This Day in History
-
2nd April 1972
Charles Chaplin returns to U.S.
Charlie Chaplin returns to the United States for the first time since 1952. Chaplin had been labeled a communist in the early 1950s. While on tour in Europe, he learned that the attorney general had issued instructions to deny Chaplin's re-entry. He vowed never to return to America but relented in 1972, when he came back to accept a special Academy Award. -
3rd April 1882
Jesse James is murdered
America's most famous criminal, Jesse James, is shot to death by fellow gang member Bob Ford, who betrayed James for reward money. For 16 years, Jesse and his brother, Frank, robbed and murdered throughout the Midwest. Detective magazines and pulp novels glamorized the James gang, turning them into mythical Robin Hoods who were driven to crime by unethical landowners and bankers. In reality, Jesse James was a ruthless killer who stole only for himself. -
4th April 1949
NATO established
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is established by 12 Western nations: the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Iceland, Canada, and Portugal. The military alliance, which provided for a collective self-defense against Soviet aggression, greatly increased American influence in Europe.
Greece, Turkey, and West Germany later joined NATO, but in 1966 France withdrew, citing American violations of the 1949 treaty. In 1955, the Warsaw Pact, a Soviet-led Eastern European alliance, was established to counter NATO. In 1994, three years after the end of the Cold War, NATO engaged in its first military action as part of an international effort to end two years of fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, which all left the Warsaw Pact upon its dissolution in 1991, joined NATO in 1999. -
5th April 1955
Winston Churchill resigns
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, the British leader who guided Great Britain and the Allies through the crisis of World War II, retires as prime minister of Great Britain. -
April 5 1951
Rosenbergs sentenced to death for spying
The climax of the most sensational spy trial in American history is reached when a federal judge sentences Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death for their roles in passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. Although the couple proclaimed their innocence, they died in the electric chair in June 1953.
The Rosenbergs were convicted of playing a central role in a spy ring that passed secret data concerning the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union during and immediately after World War II. Their part in the espionage came to light when British physicist Klaus Fuchs was arrested in Great Britain in early 1950. Under questioning, Fuchs admitted that he stole secret documents while he was working on the Manhattan Project-the top-secret U.S. program to build an atomic bomb during World War II. He implicated Harry Gold as a courier who delivered the documents to Soviet agents. Gold was arrested a short time later and informed on David Greenglass, who then pointed the finger at his sister and brother-in-law, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Julius was arrested in July and Ethel in August 1950. After a brief trial in March 1951, the Rosenbergs were found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. At their sentencing hearing in April, Federal Judge Irving R. Kaufman described their crime as "worse than murder" and charged, "By your betrayal you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country." He sentenced them to death.
The Rosenbergs and their attorneys continued to plead their innocence, arguing that they were "victims of political hysteria." Humanitarian organizations in the United States and around the world pleaded for leniency, particularly since the Rosenbergs were the parents of two young children. The pleas for special consideration were ignored, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed on June 19, 1953. -
6th April 1896
OLYMPIAD REBORN
On April 6, 1896, the Olympic Games, a long-lost tradition of ancient Greece, are reborn in Athens 1,500 years after being banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I. At the opening of the Athens Games, King Georgios I of Greece and a crowd of 60,000 spectators welcomed athletes from 13 nations to the international competition. -
Highlights in History Which Occur April 7:
30 Scholars' reckon Jesus crucified by Roman troops in Jerusalem
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not Mine, But Still Lovely
-
7th March 1927
First telecast of sound and image
The first simultaneous telecast of image and sound takes place on this day in 1927. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover read a speech in Washington, D.C., which was transmitted to Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City, where an audience saw and heard a tiny televised image of Hoover, less than 3 inches square. -
What happened on April 8?
Clint Eastwood was elected mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California on April 8, 1986, receiving 72% of the vote (voter turnout was also doubled over the previous mayoral election). He served a two-year term before declining to run for re-election.
Eastwood has become one of the most prominent opponents of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the disability rights movement, after his restaurant in Carmel was hit with an ADA enforcement lawsuit. In May 2000, he testified before Congress in support of a bill that would have added procedural protections for small business owners. A few disability rights activists have alleged that his decision to make Million Dollar Baby may have been motivated by this earlier experience. -
9th April 1940
Germany invades Norway and Denmark
On this day in 1940, German warships enter major Norwegian ports, from Narvik to Oslo, deploying thousands of German troops and occupying Norway. At the same time, German forces occupy Copenhagen, among other Danish cities. -
April,10, Harley Osment birthdate
Haley Joel Osment (born April 10, 198
is a well known child actor. He began acting at the age of six, when he tried out for a Pizza Hut commercial in a shopping mall. The commercial launched his career and he landed his first television role later that year. As a younger child he played Forrest Gump's son, also named Forrest Gump, in the film of the same name. He starred in numerous TV Series productions such as "Walker, Texas Ranger", "Murphy Brown" and most notably "The Jeff Foxworthy Show".
Osment first achieved stardom in 1999 when he appeared in the blockbuster The Sixth Sense, co-starring Bruce Willis. For this role he won the Saturn Award for best young actor. He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor but lost to Michael Caine. Osment then appeared in Steven Spielberg's AI: Artificial Intelligence, cementing his stature as one of the leading young actors in Hollywood. This role got him his second Saturn Award. He has since appeared in several films, including Pay It Forward and Secondhand Lions. Osment also provided the voice for Sora, the main protagonist of Squaresoft's game Kingdom Hearts. He starred in "Bogus" alongside Whoopi Goldberg and Gérard Depardieu.
Haley Joel Osment currently resides in Los Angeles, California with his parents, Eugene and Theresa Osment. His sister Emily is also an acredited actress.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
look at this cool animated sig :d -
10th April 1972
CHAPLIN RECEIVES OSCAR
As part of his first visit to the United States in 20 years, British film pioneer Charlie Chaplin accepts an honorary Academy Award for his "incalculable" contribution to the art of filmmaking. Chaplin, once America's most successful movie star and director, had left the country under a storm of controversy in 1952. -
11th April 1970
APOLLO 13 LAUNCHED TO MOON
On April 11, 1970, Apollo 13, the third lunar landing mission, is successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise. The spacecraft's destination was the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon, where the astronauts were to explore the Imbrium Basin and conduct geological experiments. After an oxygen tank exploded on the evening of April 13, however, the new mission objective became to get the Apollo 13 crew home alive. -
12th April 1961
First man in space
On April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes. Vostok 1 orbited Earth at a maximum altitude of 187 miles and was guided entirely by an automatic control system. The only statement attributed to Gagarin during his one hour and 48 minutes in space was, "Flight is proceeding normally; I am well."
After his historic feat was announced, the attractive and unassuming Gagarin became an instant worldwide celebrity. He was awarded the Order of Lenin and given the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Monuments were raised to him across the Soviet Union and streets renamed in his honor. -
13th April 1964
First African-American Best Actor Oscar
Sydney Poitier becomes the first African American to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, for his role as a laborer who helps build a chapel in Lilies of the Field. 13th April 1968
PAP wins first election
The People Action Party wins all 58 seats and 84.43 per cent of the votes cast in the first general election after independence. 13th April 1997
Tiger Woods wins first major
On April 13, 1997, in Augusta, Georgia, 21-year-old Tiger Woods wins the prestigious Masters Tournament by a record 12 strokes. It was Woods' first victory in one of golf's four major championships--the U.S. Open, the British Open, the PGA Championship, and the Masters--and the greatest performance by a professional golfer in more than a century. -
14th April 1865
President Lincoln shot
At Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally wounds President Abraham Lincoln. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War. 14th April 1865
Titanic hits iceberg
Just before midnight in the North Atlantic, the RMS Titanic fails to divert its course from an iceberg, ruptures its hull, and begins to sink.
Four days earlier, the Titanic, one of the largest and most luxurious ocean liners ever built, departed Southampton, England, on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. -
15th April 1865
President Lincoln dies
At 7:22 a.m., Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, dies from a bullet wound inflicted the night before by John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer. Lincoln lived for nine hours before succumbing to the severe head wound he sustained. 15th April 1912
TITANIC SINKS
At 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, the British ocean liner Titanic sinks into the North Atlantic Ocean about 400 miles south of Newfoundland, Canada. The massive ship, which carried 2,200 passengers and crew, had struck an iceberg two and half hours before. -
Nashville Tornado of 1998
The Nashville Tornado of 1998 is the tornado event that occurred on April 16, 1998. It is among a slew of rather strong tornadoes that hit large cities at the tail end of the 20th century. Nashville became the first major city (with a population of more than 100,000 people) in 20 years to have a tornado make a direct hit in the downtown area.
This tornado occurred at the end of the record-setting 1997/98 El Niño event.
The tornado crossed Nashville, Tennessee at around 3:45 P.M. At least 100 people were injured and Vanderbilt University student Kevin Longinotti was trapped under a fallen tree in Centennial Park and later died from his injuries. A church collapsed and the state Capitol plus 300 other buildings around town were damaged. Several cranes at the construction site of the Tennessee Titans' new stadium (The Coliseum) were damaged. The tornado was rated F3 on the Fujita scale.
Twisters had been affecting the state of Tennessee all day. Before the Nashville tornado occurred as many as nine tornadoes hit the state killing five people. Three people died in a tornado that hit in Wayne County, Tennessee in the early evening hours. The cell spawned another tornado that critically injured five people and damaged 50 homes in Culleoka, Tennessee in Maury County. -
16th April 1917
LENIN RETURNS
On April 16, 1917, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the revolutionary Bolshevik Party, returns to Petrograd after a decade of exile to take the reins of the Russian Revolution. One month before, Czar Nicholas II had been forced from power when Russian army troops joined a workers' revolt in Petrograd, the Russian capital. -
17th April 1970
Apollo 13 returns to Earth
With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returns to Earth. -
18th April 1906
The Great San Francisco Earthquake
At 5:13 a.m., an earthquake estimated at close to 8.0 on the Richter scale strikes San Francisco, California, killing hundreds of people as it topples numerous buildings. The quake was caused by a slip of the San Andreas Fault over a segment about 275 miles long, and shock waves could be felt from southern Oregon down to Los Angeles. -
19th April 1882
Darwin dies
Charles Darwin dies at his home in Kent, England, at the age of 73. The geologist and naturalist laid the foundation for the morden theory of evolution. -
20th April 1902
Curies isolate radium
Pierre Curie and Marie Curie
On April 20, 1902, Marie and Pierre Curie successfully isolate radioactive radium salts from the mineral pitchblende in their laboratory in Paris. In 1898, the Curies discovered the existence of the elements radium and polonium in their research of pitchblende. One year after isolating radium, they would share the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics with French scientist A. Henri Becquerel for their groundbreaking investigations of radioactivity. -
21th April 1956
Elvis Presley's first No. 1 hit
"Heartbreak Hotel" hits the top of the Billboard charts on this day in 1956. The song was Elvis' first No. 1 hit. -
22th April 1937
Jack Nicholson born
Film actor Jack Nicholson is born in Neptune, New Jersey.