History by month
April
30 days of history. Every date is an entry point to the events, births, and moments that shaped our world.
April 1
1392 Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales contains a passage in the Nun's Priest's Tal
April 2
1917 President Wilson asked Congress to declare war after Germany's submarine campaig
April 3
1865 Union troops entered Richmond on April 3, 1865, just hours after Jefferson Davis
April 4
1968 James Earl Ray fired from a bathroom window of Bessie Brewer's rooming house at
April 5
1242 Alexander Nevsky positioned his forces on the frozen surface of Lake Peipus on A
April 6
1896 Athens hosted the first modern Olympic Games from April 6-15, 1896, after Pierre
April 7
1994 The assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994, when his pl
April 8
563 The historical Siddhartha Gautama likely attained enlightenment under a Bodhi tr
April 9
1865 Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at t
April 10
1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby sold only 20,000 copies in its first year
April 11
1814 Napoleon abdicated unconditionally on April 11, 1814, signing the Treaty of Font
April 12
1861 Confederate batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter at 4:30 AM on April 12, 1861, a
April 13
1970 An oxygen tank exploded aboard Apollo 13 on April 13, 1970, at 9:07 PM Houston t
April 14
1865 John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre at approximately 10:15
April 15
1865 Abraham Lincoln died at 7:22 AM on April 15, 1865, in the Petersen House across
April 16
1746 The Battle of Culloden on April 16, 1746, lasted less than an hour but permanent
April 17
1521 Martin Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms on April 17, 1521, summoned by E
April 18
1775 Dr. Joseph Warren dispatched Paul Revere and William Dawes from Boston on the ni
April 19
1995 Timothy McVeigh parked a rented Ryder truck loaded with 4,800 pounds of ammonium
April 20
1902 Marie and Pierre Curie isolated a tenth of a gram of pure radium chloride on Apr
April 21
April 22
1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral's fleet of 13 ships, sailing to India via the western Atlan
April 23
1616 William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, in Stratford-upon-Avon — his 52nd bi
April 24
1915 Ottoman authorities arrested 235 Armenian intellectuals, professionals, and comm
April 25
1945 American and Soviet troops met at the Elbe River near Torgau, Germany, on April
April 26
1986 Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded during a safety test
April 27
1521 Chief Lapu-Lapu's warriors killed Ferdinand Magellan in the shallows off Mactan
April 28
1789 Fletcher Christian led the mutiny aboard HMS Bounty on April 28, 1789, seizing C
April 29
1992 The acquittal of four LAPD officers in the beating of Rodney King on April 29, 1
April 30
1789 George Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall in New