467 Anthemius was elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
1204 Constantinople fell to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, temporarily ending the Byzantine Empire.
1432 – Anne of Austria, Landgravine of Thuringia was born, (d. 1462).
1557 Cuenca was founded in Ecuador.
1606 The Union Flag was adopted as the flag of Great Britain.
1633 The formal inquest of Galileo Galilei by the Inquisition began.
1776 American Revolution: With the Halifax Resolves, the North Carolina Provincial Congress authorised its Congressional delegation to vote for independence from Britain.
1799 – Henri Druey, Swiss lawyer and politician, 2nd President of the Swiss Confederation, was born (d. 1855).
1820 Alexander Ypsilantis was declared leader of Filiki Eteria, a secret organization to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece.
1861 American Civil War The war began with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina.
1864 American Civil War: The Fort Pillow massacre: Confederate forces killed most African American soldiers who surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.
1877 The United Kingdom annexed the Transvaal.
1883 – Imogen Cunningham, American photographer and educator, was born (d. 1976).
1902 – A train accident in South Africa killed 16 NZ soldiers.
1902 – Louis Beel, Dutch academic and politician, 36th Prime Minister of the Netherlands, was born (d. 1977).
1903 – Jan Tinbergen, Dutch economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate, was born (d. 1994)
1908 – Ida Pollock, English author and painter, was born (d. 2013).
1913 HMS New Zealand began a tour of New Zealand.
1916 – Russell Garcia, American-New Zealand composer and conductor, was born (d. 2011).
1917 World War I: Canadian forces successfully complete the taking of Vimy Ridge from the Germans.
1919 Billy Vaughn, American musician and bandleader, was born (d. 1991).
1924 – Raymond Barre, French economist and politician, Prime Minister of France, was born (d. 2007).
1927 April 12 Incident: Chiang Kai-shek ordered the CPC members executed in Shanghai, ending the First United Front.
1929 – Elspet Gray, Scottish actress, was born (d. 2013).
1932 Tiny Tim, American musician, was born (d. 1996).
1934 The strongest surface wind gust in the world at 231 mph, was measured on the summit of Mount Washington, USA.
1934 The US Auto-Lite Strike began, culminating in a five-day melee between Ohio National Guard troops and 6,000 strikers and picketers.
1935 – Wendy Savage, English gynaecologist and activist, was born.
1935 First flight of the Bristol Blenheim.
1937 Sir Frank Whittle ground-tested the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft at Rugby, England.
1939 Alan Ayckbourn, English writer, was born.
1942 Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa, was born.
1945 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt died while in office; vice-president Harry Truman was sworn in as the 33rd President.
1946 – George Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen, Scottish politician and diplomat, 10th Secretary General of NATO, was born.
1947 Tom Clancy, American author, was born (d. 2013).
1947 David Letterman, American talk show host, was born.
1949 Scott Turow, American writer, was born.
1950 David Cassidy, American singer and actor, was born.
1952 – Leicester Rutledge, New Zealand rugby player, All Black, was born.
1955 The polio vaccine, developed by Dr Jonas Salk, was declared safe and effective.
1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into outer space inVostok 3KA-2 (Vostok 1).
1963 The Soviet nuclear powered submarine K-33 collided with the Finnish merchant vessel M/S Finnclipper in the Danish straits.
1978 Guy Berryman, British musician (Coldplay), was born.
1980 Brian McFadden, Irish Singer (Westlife) was born.
1980 Samuel Doe took control of Liberia in a coup d’état, ending over 130 years of national democratic presidential succession.
1980 – Terry Fox began his “Marathon of Hope” at St. John’s, Newfoundland.
1981 The first launch of a Space Shuttle: Columbia launched on the STS-1 mission.
1990 Jim Gary’s Twentieth Century Dinosaurs exhibition opened at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
1992 The Euro Disney Resort officially opened with its theme park Euro Disneyland.
1994 Canter & Siegel posted the first commercial mass Usenet spam.
1998 An earthquake in Slovenia, measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale occurred near the town of Bovec.
1999 US President Bill Clinton was cited for contempt of court for giving “intentionally false statements” in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit.
2002 Pedro Carmona became interim President of Venezuela during the military coup against Hugo Chávez.
2002 – A female suicide bomber detonated at the entrance to Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda open-air market, killing 7 and wounding 104.
2007 A suicide bomber penetrated the Green Zone and detonated in a cafeteria within a parliament building, killing Iraqi MP Mohammed Awad and wounding more than twenty other people.
2010 – A train derailed near Merano, Italy, after running into a landslide, causing nine deaths and injuring 28 people.
2014 – A wildfire ravaged the Chilean city of Valparaíso, killing 16, displacing nearly 10,000, and destroying over 2,000 homes.
2017 – Zuma Must Fall protests resumed in South Africa, with Julius Malema addressing large crowds in Pretoria.
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia
Posted by homepaddock 
Homepaddock 