Today In The Past
Events
1 – Origin of Dionysian Incarnation of the Word
31 – 1st Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus
421 – Friday at 12 PM – city of Venice founded
708 – Constantine begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1199 – Richard I is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France which leads to his death on April 6.
1306 – Robert the Bruce crowned King of Scots
1409 – Council of Pisa opens
1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh renews Humphrey Gilbert’s patent to explore North America
1609 – Henry Hudson embarks on an exploration for Dutch East India Co
1655 – Christiaan Huygens discovers Titan, (Saturn’s largest satellite)
1668 – 1st horse race in America takes place
1669 – Mount Etna in Sicily erupts, destroying Nicolosi, killing 20,000
1811 – Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for his publication of the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism.
1813 – 1st US flag flown in battle on the Pacific, frigate Essex
1817 – Tsar Alexander I recommends formation of Society of Israeli Christians
1856 – A E Burnside patents Burnside carbine
1857 – Frederick Laggenheim takes 1st photo of a solar eclipse
1863 – 1st Army Medal of Honor awarded( Jacob Parrott)
1863 – Skirmish at Brentwood Tennessee
1864 – Battle of Paducah, KY (Forrest’s raid)
1865 – Battle of Bluff Spring, FL
1865 – Battle of Fort Stedman, VA – in front of Petersburg
1865 – Battle of Mobile, AL (Spanish Fort, Fort Morgan, Fort Blakely)
1865 – SS General Lyon at Cape Hatteras catches fire & sinks, killing 400
1895 – Italian troops invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
1896 – Modern Olympics began in Athens, Greece [NS=Apr 6]
1898 – Intercollegiate Trapshooting Association formed in NYC
1901 – 55 die as Rock Island train derailed near Marshalltown Iowa
1902 – Irving W Colburn patents sheet glass drawing machine
1905 – Rebel battle flags captured during war are returned to South
1910 – Chalmers Auto Co offers a new car to each leagues’ batting champ
1911 – Triangle Shirtwaist Factory catches fire 145 die, all but 13 girls
1913 – Great Dayton Flood
1915 – 1st submarine disaster; a US F-4 sank off Hawaii, killing 21
1931 – Scottsboro Boys (accused of raping a white woman) arrested in Alabama
1937 – It’s revealed Quaker Oats pays Babe Ruth $25,000 per year for ads
1938 – 1st US bred horse (Battleship) to win Grand National Steeplechase
1939 – Billboard Magazine introduces hillbilly (country) music chart
1943 – 97% of all Dutch physicians strike againt nazi registration
1943 – Jimmy Durante & Garry Moore premiere on radio
1944 – Germany troop executes 335 residents of Rome
1944 – RAF Sgt Nickolas Alkemade survives a jump from his Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet without a parachute
1945 – US 1st army breaks out bridgehead near Remagen
1945 – US 4th Armored div arrives at Hanau & Aschaffenburg
1947 – Coal mine explosion in Centralia, Ill, claims 111
1954 – RCA manufactures 1st color TV set (12½” screen at $1,000)
1957 – Treaty of Rome establishes European Economic Community (Common Mkt)
1958 – Sugar Ray Robinson is 1st boxing champ to win 5 times
1960 – 1st guided missile launched from nuclear powered sub (Halibut)
1960 – DH Lawrence’ “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” ruled not obscene (NYC)
1961 – Explorer 10 launched into elongated Earth orbit (177/181,000 km)
1961 – Sputnik 10 carries a dog into Earth orbit; later recovered
1962 – French OAS-leader ex-general Jouhaud arrested
1964 – Egypt ends state of siege (1952-64)
1965 – Martin Luther King Jr led 25,000 to state capitol in Montgomery, Al
1966 – US Supreme court rules “poll tax” unconstitutional
1967 – Who & Cream make US debut at Murray the K’s Easter Show
1970 – Concorde makes its 1st supersonic flight (700 MPH/1,127 KPH)
1971 – Tom Jones, “She’s a Lady,” goes gold
1972 – Bobby Hull becomes the 2nd NHLer to score 600 goals
1972 – UCLA wins its 6th consecutive national basketball title
1982 – Wayne Gretzky becomes 1st NHL to score 200 points in a season
1983 – Christa Rothenburger skates world record 500 m ladies (39.69 sec)
1985 – Edwin Meese III becomes US Attorney General
1986 – Men’s Figure Skating Championship in Geneva won by Brian Boitano (USA)
1986 – Supreme Court rules Air Force could ban wearing of yarmulkes
1986 – Kurt Browning (Canada) becomes 1st skater to land a quadruple jump
1988 – NASA launches space vehicle S-206
1990 – Fire in illegal NYC social club, kills 87( Happy Land Social Club)
America’s Most Deadly Single Perpetrator Mass Murder
No Guns Involved , $5 Worth Of Gas And A Match
1992 – British scientists find new largest perfect # (2 756839 -1 * 2 756839)
1992 – Russian manned space craft TM-14, lands
1992 – Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returns to Earth after a 10-month stay aboard the Mir space station.
1995 – Boxer Mike Tyson released from jail after serving 3 years
1996 – Comet C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake) approaches within 0.1018 AUs of Earth
1996 – Ice Dance Championship at Edmonton won by Gritshuk & Platov (RUS)
1996 – Ice Pairs Championship at Edmonton won by Eltsova & Bushkov (RUS)
1996 – Ladies Fig Skating Championship in Edmonton won by Michelle Kwan (USA)
1996 – Men’s Fig Skating Championship in Edmonton won by Todd Eldredge (USA)
1996 – US issues newly-redesigned $100 bill
2006 – Capitol Hill massacre: A gunman kills six people before taking his own life at a party in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
Births
1133 – Henry II, King of England (1154-89)
1252 – Conradin, Duke of Swabia (d. 1268), son of Conradin IV
1259 – Andronikos II Palaiologos, Byzantine emperor (d. 1332)
1297 – Andronicus III Palaeologus, Byzantine emperor (d. 1341)
1297 – Arnost of Pardubice, Archbishop of Prague (d. 1364)
1345 – Blanche of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt (d. 1369)
1347 – Catherine of Siena, Italian saint (d. 1380)
1404 – John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, English military leader (d. 1444)
1539 – Christopher Clavius, German mathematician (d. 1612)
1643 – Louis Moréri, French encylopedist (d. 1680)
1653 – Joseph Sauveur, French physicist/mathematician
1661 – Paul de Rapin, French historian (d. 1725)
1786 – Giovanni B Amia, Italian astronomer/physicist/botanist
1818 – Isaac Ingalls Stevens, Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1862
1823 – William Thompson Martin, Mjr General (Confederate Army), died in 1910
1840 – Myles Keogh, U.S. Soldier in U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment & Irish Soldier of Fortune (d. 1876)
1873 – Rudolf Rocker, German/US anarchist
1881 – Béla Bartok, Hungary, composer/pianist (Concerto for Orchestra)
1908 – David Lean, Croydon England, director (Dr Zhivago, Ryan’s Daughter)
1911 – Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (d. 1967)
1913 – Sir Reo Stakis, Anglo-Cypriot hotel magnate (d. 2001)
1914 – Norman E Borlaug, US agriculture scientist (Nobel 1970) See also (UE Events 10.20 & UE Deaths 9.12)
1918 – Howard Cosell, Winston-Salem NC, sportscaster (Monday Night Football)
1921 – Simone Signoret, Weisbaden Germany, (Casque d’Or, Room at the Top)
1922 – Eileen Ford, modeling agency head (Ford Modeling Agency)
1925 – Flannery O’Connor, GA, novelist (A Good Man is Hard to Find)
1926 – Hans Rausing, Swedish/British industrial/billionaire (Tetra Pak)
1926 – Laszlo Papp, Hungary, Olympic Boxer (Gold-1948, 1952, 1956)
1928 – James A Lovell Jr, Cleveland Ohio, American astronaut (Gemini 7, 12, Apollo 8, 13)
1934 – Gloria Steinem, Toledo Ohio, US feminist/publisher (Ms Magazine)
1934 – Johnny Burnette, Memphis, guitarist (Trains Kept A-Rollin, You’re 16)
1937 – Tom Monaghan, founder of Dominos pizza
1938 – Hoyt Axton, Duncan Oklahoma, actor (Black Stallion, Junkman, Rousters)
1940 – Anita Bryant, Barnsdall Oklahoma, homophobe/singer (George Gobel Show)
1942 – Aretha Franklin, Memphis Tenn, Soul Sister #1/singer (Respect)
1942 – Jacqueline Lichtenberg, US, sci-fi author (Star Trek Lives!, Dreamspy)
1942 – Paul Michael Glaser, Cambridge Mass, actor (Starsky-Starsky & Hutch)
1943 – Pavel Lednev, USSR, pentathelete (Olympic-gold-1980)
1946 – Bonnie Bedelia, [Culkin], NYC, actress (Die Hard, Heart Like a Wheel)
1947 – Elton John, [Reginald Kenneth Dwight], England, singer (Rocketman)
1955 – Lee Mazzilli, American baseball player
1965 – Sarah Jessica Parker, Nelsonville Ohio, American actress (Square Pegs, Sex and the City)
1966 – Jeff Healey, Canada, blind blues guitarist (See the Light)
1967 – Debi Thomas, US, figure skater (Olympic-bronze-1988)
1967 – Doug Stanhope, American comedian
1974 – Lark Voorhies, American actress
1975 – Melanie Blatt, British singer (All Saints)
1976 – Juvenile, American rapper
1982 – Danica Patrick, American race car driver
1984 – Katharine McPhee, American singer/actress
1989 – Chicken Kentucky, 1st partial birth in space (chicken)
Deaths
1223 – Afonso II, 3rd King of Portugal (1211-23), dies at 36
1345 – Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster, English politician (b. 1281)
1458 – Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, Spanish marquis of Santillana/poet, dies
1558 – Marcos de Niza, French Franciscan explorer
1603 – Ikoma Chikamasa, Japanese warlord (b. 1526)
1692 – Gerardus L Blasius, Flemish anatomist, dies at about 66
1712 – Nehemiah Grew, English naturalist (b. 1641)
1736 – Nicholas Hawksmoor, British architect
1818 – Caspar Wessel, Danish mathematician (b. 1745)
1918 – Claude Debussy, French composer (Iberia/La mer), dies in Paris at 55
1962 – Auguste Piccard, Swiss explorer/balloonist, dies at 78
1973 – Edward Steichen, pioneer of US photography, dies at 93
1992 – Nancy Walker, actress (Ida Morgenstern-Rhoda), dies of cancer at 69
1995 – Warren E Burger, chief justice of US (1969-86), dies
1999 – Cal Ripken, Sr., American baseball manager (b. 1936)
2005 – Paul Henning, American TV/film producer and writer (b. 1911)
2006 – Richard Fleischer, American film director (b. 1916)
2006 – Buck Owens, American singer and television personality (b. 1929)
2012 – Bert Sugar, American sports writer, dies from a cardiac arrest at 74
2012 – Larry Stevenson [Richard], American skateboard innovator, dies at 81
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