April 5th
 

1588 ~ Birthday of Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher.

1614 ~ In Virginia, Pocahontas marries English colonist John Rolfe.

1792 ~ U.S. President George Washington vetoed a bill. This was the first time the presidential veto was used.

1827 ~ Birthday of Joseph Lister, Surgeon.

1908 ~ Birthday of Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor.

1930 ~ In an act of civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi breaks British law after marching to the sea and making salt.

1951 ~ Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were sentenced to death for spying for the Soviet Union.

1955 ~ Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister of the U.K. due to failing health.

1964 ~ Death of General Douglas MacArthur, US Army.

1976 ~ Death of Howard Hughes, aviation pioneer.

April 6th
 

1528 ~ Death of Albrecht Dürer, Artist.

1652 ~ Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp at the Cape of Good Hope, which eventually developed into Cape Town.

1804 ~ The first scientifically recorded meteor landed in Possil, in north Glasgow, Scotland.

1866 ~ Birthday of Butch Cassidy, Outlaw.

1890 ~ Birthday of Anthony Fokker, Dutch Aircraft Designer.

1895 ~ Oscar Wilde was arrested after losing a libel case against the John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry.

1928 ~ Birthday of James D. Watson, Geneticist, co-discoverer of structure of DNA, winner 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

1930 ~ Hostess Twinkies were invented.

1992 ~ Death of Isaac Asimov, Author.

1994 ~ The Rwandan Genocide began when the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down.

April 7th
 

1614 ~ Death of El Greco (Domenikos Theotocopoulos), artist.

1770 ~ Birthday of William Wordsworth, English poet.

1795 ~ France adopted the metre as the unit of length

1891 ~ Death of P. T. Barnum, circus impresario.

1947 ~ Death of Henry Ford, automobile manufacturer and industrialist.

1953 ~ Dag Hammarskjöld was elected United Nations Secretary General.

1964 ~ IBM announced the System/360.

1968 ~ Death of im Clark, racing driver.

1969 ~ The Internet's symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1.

2003 ~ U.S. troops captured Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's regime fell two days later.

April 8th
 

1848 ~ Death of Gaetano Donizetti, Italian composer.

1889 ~ Birthday of Sir Adrien Boult, English conductor.

1899 ~ Martha Place became the first woman to be executed in an electric chair.

1913 ~ The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified requiring direct election of Senators.

1919 ~ Birthday of Ian Smith, former Prime Minister of Rhodesia.

1950 ~ Death of Vaslav Nijinsky, ballet dancer.

1953 ~ Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta was convicted by Kenya's British rulers.

1973 ~ Death of Pablo Picasso, artist.

1983 ~ Death of Omar Bradley, general.

1992 ~ Retired tennis great Arthur Ashe announced to the world that he had AIDS, acquired from blood transfusions during one of his two heart surgeries.

April 9th
 

1682 ~ Robert de LaSalle discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River, claimed it for France and named it Louisiana.

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

1906 ~ Birthday of Antal Dorati, Hungarian conductor.

1919 ~ Birthday of J. Presper Eckert, inventor of the ENIAC computer.

1926 ~ Birthday of Hugh Hefner, Editor & Publisher.

1928 ~ Birthday of Tom Lehrer, Musician & Satirist.,

1940 ~ World War II: Germany invaded Denmark and Norway.

1959 ~ Death of Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect.

1991 ~ Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

1992 ~ John Major won the UK general election.

April 10th
 

1794 ~ Birthday of Matthew Perry, American Commodore who forced the opening of Japan to the West

1847 ~ Birthday of Joseph Pulitzer, Journalist & Publisher

1912 ~ The RMS Titanic left port in Southampton, England.

1919 ~ Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata was ambushed and shot dead by government forces.

1931 ~ Death of Khalil Gibran - Lebanese Poet

1941 ~ World War II: The Axis Powers in Europe established the Independent State of Croatia from occupied Yugoslavia.

1954 ~ Death of Auguste Lumière, Cinema Pioneer.

1966 ~ Death of Evelyn Waugh, Writer.

1970 ~ Paul McCartney announced that The Beatles have broken up.

1998 ~ The Belfast Agreement was signed.

April 11th
 

1774 ~ Last execution for witchcraft in Germany.

1814 ~ Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to Elba.

1893 ~ Birthday of Dean Acheson, former United States Secretary of State.

1899 ~ Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States.

1906 ~ Death of James Anthony Bailey, co-founder with Phineas Taylor Barnum of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

1945 ~ World War II: United States forces liberated Buchenwald concentration camp.

1951 ~ Korean War: President Harry S. Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of overall command in Korea.

1961 ~ Bob Dylan made his singing début in New York City.

1970 ~ Apollo 13 was launched.

1979 ~ Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was deposed.

April 12th
 

65 ~ Death of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Philosopher, Dramatist & Statesman.

1606 ~ The Union Jack was adopted as the national flag of Great Britain.

1861 ~ American Civil War: The war began with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

1884 ~ Birthday of Otto Meyerhof, biochemist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1922.

1895 ~ Birthday of Lily Pons, Opera Soprano.

1937 ~ Sir Frank Whittle ground-tested the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at the British Thomson-Houston factory in Rugby, England.

1940 ~ Birthday of Herbie Hancock, Musician.

1944 ~ Birthday of John Kay, of Steppenwolf.

1961 ~ Russians win space race: Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space aboard Vostok 1.

1984 ~ Arthur Scargill, the man who led the destruction of the National Union of Mineworkers ruled out a national ballot of miners on whether to continue their strike.

April 13th
 

1570 ~ Birthday of Guy Fawkes, Gunpowder Plot conspirator.

1598 ~ King Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, allowing freedom of religion to the Huguenots.

1743 ~ Birthday of Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States.

1826 ~ Death of Franz Danzi, German composer.

1829 ~ The British Parliament granted freedom of religion to Roman Catholics.

1861 ~ American Civil War: Fort Sumter surrendered

1892 ~ Birthday of Arthur Travers 'Bomber' Harris, commander of RAF's Bomber Command in World War II.

1943 ~ World War II: The discovery of a mass grave of Polish prisoners-of-war executed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre was announced in Germany.

1987 ~ Portugal and China signed an agreement in which the island of Macao would be returned to China in 1999.

1990 ~ The Soviet Union admitted committing the Katyn Massacre.

April 14th
 

Information prepared by jseal, who is visiting a college with his son.

1629 ~ Birthday of Christiaan Huygens, Mathematician.

1759 ~ Death of Georg Friedrich Handel, Composer.

1828 ~ Noah Webster copyrighted the first edition of his dictionary.

1865 ~ Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth.

1904 ~ Birthday of Sir John Gielgud, Actor.

1912 ~ RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg on its maiden voyage.

1935 ~ Death of Amalie Emmy Noether, Mathematician.

1964 ~ Death of Rachel Carson, Writer & Ecologist.

1969 ~ At the Academy Awards, a tie between Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand results in the two sharing the Best Actress Oscar.

2003 ~ Jean Charest's Parti libéral du Québec defeated Bernard Landry and the Parti Québécois in Quebec's general elections.

April 15th
 

1452 ~ Birthday of Leonardo da Vinci

1707 ~ Birthday of Leonhard Euler, Mathematician.

1802 ~ William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy come across a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring him to write I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.

1920 ~ Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti allegedly murder two security guards while robbing a shoe store.

1924 ~ Birthday of Sir Neville Marriner, Conductor & Violinist.

1924 ~ Rand McNally published its first road atlas.

1947 ~ Jackie Robinson started for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team.

1980 ~ Death of Jean-Paul Sartre, Philosopher & Writer.

1994 ~ Globalization: Representatives of 124 countries and the European Communities signed the Marrakesh Agreements revising the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and created the World Trade Organization.

1998 ~ Death of Pol Pot, Cambodian Dictator.

April 16th
 

1071 ~ Bari fell to Robert Guiscard, ending Byzantine rule in Italy.

1867 ~ Birthday of Wilbur Wright, Pioneer Pilot.

1889 ~ Birthday of Charlie Chaplin, Actor, Writer & Film Producer.

1912 ~ Harriett Quimby became the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel.

1918 ~ Birthday of Spike Milligan, Comedian.

1921 ~ Birthday of Peter Ustinov, Writer, Actor & Film Director.

1927 ~ Birthday of Joseph Ratzinger, Cardinal.

1943 ~ Dr. Albert Hofmann discovered the psychedelic effects of LSD.

1947 ~ Bernard Baruch coined the term Cold War to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

2001 ~ First 3G voice call on Vodafone UK's 3G network.

April 17th
 

1521 ~ Martin Luther spoke at the Diet of Worms, and refused to recant his teachings.

1790 ~ Death of Benjamin Franklin, Politician, Inventor, Diplomat, & Printer.

1837 ~ Birthday of J.P. Morgan, Financier, Art Collector, & Philanthropist

1861 ~ American Civil War: Virginia seceded from the Union.

1894 ~ Birthday of Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet politician & Premier 1958-1964.

1903 ~ Birthday of Gregor Piatigorsky, Russian cellist.

1924 ~ Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios was formed from a merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and the Louis B. Mayer Company.

1961 ~ Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of American financed and trained Cuban refugees landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.

1984 ~ Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher was killed by automatic gunfire coming from the Libyan People's Bureau in central London. She had been policing a small demonstration outside the embassy.

2003 ~ Death of Dr. Robert Atkins, noted for the Atkin's Diet.

April 18th
 

1480 ~ Birthday of Lucrezia Borgia, Renaissance ruler and daughter of Pope Alexander VI.

1772 ~ Birthday of David Ricardo, Economist.

1775 ~ Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott rode to warn of impending arrests of Samuel Adams and John Hancock and seizure of weapons.

1819 ~ Birthday of Franz von Suppé, Croatian - Austrian composer.

1946 ~ The League of Nations dissolved itself.

1955 ~ Death of Albert Einstein, Scientist.

1958 ~ A federal court ruled that poet Ezra Pound should be released from an insane asylum.

1978 ~ The U.S. Senate narrowly backed President Carter's controversial Panama Canal treaty.

1983 ~ A suicide bomber destroyed the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.

2005 ~ Papal conclave begins in the Sistine Chapel.

April 19th
 

1587 ~ Sir Francis Drake sank the Spanish fleet in Cadiz Harbor.

1770 ~ Captain James Cook spotted Australia.

1861 ~ American Civil War: A pro-Secession mob in Baltimore, Maryland attacked Federal Army troops marching through the city.

1881 ~ Death of Benjamin Disraeli, former Prime Minister of the U.K.

1882 ~ Death of Charles Darwin, Biologist & Author.

1912 ~ Birthday of Glenn Seaborg, Chemist and Nobel Prize winner.

1956 ~ Actress Grace Kelly married Rainier III of Monaco.

1989 ~ Death of Daphne du Maurier, Author.

1993 ~ The 50-day siege of the Branch Davidian complex outside Waco, Texas ended when a fire broke out. Eighty-one people die.

1995 ~ Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was bombed, killing 168.

April 20th
 

1653 ~ Oliver Cromwell disbanded Parliament.

1657 ~ Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City) granted freedom of religion.

1862 ~ The first pasteurization test completed by Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard.

1889 ~ Birthday of Adolf Hitler, German (Austrian-born) dictator, "Der Führer".

1912 ~ Death of Bram Stoker, Author.

1918 ~ Manfred von Richthofen (The Red Baron) shot down his 79th and 80th victims - his final victories.

1945 ~ U.S. troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to cede the city to the U.S.S.R.

1968 ~ English politician Enoch Powell made his controversial Rivers of Blood Speech.

1972 ~ Apollo 16 landed on the Moon.

1999 ~ Columbine High School Massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.

April 21st
 

1816 ~ Birthday of Charlotte Brontë, Author.

1836 ~ Texas Revolution: Battle of San Jacinto - Republic of Texas forces under Sam Houston defeated troops under Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.

1838 ~ Birthday of John Muir, Environmentalist.

1910 ~ Death of Mark Twain, Author, Humorist.

1912 ~ The New York Giants and New York Yankees played an exhibition game to benefit survivors of the RMS Titanic.

1918 ~ World War I: German fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, The Red Baron, was shot down and killed.

1944 ~ Women in France were enfranchised.

1946 ~ Death of John Maynard Keynes, Economist.

1956 ~ Elvis Presley's song Heartbreak Hotel became his first song to reach the top of the music charts.

1994 ~ The first extrasolar planets were announced by astronomer Alexander Wolszczan.

April 22nd
 

1724 ~ Birthday of Immanuel Kant, Philosopher.

1870 ~ Birthday of Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionary.

1899 ~ Birthday of Vladimir Nabokov, Writer.

1904 ~ Birthday of Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist.

1943 ~ Albert Hofmann wrote his first report about the hallucinogenic properties of LSD.

1970 ~ First Earth Day celebrated.

1984 ~ Death of Ansel Adams, Photographer.

1996 ~ Death of Erma Bombeck, Humorist & Writer.

1997 ~ A 126-day hostage crisis at the residence of the Japanese ambassador in Lima, Peru came to an abrupt conclusion after commandos stormed and captured the building, rescuing 71 hostages. One hostage died of a heart attack, two soldiers were killed, and interestingly, all 14 rebels died.

2000 ~ In a morning raid, federal agents seize six-year-old Elián González from his relatives' home in Miami, Florida, and fly him to his Cuban father in Washington, DC, ending what has to have been one of the most publicized custody battles in US history.

April 23rd
 

1850 ~ Death of William Wordsworth, Lake Poet.

1858 ~ Birthday of Max Planck, Physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics 1918.

1891 ~ Birthday of Sergei Prokofiev, Soviet Composer.

1954 ~ Hank Aaron hit his first major league home run.

1968 ~ Birthday of Timothy McVeigh, American Terrorist.

1971 ~ The Rolling Stones released the classic album Sticky Fingers.

1994 ~ Physicists discoved the top quark.

1993 ~ Death of César Chávez, Labor Activist.

1998 ~ Death of James Earl Ray, Assassin.

2002 ~ Death of Linda Lovelace, Porn Star.

April 24th
 

1731 ~ Death of Daniel Defoe, English Writer

1856 ~ Birthday of Henri Philippe Pétain, Soldier & Statesman

1905 ~ Birthday of Robert Penn Warren, Writer, Pulitzer Prize winner, first American Poet Laureate

1916 ~ Easter Uprising began: The Irish Republican Brotherhood led by nationalist Patrick Pearse started a rebellion in Ireland.

1967 ~ Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died in Soyuz 1.

1975 ~ The Baader-Meinhof Gang blew up the West German embassy in Stockholm.

1986 ~ Death of Wallis Simpson, Mistress and Wife of The Duke of Windsor

1990 ~ The Hubble Space Telescope was launched by Space Shuttle Discovery.

1993 ~ An IRA bomb devastated the Bishopsgate area of City of London.

2004 ~ Death of Estée Lauder, Cosmetics pioneer.

April 25th
 

1599 ~ Birthday of Oliver Cromwell, Military Leader & Politician.

1719 ~ Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe was published.

1792 ~ The French national anthem, La Marseillaise was composed.

1840 ~ Birthday of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer.

1900 ~ Birthday of Wolfgang Pauli, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics 1945.

1915 ~ The ANZAC tradition began during World War I with a landing at Gallipoli on the Turkish coast.

1917 ~ Birthday of Ella Fitzgerald, Jazz Singer.

1945 ~ The United Nations was organized in San Francisco, California, by 50 nations.

1953 ~ Francis Crick and James Watson published Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid describing the double helix structure of DNA.

1989 ~ James Richardson was freed from a Florida prison 21 years after being wrongfully convicted of the murder of his seven children.



Holidays and observances

Australia, New Zealand ~ ANZAC Day

April 26th
 

1607 ~ Colonists made landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia, later moving up the James River to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America.

1711 ~ Birthday of David Hume, Philosopher & Historian.

1785 ~ Birthday of John Audubon, Naturalist & Illustrator.

1865 ~ Death of John Wilkes Booth, shot while trying to avoid capture for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

1935 ~ Birthday of Carol Burnett, Singer, Actress & Comedienne.

1937 ~ Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain was bombed by German Luftwaffe.

1964 ~ Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania.

1986 ~ In Ukraine, a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded, creating the world's worst nuclear disaster.

1989 ~ Death of Lucille Ball, Actress & Comedienne.

1994 ~ South Africa held its first multiracial elections.

April 27th
 

1667 ~ John Milton sold the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10.

1737 ~ Birthday of Edward Gibbon, historian.

1773 ~ The British Parliament passed the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.

1791 ~ Birthday of Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of Morse code.

1813 ~ War of 1812: United States troops captured York, the capital of Ontario (present day Toronto, Ontario).

1904 ~ The Australian Labor Party became the first such party to gain national government, under Chris Watson.

1965 ~ Death of Edward R. Murrow, Journalist.

1972 ~ Death of Kwame Nkrumah, first post-independence leader of Ghana.

1986 ~ Captain Midnight (John R. MacDougall) hijacked HBO's satellite and transmitted his own message to HBO viewers.

1999 ~ Death of Al Hirt, Musician.

April 28th
 

1788 ~ Maryland became the 7th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1789 ~ Mutiny on the Bounty. Captain William Bligh and 18 sailors set adrift and rebel crew set sail for Pitcairn Island.

1906 ~ Birthday of Kurt Gödel, mathematician.

1908 ~ Birthday of Oskar Schindler, Businessman.

1937 ~ Birthday of Saddam Hussein, former leader of Iraq.

1945 ~ Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are killed by members of the Italian resistance movement while trying to flee Italy.

1947 ~ Thor Heyerdahl and five crewmates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia.

1952 ~ Occupied Japan: The United States occupation of Japan ended.

1969 ~ Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of France.

1990 ~ After 6,237 performances, the Broadway musical A Chorus Line closed.

April 29th
 

1770 ~ James Cook arrived at and named Botany Bay, Australia.

1861 ~ American Civil War: Maryland's House of Delegates voted not to secede from the Union.

1863 ~ Birthday of William Randolph Hearst, American publisher.

1893 ~ Birthday of Harold Urey, American chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

1936 ~ Birthday of Zubin Mehta, Indian-born American conductor.

1945 ~ The Dachau concentration camp was liberated by troops of the U.S. Seventh Army.

1958 ~ The Broadway musical, My Fair Lady, opened in London to a rapturous reception.

1980 ~ Death of Alfred Hitchcock, director.

1992 ~ Rioting broke out in Los Angeles following the acquittal of four white police officers accused of beating black motorist Rodney King.

1997 ~ The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 came into force, outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons among its signatories.

April 30th
 

1777 ~ Birthday of Carl Friedrich Gauss, Mathematician, Astronomer & Physicist.

1789 ~ George Washington took the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States from the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City.

1877 ~ Birthday of Alice B. Toklas, Muse and Brownie Chef.

1883 ~ Death of Édouard Manet, Impressionist Painter.

1916 ~ Birthday of Claude Shannon, the "father of information theory”

1938 ~ Birthday of Larry Niven, Science Fiction author.

1945 ~ Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide after being married for one day.

1948 ~ The Land Rover is introduced.

1975 ~ The war in Vietnam same to an end as the South Vietnamese government in Saigon announced its unconditional surrender to the Vietcong.

1993 ~ CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free to everyone.

May 1st
 

1786 ~ Opening night of W.A.M.’s opera, The Marriage of Figaro in Vienna.

1840 ~ The Penny Black postage stamp is put on sale in the United Kingdom.

1869 ~ The Folies Bergères opened in Paris.

1904 ~ Death of Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer.

1939 ~ Birthday of Judy Collins, American folk singer.

1941 ~ Orson Welles's Citizen Kane premiered in New York City.

1944 ~ Birthday of Rita Coolidge, American singer.

1960 ~ Cold War: Francis Gary Powers, in a U-2 spyplane, was shot down over the Soviet Union, beginning a crisis.

1978 ~ Death of Aram Khachaturian, Armenian composer.

1982 ~ RAF aircraft attack two airstrips near the Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands in the war to rid the islands of Argentine forces

May 2nd
 

1519 ~ Death of Leonardo da Vinci, inventor, painter.

1660 ~ Birthday of Alessandro Scarlatti, Italian Composer.

1729 ~ Birthday of Empress Catherine II of Russia.

1892 ~ Birthday of Manfred von Richthofen, "The Red Baron" German World War I pilot.

1933 ~ The first modern sighting of the Loch Ness monster was reported.

1939 ~ Lou Gehrig's streak of 2130 consecutive Major League Baseball games played came to an end. The record would stand for 56 years before Cal Ripken, Jr. broke it.

1952 ~ The world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1, launched the jet age with its maiden flight from London to Johannesburg.

1955 ~ Tennessee Williams won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

1982 ~ Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano.

1997 ~ The Labour Party's Tony Blair became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, ending 18 years of Conservative Party rule. At 44, he was the youngest prime minister for 185 years.

May 3rd
 

1496 ~ Birthday of Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian historian and political author.

1616 ~ Death of William Shakespeare Playwright & Poet

1810 ~ Lord Byron swam the Hellespont.

1844 ~ Birthday of Richard D'Oyly Carte, English theatrical impresario.

1898 ~ Birthday of Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel.

1937 ~ Gone With the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

1946 ~ World War II: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East began in Tokyo against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

1982 ~ Falklands War: The Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield is hit by an Exocet missile.

1991 ~ The last episode of the soap opera Dallas aired.

2000 ~ The sport of Geocaching began with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS were posted on Usenet.

May 4th
 

1825 ~ Birthday of Thomas Henry Huxley, English scientist.

1852 ~ Birthday of Alice Liddell, for whom Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland.

1928 ~ Birthday of Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt.

1930 ~ British police arrest Mahatma Gandhi and place him in Yeravda Central Prison.

1970 ~ Vietnam War: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after the ROTC building was burnt down, opened fire on students protesting at the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.

1975 ~ Death of Moe Howard, actor, comedian; member of the Three Stooges.

1979 ~ Election victory for Margaret Thatcher, England’s first woman Prime Minister.

1980 ~ Death of Josip Tito, President of Yugoslavia.

1990 ~ Latvia proclaims independence.

2000 ~ Ken Livingstone elected London mayor

May 5th
 

1807 ~ Death of P. D. Q. Bach, fictitious Composer.

1813 ~ Birthday of Søren Kierkegaard, Philosopher.

1818 ~ Birthday of Karl Marx, Political Philosopher.

1821 ~ Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, Ruler of France.

1891 ~ Carnegie Hall had its grand opening and first public performance, with Pyotr Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.

1904 ~ Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, Cy Young of the Boston Americans threw the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball.

1925 ~ Dayton, Tennessee biology teacher John Scopes is arrested for teaching Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

1980 ~ Operation Nimrod: The Special Air Service stormed the Iranian embassy in London after a six day siege.

1992 ~ Wolfenstein 3D was released, the first-ever first-person shooter computer game.

1995 ~ Death of Mikhail Botvinnik, world chess champion.

May 6th
 

1758 ~ Birthday of Maximilien Robespierre, Revolutionary.

1856 ~ Birthday of Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist, founder of Psychoanalysis.

1889 ~ The Eiffel Tower was officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

1915 ~ Birthday of T.H. White, Writer.

1915 ~ Birthday of Orson Welles, Director.

1937 ~ The German zeppelin Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed in a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

1940 ~ John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.

1953 ~ Birthday of Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1954 ~ Roger Bannister becomes the first man to run the mile in under four minutes.

1994 ~ Queen Elizabeth and French President François Mitterrand inaugurate the opening of the Chunnel.

May 7th
 

1824 ~ Premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Vienna.

1825 ~ Death of Antonio Salieri, Composer.

1833 ~ Birthday of Johannes Brahms, Composer.

1840 ~ Birthday of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer.

1915 ~ World War I: a German U-boat sank the RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people.

1919 ~ Birthday of Eva Peron, wife of Argentine President Juan Peron.

1933 ~ Birthday of Johnny Unitas, American football star.

1945 ~ World War II: General Alfred Jodl signed unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war.

1954 ~ Indochina War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ended in a French defeat (the battle began on March 13).

1999 ~ Kosovo War: In Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, three Chinese embassy workers were killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft “mistakenly” bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

May 8th
 

1541 ~ Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River, naming it Río de Espíritu Santo.

1794 ~ Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier was tried, convicted, and guillotined all on one day in Paris.

1828 ~ Birthday of Jean Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

1873 ~ Death of John Stuart Mill, Empiricist Philosopher.

1895 ~ Birthday of Fulton J. Sheen, bishop and television personality.

1902 ~ Mount Pelée erupted in Martinique, destroying the town of St. Pierre and killing over 30,000 people.

1984 ~ The Soviet Union announced that it would boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics.

1985 ~ Death of Theodore Sturgeon, Science Fiction writer.

1988 ~ Death of Robert A. Heinlein, Science Fiction writer.

1999 ~ Nancy Mace became the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel military college.



Holidays and observances

Mother's Day

May 9th
 

1429 ~ Joan of Arc defeated the English troops besieging Orléans.

1837 ~ Birthday of Adam Opel, German engineer and industrialist.

1860 ~ Birthday of J. M. Barrie, Author, creator of Peter Pan.

1874 ~ Birthday of Howard Carter, British archaeologist.

1887 ~ Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show opened in London.

1901 ~ Australia opened its first parliament in Melbourne.

1903 ~ Death of Paul Gauguin, French Post-Impressionist painter.

1986 ~ Death of Tenzing Norgay, Mountaineer.

1994 ~ Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.

2002 ~ In Kaspiysk, Russia, a remote-controlled bomb exploded during a holiday parade killing 43 and injuring at least 130.

May 10th
 

1801 ~ First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declared war on the United States.

1818 ~ Death of Paul Revere, engraver, American Patriot.

1838 ~ Birthday of John Wilkes Booth, actor, assassin of Abraham Lincoln.

1857 ~ Indian Mutiny: In India, the Sepoys revolted against the British Army.

1872 ~ Victoria Woodhull became the first woman nominated for President of the U.S.

1899 ~ Birthday of Fred Astaire, Singer, Dancer & Actor.

1933 ~ Censorship: In Germany, the Nazis stage massive public book burnings.

1954 ~ Bill Haley and the Comets released Rock Around the Clock, the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the charts.

1960 ~ The nuclear submarine USS Triton completed the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.

2002 ~ FBI agent Robert Hanssen was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole for selling American secrets to Russia.

May 11th
 

1857 ~ Indian Mutiny: Indian rebels seized Delhi from the British.

1904 ~ Birthday of Salvador Dalí, Spanish painter.

1918 ~ Birthday of Richard Feynman, American Physicist

1930 ~ Birthday of Edsger Dijkstra, Dutch computer scientist.

1960 ~ The first contraceptive pill is put on the market.

1984 ~ A transit of Earth from Mars took place, but no one was there to observe it.

1987 ~ The first heart-lung transplant takes place in Baltimore, Maryland.

1988 ~ Death of Kim Philby, Spy.

1997 ~ IBM's Deep Blue chess-playing supercomputer defeated Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player.

2001 ~ Death of Douglas Adams, Science Fiction author.

May 12th
 

1820 ~ Birthday of Florence Nightingale, Nurse.

1845 ~ Birthday of Gabriel Fauré, Composer.

1884 ~ Death of Bedřich Smetana, Composer.

1889 ~ Death of John Cadbury, Chocolate Entrepreneur.

1918 ~ Birthday of Julius Rosenberg, Spy.

1926 ~ General Strike 1926: In the United Kingdom, a 9-day general strike by trade unions failed.

1949 ~ Cold War: The Soviet Union lifted its Blockade of Berlin.

1962 ~ Douglas MacArthur delivered his famous "Duty, Honor, Country" valedictory speech at West Point.

1972 ~ The Rolling Stones released Exile On Main Street, considered by some their best album.

2000 ~ The Tate Modern art gallery opened in London.

May 13th
 

1787 ~ Captain Arthur Phillip left Portsmouth, England with eleven ships of convicts to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1842 ~ Birthday of Sir Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert & Sullivan, Composer.

1861 ~ American Civil War: Queen Victoria of Britain issued a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognized the breakaway states as having belligerent rights.

1888 ~ Brazil abolished slavery.

1907 ~ Birthday of Dame Daphne du Maurier, Author.

1912 ~ The Royal Flying Corps (now the Royal Air Force) was established in the U.K..

1937 ~ Birthday of Roger Zelazny, Science Fiction author.

1940 ~ World War II: Winston Churchill maked his "blood, tears, toil and sweat" speech to the House of Commons.

1948 ~ 1948 Arab-Israeli War: The Kfar Etzion massacre was committed by Arab irregulars, the day before the declaration of independence of the state of Israel on May 14.

1981 ~ Mehmet Ali Ağca attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II at St. Peter's Square in Rome.

if i may add one....a very sad day in philadelphia...
1985 ~ The violent confrontation between the MOVE organization and Philadelphia's city government, which left 11 MOVE members and one police officer dead and 61 homes destroyed by fire.