April 15......

April 15 is the 105th (106th in leap years) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 260 days remaining in the year on this date.

Best Liberal Quote of the Day: On Civil Liberties "Liberty is always unfinished business." — American Civil Liberties Union

Stupidest Quote from the Right for the Day: On Union Disregard "The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for not by our labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom has given control of property interests of the country." — George Baer, railroad industrialist

{Disclaimer: I have attempted to give credit to the many different sources that I get entries. Any failure to do so is unintentional. Any statement enclosed by brackets like these are the opinion of the blogger, A Proud Liberal.}

EVENTS

● 69 - Battle at Bedriacum, North-Italy

● 73 - According to Jewish historian Josephus, 967 Jewish zealots committed mass suicide within the fortress of Masada on this last night before the walls were breached by the attacking Roman Tenth Legion. Two women and five children survived by hiding in a cistern, and were later released unharmed by the Romans. The famous account has been called into some question by recent archeological discoveries.

● 1205 - Battle at Adrianople Bulgaria beats Emperor Boudouin of Constantinople

● 1250 - Pope Innoncent III refuses Jews of Cordova Spain to build a synagogue

● 1450 - Battle of Formigny: Toward the end of the Hundred Years' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English forces, ending English domination in Northern France.

● 1452 - Leonardo da Vinci born. Anchiano, Italy.

● 1493 - Columbus meets with King Ferdinand & Queen Isabella

● 1581 - Cortes van Thomar accepts Philip II as king of Portugal

● 1594 - Fleming Pieter Stevens appointed royal painter of Rudolf II (Prague)

● 1621 - Hugo the Great arrives in France

● 1632 - Battle of Rain; Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.

● 1654 - England & Netherlands signs peace treaty

● 1689 - French king Louis XIV declares war on Spain

● 1697 - Charles XII succeeds Charles XI as King of Sweden

● 1715 - The Wamasees and Catawbas attack Charleston, South Carolina, which leads to counter-attacks resulting in their virtual extermination.

● 1716 - Russian & Prussian troops occupy Wismar

● 1738 - Bottle opener invented

● 1746 - Colonial missionary to the American Indians David Brainerd wrote in his journal: 'Oh, how precious is time, and how it pains me to see it slide away, while I do so little to any good purpose. Oh, that God would make me more fruitful and spiritual.'

● 1755 - Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language published in London.

● 1776 - Duchess of Kingston found guilty of bigamy

● 1783 - Preliminary articles of peace ending Revolutionary War ratified.

● 1784 - 1st balloon flight in Ireland

● 1788 - England, Netherlands & Prussia sign peace treaty

● 1793 - Bank of England hands out 1st £5-note

● 1800 - James Ross discovers North Magnetic pole

● 1813 - U.S. troops seize the Spanish fort at Mobile, thereby invading and occupying the eastern half of West Florida. The western portion of the territory had already been annexed in 1810.

● 1817 - In Hartford, CT, American clergyman Thomas H. Gallaudet, 30, and deaf Frenchman Laurent Clerc opened the first American school for the deaf, called the American Asylum.

● 1834 - The end of the "Bloody Week" in Lyon, France. The second great insurrection of the silk workers is subdued in a blood bath, with several hundred victims. Those insurrectionists captured, rather than killed, will appear in a "monster trial" in Paris in April 1835.

● 1850 - City of San Francisco incorporated

● 1851 - Earl G Andrássy sentenced to death in Hungary

● 1853 - Protestant church questions king Willem III Roman Catholic bishops

● 1858 - Battle of Azimghur, Mexicans defeat Spanish loyalists

● 1861 - President Abraham Lincoln declared a state of insurrection and called out Union troops three days after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

● 1864 - General Steeles' Union troops occupies Camden AR

● 1865 - Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by John Wilkes Booth, at 7:22 AM.

● 1865 - Andrew Johnson becomes the 17th President of the United States.

● 1865 - Otto von Bismarck elevated to earl

● 1870 - Last day US silver coins allow to circulate in Canada

● 1871 - "Wild Bill" Hickok became the marshal of Abilene, Kansas.

● 1872 - In deciding the legal case "Watson v. Jones," the U.S. Supreme Court declared that a member of a religious organization may not appeal to secular courts against a decision made by a church tribunal within the area of its competence.

● 1874 - After being defeated in his race for governorship of Arkansas, Reconstructionist Joseph Brooks, claiming a stolen election, forcibly takes possession of the State House.

● 1874 - New York legislature passes compulsory education law

● 1880 - William Gladstone became Prime Minister of England.

● 1882 - Birth of Pierre Ramus (pseudonym of Rudolf Grossman) (1882-1942). Propagandist and Austrian anarchist writer. A pacifist militant, he died while attempting to escape from Nazi-occupied Europe.

● 1889 - Black civil rights and labor leader and peace activist A. Philip Randolph born. A founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

● 1889 - Birth of Louis Bertho (known as Jules Lepetit), Nantes. French anarchist/syndicalist, reported missing after a trip to Moscow, probably eliminated by the Communists. .

● 1892 - Birth of Corrie ten Boom, Dutch devotional author whose family was arrested by the Gestapo during WWII for hiding Jewish refugees in their home. (Corrie's experience with the Nazis was depicted in the 1971 film, "The Hiding Place.")

● 1900 - An early 50 mile race is won by an electric car in over 2 hours

● 1901 - 1st British motorized burial

● 1902 - Russia - In a general uprising, with riot, arson, and peasant plunder of estates, Sipyengin, the Russian tsarist head of the secret police, is assassinated.

● 1902 - Pope Leo XIII encyclical "On the Church in the US"

● 1906 - Birth of Ricardo Mestre (1906-1997), Vilanova i la Geltre, Catalonia, Spain. One of the founders of the Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias (FIJL); emigrated to Mexico City after the Civil War.

● 1906 - The establishing of the Armenian organization, AGBU

● 1910 - William Howard Taft is 1st US President to throw out a 1st ball at a baseball game

● 1912 - The British passenger liner RMS Titanic sinks at 2:P20 AM after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic, causing the deaths of about 1,503 people.

● 1915 - IWW union Agricultural Workers Organization forms in Kansas, Missouri.

● 1917 - French conscripts mutiny rather than advance on German lines; 500,000 join in.

● 1917 - The British defeated the Germans at the battle of Arras.

● 1918 - Clemenceau publishes secret French/Austrian documents

● 1919 - Start of victorious six-day strike across New England by first women-led U.S. union, Telephone Operators Department of IBEW.

● 1919 - British troops killed 400 Indians at Amritsar, India.

● 1920 - New Canadian small cent coin is released

● 1920 - In South Braintree, Mass., two men armed with handguns shoot and kill Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli, employees of the Slater &Morrill Shoe Company. The thieves rob the men of the $15,776.51 payroll they were carrying. The thieves are picked up by a car carrying other men. The anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti will ultimately be blamed and railroaded to their deaths.

● 1921 - Black Friday-Labour Party strike of mine workers fails

● 1922 - Frederick Banting, John MacLeod & Charles Best discover insulin

● 1923 - 1st sound on film public performance shown at Rialto Theater (NYC)

● 1923 - Insulin first became generally available for use by diabetics.

● 1924 - Flemish-Walloon riots in Louvain Belgium, 1 dead

● 1924 - Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.

● 1927 - Switzerland & USSR agree to diplomatic relations

● 1934 - Small group of subway workers led by Mike Quill and Douglas MacMahon found Transport Workers Union.

● 1938 - Cesar Vallejo dies, Paris. Left his native Peru in 1923, and once expelled from Paris in 1930 as a political militant. Founder of the Peruvian Communist party.

● 1939 - Albert Lebrun elected President of France

● 1940 - The Allies start their attack on the Norwegian town of Narvik which was occupied by Nazi Germany.

● 1941 - 1st helicopter flight of 1 hour duration, Stratford CT

● 1942 - George Cross awarded to "to the island fortress of Malta - its people and defenders" by King George VI.

● 1943 - An Allied bomber attack misses the Minerva automobile factory and hits the Belgian town of Mortsel instead, killing 936 civilians.

● 1945 - FDR buried on grounds of Hyde Park home

● 1945 - British & Canadian troops liberate Nazi camp of Bergen-Belsen

● 1945 - Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Communium interpretes dolorum

● 1945 - US troops occupy concentration camp Colditz

● 1947 - Jackie Robinson goes hitless in his major league debut

● 1948 - 1st Jewish-Arab military battle, Arabs defeated

● 1948 - Indian territory of Himachal Pradesh created

● 1949 - Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Redemptoris nostri

● 1951 - Beginning of first strike wave in fascist Spain, beginning in the Basque country and spreading to Catalonia. Workers from a number of different industries and cities participate, with over 100,000 defying the government's order to return to work.

● 1951 - Michael Gorsira is 1st person in charge of Curaçao

● 1952 - 1st B-52 prototype test flight

● 1952 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

● 1952 - U.S. President Harry Truman signed the official Japanese peace treaty.

● 1953 - Britain honours American hero; Reis Leming, a 22-year-old US airman, is awarded the George Medal for rescuing people trapped by winter floods.

● 1953 - In Buenos Aires, six people were killed by a bomb at a rally addressed by President Peron.

● 1953 - Pope Pius XII gave his approval of psychoanalysis but warned of possible abuses.

● 1953 - Charlie Chaplin surrendered his U.S. re-entry permit rather than face proceedings by the U.S. Justice Department. Chaplin was accused of sympathizing with Communist groups.

● 1953 - Malans National Party wins South African elections

● 1955 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

● 1955 - Ray Kroc starts the McDonald's chain of fast food restaurants. One hamburger, served billions and billions of times.

● 1956 - General Motors announced that the first free piston automobile had been developed.

● 1957 - Saturday mail delivery restored after Congress gives Post Office $41 million

● 1958 - British apologist C. S. Lewis wrote in "Letters to an American Lady": 'I had been a Christian for many years before I really believed in the forgiveness of sins, or more strictly, before my theoretical belief became a reality to me.'

● 1959 - Makah tribe of Olympic Peninsula, Wash. recognized as entitled to compensation for loss of halibut and seal hunting, because of international treaty.

● 1959 - Fidel Castro begins US goodwill tour

● 1959 - US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles resigns

● 1960 - Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), organizes at Shaw University

● 1962 - US national debt above $300,000,000,000

● 1963 - Mass rally after release of 2,000 arrested for trying to hold Marathon peace march, Acropolis, Athens, Greece.

● 1964 - Chesapeake Bay Bridge opens (Bridge-Tunnel measures 17.6 miles (28.4 km) and is considered the world's largest bridge-tunnel complex)

● 1964 - Ian Smith becomes premier of Rhodesia

● 1967 - Richard Speck was found guilty of murdering eight student nurses.

● 1967 - First mass draft card burning as 400,000 march in New York City and 80,000 in San Francisco opposing Vietnam War.

● 1968 - With the Democratic National Convention months away, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley publicly criticizes Superintendent of Police James Conlisk's cautious handling of the riots that followed King's assassination. Daley said he was giving the police specific instructions "to shoot to kill any arsonist and to shoot to maim or cripple anyone looting."

● 1968 - France - Amparo Poch y Gascon dies on her birthday, Toulouse. Spanish anarchist feminist, propagandist for sexual freedom. After the revolution in Spain, worked with Spanish refugees in the French concentration camps.

● 1969 - Several thousand welfare recipients march in New York City to protest benefit cuts.

● 1969 - North Korea shoots at US airplane above Japanese sea

● 1970 - Police tear-gas anti-war protesters staffing flaming barricades which had been set up to block 13th Ave. access to the University of Oregon in Eugene.

● 1970 - Libyan leader Qadhafi launches "Green Revolution"

● 1972 - Barbra Streisand, James Taylor, Carole King & Quincy Jones perform at a benefit for George McGovern for President

● 1974 - Kidnapped heiress Patricia Hearst is filmed participating in the robbery of a Bank of America branch in Sacramento, California.

● 1974 - Military coup in Niger, President Diori Hamani deposed

● 1975 - Gabon amends constitution

● 1978 - 43 die as 2 express trains collide head-on south of Bologna Italy

● 1978 - Great Britain performs nuclear test

● 1980 - Marxist existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre died in Paris at age 74.

● 1980 - U.S. Court of Appeals dismisses suit by Eastern Cherokee to prevent the construction of the Tellico Dam by the TVA because plaintiffs are unable to demonstate the land is indispensable to the practice of the tribe's religion.

● 1981 - Janet Cooke says her Pulitzer award 8-year-old heroin addict story is a lie, Washington Post relinquishes Pulitzer Prize on fabricated story

● 1982 - Apollo Computer announces DN400, DN420, & landscape display

● 1984 - Two hundred fifty thousand attend nuclear disarament rallies across Australia.

● 1984 - Ten members of a family were found murdered in their home in New York City. An infant was found crawling among the corpses.

● 1984 - Extremist Sikhs plunder 40 stations in Punjab India

● 1984 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR

● 1985 - Challenger moves to launch pad for 51-B missing

● 1985 - South Africa will repeal sex & marriage laws against whites & non-whites

● 1986 - U.S. bombs five "terrorist" locations in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya, killing numerous civilians, in retaliation for "confirmed" Libyan links to a terrorist bombing of U.S. soldiers at a disco in West Germany. The daughter of Libyan leader Col. Qaddafi is assassinated in the attack; the disco bombing is later proven not to be the work of Libya.

● 1987 - ACT UP's second demonstration at the General Post Office, in New York City. Protestors decried the paucity of government help fighting AIDS, failure to spend monies already appropriated, and the FDA's sweetheart deal with Burroughs Wellcome charging $10,000 a year for the only approved anti-AIDS drug, AZT, which was developed with the aid of government funds.

● 1987 - In Northhampton, MA, Amy Carter, Abbie Hoffman and 13 others were acquitted on civil disobedience charges related with a CIA protest.

● 1988 - Meteorite explode above Indonesia

● 1989 - Hillsborough disaster: A human crush occurs at Hillsborough Stadium, a football stadium in Sheffield, resulting in 96 deaths.

● 1989 - Upon Hu Yaobang's death, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 begin in the People's Republic of China.

● 1990 - Actress Greta Garbo died at age 84.

● 1991 - Maximum New York State unemployment benefits raised to $280 per week

● 1991 - Europe foreign ministers lift most remaining sanctions against South Africa

● 1992 - Billionaire Leona Helmsley is sent to jail for tax evasion

● 1992 - Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx loses its accreditation

● 1992 - National Assembly of Vietnam adopts the 1992 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

● 1994 - Representatives of 124 countries and the European Communities sign the Marrakesh Agreements revising the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and initiating the World Trade Organization (effective January 1, 1995).

● 1997 - Fire sweeps through a campsite of Muslims making the Hajj pilgrimage; the official death toll is 343.

● 1998 - Pol Pot died at the age of 73. The leader of the Khmer Rouge regime thereby evaded prosecution for the deaths of at least 2 million Cambodians.

● 1999 - New York City demonstration protesting FCC crackdown on unlicensed, "pirate" microradio stations.

● 1999 - In Algeria, former Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Bouteflika was elected president. All of the opposition candidates claimed that the vote was fraudulent and withdrew from the election.

● 1999 - In Rawalpindi, Pakistan, a panel of two Lahore High Court judges convicted former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, of corruption.

● 2000 - White farmer shot dead in Zimbabwe; A white farmer in Zimbabwe has been kidnapped and shot dead by squatters occupying his land.

● 2000 - 600 anti-IMF (International Monetary Fund) protesters were arrested in Washington, DC, for demonstrating without a permit.

● 2002 - An Air China Boeing 767-200, flight CA129 crashes into hillside during heavy rain and fog near Busan, South Korea, killing 128.

● 2002 - Retired Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White died at age 84.

● 2003 - Looters and arsonists ransacked and gutted Iraq's National Library, as well as Iraq's principal Islamic library.

● 2004 - In a videotape, a man identifying himself as Osama bin Laden offered a truce to European countries that did not attack Muslims, saying it would begin when their soldiers left Islamic nations.

BIRTHS

● 1452 - Leonardo da Vinci, Italian Renaissance Roman Catholic polymath (d. 1519)

● 1489 - Sinan, Ottoman architect (d. 1588)

● 1552 - Pietro Cataldi, Italian mathematician (d. 1626)

● 1588 - Claudius Salmasius, French classical scholar (d. 1653)

● 1641 - Robert Sibbald, Scottish physician (d. 1722)

● 1642 - Suleiman II, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1691)

● 1646 - King Christian V of Denmark (d. 1699)

● 1651 - Robert Sibbald, Scottish physician

● 1684 - Catherine I of Russia (d. 1727)

● 1688 - Johann Friedrich Fasch, German composer (d. 1758)

● 1707 - Leonhard Euler, Swiss mathematician (d. 1783)

● 1710 - William Cullen, Scottish physician (d. 1790)

● 1721 - Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, English military leader (d. 1765)

● 1741 - Charles Willson Peale, American painter, soldier and naturalist (d. 1827)

● 1772 - Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, French naturalist (d. 1844)

● 1786 - Walter Channing, American physician; helped found Boston Lying-In Hospital (1832) (d. 1876)

● 1793 - Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, German astronomer (d. 1864)

● 1794 - Jean Pierre Flourens, French physiologist (d. 1867)

● 1800 - James Clark Ross, English explorer (d. 1862)

● 1809 - Hermann Grassmann, German mathematician (d. 1877)

● 1832 - Wilhelm Busch, German poet (d. 1908)

● 1843 - Henry James, American author (d. 1916)

● 1858 - Émile Durkheim, French sociologist (d. 1917)

● 1861 - Bliss Carman, Canadian poet (d. 1929)

● 1874 - George Harrison Shull, American plant geneticist (d. 1954)

● 1874 - Johannes Stark, German physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 1957)

● 1878 - Robert Walser, Swiss writer (d. 1956)

● 1879 - Melville Henry Cane, American lawyer (d. 1980)

● 1880 - Max Wertheimer, Czech-born American psychologist; founder of Gestalt psychology (d. 1943)

● 1883 - Stanley Bruce, eighth Prime Minister of Australia (1923-29) (d. 1967)

● 1885 - Tadeusz Kutrzeba, Polish general (d. 1947)

● 1886 - Nikolay Gumilyov, Russian poet (d. 1921)

● 1888 - Maximilian Kronberger, German poet (d. 1904)

● 1889 - Thomas Hart Benton, American muralist (d. 1975)

● 1889 - A. Philip Randolph, American activist (d. 1979)

● 1892 - Corrie ten Boom, Dutch author and Holocaust survivor (d. 1983)

● 1894 - Bessie Smith, American blues singer (d. 1937)

● 1895 - Bessie Smith, American blues singer (d. 1937)

● 1895 - Clark McConachy, New Zealand billiards player (d. 1980)

● 1896 - Nikolay Nikolayevich Semyonov, Russian chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 1986)

● 1901 - Joe Davis, English snooker player (d. 1978)

● 1902 - Fernando Pessa, Portuguese journalist (d. 2002)

● 1904 - Arshile Gorky, Turkish-born American postsurrealist abstract painter (d. 1948)

● 1907 - Nikolaas Tinbergen, Dutch ornithologist, Nobel laureate (d. 1988)

● 1912 - Kim Il-sung, President of North Korea (d. 1994)

● 1916 - Alfred S. Bloomingdale, American businessman (d. 1982)

● 1917 - Hans Conried, American actor (d. 1982)

● 1920 - Richard von Weizsäcker, President of Germany

● 1921 - Georgi Beregovoi, Soviet cosmonaut (d. 1995)

● 1922 - Michael Ansara, Syrian-American actor

● 1922 - Harold Washington, American politician (d. 1987)

● 1924 - Sir Neville Marriner, English conductor

● 1927 - Robert Mills, American physicist (d. 1999)

● 1930 - Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, President of Iceland

● 1933 - Roy Clark, American musician

● 1933 - Elizabeth Montgomery, American actress (d. 1995)

● 1933 - Boris Strugatsky, Russian author

● 1936 - Raymond Poulidor, French cyclist

● 1938 - Hso Khan Pha, Burmese politician

● 1939 - Claudia Cardinale, Tunisian-born actress

● 1940 - Jeffrey Archer, British author

● 1940 - Robert Walker Jr., American actor

● 1940 - Willie Davis, American baseball player

● 1942 - Francis X. DiLorenzo, American Catholic prelate

● 1942 - Walt Hazzard, American baketball player

● 1942 - Kenneth Lay, American businessman (d. 2006)

● 1944 - Dzhokhar Dudaev, Chechen leader (d. 1996)

● 1944 - Dave Edmunds, Welsh musician

● 1947 - Lois Chiles, American actress

● 1947 - Cristina Husmark Pehrsson, Swedish politician

● 1947 - Mike Chapman, British songwriter

● 1947 - Linda Bloodworth- Thomason, TV writer, producer ("Designing Women")

● 1948 - Michael Kamen, American composer (d. 2003)

● 1949 - Tonio K, American singer

● 1949 - Alla Pugacheva, Russian singer

● 1950 - Amy Wright, American actress

● 1951 - Heloise, American newspaper columnist (Hints from Heloise)

● 1952 - Bengt Gingsjö, Swedish swimmer

● 1954 - Seka, American pornographic actress

● 1955 - Dodi Al-Fayed, Egyptian businessman (d. 1997)

● 1957 - Evelyn Ashford, American athlete

● 1958 - Keith Acton, Canadian ice hockey player and coach

● 1958 - Benjamin Zephaniah, British writer

● 1959 - Fruit Chan, Hong Kong film director

● 1959 - Emma Thompson, English actress

● 1959 - Thomas F. Wilson, American actor

● 1960 - Tony Jones (snooker), English snooker player

● 1960 - Pedro Delgado, Spanish cyclist

● 1962 - Nawal El Moutawakel, Morrocan hurdler

● 1963 - Bobby Pepper, American journalist

● 1965 - Linda Perry, American musician

● 1966 - Samantha Fox, English singer

● 1967 - Frankie Poullain, British musician (The Darkness)

● 1967 - Dara Torres, American swimmer

● 1967 - Alt, Brazilian comic creator

● 1968 - Ed O'Brien, British musician (Radiohead)

● 1968 - Stacey Williams, American model

● 1969 - Jeromy Burnitz, American baseball player

● 1969 - Milton Bradley, American baseball player

● 1970 - Flex Alexander, American actor

● 1971 - Katy Hill, British television presenter

● 1971 - Sarah Jane Hamilton, British pornographic actress

● 1972 - Lou Romano, American voice actor

● 1972 - Arturo Gatti, Canadian boxer

● 1974 - Mike Quinn, Quarterback

● 1974 - Danny Pino, American actor ("Cold Case")

● 1974 - Keith Malley, American comedian

● 1974 - Josh Todd, American musician (Buckcherry)

● 1975 - Paul Dana, American race car driver (d. 2006)

● 1976 - Jason Bonsignore, Canadian ice hockey player

● 1977 - Brian Pothier, American ice hockey player

● 1978 - Austin Aries, American wrestler

● 1980 - Raúl López, Spanish basketball player

● 1980 - Victor Núñez, Costa Rican footballer

● 1980 - Fränk Schleck, Luxembourgish cyclist

● 1980 - Natalie Casey, British actress

● 1981 - Andrés d'Alessandro, Argentine football player

● 1981 - Seth Wulsin, American artist

● 1983 - Ilya Kovalchuk, Russian ice hockey player

● 1983 - Dudu Cearense, Brazilian footballer

● 1984 - Rodney Carney, NBA athlete

● 1984 - Cam Janssen, American ice hockey player

● 1986 - Quincy Owusu-Abeyie, Dutch footballer

● 1986 - Thomas Heaton, English footballer

● 1990 - Emma Watson, English actress ("Harry Potter" movies)

● 1992 - Amy Diamond, Swedish singer

● 1997 - Zoë Virant, American singer

DEATHS

● 1053 - Godwin, Earl of Wessex

● 1220 - Adolf of Altena, Archbishop of Cologne

● 1415 - Manuel Chrysoloras, Greek humanist

● 1446 - Filippo Brunelleschi, Italian architect (b. 1377

● 1610 - Robert Parsons, English Jesuit priest (b. 1546)

● 1621 - John Carver, first governor of Plymouth Colony

● 1641 - Domenico Zampieri, Italian painter (b. 1581)

● 1652 - Patriarch Joseph, head of the Russian Orthodox Church

● 1659 - Simon Dach, German poet (b. 1605)

● 1704 - Johann van Waveren Hudde, Dutch mathematician (b. 1628)

● 1719 - Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon, second wife of Louis XIV of France (b. 1635)

● 1754 - Jacopo Riccati, Italian mathematician (b. 1676)

● 1761 - Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, Scottish politician (b. 1682)

● 1761 - William Oldys, English antiquarian and bibliographer (b. 1696)

● 1764 - Madame de Pompadour, mistress of King Louis XIV of France (b. 1721)

● 1764 - Peder Horrebow, Danish astronomer (b. 1679)

● 1765 - Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian scientist and writer (b. 1711)

● 1788 - Giuseppe Bonno, Austrian composer (b. 1711)

● 1793 - Ignacije Szentmartony, Croatian Jesuit missionary and geographer (b. 1718)

● 1804 - Charles Pichegru, French general (strangled in prison) (b. 1761)

● 1854 - Arthur Aikin, English chemist, mineralogist, and scientific writer (b. 1773)

● 1865 - Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States (b. 1809)

● 1868 - Gaston Leroux, French writer (d. 1927)

● 1888 - Matthew Arnold, English poet (b. 1822)

● 1889 - Father Damien, Belgian missionary (b. 1840)

● 1898 - Kepa Te Rangihiwinui, Maori military leader

● 1912 - Victims of the RMS Titanic

● 1927 - Gaston Leroux, French writer (b. 1868)

● 1938 - César Vallejo, Peruvian poet (b. 1892)

● 1942 - Robert Musil, Austrian novelist (b. 1880)

● 1943 - Aristarkh Lentulov, Russian artist (d. 1882)

● 1948 - Radola Gajda, Czech military commander and politician (d. 1892)

● 1949 - Wallace Beery, American actor (b. 1885)

● 1957 - Pedro Infante, Mexican actor and singer (b. 1917)

● 1962 - Clara Blandick, American actress (b. 1881)

● 1969 - Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, Queen of Spain (b. 1887)

● 1970 - Ripper Collins, baseball player (b. 1904)

● 1971 - Dan Reeves, owner of the Cleveland/Los Angeles Rams (b. 1912)

● 1974 - Giovanni D'Anzi, Italian songwriter (b. 1906)

● 1975 - Richard Conte, American actor (b. 1910)

● 1980 - Raymond Bailey, American actor (b. 1904)

● 1980 - Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and writer, Nobel Prize laureate (declined) (b. 1905)

● 1982 - Arthur Lowe, British actor (b. 1915)

● 1983 - Corrie ten Boom, Dutch author and Holocaust survivor (b. 1892)

● 1984 - Tommy Cooper, Welsh comedy magician (b. 1921)

● 1984 - Alexander Trocchi, Scottish writer (b. 1925)

● 1986 - Jean Genet, French author (b. 1910)

● 1988 - Kenneth Williams, English actor and comedian (b. 1926)

● 1989 - Nesuhi Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records (b. 1917)

● 1989 - Hu Yaobang, leader of China (b. 1915)

● 1990 - Greta Garbo, Swedish actress (b. 1905)

● 1993 - John Tuzo Wilson, Canadian geologist (b. 1908)

● 1993 - Leslie Charteris, Singapore-born author (b. 1907)

● 1994 - John Curry, English figure skater (b. 1949)

● 1995 - Harry Shoulberg, American painter, serigrapher (b. 1903)

● 1998 - Pol Pot, Cambodian dictator (b. 1925)

● 1999 - Harvey Postlethwaite, British engineer and racing car designer (b. 1944)

● 2000 - Edward Gorey, American illustrator (b. 1925)

● 2001 - Joey Ramone, American musician and singer (The Ramones) (b. 1951)

● 2001 - Jack Elway, father of John Elway (b. 1932)

● 2002 - Damon Knight, American author (b. 1922)

● 2002 - Byron "Whizzer" White, American football player and U.S. Supreme Court Justice (b. 1917)

● 2003 - Erin Fleming, Canadian actress (b. 1941)

● 2004 - Ray Condo, Canadian rockabilly musician (b. 1950)

HOLIDAYS AND OBSERVANCES

● Roman Catholic:
● St. Basilissa
● St. Eutychius
● St. Hunna
● St. Maro
● Sts. Maximus & Olympiades
● St. Mundus
● St. Paternus
● St. Petrus Gonzalez
● St. Ruadan
● Bl. Waltman of Antwerp

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for April 2 (Civil Date: April 15)
● St. Titus the wonderworker.
● Martyrs Amphianus (Apphianus) and Edesiua (Aedesius) of Lycia.
● Martyr Polycarp of Alexandria.
● St. Gregory, ascetic of Nicomedia.

● Greek Calendar:
● Virgin Martyr Theodora of Palestine.

● Roman Empire — the Fordicia was celebrated in honor of Terra.

● Buddhist : New Year (Bangladesh)

● Africa : African Freedom Day

● Ancient Latvia — Tipsa Diena was observed.

● Hawai'i - Father Damien Day — celebrated annually.

● North Korea - Arirang Festival held to commemorate Kim Il-sung's birth.

● United States - April 15 is the official deadline for filing tax return in most areas of the country, this is also Holocaust Remembrance day.

● Major League Baseball celebrates "Jackie Robinson Day" each April 15 in all MLB ballparks.

● This Holiday is only applicable on a given "day of the week"
● Massachusetts, Maine : Patriots Day-Boston Marathon run (1775) - (Monday)


Click on this LINK to see original Wikipedia list with many having links with details.

Additional facts taken from:

On this day in the New York Times

The BBC’s Take on the day

On This Day Website

Geov Parrish's this Day in Radical History, things that happened on this day that you never had to memorize in school.

Scope Systems Any Day Website

Roman Catholic Saint of the Day

Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar

Quotes of the Day taken from "The Best Liberal Quotes Ever: Why the Left Is Right" Compiled by William P. Martin 2004

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