1362 – Muhammad VI ruler of Granada killed with a lance personally by Peter I of Castile, along with 36 followers and his head sent to Muhammad V (or 27 April)
1507 – German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller is the first to use the name America on his world map “Universalis Cosmographia”
1590 – The Sultan of Morocco launched his successful attack to capture Timbuktu.
1644 – Last Ming Emperor Chongzhen hangs himself from a tree on Jing Mountain, Beijing, rather than be captured by forces of Li Zicheng
1719 – Daniel Defoe publishes “Robinson Crusoe”, regarded as the 1st English novel
1792 – The guillotine was first used to execute highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier..
1846 – The Mexican-American War ignited as a result of disputes over claims to Texas boundaries. The outcome of the war fixed Texas’ southern boundary at the Rio Grande River.
1860 – The first Japanese diplomats to visit a foreign power reached Washington, DC. They remained in the U.S. capital for several weeks while discussing expansion of trade with the United States.
1881 – 250,000 Germans petition to bar foreign Jews from entering Germany
1901 – New York became the first state to require license plates for cars. The fee was $1.
1915 – During World War I, Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli in Turkey in hopes of attacking the Central Powers from below. The attack was unsuccessful.
1945 – Delegates from about 50 countries met in San Francisco to organize the United Nations
1945 – Soviet forces complete their encirclement of Berlin, cutting off all access points west of the German capital
1953 – U.S. Senator Wayne Morse ended the longest speech in U.S. Senate history. The speech on the Offshore Oil Bill lasted 22 hours and 26 minutes.
1953 – Dr. James D. Watson and Dr. Francis H.C. Crick suggested the double helix structure of DNA.
1954 – Bell labs announces the 1st solar battery made from silicon. It has about 6% efficiency.
1962 – The U.S. spacecraft, Ranger, crashed on the Moon.
1967 – Colorado Governor John Love signed the first law legalizing abortion in the U.S. The law was limited to therapeutic abortions when agreed to, unanimously, by a panel of three physicians.
1971 – About 200,000 anti-Vietnam War protesters march on Washington, D.C.
1978 – Supreme Court rules pension plans can’t require women to pay more
1980 – In Iran, a commando mission to rescue hostages was aborted after mechanical problems disabled three of the eight helicopters involved. During the evacuation, a helicopter and a transport plane collided and exploded. Eight U.S. servicemen were killed. The mission was aimed at freeing American hostages that had been taken at the U.S. embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. The event took place April 24th Washington, DC, time.
1982 – In accordance with Camp David agreements, Israel completed its Sinai withdrawal.
1983 – Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov invited Samantha Smith to visit his country after receiving a letter in which the U.S. schoolgirl expressed fears about nuclear war.
1983 – The Pioneer 10 spacecraft crossed Pluto’s orbit, speeding on its endless voyage through the Milky Way.
1988 – In Israel, John “Ivan the Terrible” Demjanuk was sentenced to death as a Nazi war criminal.
1990 – The U.S. Hubble Space Telescope was placed into Earth’s orbit. It was released by the space shuttle Discovery.
1998 – U.S. first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on was questioned by Whitewater prosecutors on videotape about her work as a private lawyer for the failed savings and loan at the center of the investigation.
2003 – Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader and ex-wife of former President Nelson Mandela, was sentenced to four years in prison for her conviction on fraud and theft charges. She was convicted of 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft of money from a women’s political league.
2005 – Final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937
2007 – Boris Yeltsin’s funeral, the first to be sanctioned by the Russian Orthodox Church for a head of state since the funeral of Tsar Alexander III in 1894
2018 – Indian religious leader Asaram Bapu is sentenced to life for raping a 16-year old girl
2019 – More than 1,600 civilians were killed in US-led coalition air and land strikes on Raqqa in 2017, according to Amnesty International and monitoring group Airwars
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
