Today in History

April 13 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 13:

1913 – An assassination attempt on King Alfonso XIII of Spain by an anarchist failed.

1964 – Sidney Poitier became the first black actor to win an Oscar, taking the best actor award for “Lilies of the Field”.

1966 – Abdul Salam Arif, president of Iraq, was killed in a helicopter crash.

1968 – Tanzania became the first country to recognise the Nigerian secessionist state of Biafra as a sovereign nation.

1975 – A military coup in Chad overthrew President Ngarta Tombalbaye, who was killed. Felix Malloum took over at the head of a seven-member junta.

1975 – Christian militiamen in Lebanon killed 22 Palestinians on a bus in the Ain er-Rummaineh suburb of Beirut. This attack is generally accepted as the starting point of the Lebanese Civil War.

1994 – Belgian paratroopers evacuated the last foreigners from Kigali as rebels tightened their grip around the Rwandan capital, ravaged by days of tribal bloodshed.

1999 – A U.S. judge sentenced assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian to 10-25 years in prison following his second-degree murder conviction.

2002 – Former Serbian interior minister and accused war criminal Vlajko Stojiljkovic died two days after shooting himself outside the Yugoslav parliament, hours after it passed a law to send him and other suspects to a U.N. court.

2011 – Thailand breaks world record for water pistol fight.

2016 – Syria holds parliamentary election, denounced by opponents of President Bashar al-Assad and Western powers as illegitimate.

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April 12 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 12:

1945 – Franklin Roosevelt, U.S. president for a record four terms, died in office. Vice President Harry Truman took over and completed his term of office.

1954 – Bill Haley and the Comets recorded the song “Rock Around the Clock”. It sold an estimated 25 million copies worldwide, at the time the second biggest-selling single behind Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”.

1955 – Polio vaccine announced as safe and effective.

1981 – Joe Louis, heavyweight boxing champion, died aged 66. He held the world title for a record 12 years and won 68 of his 71 professional fights.

1989 – U.S. boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, five-time winner of the world middleweight crown and unbeaten welterweight champion, died.

1997 – Albania’s King Leka I returned home after 58 years in exile.

1999 – Fourteen people were killed when a NATO missile hit a train on a bridge over the Grdelica ravine in southeast Serbia during the conflict over Kosovo.

2001 – China released all 24 crew of a U.S. spy plane after Washington apologised for the aircraft’s entry into Chinese airspace and for the death of a Chinese pilot.

2002 – Yadollah Sahabi, veteran Iranian opposition leader, died aged 96. He fought against U.S. and British domination and later against Islamic extremism.

2003 – Hungarian vote on EU membership.

2017 – Opposition protesters in South Africa hold “Zuma Must Fall” demonstrations.

Image: Flickr

April 8 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 8:

1904 – Britain and France signed the “Entente Cordiale”, an agreement settling all disputes between the two.

1913 – China’s first parliament opened in Peking.

1946 – The League of Nations opened its final session in Geneva before being replaced by the United Nations.

1973 – The Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso, pioneer of Cubism, died.

2002 – Maria Felix, Mexico’s foremost movie star, renowned as a femme fatale throughout Latin America, died. She was 88.

2002 – Israeli troops open fire on Bethlehem’s Church of Nativity after five-day stand-off with Palestinian militants inside the building.

2003 – A U.S. tank fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad packed with foreign journalists, killing Taras Protsyuk, a cameraman from Reuters, and Jose Couso from Spain’s Tele 5.

2004 – Condoleezza Rice, then U.S. National Security Adviser, testified before the 9/11 commission that four presidents had failed to fully mobilise against terrorism.

2005 – Britain’s Prince Charles marries long-term partner Camilla Parker Bowles.

2005 – Britain’s last major carmaker, MG Rover, collapsed after failing to secure a government loan or a life-saving alliance with a Chinese partner. The 100-year-old carmaker once produced the iconic Mini and the Land Rover.

2009 – World’s first cloned camel born.

Image credit: Pixabay

April 6 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 6:

1917 – The United States declared war on Germany in World War One.

1994 – Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona announces retirement from the game.

1998 – Tammy Wynette, known as the First Lady of Country Music and famous for her hit “Stand by Your Man”, died at the age of 55.

2000 – Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of terrorism and hijacking. The convictions were subsequently quashed and Sharif is now the main opposition leader.

2001 – The U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague handed a warrant demanding the handover of former president Slobodan Milosevic to Yugoslavia’s justice minister.

2004 – Lithuania’s parliament voted president Rolandas Paksas out of office for his links with Russian business and intelligence, making him the first European leader to be removed through impeachment.

2005 – Monaco’s Prince Rainier III, who turned one of the world’s smallest states from a faded gambling centre into a billionaires’ haven, died aged 81 after ruling for nearly 55 years.

2005 – Parliament elected the veteran Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as Iraq’s president, making him the first non-Arab president of any Arab state.

2006 – An 1841 Venetian landscape by J M W Turner sold in New York for $35.8 million, becoming the most expensive British painting sold at a Christie’s auction.

2006 – A wooden boat carrying some 250 people on an annual pilgrimage sank off Djibouti. At least 109 people died.

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April 5 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 5:

1951 – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death in the United States for passing atomic secrets to the Russians.

1955 – Winston Churchill resigned as British prime minister.

1999 – Two Libyans suspected of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing were handed over and flown to the Netherlands for trial.

2001 – Dutch truck driver Perry Wacker convicted of the manslaughter of 58 Chinese immigrants who suffocated in a sweltering airtight container on the back of his truck as it travelled to Britain. A British court sentenced him to 14 years in prison.

2005 – Tens of thousands of pilgrims queue outside Saint Peter’s Basilica to see the late Pope John Paul II laying in state.

2007 – British sailors and marines accused of trespassing into Iranian waters and held in Iran for two weeks return home.

2009 – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visits Baghdad.

2010 – Twenty-nine West Virginia coal miners die in explosion at Upper Big Branch mining disaster.

2012 – Large Hadron Collider crew declares “stable beams” as two 4 TeV proton beams were brought into collision at four interaction points, setting a new world record.

2012 – Historic presidential election in Afghanistan.

2017 – Humanitarian ships rescue more than 700 migrants in Mediterranean Sea.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

April 4 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 4:

1949 – The North Atlantic Treaty setting up a mutual defence alliance, NATO, was signed in Washington by the foreign ministers of the 12 participating powers.

1968 – The American civil rights leader Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

1975 – 155 children died when a U.S. air force transport plane carrying Vietnamese orphans crashed on take-off in Saigon.

2000 – World’s first electronic gun presented to media.

2001 – Philippine Supreme Court files criminal charges against deposed president Joseph Estrada.

2003 – Toronto Raptors’ Lenny Wilkens, already the coach with the most wins in NBA history, also sets record for most losses.

2006 – Women made history in Kuwait by voting and running for office for the first time in a local by-election.

2006 – Fire at historic factory building in Barcelona.

2010 – Three car bombs explode in Baghdad close to Iranian, Egyptian and German embassies.

2013 – The “Fluegelauto” (winged car) returns to the roof of Cologne’s city museum after it was renovated.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

April 1 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 1:

1924 – A German court sentenced Adolf Hitler to five years in jail for high treason after his abortive 1923 putsch; he was released on Dec. 20.

1976 – Max Ernst, German painter and sculptor and one of the founders of Dadaism, died.

1996 – The world’s largest bank was created in Japan with the merger of Mitsubishi Bank and the Bank of Tokyo.

1999 – In the first redrawing of Canada’s provincial borders in 50 years, a vast new Arctic territory called Nunavut was created.

1999 – BP Amoco Plc agreed a $26.8 billion takeover of Atlantic Richfield Co of the United States to create the world’s biggest non-OPEC oil producer.

2001 – Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was arrested in Belgrade after a stand-off. He pleaded not guilty to charges of abuse of power and criminal conspiracy.

2001 – A U.S. Navy surveillance plane with 24 crew made an emergency landing on the Chinese island of Hainan after a mid-air collision with a Chinese F-8 fighter, sparking a diplomatic stand-off that was to last several weeks.

2005 – Harald Juhnke, one of Germany’s best-loved stars of television, film and stage and hailed by many as the German Frank Sinatra, died aged 75.

2007 – French acrobatic basketball team “Crazy Dunkers” member Willy Martignon breaks world record for dunking from the longest distance.

2012 – “Karat chef” creates world’s most expensive sushi.

2014 – General Motors CEO Mary Barra testifies on Capitol Hill on auto-related deaths.

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March 29 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on March 29:

1927 – Sunbeam 1000hp breaks land speed record in Florida.

1947 – Malagasy uprising in Madagascar.

1951 – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg convicted of passing wartime atomic secrets to Russia.

1991 – Iraqi news agency says Saddam Hussein’s troops capture Irbil.

1995 – Fire destroys New York’s historic Fulton Street Fish Market.

1998 – Rome marathon route passes St. Peter’s Square for first time.

1998 – Anni Friesinger of Germany sets new speed skating world record in 1,500m.

2001 – Largest exhibition of diamonds opens in Paris.

2013 – Dar es Salaam building collapses.

2014 – First same-sex marriages performed in England and Wales.

2017 – Britain triggers Article 50 to leave European Union.

March 25 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on March 25:

1949 – Laurence Olivier’s “Hamlet” won five Oscars and was the first British film to win an Academy Award.

1975 – King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was murdered by his nephew Prince Faisal. He was succeeded by his brother, Khaled ibn Abdul-Aziz.

1990 – A fire swept through a packed, unlicensed nightclub in New York, killing 87 people.

1990 – Counting of votes begins in Hungary’s first free election since 1947.

1991 – Israel successfully launches new Hetz missile.

1995 – Boxer Mike Tyson visits mosque on release from prison.

2005 – World’s first acrobatic ballet debuts in China.

2006 – U.S. singer Buck Owens, who sold more than 16 million albums and popularised country entertainment on television as host of “Hee Haw,” died.

2007 – Britain marks 200 years since abolition of slavery.

2012 – Sanchin Tendulkar becomes first cricket player in history to score 100 centuries.

2017 – Disneyland Paris parade celebrates 25th anniversary.

Image credit: Commons Wikimedia

March 24 (Reuters) – Following are some of the major events to have occurred on March 24:

1905 – Jules Verne, the French novelist who wrote “Around the World in Eighty Days”, died.

1974 – First close-up picture of Planet Mercury.

1980 – Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot dead by right-wing hit squads while preparing for mass in San Salvador.

1982 – Lieutenant-General Mohammad Hossain Ershad declared himself martial law leader of Bangladesh after a military coup.

2002 – For the first time in 74 years of Oscars, two black actors won the awards for best actor and best actress: Denzel Washington for “Training Day” and Halle Berry for “Monster’s Ball”.

2004 – CIA director George Tenet testifies on Sept. 11 attacks.

2004 – European Union regulators ruled Microsoft had broken antitrust law and levied a record 497.2 million euro ($611.8 million) fine.

2005 – Kyrgyzstan’s opposition seized power as veteran president Askar Akayev fled following days of violent protests.

2008 – People of Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan vote in their first ever parliamentary polls.

2015 – Germanwings flight 9525 crashes into Alps after co-pilot locked himself in cockpit

2016 – Jews of world’s first ghetto mark its 500th anniversary.

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