What Happened This Day In History ... April 13

1598		The Edict of Nantes grants political rights to French Huguenots.
1775		Lord North extends the New England Restraining Act to South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The act forbids trade with any country other than Britain and Ireland.
1861		After 34 hours of bombardment, Union-held Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederates.
1865		Union forces under Gen. Sherman begin their devastating march through Georgia.
1902		J.C. Penny opens his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
1919		British forces kill hundreds of Indian nationalists in the Amritsar Massacre.
1933		The first flight over Mount Everest is completed by Lord Clydesdale.
1941		German troops capture Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
1943		Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the Jefferson Memorial.
1945		Vienna falls to Soviet troops.
1960		The first navigational satellite is launched into Earth's orbit.
1961		The U.N. General Assembly condemns South Africa because of apartheid.
1964		Sidney Poitier becomes the first black to win an Oscar for best actor.
1970		An oxygen tank explodes on Apollo 13, preventing a planned moon landing and jeopardizing the lives of the three-man crew.
1976		The U.S. Federal Reserve begins issuing $2 bicentennial notes.
1979		The world's longest doubles ping-pong match ends after 101 hours.
Born on April 13
1721		John Hanson, first U.S. President under the Articles of Confederation.
1732		Frederick Lord North, British prime minister (1770-82).
1743		Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States (1801-09)
1852		Frank W. Woolworth, American retailer.
1866		Butch Cassidy [Robert LeRoy Parker], American outlaw and leader of the Wild Bunch.
1899		Alfred Butts, inventor of the board game Scrabble.
1906		Samuel Beckett, playwright, Nobel Prize winner (Waiting for Godot).
1909		Eudora Welty, Southern writer (Delta Wedding, The Optimist's Daughter).
1922		John Gerard Braine, British novelist (Room at the Top).
1939		Seamus Heaney, Irish poet, Nobel laureate.

What Happened This Day In History...April 12

1204		The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople.
1606		England adopts the Union Jack as its flag.
1770		Parliament repeals the Townsend Acts.
1782		The British navy wins its only naval engagement against the colonists in the American Revolution at the Battle of Saints, off Dominica.
1811		The first colonists arrive at Cape Disappointment, Washington.
1861		Fort Sumter is shelled by Confederacy, starting America's Civil War.
1864		Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest captures Fort Pillow, in Tennessee.
1877		The first catcher's mask is used in a baseball game.
1911		Pierre Prier completes the first non-stop London-Paris flight in three hours and 56 minutes.
1916		American cavalrymen and Mexican bandit troops clash at Parrel, Mexico.
1927		The British Cabinet comes out in favor of voting rights for women.
1944		The U.S. Twentieth Air Force is activated to begin the strategic bombing of Japan.
1945		President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies at Warm Spring, Georgia. Harry S. Truman becomes president.
1954		Bill Haley records "Rock Around the Clock."
1955		Dr. Jonas Salk's discovery of a polio vaccine is announced.
1961		Soviet Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin becomes first man to orbit the Earth.
1963		Police use dogs and cattle prods on peaceful civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama.
1966		Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American major league umpire.
1983		Harold Washington is elected the first black mayor of Chicago.
Born on April 12
1777		Henry Clay, the "Great Compromiser", American politician and statesman who ran unsuccessfully for president three times.
1791		Francis Preston Blair, Washington Globe newspaper editor.
1838		John Shaw Billings, American librarian, army physician.
1949		Scott Turow, writer and attorney.

What Happened This Day In History April 11

1512		The forces of the Holy League are heavily defeated by the French at the Battle of Ravenna.
1713		The Treaty of Utrecht is signed, ending the War of Spanish Succession. France cedes Maritime provinces to Britain.
1783		After receiving a copy of the provisional treaty on 13 March, Congress proclaims a formal end to hostilities with Great Britain.
1814		Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba.
1898		American President William McKinley asks Congress for declaration of war with Spain.
1941		Germany bombers blitz Conventry, England.
1942		Detachment 101 of the OSS–a guerrilla force–is activated in Burma.
1945		After two frustrating days of being repulsed and absorbing tremendous casualties, the Red Army finally takes the Seelow Heights north of Berlin.
1951		President Truman fires General Douglas MacArthur as head of United Nations forces in Korea.
1961		Israel begins the trial of Adolf Eichman, accused of war crimes during WWII.
1961		Folk singer Bob Dylan performs in New York City for the first time, opening for John Lee Hooker.
1968		President Johnson signs the 1968 Civil Rights Act.
1974		The Judiciary committee subpoenas President Richard Nixon to produce tapes for impeachment inquiry.
1981		President Ronald Reagan returns to the White House from hospital after recovery from an assassination attempt.
1986		Dodge Morgan sails solo nonstop around the world in 150 days.
1991		The U.N. Security Council issues formal cease fire with Iraq.
1996		Forty-three African nations sign the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty.
Born on April 11
1370		Frederick I, elector of Saxony.
1722		Christopher Smart, English poet.
1755		James Parkinson, English physician.
1770		George Canning, British prime minister (1827).
1794		Edward Everett, governor of Massachusetts, statesman and orator.
1862		Charles Evans Hughs, 11th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
1893		Dean G. Acheson, U.S. secretary of state (1949-53) who helped create NATO.
1901		Glenway Wescott, writer.
1925		Ethel Kennedy, wife of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
1932		Joel Grey (Joe Katz), actor.
1941		Ellen Goodman, Pultizer Prize-winning columnist.
1950		Bill Irwin, actor and choreographer.

What Happened This Day In History APRIL10

1790		The U.S. patent system is established.
1809		Austria declares war on France and her forces enter Bavaria.
1862		Union forces begin the bombardment of Fort Pulaski in Georgia along the Tybee River.
1865		At Appomattox Court, Va, General Robert E. Lee issues his last orders to the Army of Northern Virginia.
1866		The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is formed.
1902		South African Boers accept British terms of surrender.
1912		The Titanic begins her maiden voyage which will end in disaster.
1925		F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes The Great Gatsby.
1930		The first synthetic rubber is produced.
1932		Paul von Hindenburg is elected president in Germany.
1938		Germany annexes Austria.
1941		U.S. troops occupy Greenland to prevent Nazi infiltration.
1945		In their second attempt to take the Seelow Heights, near Berlin, the Red Army launches numerous attacks against the defending Germans. The Soviets gain one mile at the cost of 3,000 men killed and 368 tanks destroyed.
1945		Allied troops liberate the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald north of Weiner, Germany.
1947		Jackie Robinson becomes the first black to play major league baseball as he takes the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1971		The American table tennis team arrives in China.
1974		Yitzhak Rabin replaces resigning Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir.
1981		Imprisoned Irish Republican Army hunger striker Bobby Sands is elected to the British Parliament.
Born on April 10
1583		Hugo Grotius, Dutch statesman and scholar.
1794		Matthew C. Perry, American naval officer, opened Japan to trade with the west.
1827		Lew Wallace, Civil War general, lawyer, diplomat and author of Ben Hur.
1867		A.E. (George William Russell), Irish poet and mystic.
1880		Frances Perkins, U.S. labor secretary, first female cabinet member.
1903		Clare Boothe Luce, reporter, U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
1917		Robert B. Woodward, synthetic chemist.
1934		David Halberstam, New York Times correspondent, author, Pulitzer Prize winner in 1964.
1932		Omar Sharif (Michael Shalhoub), actor (Dr. Zhivago).
1941		Paul Theroux, author (The Great Railway Bazaar).

HAVE A BLESSED EASTER

What Happened This Day In History - March 31

1282		The great massacre of the French in Sicily The Sicilian Vespers comes to an end.
1547		In France, Francis–king since 1515–dies and is succeeded by his son Henry II.
1776		Abigail Adams writes to husband John that women are "determined to foment a rebellion" if the new Declaration of Independence fails to guarantee their rights.
1779		Russia and Turkey sign a treaty by which they promise to take no military action in the Crimea.
1790		In Paris, France, Maximilien Robespierre is elected president of the Jacobin Club.
1836		The first monthly installment of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens is published in London.
1862		Skirmishing between Rebels and Union forces takes place at Island 10 on the Mississippi River.
1880		The first electric street lights ever installed by a municipality are turned on in Wabash, Indiana.
1889		The Eiffel Tower in Paris officially opens on the Left Bank as part of the Exhibition of 1889.
1916		General John Pershing and his army rout Pancho Villa's army in Mexico.
1917		The United States purchases the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million.
1918		Daylight Savings Time goes into effect throughout the United States for the first time.
1921		Great Britain declares a state of emergency because of the thousands of coal miners on strike.
1933		To relieve rampant unemployment, Congress authorizes the Civilian Conservation Corps .
1939		Britain and France agree to support Poland if Germany threatens to invade.
1940		La Guardia airport in New York officially opens to the public.
1941		Germany begins a counter offensive in North Africa.
1945		The United States and Britain bar a Soviet supported provisional regime in Warsaw from entering the U.N. meeting in San Francisco.
1948		The Soviet Union begins controlling the Western trains headed toward Berlin.
1949		Winston Churchill declares that the A-bomb was the only thing that kept the Soviet Union from taking over Europe.
1954		The siege of Dien Bien Phu, the last French outpost in Vietnam, begins after the Viet Minh realize it cannot be taken by direct assault.
1960		The South African government declares a state of emergency after demonstrations lead to the deaths of more than 50 Africans.
1966		An estimated 200,000 anti-war demonstrators march in New York City.
1967		President Lyndon Johnson signs the Consular Treaty, the first bi-lateral pact with the Soviet Union since the Bolshevik Revolution.
1970		U.S. forces in Vietnam down a MIG-21, the first since September 1968.
1980		President Jimmy Carter deregulates the banking industry.
1991		Albania offers a multi-party election for the first time in 50 years.
Born on March 31
1596		René Descartes, French philosopher and scientist.
1621		Andrew Marvell, English poet and politician.
1693		John Harrison, Englishman who invented the chronometer.
1732		Franz Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer.
1809		Edward Fitzgerald, American writer.
1809		Nikolai V. Gogol, Russian writer (The Inspector General, Dead Souls).
1811		Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, chemist, inventor of the Bunsen burner.
1854		Sir Dugald Clerk, inventor of the two-stroke motorcycle engine.
1878		Jack Johnson, first Africa-American boxer to become the world heavyweight champion.
1914		Octavio Paz, Mexican diplomat and Nobel Prize-winning writer.
1915		Henry Morgan, comedian, radio performer.
1926		John Fowles, English novelist (The Collector, The French Lieutenant's Woman).
1936		Marge Piercy, poet and novelist.
1948		Al Gore, Vice President to President William J. Clinton (1993-2001).

What Happened This Day In History - March 30

1492		King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella sign a decree expelling all Jews from Spain.
1840		"Beau" Brummell, the English dandy and former favorite of the prince regent, dies in a French lunatic asylum for paupers.
1858		Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia patents the pencil with an eraser attached on one end.
1867		Russian Baron Stoeckl and U.S. Secretary of State Seward completed the draft of a treaty ceding Alaska to the United States. The treaty is signed the following day.
1870		The 15th amendment, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race, passes.
1870		President U.S. Grant signs bill readmitting Texas to the Union, the last Confederate state readmitted.
1885		In Afghanistan, Russian troops inflict a crushing defeat on Afghan forces Ak Teppe despite orders not to fight.
1909		The Queensboro Bridge in New York opens. It is the first double decker bridge and links Manhattan and Queens.
1916		Mexican bandit Pancho Villa kills 172 at the Guerrero garrison in Mexico.
1936		Britain announces a naval construction program of 38 warships. This is the largest construction program in 15 years.
1941		The German Afrika Korps under General Erwin Rommel begins its first offensive against British forces in Libya.
1943		Rodgers and Hammerstein's first collaboration, Oklahoma, opens on Broadway.
1944		The U.S. fleet attacks Palau, near the Philippines.
1945		The Red Army advances into Austria.
1946		The Allies seize 1,000 Nazis attempting to revive the Nazi party in Frankfurt.
1950		President Harry S Truman denounces Senator Joe McCarthy as a saboteur of U.S. foreign policy.
1957		Tunisia and Morocco sign a friendship treaty in Rabat.
1972		Hanoi launches its heaviest attack in four years, crossing the DMZ.
1975		As the North Vietnamese forces move toward Saigon, desperate South Vietnamese soldiers mob rescue jets.
1981		President Ronald Reagan is shot and wounded in Washington, D.C. by John W. Hinkley Jr.
1987		Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers is bought for $39.85 million.
Born on March 30
1719		Sir John Hawkins, author of the first history of music.
1820		Anna Sewell, English novelist (Black Beauty).
1853		Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch impressionist artist.
1880		Sean O'Casey, Irish playwright.
1883		Jo Davidson, American sculptor.