- 1479 BC Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th Dynasty)
- 1184 BC The Greeks enter Troy using the Trojan Horse (traditional date)
- 858 Nicholas I succeeds Benedict III as pope
- 1066 Halley's Comet sparks English monk to predict country will be destroyed
- 1185 Battle at Danoura: Yoshitsune Minamoto's fleet beats the Taira during Japan's Genpei War
- 1288 Jews of Troyes France are accused of ritual murder
- 1311 General Malik Kafur returns to Delhi after campaign in South India
- 1364 Pope Urban V names John V van Virneburg as Bishop of Utrecht
Michelangelo's 12 Apostles
1503 Michelangelo undertakes to carve 12 Apostles for the Cathedral of Florence, each four and a quarter braccia high (248.2cm), at the rate of at least one completed statue per year. He produced only one, of St. Matthew, and that remained unfinished.
French Driven Out of Milan
1524 Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, on behalf of the Holy Roman Empire, drives the French led by Admiral Bonnivet out of Milan
- 1570 Battles between Spanish troops & followers of Sultan Suleiman
- 1596 Pacificatie of Ireland drawn
- 1655 Piedmontese Easter Massacre: Troops of Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, slaughter upwards of 4,000 Waldensian civilians for non-compliance with the Edict of 25 January 1655, which called for the expulsion or conversion of non-Catholic householders in Piedmont, Duchy of Savoy
- 1704 1st continuously published newspaper in America - The Boston News-Letter published in Boston by John Campbell [1]
Marat Acquitted
1793 French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat is acquitted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of charges brought by the Girondin in Paris
- 1800 US Library of Congress establishes with $5,000 allocation
- 1833 Jacob Evert & George Dulty patent 1st soda fountain
- 1863 Skirmish at Okolona and Birmingham, Mississippi (Grierson's Raid)
- 1865 Fire alarm & police telegraph system put into operation in San Francisco
- 1867 Black demonstrators stage ride-ins on Richmond, Virginia streetcars
- 1872 Volcano Mt Vesuvius erupts in Italy
- 1877 Last federal occupying troops withdraw from the South (New Orleans)
- 1877 Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78: Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire
- 1883 28 Surinamers depart to Amsterdam World's Fair
- 1884 National Medical Association of Black physicians organizes in Atlanta
Eastman Kodak Founded
1888 Eastman Kodak founded by George Eastman
Around The World Alone In A Fishing Boat
1895 Canadian-American adventurer Joshua Slocum sets sail from Boston, Massachusetts on a solo around-the-world voyage aboard 'Spray', an 11.2-m oyster sloop [1]
- 1897 1st reporter, William Price (Washington Star), assigned to White House
Spain Declares War Against the United States
1898 Spanish–American War: Spain declares war after rejecting US ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba
Dewey Sails to the Philippines
1898 US fleet under commodore George Dewey sails from Hong Kong to Philippines
Transvaal Requests British Aid
1899 Transvaal British Uitlanders ask Queen Victoria for aid
French President Snubs Pope
1904 President Loubet of France visits King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and pointedly ignores the Pope, exacerbating relations between France and the Roman Catholic Church
Woolworth Building Opens
1913 The Woolworth Building opened in New York City by Frank Winfield Woolworth at a cost of $13.5 million, at 792 feet then the world's tallest building
- 1914 A shipment of 35,000 rifles and 5 million rounds of ammunition are landed at Larne for the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF, an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland
- 1915 German army fires chloroform gas in Ypres (Leper)
- 1915 Leaders of the Armenian community in Constantinople (now Istanbul) are arrested by Ottoman authorities, and many later killed, marking the start of the Armenian Genocide
- 1915 Pittsburgh Rebels' Frank Allen no-hits St Louis Terriers (Federal League), 2-0
Easter Proclamation of 1916
1916 Easter Rising of Irish republicans against British occupation begins in Dublin
Shackleton's Rescue Mission
1916 Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launch a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island in the Southern Ocean to organise a rescue for ice-trapped ship Endurance
- 1917 US Congress passes the Liberty Loan Act, authorizing the Treasury to issue a public subscription for 2 billion in bonds for the war
- 1920 British Mandate over Palestine goes into effect (lasts 28 years)
- 1920 Polish troops attack Ukraine
- 1921 1st municipal elections for men & women in Belgium
- 1921 Under Allies supervision, a plebiscite in the Tyrol favors merging with Germany; unhappy with the outcome, Allies give the area to Italy
- 1923 General harbor strike begins in NYC
- 1925 88°F highest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in April
- 1928 Fathometer, which measures underwater depth, patented
- 1929 1st non-stop England to India flight takes-off
- 1929 Thorvald Stauning becomes premier of Denmark
- 1932 German national election (NSDAP 36.3% in Prussia)
- 1941 British army begins evacuation of Greece
- 1941 Dutch Prince Bernhard becomes an RAF pilot
- 1942 2nd night Exeter bombed by German Luftwaffe
- 1944 1st Boeing B-29 arrives in China "over the Hump"
- 1949 3rd Tony Awards: "Death of a Salesman" & "Kiss Me Kate" win
- 1950 Independent republic of South Molukkas declared
- 1950 Jordan formally annexes the West Bank
- 1950 US President Harry Truman denies there are communists in the US government
Winston Churchill Knighted
1953 Winston Churchill knighted by Queen Elizabeth II
- 1954 1st American, civilian pilot, P.R. Holden, wounded in Indochina
- 1954 Australia & USSR break diplomatic relations
- 1955 Conference of Bandung against colonialism and for self determination, ends
- 1955 Gaullists lose elections in France
- 1960 Heavy earthquake strikes South Persia, 500 killed
- 1960 Record 4 grand slams hit today
Sinking of the Vasa
1961 17th century Swedish warship Vasa, which sunk on her maiden voyage in 1628, is salvaged
Vietnam War
1967 American General William Westmoreland says in a Vietnam War news conference that the enemy has "gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily"
- 1968 Leftist students take over Columbia University, NYC
- 1968 Mauritius becomes a member state of the United Nations.
- 1968 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1969 Car firm British Leyland launch the Austin Maxi in Oporto Portugal
- 1969 Lebanese army in battle with Palestinians
- 1969 Loyalist members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV) explode a bomb at a water pipeline between Lough Neagh and Belfast, Northern Ireland
- 1969 Marshall Lin Biao named Mao's designated successor as the sole Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China
- 1969 US B-52's drop 3,000 ton bombs at Cambodian boundary
- 1970 Gambia becomes a republic within the Commonwealth
- 1970 People's Republic of China launches its 1st satellite transmitting song "East is Red"
- 1971 Soyuz 10 returns to Earth
- 1974 Dutch women hockey team becomes world champion
- 1975 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1979 Rhodesian bishop Abel Muzorewa wins general election
- 1980 US military operation to save 52 hostages in Iran, fails, 8 die
- 1981 US ends grain embargo against USSR
- 1982 Firestone World Bowling Tournament of Champions won by Mike Durbin
- 1983 Austrian socialist party loses parliamentary election
- 1985 Pulitzer prize awarded to Carolyn Lizer for "Yin"
- 1989 10s of thousands of student strikes in Beijing, China
- 1989 Massachusetts declares today "New Kids on the Block Day"
- 1990 Gruinard Island, Scotland, is officially declared free of the anthrax disease after 48 years of quarantine.
- 1990 Security law violator Michael Milken pleads guilty to 6 felonies
- 1990 STS-31 launches, the 35th mission of the US Space Shuttle program, carrying the Hubble space telescope
- 1990 West & East Germany agree to merge currency & economies on July 1st
- 1991 Freddie Stowers is awarded the posthumous Medal of Honor for which he had been recommended in 1918.
- 1992 Vinson Pike fined £1000 for distributing obscene computer pictures
- 1993 Firestone World Bowling Tournament of Champions won by George Branham
- 1993 The IRA explodes a 1000kg car bomb in Bishopsgate, London, killing a news photographer and injuring 44 others
- 1994 Armando Calderon Sol wins El Salvador presidential election
- 1994 Bomb attack in center of Johannesburg, 9 killed
- 1995 Dow Jones Index hits record 4303.98
- 1995 Package bomb, linked to Unabomber, blows up killing Gilbert B Murray
- 1996 The UN and Iraq end a third round of negotiations over Iraq's possible sale of $1 billion of oil for 90 days for a 180-day trial period
- 2004 United States lifts economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years ago, as reward for cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction
Papal Inauguration
2005 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.
- 2006 King Gyanendra of Nepal gives into the demands of protesters and restores the parliament that he dissolved in 2002.
- 2007 Iceland announces that Norway will shoulder the defense of Iceland during peacetime
- 2013 33 people are killed and 115 are injured after a magnitude 5.7 earthquake strikes Jalalabad, Afghanistan
- 2013 Deadliest structural failure in history when 1,134, mostly garment workers killed and 2,500 injured after the Rana Plaza building collapses in Savar Upazila, Bangladesh
- 2015 Armenia commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire
- 2018 Golden State Killer suspect Joseph DeAngelo arrested and charged with eight murders after being identified through genealogy websites
- 2018 Suffragist Millicent Fawcett is the first woman to have a statue erected in Parliament Square, London, England
Event of Interest
2018 US President Donald Trump hosts his first state dinner for visiting French President Emmanuel Macron
- 2021 At least 82 COVID-19 patients die in a fire at Ibn Khatib hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, with 100 more injured
Election of Interest
2022 French President Emmanuel Macron wins re-election defeating National Rally's Marine Le Pen, first sitting French president re-elected in 20 years [1]
- 2022 Slovenian populist prime minister Janez Janša defeated by Freedom Movement 's Robert Golob, a party only launched in January 2022 [1]
- 2022 Violent clashes between Arab nomads and members of the Massalit community in Sudan's West Darfur state result in the deaths of at least 168 people [1]
- 2023 India surpasses China as the worlds most populous country according to UN estimates, with 1,425,775,850 people (estimated to reach 1.7 billion by 2064) [1]
Articles on Events in April
Who Wrote Shakespeare?
Could the son of a provincial glove-maker, born on this day in history, be the author of the world's greatest plays? The argument rages on.
April 23, 1564
Spain Declares War Against the United States
Spain declared war on the United States on this day as tensions rose over Cuba and a US warship was destroyed. A future American president led a major battle.
April 24, 1898
Hitler's Diaries Fail Forensic Tests
German Magazine revealed the scoop of the century on this day but it's “Hitler’s Diaries” sensation failed a forensic test and was quickly proved a hoax.
April 25, 1983
Oscar Wilde Presses Self-Destruct Button
When Oscar Wilde sued the Marquess of Queensberry for libel over a sodomite slur, he opened the door to social and financial ruin that would lead to his death.
April 26, 1895