Events Pre-1600 796 – King Æthelred I of Northumbria is murdered in Corbridge by a group led by his ealdormen, Ealdred and Wada. The patrician Osbald is crowned, but abdicates within 27 days. 1428 – Peace of Ferrara between Republic of Venice, Duchy of Milan, Republic of Florence and House of Gonzaga: ending of the second campaign of the Wars in Lombardy fought until the Treaty of Lodi in 1454, which will then guarantee the conditions for the development of the Italian Renaissance. 1506 – The cornerstone of the current St. Peter's Basilica is laid. 1518 – Bona Sforza is crowned as queen consort of Poland. 1521 – Trial of Martin Luther begins its second day during the assembly of the Diet of Worms. He refuses to recant his teachings despite the risk of excommunication.
1601–1900 1689 – Bostonians rise up in rebellion against Sir Edmund Andros. 1738 – Real Academia de la Historia ("Royal Academy of History") is founded in Madrid. 1775 – American Revolution: The British Army advances up the Charles River in Massachusetts to destroy supplies of American militias, while Paul Revere and other riders rapidly warn the countryside. 1783 – Three-Fifths Compromise: The first instance of black slaves in the United States of America being counted as three-fifths of persons (for the purpose of taxation), in a resolution of the Congress of the Confederation. This was later adopted in the 1787 Constitution.Story, Joseph (1833) Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, §641 (Book 3, Chapter 9) 1797 – War of the First Coalition: The Peace of Leoben is signed by Napoleon Bonaparte and Maximilian, Count of Merveldt, creating an armistice between France and Austria, setting the stage for the Treaty of Campo Formio and ending the War of the First Coalition. 1831 – The University of Alabama is founded in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. 1847 – American victory at the battle of Cerro Gordo opens the way for invasion of Mexico. 1857 – The Spirits Book by Allan Kardec is published, marking the birth of Spiritualism in France. 1864 – Battle of Dybbøl: A Prussian-Austrian army defeats Denmark and gains control of Schleswig. Denmark surrenders the province in the following peace settlement. 1897 – The Greco-Turkish War is declared between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. 1899 – The St. Andrew's Ambulance Association is granted a royal charter by Queen Victoria.
1901–present 1902 – The 7.5 Guatemala earthquake shakes Guatemala with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), killing between 800 and 2,000. 1906 – The 7.9 earthquake and fire destroy much of San Francisco, California, killing more than 3,000 people, making one of the worst natural disasters in American history. 1909 – Joan of Arc is beatified in Rome. 1912 – The Cunard liner brings 705 survivors from the to New York City. 1915 – World War I: French pilot Roland Garros is shot down and glides to a landing on the German side of the lines. 1916 – World War I: During a mine warfare in high altitude on the Dolomites, the Italian troops conquer the Col di Lana held by the Austrian army. 1930 – A fire kills 118 people at a wooden church in the small Romanian town of Costești, most of them schoolchildren, after starting during Good Friday services. 1938 – Superman debuts in Action Comics #1 (cover dated June 1938). 1939 – Robert Menzies, who became Australia's longest-serving prime minister, is elected as leader of the United Australia Party after the death of Prime Minister Joseph Lyons. 1942 – World War II: The Doolittle Raid on Japan: Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya are bombed. 1942 – Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of Vichy France. 1943 – World War II: Operation Vengeance, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by U.S. fighters over Bougainville Island. 1945 – World War II: Over 1,000 bombers attack the small island of Heligoland, Germany. 1945 – Italian resistance movement: In Turin, despite the harsh repressive measures adopted by Nazi-fascists, a great pre-insurrectional strike begins. 1946 – The International Court of Justice holds its inaugural meeting in The Hague, Netherlands. 1946 – Jackie Robinson makes his regular season debut for the Montreal Royals of the International League, to make them the first integrated modern professional baseball team. 1947 – The Operation Big Bang, the largest non-nuclear man-made explosion to that time, destroys bunkers and military installations on the North Sea island of Heligoland, Germany. 1949 – The Republic of Ireland Act comes into force, declaring Éire to be a republic and severing Ireland "association" with the Commonwealth of Nations.; 1954 – Gamal Abdel Nasser seizes power in Egypt. 1955 – Twenty-nine nations meet at Bandung, Indonesia, for the first Asian-African Conference. 1972 – East African Airways Flight 720 crashes during a rejected takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, killing 43. 1978 – The Ba Chúc massacre begins, which precipitates the Cambodian–Vietnamese War the same year. 1980 – The Republic of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) comes into being, with Canaan Banana as the country's first President. The Zimbabwean dollar replaces the Rhodesian dollar as the official currency. 1980 – The town of Elmore City, Oklahoma holds its first dance in the town's history. 1988 – The United States launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in the largest naval battle since World War II. 1988 – In Israel John Demjanjuk is sentenced to death for war crimes committed in World War II, although the verdict is later overturned. 1996 – The Israeli military commits the Qana massacre in a deliberate shelling of a United Nations compound near the village of Qana in southern Lebanon, killing 106 Lebanese civilians who were taking shelter there and wounding over 100 more. 2018 – King Mswati III of Swaziland announces that his country's name will change to Eswatini. 2018 – Anti-government protests start in Nicaragua. 2019 – A redacted version of the Mueller report is released to the United States Congress and the public. 2026 – Seven people are killed and fourteen others are injured in a mass shooting in Kyiv, Ukraine
Births Pre-1600 359 – Gratian, Roman emperor (died 383) 588 – K'an II, Mayan ruler (died 658) 812 – Al-Wathiq, Abbasid caliph (died 847) 1446 – Ippolita Maria Sforza, Italian noble (died 1484) 1480 – Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI (died 1519) 1503 – Henry II of Navarre (died 1555) 1534 – William Harrison, English clergyman (died 1593) 1580 – Thomas Middleton, English Jacobean playwright and poet (died 1627) 1590 – Ahmed I, Ottoman Emperor (died 1617)
1601–1900 1605 – Giacomo Carissimi, Italian priest and composer (died 1674) 1666 – Jean-Féry Rebel, French violinist and composer (died 1747) 1740 – Sir Francis Baring, 1st Baronet, English banker and politician (died 1810) 1759 – Jacques Widerkehr, French cellist and composer (died 1823) 1771 – Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg (died 1820) 1772 – David Ricardo, British economist and politician (died 1823) 1794 – William Debenham, English founder of Debenhams (died 1863) 1813 – James McCune Smith, African-American physician, apothecary, abolitionist, and author (died 1865) 1819 – Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Cuban lawyer and activist (died 1874) 1819 – Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer and conductor (died 1895) 1838 – Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, French chemist and academic (died 1912) 1854 – Ludwig Levy, German architect (died 1907) 1857 – Clarence Darrow, American lawyer (died 1938) 1858 – Dhondo Keshav Karve, Indian educator and activist, Bharat Ratna Awardee (died 1962) 1858 – Alexander Shirvanzade, Armenian playwright and author (died 1935) 1863 – Count Leopold Berchtold, Austrian-Hungarian politician and diplomat, Joint Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary (died 1942) 1863 – Linton Hope, English sailor and architect (died 1920) 1863 – Siegfried Bettmann, founder of the Triumph Motorcycle Company and Mayor of Coventry (died 1955) 1864 – Richard Harding Davis, American journalist and author (died 1916) 1874 – Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić, Croatian author and poet (died 1938) 1877 – Vicente Sotto, Filipino lawyer and politician (died 1950) 1879 – Korneli Kekelidze, Georgian philologist and scholar (died 1962) 1880 – Sam Crawford, American baseball player, coach, and umpire (died 1968) 1882 – Isaac Babalola Akinyele, Nigerian ruler (died 1964) 1882 – Leopold Stokowski, English conductor (died 1977) 1883 – Aleksanteri Aava, Finnish poet (died 1956)Runoilija Aleksanteri Aava (1883–1956) (in Finnish) 1884 – Jaan Anvelt, Estonian educator and politician (died 1937) 1889 – Jessie Street, Australian activist (died 1970) 1892 – Eugene Houdry, French-American mechanical engineer and inventor (died 1962) 1897 – Ardito Desio, Italian geologist and cartographer (died 2001) 1898 – Patrick Hennessy, Irish soldier and businessman (died 1981) 1900 – Bertha Isaacs, Bahamian teacher, tennis player, politician and women's rights activist (died 1997)
1901–present 1901 – Al Lewis, American songwriter (died 1967) 1901 – László Németh, Hungarian dentist, author, and playwright (died 1975) 1902 – Waldemar Hammenhög, Swedish author (died 1972) 1902 – Giuseppe Pella, Italian politician, 32nd Prime Minister of Italy (died 1981) 1904 – Pigmeat Markham, African-American comedian, singer, and dancer (died 1981) 1905 – Sydney Halter, Canadian lawyer and businessman (died 1990) 1905 – George H. Hitchings, American physician and pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1998) 1907 – Miklós Rózsa, Hungarian-American composer and conductor (died 1995) 1911 – Maurice Goldhaber, Ukrainian-American physicist and academic (died 2011) 1914 – Claire Martin, Canadian author (died 2014) 1915 – Joy Davidman, Polish-Ukrainian American poet and author (died 1960) 1916 – Carl Burgos, American illustrator (died 1984) 1918 – Gabriel Axel, Danish-French actor, director, and producer (died 2014) 1918 – André Bazin, French critic and theorist (died 1958) 1918 – Shinobu Hashimoto, Japanese director, producer, and screenwriter (died 2018) 1918 – Clifton Hillegass, American publisher, founded CliffsNotes (died 2001) 1918 – Tony Mottola, American guitarist and composer (died 2004) 1919 – Virginia O'Brien, American actress and singer (died 2001) 1919 – Esther Afua Ocloo, Ghanaian entrepreneur and pioneer of microlending (died 2002) 1920 – John F. Wiley, American football player and coach (died 2013) 1921 – Jean Richard, French actor and singer (died 2001) 1922 – Barbara Hale, American actress (died 2017) 1924 – Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2005) 1925 – Marcus Schmuck, Austrian mountaineer and author (died 2005) 1926 – Doug Insole, English cricketer (died 2017) 1927 – Samuel P. Huntington, American political scientist, author, and academic (died 2008) 1927 – Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Polish journalist and politician, Prime Minister of Poland (died 2013) 1928 – Karl Josef Becker, German cardinal and theologian (died 2015) 1928 – Otto Piene, German sculptor and academic (died 2014) 1929 – Peter Hordern, English soldier and politician (died 2024) 1930 – Clive Revill, New Zealand actor and singer (died 2025) 1930 – Jean Guillou, French organist (died 2019) 1931 – Bill Miles, American director and producer (died 2013) 1934 – James Drury, American actor (died 2020) 1934 – George Shirley, African-American tenor and educator 1935 – Costas Ferris, Egyptian-Greek actor, director, producer, and screenwriter 1936 – Roger Graef, American-English criminologist, director, and producer (died 2022) 1936 – Vladimir Hütt, Estonian physicist and philosopher (died 1997) 1937 – Keiko Abe, Japanese marimba player and composer 1937 – Jan Kaplický, Czech architect, designed the Selfridges Building (died 2009) 1939 – Glen Hardin, American pianist and arranger 1939 – Thomas J. Moyer, American lawyer and judge (died 2010)