April 24 in history

On April 24:

1479 BC – Thutmose III ascended to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifted to Hatshepsut.

1184 BC – The Greeks entered Troy using the Trojan Horse (traditional date).

 

1533 William I of Orange (d. 1584), was born.

1558 Mary, Queen of Scots, married the Dauphin of France, François, at Notre Dame de Paris.

 

1581 Vincent de Paul, French saint (d. 1660), was born.

1620  John Graunt, English statistician and founder of the science of demography (d. 1674), was born.

1704 The first regular newspaper in the United States, the News-Letter, was published.

 

1800 The United States Library of Congress was established when President John Adams signed legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress”.

1815 Anthony Trollope, English novelist (d. 1882), was born.

1862 American Civil War: A flotilla commanded by Union Admiral David Farragut passed two Confederate forts on the Mississippi River on its way to capture New Orleans.

 

1877  Russo-Turkish War: Russia declared war on Ottoman Empire.

1898 The Spanish-American War: The United States declared war on Spain.

1904 The Lithuanian press ban was lifted after almost 40 years.

1907 Hersheypark, founded by Milton S. Hershey for the exclusive use of his employees, was opened.

1913 The Woolworth Building skyscraper in New York was opened.

1915  The Armenian Genocide began when Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople.:

 

1916 Easter Rising: The Irish Republican Brotherhood led by nationalists Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, and Joseph Plunkett started a rebellion.

1916 Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launched a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island to organise a rescue for the ice-trapped ship Endurance.

 

1918 First tank-to-tank combat, at Villers-Bretonneux, when three British Mark IVs met three German A7Vs.

 

1922 New Zealand’s first Poppy Day.

1926 The Treaty of Berlin was signed. Germany and the Soviet Union each pledged neutrality in the event of an attack on the other by a third party for the next five years.

1932 Benny Rothman led the Mass trespass of Kinder Scout, leading to substantial legal reforms in the United Kingdom.

 

1953 Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

 

1955 – The Bandung Conference ended Twenty-nine non-aligned nations of Asia and Africa finished a meeting that condemned colonialism, racism, and the Cold War.

 

1957 Suez Crisis: The Suez Canal was reopened following the introduction of UNEF peacekeepers to the region.

1960 A severe earthquake shook Lar in Fars province, Iran, killing more than 200 people.

1961 The 17th century Swedish ship Vasa was salvaged.

1963 Marriage of Princess Alexandra of Kent to Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey.

1965 Civil war broke out in the Dominican Republic when Colonel Francisco Caamaño, overthrew the triumvirate that had been in power.

1967 Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died in Soyuz 1 when its parachute failed to open. He was the first human to die during a space mission.

 

1967 – Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland said in a news conference that the enemy had “gained support in the United States that gave him hope that he could win politically that which he cannot win militarily.”

1970 The first Chinese satellite, Dong Fang Hong I, was launched.

1970 – The Gambia became a republic with Dawda Jawara as the first President.

1971 Soyuz 10 docked with Salyut 1.

1980 Eight U.S. servicemen died in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempted to end the Iran hostage crisis.

1990 STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope was launched by the Space Shuttle Discovery.

 

1990 – Gruinard Island, Scotland, was officially declared free of the anthrax disease after 48 years of quarantine.

 

1993 – An IRA bomb devastated the Bishopsgate area of London.

1996  In the United States, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 was introduced.

2004 The United States lifted economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years previously, as a reward for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction.

200 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was inaugurated as the 265th Pope taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.

2005  Snuppy, the world’s first cloned dog was born in South Korea.

2006  King Gyanendra of Nepal gave into the demands of protesters and restored the parliament that he dissolved in 2002.

2007 Iceland announced that Norway would shoulder the defense of Iceland during peacetime.

2007 – Gliese 581 d discovered by a Chilean observatory and believed to be a planet capable of holding extraterresial life.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

April 9 in history

On April 9:

 32 Jesus Christ ascended into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday.

 

193 Septimius Severus was proclaimed Roman Emperor by the army in Illyricum.

475 yzantine Emperor Basiliscus issued a circular letter (Enkyklikon) to the bishops of his empire, supporting the Monophysite christological position.

1241  Battle of Liegnitz: Mongol forces defeated the Polish and German armies.

1413  Henry V was crowned King of England.

1440 Christopher of Bavaria was appointed King of Denmark.

1682 Robert Cavelier de La Salle discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River, claimed it for France and namesdit Louisiana.

1860 The oldest audible sound recording of a human voice was made.

1865 American Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia (26,765 troops) to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, effectively ending the war.

1865 Birth of Charles Proteus Steinmetz,  German-American mathematician and electrical engineer.

1867 Chris Watson, third Prime Minister of Australia, was born.

1867  Alaska purchase: Passing by a single vote, the United States Senate ratified a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska.

1898 Paul Robeson, American singer and activist, was born.

1909 The U.S. Congress passed the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act.

1916  World War I: The Battle of Verdun – German forces launched their third offensive of the battle.

 

1917 World War I: The Battle of Arras  started with Canadian Corps executing a massive assault on Vimy Ridge.

 

1918 World War I: The Battle of the Lys – the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps was crushed by the German forces during the Spring Offensive on the Belgian region of Flanders.

 

1926 Hugh Hefner, American entrepreneur and publisher, was born.

1932 Unemployed workers in Dunedin reacted angrily to the refusal of the Hospital Board to offer assistance, protesters stoned the mayor’s relief depot and tried to storm the Hospital Board’s offices, before being dispersed by police batons.

 

1934 Bill Birch, New Zealand politician, was born.

1937 The Kamikaze arrived at Croydon Airport – the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly to Europe.

1939 Marian Anderson sang at the Lincoln Memorial, after being denied the right to sing at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall.

 

1940 World War II: Germany invadesd Denmark and Norway.

1942 World War II: The Battle of Bataan/Bataan Death March – United States forces surrendered on the Bataan Peninsula. The Japanese Navy launched an air raid on Trincomalee; Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and Royal Australian Navy Destroyer HMAS Vampire were sunk off the island’s east coast.

1945 World War II: The German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer was sunk.

1945 – World War II: The Battle of Königsberg, in East Prussia, ended.

 

1945 – The United States Atomic Energy Commission was formed.

 

1947 The Glazier-Higgins-Woodward tornadoes killed 181 and injured970 in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

1947 – The Journey of Reconciliation, the first interracial Freedom Ride  started through the upper South in violation of Jim Crow laws. The riders wanted enforcement of the United States Supreme Court’s 1946 Irene Morgan decision that banned racial segregation in interstate travel.

1948 Jorge Eliécer Gaitán’s assassination provoked a violent riot (El Bogotazo) in Bogotá, and a further ten years of violence in Colombia known as La violencia.

1948 – Massacre at Deir Yassin.

1952 Hugo Ballivian’s government was overthrown by the Bolivian National Revolution, starting a period of agrarian reform, universal suffrage and the nationalisation of tin mines.

 

1957 The Suez Canal in Egypt was cleared and opened to shipping.

1959 Mercury program: NASA announced the selection of the United States’ first seven astronauts,-  the “Mercury Seven“.

 

1965 Astrodome opened and the first indoor baseball game was played.

1967 The first Boeing 737 (a 100 series) made its maiden flight.

1968 Martin Luther King’s funeral

1969 The “Chicago Eight” pled not guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

 

1969 The first British-built Concorde 002 makes its maiden flight from Filton to RAF Fairford.

 

1975 The first game of the Philippine Basketball Association, the second oldest professional basketball league in the world.

1978  Rachel Stevens, English singer (S Club), was born.

1989  The April 9 tragedy in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR an anti-Soviet peaceful demonstration and hunger strikes, demanding restoration of Georgian independence was dispersed by the Soviet army, resulting in 20 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

 Photos of the April 9, 1989 Massacre victims (mostly young women) on billboard in Tbilisi

1991 Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

1992 A U.S. Federal Court found former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega guilty of drug and racketeering charges. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

1992 John Major‘s Conservative Party won an unprecedented fourth general election victory.

1999  Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, President of Niger, was assassinated.

2002 The funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother at Westminster Abbey.

 

2003 2003 invasion of Iraq: Baghdad fell to American forces.

2005 Charles, Prince of Wales married Camilla Parker Bowles.

 

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

November 15 in history

On November 15:

1515  Thomas Wolsey wass invested as a Cardinal.

1532 Spanish conquistadors under Hernando de Soto meet Inca leader Atahualpa for the first time outside Cajamarca.

1533  Francisco Pizarro arrived in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire.

1708 William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was born.

1769 Captain James Cook raised the British flag at Mercury Bay and claimed the area in the name of King George III.

1791 The first U.S Catholic college, Georgetown University, opened.

1854 the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, was given the royal concession.

1861 The first issue of the Otago Daily Times was published.

1889 Brazil was declared a republic by Marechal Deodoro da Fonseca and Emperor Pedro II  was deposed in a military coup.

1891  Erwin Rommel, German field marshal, “The Desert Fox”, was born.

 Iskander Mirza, first President of Pakistan, was born.

1903  Stewie Dempster, New Zealand cricketer, was born.

1905 Mantovani, Italian-born composer, was born.

1926  The NBC radio network opened with 24 stations.

1928  C. W. McCall, American singer, was born.

1932 Petula Clark, English singer, was born.

1942 Daniel Barenboim, Argentine-born conductor and pianist, was born.

1942 First flight of the Heinkel He 219.

1942  The Battle of Guadalcanal ends in a decisive Allied victory.

1945  Roger Donaldson, Australian- born New Zealand film producer/director.

1945  Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad, Norwegian (By Birth) singer (ABBA) was born.

1960  The Polaris missile was test launched.

1966  Gemini 12 splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

1971 Intel released the world’s first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.

1983  Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was founded. Recognised only by Turkey.

 1985 The Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed at Hillsborough Castle by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.

1988 The first Fairtrade label, Max Havelaar, was launched in the Netherlands.

1990 Space Shuttle Atlantis launched with flight STS-38.

2002  – Hu Jintao became general secretary of the Communist Party of China.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.