Today in History ~
April 2
International
Children's Book Day
Pascua Florida Day [H]
Events
1513 - Ponce De Leon of Spain
landed at what's now St. Augustine, Florida, to search for the Fountain of
Youth.
Florida was thus "discovered," and claimed for Spain.
(no one notifies local residents) [H]
1550 - Jews are expelled from Genoa Italy
1595 - Cornelis de Houtman's ships depart to Asia around Cape of Good Hope
1645 - Robert Devereux resigns as parliament supreme commander
1792 - Congress establishes Coin denominations of United States.$10 Eagle, $5
half-Eagle & 2.50 quarter-Eagle gold coins & silver dollar, quarter, dime & half-dime
1800 - 1st performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's 1st Symphony in C
1827 - Joseph Dixon begins manufacturing lead pencils
1845 - H L Fizeau & J Leon Foucault take 1st photo of Sun
1860 - The first Italian Parliament met at Turin.
1863 - Rioting erupted in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va., sparked by
an angry crowd's demand for bread at a bakery.
1864 - Skirmish at Crump's Hill (Piney Woods), Louisiana
1864 - Skirmish at Spoonville/Antoine, Arkansas
1865 - Battle of Petersburg, VA (Ft Gregg, Sutherland's Station)
1865 - 1865, Confederate President Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the
Confederate capital of Richmond, Va.
1865 - Battle of Ft Blakely AL & Selma AL
1866 - Pres ends war in Ala, Ark, Fla, Ga, Miss, La, NC, SC, Tn & Va
1870 - Victoria Woodhull is 1st woman to be nominated for US pres
1872 - G. B. Brayton received a patent for the gas-powered streetcar.
1877 - 1st Easter egg roll held on White House lawn. The first president on hand
for the first Egg Roll was Rutherford B. Hayes. He and his wife Lucy made it an
official event the following year. The egg roll has been held every year since
except during the war years of WWI and WWII until 1953 when Ike made the egg
roll tradition again.
1884 - London prison for debtors closed
1899 - Chemist Charles M. Hall patented an inexpensive method for the production
of aluminum.
1902 - 1st motion picture theater opens (LA)
1912 - Sun Yet Sen forms Guomindang-Party in China
1912 - Titanic undergoes sea trials under its own power
1916 - German troops overtake Bois de Caillette
1917 - President Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying,
"The world must be made safe for democracy."
1917 - Jeannette Pickering Rankin, the first woman ever elected to Congress,
takes her seat in the U.S. Capitol as a representative from Montana.
1921 - Prof Albert Einstein lectures in NYC on his new theory of relativity
1926 - Riots between Moslems & Hindus in Calcutta
1931 - Teenage girl strikes out Babe Ruth & Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game
in Chattanooga, Tennessee [H]
1932 - Charles Lindbergh left $50,000 in bills in a New York City cemetery in
hope of regaining his kidnapped son.
1935 - Sir Watson-Watt granted a patent for RADAR.
1941 - USS Hornet with Jimmy Doolittle's B-25s departs from SF
1942 - Glenn Miller and his orchestra recorded "American Patrol" at
the RCA Victor studios in Hollywood.
1944 - Soviet Army marches into pro-German Romania
1945 - 1st US units reach east coast of Okinawa
1954 - Plans to build Disneyland 1st announced
1956 - Peter Ustinovs' "Romanoff & Juliet," premieres in
Manchester
1956 - Soap operas "As the World Turns" & "Edge of
Night" premieres on CBS television.
1958 - National Advisory Council on Aeronautics renamed NASA
1960 - Cuba buys oil from USSR
1964 - Military coup in Brazil by Gen Castello Branco, Pres Goulart ousted
1965 - Rolf Hochhuth's play "The Deputy" -- blaming Pope Piusd XII for
war crimes -- banned in Italy
1967 - The International Children's Book Day is first celebrated.
1968 - Senator Eugene McCarthy wins Democratic primaries in Wisconsin
1970 - 2 men begin ascent of south face of Annapurna I, highest final stage in a
wall climb in world
1971 - Sci-fi soap opera "Dark Shadows" concludes an almost 5 year run
1972 - 44th Academy Awards - "French Connection," G Hackman & Jane
Fonda win
1972 - Prime Minister Begin visits Cairo
1972 - Tennessee Williams' "Small Craft Warnings," premieres in NYC
1973 - CBS radio begins on hour news 24 hours a day
1973 - ITT pleads guilty to asking CIA to "influence" Chilean pres
election
1974 - 46th Academy Awards - "Stng," Glenda Jackson & Jack Lemmon
win
1976 - Cambodia Khieu Sampan succeeds Prince Sihanouk as premier
1978 - TV show "Dallas" premieres on CBS (as a 5 week mini-series)
1978 - Velcro was 1st put on the market
1979 - Israeli PM Menachem Begin visits Cairo Egypt/meets pres Sadat
1980 - Wayne Gretzky becomes 1st teenager to score 50 goals in a season
1981 - Heavy battle between Christian militia & Syrian army in East Lebanon
1982 - Several thousand Argentine troops invaded and seize the Falkland Islands
(known in Spanish as Malvinas) [H]
1986 - George Corley Wallace (Gov-D-Ala) announces retirement
1986 - Four American passengers were killed when a bomb exploded aboard a TWA
jetliner en route from Rome to Athens, Greece.
1987 - The Senate overrode a Reagan veto by one vote to enact a highway bill
that authorized states to raise the speed limit to 65 mph from 55 mph in certain
areas.
1987 - IBM introduces PS/2 & OS/2
1991 - Iraqi state media reported that only a few more days were needed to stamp
out fighting with Kurdish rebels, who reported renewed skirmishes around the
strategic oil center of Kirkuk.
1991, a 30-year-old woman claimed she had been raped three days earlier by
William Kennedy Smith at the Kennedy family estate in Palm Beach, Fla. (Smith
would later be acquitted by a jury.)
1992 - A New York jury convicted mob boss John Gotti, "the Teflon
Don," in five murders, racketeering and other charges, including the death of Paul Castallano
1992 - French Premier Edith Cresson, who had served 10 turbulent months as
France's first woman prime minister, resigned after election setbacks for the
ruling Socialists.
1992 - Country singer Wynonna Judd's 1st appearance as a single act
1993 - President Clinton held a daylong forest conference in Portland, Ore.
1993 - Thousands of British commuters turned to their cars or stayed home as the
staff of British Rail staged a 24-hour national strike.
1995 - NY Police Dept & NY Transit Police merge into one organization
1995 - Owners accept baseball players proposal, agree to start season 4/26
1995 - An explosion in the city of Gaza killed eight people, including a leader
of the military wing of Hamas.
1996 - A federal appeals court rejected New York state laws banning
doctor-assisted suicide, saying it would be discriminatory to let people
disconnect life support systems while refusing to let others end their lives
with medication.
1997 - The White House released documents showing how eager it had been to
exploit the money-drawing powers of President Clinton and Vice President Gore
during the 1996 campaign while coordinating with the Democratic Party's
fund-raising machine.
2000 - Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi suffered a stroke that left him
comatose.
2000 - More than 600 people set out on a five-day, 120-mile protest march to
Columbia, S.C., to urge state lawmakers to move the Confederate flag from the
Statehouse dome.
2001 - The Senate passed a campaign reform bill that would ban the large
unregulared political contributions known as soft money.
2001 - President Bush demanded that China promptly return a U.S. spy plane and
its crew members. (The plane had made an emergency landing in China after
colliding with a Chinese fighter.)
Birthdays
Today
0742 - Charlemagne, 1st Holy Roman emperor (800-14)
1602 - Maria de Jesus de Agreda, [Maria Coronel], Spanish Franciscan
1618 - Francesco M Grimaldi, mathematician/physicist (light defraction)
1725 - Giacomo Casanova, writer, adventurer, bon vivant, notorious rake, opera collaborateur
1728 - Franz Asplmayr, composer
1763 - Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari, composer
1805 - Hans Christian Andersen (author of 150 fairy tales: The Tinder Box, The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor's New Clothes)
1814 - Henry Lewis "Old Rock" Benning, Brig General (Confederate Army
1827 - William Holdman Hunt, English painter (Light of the World)
1834 - Frederic-Auguste Bertholdi, France, sculptor (Statue of Liberty)
1840 - Emile Zola, France, novelist (Nana, J'Accuse)
1875 - Walter Chrysler (auto manufacturer: Chrysler Corporation)
1891 - Max Ernst, Germany, painter/sculptor (founded surrealism)
1900 - Heinrich Besseler, German musicologist
1905 - Kurt Adler, therapist/writer
1908 - Buddy (Christian) Ebsen (actor: The Beverly Hillbillies, Barnaby Jones, The President's Plane is Missing, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Red Garters, Stone Fox, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)
1912 - Herbert Mills (singer: group: The Mills Brothers: Paper Doll, You Always Hurt the One You Love, Glow-Worm)
1914 - Sir Alec Guinness (Academy Award-winning actor: The Bridge on the River Kwai [1957],
Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Lavender Hill Mob, Star Wars, A Passage to India, The Quiller Memorandum)
1917 - Lou Monte (singer: Pepino The Italian Mouse, Lazy Mary)
1919 - Ian Hunter, impresario
1920 - Jack (dum-de-dum-dum) Webb (director, actor: Dragnet, Pete Kelly's Blues; actor: Sunset Boulevard, The Halls of Montezuma; formerly married to singer Julie London)
1924 - Bobby Avila (baseball)
1925 - George MacDonald Fraser, poet/author (Flashman at the Charge)
1927 - Carmen Basilio (middleweight boxer lost to Sugar Ray Robinson as Robinson regained the world title for the fourth time [1958])
1928 - Rita Gam (Mackay) (actress: The Thief, Klute, Midnight)
1930 - Girolamo Arriego, composer
1935 - Sharon Acker, Toronto Canada, actress (Della Street-Perry Mason 1973)
1938 - Warner Mack (country singer, songwriter: Is it Wrong)
1939 - Marvin Gaye (singer: Pride & Joy, How Sweet It Is, I'll Be Doggone, Ain't That Peculiar, I Heard It Through The Grapevine, What's Going On, Let's Get It On, Sexual Healing; inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [1987])
1939 - Marvin P Gaye Jr, Wash DC, singer (Sexual Healing)
1941 - Leon Russell (singer: Tight Rope, Lady Blue; songwriter: Superstar [Carpenters], This Masquerade [George Benson])
1944 - Marlene Floyd (golfer)
1945 - Don Sutton (baseball: LA Dodgers pitcher: 5th highest record of pitching strikeouts [3,569])
1945 - Linda Hunt (Academy Award-winning actress: The Year of Living Dangerously [1983], Silverado, Dune, Popeye, Kindergarten Cop)
1945 - Reggie Smith (baseball)
1947 or 1949 - Emmylou Harris (singer: Mr. Sandman, The Last Waltz, Pledging My Love, In My Dreams)
1953 - Debralee Scott (actress: Police Academy, Just Tell Me You Love Me)
1966 - Bill Romanowski, NFL linebacker (Eagles, Denver Broncos-Superbowl 32)
Famous
deaths
1118 - Boudouin I, of Bologne/Edessa,
1st crusader/king of Jerusalem, dies
1416 - Ferdinand I, the Justified, king of Aragon/Sicily, dies at 52
1502 - Arthur, English crown prince/husband of Catharina of Aragon, dies
1758 - Johann Balthasar Konig, composer, dies at 67
1784 - Pierre Leclair, composer, dies at 74
1865 - Ambrose Powell Hill, Confederate general, killed in action at 39
1872 - Samuel F B Morse, artist, developer of electric telegraph, dies at 80
1910 - Boyd Alexander, English explorer (Niger to the Nile), murdered at 37
1953 - Jean Epstein, French director (Vive la Vie), dies at 56
1961 - Wallingford Riegger, US composer (Bacchangle), dies at 75
1966 - Cecil Scott Forester, English author (Horatio Hornblower), dies at 66
1974 - Georges Pompidou, French president, dies in Paris at 62
1997 - Tomoyuki Tanaka, producer (Godzilla), dies of a stroke at 86
If
you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please
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