Events Pre-1600 240 – Shapur I becomes co-emperor of the Sasanian Empire with his father Ardashir I. 467 – Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. 627 – King Edwin of Northumbria is converted to Christianity by Paulinus, Bishop of York. 806 – Nikephoros I of Constantinople is consecrated as patriarch of Constantinople. 1159 – Having received the submission of the prince of Antioch, Raynald of Châtillon, Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos enters triumphantly the city of Antioch. 1204 – The Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade breach the walls of Constantinople and enter the city, which they completely occupy the following day. 1588 – The Instruction of 12 April 1588 was enacted, which is widely regarded as the formal establishment of the Dutch Republic.
1601–1900 1606 – The Union Flag is adopted as the flag of English and Scottish ships. 1776 – American Revolution: With the Halifax Resolves, the North Carolina Provincial Congress authorizes its Congressional delegation to vote for independence from Britain. 1782 – American Revolution: A Royal Navy fleet led by Admiral George Rodney defeats a French fleet led by the Comte de Grasse at the Battle of the Saintes off Dominica in the Caribbean Sea. 1796 – War of the First Coalition: Napoleon Bonaparte wins his first victory as an army commander at the Battle of Montenotte, splitting the Austrian and Piedmontese armies away from each other, and marking the beginning of the Piedmontese surrender in the war. 1807 – The Froberg mutiny on Malta ends when the remaining mutineers blow up the magazine of Fort Ricasoli. 1820 – Alexander Ypsilantis is declared leader of Filiki Eteria, a secret organization to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece. 1831 – Soldiers marching on the Broughton Suspension Bridge in Manchester, England, cause it to collapse. 1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Fort Sumter. The war begins with Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. 1862 – American Civil War: The Andrews Raid (the Great Locomotive Chase) occurs, starting from Big Shanty, Georgia (now Kennesaw). 1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of Fort Pillow: Confederate forces kill most of the African American soldiers that surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee. 1865 – American Civil War: Mobile, Alabama, falls to the Union Army. 1877 – The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal. 1900 – One day after its enactment by the Congress, President William McKinley signs the Foraker Act into law, giving Puerto Rico limited self-rule.; ;
1901–present 1910 – , one of the last pre-dreadnought battleships built by the Austro-Hungarian Navy, is launched. 1917 – World War I: Canadian forces successfully complete the taking of Vimy Ridge from the Germans. 1927 – Shanghai massacre of 1927: Chiang Kai-shek orders the Chinese Communist Party members executed in Shanghai, ending the First United Front. 1927 – Rocksprings, Texas is hit by an F5 tornado that destroys 235 of the 247 buildings in the town, kills 72 townspeople, and injures 205; third deadliest tornado in Texas history. 1928 – The Bremen, a German Junkers W 33 type aircraft, takes off for the first successful transatlantic aeroplane flight from east to west. 1934 – The strongest surface wind gust in the world at the time of 231 mph, is measured on the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire. It has since been surpassed. 1934 – The U.S. Auto-Lite strike begins, culminating in a five-day melee between Ohio National Guard troops and 6,000 strikers and picketers. 1937 – Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England. 1945 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office; Vice President Harry S. Truman succeeds him. 1945 – World War II: The U.S. Ninth Army under General William H. Simpson crosses the Elbe River astride Magdeburg, and reaches Tangermünde—only from Berlin. 1955 – The polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective. 1961 – Space Race: The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first crewed orbital flight, Vostok 1. 1963 – The Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-33 collides with the Finnish merchant vessel M/S Finnclipper in the Danish straits. 1970 – Soviet submarine K-8, carrying four nuclear torpedoes, sinks in the Bay of Biscay four days after a fire on board. 1980 – The Americo-Liberian government of Liberia is violently deposed. 1980 – Transbrasil Flight 303, a Boeing 727, crashes on approach to Hercílio Luz International Airport in Florianópolis, Brazil. Fifty-five out of the 58 people on board are killed. 1980 – Canadian runner and athlete Terry Fox begins his Marathon of Hope Run in St. John's, NF 1981 – The first launch of a Space Shuttle (Columbia) takes place: The STS-1 mission. 1983 – Harold Washington is elected as the first black mayor of Chicago. 1985 – Space Shuttle Discovery launches on STS-51D to deploy two communications satellites. 1990 – Jim Gary's "Twentieth Century Dinosaurs" exhibition opens at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. He is the only sculptor ever invited to present a solo exhibition there. 1990 – Widerøe Flight 839 crashes after takeoff from Værøy Airport in Norway, killing five people. 1992 – The Euro Disney Resort officially opens with its theme park Euro Disneyland; the resort and its park's name are subsequently changed to Disneyland Resort Paris. 1999 – United States President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving "intentionally false statements" in a civil lawsuit; he is later fined and disbarred. 1999 – During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, an American McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle shoots a passenger train, killing between 20 and 60 people. 2002 – A suicide bomber blows herself up at the entrance to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda Market, killing seven people and wounding 104. 2007 – A suicide bomber penetrates the Green Zone and detonates in a cafeteria within a parliament building, killing Iraqi MP Mohammed Awad and wounding more than twenty other people. 2009 – Zimbabwe officially abandons the Zimbabwean dollar as its official currency. 2010 – Merano derailment: A rail accident in South Tyrol kills nine people and injures a further 28. 2013 – Two suicide bombers kill three Chadian soldiers and injure dozens of civilians at a market in Kidal, Mali. 2014 – The Great Fire of Valparaíso ravages the Chilean city of Valparaíso, killing 16 people, displacing nearly 10,000, and destroying more than 2,500 homes. 2026 – The Tisza Party, led by Péter Magyar wins the 2026 Hungarian parliamentary election, defeating Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party, which had ruled the country for 16 years, marking the first change in government in Hungary for over a decade.
Births Pre-1600 811 – Muhammad al-Jawad, the ninth Imam of Shia Islam (died 835) 959 – En'yū, emperor of Japan (died 991) 1116 – Richeza of Poland, queen of Sweden and Grand Princess of Minsk (died 1156) 1432 – Anne of Austria, Landgravine of Thuringia (died 1462) 1484 – Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Italian architect, designed the Apostolic Palace and St. Peter's Basilica (died 1546) 1484 – Maharana Sangram Singh, Rana of Mewar (died 1527) 1500 – Joachim Camerarius, German scholar and translator (died 1574) 1526 – Muretus, French philosopher and author (died 1585) 1550 – Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, English courtier and politician, Lord Great Chamberlain (died 1604) 1577 – Christian IV of Denmark (died 1648)
1601–1900 1612 – Simone Cantarini, Italian painter and engraver (died 1648) 1639 – Martin Lister, English naturalist and physician (died 1712) 1656 – Benoît de Maillet, French diplomat and natural historian (died 1738) 1705 – William Cookworthy, English minister and pharmacist (died 1780) 1710 – Caffarelli, Italian actor and singer (died 1783) 1713 – Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, French historian and author (died 1796) 1716 – Felice Giardini, Italian violinist and composer (died 1796) 1722 – Pietro Nardini, Italian violinist and composer (died 1793) 1724 – Lyman Hall, American physician, clergyman, and politician, 16th Governor of Georgia (died 1790) 1748 – Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, French botanist and author (died 1836) 1777 – Henry Clay, American lawyer and politician, 9th United States Secretary of State (died 1852) 1792 – John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, English soldier and politician, Lord Privy Seal (died 1840) 1794 – Germinal Pierre Dandelin, Belgian mathematician and engineer (died 1847) 1796 – George N. Briggs, American lawyer and politician, 19th Governor of Massachusetts (died 1861) 1799 – Henri Druey, Swiss lawyer and politician, 2nd President of the Swiss Confederation (died 1855) 1801 – Joseph Lanner, Austrian composer and conductor (died 1843) 1816 – Charles Gavan Duffy, Irish-Australian politician, 8th Premier of Victoria (died 1903) 1823 – Alexander Ostrovsky, Russian playwright and translator (died 1886) 1839 – Nikolay Przhevalsky, Russian geographer and explorer (died 1888) 1845 – Gustaf Cederström, Swedish painter (died 1933) 1851 – José Gautier Benítez, Puerto Rican soldier and poet (died 1880) 1851 – Edward Walter Maunder, English astronomer and author (died 1928) 1852 – Ferdinand von Lindemann, German mathematician and academic (died 1939) 1856 – Martin Conway, 1st Baron Conway of Allington, English mountaineer, cartographer, and politician (died 1937) 1863 – Raul Pompeia, Brazilian writer (died 1895) 1868 – Akiyama Saneyuki, Japanese admiral (died 1918) 1869 – Henri Désiré Landru, French serial killer (died 1922) 1871 – Ioannis Metaxas, Greek general and politician, 130th Prime Minister of Greece (died 1941) 1874 – William B. Bankhead, American lawyer and politician, 47th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (died 1940) 1880 – Addie Joss, American baseball player and journalist (died 1911) 1883 – Imogen Cunningham, American photographer and educator (died 1976) 1883 – Dally Messenger, Australian rugby player, cricketer, and sailor (died 1959) 1884 – Tenby Davies, Welsh runner (died 1932) 1884 – Otto Meyerhof, German physician and biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1951) 1885 – Robert Delaunay, French painter (died 1941) 1887 – Harold Lockwood, American actor and director (died 1918) 1888 – Dan Ahearn, Irish-American long jumper and police officer (died 1942) 1888 – Cecil Kimber, English automobile engineer (died 1945) 1892 – Henry Darger, American writer and artist (died 1973) 1894 – Dorothy Cumming, Australian-American actress (died 1983)
1894 – Francisco Craveiro Lopes, Portuguese field marshal and politician, 13th President of Portugal (died 1964) 1898 – Lily Pons, French-American soprano and actress (died 1976)
1901–present 1901 – Lowell Stockman, American farmer and politician (died 1962) 1902 – Louis Beel, Dutch academic and politician, 36th Prime Minister of the Netherlands (died 1977) 1903 – Jan Tinbergen, Dutch economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1994) 1907 – Felix de Weldon, Austrian-American sculptor, designed the Marine Corps War Memorial (died 2003) 1907 – Zawgyi, Burmese poet, author, literary historian, critic, scholar and academic (died 1990) 1908 – Ida Pollock, English author and painter (died 2013) 1908 – Robert Lee Scott, Jr., American pilot and general (died 2006) 1910 – Gillo Dorfles, Italian art critic, painter and philosopher (died 2018) 1910 – Irma Rapuzzi, French politician (died 2018) 1911 – Mahmoud Younis, Egyptian engineer (died 1976) 1912 – Frank Dilio, Canadian businessman (died 1997) 1912 – Hamengkubuwono IX, Indonesian politician, 2nd Vice President of Indonesia (died 1988) 1912 – Hound Dog Taylor, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1975) 1913 – Keiko Fukuda, Japanese-American martial artist (died 2013) 1914 – Armen Alchian, American economist and academic (died 2013)