4/1
1945 - American forces invaded Okinawa during World War II.
1984 - Singer Marvin Gaye, 44, was shot to death by his father.
1976 - Apple Computer was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.
1970 - President Richard Nixon signed a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and TV.
1960 - The first weather satellite, TIROS-1, was launched from Cape Canaveral.
4/2
1917 - President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, "The world must be made safe for democracy."
1992 - Mob boss John Gotti was convicted in New York of murder and racketeering
1860 - The first Italian Parliament met at Turin.
1513 - Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon landed in Florida.
742 - Charlemagne was born. He was known as King of the Franks, King of the Lombards and Charles I of the Holy Roman Empire.
4/3
1948 - President Truman signed the Marshall Plan, which allocated more than $5 billion in aid for 16 European countries.
1860 - The Pony Express began service between St. Joseph, Mo., and Sacramento, Calif.
1882 - Outlaw Jesse James was shot to death in St. Joseph, Mo., by Robert Ford, a member of his gang.
1924 - Actor Marlon Brando was born
1968 - Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "mountaintop" speech to a rally of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn.
4/4
1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot to death in Memphis, Tenn.
1915, Muddy Waters, American blues musician, was born.
1818 -Congress decided the U.S. flag would consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state.
1881 - Henry Cisneros became the first Hispanic elected mayor of a major U.S. city - San Antonio, Texas.
1841 - President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia one month after his inauguration, becoming the first U.S. president to die in office.
4/5
1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death for conspiring to commit espionage for the Soviet Union.
1856, Booker T. Washington was born.
1614 - Pocahontas, daughter of the leader of the Powhatan tribe, married English colonist John Rolfe in Virginia.
1984 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar became the highest-scoring player in NBA history with 31,421 career points. (He still holds the career record with 38,387 points.)
1976 - Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes died at age 72.
4/8
1973 - Artist Pablo Picasso died at his home near Mougins, France, at age 91.
1994 - Rock singer-musician Kurt Cobain of Nirvana was found dead in Seattle at age 27 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
1977 - The Clash's self-titled debut album was released in Britain.
2005 - World leaders went to St. Peter's Square for the funeral of Pope John Paul II.
2002 - Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for drama for her play "Topdog/Underdog."
4/9
1865 - Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
1939 - Black singer Marian Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial
2005 - Britain's Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, who took the title Duchess of Cornwall.
1959 - NASA announced the selection of America's first seven astronauts
1990 - Actress Kristen Stewart ("Twilight" movies) was born
4/10
1947 - Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey announced he had purchased the contract of Jackie Robinson from the Montreal Royals.
1866 - The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was incorporated.
1925 - "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald was published.
2001 - The Netherlands legalized mercy killings and assisted suicide for patients with unbearable, terminal illness.
1998 - Negotiators in Northern Ireland reached a landmark settlement that called for Protestants and Catholics to share power
4/11
1951 - President Truman relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his commands in the Far East.
1814 - Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as emperor of France and was banished to the island of Elba.
2012 – A 8.6 earthquake hit 270 miles of the coast of Indonesia
1899 - The treaty ending the Spanish-American War was declared in effect.
1921 - Iowa became the first state to impose a cigarette tax.
4/12
1945 - Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, died at age 63.
1606 - England adopted the Union Jack as its flag.
1981 - The space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on its first test flight.
1877 - The catcher for Harvard's baseball team, James Tyng, wore a modified fencing mask behind the plate
1961 - Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space
4/13
1970 - Apollo 13, four-fifths of the way to the moon, was crippled when a tank containing liquid oxygen burst.
1861 - Fort Sumter fell to Confederate forces
1954 - Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron made his major league debut with the Milwaukee Braves.
1964 - Sidney Poitier became the first black performer in a leading role to win an Academy Award, for "Lilies of the Field."
1997 - Tiger Woods, 21, became the youngest person to win the Masters Tournament and the first person of African heritage to claim a major golf title.
4/15
1912 - the British luxury liner Titanic sank
1865 - President Abraham Lincoln died
1947 - Jackie Robinson became baseball's first black major league player when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1986 - The United States launched an air raid against Libya
2002 - Retired Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White died at age 84.
4/16
2003 - Michael Jordan played his last NBA game.
1964 - "The Rolling Stones (England's Newest Hitmakers)," the band's debut album, was released.
1912 - Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
1889 -Sir Charlie Chaplin, the English-born American motion- picture actor and director, was born.
1962Walter Cronkite became anchorman of "The CBS Evening News."
4/17
1964 - The Ford Motor Co. unveiled the Mustang.
1951 - Baseball Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle made his major league debut with the New York Yankees.
1790 - American statesman Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia at age 84.
1961 - The Bay of Pigs invasion began
1970 - Apollo 13 returns to earth
4/18
1775 - Paul Revere began his ride from Charlestown to Lexington, Mass., warning American colonists that the British were coming.
1923 - The first baseball game was played at Yankee Stadium.
1946 - The League of Nations went out of business.
1949 - The Irish Republic was proclaimed.
1989 - Thousands of Chinese students demanding democracy tried to storm Communist Party headquarters in Beijing.
4/19
1995 - The Oklahoma City bombing took place killing 168 people and injuring 500.
1897 - The first Boston Marathon was run.
1994 - A Los Angeles jury awarded $3.8 million to beaten motorist Rodney King.
2001 - The Mel Brooks musical "The Producers" opened on Broadway.
2005 - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected pope and took the name Benedict XVI.
4/20
1971 - The United States Supreme Court upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools
2008 - Danica Patrick became the first female winner in IndyCar history by capturing the Indy Japan 300.
1999 - Two students went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School
1902 - Scientists Marie and Pierre Curie isolated the radioactive element radium.
1939 - Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams made his major league debut with the Boston Red Sox.
4/23
1985 - The Coca-Cola Co. announced it was changing its secret formula for Coke.
2005 - Co-founder Jawed Karim uploaded the first video to YouTube.com.
2007 - Boris Yeltsin, the first freely elected Russian president, died at age 76.
1635 – The first public school is founded in Boston Massachusetts.
1564 - William Shakespeare was born
1616 – William Shakespeare died
4/25
1792 - Highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier became the first person under French law to be executed by guillotine.
1859 - Ground was broken for the Suez Canal.
1901 - New York became the first state to require automobile license plates.
1990 - The Hubble Space Telescope was deployed from the space shuttle Discovery.
1917 – Jazz great Ella Fitzgerald was born
4/26
1865 - John Wilkes Booth was surrounded and killed by federal troops near Bowling Green, Va.
1989 - Actress-comedian Lucille Ball died at age 77.
1607 - An expedition of English colonists went ashore at Cape Henry, Va., to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.
1785 - Naturalist and artist John James Audubon was born in Haiti.
1986 - A nuclear reactor occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union.
4/27
2011 - More than 120 tornadoes raked the South and Midwest, resulting in 316 deaths
2006 - Construction began on a 1,776-foot building on the site of the World Trade Center in New York City.
1965 - Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow died at age 57.
1791 - Samuel Morse, American painter and developer of the telegraph, was born
1822 - Ulysses S. Grant, 18th president of the United States (1869-77) and Civil War general, was born.
4/30
1789George Washington took office in New York as the first president of the United States.
1859"A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens was first published
1900Hawaii was organized as a U.S. territory.
1939The New York World's Fair opened.
1993Top-ranked women's tennis player Monica Seles was stabbed in the back by a man who ran onto the court during a match in Hamburg, Germany.
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