Today in History

23rd April

1348 The founding of the Order of the Garter by King Edward III. Nearly 700 years later, the Order is the oldest and most senior Order of Chivalry in Britain. The Knights, now both male and female, used to be limited to aristocracy, but today they are chosen from a variety of backgrounds, in recognition for their public service.

1564 Believed to be the birth date of poet & playwright William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon.

1661 Charles II was crowned King of England, completing the restoration of the monarchy.

1968 The first decimal coins appeared in Britain - the 5p and 10p pieces which replaced the 1 shilling and 2 shilling coins.

1982 The launch of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer. The entry level model had 16 kB RAM and an external tape recorder was needed to load the majority of software. It was 'a computer for the masses' and much cheaper than its rivals - the Commodore 64 and the BBC Microcomputer.

1983 Canadian snooker player Cliff Thorburn completed the first televised maximum break of 147 during the World Snooker Championships at the Crucible Theatre, in Sheffield.

1998 James Earl Ray, the convicted killer of the black American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, died, aged 70, still protesting his innocence.

2021 Judges quashed the convictions of 39 former sub-postmasters and mistresses who were convicted of stealing money, after the Post Office installed the Horizon computer system in branches. The clearing of the names of 39 people follows the overturning of six other convictions in December, meaning that more people were affected than in any other miscarriage of justice in the UK. Horizon-based evidence was used by the Post Office to successfully prosecute 736 people between 2000 and 2014. As well as some people going to prison, others were left bankrupt after the Post Office pursued claims which sometimes totalled tens of thousands of pounds.
 

On This Day In History, April 24th

2013 1129 people die in Bangladesh in the worst building collapse disaster in modern history
The building was used by clothing factories producing garments for Western markets, highlighting the disastrous working conditions in the industry.

2005 Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as Pope Benedict XVI
The German was considered a particularly conservative Pope - quite unlike his successor, Pope Francis.

1990 The Hubble Space Telescope is launched into Earth orbit
Unhindered by the impurities and distortions of Earth's atmosphere, the 2.4 meter (7.9 feet) aperture telescope has delivered some of the most spectacular images of the far reaches of the Universe.

1957 The Suez Canal reopens after the Suez Crisis
The conflict between Egypt on the one hand and France, the United Kingdom and Israel on the other, erupted in October 1956 when Egypt announced that the canal would be nationalized.

1915 The Ottoman Empire begins its systematic extermination of Armenians
An estimated 1 million people were killed in the Armenian Massacres during and after World War I. The event is considered one of the first genocides in modern history.
 
Births On This Day, April 24th 🎂

1982 Kelly Clarkson
American singer-songwriter, producer, actress

1973 Sachin Tendulkar
Indian cricketer

1942 Barbra Streisand
American singer-songwriter, actress, producer

1941 Richard Holbrooke
American journalist, banker, diplomat, 22nd United States Ambassador to the United Nations

1897 Benjamin Lee Whorf
American linguist

Deaths On This Day, April 24th 🪦

2011 Sathya Sai Baba
Indian guru, philosopher

1980 Alejo Carpentier
Swiss/Cuban author

1960 Max von Laue
German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

1942 Lucy Maud Montgomery
Canadian author

1731 Daniel Defoe
English journalist, spy
 

24th April

1916 In Dublin, Irish nationalists, led by Patrick Pearse, launched the Easter Rebellion against British rule.

1932 A mass trespass by thousands of ramblers, led by Benny Rothman, took place on Kinder Scout in the Peak District. Their aim was to establish public right of access on the moors and mountains that were privately owned for grouse shooting.The mass trespass started at Bowden Bridge Quarry, close to Hayfield and had a far-reaching impact that culminated in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 which gave people 'the right to roam' on mapped access land.

1967 The Soviet Union announced the catastrophic failure of its latest space mission, with the crash of Soyuz 1 and the death of the cosmonaut on board.

1975 A tense stand-off at the West German embassy in Stockholm ended in violence, with the death of at least three people. Five Baader-Meinhof guerrillas had been holding 11 people hostage, including the German ambassador to Sweden, for almost 12 hours.

1993 IRA bomb devastates City of London. A massive bomb ripped through the heart of the City of London, killing one and injuring more than 40. The explosion shook buildings and shattered hundreds of windows, sending glass showering down into the streets below. A mediaeval church, St Ethelburga's, collapsed; another church and Liverpool Street underground station were also wrecked.
 
1888
Eastman Kodak Company founded by inventor, George Eastman
1908
Jacob Murdock, his wife& children leave Los Angeles in a Packard 30 become the 1st family to travel across the country arriving in NYC 32 days later
1928
The fathometer which measures underwater depth is patented by Henry Grove Dorsey
1953
Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II who had warned Great Britian about Nazi Germany&Japan for yrs,served as nation's war time Prime Minister. he also received Nobel Prize for literature for his writings about the war and his speeches
1979
Georgia designates Ray Charles's version of 'Georgia on My Mind{ written by Hoagy Carmichael&Stuart Gorrell} as the official state song
1990
Gruinard Island in Scotland is officially declared free of anthrax disease after 48 yrs of quarantine
2018
suffragist, Millicent Fawcett becomes the 1st woman to have statue erected in Parliment Sq in London,England
 
25th April 1949
An article by Deac Aylesworth in Look magazine predicted that radio was doomed and that within three years, TV would overshadow radio completely.
He was wrong of course.
As of December, 2023, 92% of the US population said they still listened to radio every week, approximately 272 million people.
This was far ahead of the 87% that watch television on a weekly basis.
 
25th April

1284 The birth, at Caernarfon Castle, of King Edward II, who became the first heir-apparent to bear the title Prince of Wales.

1848 The first Royal yacht, Victoria and Albert, was launched at Pembroke Docks, after suffering serious damage when first floated.

1859 British and French engineers broke ground for the creation of the Suez Canal. At first digging was done by hand with picks and shovels wielded by forced labourers. Later, European workers with dredgers and steam shovels arrived. Labour disputes and a cholera epidemic slowed construction, and the Suez Canal was not completed until 1869 — four years behind schedule.

1953 Scientists describe 'secret of life'. Two Cambridge University scientists published their answer to one of the most fundamental questions of biology - how do living things reproduce themselves? In an article published in Nature magazine, James D Watson and Francis Crick describe the structure of a chemical called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.

1974 Army rebels seized control of Portugal after an almost bloodless dawn coup ended nearly 50 years of dictatorship.

1982 Marines landed in South Georgia. Britain re-established its presence in the Falkland Islands after a two-hour assault by Royal Marines on the remote island of South Georgia.
 
1859
ground is broken for the Suez Canal, it was completed in Nov 1869
1901
NY becomes the 1st state to require automobile license plates,$1 fee
1953
molecular biologists, Frances Crick&James Watson's discovery of double helix structure of DNA is published in' Nature' magazine
1959
St. Lawrence Seaway which links Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes opens for shipping
1990
Hubble Space Telescope is placed in orbit by space shuttle Discovery
2022
Charlotte Bronte's A Book of Ryhmes' written at age 13 was sold at NYC auction for $1.25 mill The proceeds go to Friends of The National Libraries for the Bronte Parsonage Museum
 
On This Day In History, April 26th

2005 Syria ends its military occupation of Lebanon after 29 years
Syria buckled to domestic and international pressure following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14 of the same year.

1994 Germany makes Holocaust denial illegal
The far-right party NPD had sought legitimation by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court for expressing the view that the Nazis' genocide of six million Jews never occurred. The court ruled against them.

1989 The deadliest tornado in history kills about 1300 people
The Daulatpur–Saturia Tornado devastated everything in its 50-mile-long path across central Bangladesh.

1986 The worst nuclear disaster in history occurs in Chernobyl
Large parts of Europe were contaminated when reactor 4 at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant exploded. Although the number of deaths attributable to the disaster is difficult to determine, experts anticipate tens of thousands of deaths across Europe in the coming decades due to cancer caused by the radioactive fallout.

1925 Franz Kafka publishes his landmark novel The Trial
The text, initially published as Der Process, is a nightmarish account of a man being arrested and prosecuted by a faceless authority for an unknown crime.
 
Births On This Day, April 26th 🎂

1932 Israr Ahmed
Indian/Pakistani theologian, philosopher, scholar

1917 I. M. Pei
Chinese/American architects, designed the National Gallery of Art, Bank of China Tower

1889 Ludwig Wittgenstein
Austrian/English philosopher

1822 Frederick Law Olmsted
American journalist, landscape designer, co-designed Central Park

121 Marcus Aurelius
Roman Emperor

Deaths On This Day, April 26th 🪦

1999 Adrian Borland
English singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer

1989 Lucille Ball
American actress

1984 Count Basie
American pianist, bandleader, composer

1951 Arnold Sommerfeld
German physicist

1920 Srinivasa Ramanujan
Indian mathematician
 
On This Day In History, April 27th

2005 The Airbus A380 takes to the skies for the first time
The double-deck airliner is the world's largest commercial jet.

1994 South African citizens of all races are allowed to vote in a general election for the first time
The 1994 general election was held precisely 44 years after Apartheid was formalized by the government with the passing of the Group Areas Act.

1992 For the first time in its 700-year history, the British House of Commons is presided over by a female Speaker
Betty Boothroyd served as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1992 to 2000.

1961 Sierra Leone becomes an independent republic
The West African country's first Prime Minister, Sir Milton Margai, ended over 150 years of British colonial rule.

1810 Ludwig van Beethoven composes “Für Elise”
“Bagatelle No. 25” for solo piano is one of the German composer's most popular works and one of the most recognized melodies in the history of music.
 
Births On This Day, April 27th 🎂

1963 Russell T Davies
Welsh screenwriter, producer

1935 Theodoros Angelopoulos
Greek director, producer, screenwriter

1822 Ulysses S. Grant
American general, politician, 18th President of the United States

1791 Samuel Morse
American painter, inventor, co-invented the Morse code

1759 Mary Wollstonecraft
English author, philosopher

Deaths On This Day, April 27th 🪦

1992 Olivier Messiaen
French composer, ornithologist

1972 Kwame Nkrumah
Ghanaian politician, 1st President of Ghana

1938 Edmund Husserl
Austrian mathematician, philosopher

1896 Henry Parkes
English/Australian politician, 7th Premier of New South Wales

1521 Ferdinand Magellan
 
27th April 1976
David Bowie was detained at the border between Poland and Russia while customs officials confiscated some Nazi memorabilia he had collected. Bowie claimed that the material was being used for research on a movie project about Nazi propaganda leader Joseph Paul Goebbels.
 
27th April 2012
Bob Dylan receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor awarded to a United States civilian citizen, from US President Barack Obama.
The Medal recognizes individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.
Dylan was the 29th musician to ever receive the award, whose previous recipients include Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and Irving Berlin.
 
On This Day In History, April 28th

2004 The first Abu Ghraib torture pictures are published
The images aired in a 60 Minutes II report showed gross human rights violations, including torture and murder, committed by U.S. soldiers and CIA personnel in the Baghdad prison.

2001 Dennis Tito becomes the first space tourist in history
A Russian rocket transported the Californian billionaire to the International Space Station (ISS).

1994 Former CIA officer Aldrich Ames admits he forwarded U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union
Ames was sentenced to life imprisonment for his activities which amounted to one of the most damaging spy cases in U.S. history.

1969 Charles de Gaulle resigns as President of France
De Gaulle founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and became its first President a year later.

1947 Thor Heyerdahl begins his legendary journey on Kon-Tiki
The Norwegian explorer and his crew set out on the 101-day journey on the self-built raft to prove that South Americans could have reached and settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times.
 

Births On This Day, April 28th 🎂

1974 Penélope Cruz
Spanish/American actress

1948 Terry Pratchett
English author

1937 Saddam Hussein
Iraqi politician, 5th President of Iraq

1916 Ferruccio Lamborghini
Italian businessman created Lamborghini

1908 Oskar Schindler
Czech/German businessman

Deaths On This Day, April 28th 🪦

1992 Francis Bacon
Irish painter

1949 Aurora Quezon
Filipino wife of Manuel L. Quezon, 2nd First Lady of the Philippines

1946 Louis Bachelier
French mathematician

1945 Benito Mussolini
Italian politician, Dictator of Italy

1716 Louis de Montfort
French priest, saint
 
28th April

1603 Queen Elizabeth I's funeral took place at Westminster Abbey.

1772 The death, in London, of the world's most travelled goat. She had circumnavigated the world twice, first on Dolphin under Captain Wallis, then on Cook's Endeavour. The Lord of the Admiralty even signed a document acknowledging her age and adventures. 🐐

1789 The crew of the Bounty, led by Fletcher Christian, mutinied against the harsh life at sea under Captain Bligh. Bligh and 17 others were cast adrift in a small boat without a chart. While the mutineers eventually colonized Pitcairn Island, Bligh managed to sail the small craft 3,618 miles to Timor, near Java, arriving there on 14th June.

1910 Frenchman Louis Paulhan won the London to Manchester air race and the £10,000 prize. It was the first long-distance aeroplane race in England and was first proposed by the Daily Mail newspaper in 1906.

1923 The first FA Cup Final was held at Wembley Stadium. 200,000 people arrived at a stadium which was only designed to hold 125,000 and when 60,000 irate fans rushed the turnstiles a human torrent swept onto the pitch. Players were engulfed by the crowd and 1,000 men, women and children were injured. Finals were made 'all ticket' after that. The game began one hour late and Bolton beat West Ham 2-0.

1945 Benito Mussolini, along with his mistress, Clara Petacci, was executed.
 
29th April

1429 Joan of Arc arrived at the besieged city of Orleans to eventually lead her French forces to victory (on 6th May) over the English.

1986 The Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson, was laid to rest alongside her husband, the abdicated King Edward VIII, at Frogmore in Windsor.

1993 It was announced that Buckingham Palace would be opened to the public for the first time.

2011 The marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey. The day was declared a bank holiday in celebration.

2008 The unveiling, in his home town of Bolton, of the 8ft memorial statue to the legendary steeplejack Fred Dibnah. The statue was unveiled on the anniversary of his birth. Dibnah was also an industrial historian, mechnical engineer, steam engine enthusiast and television presenter. He was awarded the MBE in the 2004 New Year Honours for services to heritage and broadcasting.

2014 A campaign poster advertising Nigel Farage's UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) was inadvertently placed next to a 'Go Outdoors' poster for inflatable tents that bore the slogan - 'No Poles Required'.
 
1852
The 1st edition of lexicographer/ inventor Peter Roget's Thesaurus is published in Great Britain
1927
construction of plane'Spirit of St Louis' which Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic is completed in 60 days
1937
symbolic'Golden Rivet' which connected San Francisco & Marin County is driven in. It later was replaced by with a more structually steel one
1961
ABC's Wide World of Sports' debuts with 1st host Jim McKay. Two running events were shown, Penn relays from Franklin Field in Philadelphia,Drake relays from Des Moines, Iowa. The sports program was seen Sat afternoons, it aired from 1961- 1997
1990
wrecking cranes begin to dismantle The Berlin Wall at Brandenburg Gate
2004
Oldsmobile ends 107 yrs of production
2021
world's longest pedestrian bridge at 1,700 ft{516 m} opens inside northern Portugal's Arouca Geopark
 


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