Today in History

[lliam]

April
==========

1948 - The World Health Organisation (WHO) was established


"It is a name which is the dearest to me after Albert, and one which recalls the almost only happy days of my sad childhood; to hear 'Prince Leopold' again, will make me think of all those days!"
[Queen Victoria, aged 34, chooses a name for her eighth child, delivered with the aid of chloroform anaesthesia on 7 April 1853.]


Feast day of St Celsus, St Goran, St Finan Cam, St George the Younger, St Hegesippus, St Aphraates, St Henry Walpole, St Herman Joseph, and St John Baptist de la Salle.





Events
-------

1827
The first matches were sold in Stockton, England, by their inventor, chemist John Walker.

1853
Chloroform was used as an anaesthetic on Queen Victoria, during the birth of her eighth child, Prince Leopold.

1906
A major eruption of the Italian volcano, Vesuvius, took place.

1939
Italy invaded Albania.

1948
The World Health Organization (WHO) was established.

1980
USA bannned trade with Iran, broke off relations, and expelled Iranian diplomats.

1992
The EC formally recognized the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

1997
US President Clinton, emerging from talks with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in Washington, failed to condemn the new Jewish Har Homa settlement in East Jerusalem.

1998
Singer George Michael is arrested in a Beverly Hills public restroom for "engaging in a lewd act."

1999
Kosovo War: Kosovo's main border crossings are closed by Serbian forces to prevent ethnic Albanians from leaving.

2001
Mars Odyssey is launched.

2001
An M-17 helicopter crashes into mountain in south of Hanoi, Vietnam killing 16.

2003
US troops capture Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's regime falls two days later.

2005
The State of Connecticut allows same-sex civil unions.

Births
-------

1506
St Francis Xavier, Spanish Jesuit missionary

1770
William Wordsworth, English poet

1915
Billie Holiday, US jazz singer

1920
Ravi Shankar, Indian sitar player

1939
David Frost, English TV presenter and interviewer

1939
Francis Ford Coppola, US film director

Deaths
--------

1614
El Greco, Greek-born Spanish painter

1739
Dick Turpin, English highwayman

1891
Phineas T Barnum, US showman

1947
Henry Ford, US car manufacturer

1955
Theda Bara, US silent-film actress

1968
Jim Clark, English racing driver, killed in a crash

2003
Cecile de Brunhoff, French storyteller

[lliam]

8 April
========

1997 - The results of the first ultrasonic scan of the front of the Titanic revealed a series of six short slits as the principle damage to the ship after it struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic in 1912.


Feast day of St Walter of Pontoise, St Julia Billart, St Perpetuus of Tours, and St Dionysus of Corinth.


"A helicopter crashes near Banbury. The pilot, four children and a woman are killed. An eager reporter on PM interviews an eyewitness, who describes what happened. 'But what did it look like?' persists the reporter. What he means is, 'What did it look like seeing six people burn to death?' "
[Alan Bennett, diary, 8 April 1986; from Writing Home (1994).]



Events
------

1513
Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León arrived in Florida and claimed it for Spain.

1820
The Venus de Milois discovered on the Aegean island of Melos

1838
Isambard Brunel's steamship Great Western set off on its first voyage, from Bristol to New York; the journey took 15 days.

1898
Lord Kitchener defeated Sudanese leader the Mahdi, at the Battle of Atbara.

1899
Martha Placebecomes the first woman to be executed in an electric chair

1908
Herbert Asquith became prime minister of Britain.

1939
In Albania, King Zog abdicated after Italy occupied the country.

1946
The League of Nations met for the last time.

1953
British colonial authorities in Kenya sentenced Jomo Kenyatta to seven years' imprisonment for allegedly organizing the Mau Mau guerrillas.

1992
Serb and federal army forces began bombardment of Sarajevo.

1997
The results of the first ultrasonic scan of the front of the Titanic revealed a series of six short slits as the principle damage to the ship after it struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic in 1912.

Births
-------

1889
Adrian Boult, English conductor

1893
Mary Pickford, US film actress

1919
Ian Smith, Rhodesian prime minister

1928
Eric Porter, English actor

1931
Dorothy Tutin, English actress

1944
Hywel Bennett, Welsh actor


Deaths
------

217
Caracalla, Roman emperor, assassinated

1848
Domenico Donizetti, Italian composer

1861
Elisha Graves Otis, US inventor of the safety lift

1973
Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter

1993
Marian Anderson, US contralto

[lliam]

9 April
=========

1865 - The American Civil War came to an end when Confederate General Robert E Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S Grant, at Appomattox, Virginia


Feast day of St Madrun, St Uramar, St Hugh of Rouen, St Gaucherius, St Mary Cleophas, and St Waldetrudis.


"The much talked of surrendering of Lee's sword and my handing it back, this and much more that has been said about it is the purest romance."
[Schoolroom history decided to ignore Ulysses S Grant's account of the surrender of Confederate forces under General Robert E Lee at Appomattox, 9 April 1865.]



Events
--------

1747
The Scottish Jacobite Lord Lovat was beheaded on Tower Hill, London, for high treason; he was the last man to be executed in this way in Britain.

1770
English navigator James Cook arrived in Botany Bay, Australia, the first European to do so.

1865
The American Civil War came to an end when Confederate General Robert E Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S Grant, at Appomattox, Virginia.

1869
The Hudson Bay Company agreed to transfer its territory to Canada.

1917
In France, during World War I, Canadian forces began the assault on Vimy Ridge, and the Battle of Arras began.

1969
The British supersonic aircraft Concorde made its first test flight, from Bristol to Fairford, Gloucestershire.

1991
The parliament of Georgia voted to assert independence from the USSR.

1992
British General Election confounded predictions of opinion pollsters by returning the Conservatives for a fourth term, though with a reduced majority of 21.

1995
President Alberto Fujimori of Peru was the first person to be elected for a second consecutive term.

1997
Hong Kong's incoming government stated that draconian curbs would be imposed on the activities of political organizations and the right to protest after the handover of the colony to China at the end of June 1997.

1999
NigerianPresident Ibrahim Baré Maïnassarais assassinated.

2002
The funeral of HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother of the United Kingdom is held at Westminster Abbey.

2005
HRH Charles, Prince of Wales weds Camilla Parker Bowles

Births
-------

1806
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, English engineer

1821
Charles Baudelaire, French poet

1898
Paul Robeson, US actor and singer

1906
Hugh Gaitskell, British politician

1933
Jean-Paul Belmondo, French film actor

1957
Severiano Ballesteros, Spanish golfer

Deaths
--------

1483
Edward IV, King of England

1492
Lorenzo de' Medici, Florentine ruler

1626
Francis Bacon, English philosopher and politician

1882
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, English painter and poet

1945
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian

1959
Frank Lloyd Wright, US architect

[lliam]

10 April
=========

1997 - In the UK, the National Trust's ruling council voted unanimously to ban stag-hunting on its land after a study concluded that the chase caused extreme suffering and exhaustion to the deer.


Feast day of St Hedda of Peterborough, Saints Beocca and Hethor, St Bademus, St Macarius of Ghent, St Paternus of Abdinghhof, St Michael de Sanctis, St Fulbert of Chartres, and the Martyrs under the Danes.

"If we follow violence the Chinese will find it easy to crush us. But if we use reason we can change the situation," the Dalai Lama on Tibetan resistance to Chinese occupation, April 10th, 1988.


Events
-------

1633 Bananas, never seen before in England, were on sale in a London shop.

1820 The first British settlers landed at Algoa Bay, South Africa.

1841 The US newspaper New York Tribune was first published.

1849 The safety pin was patented in the USA; unaware of this, a British inventor patented his own safety pin later the same year.

1864 Austrian Archduke Maximilian was made emperor of Mexico.

1972 Earthquakes in Iran killed over 3,000 people.

1983 US Middle East peace plan collapsed when Jordan withdrew from talks.

1997 A German court ruled that Iran's leaders ordered the Sept 1992 murders of three Iranian Kurdish opposition activists in Berlin. The judgement plunged German and EU relations with Iran into a crisis.

1997 In the UK, the National Trust's ruling council voted unanimously to ban stag-hunting on its land after a study concluded that the chase caused extreme suffering and exhaustion to the deer.

Births
--------

1512 King James V of Scotland

1778 William Hazlitt, English essayist and critic

1829 William Booth, English founder of the Salvation Army

1847 Joseph Pulitzer, US newspaper proprietor who founded the Pulitzer Prize for literature and journalism

1929 Max von Sydow, Swedish actor

1932 Omar Sharif, Egyptian film actor

Deaths
--------

1813 Joseph-Louis Lagrange, French mathematician

1909 Algernon Charles Swinburne, English poet

1919 Emiliano Zapata, Mexican revolutionary leader, shot by government troops

1954 Auguste Lumière, French cinema pioneer

1966 Evelyn Waugh, English novelist

1993 Chris Hani, South African ANC leader, asssassinated

1995 Yun Chen, Chinese communist politician

1995 Morarji Desai, Indian politician

[lliam]

11 April
==========

1814 - Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to the island of Elba; Louis XVIII became king of France.


Feast day of St Guthlac, St Stanislas, St Godeberta, St Barsanuphius, St Gemma Galgani, St Isaac of Spoleto, and St Stanislaus of Cracow.

"I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail."
[President Harry S Truman on his sacking of General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War, 11 April 1951.]

Events
--------

1564
The Peace of Troyes ended the war between England and France.

1689
The coronation of William III and Mary II took place in London.

1713
The War of the Spanish Succession was ended by the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht; France ceded Newfoundland and Gibraltar to Britain.

1814
Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to the island of Elba; Louis XVIII became king of France.

1855
Britain's first pillar boxes were put up in London; there were just six of them, and they were painted green.

1945
Allied troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald.

1951
US General Douglas MacArthur was relieved of his command in Korea, after a disagreement with President Truman.

1961
Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann went on trial in Jerusalem after being kidnapped from Argentina, where he had fled after World War II.

1996
Fire destroyed the main terminal building at Düsseldorf airport, killing 16 people.

1997
The government of Indian Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda lost a parliamentary vote of confidence and resigned.

1997
In a landmark settlement, a British multinational chemical company agreed to pay £1.3 million in compensation to 20 South African workers who were poisoned by mercury.

2002
The Ghriba synagogue bombing by Al Qaeda kills 21 in Tunisia.

2002
An attempted coup d'état in Venezuela against President Hugo Chavez began.

Births
-------

1755
James Parkinson, English physician who discovered Parkinson's disease

1770
George Canning, British prime minister

1819
Charles Hallé, German-born British pianist and conductor

1893
Dean Acheson, US politician

1908
Dan Maskell, British tennis player, coach, and commentator

1933
Joel Grey, US actor and singer

Deaths
---------

1514
Donato Bramante, Italian architect who began St Peter's, Rome

1554
Thomas Wyatt, English soldier and conspirator

1926
Luther Burbank, US botanist

1960
Archibald McIndoe, New Zealand-born plastic surgeon

1970
John O'Hara, US novelist

1987
Primo Levi, Italian chemist, composer, librettist, and author

1987
Erskine Caldwell, US novelist

2001
Harry Secombe, Welsh actor and comedian

[lliam]

12 April
========

1606 - the Union Jack was adopted as the offical flag of Britain.


"My Führer, I congratulate you! Roosevelt is dead! It is written in the stars that the second half of April will be a turning point for us."
[Josef Goebbels: memo to Adolf Hitler on the death of the US president on 12 April 1945. By the end of the month both Hitler and Goebbels had committed suicide.]

Feast day of St Zeno of Verona, St Julius I, pope, St Sabas the Goth and Others, and St Alferius.

Events
--------

1204
Soldiers taking part in the Fourth Crusade under the direction of the Doge of Venice, captured the Byzantine city of Constantinople.

1606
The Union Jack was adopted as the official flag of England.

1782
The British fleet under Admiral Rodney defeated the French fleet in the Battle of the Saints in the West Indies.

1861
The American Civil War began when Confederate troops fired on the Federal garrison at Fort Sumter.

1943
The 'Katyn massacre', the grave of 4,500 Polish officers at Katyn near Smolensk in the USSR, was discovered.

1961
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the Earth.

1981
The US space shuttle Columbia was launched from Cape Canaveral.

Births
-------

1777
Henry Clay, American politician

1913
Lionel Hampton, US bandleader

1924
Raymond Barre, French politician

1939
Alan Ayckbourn, English playwright

1941
Bobby Moore, English footballer

Deaths
-------

1748
William Kent, English architect and landscape gardener

1938
Fyodor Chaliapin, Russian operatic bass

1945
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd president of the USA

1975
Josephine Baker, US-born French singer and dancer

1988
Alan Paton, South African novelist and politician

1989
Sugar Ray Robinson, American boxer

[lliam]

13 April
========

1919 - The Amritsar Massacre in the Punjab, India, by British troops.



Feast day of St Guinoch, St Martin I, pope, Saints Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice, St Hermenegild, and St Martius.


"Sir Joshua was much affected by the death of Goldsmith... He did not touch the pencil for that day, a circumstance most extraordinary for him, who passed no day without a line."
[The London Magazine, 13 April 1774: Sir Joshua Reynolds was a friend of the author.]

Events
---------

1598
Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, giving religious freedom to the Huguenots.

1668
English poet John Dryden became the first Poet Laureate.

1829
The British Parliament passed the Catholic Emancipation Act, lifting restrictions imposed on Catholics at the time of Henry VIII.

1919
The Amritsar Massacre took place in the Punjab, India; British troops fired into a crowd of 10,000 which had gathered to protest at the arrest of two Indian Congress Party leaders, 379 people were killed and 1,200 wounded.

1936
LutonTownfootballer Joe Payne set a goal-scoring record when he scored ten goals in one match against Bristol Rovers.

1980
Spanish golfer Severiano Ballesteros became the youngest-ever winner of the US Masters Tournament.

1983
In the USA, Harold Washington was elected the first African-American mayor of Chicago.

1996
Cyril Ramaphosa, secretary general of the ANC and chair of the South African Constitutional Assembly, resigned unexpectedly.

1997
In his first year as a professional US golfer, Tiger Woods, aged 21, became the youngest US Masters champion at Augusta, Georgia, achieving the lowest total ever recorded in the Masters, 270.

Births
-------

1743
Thomas Jefferson, 3rd president of the USA

1771
Richard Trevithick, English engineer

1852
F W Woolworth, US founder of chain stores

1922
John Braine, English novelist

1939
Seamus Heaney, Irish poet

1963
Gary Kasparov, Russian chess player

Deaths
------

1605
Boris Godunov, Russian tsar

1695
Jean de La Fontaine, French writer of fables

1910
William Orchardson, Scottish painter

1966
Abdul Salam Arif, president of Iraq

1983
Christmas Humphreys, English judge