This Week in History 4/17-4/23

This Week in History

April 17:

• Apollo 13 arrives safely on Earth after oxygen tank explosion (1970)
• US Civil War: Virginia secedes from the Union (1861)
• 11,745 immigrants arrive at Ellis Island in New York (1897)
• The Bay of Pigs invasion begins (1961)
• Charles Henry Parkhurst, preacher who challenged Tammany Hall in New York City where police and organized crime were in cahoots, was born (1842)
• Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating US Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1969)
• Ford Mustang formally introduced (1964)
• WW2: The Kingdom of Yugoslavia surrenders to Germany (1941)
• Christopher Columbus signs contract with Spain to find Indies (1492)
• Russia abandons all North American claims south of 54° 40’N (1824)
• Geoffrey Chaucer tells the “Canterbury Tales” for the first time at the court of English King Richard II (1397)
• Bayonne Decree by Napoleon I of France orders seizure of US ships (1808)
• First US school for deaf in Hartford, Connecticut (1817)
• Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures & Louis B Mayer Co merged to form Metro Goldwyn Mayer – MGM (1924)
• Canada adopts its constitution (1982)

April 18:

• US Revolutionary War: Paul Revere and William Dawes warn of British attack in what is now known as “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” (1775)
• Us Revolutionary War: Fighting ceases in the American Revolution, eight years to the day since it began (1783)
• Thousands of Chinese students continue to take to the streets in Beijing to protest against the government (1989)
• US Civil War: Colonel Robert E. Lee turns down offer to command Union armies (1861)
• WW2: James Doolittle bombs Tokyo & other Japanese cities (1942)
• Great San Francisco Earthquake (1906)
• Martin Luther would not recant his thesis at the Diet of Worms (1521)
• Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco (1956)
• WW2: Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire (1945)
• WW1: US Secretary of State Warns Germany that the USA may break diplomatic relations unless torpedo attacks on unarmed ships stop (1916)
• WW2: “Stars & Stripes” paper for US armed forces debuts (1941)
• A United States federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound is to be released from an insane asylum (1958)
• Supreme Court rules states could make it a crime to possess or look at child pornography, even in one’s home (1990)
• Mount Everest sees its deadliest day when 16 Nepali mountaineering guides are killed in an avalanche (2014)
• The cornerstone of the current St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, is laid (1506)
• First crossword puzzle book published (1924)

April 19:

• American Revolutionary War: Revolution begins with the Battle of Lexington, the shot heard around the world (1775)
• American Revolutionary War: New England militiamen begin the siege of Boston, hemming in the British army garrison (1775)
• Oklahoma City bombing – a truck bomb at Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building kills 168 & injures 500 (1995)
• First Boston Marathon (1897)
• American Revolutionary War: John Adams secures Dutch Republic’s recognition of the United States as an independent government, and the Netherlands became first American embassy (1782)
• American Revolutionary War: Paul Revere is captured by the British (1775)
• Sally Ride announced as first woman astronaut (1982)
• US Civil War: Lincoln orders blockade of Confederate ports (1861)
• Reformers were first called Protestants (1529)
• Supreme Court outlaws excluding people from juries because of gender (1994)
• Connecticut finally approves Bill of Rights, 148 years late (1939)
• British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia (1770)
• Shirley Temple appears in her first movie, Stand Up & Cheer (1934)
• General Douglas MacArthur ends his military career (1951)
• Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba’s central committee after 45 years of holding the title (2011)

April 20:

• At Columbine High School, two teenage gunman target Christian, killing 15 and wounding 23 (1999)
• WW2: Germans Nazi troops massacred the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto (1943)
• First known performance of Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth at the Globe Theatre (1611)
• Birth of David Brainerd, missionary to the Stockbridge, Delaware and Susquehanna Indians (1718)
• Klu Klx Klan Act authorizes President Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations, and use military force to suppress the Ku Klux Klan (1871)
• The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes, killing 11 and causing the rig to sink, causing a massive oil discharge into the Gulf of Mexico and an environmental diaster (2010)
• WW2: Adolf Hitler is born (1889)
• Marie & Pierre Curie isolate the radioactive element radium chloride (1902)
• The first pasteurization test is completed by Frenchmen Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard (1862)
• WW1: Manfred Von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims marking his final victories before his death the following day (1918)
• First detective story, Edgar Allen Poe’s Murders in Rue Morgue, published (1841)
• US Revolutionary War: New York adopts new constitution as an independent state (1777)
• Territory of Wisconsin created (1836)
• Pope Gregory IX who instituted the Inquisition (1233)
• Balfour Declaration recognized, makes Palestine a British Mandate (1920)
• First check sent by radio facsimile transmission across Atlantic (1926)
• Pope Eugenius IV issued the bull which asserted the superiority of the pope over the Councils (1441)
• 136,000 mine workers strike in Ohio for pay increase (1894)

April 21:

• Traditional date Christ was crucified (33 AD)
• Thousands of Chinese crowd into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square cheering students demanding greater political and religious freedom (1989)
• D.L. Moody was converted to Christianity (1855)
• William Bradford become governor of Plymouth, Massachusetts (1621)
• Birth of A. W. Tozer, Bible scholar and author of The Pursuit of God and The Root of Righteousness (1897)
• Rome was founded by Remus and Romulus (753 B.C.)
• John Adams sworn in as first US Vice President, 9 days before Washington (1789)
• Spanish-American War: The U.S. Congress, on April 25, recognizes that a state of war exists between the United States and Spain as of this date (1898)
• WW1: German fighter ace Baron Manfred Von Richthofen “The Red Baron”, shot down and killed over Vaux sur Somme in France (1918)
• Fire at Ohio State Penitentiary kills 322 (1930)
• FBI arrested Timothy McVeigh & charge him with Oklahoma City bombing (1995)
• The Toleration Act was passed by the Maryland Assembly which protected Roman Catholics within the American colony against Protestant harassment (1649)
• William III & Mary Stuart proclaimed King & Queen, duel monarchs, of England (1689)
• Death of St. Anselm, Bible scholar, Christian philosopher, and apologist (1109)
• The first discoveries of extrasolar planets are announced by astronomer Alexander Wolszczan (1994)
• John Adams sworn in as first US Vice President nine days before Washington (1789)
• Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train leaves Washington (1865)
• Mark Twain died (1910)
• First Lady Lucy Hayes begins egg rolling contest on White House lawn (1878)
• Elvis Presley’s 1st hit record, “Heartbreak Hotel”, becomes #1 (1956)

April 22:

• Oklahoma land rush begins (1889)
• “In God We Trust” first appears on US currency (1864)
• WW1: First military use of poison gas, chlorine by Germany (1915)
• US President Washington attends opening of Rickett’s, first circus in US (1793)
• Spanish American War: US President McKinley orders blockade of Cuban harbors (1898)
• More than $3.3 million is stolen from the First National Bank of Arizona in Tucson in the then largest US bank robbery in history (1981)
• Spanish American War: Congress passes Volunteer Army Act calling for a Volunteer Cavalry (1898)
• Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovers Brazil & claims it for Portugal (1500)
• Holocaust Memorial Museum dedicated in Washington D.C. (1993)
• 243 people are injured in pro-democracy protest in Nepal after Nepali security forces open fire on protesters against King Gyanendra (2006)
• US President Richard Nixon dies (1994)

April 23:

• Traditional date Christ rose from the dead on the first Easter (33 AD)
• William Shakespeare dies (1616)
• Democratic convention in Charleston SC divided over slavery (1860)
• US Civil War: Robert E. Lee named commander of Virginia Confederate forces (1861)
• King Brian Boru of Ireland defeats Viking forces at Battle of Clontarf, freeing Ireland from foreign control (1014)
• Bishop Adalbert, first missionary to the Prussians, was murdered (997 AD)
• AIDS-virus identified as HTLV-III (1984)
• United Methodist Church forms (1968)