TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – APRIL 20
1139 The Second Lateran Council opens in Rome.
1653 In England, Oliver Cromwell expelled the Long Parliament for trying to pass the Perpetuation Bill that would have kept Parliament in the hands of only a few members.
1769 Ottawa Chief Pontiac is murdered by an Indian in Cahokia.
1809 Napoleon Bonaparte defeats Austria at Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria.
1836 The Territory of Wisconsin is created.
1841 Edgar Allen Poe’s first detective story is published.
1861 Robert E. Lee resigns from the U.S. Army.
1862 First pasteurization test completed by Frenchmen Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard
1871 Congress authorizes President Ulysses S. Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations, and use military force to suppress the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
1879 The first mobile home (horse-drawn) is used in a journey from London to Cyprus.
1902 Marie and Pierre Curie isolate the radioactive element radium chloride
1914 Men, women and children were killed today when violence broke out between militiamen and striking coal miners in Ludlow, Colorado.
1916 Sir Roger Casement landed in Ireland to incite rebellion against the British. Casement, a British diplomat, was captured within hours and was hanged for high treason on August 3.
1940 The first electron microscope is demonstrated.
1942 Pierre Laval, the premier of Vichy France, in a radio broadcast, establishes a policy of “true reconciliation with Germany.”
1962 The New Orleans Citizens Committee gives free one-way ride to blacks to move North.
1968 The Conservative right winger, Enoch Powell, ( MP for Wolverhampton South West )makes a hard-hitting speech saying Britain had to be mad to allow in 50,000 dependents of immigrants each year and calling for an immediate reduction in immigration attacking the government’s immigration policy at a Conservative association meeting in Birmingham. Enoch Powell’s so-called “Rivers of Blood” speech led to him being sacked from the shadow cabinet, but made him very popular with tabloids and thousands of workers who staged strikes and marches in support of his views and touched a nerve ending for many who thought the current Immigration laws should be tightened up.
1971 The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the practice of busing for racial desegregation.
1974 ‘The Troubles’, the Northern Ireland conflict between republican and loyalist paramilitaries, British security forces, and civil rights groups, claims its 1000th victim
1978 Soviet air defense shoots down Korean Air Lines Flight 902
The Boeing 707’s crew had miscalculated their route, taking them into Soviet air space at the height of the Cold War. The jet made an emergency landing on a frozen lake. Two passengers were killed in the incident.
1999 Two students enter Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and open fire with multiple firearms, killing 13 students and teachers, wounding 25 and eventually shooting themselves.
2010 The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes, killing 11 and causing the rig to sink, causing a massive oil discharge into the Gulf of Mexico and an environmental diaster
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
