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- 1303 The University of Rome La Sapienza is instituted by Pope Boniface VIII.
- 1534 Jacques Cartier begins his voyage, in which he will discover Canada and Labrador.
- 1653 Oliver Cromwell dissolves the Rump Parliament.
- 1657 Admiral Robert Blake destroys a Spanish silver fleet under heavy fire at Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
- 1657 Freedom of religion is granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City).
- 1689 The former King James II of England, now deposed, lays siege to Derry.
- 1769 In Cahokia Illinois, Pontiac, Chief of the Ottawas, murdered by an Illinois Indian; six years earlier he helped lead the Ottawa, Hurons (Wyandots), Potawatomis and Ojibwas in a rising against the British garrisons on the Great Lakes.
- 1770 Capt Cook arrives in New South Wales
- 1775 British begin siege of Boston
- 1777 New York adopts new constitution as an independent state
- 1792 France declares war on Austria, Prussia & Sardinia
- 1809 Napolean I defeats Austria at Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria
- 1810 The Governors of Caracas declares the national sovereignty from Spain.
- 1828 Ren Cailli is first non-Muslim to enter in Timbouctou.
- 1832 Hot Springs National Park, the first national park in the U.S., was established by an act of Congress
- 1836 Territory of Wisconsin created
- 1836 U.S. Congress passes an act creating the Wisconsin Territory.
- 1841 First detective story (Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue") published
- 1861 Robert E Lee resigns from Union army
- 1862 The first pasteurization test completed by Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard.*1871 - Civil Rights Act of 1871
- 1865 Safety matches were first advertised this day.
- 1871 3rd Enforcement Act (President can suspend writ of habeas corpus)
- 1872 SF Bar Association organized
- 1879 The first mobile home (horse drawn) used in a journey from London & Cyprus
- 1884 Pope Leo XIII publishes the encyclical, Humanum Genus.
- 1888 246 reported killed by hail in Moradabad, India
- 1889 Adolf Hitler's birthday
- 1898 US Assay Office in Deadwood, South Dakota opens
- 1902 Marie & Pierre Curie isolate radioactive element radium
- 1902 Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.
- 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition opens in St Louis
- 1906 Australian wombat dies in London Zoo at 26; oldest known marsupial
- 1908 Opening day of competition of the New South Wales Rugby League.
- 1910 Halley's Comet passes 29th recorded perihelion at 87.9 million km
- 1912 Opening day for baseball stadiums Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Michigan, and Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.
- 1912 Tiger Stadium in Detroit opens
- 1914 33 killed by soldiers during mine strike in Ludlow, Colo
- 1914 F Kaiser discovers asteroid #786 Bredichina,and G Neujmin discovers asteroid #787 Moskva
- 1914 Forty-five men, women, and children die in the Ludlow Massacre during a bitter Colorado coal-miner's strike.
- 1914 In Boston, Mass., James Duffy of Canada wins the 18th Boston Marathon in 2:25:01.2.
- 1916 Wrigley Field in Chicago opens
- 1917 SS Ballochbuie, torpedoed and sunk by German UC41 off the Firth of Forth Isle of May. In passage from Aberdeen to Sunderland.
- 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.
- 1919 Polish Army captures Vilno, Lithuania from Soviet Army
- 1919 Visitor posting - Martha Bishop was born
- 1920 7th modern Olympic games opens in Antwerp
- 1920 Tornadoes kill 219 in Alabama & Mississippi
- 1926 First check sent by radio facsimile transmission across the Atlantic
- 1926 Western Electric and Warner Bros. announce Vitaphone, a process to add sound to film.
- 1931 Louis Armstrong recorded the classic, " When It’ s Sleepy Time Down South" , for Okeh Records
- 1934 One of America’ s most beloved child stars made her debut. Shirley Temple debuted in " Stand Up and Cheer", which opened in New York City. Moviegoers would rave about her song and dance routine, " Baby, Take a Bow", for many years.
- 1935 On the island of Formosa a 7.1 quake causes 3,280 deaths. One of the world's deadliest earthquakes
- 1939 New York World's Fair opens
- 1939 Ted Williams' first hit (off of Yankee Red Ruffing) a double
- 1940 Electron microscope demonstrated (RCA), Philadelphia, Pa
- 1945 Hitler commits suicide after U.S. troops occupy Munich.
- 1945 Mayor of Leipzig, Germany, killed himself along with his wife and daughter
- 1945 Soviet troops enter Berlin
- 1945 US 7th army captured German city of Nuremberg
- 1945 World War II: U.S. B-29 bombers destroy the Musashi Aircraft plants, halting production of the Nakajima Ki-84 fighter planes.
- 1945 World War II: US troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to later cede the city to the Soviet Union.
- 1946 The first baseball broadcast in Chicago, Cards vs Cubs
- 1947 Comedian Fred Allen of " Allen’ s Alley" fame didn’ t find things so funny when censors cut him off the air during his radio broadcast.
- 1948 Walter P Reuther UAW pres shot & wounded at his home in Detroit
- 1949 Dr. Arthur Compton of the University of Washington made a surprising statement in Boston, MA. He said,"College athletic coaches are responsible for the failure of efforts to reform sports and make sports an important part of education"
- 1949 Jockey Bill Shoemaker wins his first race, in Albany, California
- 1949 Willie Shoemaker won his first race as a jockey aboard Shafter V at Golden Gate Fields in Albany, CA, not far from San Francisco.
- 1950 R C Cameron discovers asteroid #1575 Winifred
- 1957 John Kelley, the first American since 1945, wins the Boston Marathon
- 1958 Buses replace Key System trains at 3 AM
- 1959 "Desilu Playhouse" on CBS-TV presented a two-part show titled, "The Untouchables" starting this night. Robert Stack starred in the program and became a major television star when "The Untouchables" become a weekly network series in the fall of 1959.
- 1961 Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US troops against Cuba.
- 1961 The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave approval for FM stereo broadcasting
- 1962 First production of Bentlage brand cigars, Habana, Cuba.
- 1962 Jesse G Vincent engineer designed first V-12 engine, dies at 82
- 1962 New Orleans Citizens Co gives free 1-way ride to blacks to move North
- 1962 Visitor posting - Jolene Ravithis born. my beloved Tinker - USA
- 1964 86% of black students boycott Cleveland schools
- 1964 BBC Two launches with the power cut because of the fire at Battersea Power Station.
- 1964 Visitor posting - Joyce Miller born. - USA
- 1964 Visitor posting - April 20, 1964 April Maida is born
- 1964 Visitor posting - Phillip J. Webb was born - USA
- 1965 Richard Wessell actor (Carney-Riverboat), dies at 54
- 1966 Visitor posting - Suzanne Q. was born! - USA
- 1967 A Swiss Bristol Britannia turboprop crashes at Nicosia, Cyprus, killing 126.
- 1967 US Surveyor 3 lands on Moon
- 1967 US planes bomb Haiphong for first time during the Vietnam War
- 1968 A South African Airways Boeing 707 crashes during takeoff at Windhoek, South-West Africa, killing 122.
- 1968 English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial Rivers of Blood speech.
- 1968 Visitor posting - Isabel Estrella Mendoza de Rodriguez was born!!! - USA
- 1968 Pierre Elliott Trudeau sworn-in as Canada's PM
- 1969 Visitor posting - Great Day in History - Paul M - Was Born - Canada
- 1969 Ken Harrelson just about quit major-league baseball this day. Harrelson was being traded from the Boston Red Sox, an American League contender, to the Cleveland Indians, a perennial American League non-contender
- 1971 US Supreme Court upholds use of busing to achieve racial desegregation
- 1972 Apollo 16 lands on the Moon.
- 1972 Apollo 16's Young & Duke land on Moon with Boeing Lunar Rover #2
- 1973 Canadian ANIK A2 becomes first commercial satellite in orbit
- 1974 Agnes Moorehead actress (Endora-Bewitched), dies at 67
- 1974 Visitor posting - famous marketing solutions sales manager was born
- 1976 George Harrison sings the lumberjack song with Monty Python
- 1977 A R Klemola discovers asteroid #2261
- 1977 Ottawa starts $41 million program to upgrade the East Coast fishery.
- 1977 Visitor posting - Safwan Jamil (India) was born. And I share my birthday with Adolf Hitler. - India
- 1977 Supreme Court rules "Live Free or Die" may be covered on NH licenses
- 1977 Woody Allen's film "Annie Hall" premiers
- 1978 Korean Air Flight 902 shot down by Soviets.
- 1979 Johnny Carson was said to be leaving "The Tonight Show". Newspapers around the country gave details about why the comedian and late-night host was said to be unhappy after 17 years on the show
- 1980 Climax of Berber Spring in Algeria as hundreds of Berber political activists are arrested.
- 1981 Final performance of TV show "Soap" airs
- 1981 Rocker Papa John Phillips arrested for drug possession
- 1982 Businessman Peter Pocklington held hostage in his home for almost 12 hours by a gunman demanding $1 million
- 1983 Soyuz T-8 launched; mission aborted when capsule fails to dock
- 1985 ATF raid on The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord compound in northern Arkansas.
- 1985 Karyn Marshall of NYC lifted 303 lbs in a clean-and-jerk lift
- 1985 Number one hit on UK music charts - USA For Africa - We Are The World
- 1986 Pianist Vladimir Horowitz performed in his native Russia for the first time in 61 years.
- 1986 Professional basketball player Michael Jordan sets all-time record for points in a NBA playoff game with 63 against the Boston Celtics.
- 1986 Vladimir Horowitz performs in his Russian homeland
- 1987 "Starlight Express"posted the largest week’ s gross in Broadway history. The roller-skating musical earned $606,081 at the box office
- 1987 Rosa Mota wins the women's division of the Boston Marathon
- 1990 Pete Rose pleads guilty to hiding $300,000 in income
- 1991 Raghib "Rocket" Ismael signs with Toronto Argonauts for $26.2 million
- 1992 100th episode of "Murphy Brown" airs
- 1992 Expo '92 opens in Seville Spain
- 1993 Visitor posting - Martin Sean Murphy born - United Kingdom
- 1993 Visitor posting - Briana was born! :) - USA
- 1994 Visitor posting - Nithin was born!
- 1994 Visitor posting - Christine was born
- 1995 Visitor posting - Daniel Jones was born
- 1995 Visitor posting - Tamara was born
- 1997 Visitor posting - Trey Nathan was born.... - USA
- 1997 Visitor posting - Robert Dylan Byles is born - USA
- 1998 German terrorist group Red Army Faction announces their dissolution after 28 years.
- 1998 TAME Boeing 727-200 chartered by Air France crashes into Cerro El Cable mountain after takeoff from Bogot, Colombia, killing 53.
- 1998 Visitor posting - Emma Rose was born. My pet dog's name is Peeka - USA
- 1999 "A bug's Life" is the first DVD to be transfered directly from the digital source making it the first 100 percent digital DVD
- 1999 Visitor posting - April 20, 1999, Soundarya Daliparthy was born!! - USA
- 1999 The Columbine High School massacre leaves 15 people (including the two gunmen) dead and 24 wounded in Jefferson County, Colorado.
- 1999 Visitor posting - TWO HIGH SCHOOOL STUDENTS WALK INTO A SCHOLL IN COLUMBINE KILLING SEVERAVL STUDENTS AND STAFF - USA
- 1999 Visitor posting - Nestor, Jr was born
- 2001 Visitor posting - Apr 20, 2001 Rajneesh and Sukeshi get married in India
- 2004 In Iraq, 12 mortars are fired on Abu Ghraib Prison by insurgents, killing 22 detainees and wounding 92.
- 2007 Johnson Space Center Shooting: A man with a hand gun barricades himself in NASA's Johnson Space Center before killing a male hostage and himself.
- 2010 Visitor posting - News breaks that an explosion occurred at 11 p.m. EST on BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, 52 miles southeast of the Louisiana's port of Venice resulting in the spilling of 25,000 barrels of oil a day. - USA
- 2010 Visitor posting - Tye Lee Armas was born at 1631 - USA
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