TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – APRIL 4
527 In Constantinople, Justin, seriously ill, crowns his nephew Justinian as his co-emperor.
896 Formosus ended his reign as pope.
1581 Francis Drake completes circumnavigation of the world.
1812 The territory of Orleans becomes the 18th state and will become known as Louisiana.
1818 The United States flag is declared to have 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars.
1841 President William Henry Harrison, aged 68, becomes the first president to die in office, just a month after being sworn in.
1917 The U.S. Senate votes 90-6 to enter World War I on Allied side.
1920 Violence erupts between Arab and Jewish residents in British-controlled Jerusalem from This Day to the April 7th with 9 killed and 216 injured.
1932 After five years of research, professor C.G. King, of the University of Pittsburgh, isolated vitamin C
1945 During World War II, U.S. forces liberated the Nazi death camp Ohrdruf in Germany.
1949 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) treaty is signed.
1953 Fifteen doctors were released by Soviet leaders. The doctors had been arrested before Stalin had died and were accused of plotting against him.
1968 Martin Luther King Jr. is shot to death by James Earl Ray at a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. His assassination led to riots in more than 100 US cities and a call from the United States President Lyndon Johnson for citizen’s to reject the blind violence that has taken Dr King who had lived by non-violence. James Earl Ray was convicted of his murder and sentenced to 99 years in prison.
1969 Dr. Denton Cooley implanted the first temporary artificial heart.
1973 New York’s World Trade Center The twin towers of the World Trade Center rising 1,350 feet above Manhattan officially became the world’s tallest buildings.
1975 Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800
1979 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the president of Pakistan is executed.
1984 U.S. President Reagan proposed an international ban on chemical weapons.
1985 A coup in Sudan ousts President Nimeiry and replaces him with General Dahab.
1987 The U.S. charged the Soviet Union with wiretapping a U.S. Embassy.
1988 Arizona Governor Evan Mecham was voted out of office by the Arizona Senate. Mecham was found guilty of diverting state funds to his auto business and of trying to impede an investigation into a death threat to a grand jury witness.
1991 Pennsylvanian Senator John Heinz and six others were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz’s plane over a schoolyard in Merion, PA.
1991 Three children are taken from their families after allegations of satanic abuse in the Orkney Islands off Scotland. The case was thrown out of court by Sheriff David Kelbie who criticized the social workers who took the children away from their homes for failing to produce any evidence supporting the allegations.
1995 U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato ridiculed judge Lance Ito using a mock Japanese accent on a nationally syndicated radio program. D’Amato apologized two days later for the act.
2006 The Iraq tribunal announce criminal charges against Saddam Hussein and six others, accusing them of genocide and crimes against humanity stemming from a 1980s crackdown against Kurds
2008 A gunman has killed thirteen people after taking dozens hostage in New York. The gunman was found dead inside Binghampton’s immigration center. Around forty people had escaped from the building, but four others were critically injured in the shooting.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
