Today in History
2 April
Hans Christian Andersen
Joseph Dixon
Emile Zola
Samuel F. B. Morse
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2 April |
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| 742 Charlemagne, king of the Franks, was born. King from 768, with his brother, he conquered most of Europe and was crowned emperor in 800. |
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| 1416 Alfonso V succeeds his father as king of Aragon | ||
| 1513 Florida discovered, claimed for Spain by Ponce de Leon | ||
| 1550 Jews are expelled from Genoa Italy | ||
| 1559 England/France signs 1st Treaty of Le Cateau-Cambrsis | ||
| 1559 Genoa Italy, expels Jews | ||
| 1590 States-General appoints earl Mauritius, viceroy of Utrecht | ||
| 1595 Cornelis de Houtman's ships depart to Asia through Cape of Good Hope | ||
| 1618 Francesco M Grimaldi, mathematician/physicist (light defraction) was born | ||
| 1628 Constantin Christian Dedekind, composer was born | ||
| 1645 Robert Devereux resigns as parliament supreme commander | ||
| 1713 Onno Zwier van Haren, Frisian poet (Fatherland) was born | ||
| 1725 Casanova, writer was born | Hans Christian Andersen |
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| 1745 Austria & Bavaria sign peace | ||
| 1792 The Coinage Act passed by Congress and signed by George Washington established a mint and regulated the coins of the United States. | ||
| 1800 1st performance of Ludwig von Beethoven's 1st Symphony in C | ||
| 1801 In the Napoleonic Wars, the Danish fleet was destroyed by the British under Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen. Ordered to withdraw during the battle, Nelson put a telescope to his blind eye and said he could see no such order. | ||
| 1805 Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author, was born. Famed for his children's stories, including "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "The Ugly Duckling." | ||
| 1819 1st successful agricultural journal ("American Farmer") begins | ||
| 1827 Joseph Dixon begins manufacturing lead pencils | ||
| 1838 Leon-Michel Gambetta, French statesman, was born. One of the founders of the French Third Republic, he was also prime minister from 1881. | ||
| 1840 Emile Zola, French writer, was born. His works included "Therese Raquin" and "Germinal"; he was also author of the paper "J'Accuse" in defense of Alfred Dreyfus. | ||
| 1860 The first Italian parliament met at Turin | ||
| 1863 Bread revolt in Richmond Virginia |
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| 1870 Victoria Woodhull is 1st woman to be nominated for US president | ||
| 1872 Samuel F. B. Morse, U.S. painter and inventor, died. He invented the electric telegraph and developed the Morse code in 1938. | ||
| 1872 George B Brayton patents gasoline powered engine | ||
| 1877 1st Easter egg roll held on White House lawn | ||
| 1878 1st issue of Rotterdam's Newspaper | ||
| 1883 Battle at Bamako: French assault on Fabous arm forces attack | ||
| 1884 London prison for debtors closed | ||
| 1891 Max Ernst, Germany, painter/sculptor (founded surrealism) was born | ||
| 1900 1st edition of The Volk published (Amsterdam) | ||
| 1902 1st motion picture theater opens (LA) | ||
| 1905 Cairo-Capetown railway opens | ||
| 1905 The Simplon rail tunnel under the Alps linking Switzerland with Italy officially opened. | Joseph Dixon |
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| 1908 Mills Committee declares baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday | ||
| 1912 Sun Yet Sen forms Guomindang-Party in China | ||
| 1912 Titanic undergoes sea trials under its own power | ||
| 1914 Alec Guinness, British actor of stage and screen, was born. Best known for his roles in "Kind Hearts and Coronets" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai," for which he won an Oscar, and "The Ladykillers." | ||
| 1916 German troops overtake Bois de Caillette | ||
| 1917 Jeannette Rankin becomes 1st women member of US House of Repubblicans | ||
| 1917 Pres Wilson asks Congress to declare war against Germany | ||
| 1921 Prof Albert Einstein lectures in NYC on his new theory of relativity | ||
| 1926 Riots between Moslems & Hindus in Calcutta | ||
| 1926 Sir Jack Brabham, Australian racing driver, was born. He won the world drivers' championship three times in a Grand Prix career which lasted from 1955 to 1970. |
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| 1930 1st NY-Bermuda airplane flight lands in Bermuda | ||
| 1932 Charles Lindbergh turns over $50,000 as ransom for kidnapped son | ||
| 1935 Sir Watson-Watt patents RADAR | ||
| 1941 USS Hornet with Jimmy Doolittles B-25 departs from San Francisco | ||
| 1944 CPI-leader Palmiro Togliatti returns to Italy | ||
| 1944 The Soviet Union announced that its troops had crossed the Prut River and entered Romania. | ||
| 1945 1st US units reach east coast of Okinawa | ||
| 1947 The U.N. Security Council voted to appoint the U.S. as trustee for former Japanese-held Pacific Islands. | ||
| 1951 Gen. Dwight Eisenhower assumed command of all allied armies in Western Mediterranean area and Europe. | ||
| 1953 Raab forms his 1st government in Austria | Emile Zola |
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| 1958 National Advisory Council on Aeronautics renamed NASA | ||
| 1960 Cuba buys oil from USSR | ||
| 1960 France signed an agreement with Madagascar which proclaimed the country an independent state within the French community. | ||
| 1963 Explorer 17 attains Earth orbit (254/914 km) | ||
| 1963 USSR launches Luna 4; missed Moon by 8,500 km | ||
| 1964 Josef Klaus succeeds Alfons Gorbach as chancellor of Austria | ||
| 1964 USSR launches Zond 1 to Venus; no data returned | ||
| 1966 South Vietnamese troops joined in demonstrations at Hue and Da Nang for an end to military rule. |
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| 1966 Cecil Scott Forester, author of the Captain Hornblower novels, died; he also wrote "The African Queen," which was made into a successful film. | ||
| 1968 Chad creates Union of Central African States | ||
| 1970 Meghalaya becomes autonomous state within India's Assam state | ||
| 1970 Qatar gains independence from Britain | ||
| 1972 Prime Minister Begin visits Cairo | ||
| 1974 Georges Pompidou, French statesman, prime minister and president from 1969, died in office. | ||
| 1976 Cambodia Khieu Sampan succeeds prince Sihanouk as premier | ||
| 1976 Portuguese constitution assumed | ||
| 1979 Israeli PM Menachem Begin visits Cairo Egypt/meets pres Sadat | ||
| 1981 Belgium's 4th govt of Martens resigns | ||
| 1982 Argentina seizes Malvinas (Falklands) Islands | Samuel F. B. Morse |
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| 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and overthrew the British administration; Britain responded by sending a task force to retake the islands. | ||
| 1986 4 US passengers killed by bomb at TWA counter Athens Airport Greece | ||
| 1987 IBM introduces PS/2 & OS/2 | ||
| 1989 Haiti's military leader, Gen. Prosper Avril, survived a coup attempt apparently sparked off by his U.S.-backed efforts to clamp down on drug trafficking. | ||
| 1990 President Saddam Hussein threatened to incinerate half of Israel with advanced chemical weapons if it joined a conspiracy against Iraq. | ||
| 1991 Rotterdam Daily Newspaper begins publishing | ||
| 1991 Price hikes of up to 200 percent on basic goods and public transport went into effect throughout the Soviet Union, sparking widespread popular anger. | ||
| 1992 Mafia boss John Gotti, nicknamed "Teflon Don" after emerging unscathed from previous trials, was convicted of murder and racketeering. | ||
| 1992 Space Shuttle STS-45 (Atlantis 11) lands | ||
| 1993 1st test flight of Fokker 70 (Amsterdam) | ||
| 1993 Venezuelan DC-10 crashes at Margarita, killing 10 | ||
| 1994 A congress of Russia's extreme nationalist Liberal Democratic Party named Vladimir Zhirinovsky as the party's candidate for future presidential elections. | ||
| 1996 Russia and Belarus signed a treaty that created a tight-knit political and economic alliance within the Commonwealth of Independent States. | ||
| 1996 Lech Walesa, the former Solidarity union leader who became Poland's first post-war democratic president, resumed his old job as an electrician at the Gdansk shipyard. | ||
C.H. OSTFELD INC.