 19th century and is regarded by many as the greatest playwright of the Victorian era.^[4] Wilde is best known for his Gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), his epigrams, plays and bedtime stories for children, as well as his criminal conviction in 1895 for gross indecency and for practicing homosexual acts.^[5]

Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin.^[6][7] In his youth, Wilde became conversant in French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism during this time, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.^[8]

Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals.^[9] Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England complicated by a prohibition on the portrayal of biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.^[10]

At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel.^[11] The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and jailed from 1895 to 1897.^[12] During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905, and in full in 1962 in his Complete Letters), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.^[13]

1. ^ Mead, Donald (January 2020). "How did Oscar Wilde spell his name?". The Wildean. 56 (56): 63–72. JSTOR 48651661. Retrieved 16 January 2024.
2. ^ "Books and Manuscripts: A Summer Miscellany, Lot 150, Wilde, 'Confessions of Tastes, Habits and Convictions'". Sothebys.com. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
3. ^ Fisher, Trevor (2004). "The Search for Oscar Wilde". The Wildean. 25 (25). Oscar Wilde Society: 2–15. JSTOR 45269239.
4. ^ Frankel, Nicholas (December 2022). The Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde: An Annotated Selection. USA: Harvard University Press. pp. 1–32. doi:10.2307/j.ctv310vj6p. ISBN 9780674271821. JSTOR j.ctv310vj6p.
5. ^ HISTORY (7 May 2018). "Oscar Wilde Trial". HISTORY. Retrieved 18 April 2026.
6. ^ "Family tree of Oscar Wilde". Geneanet. Retrieved 18 April 2026.
7. ^ "BBC - History - Historic Figures: Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 18 April 2026.
8. ^ Webmaster (6 January 2015). "Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)". Mahler Foundation. Retrieved 18 April 2026.
9. ^ Dibb, Geoff (2013). "Oscar Wilde's Lecture Tours of the United Kingdom". The Wildean (42): 8–18. ISSN 1357-4949.
10. ^ Bach, Eric. "Oscar Wilde - The Importance Of Being Witty". British Heritage. Retrieved 18 April 2026.
11. ^ Bristow, Joseph (2016). "The blackmailer and the sodomite: Oscar Wilde on trial". Feminist Theory. 17 (1): 41–62. doi:10.1177/1464700115620860. ISSN 1464-7001. S2CID 147294685.
12. ^ Mulraney, Frances (25 May 2022). "On This Day: Oscar Wilde was convicted of gross indecency for homosexual acts". IrishCentral.com. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
13. ^ Baldwin, Emma (24 July 2018). "The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde". Poem Analysis. Retrieved 18 April 2026.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

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4 April 1964 – The Beatles occupy the top five positions on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.

The Beatles

English rock band (1960–1970)

This article is about the band. For their eponymous album, see The Beatles (album). For other uses, see Beatles (disambiguation).

"Beatle" and "Fab Four" redirect here. For the insect, see Beetle. For other uses, see Fab Four (disambiguation).

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band in popular music and were integral to the development of 1960s counterculture and the recognition of popular music as an art form.^[3][4] Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock 'n' roll, their sound incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop in innovative ways. They also explored styles ranging from folk and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock. As pioneers in recording, songwriting and artistic presentation, the Beatles revolutionised many aspects of the music industry and were often publicised as leaders of the era's youth and sociocultural movements.^[5]

Led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney, the Beatles evolved from Lennon's previous group, the Quarrymen, and built their reputation by playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany, starting in 1960. Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, together since 1958, went through a succession of drummers before Starr joined in 1962. Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act, and producer George Martin developed their recordings, greatly expanding their domestic success after they signed with EMI and achieved their first hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962. As their popularity grew into the fan frenzy dubbed "Beatlemania", the band acquired the nickname the Fab Four. By early 1964, the Beatles were international stars and had achieved unprecedented levels of critical and commercial success. They became a leading force in Britain's cultural resurgence, ushering in the British Invasion of the United States pop market. They made their film debut with A Hard Day's Night (1964).

A growing desire to refine their studio efforts, coupled with the challenging nature of their concert tours, led to the Beatles' retirement from live performances in 1966. During this time, they produced albums of greater sophistication, including Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). They enjoyed further commercial success with The Beatles (also known as "the White Album", 1968) and Abbey Road (1969). The success of these records heralded the album era, increased public interest in psychedelic drugs and Eastern spirituality, and furthered advancements in electronic music, album art and music videos. In 1968, the Beatles founded Apple Corps, a multi-armed multimedia corporation that continues to oversee projects related to their legacy. After the Beatles' break-up in 1970, all former members enjoyed success as solo artists. While some partial reunions occurred over the next decade, the members never fully reunited. Lennon was murdered in 1980 and Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001; McCartney and Starr remain musically active.

The Beatles are the best-selling music act of all time, with estimated sales of over 600 million units worldwide.^[6][7] They are the most successful act in the history of the US Billboard charts,^[8] with the most number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 (20) and most number-one albums on the Billboard 200 (19). They hold the record for most singles sold in the UK (21.9 million), and held the record for most number-one albums on the UK Albums Chart (15) until Robbie Williams surpassed them in 2026.^[9] The Beatles' accolades included eight Grammy Awards, four Brit Awards, an Academy Award (for Best Original Song Score for the 1970 documentary film Let It Be) and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility, 1988, and each principal member was individually inducted between 1994 and 2015. In 2004 and 2011, the Beatles topped Rolling Stone's lists of the greatest artists in history. Time named them among the 20th century's 100 most important people.

1. ^ "Sony Music Publishing".
2. ^ Leslie, Ian (5 November 2025). "Wings by Paul McCartney review – a brilliant story of post-Beatles revival". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
3. ^ Hasted 2017, p. 425.
4. ^ Frontani 2007, p. 125.
5. ^ Frontani 2007, p. 157.
6. ^ Siggins, Gerard (7 February 2016). "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! Rare footage of the Beatles's Dublin performance". Irish Independent. Archived from the original on 9 November 2019. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
7. ^ Hotten, Russell (4 October 2012). "The Beatles at 50: From Fab Four to fabulously wealthy". BBC News. Archived from the original on 12 March 2013. Retrieved 28 January 2013.
8. ^ "Greatest of All Time Artists". Billboard. Archived from the original on 14 November 2019. Retrieved 21 March 2023.
9. ^ "Robbie Williams surpasses The Beatles with the most Official UK Number 1 albums ever". Officialcharts.com.

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5 April 1795 – Peace of Basel between France and Prussia is made

Peace of Basel

1795 set of treaties during the War of the First Coalition

For other uses, see Treaty of Basel.

The Peace of Basel of 1795 consists of three peace treaties involving France during the French Revolution (represented by François de Barthélemy).^[1]

• The first was with Prussia (represented by Karl August von Hardenberg) on 5 April;^[2]
• The second was with Spain (represented by Domingo d'Yriarte) on 22 July, ending the War of the Pyrenees; and
• The third was with the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel (represented by Friedrich Sigismund Waitz von Eschen) on 28 August, concluding the stage of the French Revolutionary Wars against the First Coalition.^[1]

With great diplomatic cunning, the treaties enabled France to placate and divide its enemies of the First Coalition, one by one. Thereafter, Revolutionary France emerged as a major European power.^[3]

1. ^ ^{a b} Jorio 2002.
2. ^ Engels 1936.
3. ^ Furet & Ozouf 1989, pp. 151–154.

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6 April 1918 – Finnish Civil War: The battle of Tampere ends.

Battle of Tampere

1918 battle of the Finnish Civil War

The Battle of Tampere was a 1918 Finnish Civil War battle, fought in Tampere, Finland from 15 March to 6 April between the Whites and the Reds. It is the most famous and deadly of all the Finnish Civil War battles.^[2][3] Its bloody aftermath saw the Whites execute hundreds of captured Reds with another 11,000 prisoners sent to the Kalevankangas camp.^[4]

1. ^ ^{a b} Jaques, Tony (2007). Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: P-Z. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 993. ISBN 978-0-313-33539-6.
2. ^ YLE: Suomalaiset kuvaavat sotien jälkiä kaupungeissa – katso kuvat ja tarinat tutuilta kulmilta (in Finnish)
3. ^ Cite error: The named reference pesonen was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. ^ Jalonen, Jussi (8 October 2014). "Battle of Tampere". International Encyclopedia of the First World War. Retrieved 17 December 2016.

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7 April 1940 – Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.

Booker T. Washington

American educator, author, orator and adviser

Preview warning: Page using Template:Infobox person with deprecated parameter "party". Replace with "political_party".

Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite.

Born into slavery on April 5, 1856, in Hale's Ford, Virginia, Washington was freed when U.S. troops reached the area during the Civil War. As a young man, Booker T. Washington worked his way through Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute and attended college at Wayland Seminary. In 1881, he was named as the first leader of the new Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, an institute for black higher education. He expanded the college, enlisting students in construction of buildings. Work at the college was considered fundamental to students' larger education. He attained national prominence for his Atlanta Address of 1895, which attracted the attention of politicians and the public. Washington played a dominant role in black politics, winning wide support in the black community of the South and among more liberal whites. Washington wrote an autobiography, Up from Slavery, in 1901, which became a major text. In that year, he dined with Theodore Roosevelt at the White House, which was the first time a black person publicly met the president on equal terms. After an illness, he died in Tuskegee, Alabama on November 14, 1915.

Washington was a key proponent of African-American businesses and one of the founders of the National Negro Business League. Washington mobilized a nationwide coalition of middle-class Black people, church leaders, and white philanthropists and politicians, with the goal of building the community's economic strength and pride by focusing on self-help and education. Washington had the ear of the powerful in the United States of his day, including presidents. He used the nineteenth-century American political system to manipulate the media, raise money, develop strategy, network, distribute funds, and reward a cadre of supporters. Because of his influential leadership, the timespan of his activity, from 1880 to 1915, has been called the Age of Booker T. Washington. Washington called for Black progress through education and entrepreneurship, rather than trying to challenge directly the Jim Crow segregation and the disenfranchisement of Black voters in the South. Furthermore, he supported racial uplift, but secretly also supported court challenges to segregation and to restrictions on voter registration. Black activists in the North, led by W. E. B. Du Bois, disagreed with him and opted to set up the NAACP to work for political change.

After his death in 1915, he came under heavy criticism for accommodating white supremacy, despite his claims that his long-term goal was to end the disenfranchisement of African Americans, the vast majority of whom still lived in the South. Decades after Washington's death in 1915, the civil rights movement of the 1950s took a more active and progressive approach, which was also based on new grassroots organizations based in the South. Washington's legacy has been controversial in the civil rights community. However, in the late twentieth century, more nuanced perspectives about his actions by scholars and historians interpreted him more positively.

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8 April 1904 – The French Third Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland sign the Entente cordiale

Entente Cordiale

1904 agreements between the UK and France

This article is about Entente Cordiale. For other uses, see L'Entente Cordiale (photograph).

The Entente Cordiale (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃tɑ̃t kɔʁdjal]; lit. 'Cordial Agreement') comprised a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and France which saw a significant improvement in Anglo-French relations.

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9 April 1609 – Philip III of Spain issues the decree of the "Expulsion of the Moriscos".

Expulsion of the Moriscos

17th century expulsion of Moriscos from Spain

The Expulsion of the Moriscos (Spanish: Expulsión de los moriscos) was decreed by King Philip III of Spain on April 9, 1609. The Moriscos were descendants of Spain's Muslim population who had been forced to convert to Christianity. Since the Spanish were fighting wars in the Americas, feeling threatened by the Ottomans raiding along the Spanish coast and by two Morisco revolts in the century since Islam was outlawed in Spain, it seems that the expulsions were a reaction to an internal problem of the stretched Spanish Empire.^[1] Between 1609 and 1614, the Crown systematically expelled Moriscos through a number of decrees affecting Spain's various kingdoms, with varying levels of success. Between 1492 and 1610, about three million Muslims left or were expelled from Spain.^[2]

Although initial estimates of the number expelled such as those of Henri Lapeyre range between 275,000 and 300,000^[3] Moriscos (or 4% of the total Spanish population), the extent and actual success of the expulsion order in purging Spain of its Moriscos has been increasingly challenged by modern historians, starting with the seminal studies carried out by François Martinez (1999) and Trevor Dadson (2007). Dadson estimates that, out of a Morisco population of 500,000, a figure accepted by many, around 40% avoided expulsion altogether and tens of thousands of those expelled managed to return.^[4][5]

The places where the expulsion was particularly successful were the eastern Kingdom of Valencia,^[6] where Muslims represented the bulk of the peasantry and ethnic tension with the Christian, Catalan-speaking middle class was high; as a result, this region implemented the expulsion most severely and successfully, leading to the economic collapse and depopulation of much of its territory, worsened by the bubonic plague that hit Valencia only a few years later. The Kingdom of Aragon was, after Valencia, the part of the peninsula with the largest rate of expelled Moriscos and suffered the consequences as disastrously as Valencia, according to Henri Lapeyre.^[7]

Of those permanently expelled, the majority eventually settled in the Barbary Coast (Maghreb), with around 30,000 to 75,000 people ultimately returning to Spain.^[4][8] Those who avoided expulsion or who managed to return to Spain merged into the dominant culture.^[9] The last mass prosecution against Moriscos for crypto-Islamic practices took place in Granada in 1727, with most of those convicted receiving relatively light sentences. By the end of the 18th century, indigenous Islam and Morisco identity were considered to have been extinguished in Spain.^[10]

1. ^ Dwight Reynolds, speaking on 'Bettany Hughes:When the Moors Ruled in Europe'.
2. ^ "Islamic Encounters". www.brown.edu. Brown University. Archived from the original on 2024-07-13. Retrieved 2023-05-25. Between 1492 and 1610, some 3,000,000 Muslims voluntarily left or were expelled from Spain, resettling in North Africa.
3. ^ Jónsson 2007, p. 195.
4. ^ ^{a b} Dadson, Trevor J. (15 October 2018). Tolerance and Coexistence in Early Modern Spain: Old Christians and Moriscos in the Campo de Calatrava. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85566-273-5 – via Google Books.
5. ^ Trevor J. Dadson: The Assimilation of Spain's Moriscos: Fiction or Reality? Archived 2013-06-12 at the Wayback Machine. Journal of Levantine Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, Winter 2011, pp. 11–30
6. ^ Meaghan O'Halley (2013): "Placing Islam: Alternative Visions of the Morisco Expulsion and Spanish Muslim Christian Relations in the Sixteenth Century", Duke University
7. ^ Lapeyre, Henri (28 November 2011). Universitat de València (ed.). Geografía de la España Morisca. pp. 115 to 116.
8. ^ Boase, Roger (4 April 2002). "The Muslim Expulsion from Spain". History Today. 52 (4). The majority of those permanently expelled settling in the Maghreb or Barbary Coast, especially in Oran, Tunis, Tlemcen, Tetuán, Rabat and Salé. Many travelled overland to France, but after the assassination of Henry of Navarre by Ravaillac in May 1610, they were forced to emigrate to Italy, Sicily or Constantinople.
9. ^ Adams, Susan M.; Bosch, Elena; Balaresque, Patricia L.; Ballereau, Stéphane J.; Lee, Andrew C.; Arroyo, Eduardo; López-Parra, Ana M.; Aler, Mercedes; Grifo, Marina S. Gisbert; Brion, Maria; Carracedo, Angel; Lavinha, João; Martínez-Jarreta, Begoña; Quintana-Murci, Lluis; Picornell, Antònia; Ramon, Misericordia; Skorecki, Karl; Behar, Doron M.; Calafell, Francesc; Jobling, Mark A. (December 2008). "The Genetic Legacy of Religious Diversity and Intolerance: Paternal Lineages of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula". The American Journal of Human Genetics. 83 (6): 725–736. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.11.007. PMC 2668061. PMID 19061982.
10. ^ Vínculos Historia: The Moriscos who remained. The permanence of Islamic origin population in Early Modern Spain: Kingdom of Granada, XVII-XVIII centuries (In Spanish)

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10 April 1741 – War of the Austrian Succession: Prussia gains control of Silesia at the Battle of Mollwitz.

War of the Austrian Succession

1740–1748 war between European powers

The War of the Austrian Succession,^[h] 1740 to 1748, was a conflict between the European great powers, fought primarily in Europe, the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Related conflicts include King George's War, the War of Jenkins' Ear, the First Carnatic War, and the First and Second Silesian Wars.

Its immediate cause was the right of Maria Theresa to inherit Austria. This was challenged by a coalition between France, Prussia, and Bavaria, while Maria Theresa was backed by Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, and Hanover, collectively known as the Pragmatic Allies. The conflict later drew in other participants, including Spain, Savoy, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia.

Fighting began when Prussia occupied the wealthy Austrian province of Silesia in December 1740. Neither side was able to achieve a decisive victory and despite success in the Austrian Netherlands, by early 1748 France was close to bankruptcy due to the cost of the war and a crippling British naval blockade. This led to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in October which confirmed Maria Theresa in her titles, but many signatories were unhappy with the terms. In return for vast expenditure, France gained very little, although their Spanish ally made minor gains in Italy and repelled a British invasion of South America at the Battle of Cartagena de Indias.

British insistence that Austria cede Silesia to Prussia as part of the peace undermined the long-standing Anglo-Austrian Alliance, as Austria felt it had received little benefit from the enormous British subsidies paid to it during the war. This led to the realignment known as the Diplomatic Revolution, and ultimately the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in 1756.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ Christopher Storrs, "The Spanish Resurgence, 1713-1748", Yale University Press: October 2016, page 21.
2. ^ ^{a b c d e} Van Nimwegen 2002, p. 403.
3. ^ ^{a b c d} Bruijn 2011, p. 129.
4. ^ ^{a b c d} Clodfelter 2017, p. 78.
5. ^ Dwyer 2001, p. 14.
6. ^ Van Nimwegen 2002, p. 102.
7. ^ Van Nimwegen 2002, p. 12 & 103.
8. ^ Hanlon 1997, p. 120.
9. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Statistics of Wars, Oppressions and Atrocities of the Eighteenth Century
10. ^ Clodfelter 2017, p. 81.

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11 April 1544 – Italian War of 1542–46: A French army defeats Habsburg forces at the Battle of Ceresole, but fails to exploit its victory

Italian War of 1542–1546

Ninth phase of the Italian Wars

The Italian War of 1542–1546 was a conflict late in the Italian Wars, pitting Francis I of France and Suleiman I of the Ottoman Empire against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Henry VIII of England. The course of the war saw extensive fighting in Italy, France, and the Low Countries, as well as attempted invasions of Spain and England. The conflict was inconclusive and ruinously expensive for the major participants.

The war arose from the failure of the Truce of Nice, which ended the Italian War of 1536–1538, to resolve the long-standing conflict between Charles and Francis—particularly their conflicting claims to the Duchy of Milan. Having found a suitable pretext, Francis once again declared war against his perpetual enemy in 1542. Fighting began at once throughout the Low Countries; the following year saw the Franco-Ottoman alliance's attack on Nice, as well as a series of maneuvers in Northern Italy peaking in Ceresole and concluding with Serravalle. Charles and Henry invaded France in turn, but the long sieges of Boulogne-sur-Mer and Saint-Dizier prevented a decisive offensive against the French.

Charles came to terms with Francis by the Treaty of Crépy in late 1544, but the death of Francis's younger son, the Duke of Orléans—whose proposed marriage to a relative of the Emperor was the foundation of the treaty—made it moot less than a year afterwards. Henry, left alone but unwilling to return Boulogne to the French, continued to fight until 1546, when the Treaty of Ardres finally restored peace between France and England. The deaths of King Francis of France and King Henry VIII of England, in early 1547 left the resolution of the Italian Wars to their successors.

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12 April 1606 – The Union Flag is adopted as the flag of English and Scottish ships.

Union Jack

Flag of the United Kingdom

"Union Flag" redirects here. For other uses, see Union flag (disambiguation) and Union Jack (disambiguation).

The Union Jack^[1][2] or Union Flag is the national flag of the United Kingdom. While no law has been passed making the Union Flag the national flag of the United Kingdom, it has become one through precedent.^[3][4]

The flag is an overlay of the cross of Saint George (the patron saint of England), edged in white, superimposed on the red saltire of Saint Patrick (the patron saint of Ireland), also edged in white, superimposed on the saltire of Saint Andrew (the patron saint of Scotland).^[5] Wales is not represented in the flag because the earlier flag of Great Britain was designed while Wales was part of the Kingdom of England.

The origins of the flag date to the earlier flag of Great Britain which was established in 1606 by a proclamation of King James VI and I of Scotland and England.^[6] The present design was established by an order in council following the Act of Union 1800, which joined the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was unchanged following the secession of the Irish Free State in 1922.

It is sometimes asserted that the term Union Jack properly refers only to naval usage, but this assertion was dismissed by the Flag Institute in 2013 after historical investigations.^[7][8][9][a]

The flags of British Overseas Territories, as well as certain sovereign states and regions (particularly in the Commonwealth) that were previously British possessions, incorporate the Union Jack into their own flag designs or have official flags that are derived from the Union Jack. Many of these flags are blue or red ensigns with the Union Jack in the canton and defaced with the distinguishing arms of the territory. The governors of British Overseas Territories and the Australian states also have personal standards that incorporate the Union Jack in their design. The flag continues to have official status in Canada, by parliamentary resolution, where it is also known as the Royal Union Flag.^[11]

1. ^ "The Union Jack or The Union Flag?". The Flag Institute. 20 June 2014. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
2. ^ "Union Jack". The British Monarchy. Archived from the original on 30 June 2013. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. ^ "Union Flag Specification | Image | Description | Diagram". The Flag Institute. Retrieved 13 April 2026.
5. ^ Garvin, James Louis; Hooper, Franklin Henry, eds. (1929). "Cross §Heraldic Crosses". The Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (14th ed.). London: The Encyclopedia Britannica Company. p. 753. The cross in one form or other appears on the flags and ensigns of many Christian countries. The English cross of St. George is a plain red cross on white ground; the Scottish cross of St. Andrew is a plain diagonal white cross (heraldically termed a saltire) on a blue ground, and the Irish cross of St. Patrick is a plain diagonal red cross on a white ground. These three crosses are combined in the Union Jack.
6. ^ A.C. Fox-Davies, The Art of Heraldry: An Encyclopædia of Armory (1904, reprinted 1986, ISBN 978-0-906223-34-5), p. 399: "By the King: Whereas, some differences hath arisen between Our subjects of South and North Britaine travelling by Seas, about the bearing of their Flagges: For the avoiding of all contentions hereafter. We have, with the advice of our Council, ordered: That from henceforth all our Subjects of this Isle and Kingdome of Great Britaine, and all our members thereof, shall beare in their main-toppe the Red Crosse, commonly called St George's Crosse, and the White Crosse, commonly called St Andrew's Crosse, joyned together according to the forme made by our heralds, and sent by Us to our Admerall to be published to our Subjects: and in their fore-toppe our Subjects of South Britaine shall weare the Red Crosse onely as they were wont, and our Subjects of North Britaine in their fore-toppe the White Crosse onely as they were accustomed"|James VI and I|Orders in Council; Official creation of the Union Flag – 1606."
7. ^ Nicolls, Bruce. "The Union Jack or The Union Flag?". The Flag Institute. Retrieved 19 December 2014.
8. ^ "Broadcasting House 13th October 2013". BBC. 13 October 2013. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
9. ^ Marshall, Tim (2017). A flag worth dying for: the power and politics of national symbols. New York, NY: Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. ISBN 978-1-5011-6833-8. OCLC 962006347.
10. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "UNION JACK – discussion on BBC Broadcasting House". YouTube. 19 October 2013. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
11. ^ Canadian Heritage (10 March 2008). "Statement by the Hon. Jason Kenney, PC, MP, Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity) on Commonwealth Day". Queen's Printer for Canada. Archived from the original on 11 November 2011.

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13 April 1111 – Henry V, King of Germany, is crowned Holy Roman Emperor

Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor

Holy Roman Emperor from 1111 to 1125

Henry V (German: Heinrich V.; probably 11 August 1081 or 1086^[1] – 23 May 1125) was King of Germany (from 1099 to 1125) and Holy Roman Emperor (from 1111 to 1125), as the fourth and last ruler of the Salian dynasty. He was made co-ruler by his father, Henry IV, in 1098.

In Emperor Henry IV's conflicts with the imperial princes and the struggle against the reform papacy during the Investiture Controversy, young Henry V allied himself with the opponents of his father. He forced Henry IV to abdicate on 31 December 1105 and ruled for five years in compliance with the imperial princes. He tried, unsuccessfully, to withdraw the regalia from the bishops. Then in order to at least preserve the previous right to invest, he captured Pope Paschal II and forced him to perform his imperial coronation in 1111.^[2] Once crowned emperor, Henry departed from joint rule with the princes and resorted to earlier Salian autocratic rule. After he had failed to increase control over the church, the princes in Saxony and on the Middle and Lower Rhine, in 1121 the imperial princes forced Henry V to consent with the papacy. He surrendered to the demands of the second generation of Gregorian reformers, and in 1122 he and Pope Callixtus II ended the Investiture Controversy in the Concordat of Worms.

1. ^ Christopher Kleinhenz (2004). Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-94880-1.
2. ^ Suger, Abbot of Saint Denis (1992). The deeds of Louis the Fat. Internet Archive. Washington, D.C. : Catholic University of America Press. pp. 46–55. ISBN 978-0-8132-0757-5.

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14 April 1865 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth; Lincoln dies the following day.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

This article is about a successful assassination. For attempted assassination, see Baltimore Plot. For disambiguation, see Attempted assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

1865 murder in Washington, D.C., US

On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was shot at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., one month into his second term and towards the conclusion of the American Civil War. Lincoln was watching the play Our American Cousin with his wife Mary Todd, Major Henry Rathbone, and Rathbone's fiancé Clara Harris when John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, shot him in the head. Lincoln was taken to the Petersen House across the street, where he died the following morning.

With Union victory imminent, Booth and his conspirators, including Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt, originally plotted to kidnap Lincoln to aid the Confederacy. After that plan failed to materialize, they decided to assassinate him, Secretary of State William H. Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson. Booth hoped that eliminating the three most important officials of the federal government would revive the Confederate cause. Powell and Herold were assigned to kill Seward, while Atzerodt was assigned to kill Johnson. Booth succeeded in killing Lincoln, but Powell only managed to wound Seward, while Atzerodt became drunk and never targeted Johnson.

Booth fled into Maryland after shooting Lincoln and rendezvoused with Herold. Lincoln's secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, directed the largest manhunt in US history at the time, involving thousands of troops. After a 12-day search, on April 26, Booth and Herold were located at a tobacco farm in King George County, Virginia; Booth was fatally shot by Sergeant Boston Corbett after refusing to surrender. The other conspirators were captured by the end of April 1865, except for John Surratt, whom the US captured in Egypt in November 1866. Powell, Herold, Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt were hanged in July 1865, while John Surratt was released after a mistrial in 1867 and never retried.

Johnson was hastily sworn in as the 17th president on April 15 and served for the remainder of Lincoln's second term. Lincoln's state funeral was held on April 19, after which a funeral train transported his remains through seven states for burial in Illinois. He was the third US president to die in office, and the first by assassination. The assassination drew international condemnation and left a profound impact on the US. It made Lincoln a national martyr and led to a lengthy period of mourning as the US entered the Reconstruction era.
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15 April 1755 – Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language is published in London.

A Dictionary of the English Language

1755 dictionary by Samuel Johnson

A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, was published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson.^[2][3] It is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language.

There was dissatisfaction with the dictionaries of the period, so in June 1746 a group of London booksellers contracted Johnson to write a dictionary for the sum of 1,500 guineas (£1,575), equivalent to about £300,000 in 2025.^[4] Johnson took seven years to complete the work, although he had claimed he could finish it in three. He did so single-handedly, with only clerical assistance to copy the illustrative quotations that he had marked in books. Johnson produced several revised editions during his life.

Until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 173 years later, Johnson's was viewed as the pre-eminent English dictionary. According to Walter Jackson Bate, the Dictionary "easily ranks as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship, and probably the greatest ever performed by one individual who laboured under anything like the disadvantages in a comparable length of time".^[5]

1. ^ A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755, archive.org
2. ^ Stone, Emily (31 July 2022). Cat People: Human–Cat Interrelatedness in the Cat Fancy. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-003-19541-2.
3. ^ Advertisement in Derby Mercury 4 April 1755, page 4 'This day is published a Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson'
4. ^ UK Consumer Price Index inflation figures from 1209–2024 based on data from "Inflation calculator". Bank of England. London. 18 February 2026. Retrieved 1 April 2026.
5. ^ Bate, Walter Jackson. Samuel Johnson, Ch. 15, "Storming the Main Gate: The Dictionary". New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.

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16 April 1945 – More than 7,000 die when the German transport ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine.

MV Goya

German military transport ship; sank 1945, killing thousands

This article is about the German transport ship. For the Norwegian refugee ship, see SS Goya.

MV Goya was a Norwegian freighter used as a troop transport by Germany and sunk with a massive loss of life near the end of World War II. Completed in 1940 for the Johan Ludwig Mowinckel Rederi company, the ship was named after Spanish artist Francisco Goya. Following Germany's invasion of Norway that year, she was seized by the Kriegsmarine and pressed into service as a troop transport. Near the end of the war, Goya took part in Operation Hannibal, the evacuation of German military and civilian personnel from remaining pockets held by the Germans along the Baltic Sea. Loaded with thousands of refugees, the ship was sunk on 16 April 1945 by the Soviet submarine L-3. Most of the crew and passengers died in the sinking. The sinking of Goya was one of the biggest single-incident maritime losses of life of the war, and one of the largest such losses in history, with just 183 survivors out of roughly 6,700 passengers and crew.^[1]

1. ^ Arad, pp. 102–103.

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17 April 1907 – The Ellis Island immigration center processes 11,747 people, more than on any other day.

Ellis Island

Island in New York Harbor in the US

For other uses, see Ellis Island (disambiguation).

Ellis Island is an island in New York Harbor, within the U.S. states of New Jersey and New York. Owned by the U.S. government, Ellis Island was once the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, about 12 million immigrants arriving at the Port of New York and New Jersey were processed there;^[6] according to one estimate, two-fifths of Americans may be descended from these immigrants.^[7] It has been part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument since 1965 and is accessible to the public only by ferry. The north side of the island is a national museum of immigration, while the south side of the island, including the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, is open to the public through guided tours.

The name derives from Samuel Ellis, a Welshman who bought the island in 1774. In the 19th century, Ellis Island was the site of Fort Gibson and later became a naval magazine. The first inspection station opened in 1892 and was destroyed by fire in 1897. The second station opened in 1900 and housed facilities for medical quarantines and processing immigrants. After 1924, Ellis Island was used primarily as a detention center for migrants. During both World War I and World War II, its facilities were also used by the U.S. military to detain prisoners of war. After the immigration station's closure, the buildings languished for several years until they were partially reopened in 1976. The main building and adjacent structures were completely renovated into a museum in 1990.

The 27.5-acre (11.1 ha) island was expanded by land reclamation between the late 1890s and the 1930s and, at one point, consisted of three islands numbered 1, 2, and 3. Jurisdictional disputes between the states of New Jersey and New York persisted until the 1998 U.S. Supreme Court ruling New Jersey v. New York. The Supreme Court ruled that, while most of the island is in New Jersey, the natural portion of the island (on the northern end) is an exclave of New York. The northern half of Ellis Island comprises the former Island 1 and includes the main building, several ancillary structures, and the Wall of Honor. The hospital structures on the island's southern half occupy the former sites of islands 2 and 3, and there is a ferry building between Ellis Island's northern and southern halves. Historically, immigrants were subjected to medical and primary inspections, and they could be detained or deported. The island is commemorated through the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and it has received several federal, state, and municipal landmark designations.

1. ^ "Ellis Island – Hudson County, New Jersey". USGS. Archived from the original on March 29, 2024. Retrieved January 1, 2011.
2. ^ "Proclamation 3656 – Adding Ellis Island to the Statue of Liberty National Monument". April 5, 2010. Archived from the original on September 26, 2017. Retrieved April 3, 2010.
3. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
4. ^ "New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places – Hudson County". New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection – Historic Preservation Office. Archived from the original on October 9, 2014. Retrieved August 2, 2014.
5. ^ Ellis Island Main Building Interior Designation Report 1993.
6. ^ Cite error: The named reference NPS-places_immigration was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Reason 2025 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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18 April 2019 – A redacted version of the Mueller report is released to the United States Congress and the public.

Mueller report

2019 U.S. government report on Russian interference in the 2016 election

Not to be confused with Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections.

Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, more commonly known as the Mueller report, is the official report documenting the findings and conclusions of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 United States presidential election, allegations of conspiracy or coordination between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, and allegations of obstruction of justice. The report was submitted to Attorney General William Barr on March 22, 2019,^[1] and a redacted version of the 448-page report was publicly released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on April 18, 2019. It is divided into two volumes. The redactions from the report and its supporting material were placed under a temporary "protective assertion" of executive privilege by then-President Trump on May 8, 2019, preventing the material from being passed to Congress,^[2] despite earlier reassurance by Barr that Trump would not exert privilege.^[3]

While the report concludes that the investigation "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities",^[4][5][6] investigators had an incomplete picture of what happened due in part to some communications that were encrypted, deleted, or not saved, as well as testimony that was false, incomplete, or declined.^[7][8][9] The report states that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was illegal and occurred "in sweeping and systematic fashion",^[10][11][12] and was welcomed by the Trump campaign as it expected to benefit from such efforts.^[13][14][15] It also identifies multiple links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials,^[16] about which several persons connected to the campaign made false statements and obstructed investigations.^[4] Mueller later stated that his investigation's findings of Russian interference "deserves the attention of every American".^[17]

Volume II of the report addresses obstruction of justice. The investigation intentionally took an approach that could not result in a judgment that Trump committed a crime.^[18][19][20] This decision was based on an Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion that a sitting president is immune from criminal prosecution,^[21][22][23] and Mueller's belief that it would be unfair to accuse the president of a crime even without charging him because he would have no opportunity to clear his name in court; furthermore it would undermine Trump's ability to govern and preempt impeachment.^{[19][22][24][21][25]} As such, the investigation "does not conclude that the President committed a crime"; however, "it also does not exonerate him",^[26][27] with investigators not confident of Trump's innocence.^{[28][29][30][31]} The report describes ten episodes where Trump may have obstructed justice while president and one before he was elected,^[32][33] noting that he privately tried to "control the investigation".^[34][35][36] The report further states that Congress can decide whether Trump obstructed justice and take action accordingly,^[19][37][38] referencing impeachment.^[39][40]

Even before seeing the Mueller report, Barr had already decided not to charge Trump with obstruction of justice.^[41][42][43] To this end, upon receiving the report, he tasked the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) with writing an internal memo that would provide a pretextual justification for his decision.^[44] The four-page Barr letter was written over the course of two days in tandem with a legal memo upon which the letter ostensibly relied^[43] and was released to Congress on March 24, purporting to detail the Mueller report's conclusions and announcing Barr's decision not to charge Trump.^[45] On March 27, Mueller privately wrote to Barr, stating that Barr's March 24 letter "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions" and that this led to "public confusion".^[46] Barr declined Mueller's request to release the report's introduction and executive summaries ahead of the full report.^[47] On April 18, Barr held a 90-minute press conference where he and senior Justice Department officials defended Trump^[3][48][49] and their decision not to charge him with obstruction,^[50] immediately prior to the public release of the Mueller report.^[51] Following the release of the Mueller report, Barr's letter was widely criticized as an intentionally misleading effort to shape public perceptions in favor of Trump,^[45] with commentators identifying significant factual discrepancies. On May 1, Barr testified that he "didn't exonerate" Trump on obstruction as "that's not what the Justice Department does"^[52] and that neither he nor Rosenstein had reviewed the underlying evidence in the report.^[53] In July 2019, Mueller testified to Congress that a president could be charged with crimes including obstruction of justice after the president left office.^[54]

1. ^ Breuninger, Kevin (March 22, 2019). "Mueller Probe Ends: Special counsel submits Russia report to Attorney General William Barr". CNBC. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
2. ^ Cite error: The named reference protectiveass was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
3. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference noprivilege was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. ^ ^{a b} Mueller Report, vol. I, p. 180: "the Office's investigation uncovered evidence of numerous links (i.e., contacts) between Trump Campaign officials and individuals having or claiming to have ties to the Russian government. The Office evaluated the contacts under several sets of federal laws, including conspiracy laws and statutes governing foreign agents who operate in the United States. After considering the available evidence, the Office did not pursue charges under these statutes against any of the individuals discussed in Section IV above – with the exception of FARA charges against Paul Manafort and Richard Gates based on their activities on behalf of Ukraine.... several U.S. persons connected to the Campaign made false statements about those contacts and took other steps to obstruct the Office's investigation and those of Congress. This Office has therefore charged some of those individuals with making false statements and obstructing justice."
5. ^ Mueller Report, vol. I, p. 173: "Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities."
6. ^ Mosk, Matthew (April 18, 2019). "Here's what we know about: Collusion". ABC News. Retrieved April 21, 2019.
7. ^ Cite error: The named reference testcomm1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
8. ^ Cite error: The named reference testcomm2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
9. ^ Cite error: The named reference testcomm3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
10. ^ Mueller Report, vol. I, p. 1: "The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion"
11. ^ Inskeep, Steve; Detrow, Scott; Johnson, Carrie; Davis, Susan; Greene, David (April 18, 2019). "Redacted Mueller Report Released; Congress, Trump React". NPR. Retrieved April 22, 2019.
12. ^ "The Mueller Report". YaleGlobal Online. MacMillan Center. April 18, 2019. Retrieved May 8, 2019.
13. ^ Frum, David (May 29, 2019). "What The Mueller Report Actually Said". The Atlantic. Retrieved May 31, 2019.
14. ^ Timm, Jane (April 18, 2019). "Mueller report: Russians charged with disrupting 2016 election sought help, retweets from team Trump". NBC News. Retrieved May 30, 2019.
15. ^ Alba, Monica (April 24, 2019). "Trump campaign won't commit to staying away from hacked material". NBC News. Retrieved May 31, 2019.
16. ^ Mueller Report, vol. I, p. 66: "The Office identified multiple contacts – 'links', in the words of the Appointment Order – between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government."
17. ^ Cite error: The named reference subtly was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
18. ^ Cite error: The named reference WaPoLays was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
19. ^ ^{a b c} Cite error: The named reference BloomSignal was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
20. ^ Mueller Report, vol. II, p. 2: "Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes."
21. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference APnocall was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
22. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference TimeSay was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
23. ^ Mueller Report, vol. II, p. 1: "The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that 'the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions' in violation of the constitutional separation of powers. [...] this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising prosecutorial jurisdiction."
24. ^ Mueller Report, vol. II, pp. 1–2: "[...] apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Footnote: See U.S. CONST. Art. I § 2, cl. 5; § 3, cl. 6; cf. OLC Op. at 257–258 (discussing relationship between impeachment and criminal prosecution of a sitting President). [...] Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term, OLC reasoned, 'it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy', and if an indictment became public, '[t]he stigma and opprobrium' could imperil the President's ability to govern."
25. ^ Mueller Report, vol. II, p. 2: "[...] a prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought, affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator. The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report, could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar concerns about sealed indictments."
26. ^ Cite error: The named reference AFPpoints was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
27. ^ Mueller Report, vol. II, p. 8: "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
28. ^ Cite error: The named reference WaPo10 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
29. ^ Cite error: The named reference HillConc was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
30. ^ Cite error: The named reference APteam was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
31. ^ Mueller Report, vol. II, p. 2: "Fourth, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
32. ^ Cite error: The named reference FactCheck11 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
33. ^ Cite error: The named reference PBS11 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
34. ^ Cite error: The named reference opendoor was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
35. ^ Cite error: The named reference HillSought was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
36. ^ Mueller Report., vol. II, p. 185: "The President's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests. [...] The President launched public attacks on the investigation and individuals involved in it who could possess evidence adverse to the President, while in private, the President engaged in a series of targeted efforts to control the investigation."
37. ^ Cite error: The named reference APdilemma was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
38. ^ Mueller Report, vol. II, p. 8: "With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. [...] The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law."
39. ^ Cite error: The named reference BBCeight was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
40. ^ Cite error: The named reference WaPoSaidVs was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
41. ^ Cite error: The named reference releases memo was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
42. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mallin was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
43. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference backs ruling was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
44. ^ Cite error: The named reference abj orders was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
45. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference judge orders was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
46. ^ Cite error: The named reference WaPoComplained was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
47. ^ Goldsmith, Jack (May 4, 2019). "Thoughts on Barr and the Mueller Report". Lawfare. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
48. ^ Cite error: The named reference rewards was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
49. ^ Cite error: The named reference abc defends was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
50. ^ Cite error: The named reference hurt feelings was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
51. ^ Cite error: The named reference HillLR was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
52. ^ Cite error: The named reference APMay1Test was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
53. ^ Cite error: The named reference WaPoFam was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
54. ^ Cite error: The named reference mtest2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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19 April 1927 – Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex.

Sex (play)

1926 play by Mae West

Sex is a 1926 play written by and starring Mae West, who used the pen name "Jane Mast".^[1] Staged on Broadway, the play received bad reviews, but was a commercial success. It was eventually shut down by the New York City Police Department due to obscenity, and West was sentenced to 10 days in jail because of it.

1. ^ Sex at the Internet Broadway Database

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20 April 1653 – Oliver Cromwell dissolves England's Rump Parliament.

Rump Parliament

English parliament 1648–1653

This article is about the 1648 English parliament. For the 1849 German parliament, see Frankfurt National Assembly § Rump parliament and dissolution.

The Rump Parliament was what remained of the Long Parliament after Pride's Purge on 6 December 1648, when Colonel Thomas Pride commanded his soldiers to exclude from the House of Commons those members who were against the Grandees' intention to try King Charles I for high treason. The Rump was dissolved by Oliver Cromwell in 1653 and replaced by the Barebone's Parliament. After Richard Cromwell's removal from power in 1659, the Rump was briefly reinstated.

"Rump" normally means the hind end or backside of a mammal; its use meaning "remnant" (the reduced-membership Parliament) was first recorded in the above context in English in 1649.^[a]

1. ^ "rump". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

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21 April 1965 – The 1964–1965 New York World's Fair opens for its second and final season.

1964 New York World's Fair

World's fair held in New York City

The 1964 New York World's Fair (also known as the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair) was an international exposition at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City, United States. The fair included exhibitions, activities, performances, films, art, and food presented by 80 nations, 24 U.S. states, and nearly 350 American companies. The five sections of the 646-acre (261 ha) fairground were the Federal and State, International, Transportation, Lake Amusement, and Industrial areas. The fair's theme was "Peace through Understanding", and its symbol was the Unisphere, a stainless-steel model of Earth. Initially, the fair had 139 pavilions, and 34 concessions and shows.

The site had previously hosted the 1939 New York World's Fair. In the 1950s, several businessmen devised plans for a similar event in 1964, and the New York World's Fair 1964 Corporation (WFC) was formed in 1959. Although U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the fair, the Bureau International des Expositions refused to grant it formal recognition. Construction began in late 1960, and over 100 exhibitors signed up for the fair over the next three years. The fair ran for two six-month seasons from April 22 to October 18, 1964, and from April 21 to October 17, 1965. Despite initial projections of 70 million visitors, just over 51.6 million attended. After the fair closed, some pavilions were preserved or relocated, but most of the structures were demolished.

The fair showcased mid-20th-century American culture and technology. The sections were designed in various architectural styles. Anyone could host an exhibit if they could afford to rent the land and pay for a pavilion. There were several amusement and transport rides, various plazas and fountains, and at its peak, 198 restaurants that served dishes such as Belgian waffles, some of which were popularized by the fair. There were more than 30 entertainment events, 40 theaters, and various music performances. Exhibitors displayed sculptures, visual art and artifacts, and consumer products such as electronics and cars. The contemporaneous press criticized the event as a financial failure, although it influenced 21st-century technologies, and popularized consumer products such as the Ford Mustang.

1. ^ ^{a b c} Cite error: The named reference park was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. ^ Cite error: The named reference nyt-1964-04-225 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
3. ^ Cite error: The named reference p1327670058 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Los Angeles Times 1965 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Samuel p. 83 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
6. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference nyt-1964-04-22 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Samuel p. 149 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Samuel p. 6; Tirella p. 14 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
9. ^ Cite error: The named reference The Sun 1964 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Alden 1965n was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
11. ^ Cite error: The named reference nyt-1964-10-19a was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Abrams 1965 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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22 April 1954 – Red Scare: Witnesses begin testifying and live television coverage of the Army–McCarthy hearings begins.

McCarthyism

Phenomenon of US political rhetoric after WWII

This article is about the events during the Cold War. For general information about the phenomenon, see Red Scare.

McCarthyism is a political practice defined by the political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a campaign spreading fear of communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage in the United States during the late 1940s through the 1950s, heavily associated with the Second Red Scare, also known as the McCarthy era.^[1] After the mid-1950s, U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy, who had spearheaded the campaign, gradually lost his public popularity and credibility after several of his accusations were found to be false.^[2][3] The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren made a series of rulings on civil and political rights that overturned several key laws and legislative directives, and helped bring an end to the Second Red Scare.^[4][5][6]

Historians have suggested since the 1980s that as McCarthy's involvement was less central than that of others, a different and more accurate term should be used instead that more accurately conveys the breadth of the phenomenon, and that the term McCarthyism is, in the modern day, outdated. Ellen Schrecker has suggested that Hooverism, after Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) head J. Edgar Hoover, is more appropriate.^[7] Following the end of the Cold War, unearthed documents revealed substantial Soviet spy activity in the United States, although many of the agents were never properly identified by McCarthy.^[8][9]

1. ^ Storrs, Landon R. Y. (July 2, 2015). "McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare". American History. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.6. ISBN 978-0199329175. Archived from the original on July 3, 2018. Retrieved July 3, 2018.
2. ^ Lichtman, Robert M. "UI Press | Robert M. Lichtman | The Supreme Court and McCarthy-Era Repression: One Hundred Decisions". www.press.uillinois.edu. Archived from the original on May 12, 2019. Retrieved October 20, 2019.
3. ^ Burke, Adam (October 26, 2005). "Revisiting McCarthyism in the Patriot Act Era". NPR.org. Archived from the original on October 20, 2019. Retrieved October 20, 2019.
4. ^ Horwitz, Morton J. (1999). The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0809016259. Archived from the original on November 13, 2020. Retrieved October 19, 2020.
5. ^ "Yates v. United States". Oyez. Archived from the original on August 24, 2019. Retrieved October 20, 2019.
6. ^ "Watkins v. United States". Oyez. Archived from the original on October 20, 2019. Retrieved October 20, 2019.
7. ^ Schrecker 1998, p. 203.
8. ^ Haynes, John Earl; Klehr, Harvey (April 10, 1999). Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12987-8.
9. ^ "They Led Two Lives". archive.nytimes.com. Archived from the original on December 11, 2024. Retrieved June 21, 2025.

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23 April 1660 – Treaty of Oliva is established between Sweden and Poland.

Treaty of Oliva

1660 peace treaty to end the Second Northern War

The Treaty or Peace of Oliva (Polish: Pokój Oliwski; Swedish: Freden i Oliva; German: Vertrag von Oliva) was one of the peace treaties ending the Second Northern War (1655–1660).^[1] It was signed on 3 May [O.S. 23 April] 1660.^[2] The Treaty of Oliva, the Treaty of Copenhagen in the same year, and the Treaty of Cardis in the following year marked the high point of the Swedish Empire.^[3][4]

At Oliwa (Oliva), Poland, peace was made between Sweden, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburgs and Brandenburg-Prussia. Sweden was accepted as sovereign in Swedish Livonia, Brandenburg was accepted as sovereign in Ducal Prussia and John II Casimir Vasa withdrew his claims to the Swedish throne. All occupied territories were restored to their prewar sovereigns.^[1] Catholics in Livonia and Prussia were granted religious freedom.^[2][1][5][6]

The signatories were the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, Elector Frederick William I of Brandenburg and King John II Casimir Vasa of Poland. Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie, the head of the Swedish delegation and the minor regency, signed on behalf of his nephew, King Charles XI of Sweden, who was still a minor.^[7]

1. ^ ^{a b c} Frost (2000), p. 183
2. ^ ^{a b} Evans (2008), p. 55
3. ^ "Freden i København, 27. maj 1660". danmarkshistorien.dk. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
4. ^ Nina Ringbom. "Freden i Kardis 1661". Historiesajten. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
5. ^ "Friede von Oliva". Monarchieliga. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
6. ^ Nina Ringbom. "Freden i Oliva 1660". Historiesajten. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
7. ^ Bély (2000), p. 511

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24 April 1957 – Suez Crisis: The Suez Canal is reopened following the introduction of UNEF peacekeepers to the region.

Suez Crisis

1956 British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt

Not to be confused with the Raid on the Suez Canal or 2021 Suez Canal obstruction.

The Suez Crisis,^[a] also known as the second Arab–Israeli war,^[8][9][10] the Tripartite Aggression^[b] in the Arab world^[11] and the Sinai War^[c] in Israel,^[d] was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, with the primary objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as the recent tightening of the eight-year-long Egyptian blockade further prevented Israeli passage.^[12] After issuing a joint ultimatum for a ceasefire, the United Kingdom and France joined the Israelis on 31 October, seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal, which Nasser had nationalised earlier in the year.^[e]

Shortly after the invasion began, the three countries came under heavy political pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as from the United Nations, eventually prompting their withdrawal from Egypt.

The crisis demonstrated that the United Kingdom and France could no longer pursue their independent foreign policy without consent from the United States.^[14] Israel's four-month-long occupation of the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula enabled it to attain freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran, but the Suez Canal was closed from October 1956 to March 1957.^[15][16]

The crisis strengthened Nasser's standing and led to international humiliation for the British—with historians arguing that it signified the end of its role as a superpower—as well as the French amid the Cold War.^{[17][18][19][20][14][21][22]} As a result of the conflict, the UN established an emergency force to police and patrol the Egypt–Israel border. For his diplomatic efforts in resolving the conflict through UN initiatives, Canadian external affairs minister Lester B. Pearson received a Nobel Peace Prize.

Analysts have argued that the crisis may have emboldened the USSR, prompting the Soviet invasion of Hungary.^[23][24]

1. ^ A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War. 2006. p. 251.McGregor 2006, p. 251
2. ^ "Casualties of Mideast Wars". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. 8 March 1991. p. A7. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
3. ^ ^{a b} Varble 2003, p. 90
4. ^ Zuljan, Ralph. "Armed Conflict Year Index". OnWar.com. Archived from the original on 10 May 2023. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
5. ^ Schiff 1974, p. 70.
6. ^ Schiff 1974.
7. ^ "Invasion of Egypt!". Israel—The Suez War of 1956: U.S. newsreel footage. Event occurs at 0:30–0:40. Archived from the original on 28 October 2021.
8. ^ Ross, Stewart (2004). Causes and Consequences of the Arab–Israeli Conflict. Evans Brothers. pp. 76ff. ISBN 978-0-2375-2585-9.
9. ^ Isacoff, Jonathan B. (2006). Writing the Arab–Israeli Conflict: Pragmatism and Historical Inquiry. Lexington Books. pp. 79ff. ISBN 978-0-7391-1273-1.
10. ^ Caplan, Neil (1983). Futile Diplomacy: Operation Alpha and the Failure of Anglo-American Coercive Diplomacy in the Arab–Israeli Conflict, 1954–1956. Psychology Press. pp. 15. ISBN 978-0-7146-4757-9.
11. ^ Egypt Today staff (3 November 2019). "In 63rd ann. of Tripartite Aggression, members of popular resistance tell heroic stories". Egypt Today. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
12. ^ Mayer, Michael S. (2010). The Eisenhower Years. Infobase Publishing. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-8160-5387-2.
13. ^ Copeland, Miles (1989). The Game Player: Confessions of the CIA's Original Political Operative. Aurum Press. pp. 170–171, 201.
14. ^ ^{a b} Peden, G. C. (December 2012), "Suez and Britain's Decline as a World Power", The Historical Journal, 55 (4): 1073–1096, doi:10.1017/S0018246X12000246, ISSN 0018-246X
15. ^ Pierre, Major Jean-Marc (15 August 2014). 1956 Suez Crisis And The United Nations. Tannenberg Publishing. ISBN 978-1-7828-9608-1. Still in 1950 Egypt blocked the Straits of Tiran barring Israel from the waterway ( Longgood 1958, xii-xiii).
16. ^ Golani, Motti (1995). "The Historical Place of the Czech-Egyptian Arms Deal, Fall 1955". Middle Eastern Studies. 31 (4): 803–827. doi:10.1080/00263209508701081. ISSN 0026-3206. JSTOR 4283762. 3. The blockade of the Straits of Eilat (Tiran) had actually been in effect since 1948, but was significantly aggravated on 12 September 1955, when Egypt announced that it was being tightened and extended to the aerial sphere as well. (p. 805)
17. ^ Abernathy, David (2000). The Dynamics of Global Dominance: European Overseas Empires, 1415–1980. Yale University Press. p. CXXXIX. ISBN 978-0-3000-9314-8.
18. ^ Owen, Roger (2001). Krieger, Joel (ed.). Suez Crisis. The Oxford Companion to the Politics of the World (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.^{[page needed]}
19. ^ "An affair to remember". The Economist. 27 June 2006. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
20. ^ Ellis, Sylvia (2009). Historical Dictionary of Anglo-American Relations. Scarecrow Press. p. 212. ISBN 978-0-8108-6297-5.
21. ^ Mullen, Matt; Onion, Amanda; Sullivan, Missy; Zapata, Christian (14 September 2022). "Suez Crisis". History Channel. Retrieved 15 June 2023.
22. ^ Smith, Simon C., ed. (2016). Reassessing Suez 1956: New perspectives on the crisis and its aftermath. Routledge. pp. 216–218. ISBN 978-0-7546-6170-2.
23. ^ Mastny, Vojtech (March 2002). "NATO in the Beholder's Eye: Soviet Perceptions and Policies, 1949–56" (PDF). Cold War International History Project. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 November 2023. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
24. ^ Christopher, Adam (2010). The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: Hungarian and Canadian Perspectives. University of Ottawa Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-7766-0705-4.

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25 April 1607 – Eighty Years' War: The Dutch fleet destroys the anchored Spanish fleet at Gibraltar.

Eighty Years' War

c. 1566/1568–1648 war in Habsburg Netherlands

The Eighty Years' War^[g] or Dutch Revolt^[h] (c. 1566/1568–1648)^[i] was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands^[j] between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Reformation, centralisation, excessive taxation, and the rights and privileges of the Dutch nobility and cities.

After the initial stages, Philip II of Spain, the sovereign of the Netherlands, deployed his armies and regained control over most of the rebel-held territories. However, widespread mutinies in the Spanish army caused a general uprising. Under the leadership of the exiled William the Silent, the Catholic and Protestant-dominated provinces sought to establish religious peace while jointly opposing the king's regime with the Pacification of Ghent, but the general rebellion failed to sustain itself.

Despite steady military and diplomatic successes by the Governor of Spanish Netherlands and General for Spain, the Duke of Parma, the Union of Utrecht continued their resistance, proclaiming their independence through the 1581 Act of Abjuration and establishing the Calvinist-dominated Dutch Republic in 1588. In the Ten Years thereafter, the Republic (whose heartland was no longer threatened) made conquests in the north and east and received diplomatic recognition from France and England in 1596. The Dutch colonial empire emerged, which began with Dutch attacks on Portugal's overseas territories.

Facing a stalemate, the two sides agreed to a Twelve Years' Truce in 1609; when it expired in 1621, fighting resumed as part of the broader Thirty Years' War. An end was reached in 1648 with the Peace of Münster when Spain retained the Southern Netherlands and recognised the Dutch Republic as an independent country.

1. ^ ^{a b} van der Lem 1995, p. Chapter IV.
2. ^ Marek y Villarino de Brugge 2020b, v. II pp. 95–124.
3. ^ van der Lem 1995, p. Chapter V.
4. ^ Gallegos Vázquez, Federico (2014). "La dimensión internacional de la guerra de los Países Bajos". Guerra, derecho y política: Aproximaciones a una interacción inevitable (in Spanish). España: 45–64. ISBN 978-84-617-1675-3. Archived from the original on 22 November 2023. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
5. ^ "Francisco de Alençon". Diccionario Biográfico Español (in Spanish). Real Academia de la Historia. Archived from the original on 22 January 2024. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
6. ^ Fernández Duro, Cesáreo (1900). Armada española desde la unión de los reinos de Castilla y Aragón (in Spanish). Vol. IV. Madrid, España: Instituto de Historia y Cultura Naval. p. 269. Archived from the original on 24 June 2023. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
7. ^ Aleixandre Tena, Francisca (1967). "La revolución portuguesa de 1640". Saitabi: Revista de la Facultat de Geografia i Història (in Spanish) (17). Valencia, España: 95–96. ISSN 0210-9980. Archived from the original on 22 November 2023. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
8. ^ Groenveld 2009, p. 21.
9. ^ van Nimwegen, Olaf (2010). The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions, 1588–1688. Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press. pp. 217–234, 247–248. ISBN 978-1-84383-575-2.
10. ^ Tarver & Slape 2016, p. 71.
11. ^ Wilson, p. 434,
12. ^ Jan Glete. "War and the State in Early Modern Europe: Spain, the Dutch Republic and Sweden as Fiscal-Military States (Warfare and History)." Routledge: November 8, 2001. Page 33.

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26 April 1943 – The Easter Riots break out in Uppsala, Sweden.

Easter Riots

For the riots during Easter in Sweden in 2022, see 2022 Sweden riots.

For the riots in Quebec during the 1917 Conscription Crisis, see Quebec Easter riots.

1943 clashes between Nazis and anti-fascists in Sweden

The Easter Riots (Swedish: Påskkravallerna) is the name given to a period of unrest in Uppsala, Sweden, during the Easter of 1943. The fascist group Swedish Socialist Union (SSS, Swedish: Svensk Socialistisk Samling, previously the National Socialist Workers' Party) held its national congress in Uppsala, amid the Second World War and only days after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The unrest climaxed on 26 April, when the SSS ended the congress by holding a demonstration at the Royal Mounds of Old Uppsala.^[1][2]

Thousands of anti-fascists gathered to protest against the Nazi gathering at the Royal Mounds, a historical site that held much political symbolism among Swedish nationalists. Policemen had been called in from Stockholm to defend the demonstration, and after the situation became increasingly tense they resorted to violence, dispersing the peacefully protesting crowds and onlookers alike with heavy force.^[3]

1. ^ Andersson, Peter (23 August 2011). "Kamprad var djupt inblandad i nazistisk rörelse" (in Swedish). Sveriges Radio. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
2. ^ Payne, Stanley G. (2001). A History of Fascism 1914-1945. London: Routledge. p. 306.
3. ^ Alkarp, Magnus (2013). Fyra dagar i april: Påskkravallerna i Uppsala 1943 (in Swedish). Historiska Media. ISBN 9789186297725.^{[page needed]}

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27 April 2005 – Airbus A380 aircraft has its maiden test flight.

Airbus A380

European wide-body airliner

"A380" and "A388" redirect here. For other uses, see A380 (disambiguation).

The Airbus A380 is a large wide-body airliner, developed and produced by Airbus from 2003 to 2021. It is the world's largest passenger airliner and the only full-length double-deck jet airliner.

Airbus studies started in 1988, and the project was announced in 1990 to challenge the dominance of the Boeing 747 in the long-haul market. The then-designated A3XX project was presented in 1994 and Airbus launched the €9.5 billion (US$10.7 billion) A380 programme on 19 December 2000. The first prototype was unveiled in Toulouse, France on 18 January 2005, commencing its first flight on 27 April 2005. It then obtained its type certificate from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on 12 December 2006.

Due to difficulties with the electrical wiring, the initial production was delayed by two years and the development costs almost doubled. It was first delivered to Singapore Airlines on 15 October 2007 and entered service on 25 October. Production peaked at 30 per year in both 2012 and 2014, with manufacturing of the aircraft ending in 2021. The A380's estimated $25 billion development cost was not recouped by the time Airbus ended production.

The full-length double-deck aircraft has a typical seating for 525 passengers, with a maximum certified capacity for 853 passengers. The quadjet is powered by Engine Alliance GP7200 or Rolls-Royce Trent 900 turbofans providing a range of 8,000 nmi (14,800 km; 9,200 mi). As of December 2021^[update], the global A380 fleet had completed more than 800,000 flights over 7.3 million block hours with no fatalities and no hull losses. As of April 2024^[update], there were 189 aircraft in service with 10 operators worldwide. Of its fifteen total operating airlines, five have fully retired the A380 from their fleets.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference A380_123rdEmirates was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. ^ "Airbus unveils first A380 centre wingbox". Airbus. Archived from the original on 11 October 2020. Retrieved 14 February 2019.

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28 April 1881 – Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico.

Billy the Kid

American outlaw and gunfighter (1859–1881)

For other uses, see Billy the Kid (disambiguation).

"Henry McCarty" redirects here. For the American screenwriter and film director, see Henry McCarty (writer).

"William Bonney" redirects here. For American politician, see William L. Bonney.

Henry McCarty (September 17 or November 23, 1859 – July 14, 1881), alias William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, was an American outlaw and gunfighter of the Old West who was linked to nine murders. He was solely responsible for four of them, and he may have played a role in five, alongside other men. He is also noted for his involvement in New Mexico's Lincoln County War.

McCarty was orphaned at the age of 15. His first arrest was for stealing food at the age of 16 in 1875. Ten days later, he robbed a Chinese laundry and was arrested again, but escaped shortly afterwards. He fled from New Mexico Territory into neighboring Arizona Territory, making himself both an outlaw and a federal fugitive. In 1877, he began to call himself "William H. Bonney."^[2]

After killing a blacksmith during an altercation in August 1877, Bonney became a wanted man in Arizona and returned to New Mexico, where he joined a group of cattle rustlers. He became well known in the region when he joined the Regulators and took part in the Lincoln County War of 1878. He and two other Regulators were later charged with killing three men, including Lincoln County Sheriff William J. Brady and one of his deputies.

Bonney's notoriety grew in December 1880 when the Las Vegas Gazette, in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and The Sun, in New York City, carried stories about his crimes.^[3] Sheriff Pat Garrett captured Bonney later that month. In April 1881, Bonney was tried for and convicted of Brady's murder and was sentenced to hang in May of that year. He escaped from jail on April 28, killing two sheriff's deputies in the process, and evaded capture for more than two months. Garrett shot and killed Bonney, by then aged 21, in Fort Sumner on July 14, 1881. During his short career as an outlaw, Bonney was the subject of numerous U.S. newspaper articles, some as far away as New York.^[4]

During the decades following his death, stories spread that Bonney had survived, and a number of men claimed to be him.^[5] The legend of Billy the Kid endures in American culture, and he remains one of the most notorious figures from the era, whose life and likeness have been frequently dramatized in the Western genre. More than 50 films and several broadcast programs have featured Billy the Kid.

1. ^ Nolan 2015, p. 29.
2. ^ Wallis 2007, p. 144.
3. ^ Utley 1989, pp. 145–146.
4. ^ Utley 1989, pp. 145–147.
5. ^ "The Old Man Who Claimed to Be Billy the Kid". Atlas Obscura. March 30, 2017. Archived from the original on July 8, 2017. Retrieved July 19, 2017.

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29 April 1770 – James Cook arrives in Australia at Botany Bay, which he names.

James Cook

British explorer and naval officer (1728–1779)

"Captain Cook" redirects here. For other uses, see Captain Cook (disambiguation) and James Cook (disambiguation).

Captain James Cook (7 November 1728^[a] – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer who led three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans between 1768 and 1779. He completed the first recorded circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand, and led the first recorded visit by Europeans to the east coast of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands.

Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager before enlisting in the Royal Navy in 1755. He first saw combat during the Seven Years' War, when he fought in the Siege of Louisbourg. Later in the war he surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the St. Lawrence River during the Siege of Quebec. In the 1760s he mapped the coastline of Newfoundland and made important astronomical observations which brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and the Royal Society. This acclaim came at a pivotal moment in British overseas exploration, and it led to his commission in 1768 as commander of HMS Endeavour for the first of his three voyages.

During these voyages, Cook sailed tens of thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas, mapping coastlines, islands, and features across the globe in greater detail than previously charted – including Easter Island, Alaska and South Georgia Island. He made contact with numerous indigenous peoples and claimed several territories for the Kingdom of Great Britain. Renowned for exceptional seamanship and courage in times of danger, he was patient, persistent, sober, and competent, but sometimes hot-tempered. His contributions to the prevention of scurvy, a disease common among sailors, led the Royal Society to award him the Copley Gold Medal.

In 1779, during his second visit to Hawaii, Cook was killed when a dispute with Native Hawaiians turned violent. His voyages left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge that influenced his successors well into the 20th century. Numerous memorials have been dedicated to him worldwide.
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30 April 1871 – The Camp Grant massacre takes place in Arizona Territory.

Camp Grant massacre

1871 massacre of Pinal and Aravaipa Apaches

32°50′54″N 110°42′17″W / 32.848305°N 110.704654°W / 32.848305; -110.704654

The Camp Grant massacre, on April 30, 1871, was an attack on Pinal and Aravaipa Apaches who surrendered to the United States Army at Camp Grant, Arizona, along the San Pedro River. The massacre led to a series of battles and campaigns fought between the Americans, the Apache, and their Yavapai allies, which continued into 1875, the most notable being General George Crook's Tonto Basin Campaign of 1872 and 1873.

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1 May 1851 – Queen Victoria opens The Great Exhibition at The Crystal Palace in London.

Great Exhibition

1st world's fair in 1851 in London, England

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition that took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851. It was the first in a series of world's fairs, exhibitions of culture and industry that became popular in the 19th century. The event was organised by Henry Cole and Albert, Prince Consort of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom.

Famous people of the time attended the Great Exhibition, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, C.H.Spurgeon, Michael Faraday (who assisted with the planning and judging of exhibits), Samuel Colt, John Mercer, members of the Orléanist royal family and the writers Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson, and William Makepeace Thackeray. The future Arts and Crafts proponent William Morris, then a teenager, later said he refused to attend the Exhibition on the grounds of taste.^[1] Exhibits showcased include the first public flush toilets invented by George Jennings.^[2][3]

The opening music, under the superintendence of William Sterndale Bennett, was directed by George Thomas Smart. Organised by Howard Staunton, the first international chess tournament took place at the Exhibition.^[4] The world's first soft drink, Schweppes, was the official sponsor of the event.^[5]

1. ^ "Introducing William Morris". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 14 March 2023.
2. ^ "London's long-term lav affair: A history of public toilets in the capital". BBC. Retrieved 7 September 2025.
3. ^ "The History of Women's Public Toilets in Britain". Historic UK. Retrieved 3 April 2025. The story in Britain starts in 1851, as the Great Exhibition show-cased the first public flushing toilet, created by George Jennings, who was a plumber from Brighton. The popularity of this invention was such that the first public lavatories opened the following year and were known as 'Public Waiting Rooms'. The vast majority of these were men's conveniences.
4. ^ Murray, H.J.R. (November 1908). "Howard Staunton: part I". British Chess Magazine. Archived from the original on 8 December 2007. Retrieved 19 June 2008. and Murray, H.J.R. (November 1908). "Howard Staunton: part II". British Chess Magazine. Archived from the original on 8 December 2007. Retrieved 19 June 2008.
5. ^ "Schweppes Holdings Limited". Royalwarrant.org. Retrieved 13 October 2021. the world's first ever soft drink, Schweppes soda water [..] the official sponsor of Prince Albert's Great Exhibition in 1851

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2 May 1986 – Chernobyl disaster: The City of Chernobyl is evacuated six days after the disaster.

Chernobyl disaster

1986 nuclear accident in the Soviet Union

On 26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (later Ukraine), exploded. With dozens of direct casualties and thousands of health complications stemming from the disaster, it is one of only two nuclear accidents rated at the maximum severity on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The response involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles (about US$84.5 billion in 2025).^[1] It remains the worst nuclear disaster^[2][3] and the most expensive disaster in history, with an estimated cost of US$700 billion.^[4]

The disaster occurred during a test to simulate cooling the reactor during a serious accident in blackout conditions. The operators carried out the test following an accidental drop in reactor power. Upon shutting down the reactor in those conditions, design flaws led to a dramatic power surge. The reactor components ruptured and lost coolant, and the resulting steam explosions and meltdown destroyed the reactor building. This was followed by a reactor core fire that spread radioactive contaminants across the Soviet Union and Europe.^[5] The Soviet government established a 10 km exclusion zone 36 hours after the accident, initially evacuating around 49,000 people. This was later expanded to 30 km, resulting in the evacuation of approximately 68,000 more people.^[6] The government did not publicly acknowledge the disaster until two days after the explosion, when elevated radiation levels were detected in Sweden.^[7]

Following the explosion, which killed two engineers and severely burned two others, an emergency operation began to put out the fires and stabilize the reactor. Of the 237 workers hospitalized, 134 showed symptoms of acute radiation syndrome (ARS); 28 of them died within three months. Over the next decade, 14 more workers (nine of whom had ARS) died of various causes mostly unrelated to radiation exposure.^[8] It is the only instance in commercial nuclear power history where radiation-related fatalities occurred.^[9][10] As of 2005, 6000 cases of childhood thyroid cancer occurred within the affected populations (15 of them fatal), "a large fraction" being attributed to the disaster.^[11] Long-term death estimates range from up to 4,000 in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia (per the United Nations) to 16,000 in total across Europe.^[12]

Pripyat was abandoned and replaced by the purpose-built city of Slavutych. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sarcophagus, completed in December 1986, reduced the spread of radioactive contamination and provided radiological protection for the crews of the undamaged reactors. In 2016–2018, the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement was constructed around the old sarcophagus to enable the removal of the reactor debris, with clean-up scheduled for completion by 2065.^[13]

1. ^ "Chernobyl: Assessment of Radiological and Health Impact, 2002 update; Chapter II – The release, dispersion and deposition of radionuclides" (PDF). OECD-NEA. 2002. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 June 2015. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
2. ^ "The Chornobyl Accident". United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
3. ^ Steinhauser, Georg; Brandl, Alexander; Johnson, Thomas E. (2014). "Comparison of the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents: A review of the environmental impacts". Science of the Total Environment. 470–471: 800–817. Bibcode:2014ScTEn.470..800S. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.10.029. PMID 24189103.
4. ^ Samet, Jonathan M.; Seo, Joann (21 April 2016). The Financial Costs of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Disaster: A Review of the Literature (PDF) (Report). USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health. pp. 14–15. Retrieved 8 May 2024.
5. ^ McCall, Chris (April 2016). "Chernobyl disaster 30 years on: lessons not learned". The Lancet. 387 (10029): 1707–1708. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(16)30304-x. PMID 27116266.
6. ^ Steadman, Philip; Hodgkinson, Simon (1990). Nuclear Disasters & The Built Environment: A Report to the Royal Institute. Butterworth Architecture. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-40850-061-6.
7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Sveriges was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
8. ^ Wagemaker, G.; Guskova, A. K.; Bebeshko, V. G.; Griffiths, N. M.; Krishenko, N. A. (1996). "Clinically observed effects in individuals exposed to radiation as a result of the Chernobyl accident". One Decade After Chernobyl: Summing Up the Consequences of the Accident: Proceedings of an International Conference on One Decade After Chernobyl: Summing Up the Consequences of the Accident. The Agency. pp. 173–196. ISBN 978-92-0-103796-1.
9. ^ Zohuri, Bahman; McDaniel, Patrick (2019). Thermodynamics in Nuclear Power Plant Systems (2nd ed.). Springer. p. 597. ISBN 978-3-319-93918-6.
10. ^ "Chernobyl Accident 1986 – World Nuclear Association". world-nuclear.org. 26 April 2024. Retrieved 9 May 2024.
11. ^ "Chernobyl 25th anniversary – Frequently Asked Questions" (PDF). World Health Organization. 23 April 2011. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 April 2012. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
12. ^ "World Health Organization report explains the health impacts of the world's worst-ever civil nuclear accident". World Health Organization. 26 April 2006. Archived from the original on 4 April 2011. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
13. ^ "Chernobyl nuclear power plant site to be cleared by 2065". Kyiv Post. 3 January 2010. Archived from the original on 5 October 2012.

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3 May 1901 – The Great Fire of 1901 begins in Jacksonville, Florida.

Great Fire of 1901

Fire that destroyed downtown Jacksonville, Florida

The Great Fire of 1901 was a conflagration in Jacksonville, Florida, on May 3, 1901. It was one of the worst disasters in Florida history and the third largest urban fire in the U.S., after the Great Chicago Fire and the 1906 San Francisco fire.^[1]

1. ^ Davis, Ennis (October 20, 2009). "The Great Jacksonville Fire of 1901". Metro Jacksonville. Retrieved May 1, 2018.

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4 May 1904 – The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal.

Panama Canal

Shipping route across Central America

For the canal management, see Panama Canal Authority.

9°07′N 79°45′W / 9.12°N 79.75°W / 9.12; -79.75

The Panama Canal (Spanish: Canal de Panamá) is an artificial 82-kilometer (51-mile) waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, and is a conduit for maritime trade between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Locks at each end lift ships up to Gatun Lake, an artificial fresh water lake 26 meters (85 ft) above sea level, created by damming the Chagres River and Lake Alajuela to reduce the amount of excavation work required for the canal. Locks then lower the ships at the other end. The original locks are 33.5 meters (110 ft) wide and allow the passage of Panamax ships. A third, wider lane of locks was constructed between September 2007 and May 2016. The expanded waterway began commercial operation on 26 June 2016. The new locks allow for the transit of larger, Neopanamax ships. An average of 200,000,000 litres (52 million US gallons) of fresh water is used in a single passing of a ship. The canal is threatened by low water levels during droughts.^[1][2]

The Panama Canal shortcut greatly reduces the time for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, enabling them to avoid the lengthy, hazardous route around the southernmost tip of South America via the Drake Passage, the Strait of Magellan or the Beagle Channel. Its construction was one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken. Since its inauguration on 15 August 1914, the canal has succeeded in shortening maritime communication in time and distance, invigorating maritime and economic transportation by providing a short and relatively inexpensive transit route between the two oceans, decisively influencing global trade patterns, boosting economic growth in developed and developing countries, as well as providing the basic impetus for economic expansion in many remote regions of the world.^[3]

Colombia, France, and later the United States controlled the territory surrounding the canal during construction. France began work on the canal in 1881, but stopped in 1889 because of a lack of investors' confidence due to engineering problems and a high worker mortality rate. The US took over the project in 1904 and opened the canal in 1914. The US continued to control the canal and the surrounding Panama Canal Zone until the Torrijos–Carter Treaties provided for its handover to Panama in 1977. After a period of joint American–Panamanian control, the Panamanian government took control in 1999. It is now managed and operated by the Panamanian government-owned Panama Canal Authority. Annual traffic has risen from about 1,000 ships in 1914, when the canal opened, to 14,702 vessels in 2008, for a total of 333.7 million Panama Canal/Universal Measurement System (PC/UMS) tons. By 2012, more than 815,000 vessels had passed through the canal. In that year, the top five users of the canal were the United States, China, Chile, Japan, and South Korea.^[4][5] In 2017, it took ships an average of 11.38 hours to pass between the canal's two outer locks. The American Society of Civil Engineers has ranked the Panama Canal one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.^[6]

1. ^ Hibbert, Cynthia McCormick (24 September 2025). "Drought and low water levels could slow global trade at the Panama Canal". Northeastern Global News. Retrieved 16 December 2025.
2. ^ Garcia, Karina (31 March 2025), Morford, Stacy (ed.), The Panama Canal's other conflict: Water security for the population and the global economy, The Conversation, doi:10.64628/aai.avkrkv6rw
3. ^ Autoridad del Canal de Panamá. "Así es el Canal". Archived from the original on 6 May 2009. Retrieved 2 August 2009. Buques de todo el mundo transitan a diario a través del canal de Panamá. Entre 13 mil y 14 mil barcos utilizan, cada año, el canal. De hecho, las actividades de transporte comercial a través del canal representan alrededor del 5 % de comercio mundial.
4. ^ "Panama Canal Traffic – Years 1914–2010". Panama Canal Authority. Archived from the original on 30 December 2010. Retrieved 25 January 2011.
5. ^ Autoridad del Canal de Panamá – Oficina de investigación y análisis de mercado (15 October 2012). "Jerarquización de países por flujo de carga a través del canal de Panamá – Año fiscal 2012 (Toneladas largas)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2013.
6. ^ "Seven Wonders". American Society of Civil Engineers. Archived from the original on 2 August 2010. Retrieved 21 February 2011.

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