Today
in History ~ April 5
Events
1242 - Alexander Nevsky of
Novgorod defeats Teutonic Knights
1585 - Clemens Crabbeels becomes bishop of Hertogenbosch
1603 - New English king James I departs Edinburgh for London
1614 - 2nd parliament of King James I begin session (no enactments)
1614 - Indian princess Pocahontas marries English colonist John Rolfe. [H]
1621 - Mayflower sails from Plymouth on a return trip to England
1648 - Spanish troops/feudal barons strike down people's uprising in Naples
1722 - Jacob Roggeveen discovers Easter Island
1753 - British Museum forms (opens in 1759)
1768 - The first U.S. Chamber of Commerce was founded in New York City.
1792 - George Washington cast the first presidential veto, rejecting a
congressional measure for apportioning representatives among the states.
1803 - 1st performance of Beethoven's 2nd Symphony in D
1806 - Isaac Quintard patents apple cider
1815 - Eruption of Tambora volcano (Sumbawa Java)
1861 - Federals abandon Ft Quitman, Tx
1862 - Siege of Yorktown VA
1865 - Battle at Amelia Springs/Jetersville Va (Appomattox Campaign)
1874 - Johann Strauss, Jr.'s Opera "Die Fledermaus" is produced
(Vienna)
1887 - Anne Sullivan teaches "water" to Helen Keller [H]
1887 - British historian Lord Acton wrote, "Power tends to corrupt and
absolute power corrupts absolutely."
1889 - Start of Sherlock Holmes' "Adventure of Copper Beeches"
1894 - 11 strikers killed in riot at Connellsville, Penn
1894 - Start of Sherlock Holmes' "Adventure of Empty House"
1895 - Start of Sherlock Holmes' "Adventure of 3 Students"
1895 - Oscar Wilde loses libel case against Marquess of Queensberry, who accused
him of homosexual practices
1896 - 1st modern Olympic Games officially opens in Athens
1900 - Attempted assassination of Prince of Wales in Brussels, fails
1902 - Maurice Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante defunte," premieres in
Paris
1919 - Eamon de Valera becomes president of Dail Eireann
1919 - Polish Army executes 35 young Jews
1923 - Firestone Co put their inflatable tires into production
1927 - Johnny Weissmuller set records in 100 & 200 m free style
1932 - Dutch textile strike broken by trade unions
1936 - Tupelo Mississippi virtually annihilated by a tornado, 216 die
1938 - Anti-Jewish riots break out in Dabrowa Poland
1939 - Membership in Hitler Youth becomes obligatory
1944 - 140 Lancasters bomb airplane manufacturer in Toulouse
1948 - WGN TV channel 9 in Chicago, IL (IND) begins broadcasting
1949 - 60 year old St Anthony's Hospital burns, kills 77 (Effingham Ill)
1950 - Prague espionage trial against bishops & priests begins
1951 - Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death following their
conviction in New York on charges of conspiring to commit espionage for the
Soviet Union; co-defendant Morton Sobell was sentenced to 30 years in prison (he
was released in 1969).
1955 - Winston Churchill resigns as British PM, Anthony Eden succeeds [H]
1962 - Herb Gardner's "Thousand Clowns," premieres in NYC
1962 - NASA civilian pilot Neil A Armstrong takes X-15 to 54,600 m
1962 - St Bernard Tunnel finished-Swiss/Italians workers shake hands
1964 - 1st driverless trains run on London Underground
1965 - 37th Academy Awards - "My Fair Lady," Rex Harrison & J
Andrews win
1965 - Lava Lamp Day celebrated
1968 - Violence erupted in several American cities in response to the
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
1971 - Mount Etna erupts in Sicily Italy
1971 - US Lt Wiliam Calley (My Lai Massacre) sentenced to life
1972 - Baseball season is delayed due to a strike
1974 - Then tallest building, World Trade Center opens in NYC (110 stories)
1976 - Harold Wilson resigns as James Callaghan becomes PM of England
1976 - Tom Stoppard's "Dirty Linen," premieres in London
1982 - British fleet sailed to recapture the Falkland Islands from Argentina.
1983 - France throws out 47 Soviet diplomats
1986 - Two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman were killed in the bombing of a
West Berlin disco that Washington blamed on Libya. (In retaliation, U.S.
jetfighters bombed Tripoli and Benghazi 10 days later.)
1986 - Record for a throw-and-return boomerang toss is set (121m)
1987 - Fox TV network premieres showing Married With Children & Tracey
Ullman
1988 - A 15-day hijacking ordeal began as gunmen forced a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet to land in Iran.
1988 - Democratic convention picks Michael Dukakis as their pres candidate
1989 - Solidarity grants legal status in Poland
1990 - Paul Newman wins a court victory over Julius Gold, to keep giving all
profits from Newman foods to charity
1990 - Japan made major commitments to change its economy and legal practices to
reduce its $49 billion trade surplus with the United States.
1991 - The space shuttle "Atlantis" blasted off on a mission that
included the deploying of the second of "NASA's" Great Observatories.
1991 - The
government reported the nation's jobless rate surged to six-point-eight percent in
March.
1991 - Kitty Kelly publishes a book knocking Nancy Reagan
1991 - Former Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, and 22 others, including astronaut
Manley Lanier (Sonny) Carter Jr., were killed in commuter plane crash in
Brunswick, Ga.
1992 - Rally in support of abortion rights for women draws several hundred
thousand people to demonstrations in Washington, D.C.
1992 - Medical student Suada Dilberovic became the first fatality of war in
Bosnia-Herzegovina as Serb nationalists began forcibly opposing the republic's
secession from Yugoslavia.
1993 - A Salvadoran Boeing 767 jetliner ran off the runway on landing in
Guatemala City, Guatemala, and crashed into a residential area. All 213 people
aboard the plane survived.
1994 - "Jackie Mason Politically Incorrect" opens at Golden NYC for
347 performances
1996 - Accompanied by six children who survived the Oklahoma City
bombing, President Clinton bowed his head in silent prayer at the site where
168 people were killed almost a year earlier.
1996 - John Bobbitt is put under house arrest in Las Vegas for 120 days
1996 - Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lance Ito dismissed juror Jeannette
Harris; she later told interviewers the jury had broken into factions supporting
O-J Simpson's guilt or innocence and that the sheriff's deputies assigned to the
jurors were fomenting racial discord.
1999 - One of two men charged in the Oct. 1998 beating death of gay University
of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two life
sentences.
1999 - Libya handed over for trial two suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am
Flight 103. The men were to be
tried in the Netherlands under Scottish law.
2000Ending a two-year investigation, an independent counsel cleared
Labor Secretary Alexis Herman of allegations that she'd solicited $250,000 in
illegal campaign contributions.
2000 - Yoshiro Mori took over as Japan's new prime minister, succeeding Keizo
Obuchi, who'd been felled by a stroke.
2001 - The United States and China intensified
negotiations for the release of an American spy plane's crew; President Bush, in
a conciliatory gesture, expressed regret over the plane's in-flight collision
with a Chinese fighter that triggered the tense standoff.
2001 - Dutch driver Perry Wacker was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to
14 years in prison in the deaths of 58 Chinese immigrants who suffocated in his
truck in Dover, England.
2001 - Wang Zhizhi became the first Chinese player to play in the NBA when he
took the court for Dallas against Atlanta. (Wang scored six points and grabbed
three rebounds as the Mavericks beat the Hawks 108-to-94.)
Birthdays
Today
1588 - Thomas Hobbes, England, philosopher (Leviathan)
1626 - Jan van Kessel, Flemish painter
1649 - Elihu Yale, England, philanthropist founded Yale
1698 - Georg Gottfried Wagner, composer
1725 - Giacomo Casanova, Italian writer/philanderer/adventurer
1732 - Jean-Honore Fragonard, France, painter
1784 - Louis [Ludwig] Spohr, Germany, violin virtuoso/composer (Faust)
1788 - Franz Pforr, German painter/cartoonist (Lukasbund)
1827 - Joseph Lister, England, physician (founded aseptic surgery)(inventor: Listerine mouthwash)
1830 - Alexander Muir, Lesmahagow Scotland, poet (Maple Leaf Forever)
1837 - Algernon Charles Swinburne, England, poet (Atalanta in Calydon)
1856 - Booker Taliaferro Washington, pioneer educator (1st black on US stamp)
1900 - Spencer Tracy (actor: see "Superstar" Day [above])
1901 - Chester Bowles, Mass, ambassador/writer (Conscience of a Liberal)
1901 - Melvyn Douglas, [Hesselberg], Macon Ga, actor (Hud, Ghost Story)
1908 - Bette Davis, Lowell Mass, famous eyes (Of Human Bondage, Jezebel)
1908 - George Schick, Prague Czech, conductor (Chicago Symphony)
1908 - Herbert von Karajan, Austria, Nazi/conductor (Berlin Philharmonic)
1916 - Gregory Peck, La Jolla Calif, actor (To Kill a Mockingbird, MacArthur)
1917 - Robert [Albert] Bloch, US, sci-fi author (Hugo, Psycho)
1920 - Arthur Hailey (author: Airport, The Final Diagnosis)
1922 - Gale Storm (Josephine Cottle) (singer: Ivory Tower, actress: My Little Margie)
1923 - Michael V Gazzo, Hillside NJ, actor (Cookie, Fear City)
1923 - Nguyen Van Thieu, South Vietnam president (1965-75)
1924 - Robert Q. Lewis (actor, TV host)
1925 - Stan Levey (drummer in band with Charlie Parker; one of the Lighthouse All-Stars; composer)
1926 - Roger Corman, Detroit, producer/director (Little Shop of Horrors)
1928 - David Farquhar Andress, composer
1928 - Tony Williams (singer: group: The Platters: Only You, The Great Pretender, Twilight Time, My Prayer, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Harbor Lights)
1932 - Billy Bland (singer: Let the Little Girl Dance, My Heart's on Fire)
1934 - Frank Gorshin (impressionist, actor: Batman, The Great Impostor)
1934 - Stanley Turrentine (jazz musician: tenor sax)
1937 - Colin Powell (military leader: Chairman U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff during Desert
Storm,general/asst to president (Nat Sec Affairs, Secretary of State for
President George W. Bush)
1940 - Tommy Cash (songwriter: You Don't Hear; country singer: Six White Horses, Rise and Shine, One Song Away, I Recall a Gypsy Woman; brother of Johnny Cash)
1941 - Michael Moriarty (actor: Bang the Drum Slowly, The Last Detail, Windmills of the Gods)
1945 - Doug Favell (hockey)
1949 - Dr. Judith A. Resnik (electrical engineer, astronaut: mission specialist on the ill-fated Space Shuttle Challenger)
1950 - Marv Bateman (football)
1951 - Brad Van Pelt (football)
1951 - Rennie Stennett (baseball: Pittsburgh Pirates: shares the record for seven hits in a nine-inning game [9/16/75] with Wilbert Robinson of Baltimore Orioles)
Famous
deaths
0828 - Nicephorus, patriarch of
Constantinopel (806-15), dies at about 77
1531 - Richard Roose, boiled to death for trying to poison an archbishop
1649 - John Winthrop, 1st governor Mass Bay Colony, dies at 61
1673 - Francois Caron, admiral/governor (Formosa), drowns at about 72
1765 - Edward Young, English poet (Love of Fame), dies at 81
1794 - Georges-Jacques Danton, French revolutionary leader, guillotined at 34
1794 - Marie Jean Herault de Sechelles, French author/politician, guillotined
1794 - Camille Desmoullins, popular journalist, guillotined
1811 - Robert Raikes, founder of Sunday Schools, dies
1923 - George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, egyptologist, dies at 56
1946 - Vincent Millie Youmans, US composer (Tea For Two), dies at 47
1964 - Douglas MacArthur, US general (Pacific theater-WW II), dies at 84
1975 - Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek died at age 87.
1976 - Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes died in Houston at age 72.
1982 - Abe Fortas, Supreme court justice, dies at 71
1984 - Arthur Travors ("Bomber") Harris, marshal of British RAF, dies
1986 - Manly Wade Wellman, sci-fi author (Devil's Planet), dies at 82
1988 - Alf Kjellin, Swedish actor/director (Juggler), dies
1994 - Andre Victor Tchelistcheff, winemaker, dies at 92
1997 - Allen Ginsberg, the counterculture guru who'd shattered conventions as
poet laureate of the Beat Generation, died in New York City at age 70
If
you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please
E-mail me
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