On April 5th...

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1424 King James I returned to Scotland after 18 years of detention at the English court.

1568 Pope Urban VIII was born.

1588 Philosopher Thomas Hobbes was born.

1614 Pocahontas married John Rolfe.

1649 Elihu Yale, benefactor of Yale University, was born.

1722 Jacob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island.

1762 The British took Grenada from the French.

1764 The British Parliament passed the Sugar Tax on the American colonies.

1792 George Washington cast the first presidential veto.

1801 Nicolas Adolphus Sterne, early Texas entrepreneur, was born.

1806 Isaac Quintard patented apple cider.

1818 The Battle of Maipu (Chile) was fought.

1827 Joseph Lister, surgeon who introduced the use of antiseptics, was born.

1837 Poet Algernon Swinburne was born.

1856 Educator Booker T. Washington was born.

1864 George Pullman received a patent for a railroad car with folding upper berth.

1879 Chile declared war on Bolivia and Peru.

1887 Anne Sullivan taught "water" to Helen Keller.

1892 The Johnson County Range War began.

1894 Eleven strikers were killed in a riot at Connellsville, Pennsylvania.

1900 Edward, Prince of Wales, escaped an assassination attempt in Brussels, Belgium.
1900 Actor Spencer Tracy was born.

1901 American diplomat Chester Bowles was born.
1901 Actor Melvyn Douglas was born.

1902 A section of a grandstand at Ibrox Park in Glasgow, Scotland, collapsed, killing 25 persons and injuring 517.

1908 Henry Campbell-Bannerman resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1908 Actress Bette Davis was born.

1915 Jess Willard KO'd Jack Johnson in 26 rounds for the heavyweight boxing title.

1916 Actor Gregory Peck was born.

1920 Author Arthur Hailey was born.

1929 Actor Nigel Hawthorne was born.

1933 Actor Frank Gorshin was born.

1936 A tornado destroyed most of Tupelo, Mississippi, and killed 216 persons.

1937 Colin Powell, U. S. General and Secretary of State, was born.

1941 Actor Michael Moriarty was born.

1943 Actor Max Gail was born.

1947 Two passengers were killed and 34 persons were injured when the "Pam City Zephyr" derailed and crashed into the railroad station at Downers Grove, Illinois.

1949 Fire at St. Anthony's Hospital in Effingham, Illinois, killed 77 persons.
1949 Astronaut Judith Resnik was born.

1951 Convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death.

1954 Elvis Presley recorded his debut single "That's All Right."

1958 New York Governor Averell Harriman signed a bill outlawing age discrimination in employment.
1958 An exploding heater caused a fire in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, that killed 8 children and 2 adults.
1958 Ripple Rock in Canada's Seymour Narrows was blown up.

1959 George Amick died at the end of a 100-mile Formula 1 race at the Daytona Speedway.

1961 Two landslides killed 25 workers at a dam-construction site on Hokkaido Island, Japan.

1962 The last rock barrier in the Great St. Bernard vehicular tunnel under the Alps was pierced by teams of Italian and Swiss miners coming from opposite directions.

1964 Jigme P. Dorji, Premier of Bhutan, was assassinated in Phuntsoling.
1964 U. S. Army General Douglas MacArthur died.

1965 An earthquake shook a 760-square-mile area of the Peloponnesus, Greece, and killed 19 persons.
1965 A passenger and a freight train crashed near Paraiba do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killing 40 persons.

1967 Grayline Bus began giving "hippie tours" of Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California.
1967 Violinist Mischa Elman died.

1973 The NFL adopted a jersey numbering system.

1975 Chiang Kai-shek, President of Nationalist China, died.

1976 Billionaire Howard Hughes died.

1982 Former U. S. Supreme Court Justice Abraham Fortas died.

1983 France threw out 47 Soviet diplomats.

1984 Kareem Abdul-Jabar broke Wilt Chamberlain's career scoring record of 31,419 points.

1989 Poland granted legal status to Solidarity.

1991 Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2311 crashed on approach to Brunwick, Georgia, killing 23 persons.
1991 Former U. S. Senator John Tower died.

1992 Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori suspended the Constitution and dissolved Congress.
1992 Stanford defeated Western Kentucky 78-62 for the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship.
1992 Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton died.

1993 North Carolina defeated Michigan 77-71 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.
1993 The Colorado Rockies lost to the New York Mets 3-0 in their first game.
1993 The Florida Marlins defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-3 in their first game.

1994 Singer Kurt Cobain died.

1997 Poet Allen Ginsberg died.

2004 Connecticut defeated Georgia Tech 82-83 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

2005 Baylor defeated Michigan State 84-62 for the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship.
2005 Novelist Saul Bellow died.

2006 Singer-songwriter Gene Pitney died.

2008 Actor Charlton Heston died.

2010 Duke defeated Butler 61-59 for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

2011 Texas A & M defeated Notre Dame 76-70 for the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship.

2013 A bus collided with an oil tanker in Nigeria, killing 60 persons.

2016 Sigmundur David Funnlaugsson resigned as Prime Minister of Iceland.
2016 San Francisco, California, became the first U. S. city to mandate paid parental leave.

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This page was last updated on July 09, 2018.