This Day In History （请勿跟贴，谢谢！）

brianleeeee

April 17


1982:
Canada Act proclaimed.

The Canada Act, also known as the Constitution Act, took effect on this day in 1982, establishing certain individual rights, preserving parliamentary supremacy, and making Canada a wholly independent, fully sovereign state.

2003:
Anneli J滗tteenm鋕i was sworn in as prime minister of Finland, which thereby became the second country (after New Zealand) to install a woman as head of both state and government.

1975:
Cambodia's ruling Lon Nol government collapsed, and the communist forces of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, entered Phnom Penh and forcibly dispersed its citizenry into rural areas.

1961:
Cuban leader Fidel Castro's forces repelled the Bay of Pigs invasion, which was led by recent Cuban exiles and financed by the U.S. government during the Cold War.

1956:
Cominform, the international Communist Information Bureau founded in 1947, was disbanded as part of a Soviet program of reconciliation with Yugoslavia.

1895:
The Treaty of Shimonoseki concluded the first Sino-Japanese War, which ended in China's defeat.

1521:
Martin Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms to defend his ideas on church reform.

1194:
Richard I (the Lion-Heart) was crowned king of England for the second time, after earlier surrendering his kingdom to the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI.

brianleeeee

April 16


1912:
Harriet Quimby's flight across the English Channel.

On this day in 1912, American aviator Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel, guiding her French Blériot monoplane through heavy overcast from Dover, England, to Hardelot, France.

2003:
At age 40, Michael Jordan, widely regarded as the best player in the history of basketball, played his last game in the National Basketball Association.

1948:
In order to restore the economy of Europe after World War II, 16 European countries formed the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (later the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

1922:
British author Sir Kingsley Amis, who created in his first novel, Lucky Jim (1954), a comic figure that became a household word in Great Britain in the 1950s, was born.

1917:
Vladimir Ilich Lenin ended his 17-year exile and returned to Russia to form a provisional government.

1838:
French forces occupied the Mexican city of Veracruz during the Pastry War.

1755:
Painter 蒷isabeth Vigée-Lebrun, known for her portraits of Queen Marie-Antoinette, was born in Paris.

1746:
An English army defeated a Scottish force under Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) at the Battle of Culloden, ending the Jacobite effort to restore the Stuarts to England's throne.

1646:
Architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who redesigned and expanded the Palace of Versailles, was born in Paris.

brianleeeee

April 15


1955:
First McDonald's opened by Ray Kroc.

On this day in 1955, American fast-food pioneer Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, launching an enterprise that would eventually become the world's largest fast-food chain.

2003:
U.S. President George W. Bush declared that the government of Ṣaddām Ḥussein in Iraq had fallen as a result of the Iraq War and the following day asked the United Nations to lift sanctions against Iraq.

2000:
U.S. President Bill Clinton established the Giant Sequoia National Monument, a preserve near Sequoia National Park covering more than 500 square miles (1,300 square km) of Sequoia National Forest in the Sierra Nevada of California.

1947:
Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball's racial barrier, played in his first major league game for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.

1926:
Robertson Aircraft, one of the companies that later developed into American Airlines, flew its first mail route, between Chicago and St. Louis, Missouri, with Charles A. Lindbergh as the pilot.

1920:
Two men were murdered in South Braintree, Massachusetts, leading to the Sacco-Vanzetti case and the still-controversial conviction of the two Italian immigrants.

1912:
The British luxury passenger liner Titanic sank en route to New York City from Southampton, Hampshire, England, during its maiden voyage.

brianleeeee

April 14


1865:
Abraham Lincoln shot.

On this day in 1865, just after the American Civil War ended, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a production at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., and died the next morning.

2004:
Bartholomew I, ecumenical patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox church, formally accepted the apology offered by Pope John Paul II in 2001 for the sacking of Constantinople (now Istanbul) by Crusader armies in the early 13th century.

1986:
A force of U.S. warplanes based in Britain bombed several sites in Libya, killing or wounding several of Muammar al-Qaddafi's children and narrowly missing Qaddafi himself.

1924:
American architect Louis Sullivan, the father of modern American architecture, died in Chicago.

1904:
Sir John Gielgud, an English actor, producer, and director considered one of the greatest performers of his generation on stage and screen, particularly as a Shakespearean actor, was born.

1902:
American businessman J.C. Penney opened his first dry-goods store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

1866:
Anne Sullivan Macy, Helen Keller's teacher, was born near Springfield, Massachusetts.

1471:
The deposed and exiled king of England, Edward IV, defeated King Henry VI's forces at the Battle of Barnet, near London, enabling him to retake the throne.

brianleeeee

April 13


1895:
Alfred Dreyfus imprisoned on Devils Island.

Accused of selling military secrets to Germany and convicted in an irregular trial against a backdrop of anti-Semitism, French officer Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned this day in 1895 on Devils Island, off French Guiana.

2002:
The military coup that a day before had installed businessman Pedro Carmona Estanga as interim president of Venezuela collapsed this day, and the following morning Hugo Chávez was restored to the presidency.

1943:
The Thomas Jefferson Memorial was dedicated in East Potomac Park on the south bank of the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C.

1941:
Japan concluded a neutrality pact with the Soviet Union in World War II.

1909:
American short-story writer and novelist Eudora Welty, whose work is mainly focused with great precision on the regional manners of people inhabiting a small Mississippi town that resembles her own birthplace and the Delta country, was born.

1906:
Nobel Prize-winning playwright and critic Samuel Beckett is believed to have been born this day in Ireland.

1640:
King Charles I of England convened the Short Parliament, the first to be summoned in 11 years.

1598:
King Henry IV of France promulgated the Edict of Nantes in Brittany, granting a large measure of religious liberty to his Protestant subjects, the Huguenots.

brianleeeee

April 12


1981:
Launch of first space shuttle.

On this day in 1981, NASA launched the first space shuttle, Columbia, which was designed to orbit Earth, transport people and cargo to and from orbiting spacecraft, and glide to a runway landing on its return to Earth.

1981:
American Joe Louis, world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949, died in Las Vegas, Nevada.

1961:
Russian cosmonaut Yury Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first human in outer space.

1945:
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia.

1861:
Fort Sumter, one of the few military installations in the South still in Federal hands, came under fire from Confederate guns in Charleston, South Carolina, thus initiating the American Civil War.

1777:
American statesman Henry Clay was born in Hanover county, Virginia.

1606:
The Union Flag, precursor to the Union Jack, was adopted as the national flag of Great Britain.

1204:
Alexius V, the last Greek emperor of a united Byzantium, fled Constantinople in the face of the Fourth Crusade.

brianleeeee

April 11


1814:
Napoleon's abdication at Fontainebleau.

On this day in 1814, during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Napoleon was facing an invasion of France by forces bent on his overthrow and, pressed by his own officers, abdicated unconditionally at Fontainebleau.

1986:
Halley's Comet reached its perigee (point nearest the Earth) during its most recent passage near the planet.

1953:
Mathematician Andrew John Wiles, deviser of a proof of Fermat's last theorem, was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England.

1951:
U.S. President Harry S. Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his command of United Nations and U.S. forces during the Korean War.

1895:
Cuban patriot José Julián Martí landed in Cuba at the head of an invading force whose goal was to win independence from Spain.

1893:
Dean Acheson—U.S. secretary of state from 1949 to 1953, adviser to four presidents, and the principal creator of U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War period following World War II—was born.

1848:
Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria confirmed the March Laws, which formed the foundation of the modern state of Hungary.

1815:
The eruption of Mount Tambora, a volcano on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia, killed about 10,000 people.

brianleeeee

April 10


1938:
Anschluss approved in Austria.

In a controlled plebiscite in Austria this day in 1938, soon after Adolf Hitler's invasion of the country, 99.7 percent of Austrians approved the Anschluss (German: “Union”)—the political unification of Austria and Germany.

2003:
Haiti officially recognized Vodou as a religion.

2001:
The Netherlands passed a bill permitting euthanasia, the first such national law in the world.

1988:
After taking a decade to build, the Seto Great Bridge, spanning the Inland Sea in Japan, was opened to traffic.

1973:
Pakistan adopted its third constitution, shifting the role of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto from president to prime minister.

1972:
The development, production, and stockpiling of biological weapons were outlawed by the Biological Weapons Convention, signed by more than 150 countries.
1925:
The first government led by French premier 蒬ouard Herriot, a Radical Party leader who had been put into office by the left-wing coalition Cartel des Gauches, fell.

1583:
Hugo Grotius, the Dutch jurist and scholar whose legal masterpiece, De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625; On the Law of War and Peace), was one of the first great contributions to modern international law, was born.

brianleeeee

April 9


2003:
Fall of Baghdad.

Baghdad fell to U.S.-led forces on this day in 2003, several weeks after the start of the Iraq War, a conflict begun to oust Iraqi Pres. Ṣaddām Ḥussein because of his supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction.

2001:
American Airlines officially completed its acquisition of Trans World Airlines and became the world's largest airline.

1965:
The Astrodome, an indoor stadium, opened in Houston, Texas, hosting its first baseball game.

1963:
An act of Congress conferred honorary U.S. citizenship on Sir Winston Churchill.

1939:
African American contralto Marian Anderson sang to an Easter Sunday crowd of 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow her to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

1898:
Paul Robeson, a celebrated American singer, actor, and political activist, was born.

1865:
General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia of the Confederate States of America, signed a treaty of surrender at Appomattox Court House, ending the American Civil War.

1682:
René-Robert Cavelier, sieur (lord) de La Salle, claimed the Mississippi River basin for France, naming it Louisiana.

1388:
The Battle of N鋐els culminated in a major victory for the Swiss Confederation in the first century of its struggle for self-determination against Habsburg overlordship.

brianleeeee

April 8


Today:
Celebration of the Buddha's birth.

On this day practitioners of the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism, especially those in Japan, celebrate the birth of the Buddha, who lived in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE and founded Buddhism.

2003:
It was reported that springtails (Collembola), long thought to be among the oldest ancestors of insects, did not evolve as insects but rather evolved from a separate group that was formed even before crustaceans and insects diverged.

1974:
American baseball player Hank Aaron hit his 715th career home run—breaking Babe Ruth's record, which had stood since 1935—and in 1976 completed his career with 755 home runs.

1973:
Pablo Picasso, perhaps the most influential artist of the 20th century, died in Mougins, France.

1950:
Jawaharlal Nehru of India concluded the Delhi Pact with Liaqat Ali Khan of Pakistan, providing for the safe passage of refugees displaced after the two countries severed relations in December 1949.

1912:
Sonja Henie, a Norwegian American figure skater who won the world amateur championship for women in 10 consecutive years (1927–36) and three gold medals in the Winter Olympic Games (1928, 1932, and 1936), was born.

1859:
German philosopher Edmund Husserl, founder of phenomenology, was born.

1838:
The Great Western, the earliest regular transatlantic steamer, embarked on its maiden voyage from Bristol, England, to New York City.

brianleeeee

April 7


1963:
Jack Nicklaus's first Masters victory.

American professional golfer Jack Nicklaus, a dominating figure in world golf from the 1960s to the '80s and the winner of 73 PGA tour events in his career, won the Masters Tournament at age 23 on this day in 1963.

2001:
NASA launched the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which reached Mars in October and transmitted photos and other data back to scientists on Earth.

1994:
Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, a moderate Hutu, was assassinated by Hutu soldiers—a day after the deaths of Juvénal Habyarimana, president of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, president of Burundi—as Rwanda entered a period of anarchy and mass killings.

1947:
American industrialist Henry Ford died in Dearborn, Michigan.

1939:
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini made Albania a protectorate of his country, installing Italy's Victor Emmanuel III as king, while Albanian King Zog I went into exile.

1927:
The first public demonstration of a one-way videophone occurred between Herbert Hoover, then U.S. secretary of commerce, in Washington, D.C., and officials of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) in New York City.

1922:
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall secretly leased federal oil reserves to the Mammoth Oil Company in return for cash gifts in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

1915:
Billie Holiday, one of the greatest American jazz singers from the 1930s to the '50s, was born.

1449:
Felix V, the last antipope, abdicated.

brianleeeee

April 6


1896:
Olympics revived.

Pierre, baron de Coubertin, a founder of the International Olympic Committee and its president from 1896 to 1925, realized his goal of reviving the Olympics when the first modern Games opened in Athens this day in 1896.

1909:
American explorer Robert Edwin Peary led the first expedition to the North Pole.

1868:
The Japanese emperor Meiji issued the Charter Oath, which served to modernize the country during the Meiji Restoration.

1862:
Union troops clashed with Confederates in southwestern Tennessee at the Battle of Shiloh, the second great engagement of the American Civil War.

1830:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formed by American prophet Joseph Smith at Fayette, New York.

1348:
The woman said to be Laura, the beloved muse of the Italian poet Petrarch, died.

1199:
Mortally wounded in battle, Richard I (the Lion-Heart) died at Ch鈒us in the duchy of Aquitaine.

brianleeeee

April 5


1818:
Battle of Maipú.

Chile's independence movement, led by José de San Martín and Bernardo O'Higgins, won a decisive victory over Spain in the Battle of Maipú, which left 2,000 Spaniards and 1,000 Chilean patriots dead on this day in 1818.

2000:
Mori Yoshiro of the Liberal-Democratic Party became prime minister of Japan, replacing Obuchi Keizo, who had suffered a stroke earlier in the month and subsequently died.

1994:
American grunge rocker Kurt Cobain, leader of the band Nirvana, committed suicide.

1984:
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar surpassed Wilt Chamberlain as the all-time leading scorer in the National Basketball Association.

1856:
American educator and reformer Booker T. Washington was born in Virginia.

1621:
The Mayflower departed for England after having deposited 102 Pilgrims at what became the American colony of Plymouth (Massachusetts).

1614:
Powhatan Indian Pocahontas married Virginia planter and colonial official John Rolfe.

1588:
English philosopher and political theorist Thomas Hobbes, best known for his publications on individual security and the social contract, was born.

brianleeeee

April 4


1968:
Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated.

On this day in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., a leader of the American civil rights movement who was in Memphis, Tennessee, to support a strike by the city's sanitation workers, was assassinated by James Earl Ray.

2000:
The government of South Korea ordered some 85 percent of the country's livestock markets closed in an attempt to end an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that had struck Asian livestock.

1959:
In West Africa the Mali Federation, a short-lived union between the autonomous territories of the Sudanese Republic and Senegal, led by Léopold Senghor, came into being.

1949:
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed, the founding member nations of this military alliance being Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

1915:
Muddy Waters, an American blues guitarist and singer who played a major role in creating the modern rhythm-and-blues style, was born.

1862:
In the American Civil War, Union forces under George B. McClellan began the unsuccessful Peninsular Campaign to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.

1850:
With a population totaling about 1,600, Los Angeles was incorporated as an American city.

1785:
Bettina von Arnim, one of the outstanding women writers in modern German literature, was born in Frankfurt am Main.

brianleeeee

April 3


1948:
Implementation of the Marshall Plan.

On this day in 1948, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed into law George C. Marshall's post-World War II plan to revive the economies of western and southern European countries so as to foster democracy in the region.

1996:
Federal agents in Montana apprehended Theodore J. Kaczynski, an American terrorist known as the “Unabomber,” who had killed 3 persons and injured more than 20 with explosives sent through the U.S. postal system.

1946:
The Japanese army general Homma Masaharu was executed for forcing the Bataan Death March.

1930:
Helmut Kohl, who served as chancellor of West Germany (1982–90) and of reunified Germany (1990–98), was born in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Ger.

1924:
American stage and motion-picture actor Marlon Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska.

1924:
American singer and actress Doris Day was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1879:
Sofia, liberated from the Ottoman Empire by Russian troops, was named the capital of Bulgaria.

1860:
The Pony Express mail delivery system, which used continuous horse-and-rider relays along a 1,800-mile (2,900-km) route between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, was launched in the United States.

brianleeeee

April 2


2005:
Death of Pope John Paul II.

The bishop of Rome and the head of the Roman Catholic Church from 1978, Pope John Paul II, who was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and the first from a Slavic country, died in Vatican City this day in 2005.

1982:
Argentine troops seized the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), precipitating the Falkland Islands War with Britain.

1917:
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany.

1914:
British actor Sir Alec Guinness was born.

1865:
In the face of advancing Union forces, Confederate troops evacuated Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.

1681:
King Charles II of England officially proclaimed the charter he had granted in March to William Penn for the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania in North America.

1513:
Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, in search of the mythical Fountain of Youth in the Americas, landed on the coast of Florida near the present-day city of St. Augustine.

brianleeeee

April 1


1999:
Creation of Nunavut.

Created this day in 1999 by carving a vast region from Canada's Northwest Territories, the Canadian territory of Nunavut stretches across much of the Canadian Arctic and encompasses the traditional lands of the Inuit.

Today:
April Fools' Day, celebrated today with joking relationships and practical jokes, may have grown out of the medieval Feast of Fools, which was held on January 1.

2001:
The midair collision of a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet that was tailing it over the South China Sea resulted in the death of the Chinese pilot and the landing of the damaged American plane on Hainan Island, where its crew was detained for 11 days.

1984:
American entertainer Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father in Los Angeles.

1954:
The United States Air Force Academy was created by an act of Congress and was later built in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

1945:
U.S. troops landed on the Japanese island of Okinawa during World War II.

1918:
The United Kingdom's Royal Air Force was formed.

1917:
American composer and pianist Scott Joplin died in a mental institution in New York City.

1578:
English physician William Harvey, who discovered the true nature of the circulation of the blood, was born in Folkestone, Kent.

brianleeeee

March 31


1889:
Eiffel Tower opened to public.

The 984-foot (300-metre) Eiffel Tower, a wrought iron technological masterpiece created by Gustave Eiffel to commemorate the French Revolution, was opened to the public at the Centennial Exposition in Paris this day in 1889.

1980:
American track-and-field legend Jesse Owens died in Phoenix, Arizona.

1918:
Clocks in the United States were set one hour ahead as daylight saving time went into operation for the first time.

1870:
Thomas Peterson-Mundy of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, became the first African American to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

1854:
U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry signed the Treaty of Kanagawa in Japan, ending that country's period of seclusion.

1732:
Composer Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria.

1521:
The first Roman Catholic mass in the Philippines was celebrated on the island of Limasawa.

brianleeeee

March 30


1981:
Failed assassination attempt against U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

In Washington, D.C., on this day in 1981, barely two months after his inauguration as the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously wounded by would-be assassin John W. Hinckley, Jr.

2003:
A law banning cigarette smoking in all places of employment, including restaurants and bars, went into effect in New York City.

2002:
Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who was queen consort of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1936–52), died in her sleep at Windsor Castle at age 101.

1914:
American blues vocalist and harmonica virtuoso Sonny Boy Williamson was born in Jackson, Tennessee.

1912:
The Treaty of Fès established the French protectorate in Morocco.

1867:
William H. Seward, secretary of state under U.S. President Andrew Johnson, signed the Alaska Purchase, a treaty ceding Russian North America to the United States for a price—$7.2 million—that amounted to about two cents per acre.

1856:
The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Crimean War.

1840:
The English dandy Beau Brummell died, destitute and mad, in Caen, France.

1282:
The people of Palermo massacred 2,000 French residents in the Sicilian Vespers, a revolt against the Angevin king Charles I.

brianleeeee

March 29


1867:
Dominion of Canada created.

On this day in 1867, with the British North America Act, the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada were united as the Dominion of Canada, and the province of Canada was separated into Quebec and Ontario.

1973:
American troops evacuated Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) as the United States ended its involvement in the Vietnam War.

1951:
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty of espionage and sentenced to death for turning over U.S. military secrets to the Soviet Union.

1943:
British Conservative politician John Major, who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1997, was born.

1917:
Man o' War, perhaps the most famous American Thoroughbred in 20th-century horse racing, was foaled.

1807:
German astronomer Wilhelm Olbers discovered the minor planet Vesta, the brightest asteroid in the sky.

1790:
John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States (1841–45), was born.

1461:
Edward IV defeated Henry VI for the throne of England in the bloodiest battle of the York-Lancaster conflict known as the Wars of the Roses.