April Fools’ Day—occurring on April 1 each year—has been celebrated for several centuries by different cultures, though its exact origins remain a mystery. April Fools’ Day traditions include playing hoaxes or practical jokes on others, often yelling “April Fools!” at the end to clue in the subject of the April Fools’ Day prank. While its exact history is shrouded in mystery, the embrace of April Fools’ Day jokes by the media and major brands has ensured the unofficial https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/april-fools-day
0527 – Byzantine Emperor Justin I names his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne
1064 – Body of bishop Eleutherius of Blandain moved to Doornik
1318 – Berwick-upon-Tweed is captured by the Scottish from the English.
1340 – Niels Ebbesen kills Gerhard III of Holstein in his bedroom, ending the 1332-1340 interregnum in Denmark.
1515 – Portuguese fleet under Afonso de Albuquerque captures the Persian fortress of Ormuz, renaming it the Fort of Our Lady of the Conception
1621 – The Plymouth, MA, colonists created the first treaty with Native Americans.
1693 – Cotton Mather’s four-day-old son dies, and witchcraft is blamed
1724 – Jonathan Swift published Drapier’s letters.
1748 – The ruins of Pompeii were found.
1778 – Oliver Pollock, a New Orleans businessman, created the “$” symbol.
1789 – The U.S. House of Representatives held its first full meeting in New York City. Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania was elected the first House Speaker.
1793 – In Japan, the volcano Unsen erupted killing about 53,000.
1826 – Samuel Mory patented the internal combustion engine.
1853 – Cincinnati became the first U.S. city to pay fire fighters a regular salary.
1863 – The first wartime conscription law went into effect in the U.S.
1864 – The first travel accident policy was issued to James Batterson by the Travelers Insurance Company.
1865 – At the Battle of Five Forks in Petersburg, VA, Gen. Robert E. Lee began his final offensive.
1867 – Black people voted in the municipal election in Tuscumbia, AL.
1867 – Singapore, Penang & Malakka became British crown colonies.
1873 – The British White Star steamship Atlantic sank off Nova Scotia killing 547.
1881 – Anti-Jewish riots took place in Jerusalem.
1891 – The William Wrigley Jr. Company was founded in Chicago, IL. The company is most known for its Juicy Fruit gum.
1905 – The British East African Protectorate became the colony of Kenya.
1918 – England’s Royal Flying Corps was replaced by the Royal Air Force.
1920 – Germany’s Workers Party changes its name to the Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazis).
1924 – Adolf Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison for high treason in relation to the “Beer Hall Putsch.”
1928 – China’s Chiang Kai-shek began attacking communists.
1929 – Louie Marx introduced the Yo-Yo.
1931 – Jackie Mitchell became the first female in professional baseball when she signed with the Chattanooga Baseball Club.
1933 – Nazi Germany began the persecution of Jews by boycotting Jewish businesses.
1937 – Aden became a British colony.
1938 – The Baseball Hall of Fame opened in Cooperstown, NY.
1939 – The U.S. recognized the Franco government in Spain at end of Spanish civil war.
1941 – Nazis forbid Jews access to cafés
1945 – U.S. forces invaded Okinawa during World War II. It was the last campaign of World War II.
1946 – Weight Watchers was formed.
1946 – A miner’s strike in the U.S. idles 400,000 workers..
1948 – The Berlin Airlift begins, relieving the surrounded city from the Soviet siege
1950 – Italian Somalia became a United Nations trust territory under Italian administration.
1952 – The Big Bang theory was proposed in “Physical Review” by Alpher, Bethe & Gamow.
1953 – The U.S. Congress created the Department of Health Education and Welfare.
1954 – The U.S. Air Force Academy was formed in Colorado.
1956 – Violent clashes in Algeria, kills at least 380
1957 – The BBC broadcasts the spaghetti tree hoax, The 3-minute film shown on the current affairs program, Panorama, portrayed a Swiss family apparently harvesting spaghetti from a tree. A number of viewers later contacted the BBC to inquire where to find and how to grow such a plant. The hoax is regarded as one of the best April Fools jokes ever pulled.
1960 – The U.S. launched TIROS-1. It was the first weather satellite.
1963 – Workers of the International Typographical Union ended their strike that had closed nine New York City newspapers. The strike ended 114 days after it began on December 8, 1962.
1968 – The U.S. Army launches Operation Pegasus, the reopening of a land route to the besieged Khe Sanh Marine base.
1970 – The U.S. Army charged Captain Ernest Medina in the My Lai massacre.
1970 – Federal Bankruptcy Referee Sidney Volinn declares MLB’s Seattle Pilots bankrupt; car dealer Bud Selig buys franchise for $10.8 million and moves club to Milwaukee
1970 – U.S. President Nixon signed the bill, the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, that banned cigarette advertisements to be effective on January 1, 1971.
1972 – North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops renewed their offensive in South Vietnam.
1976 – Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs found Apple Computer in the garage of Jobs’ parents house in Cupertino, California
1979 – Iran was proclaimed to be an Islamic Republic by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the fall of the Shah.
1980 – A failed assassination attempt against Iraqi vice-premier Tariq Aziz occurred.
1982 – The U.S. transferred the Canal Zone to Panama.
1983 – Anti-nuclear demonstrators link arms in 14-mile human chain in England
1985 – World oil prices dropped below $10 a barrel.
1987 – U.S. President Reagan told doctors in Philadelphia, “We’ve declared AIDS public health enemy No. 1.”
1990 – It becomes illegal in Salem Oregon to be within 2 feet of nude dancers
1991 – Iran released British hostage Roger Cooper after 5 years.
1991 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that jurors could not be barred from serving due to their race.
1991 – The Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved.
1992 – Battleship USS Missouri, on which the Japanese surrender took place, decommissioned
1992 – Players began the first strike in the 75-year history of the National Hockey League (NHL).
1998 – A federal judge dismissed the Paula Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit against U.S. President Clinton saying that the claims fell “far short” of being worthy of a trial.
1999 – In Zhytomyr, Ukraine, Anatoliy Onoprienko was sentenced to death for the deaths of 52 men, women and children. 43 of the killings occurred in a 6-month period.
1999 – The Canadian territory of Nunavut was created. It was carved from the eastern part of the Northwest Territories and covered about 772,000 square miles.
2001 – The Netherlands becomes the first country to allow same-sex marriage
2001 – China began holding 24 crewmembers of a U.S. surveillance plane. The EP-3E U.S. Navy crew had made an emergency landing after an in-flight collision with a Chinese fighter jet. The Chinese pilot was missing and presumed dead. The U.S. crew was released on April 11, 2001.
2001 – Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was arrested on corruption charges after a 26-hour standoff with the police at his Belgrade villa.
2003 – North Korea test-fired an anti-ship missile off its west coast.
2004 – U.S. President George W. Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. The bill made it a crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman.
2009 – Albania and Croatia joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
2010 – The U.S. Congress cut Medicare reimbursements to physicians by 21%.
2011 – After protests against the burning of the Quran turned violent, a mob attacked a United Nations compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan and killed thirteen people, including eight foreign workers.
2013 – 9 people are killed by a suicide bombing in Tikrit, Iraq
2019 – China announces new laws against fentanyl-related substances to come into effect 1 May
2019 – Methane, a gas usually made by living things, detected on Mars in 2013 by European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter reported in “Nature Geoscience”
2020 – US President Donald Trump says the US Strategic National Stockpile is almost depleted amid widespread shortages of medical equipment to fight COVID-19
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
