Today in History

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Today in History

By Correspondent

YEARDAYEVENT
401Apr 10Theodosius II, the Younger, Eastern Roman emperor, was born.
428Apr 10John Nestorius from Antioch was consecrated as the new Patriarch of Constantinople by Emperor Theodosius.
879Apr 10Louis II, the Stutterer, King of France (877-79), died and Louis III was crowned King of France.
1500Apr 10France captured duke Ludovico Sforza (“Il Sforza del Destino”) of Milan.
1512Apr 10James V, king of Scotland (1513-42), was born.
1583Apr 10Hugo Grotius of Holland, father of international law, was born.
1633Apr 10Werner Fabricius, composer, was born.
1640Apr 10Agostino Agazzari (61), Italian composer, died.
1663Apr 10Samuel Pepys, London-based diarist, noted that he had enjoyed a French wine called Ho Bryan at the Royal Oak Tavern. This same year the Pontacs, a top wine-making family in Bordeaux, founded a fashionable London restaurant called Pontack’s Head. Ho Bryan later came to be called Chateau Haut Brion.
1710Apr 10Britain’s Queen Anne gave her assent to an act “for the encouragement of learning.” It upheld Parliament’s 1709 copyright act, which set a limit of 21 years for books already in print and 14 years for new ones with an additional 14 years if the author was still alive when the first term ran out.
1739Apr 10Dick Turpin was executed in England for horse stealing.
1755Apr 10Samuel Hahnemann, German physician, was born.
1778Apr 10William Hazlitt (d.1830), essayist, critic, was born in Maidstone, Kent, England.
1783Apr 10Hortense E. de Beauharnais, French queen of Netherlands (1806-10), was born.
1794Apr 10Matthew Calbraith Perry, the American Navy Commodore who opened Japan, was born.
1806Apr 10Leonidas Polk (d.1864), bishop, Lt Gen (Confederate Army), was born.
1809Apr 10Austria declared war on France and her forces entered Bavaria.
1813Apr 10Joseph-Louis Lagrange (b.1736), Italian-born mathematician, died in Paris. He is considered to be the greatest mathematician of the eighteenth century.
1815Apr 10A third of the 13,000 foot Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, was blasted into the air. Some 50,000 islanders were killed and the whole planet was shrouded in a debris of sulfuric droplets. In 2006 scientist reported finding traces of Tambora society. Tsunamis and starvation that followed killed an estimated 60-120 thousand people.
1827Apr 10Lewis Wallace (d.1905), soldier, lawyer, diplomat and author (Ben Hur), was born. “As a rule, there is no surer way to the dislike of men than to behave well where they have behaved badly.”
1829Apr 10William Booth, founder (Salvation Army), was born.
1835Apr 10Charles Darwin returned to Santiago, Chile.
1836Apr 10Helen Jewett, a prostitute in a Thomas St. bordello in Manhattan, was murdered. Her boyfriend, Richard P. Robinson (17), a clerk for a local merchant, was tried for the murder but acquitted. In 1998 Patricia Cline Cohen published “The Murder of Helen Jewett,” an account of the story.
1845Apr 10Over 1,000 buildings were damaged by fire in Pittsburgh, Pa.
1847Apr 10American newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer (d.1911) was born in Mako, Hungary. “What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business — except the journalist’s.”
1849Apr 10Walter Hunt, a mechanic, patented the safety pin in NYC. He sold rights for $100. Hunt’s other inventions included a new stove, paper collar, ice-breaking boat, fountain pen and nail-making machine.
1858Apr 10London’s Big Ben bell was cast at the Whitechapel Foundry in East London. It was placed into St. Stephen’s Tower at the Houses of Parliament.
1862Apr 10Union forces began the bombardment of Fort Pulaski in Georgia along the Tybee River.
1863Apr 10Rebel Gen. Earl Van Dorn attacked at Franklin, Tenn.
1864Apr 10Archduke Maximilian of Austria was crowned Emperor of Mexico.
1865Apr 10At Appomattox Court, Va, General Robert E. Lee issued Gen Order #9, his last orders to the Army of Northern Virginia. Seneca Indian Ely Parker was at his general’s side at Appomattox. In 2001 William C. Davis authored “An Honorable Defeat.”
1866Apr 10The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was incorporated.
1867Apr 10A.E. (George William Russell), Irish poet and mystic, was born.
1868Apr 101st performance of Johannes Brahms’ “Ein Deutches Requiem.
1869Apr 10The US Congress increased the number of Supreme Court judges from 7 to 9.
1877Apr 10The 1st human cannonball act was performed in London.
1880Apr 10Frances Perkins, Labor secretary, first woman cabinet member in an American Administration, was born.
1882Apr 10Matson founded his shipping company with service between San Francisco and Hawaii.
1887Apr 10President Abraham Lincoln was re-buried with his wife in Springfield, Il.
1892Apr 10Victor de Sabata, conductor, composer (Il Macigno), was born in Trieste, Italy.
1895Apr 10The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Blanche Dumont (21), a student living in the Mission District, had disappeared a week earlier. She had last been seen with Theodore Durrant (23), a medical student who lived on Fair Oaks St.
1901Apr 10The Journal, a Hearst newspaper, printed an editorial that declared “If bad institutions and bad men can be got rid of only by killing, then the killing must be done.” Hearst ordered the presses stopped but a number of papers had already hit the streets.
1902Apr 10South African Boers accepted British terms of surrender.
1903Apr 10Clare Boothe Luce, U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, was born.
1909Apr 10Algernon Charles Swinburne (b.1837), English poet, died.
1912Apr 10The 66,000 ton RMS Titanic left port from Southampton, England, on its ill-fated maiden voyage with 2,223 people.
1915Apr 10Harry Morgan, actor (December Bride, M*A*S*H, Dragnet), was born in Detroit, Mich.
1917Apr 10Robert B. Woodward, synthetic chemist, was born.
1919Apr 10Emiliano Zapata (b.c1877), a leader of Mexico’s indigenous people during the Mexican Revolution, was assassinated by a government emissary who had come to his southern stronghold in the state of Morelos for peace negotiations. His native language was Nahuatl of the Aztecs.
1921Apr 10Chuck Connors, actor (Rifleman, Branded, Cowboy in Africa), was born in Brooklyn, NY. He later auditioned for the Chicago Cubs with Fidel Castro and played for them for a while.
1923Apr 10Hitler demanded “hatred and more hatred” in Berlin.
1924Apr 10David Halberstam, New York Times correspondent, author, Pulitzer Prize winner in 1964, was born.
1925Apr 10The novel “The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was first published by Scribner’s of New York. A film version was made in 1974.
1929Apr 10Max Von Sydow, actor (Hawaii, Exorcist, Dune, Seventh Seal, Dreamscape), was born in Lund, Sweden.
1930Apr 10The first synthetic rubber was produced.
1932Apr 10Omar Sharif (Michael Shalhoub), actor (Dr. Zhivago), was born.
1934Apr 10David Halberstam, New York Times correspondent, author, Pulitzer Prize winner in 1964, was born.
1935Apr 10Vaughan Williams’ 4th Symphony premiered in London.
1936Apr 10John Madden, NFL coach (Oakland Raiders), sports commentator (CBS, FOX), was born.
1938Apr 10NY made syphilis testing mandatory for a marriage license.
1940Apr 10Vidkun Quisling formed a Norwegian pro-Nazi “national government.”
1941Apr 10Paul Theroux, author (The Great Railway Bazaar), was born.
1942Apr 10The 65-mile Bataan Death March began to a prison camp near Cabanatuan. The prisoners were forced to march 85 miles in six days with only one meal of rice during the entire journey. Some 10k-15k soldiers perished on the march. Bataan is a peninsula of western Luzon in the Philippines. It was surrendered to the Japanese in this year and retaken by American forces in 1945.
1944Apr 10Soviet forces liberated Odessa from Nazis.
1945Apr 10In their second attempt to take the Seelow Heights, near Berlin, the Red Army launched numerous attacks against the defending Germans. The Soviets gained one mile at the cost of 3,000 men killed and 368 tanks destroyed.
1947Apr 10Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey announced he had purchased the contract of Jackie Robinson from the Montreal Royals. John Sengstacke, black publisher of the Chicago Defender, was instrumental in persuading Mr. Rickey in his decision. Jackie Robinson became the first black to play major league baseball as he took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In spite of intense pressure and hostility, Robinson’s athletic abilities earned him the Rookie of the Year Award in 1947.
1948Apr 10Jewish Hagana repelled an Arab attack on Mishmar HaEmek.
1952Apr 10The MGM movie musical “Singin’ in the Rain,” starring Gene Kelly, was first released.
1953Apr 10The first 3-D horror movie “House of Wax,” produced by Warner Bros. and starring Vincent Price, premiered in New York City. It was directed by Andre de Toth (d.2002 at 89).
1956Apr 10In Alabama singer Nat Cole was attacked on stage at the Birmingham Municipal Auditorium by a small group of white supremacists. Six local men were arrested for the attack.
1957Apr 10John Osborne’s play “The Entertainer,” starring Laurence Olivier, opened in London.
1959Apr 10Japan’s Crown Prince Akihito married a commoner, Michiko Shoda.
1960Apr 10The US Senate passed a landmark Civil Rights Bill.
1963Apr 10The USS Thresher nuclear-powered submarine failed to surface 220 miles east of Boston, Mass. The disaster claimed 129 lives.
1965Apr 10Linda Darnell (41), actress, died from burns received in a fire.
1966Apr 10Evelyn Waugh (b.1903), British writer, satirist (Brideshead Revisited), died. He also wrote “The Loved Ones,” a satire on California burial customs and “Vile Bodies.” His correspondence with Nancy Mitford, novelist of manners, was edited by Charlotte Mosley and published in 1997. In 2007 Alexander Waugh, grandson of Evelyn Waugh, authored “Fathers and Sons,” his biography of the Waugh family.
1967Apr 10In the 39th Academy Awards “A Man For All Seasons” won for Best Picture; Elizabeth Taylor won as Best Actress for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”; and Paul Scofield won as Best Actor for “A Man For All Seasons.”
1968Apr 10In the 40th Academy Awards “In the Heat of the Night” won as best film. Rod Steiger won as best actor for his role in the film. Katherine Hepburn won as best actress for her role in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”
1969Apr 10Harley Jefferson Earl (1893-1969), American car designer, died. He was a Hollywood builder of custom cars and became GM’s VP of styling from 1940-1959. He was the first to introduce tail fins in 1948. His design philosophy was “You can design a car so that every time you get in it, it’s a relief–you have a little vacation for a while.”
1971Apr 10The American table tennis team arrived in China.
1972Apr 10A 6.9 earthquake in the Iranian province of Fars killed over 5,000 people.
1974Apr 10Golda Meir announced her resignation as prime minister of Israel. Yitzhak Rabin replaced Golda Meir.
1975Apr 10Walker Evans (b.1903), American photographer, died. In 1999 the biography “Walker Evans” by James R. Mellow was published.
1978Apr 10Arkady Shevchenko, a high-ranking Soviet citizen employed by the United Nations, sought political asylum in the United States.
1979Apr 10Nino Rota (b.1911), Italian composer (Torquemada, Romeo & Juliette), died from cancer.
1981Apr 10The long-awaited maiden launch of the space shuttle “Columbia” was scrubbed because of a computer malfunction.
1983Apr 10King Hussein of Jordan, officially renounced pursuing any negotiations to implement the Reagan Plan, and ceased negotiations with PLO.
1984Apr 10The US Senate condemned the January CIA mining of Nicaraguan harbors.
1986Apr 10Benazir Bhutto (33), daughter of former PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, returned to Pakistan.
1987Apr 10President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev delivered speeches on nuclear arms, with the president challenging the Soviets to join the United States in working harder for arms reductions, and Gorbachev proposing talks on short-range weapons.
1988Apr 10The hijackers of a Kuwait Airways jetliner vowed to carry out a “slow, quiet massacre” of their hostages, one day after one captive was killed aboard the plane parked in Larnaca, Cyprus.
1989Apr 10Federal drug czar William J. Bennett unveiled details of the Bush administration’s plan for fighting drug abuse and drug-related crime in the nation’s capital.
1990Apr 10San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors approved reducing the city’s curfew laws. Minors under 14 will be banned from public places between midnight and 5am. The old law included minors under 18 from 11pm to 6am.
1991Apr 10The US and Britain imposed a no-fly zone to protect 3 Kurdish provinces in northern Iraq.
1992Apr 10Financier Charles Keating Jr. was sentenced in Los Angeles to nine years in prison for swindling investors when his Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed. The convictions were later overturned.
1993Apr 10South African activist Chris Hani, head of the Communist Party and a leading official of the African National Congress, was shot to death by Janusz Walus and Clive Derby-Lewis. The two white extremists were later convicted in the slaying and appealed for amnesty in 1997.
1994Apr 10Two U.S. F-16 fighters bombed Bosnian Serb targets in Gorazde, which was under heavy attack. This was NATO’s first-ever attack on ground positions. A second air strike took place the following day.
1995Apr 10Sen. Bob Dole launched his third bid for the White House in Topeka, Kansas.
1996Apr 10President Clinton vetoed a bill that would have outlawed a technique used to end pregnancies in their late stages.
1997Apr 10Onetime fighter pilot and former POW Pete Peterson was confirmed by the Senate as the first postwar U.S. ambassador to Vietnam.
1998Apr 10The anti-impotence drug Viagra appeared on the market and became one of the best-selling new medications of all time.
1999Apr 10The Miami Heat humiliated the Chicago Bulls, 82-49, holding the Bulls to the lowest point total since the introduction of the basketball shot clock.
2000Apr 10EU foreign ministers toughened sanctions against Burma due to the increased repression of civil and political rights.
2001Apr 10Pres. Bush met with Jordan’s King Abdullah and both agreed that ending violence in the Middle East was the main goal for the region.
2002Apr 10Sec. of State Colin Powell stopped in Spain to gather EU support in the Middle East conflict. He again called for an immediate end to Israel’s military operations.
2003Apr 10The US House passed a bill creating a national Amber Alert system and strengthening child pornography laws.
2004Apr 10Pres. Bush signed into law a bill that let companies reduce the required contributions to their defined-benefit pension plans by more than $80 billion over the next 2 years.
2005Apr 10Tiger Woods won his fourth Masters with a spectacular finish of birdies and bogeys.
2006Apr 10Tens of thousands of immigrants spilled into the streets of Atlanta and other US cities in a national day of action billed as a “campaign for immigrants’ dignity.” Some 200,000 gathered in DC; 10,000 in San Jose, Ca., and 5000 in SF.
2007Apr 10The US Treasury Department said authorities in Macau are ready to release frozen North Korean funds that have impeded disarmament talks.
2008Apr 10Most families in the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech mass shootings agreed to an $11 million state settlement.
2009Apr 10A US immigration board rejected suspected Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk’s appeal of an extradition order, paving the way for deportation to Germany to face charges he committed atrocities.
2010Apr 10In Togo more than 6,000 opposition demonstrators took to the streets in the West African nation to protest the March presidential election results.
2011Apr 10In western Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed three tribal elders, possibly in retaliation for their cooperation with the government. A NATO service member was killed in an attack in the north of the country. Kareem Daad, a district-level Taliban commander, was captured in an overnight raid in southern Uruzgan province.
2012Apr 10Rick Santorum suspended his campaign during a press conference in Pennsylvania, his home state.
2013Apr 10President Barack Obama sent Congress a $3.8 trillion spending blueprint that strives to achieve a “grand bargain” to tame runaway deficits, raising taxes on the wealthy and trimming popular benefit programs including Social Security and Medicare.
2014Apr 10Kathleen Sebelius (65), US Health and Human Services Secretary, resigned. The next day Pres. Obama nominated Sylvia Mathews Burwell, director of the Office of Budget and Management, to succeed her.
Source: Timelines of History 

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