Tidbits of History

April 26 is:

Hug an Australian Day
National Pretzel Day
Richter Scale Day

Cape Henry Day, designated annually by proclamation of the governor of Virginia as a commemoration of the first landing on American soil of the expedition that founded Jamestown in 1607.

Birthday of John James Audubon on April 26, 1785, American ornithologist and artist.
His major work, a color-plate book entitled The Birds of America (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. Audubon identified 25 new species.

In 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte signed a general amnesty to allow all but about one thousand of the most notorious émigrés of the French Revolution to return to France, as part of a reconciliary gesture with the factions of the Ancien Régime and to eventually consolidate his own rule.

Birthday of Frederick Law Olmsted (1822), American landscape architect, noted for his design of Central Park in New York City and for planning for Yosemite National Park and the Niagara Falls Park project. Known as the Father of Landscape architecture.

On April 26, 1865, Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Lincoln, in Virginia.

April 26, 1925 – Paul von Hindenburg defeated Wilhelm Marx in the second round of the German presidential election to become the first directly elected head of state of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).

On this day in 1931, Lou Gehrig hit a Home Run but was called “out” for passing a runner; the mistake cost him the American League home run crown;
The ball bounced back onto the field, was fielded by Sam Rice of the Senators, and thrown back towards the infielders.  Lyn Lary, who was on first base, thought the ball was caught so after rounding third he headed into the dugout. Gehrig touched home (passing the runner), was called out, and credited by the official scorer with a triple,  costing him a home run and eventually the exclusive home run title for the 1931 season.  He and Babe Ruth tied for season.

The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, was established in 1933.

April 26, 1964 – Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania.

April 26, 1986 – A reactor explosion occurs at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in present-day Ukraine, with radiation spreading around Europe and the world.

April 25 is National Zucchini Bread Day
East meets West Day – National East Meets West Day is observed annually on April 25th. Also known as Elbe Day, this day commemorates the day the Eastern front of the Allied forces met the Western front on the River Elbe.
World War II had been raging for over six years. During the previous year, several events had begun to turn the tides of the war against the Axis powers. In April of 1945, the Allies were marching toward peace, but it would require a coordinated effort from both American troops in the East and Soviet armies from the West.
The armies were not supposed to make contact with each other. They were given orders to remain on their eastern and western banks of the river while officers from each division formalized occupation of Berlin.
However, when the two armies met on April 25th south of Berlin outside Torgau on the River Elbe, patrols were sent across the river in a small boat. The first to make contact were American First Lieutenant Albert Kotzebue and Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Gardiev along with their commands.
Two days later, photographers commemorated the event of the Eastern front meeting the Western front.

World Penguin Day

Birthday of Guglielmo Marconi, April 25, 1874, Italian electrician who perfected wireless telegraphy

1507-04-25 – Geographer Martin Waldseemuller first used name America. He and Matthias Ringmann are credited with the first recorded usage of the word “America”, on the 1507 map Universalis Cosmographia in honour of the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci.

The Thornton Affair of April 25, 1846, was a battle in 1846 between the military forces of the United States and Mexico, twenty miles west along the Rio Grande from Zachary Taylor’s camp. The much larger Mexican force completely defeated the Americans in the opening of hostilities, and was the primary justification for U.S. President James K. Polk’s call to Congress to declare war.

April 25, 1847 – The last survivors of the Donner Party were led out of the wilderness. The group left Missouri in the late spring of 1846. The journey to California normally took 4-6 months. After reaching Wyoming, most California-bound pioneers followed a route that swooped north through Idaho before turning south and moving across Nevada. The Donner Party took a “shortcut”. They bypassed established trails and instead crossed Utah’s Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert. The desolate and rugged terrain, and the difficulties they later encountered while traveling along the Humboldt River in present-day Nevada, resulted in the loss of many cattle and wagons. By early November, the migrants had reached the Sierra Nevada but became trapped by an early, heavy snowfall near Truckee Lake (now Donner Lake) high in the mountains. Their food supplies ran dangerously low, and in mid-December some of the group set out on foot to obtain help. The relief party did not arrive until the middle of February 1847, almost four months after the wagon train became trapped. Of the 87 members of the party, 48 survived the ordeal.

1901 – New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates.

Anniversary of the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway for lake traffic to the Midwest on April 25, 1959.

1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton completed the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

April 21 is the 112th day of the year.
National Chocolate-Covered Cashews Day
Kindergarten Day

April 21, 753 BC – Legendary founding date of Rome

April 21, 571 – Prophet Muhammad was born in Makkah. (Mecca).

In 1509, Henry VIII ascended the throne of England on the death of his father, Henry VII.

Birthday of Charlotte Brontë, (1816), English novelist famous for Jane Eyre

San Jacinto Day, a legal holiday commemorating the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto through which the Texans won independence from Mexico. The Republic of Texas forces under Sam Houston defeated troops under Mexican General, Antonio López de Santa Anna.

1910 Death of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain). Upon hearing of Twain’s death, President William Howard Taft said:

Mark Twain gave pleasure – real intellectual enjoyment – to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come … His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American literature.

On April 21, 1918, World War I: German fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as “The Red Baron”, was shot down and killed over Vaux-sur-Somme in France. He was credited with 80 air combat victories. Richthofen was a Freiherr (literally “Free Lord”), a title of nobility often translated as Baron. This title, combined with the fact that he had his aircraft painted red, led to Richthofen being called “The Red Baron”.

Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II (1926) of the United Kingdom.

1934 – The “Surgeon’s Photograph”, the most famous photo allegedly showing the Loch Ness Monster, was published in the Daily Mail (in 1999, it is revealed to be a hoax).

1956 Elvis Presley’s 1st hit record, “Heartbreak Hotel”, became #1

Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989: In Beijing, around 100,000 students gathered in Tiananmen Square to commemorate pro-reform Communist general secretary, Hu Yaobang.

The United States Air Force retired the F-117 Nighthawk on April 21, 2008.

April 18 is:

National Animal Crackers Day
International Jugglers Day
Newspaper Columnists Day

On April 18, 1506, the cornerstone of the current St. Peter’s Basilica was laid by Pope Julius II.

In 1775, at the start of the American Revolution: The British advancement by sea begins; Paul Revere and other riders warn the countryside in Massachusetts of the troop movements. Immortalized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

April 18, 1783, Fighting ceases in the American Revolution, eight years to the day since it began.

1861 – Colonel Robert E. Lee turned down an offer to command the Union armies during the U.S. Civil War.

April 18, 1906 – San Francisco earthquake: San Francisco, California, was hit by an earthquake estimated at close to 8.0 on the Richter scale. Up to 3,000 people died. Over 80% of the city of San Francisco was destroyed.

On April 18, 1923, Yankee Stadium, “The House that Ruth Built”, opened. The Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox 4-1. John Phillip Sousa’s band played the National Anthem. The original Yankee Stadium was demolished in 2010.

The first “Washateria” (laundromat) opened in Fort Worth, Texas in 1934.

1956 – Actress Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco were married. The religious ceremony took place April 19.

2019 – A redacted version of the Mueller Report was released to the United States Congress and the public.

April 17 is Blah, Blah, Blah Day – Blah Blah Blah Day is the opportunity to stop procrastinating and get to grips with all those stalled projects and broken promises right now!

National Cheeseball Day

On April 17, 1397, Geoffrey Chaucer told the Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court of Richard II. Chaucer scholars have also identified this date (in 1387) as the start of the book’s pilgrimage to Canterbury.

April 17, 1492 – Spain and Christopher Columbus signed the Capitulations of Santa Fe for his voyage to Asia to acquire spices.

Trial of Martin Luther over his teachings began during the assembly of the Diet of Worms on April 17, 1521. Initially intimidated, he asks for time to reflect before answering and was given a stay of one day.

1534 – Sir Thomas More was confined in London Tower. More accepted Parliament’s right to declare Anne Boleyn the legitimate Queen of England, but he steadfastly refused to take the oath of supremacy of the Crown in the relationship between the kingdom and the church in England. He was charged with high treason and executed the following year.

1824 – Russia abandoned all North American claims south of 54° 40’N.

Virginia was 8th state to secede from the Union on April 17, 1861.

Mary Surratt was arrested on April 17, 1865 as a conspirator in Lincoln’s assassination. Sentenced to death, she was hanged on July 7, 1865, becoming the first woman executed by the United States federal government.

The Supreme Court of the United States decided on April 17, 1905, Lochner v. New York, which holds that the “right to free contract” is implicit in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution; judges decide maximum work day is unconstitutional.

Cartoon characters Daffy Duck, Elmer J Fudd & Petunia Pig, debut in 1937.

1949 – At midnight 26 Irish counties officially left the British Commonwealth. A 21-gun salute on O’Connell Bridge, Dublin, ushered in the Republic of Ireland.

April 17, 1961, the Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of Cuban exiles financed and trained by the CIA landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.

Ford Mustang was introduced to the North American market in 1964.

On April 17, 1982, Queen Elizabeth proclaimed Canada’s new constitution. The passing of the UK’s Canada Act 1982 in March 1982 confirmed the Patriation of the Constitution and transferred to Canada the power of amending its own Constitution. This process was necessary because, after the Statute of Westminster, 1931, Canada decided to allow the British Parliament to temporarily retain the power to amend Canada’s constitution, on request from the Parliament of Canada. In 1981, the Parliament of Canada requested that the Parliament of the United Kingdom remove that authority from the UK. On April 17, 1982, Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, as well as the Minister of Justice, Jean Chrétien, and André Ouellet, the Registrar General, signed the Proclamation which brought the Constitution Act, 1982 into force. The proclamation confirmed that Canada had formally assumed authority over its constitution, the final step to full sovereignty.

Nolan Ryan strikes out his 3,500th batter in 1983. He ranks first all-time in strikeouts at 5,714. He struck out 15 or more players in a game 26 times, second only to Randy Johnson who had 28.

Nolan Ryan pitched for Alvin High School in Alvin, Texas. His team was playing Deer Park for the district championship. According to Ryan, he was becoming well-known for his fastball but he was wild. He says:

“It worked to my advantage that day. I hit the first kid up squarely in the helmet and split it. I hit the next guy in the arm and broke it. The third kid went and begged his coach not to make him hit….I had them after that….they were up there at the edge of the batter’s box on their toes, ready to bail out…They’d forgotten about trying to win the district. They just wanted to go home…”

from Miracle Man, Nolan Ryan, the Autobiography with Jerry Jenkins.

IBM produced 1st megabit-chip in 1986.