- 0043 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.
- 0069 Vitellius, commander of the Rhine armies, defeats Emperor Otho in the Battle of Bedriacum and seizes the throne.
- 1028 Henry III, son of Conrad, is elected king of the Germans.
- 1205 Battle of Adrianople between Bulgarians and Crusaders.
- 1341 Sack of Saluzzo (Italy) by Italian-Angevine troops under Manfred V of Saluzzo
- 1434 The foundation stone of Cathedral St. Peter and St. Paul in Nantes, France was laid.
- 1471 In England, the Yorkists under Edward IV defeat the Lancastrians under Warwick at the battle of Barnet; the Earl of Warwick is killed and Edward IV resumes the throne.
- 1632 Battle of Rain: Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.
- 1699 Khalsa. Birth of Khalsa, the brotherhood of the Sikh religion, in Northern India in accordance with the Nanakshahi calendar.
- 1775 The first abolition society in the North America is established. The "Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage" is organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.
- 1818 US Medical Corp forms
- 1828 18-gun sloop "Acorn" sinks off Halifax with 115 men aboard
- 1828 First edition of Noah Webster's dictionary published
- 1828 Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.
- 1831 Soldiers marching on a bridge in Manchester, England cause it to collapse.
- 1846 The Donner Party of pioneers departs Springfield, Illinois, for California, on what will become a year-long journey of hardship, cannibalism, and survival.
- 1849 Hungary declares itself independent of Austria with Louis Kossuth as its leader.
- 1860 Pony Express rider arrives in SF from St Joseph, Mo
- 1860 The first Pony Express rider reaches Sacramento, California.
- 1864 Battle of Dybbl: A Prussian-Austrian army defeats Denmark and gains control of Schleswig. Denmark surrenders the province in the following peace settlement.
- 1865 John Wilkes Booth shoots Abraham Lincoln
- 1865 Mobile, Alabama is captured
- 1865 Pres Abraham Lincoln shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth
- 1865 U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth.
- 1865 U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked in his home by Lewis Powell.
- 1868 South Carolina voters approved constitution, 70,758 to 27,228
- 1872 Dominion Lands Act passed-Canada's Homestead Act
- 1881 The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight erupted in El Paso, Texas.
- 1890 Pan American Day-1st conference of American states (Wash DC)
- 1890 The Pan-American Union is founded by the First International Conference of American States in Washington.
- 1894 Firt public showing of Edison's kinetoscope (moving pictures)
- 1894 Thomas Edison demonstrates the kinetoscope, a device for peep-show viewing using photographs that flip in sequence, a precursor to movies.
- 1898 Commissioning of first Post Civil War hospital ship, USS Solace
- 1900 Veteran's Hospital at Ft Miley established
- 1910 President Taft begins tradition of throwing out ball on opening day
- 1912 The British ocean liner RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage at 11:40 P.M., sinking with the loss of over 1,500 lives at about 2:20 a.m. the following morning.
- 1912 The Titanic,launched on 31 May 1911, on route from Southampton to New York with 2200 passengers, strikes Iceburg off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and sinks. (1500+ death toll)
- 1915 The Turks invade Armenia.
- 1923 Etienne Oehmichen sets helicopter distance record of 358 meters
- 1927 The first Volvo car premieres, in Gothenburg, Sweden.
- 1928 Maddus AL starts first regular passenger flights between SF & LA
- 1928 NY Rangers beat Montreal Maroons 3 games to 2 for Stanley Cup
- 1931 Mont Canadiens beat Chicago Black Hawks 3 games to 2 for Stanley Cup
- 1931 Spain becomes republic with overthrow of King Alfonso XIII
- 1931 Spanish Cortes deposes King Alfonso XIII and proclaims the 2nd Spanish Republic.
- 1935 "Black Sunday", the worst dust storm of the Dust Bowl.
- 1935 Babe Ruth plays his first National League game in Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. In this year, he played for the Boston Braves. Also, Ruth plays 28 games, getting 13 hits and six home runs, before retiring.
- 1940 Royal Marines land in Namsos, Norway, occupying key points, preparatory to a larger force arriving two days later.
- 1941 World War II: The Ustashe, a Croatian far-right organization that pursued Nazi and fascist policies, is put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis Powers after the April 6 invasion of Yugoslavia during Operation 25.
- 1944 A massive explosion rocks the Bombay harbor killing 300 and causing a loss of 20 million pounds at that time. See: Bombay Explosion (1944).
- 1944 Freighter "Fort Stikene" explodes in Bombay India, killing 900
- 1945 Osijek, Croatia, is liberated from fascistic occupation.
- 1945 Visitor posting - Roselyn Dianne Swofford (Cochran Reich Johnson Phelps Wagner) is born!
- 1945 The German "Ruhr"garrison surrenders to General Bradley. 320,000 German soldiers are captured.
- 1945 Tokyo incendiary raids, using B-29's, damage Imperial Palace
- 1948 A flash of light is observed in the crater Plato on the Moon
- 1948 Toronto Maple Leafs sweep Detroit Red Wings for the Stanley Cup
- 1949 Visitor posting - Albert "Barney" Sloan was born - USA
- 1953 Montreal Canadiens beat Boston Bruins 4 games to 1 for the Stanley Cup
- 1955 Detroit Red Wings beat Mont Canadiens 4 games to 3 for the Stanley Cup
- 1956 Ampex Corp demonstrates first commercial videotape recorder
- 1956 Videotape is first demonstrated at the 1956 NARTB (now NAB) convention in Chicago, Illinois. It is the demonstration of the first practical and commercially successful format called 2" Quadruplex.
- 1958 The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days.
- 1959 (Robert) Taft Memorial Bell Tower dedicated in Wash DC
- 1960 Montreal Canadiens sweep Toronto Maple Leafs for the Stanley Cup
- 1960 Visitor posting - Bret B born in Orofino, ID - USA
- 1961 First live television broadcast from the Soviet Union
- 1961 Visitor posting - April 14 1961 Frank Moyle and Maureen Carmichael met at Empire Theatre Newcastle
- 1962 Georges Pompidou becomes Prime Minister of France.
- 1963 George Harrison is impressed by the unsigned group "Rolling Stones"
- 1964 A Delta rocket's third-stage motor prematurely ignites in an assembly room at Cape Canaveral, killing 3.
- 1966 Number one hit on UK music charts - The Spencer Davis Group - Somebody Help Me
- 1967 Visitor posting - Sean Farrelly is born in MI - USA
- 1968 At the Academy Awards, a tie between Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand results in the two sharing the Best Actress Oscar; Hepburn also becomes the only actress to win three Best Actress Oscars.
- 1968 Roberto de Vicenzo loses Masters for signing an incorrect score card
- 1968 Visitor posting - Robert Corkum was born in Berwick, Nova Scotia to parents Marguerite & RIchard Corkum of Black Rock, Nova Scotia - Canada
- 1969 Visitor posting - Cheryl Jacklin-Piraino born, artist, Canadian!
- 1969 41st Academy Awards
- 1969 First major league baseball game outside US played in Montreal, Canada
- 1969 Student Afro-American Society seized at Columbia College
- 1969 Tornado strikes Dacca East Pakistan killing 540
- 1969 VQ-1 aircraft shot down by North Korean aircraft over Sea of Japan
- 1970 Visitor posting - April 14 1970 Michael Arron Lewis was born.
- 1971 Fort Point, SF dedicated as a national historic site
- 1973 Visitor posting - Ciara Mary Crookes was born in Dublin, Ireland.
- 1974 Gary Player wins his 2nd Masters golf tournament
- 1974 The Navy donated the ASW carrier Yorktown to Charleston, South Carolina for the city's National Naval Museum.
- 1977 Visitor posting - Sathish S N was born
- 1978 1978 Tbilisi Demonstrations: thousands of Georgians demonstrate against the attempt by the Soviet authorities to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language.
- 1978 Visitor posting - Jeremy Knight was born in Columbia, SC - USA
- 1978 H Debehogne discovers asteroid #2364 Seillier
- 1978 Visitor posting - Jason Nahm was born
- 1979 Number one hit on UK music charts - Art Garfunkel - Bright Eyes
- 1980 Visitor posting - teresa cochran was born .st louis mo it snowed that day - USA
- 1981 Space Shuttle-Columbia 1-returns to Earth
- 1981 Visitor posting - Trisha K was born
- 1981 The first operational space shuttle, Columbia, lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California after its first test flight.
- 1982 M Watt discovers asteroid #2675 Tolkien
- 1982 Visitor posting - April 14, 1982 Ajesh M was born in India
- 1983 Visitor posting - Selin Claudio is born in Chicago, IL
- 1983 Visitor posting - April 14, 1983 Matthew Albert Timothy H. was born in Philadelphia
- 1985 Visitor posting - April 14 1985 Bonnie Bever was born
- 1985 Visitor posting - I was born! lol - Kristina Eileen Brown - Canada [email protected]
- 1986 2.2 pound (1 kg) hailstones fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92. These are the heaviest hailstones ever recorded.
- 1986 In retaliation for the April 5 bombing of the La Belle Discotheque in West Berlin in which two U.S. servicemen were killed, Ronald Reagan orders major bombing raids against Tripoli and Benghazi, in Libya, which kills 60 people.
- 1986 US aircraft attacks 5 terrorist locations in Libya
- 1987 Visitor posting - Julie Russell was born! - USA
- 1988 In a United Nations ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union signs an agreement pledging to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
- 1988 Visitor posting - Ashley Saxon was born
- 1988 The U.S.S.R. agrees to pull its troops out of Afghanistan.
- 1988 USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will. U.S. retaliates against Iran on April 18 with Operation Praying Mantis.
- 1989 Visitor posting - Alex Berre was born today same day as his uncles - USA
- 1989 First Navy ship arrives on scene to assist in Exxon Valdez oil spill cleanup
- 1990 Visitor posting - Nissa Graceann Herrera was born at 2:11 AM - USA
- 1990 Number one hit on UK music charts - Madonna - Vogue
- 1990 Visitor posting - Michelle Hosein born. My cat Blacky is a tortoise shell cat. She has a boyfriend, and she is home often. Blacky likes curry. She's a curry cat! - Canada
- 1991 Visitor posting - I (Kelsey Gasner) was born! Yay! - USA
- 1992 "Guys & Dolls" opens at Martin Beck theater on Broadway
- 1992 Visitor posting - Russell Cowell is born
- 1992 Visitor posting - Trevan Creason A.K.A. "Best Guy Ever" was born on this day. - USA
- 1992 UAW ends 5 month strike against Caterpillar Inc
- 1992 UN imposes embargo against Libya takes effect
- 1994 In a friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq, two United States Air Force F-15 aircraft mistakenly shoot-down two United States Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, killing 26 people.
- 1994 Visitor posting - Miranda Lynn Juarez (Mana) was born ! :D - USA
- 1995 Visitor posting - Mikaela Hay was born - USA
- 1995 Visitor posting - Jessica Bruggen is born!!!!›_ - USA
- 1995 Visitor posting - Autumn Elizabeth Harris was born 5lbs 1oz. - USA
- 1995 Visitor posting - Zane Zaneson born. My pet is named Lol. - USA
- 1997 Visitor posting - I WAS BORN!!!! MIKAELA ROSE DOBIES!!!! < youu world > my pet is a baby dragon named Mitaewa....ok it's a cat named aslan but dragons are wayyyy cooler - USA
- 1999 A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$1.7 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.
- 1999 NATO mistakenly bombs a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees - Yugoslav officials say 75 people are killed.
- 2000 Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich filed a lawsuit against P2P sharing phenomenon Napster. This law-suit eventually led the movement against file-sharing programs.
- 2000 Visitor posting - Matthew Mark Mazza was born!
- 2002 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returns to office two days after being ousted and arrested by his country's military.
- 2003 Human Genome Project successfully completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to 99.99% accuracy.
- 2003 U.S. troops in Baghdad capture Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner the Achille Lauro in 1985.
- 2005 Oregon Supreme Court nullifies nearly 3,000 marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year earlier by Multnomah County.
- 2007 33 passengers are killed in Aksaray, Turkey in a bus crash going to Cappadocia.
- 2007 At least 200,000 demonstrators in Ankara, Turkey protest against the possible candidacy of incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan
- 2008 Visitor posting - Phoebe and Jesse's baby boy is born. [We love you, Tyler]
- 2009 Visitor posting - Robert Hood and Melissa Liles are married :)
- 2009 Visitor posting - My angel Payton Leigh Strahan is born - USA
More historical events added daily - keep checking back