1861 – Fort Sumter was shelled by Confederacy, starting America’s Civil War. On April 11, militia commander P.G.T. Beauregard demanded that Anderson surrender the fort, but Anderson again refused. In response Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter shortly after 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861. U.S. Captain Abner Doubleday—later famous for the myth that he invented baseball—ordered the first shots in defense of the fort a few hours later. The first shots of the Civil War had been fired https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/fort-sumter
0467 – Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire by Leo I
1065 – Pilgrims under bishop Gunther of Bamberg reach Jerusalem
1096 – Peter the Hermit gathered his army in Cologne.
1204 – The Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople.
1545 – French King Francois I orders protestants of Vaudois to be killed
1606 – England adopts the Union Flag, replaced in 1801 by current Union Flag, also known as the Union Jack
1654 – Ordinance of Union between England and Scotland passed by the Council of State
1770 – The British Parliament repealed the Townsend Acts.
1782 – The British navy won its only naval engagement against the colonists in the American Revolution at the Battle of Saints, off Dominica.
1811 – The first colonists arrived at Cape Disappointment, Washington.
1857 – French novelist Gustave Flaubert’s first novel and masterpiece “Madame Bovary” is published in book form
1861 – Fort Sumter was shelled by Confederacy, starting America’s Civil War. On April 11, militia commander P.G.T. Beauregard demanded that Anderson surrender the fort, but Anderson again refused. In response Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter shortly after 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861. U.S. Captain Abner Doubleday—later famous for the myth that he invented baseball—ordered the first shots in defense of the fort a few hours later. The first shots of the Civil War had been fired. https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/fort-sumter
1862 – James Andrews steals Confederate train (General) at Kennesaw, Georgia
1864 – Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest captured Fort Pillow, in Tennessee and slaughters the black Union troops there.
1877 – A catcher’s mask was used in a baseball game for the first time by James Alexander Tyng.
1892 – Voters in Lockport, New York, became the first in the U.S. to use voting machines.
1893 – “Massacre of Hoornkrans”: Curt von François, colonial Governor of German South West Africa (now Nambia), leads attack by 225 Schutztruppe soldiers on Nama leader Hendrik Witbooi’s headquarters at Hoornkrans; shelling of the village causes tremendous civilian casualties. Witbooi escapes and wages several months of guerrilla warfare against the German forces.
1900 – The US Congress passes the Foraker Act, establishing Puerto Rico as an unincorporated territory (effective 1 May)
1907 – In Switzerland, parliament passes a new army bill reorganizing the nation’s forces into a standing militia, with training required for all males
1916 – American cavalrymen and Mexican bandit troops clashed at Parrel, Mexico.
1919 – British Parliament passes a 48-hour work week with minimum wages
1927 – The British Cabinet came out in favor of women voting rights.
1934 – The US Auto-Lite Strike begins, culminating in a five-day melee between Ohio National Guard troops and 6,000 strikers and picketers.
1937 – The first aircraft jet engine is successfully tested, Sir Frank Whittle invented and tested the engine, only a few months before German engineer Hans von Ohain ran his jet engine, which was to power the first ever all-jet aircraft.
1938 – The first U.S. law requiring a medical test for a marriage license was enacted in New York.
1942 – Japan kills about 400 Filipino officers in Bataan
1944 – The U.S. Twentieth Air Force was activated to begin the strategic bombing of Japan.
1945 – In New York, the organization of the first eye bank, the Eye Bank for Sight Restoration, was announced.
1945 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Spring, GA. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 63. Harry S Truman became president.
1951 – Israeli Knesset officially designates April 13 as Holocaust Day
1954 – Bill Haley records “Rock Around the Clock.”
1955 – The University of Michigan Polio Vaccine Evaluation Center announced that the polio vaccine of Dr. Jonas Salk was “safe, effective and potent.”
1959 – France Observator reports torture practice by French army in Algeria
1961 – Soviet Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin became first man to orbit the Earth.
1963 – Police used dogs and cattle prods on peaceful civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, AL.
1966 – Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American major league umpire.
1975 – Six Catholic civilians are killed in a Ulster Volunteer Force gun and grenade attack on Strand Bar in Belfast, North Ireland
1980 – Canadian one-legged distance runner Terry Fox begins his “Marathon of Hope” attempt to cross the country at St. John’s, Newfoundland
1981 – The space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral, FL, on its first test flight.
1982 – The British Navy began enforcing a blockade around the Falkland Islands.
1982 – Three CBS employees were shot to death in a New York City parking lot.
1984 – Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger made the first satellite repair in orbit by returning the Solar Max satellite to space.
1984 – Israeli troops stormed a bus that had been hijacked the previous evening by four Arab terrorists. All the passengers were rescued and 2 of the hijackers were killed.
1985 – U.S. Senator Jake Garn of Utah became the first senator to fly in space as the shuttle Discovery lifted off from Cape Canaveral, FL.
1985 – In Spain, an explosion in a restaurant near a U.S. base killed 17 people.
1985 – Federal inspectors declared that four animals of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were not unicorns. They were goats with horns that had been surgically implanted.
1987 – Texaco filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy after it failed to settle a legal dispute with Pennzoil Co.
1988 – Harvard University won a patent for a genetically altered mouse. It was the first patent for a life form.
1988 – The Chinese government named a new array of younger leaders to ensure economic reform.
1989 – In the U.S.S.R, ration cards were issued for the first time since World War II. The ration was prompted by a sugar shortage.
1990 – 1st meeting of East German democratically elected parliament, acknowledges responsibility for the Holocaust and asks for forgiveness
1991 – US announces closing of 31 major US military bases
1992 – Trump Shuttle becomes US Air Shuttle
1993 – NATO began enforcing a no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
1999 – US President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving “intentionally false statements” in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit.
2000 – More than 1,500 anti-drug agents raided four cities in Colombia and arrested 46 members of the “most powerful” heroin ring.
2000 – Robert Cleaves, 71, was convicted of second degree murder and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Cleaves had repeatedly run over Arnold Guerreiro on September 30, 1998 with his car after the two had an argument.
2000 – Israel’s High Court ordered the release of eight Lebanese detainees that had been held for years without a trial.
2002 – It was announced that the South African version of “Sesame Street” would be introducing a character that was HIV-positive.
2002 – Palestinian suicide bomber (female) kills 7 and injures 104 (among them 9 Arabs) at the Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem.
2009 – U.S. Navy rescues captain Richard Phillips, killing three pirates and capturing a fourth
2013 – 11 people are killed and 30 are injured in mosque attacks across Iraq
2013 – A man-made 32-foot and 60 tonne monument that is dates around 2000 BC is discovered in the Sea of Galilee
2016 – Breakthrough Starshot: Scientists and internet entrepreneurs, including Yuri Milner, Stephen Hawking and Mark Zuckerberg, announce interstellar project to send robot spacecraft to Alpha Centauri
2020 – OPEC and other major oil companies agree to the largest-ever drop in production to stabilize world prices
2022 – Terrorist attack on the New York subway injures 26, 10 by gunfire, with the suspect arrested a day later
2022 – UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologies and is fined for attending parties during COVID-19 lockdown – first premier to be sanctioned for breaking the law
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
