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On this day in history…
April 30
1492 Columbus is given royal commission to equip his fleet
1789 George Washington is inaugurated as the first President of the United States of America
1859 Charles Dickens’ “A Tale Of Two Cities” is first published in literary periodical “All the Year Round” (weekly installments until Nov 26)
1904 Ice cream cone makes its debut
1937 The Philippines holds a plebiscite for Filipino women on whether they should be extended the right to suffrage; over 90% would vote in the affirmative.
1938 The first televised FA Cup Final takes place between Huddersfield Town and Preston North End.
1952 Mr Potato Head is 1st toy advertised on television
1980 Juliana, Queen of the Netherlands, abdicates; Princess Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard becomes Queen
1993 The World Wide Web is born at CERN.
2013 Willem-Alexander becomes the first male Monarch of Netherlands in 123 years
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April 29
1429 Joan of Arc arrives at the seige of Orleans
1553 Flemish woman introduces practice of starching linen into England
1852 1st edition of Peter Roget’s Thesaurus published
1864 Battle of Gate Pa (Pukehinahina): 1,700 British troops suffer their worst defeat of the New Zealand Wars at the hands of 230 entrenched Maori warriors in Tauranga, 31 British troops dead, 80 wounded, Maori lose 25
1930 North Sea floodgate at Ijmuiden (biggest in world) officially opens
1975 Vietnam War: Operation Frequent Wind: The U.S. begins to evacuate US citizens from Saigon prior to an expected North Vietnamese takeover. U.S. involvement in the war comes to an end.
1976 Minister Irene Vorrink begins fluoridating Dutch drinking water
1981 Peter Sutcliffe admits he is the Yorkshire Ripper (murdered 13 women)
1990 Wrecking cranes began tearing down the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate
2005 New Zealand’s first civil union takes place.
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April 28
1376 English parliament demands supervision on royal outlay
1611 Establishment of the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, the oldest existing university in Asia and the largest Catholic university in the world.
1770 British Captain James Cook, aboard the Endeavour, lands at Botany Bay in Australia
1789 Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny on HMS Bounty against its captain William Bligh
1902 Using the ISO 8601 standard Year Zero definition for the Gregorian calendar preceded by the Julian calendar, the one billionth minute since the start of January 1, Year Zero occurs at 10:40 AM on this date.
1935 Moscow underground railway opens (81 km long)
1947 Thor Heyerdahl & “Kon-Tiki” sail from Peru to Polynesia
1967 Muhammad Ali refuses induction into army & stripped of boxing title
1989 Iran protests sale of “Satanic Verses” by Salman Rushdie
2003 Andre Agassi recaptures the world no. 1 ranking to become the oldest top-ranked male in the history of the ATP rankings (33 years, 13 days)
2004 Shrek the sheep from Tarra New Zealand, is finally shorn live on tv after 6 years avoidance, the fleece weighed 27 kg (60 lb)
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April 27
1565 1st Spanish settlement in Philippines, Cebu City, forms
1810 Beethoven composes his famous piano piece, Für Elise.
1840 Foundation stone for new Palace of Westminster, London, laid by wife of Sir Charles Barry.
1940 Himmler orders establishment of Auschwitz Concentration Camp
1956 Heavyweight champ, Rocky Marciano, retires undefeated from boxing
1981 Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse.
1982 Trial of John W Hinckley Jr attempted assassin of Reagan, begins
1989 Mandatory seatbelt law goes into effect in Italy
1992 Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history.
1994 Former US President Richard Nixon buried in Nixon Library in California
2005 The Superjumbo jet aircraft Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France
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April 26
1467 The miraculous image in Our Lady of Good Counsel appear in Genazzano, Italy.
1514 Copernicus makes his 1st observations of Saturn
1755 1st Russian university opens (Moscow)
1928 Madame Tussaud’s waxwork exhibition opens in London
1941 Potatoes rationed in Holland
1954 Nationwide test of Salk anti-polio vaccine begins
1971 Heaviest rains ever in Bahia district of Brazil, 15″ in 24 hrs
1982 Rod Stewart is mugged, gunman steals his $50,000 Porsche
1986 World’s worst nuclear disaster: 4th reactor at Chernobyl nuclear power station in USSR explodes, 31 die, contamination reach much of Western Europe
1991 Soccer star Diego Maradona, suspended for using cocaine, arrested in Argentina for possession & distribution of illegal narcotics
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April 25
1507 German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller 1st to use the name America on his world map Universalis Cosmographia
1684 Patent granted for thimble
1719 Daniel Defoe publishes “Robinson Crusoe”
1792 Guillotine first used in France, executes highwayman Nicolas Pelletier
1886 Sigmund Freud opens practice at Rathausstrasse 7, Vienna
1915 First landings at Gaba Tepe and Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula by ANZAC forces during WWI
1926 Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Turandot” premieres in Milan
1953 Francis Crick and James Watson’s discovery of the double helix structure of DNA is published in “Nature” magazine
1954 Bell labs announces 1st solar battery (NYC)
2015 100 year anniversary of the Gallipoli Peninsula landings in Turkey by ANZAC forces during WWI
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April 24
1184 BC The Greeks enter Troy using the Trojan Horse (traditional date).
1792 “La Marseillaise” composed by Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle
1872 Volcano Mt Vesuvius erupts
1913 Skyscraper, the Woolworth Building in New York City is opened
1953 Winston Churchill knighted by Queen Elizabeth II
1961 JFK accepts “sole responsibility” following Bay of Pigs
1961 17th century Swedish warship Vasa, which sunk on her maiden voyage in 1628, is salvaged
1969 Paul McCartney says there is no truth to rumours he is dead
1981 IBM-PC computer introduced
1990 West & East Germany agree to merge currency & economies on July 1st
2005 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.
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April 23
215 BC A temple, built on the Capitoline Hill, is dedicated to Venus Erycina to commemorate the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene
1348 1st English order of knighthood founded (Order of Garter)
1516 Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria endorses “The German Beer Purity Law” (Reinheitsgebot) and adds to it standards for the sale of beer
1597 William Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” is first performed, with Queen Elizabeth I of England in attendance
1867 Queen Victoria & Napoleon III turn down plans for a channel tunnel
1932 Shakespeare Memorial Theatre opens at Stratford-on-Avon
1977 Czech chess master Vlastimil Hort plays 201 games simultaneously & only loses 10
1989 Wine merchant William Sokolin breaks a bottle of 1787 Château Margaux, possibly belonging to Thomas Jefferson, worth $500,000 at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York
1992 McDonald’s opens its 1st fast-food restaurant in China
2009 Gamma ray burst (GRB) 090423 is observed for 10 seconds, the most distant object of any kind and also the oldest known object in the universe
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April 22
1823 R J Tyers patents roller skates
1876 Tsjaikovsky completes his “Swan Lake” ballet
1884 Thomas Stevens starts 1st bike trip around world (2 yrs 9 mos)
1906 10th anniversary Olympic games open at Athens, Greece
1944 Hitler & Benito Mussolini meet at Salzburg
1963 Lester B. Pearson is sworn in as the 14th Prime Minister of Canada
1964 World’s Fair (Flushing Meadow, Corona Park, NY) opens
1969 1st human eye transplant perform
1970 1st Earth Day held internationally to conserve natural resources
1997 The Japanese embassy hostage crisis ends in Lima, Peru.
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April 21
753 BC Romulus and Remus found Rome (traditional date).
1689 William III & Mary Stuart proclaimed King & Queen of England
1878 First Lady Lucy Hayes begins egg rolling contest on White House lawn
1940 1st $64 Question, “Take It or Leave It,” on CBS Radio
1975 Last South Vietnam President Nguyen Van Thieu resigns after 10 years
1976 Swine Flu vaccine, for non-epidemic, enters testing
1984 Centres for Disease Cont says virus discovered in France causes AIDS
1991 French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio discovers the San Diego, Dutch galleon sunk in 1600 off Fortune Island in the Philippines
1994 The first discoveries of extrasolar planets are announced by astronomer Alexander Wolszczan.
2012 Two trains in Sloterdijk, Netherlands, injure 117 people in a head on collision
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April 20
1611 First known performance of Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth at the Globe Theatre, London recorded by Simon Forman
1736 French mathematician Pierre Louis Maupertuis begins his expedition to Lapland to measure a degree of latitude and prove the shape of the earth, he is joined by fellow scientists Anders Celsius, Charles Etienne Louis Camus, Alexis Claude Clairaut, and Pierre-Charles Le Monnier
1759 George Frideric Handel is buried in Westminster Abbey, London
1770 Captain Cook arrives in New South Wales
1841 1st detective story (Edgar Allen Poe’s “Murders in Rue Morgue”) published
1862 The first pasteurisation test is completed by Frenchmen Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard.
1902 Marie & Pierre Curie isolate the radioactive element radium chloride
1918 Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims marking his final victories before his death the following day.
1999 Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School, Colorado
2013 193 people are killed and 11,826 are injured after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake strikes Lushan County, China
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April 19
1770 British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia
1775 American Revolution begins – Lexington Common, shot “heard round the world”
1874 Barracks on Alcatraz Island destroyed in fire
1909 Joan of Arc receives beatification by the Roman Catholic Church
1934 Shirley Temple appears in her 1st movie, “Stand Up & Cheer”
1941 Milk rationed in Holland
1966 Roberta Bignay becomes 1st woman to run in the Boston Marathon
1982 Sally Ride announced as 1st woman astronaut
1995 Oklahoma City bombing – a truck bomb at Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building kills 168 & injures 500
2005 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger elected Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of the Papal conclave.
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April 18
1506 The cornerstone of the current St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, is laid.
1521 Diet of Worms: Cardinal Alexander questions Martin Luther
1874 David Livingstone, African explorer, buried in Westminster Abbey
1881 Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico.
1899 The St. Andrew’s Ambulance Association is granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria.
1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire kills nearly 4,000 while destroying 75% of the city
1912 The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia brings 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic to New York City.
1958 A United States federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound is to be released from an insane asylum.
1983 Pulitzer Prize awarded to Alice Walker for “The Colour Purple”
2013 Two earth-like planets are discovered orbiting the star Kepler-62
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April 17
1397 Geoffrey Chaucer tells the “Canterbury Tales” for the first time at the court of English King Richard II
1492 Christopher Columbus signs contract with Spain to find Indies
1875 Modern Snooker invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain in Jabalpur India
1948 Elpidio Quirino assumes the Presidency of the Philippines, taking his oath of office two days after the death of President Manuel Roxas
1961 Jimmy Stewart accepts an honorary Oscar on behalf of his friend Gary Cooper, who is too ill to attend
1964 Ford Mustang formally introduced
1986 IBM produces 1st megabit-chip
1997 John Bell, 115, recieves new pacemaker
2012 St Cuthbert Gospel, Europe’s oldest intact book (8th century), purchased by the British Library for 9 million pounds
2013 Same-sex marriage is legalised in New Zealand
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April 16
1705 Queen Anne of England knights Isaac Newton at Trinity College, Cambridge
1780 The University of Münster in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany is founded.
1912 Harriet Quimby becomes 1st woman pilot to fly across English Channel
1922 Annie Oakley sets women’s record by breaking 100 clay targets in a row
1943 Swiss scientist Dr. Albert Hofmann discovers the psychedelic effects of LSD.
1953 British royal yacht Britannia launched by Queen Elizabeth II1964 9 men sentenced 25-30 years for Britain’s 1963 “Great Train Robbery”
1980 Arthur Ashe retires from professional tennis
1982 Queen Elizabeth proclaims Canada’s new constitution
2004 The super liner Queen Mary 2 embarks on her first Transatlantic crossing, linking the golden age of ocean travel to the modern age of ocean travel.
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April 15
1493 Columbus meets with King Ferdinand & Isabella
1729 Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St Matthew Passion” premieres in Leipzig
1738 Bottle opener invented
1802 William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy see a “long belt” of daffodils, inspiring the former to pen “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”.
1865 Abraham Lincoln dies 9 hours after he is shot attending the play “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre in Washington
1912 RMS Titanic sinks at 2:27 AM off Newfoundland as the band plays on
1923 Insulin becomes generally available for diabetics
1983 Tokyo Disneyland opens
1988 Meteorite explode above Indonesia
2010 Volcanic ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland leads to the closure of airspace over most of Europe.
2013 Boston Marathon bombings: 3 people are killed and 183 injured after two explosions near the finish line
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April 14
43 BC Battle of Forum Gallorum: Mark Antony, besieging Julius Caesar’s assassin Decimus Junius Brutus in Mutina, defeats the forces of the consul Pansa, who is killed.
1434 The foundation stone of Cathedral St. Peter and St. Paul in Nantes, France is laid.
1828 First American Dictionary: its author Noah Webster registers its copyright for publication
1894 1st public showing of Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope (moving pictures)
1903 Dr Harry Plotz discovers vaccine against typhoid (NYC)
1912 RMS Titanic hits an iceberg at 11.40pm off Newfoundland
1989 1,100,000,000th Chinese born
1999 A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$1.7 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.
2010 Icelandic Volcano Eyjafjallajökull begins erupting from the top crater in the centre of the glacier
2015 The oldest stone tools, at 3.3 million-years old, are found at Lomekwi 3, Kenya
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April 13
837 Best view of Halley’s Comet in 2000 years
1742 George Frideric Handel’s oratorio “Messiah” performed for the 1st time at New Music Hall in Dublin
1796 1st elephant arrives in US from India
1860 1st Pony Express reaches Sacramento, California
1869 Steam power brake patented (George Westinghouse)
1870 Metropolitan Museum of Art forms in NYC
1902 J C Penney opens his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming
1933 1st flight over Mount Everest (Lord Clydesdale)
1964 New Zealand Colin Bosher shears a record 565 sheep in 1 work day
1970 Apollo 13 announces “Houston, we’ve got a problem!” as Beech-built oxygen tank explodes en route to Moon
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April 12
1606 England adopts the Union Flag, replaced in 1801 by current Union Flag/Union Jack
1826 Weber’s opera “Oberon” premieres in London
1857 Gustave Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” published
1877 Catcher’s mask 1st used in a baseball game
1905 French Dufaux brothers test helicopter
1937 Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft at Rugby, England.
1945 US President Franklin Roosevelt dies in office and Vice-President Harry Truman is sworn in as 33rd US President
1954 Bill Haley & Comets records “Rock Around The Clock”
1961 Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin becomes 1st person to orbit Earth (Vostok 1)
1980 US Olympic Committee endorses a boycott of the Moscow Olympic games
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April 11
1775 The last execution for witchcraft in Germany takes place.
1814 Napoleon abdicates unconditionally; he is exiled to Elba
1921 First sports broadcast on the radio takes place.
1945 US soldiers liberate Nazi concentration camp “Buchenwald”
1950 Prince Rainier III becomes ruler of Monaco
1961 Bob Dylan makes his 1st appearance at Folk City, Greenwich Village
1970 Apollo 13 launched to Moon; unable to land, returns in 6 days
1976 The Apple I is created.
1981 Ronald Reagan arrives home from hospital after Hinkley shot him
1986 Halley’s Comet makes closest approach to Earth this trip, 63 M km
2012 8.6 magnitude earthquake and 8.2 aftershock occurs off the coast of Indonesia
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April 10
1710 The first law regulating copyright is issued in Great Britain
1790 US Patent system forms
1849 Safety pin patented by Walter Hunt (NYC); sold rights for $400
1858 “Big Ben”, a 13.76 tonne bell, is recast in the Tower of Westminster
1877 1st human cannonball act performed in London
1887 President Abraham Lincoln’s re-buried with his wife in Springfield, Ilinois
1912 RMS Titanic sets sail from Southampton for her maiden (and final) voyage
1930 Synthetic rubber first produced
1955 Dr Jonas Salk successfully tests Polio vaccine
1968 Ferry Wahine sinks in Wellington harbour, New Zealand on route from Lyttelton (51 killed)
April 09
715 Constantine ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1483 Edward V (aged 12) succeeds his father Edward IV as king of England. He was never crowned, and disappeared, presumed murdered, after incarceration in the Tower of London with his younger brother Richard (the “Princes in the Tower”)
1667 1st public art exhibition (Palais-Royale, Paris)
1865 US Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee and 26,765 troops surrender at Appomattox Court House to US Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant
1872 Samuel R Percy patents dried milk
1953 “TV Guide” publishes 1st issue
1967 1st Boeing 737 rolls out
1968 Martin Luther King Jr., buried in Atlanta
1992 John Majors elected PM of England
2002 Funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother at Westminster Abbey UK. More than a million people line the streets
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April 08
1093 The new Winchester Cathedral is dedicated by bishop Walkelin
1766 1st fire escape patented, wicker basket on a pulley & chain
1820 The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Melos
1879 Milk was sold in glass bottles for 1st time
1966 OAO 1, 1st orbiting astronomical observatory, launched
1968 40th Academy Awards postponed to Apr 10th due to death of Martin Luther King
1983 In front of a live audience of 20 tourists, David Copperfield makes the Statue of Liberty disappear
1986 Clint Eastwood elected mayor of Carmel California
1992 After 151 years Britain’s “Punch Magazine” final issue
2008 The construction of the world’s first building to integrate wind turbines completes, in Bahrain
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April 07
451 Attila’s Huns plunder Metz
1739 Dick Turpin executed in England for horse stealing
1795 France adopts the metre as the basic measure of length
1827 English chemist John Walker invents wooden matches
1906 Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples
1923 1st brain tumor operation under local anesthetic performed (Beth Israel Hospital in NYC) by Dr K Winfield Ney
1948 World Health Organization formed by the United Nations
1969 The Internet’s symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1
1983 Oldest human skeleton, aged 80,000 years, discovered in Egypt
2001 Mars Odyssey is launched
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April 06
1722 Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, ends tax on men with beards
1843 William Wordsworth is appointed British Poet Laureate by Queen Victoria
1869 1st plastic, Celluloid, patented
1889 George Eastman places Kodak Camera on sale for 1st time
1909 North Pole reached by Americans Robert Peary & Matthew Henson
1912 Electric starter 1st appeared in cars
1938 Teflon invented by Roy J Plunkett
1976 1st quadrophonic movie track: “Ladies & Gentlemen the Rolling Stones”
1980 Post It Notes, introduced
2006 NZSL (New Zealand sign language) is made an official language of New Zealand
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April 05
1242 Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod defeats Teutonic Knights in the Battle of the Ice
1621 Mayflower sails from Plymouth on a return trip to England
1804 High Possil Meteorite: The first recorded meteorite in Scotland falls in Possil.
1879 Chile declares war on Bolivia and Peru, starting the War of the Pacific.
1887 Anne Sullivan teaches “water” to Helen Keller
1923 Firestone Co put their inflatable tires into production
1955 Winston Churchill resigns as British PM, Anthony Eden succeeds him
1974 Then tallest building, World Trade Center opens in NYC (110 stories)
1990 Paul Newman wins a court victory over Julius Gold, to keep giving all profits from Newman foods to charity
1997 Steve Irwin’s “The Crocodile Hunter” debuts
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April 04
1581 Francis Drake knighted by Queen Elizabeth I aboard Golden Hind at Deptford
1655 The miraculous statue entitled the Infant of Prague is solemnly crowned by command of Cardinal Harrach.
1828 Casparus van Wooden patents chocolate milk powder (Amsterdam)
1850 City of Los Angeles incorporated
1902 Cecil Rhodes scholarship fund forms with $10 million
1918 Battle of Somme ends
1932 Vitamin C 1st isolated, CC King, Univ of Pittsburgh
1969 Denton Cooley gets 1st temporary artificial heart
1975 Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
2013 Poecilotheria rajaei, a giant tarantula with a 20cm leg span, is discovered in Sri Lanka
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April 03
1790 Revenue Marine Service (US Coast Guard) created
1882 Wood block alarm invented, when alarm rang, it dropped 20 wood blocks
1882 American Old West: Outlaw Jesse James is killed by Robert Ford.
1933 1st airplane flight over Mt Everest
1970 Miriam Hargrave of England passes her drivers test on 40th attempt
1982 UN Security Council demanded Argentina withdraw from Falkland Islands
1986 US national debt hits $2,000,000,000,000
1987 Duchess of Windsor’s jewels auctioned for £31,380,197
1991 UN Security Council adopts Gulf War truce resolution
2009 Australia formally adopts the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
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April 02
999 Gerbert of Aurillac elected as 1st French Pope
1845 H L Fizeau & J Leon Foucault take 1st photo of Sun
1877 1st Easter egg roll held on White House lawn
1912 Titanic undergoes sea trials under its own power
1916 57 armed New Zealand police invade the remote Ngāi Tūhoe settlement of Maungapōhatu in the Urewera Ranges to arrest the Māori prophet Rua Kēnana
1921 Albert Einstein lectures in New York City on his new “Theory of Relativity”
1932 Charles Lindbergh turns over $50,000 as ransom for kidnapped son
1954 Plans to build Disneyland 1st announced
1958 Antillean Brewery (Amstel beer) opens
1978 Velcro was first put on the market
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April 01
1724 Jonathan Swift publishes Drapier’s letters
1748 Ruins of Pompeii found
1778 New Orleans businessman Oliver Pollock creates “$” symbol
1826 Samuel Morey patents internal combustion engine, which he calls a “Gas or Vapour Engine”
1891 London-Paris telephone connection opens
1905 SOS first adopted as a morse distress signal (· · · – – – · · ·) by German government
1924 The Royal Canadian Air Force is formed.
1940 Filipino President Quezon officially authorises the printing and publication of the grammar and dictionary prepared by the Institute of the National Language.
1946 Weight Watchers forms
1976 Stephen Wozniak & Steve Jobs found Apple Computer
2004 Google introduces Gmail: the launch is met with scepticism on account of the launch date.
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