On April 1st...

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April Fools Day

1578 William Harvey, physician who discovered how blood circulates, was born.

1582 Painter Gaspar de Crayer was born.
1582 Composer Thomas Simpson was born.

1732 Composer Franz Joseph Haydn was born.

1748 The ruins of Pompeii were discovered.

1789 The U. S. House of Representatives held its first full meeting.

1815 Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck was born.

1826 Samuel Mory patented an internal combustion engine.

1853 Cincinnati, Ohio, established the first professional fire department in the United States.

1863 The first wartime draft in the United States went into effect.

1868 Dramatist Edmond Rostand was born.

1873 The WhiteStar steamship Atlantic sank off Nova Scotia, Canada, killing 547 persons.
1873 Composer Sergei Rachmaninoff was born.

1876 The first official National League game was played.

1883 Actor Lon Chaney was born.

1891 The Wrigley Company was founded in Chicago, Illinois.
1891 A telephone link between London, England, and Paris, France, was established.

1905 The British East African Protectorate became the colony of Kenya.

1917 Musician Scott Joplin died.

1918 The Royal Air Force of Great Britain was established.

1920 The Ottawa Senators won the Stanley Cup.

1924 The Royal Canadian Air Force was established.
1924 The British Crown took control of Northern Rhodesia from the British South Africa Company.

1925 Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, was dedicated.

1929 Football coach Bo Schembechler was born.

1931 An earthquake devastated Managua, Nicaragua, and killed about 2,000 people.
1931 Jackie Mitchell became the first woman to play professional baseball.

1932 Actor Gordon Jump was born.
1932 Actress Debbie Reynolds was born.

1934 Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker killed two highway patrolmen near Grapevine, Texas.

1937 Aden became a British Crwon Colony.

1938 The Baseball Hall of Fame opened in Cooperstown, New York.
1938 Actress Ali MacGraw was born.

1944 Baseball player Rusty Staub was born.

1945 U.S. troops landed on Okinawa Island.

1946 The Malayan Union was formed.
1946 Weight Watchers was formed.

1947 King George II of Greece died.

1948 The Faroe Islands received autonomy from Denmark.
1948 Musician Jimmy Cliff was born.

1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation authorizing establishment of the U. S. Air Force Academy.
1954 About 200 persons were killed by an earthquake and tsunami that struck the Aleutian Islands.

1960 TIROS-1, the first weather satellite, was launched.
1960 Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Paramount Ruler of Malaya, died.

1963 The soap operas "General Hospital" and "Doctors" premiered.

1967 The U. S. Department of Transportation officially began operations.

1970 The American Motor Company (AMC) introduced its first sub-compact car, the Gremlin.
1970 The advertising of tobacco on radio and television was banned in the United States (effective January 1, 1971).

1972 Major League Baseball players staged their first collective strike.

1976 SteveWozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer.
1976 Conrail took over the operations of six bankrupt railroads in the northeastern United States.
1976 The docu-drama "Helter Skelter" premiered on CBS-TV.

1978 The Philippine College of Commerce became the Polytechnic University of the Philippines by presidential decree.

1979 Iran was proclaimed an Islamic Republic.

1980 An assassination attempt on Iraqi Vice-Premier Tariq Aziz failed.
1980 New York City's Transit Workers Union went on strike.
1980 Wrestler Randy Orton was born.

1982 The United States formally transfered the Canal Zone to Panama.

1984 The University of Southern California defeated Tennessee 72-61 to win the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship.
1984 Singer Marvin Gaye died.

1985 Villanova defeated Georgetown 84-75 to win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

1990 Jack Nicklaus won his first start on the Senior PGA tour.
1990 Stanford defeated Auburn 88-81 to win the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship.

1991 Iran released British hostage Roger Cooper, after 5 years.
1991 The Warsaw Pact officially dissolved.
1991 The U. S. Supreme Court ruled that prospective jurors cannot be barred from serving due to race.
1991 Duke defeated Kansas 72-65 to win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.
1991 Choreographer and dancer Martha Graham died.

1992 National Hockey League players went on strike.

1996 Kentucky defeated Syracuse 76-67 to win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

1998 U. S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright dismissed Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton.

1999 The Euro was adopted as an official currency by 11 European countries.
1999 Nunavat was established as a Canadian territory.

2001 Former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic surrendered to police special forces.
2001 Notre Dame defeated Purdue 68-66 to win the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship.

2002 The Netherlands became the first nation to legalize euthanasia.
2002 Maryland defeated Indiana 64-52 to win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championships.

2003 Army Private 1st Class Jessica Lynch was rescued from an Iraq hospital by American troops.

2004 Google launched Gmail.

2006 The Serious Organised Crime Agency was created in the United Kingdom.

2010 Actor John Forsythe died.

2012 A plane crash in western Siberia killed at least 31 people.

2015 Fifty-five persons died when the Russian trawler Dalniy Vostok sank off the Kamchatka Peninsula.

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This page was last updated on February 19, 2018.