April 2 in history

On April 2:

742 Charlemagne was born.

1453  Mehmed II begins his siege of Constantinople (Istanbul).

1513 Juan Ponce de Leon set foot on Florida, becoming the first European known to do so.

1743 Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States, was born.

1755 Commodore William James captured the pirate fortress of Suvarnadurg on west coast of India.

 

1792 The Coinage Act was passed establishing the United States Mint.

1801 Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Copenhagen – The British destroyed the Danish fleet.

1805 Hans Christian Andersen, Danish writer, was born.

1810  Napoleon Bonaparte married Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria.

 

1814 Erastus Brigham Bigelow, American inventor (, was born.

1840 Émile Zola, French novelist and critic, was born.

1863 Richmond Bread Riot: Food shortages incited hundreds of angry women to riot in Richmond, Virginia and demand that the Confederate government release emergency supplies.

1865 American Civil War: The Siege of Petersburg was broken – Union troops capture the trenches around Petersburg, Virginia, forcing Confederate General Robert E. Lee to retreat.

1865 – American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.

1875 Walter Chrysler, American automobile pioneer, was born.

1900 US Congress passed the Foraker Act, giving Puerto Rico limited self-rule.

1902  Dmitry Sipyagin, Minister of Interior of the Russian Empire, was assassinated in the Marie Palace, St Petersburg.

1902 “Electric Theatre”, the first full-time movie theater in the United States, opened in Los Angeles.

1914 Sir Alec Guinness, English actor, was born.

 

1916 Tuhoe prophet Rua Kenana was arrested.

1917 World War I: President Woodrow Wilson asked the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war on Germany.

1917 The first woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress, Jeannette Rankin, took her seat as a representative from Montana.

 

1930 Haile Selassie was proclaimed emperor of Ethiopia.

1939 Marvin Gaye, American singer, was born.

1940 Penelope Keith, English actress, was born.

1947 Emmylou Harris, American singer, was born.

1947 Camille Paglia, American feminist writer, was born.

1956 As the World Turns and The Edge of Night premiere don CBS-TV. The two soaps become the first daytime dramas to debut in the 30-minute format.

 

1961  Keren Woodward, English singer (Bananarama), was born.

1962 The first official Panda crossing was opened outside Waterloo station, London.

 

1972 Actor Charlie Chaplin returned to the United States for the first time since being labeled a communist during the Red Scare in the early 1950s.

1972 – Vietnam War: The Easter Offensive began– North Vietnamese soldiers of the 304th Division took the northern half of Quang Tri Province.

1973  Launch of the LexisNexis computerized legal research service.

1975 Vietnam War: Thousands of civilian refugees fled from the Quang Ngai Province in front of advancing North Vietnamese troops.

1975 – Construction of the CN Tower was completed in Toronto. At 553.33 metres (1,815.4 ft) in height, it became the world’s tallest free-standing structure.

 

1980  President Jimmy Carter signed the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act in an effort to help the U.S. economy rebound.

1982 Falklands War: Argentina invaded the Malvinas/Falkland Islands.

 

1984  Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma was launched aboard Soyuz T-11, and becomes the first Indian in space.

1989 Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrived in Havana to meet Fidel Castro in an attempt to mend strained relations.

1991  Rita Johnston became the first female Premier of a Canadian province when she succeeded William Vander Zalm (who had resigned) as Premier of British Columbia.

1992 Mafia boss John Gotti was convicted of murder and racketeering and later sentenced to life in prison.

2002  Israeli forces surround the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem into which armed Palestinians had retreated.

 

2004 Islamist terrorists involved in the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks wre thwarted in an attempt to bomb the Spanish high-speed train AVE near Madrid.

2006 More than  60 tornadoes broke out; hardest hit was Tennessee with 29 people killed.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

February 3 in history

On February 3:

1112 Ramon Berenguer III of Barcelona and Douce I of Provence marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states.

1377  More than 2,000 people of Cesena were slaughtered by Papal Troops (Cesena Bloodbath).

1451 Sultan Mehmed II inherited the throne of the Ottoman Empire.

1488 Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal landed in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south.

 

1637 Tulip mania collapsed in the United Provinces (now the Netherlands) by government order.

      An allegory of tulip mania by Hendrik Gerritsz Pot, circa 1640. Flora, the goddess of flowers, is blown by the wind and rides with a tippler, money changers, and a two faced woman. They are followed by dissolute Haarlem weavers, on their way to destruction in the sea.

1690 The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in America.

1777 John Cheyne, British physician, surgeon and author, was born.

1807 A British military force, under Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty captured the city of Montevideo.

1809 Felix Mendelssohn, German composer, was born.

 

1821 Elizabeth Blackwell, first female American physician, was born.

 Portrait of Elizabeth Blackwell by Joseph Stanley Kozlowski

1830 The sovereignty of Greece was confirmed in a London Protocol.

1867 Emperor Meiji became the 122nd emperor of Japan.

1870 The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, granting voting rights to citizens regardless of race.

1874 Gertrude Stein, American writer, was born.

1894 Norman Rockwell, American illustrator, was born.

1899 Doris Speed, English actress, was born.

1907 James Michener, American author, was born.

 1913 The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.

1916  Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada burned down.

1918 The Twin Peaks Tunnel in San Francisco started service as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world at 11,920 feet (3,633 meters) long.

1927  Val Doonican, Irish singer and entertainer, was born.

1931 The Hawkes Bay earthquake  measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale struck – New Zealand’s worst natural disaster killed 258 people.

1932 Peggy Ann Garner, American actress, was born.

1943 Dennis Edwards, American singer (The Temptations), was born.

 Live at the Copa (1968), the first Temptations album to feature new lead singer Dennis Edwards. Pictured left to right: Dennis Edwards, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams, Otis Williams, and Eddie Kendricks

1944 Trisha Noble, Australian singer and actress, was born.

1947 Dave Davies, English musician (The Kinks), was born.

1947 The lowest temperature in North America  was recorded in Snag, Yukon.

1950 Morgan Fairchild, American actress, was born.

1958 Founding of the Benelux Economic Union.

1959 Lol Tolhurst, English musician (The Cure), was born.

1959 A plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson and the incident becomes known as The Day the Music Died.

1960 British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan spoke of the “a wind of change” of increasing national consciousness blowing through colonial Africa, signalling that his Government was likely to support decolonisation.

1966 The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft made the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.

 Luna 9 soft landing capsule

1967 Ronald Ryan, the last person to be executed in Australia was hanged in Pentridge Prison, Melbourne.

1969 Yasser Arafat was appointed Palestine Liberation Organisation leader at the Palestinian National Congress.

1971 New York Police Officer Frank Serpico was shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption. Many believe the incident proves that NYPD officers tried to kill him.

1976 Isla Fisher, Australian actress, was born.

1984 Dr. John Buster and the research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center announced history’s first embryo transfer, from one women to another resulting in a live birth.

    8-cell embryo for transfer 3 days after fertilization

1984 Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B Mission was launched to International Space Station.

1988  Iran-Contra Affair: The United States House of Representatives rejected President Ronald Reagan’s request for $36.25 million to aid Nicaraguan Contras.

1989 P.W. Botha resigned party leadership and the presidency of South Africa.

1989 A military coup overthrew Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay since 1954.

1991The Italian Communist Party dissolved and splits into the Democratic Party of the Left and the Communist Refoundation Party.

1996 The Lijiang earthquake in China struck, killing 200 people.

1998 – Cavalese cable-car disaster: a United States Military pilot caused the death of 20 people when his low-flying plane cuts the cable of a cable-car near Trento, Italy.

2007 A Baghdad market bombing killed at least 135 people and injured a further 339.

 Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.