- 1309 – Pope Clement V imposes excommunication and interdiction on Venice, and a general prohibition of all commercial intercourse with Venice, which had seized on Ferrara, a papal fiefdom.
- 1329 – Pope John XXII issues his In Agro Dominico condemning some writings of Meister Eckhart as heretical.
- 1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León reaches the northern end of The Bahamas on his first voyage to Florida.
- 1625 – Charles I becomes King of England, Scotland and Ireland as well as claiming the title King of France.
- 1782 – The Second Rockingham ministry assumes office in Britain and begins negotiations to end the American War of Independence.
- 1794 – The United States Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.
- 1809 – Peninsular War: A combined Franco–Polish force defeats the Spanish in the Battle of Ciudad Real.
- 1814 – War of 1812: In central Alabama, U.S. forces under General Andrew Jackson defeat the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
- 1836 – Texas Revolution: On the orders of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican army massacres 342 Texas POWs at Goliad, Texas.
- 1866 – President of the United States of America Andrew Johnson vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1866. His veto is overridden by Congress and the bill passes into law on April 9.
- 1871 – The first international rugby football match, when Scotland defeats England in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place.
- 1884 – A mob in Cincinnati, Ohio, attacks members of a jury which had returned a verdict of manslaughter in what was seen as a clear case of murder; over the next few days the mob would riot and eventually destroy the courthouse.
- 1886 – Geronimo, Apache warrior, surrenders to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars.
- 1899 – Emilio Aguinaldo leads Filipino forces for the only time during the Philippine–American War at the Battle of Marilao River.
- 1915 – Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States is put in quarantine for the second time, where she would remain for the rest of her life.
- 1918 – The National Council of Bessarabia proclaims union with the Kingdom of Romania.
- 1938 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Taierzhuang begins, resulting several weeks later in the war’s first major Chinese victory over Japan.
- 1941 – World War II: Yugoslav Air Force officers topple the pro-Axis government in a bloodless coup.
- 1943 – World War II: Battle of the Komandorski Islands: In the Aleutian Islands the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska.
- 1945 – World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan’s ports and waterways begins. Argentina declares war on the Axis Powers.
- 1958 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union.
- 1964 – The Good Friday earthquake, the most powerful earthquake recorded in North American history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes Southcentral Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.
- 1975 – Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
- 1977 – Tenerife airport disaster: Two Boeing 747 airliners collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 (all 248 on KLM and 335 on Pan Am). Sixty-one survived on the Pan Am flight. This is the deadliest aviation accident in history.
- 1980 – The Norwegian oil platform Alexander L. Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.
- 1980 – Silver Thursday: A steep fall in silver prices, resulting from the Hunt Brothers attempting to corner the market in silver, leads to panic on commodity and futures exchanges.
- 1981 – The Solidarity movement in Poland stages a warning strike, in which at least 12 million Poles walk off their jobs for four hours.
- 1986 – A car bomb explodes outside Russell Street Police HQ in Melbourne, Australia, killing one police officer and injuring 21 people.
- 1990 – The United States begins broadcasting anti-Castro propaganda to Cuba on TV Martí.
- 1993 – Jiang Zemin is appointed President of the People’s Republic of China.
- 1993 – Italian former minister and Christian Democracy leader Giulio Andreotti is accused of mafia allegiance by the tribunal of Palermo.
- 1998 – The Food and Drug Administration approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.
- 1999 – Kosovo War: An American Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk is shot down by a Yugoslav SAM, the first and only Nighthawk to be lost in combat.
- 2000 – A Phillips Petroleum plant explosion in Pasadena, Texas kills one person and injures 71 others.
- 2002 – Passover massacre: A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 29 people at a Passover seder in Netanya, Israel.
- 2002 – Nanterre massacre: In Nanterre, France, a gunman opens fire at the end of a town council meeting, resulting in the deaths of eight councilors; 19 other people are injured.
- 2004 – HMS Scylla, a decommissioned Leander-class frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe.
- 2009 – The dam forming Situ Gintung, an artificial lake in Indonesia, fails, killing at least 99 people.
- 2014 – Philippines signs a peace accord with the largest Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, ending decades of conflict.
- 2015 – Al-Shabab militants attack and temporarily occupy a Mogadishu hotel leaving at least 20 people dead.
- 2016 – A suicide blast in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, Lahore claims over 70 lives and leaves almost 300 others injured. The target of the bombing are Christians celebrating Easter.
- 2020 – North Macedonia becomes the 30th member of NATO.[1]
-Source: wikipedia
