TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – APRIL 2 2020
1453 Mehmed II begins his siege of Constantinople (İstanbul), which falls May 29
1513 Explorer Juan Ponce de León claims Florida for Spain as the first known European to reach Florida
1796 Haitian revolt leader Toussaint L’Ouverture takes command of French forces at Santo Domingo.
1865 Confederate President Jefferson Davis flees Richmond, Virginia as Grant breaks Lee’s line at Petersburg.
1870 Victoria Claflin Woodhull announced her candidacy for president of the United States.
1877 1st Easter egg roll held on White House lawn
1908 Mills Committee declares baseball was invented by in 1839 by future American Civil War general Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York; known as ‘the Doubleday myth’
1914 The U.S. Federal Reserve Board announces plans to divide the country into 12 districts.
1917 Jeannette Pickering Rankin is sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.
1917 President Woodrow Wilson presents a declaration of war against Germany to Congress.
1931 17-year old girl Jackie Mitchell strikes out New York Yankees stars Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition baseball game at Engel Stadium in Chattanooga, Tennessee
1932 Charles Lindbergh pays over $50,000 ransom for his kidnapped son.
1958 The National Advisory Council on Aeronautics is renamed NASA.
1963 Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King begins the first non-violent campaign in Birmingham, Alabama.
1973 CBS radio begins on hour news 24 hours a day
1973 ITT pleads guilty to asking CIA to affect Chilean presidential election
1981 In Lebanon, thirty-seven people were reported killed during fighting in the cities of Beirut and Zahle. It was the worst violence since the 1976 cease fire.
1986 NYC Mayor Ed Koch signs & brings the Gay Rights Bill into effect
1989 Wrestlemania V at Trump Plaza, Hulk Hogan beats “Macho Man” Savage
1990 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein threatened to incinerate half of Israel with chemical weapons if Israel joined a conspiracy against Iraq.
1992 John Gotti found guilty in death of Paul Castallanos
1996 Lech Walesa resumed his old job as an electrician at the Gdansk shipyard. He was the former Solidarity union leader who became Poland’s first post-war democratic president.
2002 Israeli troops surrounded the Church of the Nativity. More than 200 Palestinians had taken refuge at the church when Israel invaded Bethlehem.
2004 Islamist terrorists involved in the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks attempt to bomb the Spanish high-speed train AVE near Madrid. Their attack is thwarted.
2013 4 more critical cases of bird flu (H7N9) are reported in China
2014 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that limits on the total amount of money individuals can give political candidates and political action committees were unconstitutional.
2015 140 people are killed after gunmen attack Garissa University College, Kenya
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
