Event-a-Day

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1689 – William III and Mary II are crowned as joint sovereigns of Great Britain.

1945 – World War II: American forces liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp.

1951 – Korean War: President Harry Truman relieves General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of overall command in Korea.

1957 – United Kingdom agrees to Singaporean self-rule.

1961 – The trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.

1968 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.

1970 – Apollo 13 is launched.

1976 – The Apple I is created.

1606 – The Union Flag is adopted as the flag of English and Scottish ships.

1776 – American Revolution: With the Halifax Resolves, the North Carolina Provincial Congress authorizes its Congressional delegation to vote for independence from Britain.

1820 – Alexander Ypsilantis is declared leader of Filiki Eteria, a secret organization to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece.

1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Fort Sumter. The war begins with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

1928 – The Bremen, a German Junkers W 33 type aircraft, takes off for the first successful transatlantic aeroplane flight from east to west.

1945 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office; Vice President Harry Truman, becomes President upon Roosevelt's death.

1961 – The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight, Vostok 1.

1981 – The first launch of a Space Shuttle (Columbia) takes place: The STS-1 mission.

1992 – The Euro Disney Resort officially opens with its theme park Euro Disneyland; the resort and its park's name are subsequently changed to Disneyland Paris.

1930-Australian miler John Landy was born on this day. Today is his 87th birthday.

1849 – Hungary becomes a republic.

1861 – American Civil War: Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederate forces.

1865 – American Civil War: Raleigh, North Carolina is occupied by Union Forces.

1870 – The New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded.

1941 – A Pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed.

1943 – World War II: The discovery of mass graves of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government-in-exile in London from the Soviet Union, which denies responsibility. The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C., on the 200th anniversary of President Thomas Jefferson's birth.

1944 – Diplomatic relations between New Zealand and the Soviet Union are established.

1960 – The United States launches Transit 1-B, the world's first satellite navigation system.

1964 – At the Academy Awards, Sidney Poitier becomes the first African-American male to win the Best Actor award for the 1963 film Lilies of the Field.

1970 – An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the spacecraft while en route to the Moon.

1974 – Western Union (in cooperation with NASA and Hughes Aircraft) launches the United States' first commercial geosynchronous communications satellite, Westar 1.

1976 – The United States Treasury Department reintroduces the two-dollar bill as a Federal Reserve Note on Thomas Jefferson's 233rd birthday as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration.

1997 – Tiger Woods becomes the youngest golfer to win the Masters Tournament.

1471 – In England, the Yorkists under Edward IV defeat the Lancastrians under the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet; the Earl is killed and Edward IV resumes the throne.

1775 – The first abolition society in North America is established. The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage is organized in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.

1828 – Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.

1865 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth; Lincoln died the next day. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked at home by Lewis Powell.

1912 – The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 23:40 (sinks morning of April 15th).

1931 – The Spanish Cortes deposes King Alfonso XIII and proclaims the Second Spanish Republic.

1939 – The Grapes of Wrath, by American author John Steinbeck is first published by the Viking Press.

1940 – World War II: Royal Marines land in Namsos, Norway in preparation for a larger force to arrive two days later.

1941 – World War II: German general Erwin Rommel attacks Tobruk.

1942 – Malta receives the George Cross for its gallantry. The George Cross was given by King George VI himself and is now an emblem on the Maltese national flag.

1958 – The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days. This was the first spacecraft to carry a living animal, a female dog named Laika, who likely lived only a few hours.

1981 – STS-1: The first operational Space Shuttle, Columbia completes its first test flight.

1986 – The heaviest hailstones ever recorded (1 kilogram (2.2 lb)) fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92.

1999 – A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$2.3 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.

1450 – Battle of Formigny: Toward the end of the Hundred Years' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English forces, ending English domination in Northern France.

1817 – Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc founded the American School for the Deaf, the first American school for deaf students, in Hartford, Connecticut.

1861 – President Abraham Lincoln calls for 75,000 Volunteers to quell the insurrection that soon became the American Civil War

1865 – President Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by actor John Wilkes Booth. Vice President Andrew Johnson, becomes President upon Lincoln's death.

1892 – The General Electric Company is formed.

1896 – Closing ceremony of the Games of the I Olympiad in Athens, Greece.

1912 – The British passenger liner RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., two hours and forty minutes after hitting an iceberg. Only 710 of 2,227 passengers and crew on board survive.

1924 – Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.

1947 – Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking baseball's color line.

1746 – The Battle of Culloden is fought between the French-supported Jacobites and the British Hanoverian forces commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, in Scotland. The battle result in final defeat for the Jacobites Uprising.

1799 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Mount Tabor: Napoleon drives Ottoman Turks across the River Jordan near Acre.

1818 – The United States Senate ratifies the Rush–Bagot Treaty, establishing the border with Canada.

1853 – The first passenger rail opens in India, from Bori Bunder, Bombay to Thane.

1881 – In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle.

1910 – The oldest existing indoor ice hockey arena still used for the sport in the 21st century, Boston Arena, opens for the first time.

1912 – Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel.

1945 – World War II: The Red Army begins the final assault on German forces around Berlin, with nearly one million troops fighting in the Battle of the Seelow Heights.

1963 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pens his Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting against segregation.

1972 – Apollo program: The launch of Apollo 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

2007 – Virginia Tech shooting: Seung-Hui Cho guns down 32 people and injures 17 before committing suicide.

2012 – The Pulitzer Prize winners were announced, it was the first time since 1977 that no book won the Fiction Prize.

1492 – Spain and Christopher Columbus sign the Capitulations of Santa Fe for his voyage to Asia to acquire spices.

1861 – The state of Virginia's secession convention votes to secede from the United States, becoming the 8th state to join the Confederate States of America.

1905 – The Supreme Court of the United States decides Lochner v. New York, which holds that the "right to free contract" is implicit in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

1942 – French prisoner of war General Henri Giraud escapes from his castle prison in Königstein Fortress.

1961 – Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of Cuban exiles financed and trained by the CIA lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.

1969 – Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy.

1970 – Apollo program: The ill-fated Apollo 13 spacecraft returns to Earth safely.

2014 – NASA's Kepler confirms the discovery of the first Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of another star.

1775 – American Revolution: The British advancement by sea begins; Paul Revere and other riders warn the countryside of the troop movements.

1847 – American victory at the battle of Cerro Gordo opens the way for invasion of Mexico.

1915 – French pilot Roland Garros is shot down and glides to a landing on the German side of the lines during World War I.

1923 – Yankee Stadium: "The House that Ruth Built" opens.

1942 – World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Japan: Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya are bombed. Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of Vichy France.

1943 – World War II: Operation Vengeance, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by U.S. fighters over Bougainville Island.

1529 – Beginning of the Protestant Reformation: After the Second Diet of Speyer bans Lutheranism, a group of rulers (German: Fürst) and independent cities protests the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms.

1539 – Charles V and Protestants signs Treaty of Frankfurt.

1713 – With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 to ensure that Habsburg lands and the Austrian throne would be inherited by his daughter, Maria Theresa (not actually born until 1717).

1770 – Captain James Cook, still holding the rank of lieutenant, sights the eastern coast of what is now Australia. Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI of France in a proxy wedding.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: The war begins with an American victory in Concord during the battles of Lexington and Concord.

1782 – John Adams secures the Dutch Republic's recognition of the United States as an independent government. The house which he had purchased in The Hague, Netherlands becomes the first American embassy.

1839 – The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom and guarantees its neutrality.

1892 – Charles Duryea claims to have driven the first automobile in the United States, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1942 – World War II: In Poland, the Majdan-Tatarski ghetto is established, situated between the Lublin Ghetto and a Majdanek subcamp. The following year, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins, after German troops enter the Warsaw Ghetto to round up the remaining Jews.

1956 – Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco.

1960 – Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign.

1971 – Launch of Salyut 1, the first space station. Meanwhile, Charles Manson is sentenced to death (later commuted to life imprisonment) for conspiracy in the Tate–LaBianca murders.

1985 – Two hundred ATF and FBI agents lay siege to the compound of the white supremacist survivalist group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord in Arkansas; the CSA surrenders two days later.

1987 – The Simpsons first appear as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, first starting with Good Night.

2011 – Fidel Castro resigns as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba after holding the title since July 1961.

2013 – Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is killed in a shootout with police. His brother Dzhokhar is later captured hiding in a boat inside a backyard in the suburb of Watertown.

1534 – Jacques Cartier begins his first voyage to what is today the east coast of Canada, the island of Newfoundland and Labrador.

1535 – The sun dog phenomenon observed over Stockholm and depicted in the famous painting Vädersolstavlan.

1653 – Oliver Cromwell dissolves the Rump Parliament.

1657 – Admiral Robert Blake destroys a Spanish silver fleet under heavy fire at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

1689 – Deposed monarch James II of England lays siege to Derry.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: The Siege of Boston begins, following the battles at Lexington and Concord.

1789 – George Washington arrives at Grays Ferry, Philadelphia while en route to Manhattan for his inauguration

1792 – France declares war against the "King of Hungary and Bohemia", the beginning of French Revolutionary Wars.

1809 – Two Austrian army corps in Bavaria are defeated by a First French Empire army led by Napoleon at the Battle of Abensberg on the second day of a four-day campaign that ended in a French victory.

1836 – U.S. Congress passes an act creating the Wisconsin Territory.

1861 – American Civil War: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia.

1871 – The Civil Rights Act of 1871 becomes law.

1876 – The April Uprising begins. Its suppression shocks European opinion, and Bulgarian independence becomes a condition for ending the Russo-Turkish War.

1898 – President William McKinley signed a joint resolution to Congress for declaration of War against Spain, beginning the Spanish-American War.

1902 – Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.

1908 – Opening day of competition in the New South Wales Rugby League.

1912 – Opening day for baseball's Tiger Stadium in Detroit, and Fenway Park in Boston.

1916 – The Chicago Cubs play their first game at Weeghman Park (currently Wrigley Field), defeating the Cincinnati Reds 7–6 in 11 innings.

1918 – Manfred von Richthofen, a.k.a. The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims, his final victories before his death the following day.

1946 – The League of Nations officially dissolves, giving most of its power to the United Nations.

1961 – Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed Cuban exiles against Cuba.

1972 – Apollo 16, commanded by John Young, lands on the moon.

2008 – Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.

2010 – The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that would last six months.

753 BC – Romulus founds Rome. (The traditional date, anyway)

1509 – Henry VIII ascends the throne of England on the death of his father, Henry VII.

1809 – Two Austrian army corps are driven from Landshut by a First French Empire army led by Napoleon as two French corps to the north hold off the main Austrian army on the first day of the Battle of Eckmühl.

1856 – Australian labour movement: Stonemasons and building workers on building sites around Melbourne march from the University of Melbourne to Parliament House to achieve an eight-hour day.

1898 – Spanish–American War: The United States Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports. When the U.S. Congress issued a declaration of war on April 25, it declared that a state of war had existed from this date.

1918 – World War I: German fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as "The Red Baron", is shot down and killed over Vaux-sur-Somme in France.

1965 – The 1964–1965 New York World's Fair opens for its second and final season.

1982 – Baseball: Rollie Fingers of the Milwaukee Brewers becomes the first pitcher to record 300 saves.

1809 – The second day of the Battle of Eckmühl: The Austrian army is defeated by the First French Empire army led by Napoleon and driven over the Danube in Regensburg.

1836 – Texas Revolution: A day after the Battle of San Jacinto, forces under Texas General Sam Houston identify Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna among the captives of the battle when one of his fellow captives mistakenly gives away his identity.

1876 – The first game in the history of the National League was played at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. This game is often pointed to as the beginning of the MLB.

1889 – At noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Rush of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000.

1906 – The 1906 Summer Olympics, not now recognized as part of the official Olympic Games, open in Athens.

1915 – The use of poison gas in World War I escalates when chlorine gas is released as a chemical weapon in the Second Battle of Ypres.

1930 – The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.

1945 – World War II: Prisoners at the Jasenovac concentration camp revolt. Five hundred twenty are killed and around eighty escape. Meanwhile, after learning that Soviet forces have taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admits defeat in his underground bunker and states that suicide is his only recourse.

1954 – Red Scare: Witnesses begin testifying and live television coverage of the Army–McCarthy hearings begins.

1969 – British yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston wins the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race and completes the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world.

1970 – The first Earth Day is celebrated.

1635 – The first public school in the United States, Boston Latin School, is founded in Boston.

1660 – Treaty of Oliva is established between Sweden and Poland.

1661 – King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland is crowned in Westminster Abbey.

1941 – World War II: The Greek government and King George II evacuate Athens before the invading Wehrmacht.

1945 – World War II: Adolf Hitler's designated successor Hermann Göring sends him a telegram asking permission to take leadership of the Third Reich, which causes Hitler to replace him with Joseph Goebbels and Karl Dönitz.

1946 – Manuel Roxas is elected the last President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines.

1967 – Soviet space program: Soyuz 1 (Russian: Союз 1, Union 1) a manned spaceflight carrying cosmonaut Colonel Vladimir Komarov is launched into orbit.

1968 – Vietnam War: Student protesters at Columbia University in New York City take over administration buildings and shut down the university.

2005 – The first ever YouTube video, titled "Me at the zoo", was published by user "jawed".

1184 BC – Traditional date of the fall of Troy.

1558 – Mary, Queen of Scots, marries the Dauphin of France, François, at Notre Dame de Paris.

1704 – The first regular newspaper in British Colonial America, The Boston News-Letter, is published.

1800 – The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress".

1877 – Russo-Turkish War: Russian Empire declares war on Ottoman Empire.

1885 – American sharpshooter Annie Oakley is hired by Nate Salsbury to be a part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West.

1895 – Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail single-handedly around the world, sets sail from Boston, Massachusetts aboard the sloop "Spray".

1913 – The Woolworth Building, a skyscraper in New York City, is opened.

1918 – First tank-to-tank combat, at Villers-Bretonneux, France, when three British Mark IVs meet three German A7Vs.

1953 – Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

1967 – Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when its parachute fails to open. He is the first human to die during a space mission. Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland says in a news conference that the enemy had "gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily."

1707 – A coalition of England, the Netherlands and Portugal is defeated by a Franco-Spanish army at Almansa (Spain) in the War of the Spanish Succession.

1792 – Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine. "La Marseillaise" (the French national anthem) is composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle.

1901 – New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates.

1915 – World War I: The Battle of Gallipoli begins.

1945 – Elbe Day: United States and Soviet troops meet in Torgau along the River Elbe, cutting the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany in two. 1945 – Liberation Day (Italy): The Nazi occupation army surrenders and leaves Northern Italy after a general partisan insurrection by the Italian resistance movement; the puppet fascist regime dissolves and Benito Mussolini is captured after trying to escape. This day was set as a public holiday to celebrate the Liberation of Italy. The last German troops retreat from Finland's soil in Lapland, ending the Lapland War. Military acts of Second World War end in Finland.

1954 – The first practical solar cell is publicly demonstrated by Bell Telephone Laboratories.

1959 – The Saint Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping.

1960 – The United States Navy submarine USS Triton completes the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

1983 – American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war. Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit.