On this day: May 1

May 1: Beltane in Ireland and Scotland

Moses Fleetwood Walker

• 1753 – Carl Linnaeus published his Species Plantarum, which, with his earlier work Systema Naturae, is considered the beginning of modern botanical nomenclature.
• 1794 – War of the Pyrenees: France regained nearly all the land it lost to Spain the previous year with its victory in the Second Battle of Boulou.
• 1884 – Moses Fleetwood Walker (pictured), the last African American in Major League Baseball until Jackie Robinson, played his first game for the Toledo Blue Stockings.
• 1974 – Argentine President Juan Perón expelled the Montoneros from a demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, forcing the group to become clandestine and later a target of the Dirty War.
• 1985 – Labor groups in the Philippines established the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, a political coalition and communist front, in order to challenge the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.

Honora Sneyd (d. 1780) · Anna Jarvis (b. 1864) · Ulric Cross (b. 1917)

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On this day: April 30

April 30: Consumer Protection Day in Thailand; Reunification Day in Vietnam

"Hoisting of American Colors over Louisiana" by Thure de Thulstrup

• 313 – By defeating the armies of his rival Maximinus II, Roman emperor Licinius unified the eastern half of the empire under his rule.
• 1598 – King Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, granting freedom of religion to the Huguenots.
• 1803 – The United States purchased France's claim to the Louisiana Territory (flag raising ceremony pictured) for 78 million francs, or less than US$.03 per acre ($.07/ha).
• 1943 – Second World War: The Royal Navy submarine HMS Seraph began Operation Mincemeat to deceive Germany about the upcoming invasion of Sicily.
• 2009 – A gunman went on a shooting spree at the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy, a public university in Baku, killing 12 people before committing suicide.

Marie of the Incarnation (d. 1672) · Eugen Bleuler (b. 1857) · Roger L. Easton (b. 1921)

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On this day: April 29

April 29: Pesach Sheni (Judaism, 2018)

Replica of HMS Endeavour

• 1770 – British explorer James Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour (replica pictured), the first European ship to land in eastern Australia, reached the coast of Botany Bay near present-day Sydney.
• 1910 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the People's Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public.
• 1968 – The controversial musical Hair, a product of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, opened at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway, with its songs becoming anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
• 1992 – The acquittal of policemen who had beaten African-American motorist Rodney King sparked civil unrest in Los Angeles that lasted for six days and killed 63 people.
• 2015 – The ringleaders of the Bali Nine were executed in Indonesia for attempting to smuggle 8.3 kilograms (18 lb) of heroin to Australia.

Thomas Cooper (d. 1594) · Georgia Hopley (b. 1858) · Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman (b. 1882)

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On this day: April 24

April 24: Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day

Library of Congress Building, Washington, D.C.

• 1547 – Schmalkaldic War: Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, led Imperial troops to a decisive victory in the Battle of Mühlberg over the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League of Protestant princes.
• 1800 – The Library of Congress (building pictured), the de facto national library of the United States, was established as part of an act of Congress providing for the transfer of the nation's capital from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
• 1914 – The Franck–Hertz experiment, a pillar in the development of quantum mechanics, was presented to the German Physical Society.
• 1980 – Eight U.S. servicemen died in Operation Eagle Claw, a failed attempt to rescue the hostages in the Iran hostage crisis.
• 2013 – A building in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed, resulting in over 1,100 deaths, making it the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern history.

Xu Guangqi (b. 1562) · G. Stanley Hall (d. 1924) · Kelly Clarkson (b. 1982)

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On this day: April 23

April 23

Can of New Coke

• 1516 – The most well-known version of the Reinheitsgebot, the German Beer Purity Law, was adopted across the entirety of Bavaria.
• 1661 – Charles II, King of England, Ireland, and Scotland was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
• 1918 – First World War: The British Royal Navy conducted an unsuccessful raid on the German-occupied port of Bruges-Zeebrugge in Belgium.
• 1951 – American journalist William N. Oatis was arrested for espionage by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia.
• 1985 – The Coca-Cola Company replaced its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola, with "New Coke" (pictured), which generated so much negative response that the company put the previous formula back on the market less than three months later.

William Shakespeare (d. 1616) · Karl Friedrich Bahrdt (d. 1792) · Kathy Lynch (b. 1957)

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On this day: April 22

April 22: Earth Day

The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889

• 1500 – Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral and his crew landed in present day Brazil and claimed the land for Portugal.
• 1889 – Over 50,000 people rushed to claim (pictured) a piece of the available two million acres (8,000 km²) in the Unassigned Lands, the present-day U.S. state of Oklahoma, entirely founding the brand-new Oklahoma City.
• 1915 – The Germans released chlorine gas in the Second Battle of Ypres, causing over 6,000 casualties, with many deaths within ten minutes by asphyxiation in the first large-scale successful use of poison gas in World War I.
• 1948 – Civil War in Mandatory Palestine: The Jewish paramilitary group Haganah captured Haifa from the Arab Liberation Army.
• 2013 – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested two men who were plotting to commit terrorist attacks against Via Rail Canada operations.

Germaine de Staël (b. 1766) · James Hargreaves (d. 1778) · Wilhelm Cauer (d. 1945)

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On this day: April 21

April 21

Mausoleum of four Shia Imams

• 43 BC – During the Battle of Mutina, forces led by Mark Antony killed Decimus Brutus, one of Julius Caesar's assassins.
• 1509 – Henry VIII became King of England, following the death of his father Henry VII, eventually becoming a significant figure in the history of the English monarchy.
• 1926 – Al-Baqi cemetery, former site of the mausoleum (pictured) of four of the Twelve Imams of Shia Islam, was leveled to the ground by Wahhabis.
• 1970 – In response to a dispute over wheat production quotas, the Principality of Hutt River proclaimed its secession from Western Australia.
• 2010 – Ukraine and Russia signed the Kharkiv Pact to extend the Russian lease on naval facilities in Crimea.

Bajkam (d. 941) · Jan Boeckhorst (d. 1668) · Ignatius Zakka I Iwas (b. 1931)

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On this day: April 20

April 20: Ridván begins at sunset (Bahá'í Faith); 4/20 (cannabis culture)

Danica Patrick

• 1535 – The appearance of sun dogs over Stockholm, Sweden, inspired the painting Vädersolstavlan, the oldest colour depiction of the city.
• 1818 – Four days after the Court of King's Bench in England upheld a murder suspect's right to trial by battle in Ashford v Thornton, the plaintiff declined to fight, allowing the defendant to go free.
• 1968 – British Member of Parliament Enoch Powell made his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech in opposition to immigration and anti-discrimination legislation, resulting in his removal from the Shadow Cabinet.
• 1978 – Soviet fighters shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 902 after it violated Soviet airspace.
• 2008 – American Danica Patrick (pictured) won the Indy Japan 300, becoming the first woman to win an IndyCar auto race.

John Clarke (d. 1676) · John Abernethy (d. 1831) · Nina Davuluri (b. 1989)

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On this day: April 17

April 17: Evacuation Day (1946); Tax Day in the United States (2018)

Kaunas Castle (reconstructed)

• 1080 – On the death of his brother Harald III, Canute IV, who later became the first Dane to be canonized, became King of Denmark.
• 1362 – Lithuanian Crusade: After a month-long siege, the Teutonic Order captured and destroyed Kaunas Castle (reconstruction pictured) in Lithuania.
• 1907 – The first of three dreadnought battleships for Brazil was laid down, sparking a vastly expensive South American naval arms race.
• 1973 – George Lucas began writing a 13-page film treatment entitled The Star Wars.
• 1982 – A new patriated Constitution of Canada, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a bill of rights intended to protect certain political and civil rights of people in Canada, was signed into law by Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada.

Marino Faliero (d. 1355) · Cap Anson (b. 1852)  · Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu (d. 1954)

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On this day: April 16

April 16: Patriots' Day in Maine and Massachusetts (2018)

Harriet Quimby

• 1818 – The United States Senate ratified the Rush–Bagot Treaty, which laid the basis for a demilitarized boundary between the U.S. and British North America.
• 1847 – New Zealand Wars: A minor Māori chief was accidentally shot by a junior British Army officer in the Petre settlement of New Zealand's North Island, triggering the Wanganui Campaign.
• 1912 – American Harriet Quimby (pictured) became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
• 1917 – Vladimir Lenin returned to Petrograd from Switzerland, and joined the Bolshevik movement in Russia.
• 2001 – India and Bangladesh began a five-day conflict over their disputed border, which ended in a stalemate.

Molly Brant (d. 1796) · Ponnambalam Ramanathan (b. 1851) · Khalil al-Wazir (d. 1988)

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On this day: April 15

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On this day: April 14

April 14: Bengali New Year, Vaisakhi (Sikhism), Tamil New Year, and other New Year festivals in Asia (2018); Day of the Georgian language in Georgia (1978)

Illustration of celestial phenomena in Nuremberg

• 193 – Septimius Severus seized the throne of the Roman Empire after the death of Pertinax during the Year of the Five Emperors.
• 1561 – In Nuremberg, a mass sighting of celestial phenomena (illustration pictured) took place of an "aerial battle" between odd-shaped objects.
• 1908 – The first Hauser Dam in the U.S. state of Montana failed and caused severe flooding and damage downstream.
• 1945 – The 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division deliberately destroyed the German town of Friesoythe on the orders of Major General Christopher Vokes.
• 2014 – Boko Haram kidnapped 276 female students from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria.

Christiaan Huygens (b. 1629) · Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom (b. 1857) · L. L. Zamenhof (d. 1917)

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On this day: April 12

April 12: Yuri's Night; Cosmonautics Day in Russia; Yom HaShoah (2018) in Israel

SMS Zrínyi

• 627 – King Edwin of Northumbria was converted to Christianity by Bishop Paulinus of York, who had previously saved his life.
• 1807 – The Froberg mutiny at Fort Ricasoli in Malta came to a close when the rebels blew up 600 barrels of gunpowder and escaped, although they were later caught.
• 1861 – Confederate forces began firing at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, starting the American Civil War.
• 1910 – SMS Zrínyi (pictured), one of the last pre-dreadnoughts built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy, was launched.
• 1994 – Husband-and-wife law partners Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel posted the first massive commercial spam on Usenet.

Charles VII of Sweden (d. 1167) · Alexander Ostrovsky (b. 1823) · Imogen Holst (b. 1907)

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On this day: April 11

April 11

Nevill Ground's pavilion after the 1913 arson

• 1814 – The Treaty of Fontainebleau was signed, ending the War of the Sixth Coalition, and forcing Napoleon to abdicate as ruler of France and sending him into exile on Elba.
• 1913 – The Nevill Ground's pavilion was destroyed (damage pictured) in the only suffragette arson attack on a cricket ground.
• 1968 – Rudi Dutschke, the most prominent leader of the German student movement, survived an assassination attempt, which led to the largest protests to that date in Germany.
• 1993 – Inmates at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, Ohio, U.S., rioted and took over the facility for 11 days.
• 2001 – In a qualifying match for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, Australia set a world record for the largest victory in an international football match, defeating American Samoa 31–0.

Anawrahta (d. 1077) · Arthur Shrewsbury (b. 1856) · Joseph Merrick (d. 1890)

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On this day: April 10

April 10

Big Ben

• 1815 – Mount Tambora in Indonesia began one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in recorded history, killing at least 71,000 people, and affecting worldwide temperatures for the next two years.
• 1858 – Big Ben (pictured), the bell in the Palace of Westminster's clock tower in London, was cast after the original bell had cracked during testing.
• 1944 – The Holocaust: Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler escaped from Auschwitz; their report was one of the earliest and most detailed descriptions of the mass killings in the camp.
• 1992 – Nagorno-Karabakh War: At least 40 Armenian civilians were massacred in Maraga, Azerbaijan.
• 2009 – Fijian President Ratu Josefa Iloilo announced that he had suspended the constitution and assumed all governance in the country after it was ruled that the government of Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama was illegal.

Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg (d. 1704) · Samuel Hahnemann (b. 1755) · Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri (b. 1917)

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On this day: April 8

April 8

Capture of Princesa

• 876 – Forces of the Abbasid Caliphate decisively defeated those of the Saffarid emir Ya'qub ibn Laith, forcing the latter to halt his advance into Iraq.
• 1740 – War of the Austrian Succession: The Royal Navy captured the Spanish ship of the line Princesa (pictured) and mustered her into British service.
• 1943 – Otto and Elise Hampel were executed in Berlin for their resistance activities against the Third Reich.
• 1968 – BOAC Flight 712 had an engine fire shortly after take-off from London Heathrow, leading to the deaths of five people on board, including flight attendant Jane Harrison, who was later awarded a posthumous George Cross for her heroism during the accident.
• 2008 – On board Soyuz TMA-12, Yi So-yeon became the first Korean person, and second Asian woman, to go into space.

Thomas of Tolentino (d. 1321) · Mary Stuart (b. 1605) · Betty Ford (b. 1918)

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On this day: April 7

April 7: National Beer Day in the United States

Fridtjof Nansen

• 1724 – Johann Sebastian Bach debuted the St John Passion, a musical representation of the Passion, at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.
• 1788 – American pioneers established the town of Marietta (in modern Ohio), the first permanent American settlement outside the original Thirteen Colonies.
• 1896 – An Arctic expedition led by Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen (pictured) reached 86°13.6'N, almost three degrees beyond the previous Farthest North mark.
• 1948 – The United Nations established the World Health Organization to act as a coordinating authority on international public health.
• 2010 – Thousands rioted in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, resulting in the collapse of the Kurmanbek Bakiyev government.

Toussaint Louverture (d. 1803) · John Bernard Flannagan (b. 1895) · Dave Arneson (d. 2009)

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On this day: April 6

April 6

Jalal Talabani

• 1712 – In New York City, a group of 23 slaves set a building on fire and escaped, but were soon recaptured.
• 1812 – Peninsular War: After a three-week siege, the Anglo-Portuguese Army, under the Earl of Wellington, captured Badajoz, Spain, and forced the surrender of the French garrison.
• 1886 – Vancouver, one of British Columbia's youngest cities, was incorporated.
• 1945 – Second World War: The Battle of Slater's Knoll on Bougainville Island concluded with a decisive victory for the Australian Army's 7th Brigade.
• 2005 – Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani (pictured) was elected by the Iraqi National Assembly as the first non-Arab President of Iraq.

Basil of Trebizond (d. 1340) · James Mill (b. 1773) · Donald Wills Douglas Sr. (b. 1892)

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On this day: April 5

April 5: Feast Day of Vincent Ferrer; Hansik in South Korea

Akashi Kaikyō Bridge

• 1081 – The Komnenian dynasty came to full power when Alexios I Komnenos was crowned Byzantine Emperor.
• 1710 – The Statute of Anne, the first fully-fledged law regulating copyright, received royal assent and went into effect five days later in Great Britain.
• 1936 – Tupelo–Gainesville tornado outbreak: An F5 tornado hit Tupelo, Mississippi, U.S., killing at least 216 people.
• 1986 – The Libyan secret service bombed a discotheque in West Berlin, killing 3 people and injuring 229 others.
• 1998 – Japan's Akashi Kaikyō Bridge (pictured), linking Awaji Island and Kobe, opened to traffic, becoming the longest suspension bridge in the world to date with a main span length of 1,991 metres (6,532 ft).

Al-Mu'tadid (d. 902) · Thure de Thulstrup (b. 1848) · Olek (b. 1978)

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