- AD 69 – Vitellius, commander of the Rhine armies, defeats Emperor Otho in the Battle of Bedriacum to take power over Rome.[1]
- 966 – After his marriage to the Christian Doubravka of Bohemia, the pagan ruler of the Polans, Mieszko I, converts to Christianity, an event considered to be the founding of the Polish state.[2]
- 972 – Co-Emperor Otto II, a son of Otto I (the Great), marries the Byzantine princess Theophanu. She is crowned empress by Pope John XIII at Rome.
- 1294 – Temür, grandson of Kublai, is elected Khagan of the Mongols and Emperor of the Yuan dynasty with the reigning titles Oljeitu and Chengzong.
- 1471 – In England, the Yorkists under Edward IV defeat the Lancastrians under the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet; the Earl is killed and Edward IV resumes the throne.[3]
- 1561 – A celestial phenomenon is reported over Nuremberg, described as an aerial battle.[4]
- 1639 – Imperial forces are defeated by the Swedes at the Battle of Chemnitz. The Swedish victory prolongs the Thirty Years’ War and allows them to advance into Bohemia.
- 1699 – Khalsa: The Sikh religion was formalised as the Khalsa – the brotherhood of Warrior-Saints – by Guru Gobind Singh in northern India, in accordance with the Nanakshahi calendar.
- 1775 – The first abolition society in North America is established. The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage is organized in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.
- 1816 – Bussa, a slave in British-ruled Barbados, leads a slave rebellion. For this, he is remembered as the first national hero of Barbados.[5]
- 1849 – Hungary declares itself independent of Austria with Lajos Kossuth as its leader.
- 1865 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth; Lincoln lives till the following day.[6]
- 1865 – U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked at home by Lewis Powell.[7]
- 1881 – The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight is fought in El Paso, Texas.[8]
- 1890 – The Pan-American Union is founded by the First International Conference of American States in Washington, D.C.
- 1894 – The first ever commercial motion picture house opens in New York City, United States, using ten Kinetoscopes, a device for peep-show viewing of films.[9]
- 1900 – The Exposition Universelle begins.
- 1906 – The Azusa Street Revival opens and will launch Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement.
- 1908 – Hauser Dam, a steel dam on the Missouri River in Montana, U.S., fails, sending a surge of water 25 to 30 feet (7.6 to 9.1 m) high downstream.
- 1909 – A massacre is organized by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenian population of Cilicia.
- 1912 – The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 23:40 (sinks morning of April 15th).
- 1928 – The Bremen, a German Junkers W 33 type aircraft, reaches Greenly Island, Canada – the first successful transatlantic aeroplane flight from east to west.
- 1931 – The Spanish Cortes deposes King Alfonso XIII and proclaims the Second Spanish Republic.
- 1935 – The Black Sunday dust storm, considered one of the worst storms of the Dust Bowl, swept across the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring areas.
- 1940 – World War II: Royal Marines land in Namsos, Norway in preparation for a larger force to arrive two days later.
- 1941 – World War II: German and Italian forces attack Tobruk in Libya.
- 1944 – Bombay explosion: A massive explosion in Bombay harbor kills 300 and causes economic damage valued then at 20 million pounds.
- 1945 – Razing of Friesoythe: The 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division deliberately destroyed the German town of Friesoythe on the orders of Major General Christopher Vokes.
- 1958 – The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days. This was the first spacecraft to carry a living animal, a female dog named Laika, who likely lived only a few hours.
- 1967 – Gnassingbé Eyadéma overthrows President of Togo Nicolas Grunitzky and installs himself as the new president, a title he would hold for the next 38 years.
- 1978 – Tbilisi Demonstrations: Thousands of Georgians demonstrate against Soviet attempts to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language.
- 1981 – STS-1: The first operational Space Shuttle, Columbia completes its first test flight.
- 1986 – The heaviest hailstones ever recorded (1 kilogram (2.2 lb)) fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92.
- 1988 – The USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will.
- 1988 – In a United Nations ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, the Soviet Union signs an agreement pledging to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
- 1991 – The Republic of Georgia introduces the post of President after its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union.
- 1994 – In a U.S. friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq, two United States Air Force aircraft mistakenly shoot-down two United States Army helicopters, killing 26 people.
- 1999 – NATO mistakenly bombs a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees. Yugoslav officials say 75 people were killed.
- 1999 – A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$2.3 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.
- 2002 – Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez returns to office two days after being ousted and arrested by the country’s military.
- 2003 – The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%.
- 2003 – U.S. troops in Baghdad capture Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner the MS Achille Lauro in 1985.
- 2005 – The Oregon Supreme Court nullifies marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples a year earlier by Multnomah County.
- 2006 – Twin blasts triggered by crude bombs during Asr prayer in Jama Masjid, Delhi injure 13 people.[10]
- 2010 – Nearly 2,700 are killed in a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.
- 2014 – Twin bomb blasts in Abuja, Nigeria, kill at least 75 people and injures 141 others.
- 2014 – Two hundred seventy-six schoolgirls are abducted by Boko Haram in Chibok, Nigeria.[11]
- 2016 – In Japan, the foreshock of Kumamoto earthquakes occurs.
-Source: wikipedia
