Today in History: April 24

2005: On this day in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), successor to John Paul II, formally assumed his position as the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church during a mass in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City.

2003: Officials of North Korea informed U.S. diplomats that it had nuclear weapons and was making bomb-grade plutonium.

1990: The shuttle Discovery blasted off with the Hubble Space Telescope.

1989: Thousands of Chinese students strike in Beijing for more democratic reforms.

1981: The IBM Personal Computer is introduced.

1980: A rescue attempt of the U.S. hostages held in Iran fails when a plane collides with a helicopter in the Iranian desert.

1968: Leftist students take over Columbia University in protest over the Vietnam War.

1967: Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov became the first man to die during a space mission when his spacecraft became entangled in its parachute during an attempted landing.

1961: President John Kennedy accepts "sole responsibility" for the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

1953: Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

1949: Communist forces occupied the Chinese capital, Nanking (Nanjing), after crossing the Yangtze River virtually unopposed by adherents to the Nationalist government under President Chiang Kai-shek.

1948: The Berlin airlift begins to relieve surrounded city.

1944: The first B-29 arrives in China, over the Hump of the Himalayas.

1916: Members of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army seized strategic points in Dublin during the Easter Rising, which heralded the end of British power in Ireland.

1915: Turks began deportation of Armenians that led to the massacre of between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians.

1904: Painter Willem de Kooning, one of the leading exponents of Abstract Expressionism, was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

1898: Spain declares war on United States, rejecting an ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.

1884: Otto von Bismarck cables Cape Town, South Africa that it is now a German colony.

1877: War broke out between Russia and the Ottoman Empire at the conclusion of the Serbo-Turkish War, resulting in independence for Serbia and Montenegro.

1833: A patent is granted for first soda fountain.

1805: U.S. Marines attack and capture the town of Derna in Tripoli from the Barbary pirates.

1800: The Library of Congress is established in Washington, D.C. with a $5,000 allocation.

1792: French army officer Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed "La Marseillaise," the French national anthem.

1558: Mary, Queen of Scotland, marries the French dauphin, Francis.

1547: Charles V's troops defeat the Protestant League of Schmalkalden at the battle of Muhlburg.

1519: Envoys of Montezuma II attend the first Easter mass in Central America.

858: St. Nicholas I begins his reign as Catholic Pope. 

Today in History: April 23

1998: James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr., died in prison in Nashville, Tennessee.

1993: On this day in 1993, after a long history of foreign rule and decades of war, the small East African country of Eritrea began three days of voting on a referendum to make official its independence from Ethiopia.

1985: Coca-Cola announced that it was changing its formula and introduced New Coke.

1969: Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death (later reduced to a life sentence) for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

1954: Hank Aaron hit the first of his 755 home runs.

1906: Russian Tsar Nicholas II promulgated the Fundamental Laws, which marked the end of unlimited autocracy but fell short of the reforms promised in the October Manifesto.

1858: German physicist Max Planck, who originated quantum theory, was born in Kiel.

1791: James Buchanan, the 15th U.S. president, was born near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.

1616: Playwright William Shakespeare died in Stratford-on-Avon, England.

1016: Upon the death of King Ethelred II of England, his son claimed the throne as Edmund II.

Today in History: April 22

2000: Armed immigration agents took Elian Gonzalez from the Miami home of his relatives to reunite him with his father.

1994: Former U.S. president Richard M. Nixon died at the age 81.

1970: First celebrated on this day in 1970 in the U.S., Earth Day—founded by American politician and conservationist Gaylord Anton Nelson—helped spark the environmental movement and quickly grew into an international event.

1915: During World War I, German forces introduced the systematized use of chemical warfare when they released chlorine gas along a 4-mile (6-km) front at the Second Battle of Ypres.

1889: At noon, by federal decree, white settlers were allowed into Indian Territory, sparking a land rush involving tens of thousands in what became Oklahoma Territory.

1870: Vladimir Ilich Lenin—who founded the Bolshevik political faction (1912–17), inspired and led the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), headed (1917–24) the Soviet state, and founded the organization known as the Comintern (Communist International)—was born.

1864: Congress authorized the inscription "In God We Trust" on coins minted as U.S. currency.

1724: German philosopher Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia).

1616: The Spanish poet Cervantes died in Madrid. (Some sources say April 23.)

1509: Henry VIII became king of England.

1500: Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, while on a voyage tracing Vasco da Gama's 1497–99 water route to India, sighted the mainland of South America near the present-day city of Pôrto Seguro, Brazil.

1370: Construction began on the Bastille, the medieval fortress that came to symbolize French despotism.

1073: Gregory VII (later canonized) was elected by acclamation to succeed Alexander II as pope.

Today in History: April 21

2002: French President Jacques Chirac faced a reelection challenge on this day in 2002 from extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of presidential voting but two weeks later handily defeated him to win a second term.

1992: Robert Alton Harris is executed in California’s gas chamber after 13 years on death row.

1989: Six days after the death of Hu Yaobang, the deposed reform-minded leader of the Chinese Communist Party, some 100,000 students gather at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to commemorate Hu and voice their discontent with China’s authoritative communist government.

1980: Rosie Ruiz, age 26, finishes first in the women’s division of the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:31:56 on April 21, 1980.

1975: Xuan Loc, the last South Vietnamese outpost blocking a direct North Vietnamese assault on Saigon, falls to the communists.

1973: “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree” tops the U.S. pop charts and creates a cultural phenomenon.

1967:  General Motors (GM) celebrates the manufacture of its 100 millionth American-made car.

1965: The Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency report a “most ominous” development: a regiment of the People’s Army of Vietnam–the regular army of North Vietnam–division is now operating with the Viet Cong in South Vietnam.

1953: Roy Cohn and David Schine, two of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief aides, return to the United States after a controversial investigation of United States Information Service (USIS) posts in Europe.

1945: Soviet forces fighting south of Berlin, at Zossen, assault the headquarters of the German High Command. The only remaining opposing “force” to the Russian invasion of Berlin are the “battle groups” of Hitler Youth, teenagers with anti-tank guns, strategically placed in parks and suburban streets....

1836: General Sam Houston led 800 Texans to victory over a Mexican army of 1,500 under General Antonio López de Santa Anna in the Battle of San Jacinto, ensuring the Texans' independence from Mexico.

1930: A fire at an Ohio prison kills 320 inmates, some of whom burn to death when they are not unlocked from their cells.

1918: Manfred, Freiherr (baron) von Richthofen, Germany's top flying ace in World War I, was shot down and killed during a battle near Amiens, France.

1895: On this day in 1895, Woodville Latham and his sons, Otway and Gray, demonstrate their “Panopticon,” the first movie projector developed in the United States.

1865: A train carrying the coffin of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln leaves Washington, D.C. on its way to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4.

1863: Union Colonel Abel Streight begins a raid into northern Alabama and Georgia with the goal of cutting the Western and Atlantic Railroad between Chattanooga, Tennessee and Atlanta.

1838: John Muir, a dedicated advocate for the protection of American wild lands, is born in Dunbar, Scotland. When he was still a boy, Muir’s parents immigrated to the United States.

1836: During the Texan War for Independence, the Texas militia under Sam Houston launches a surprise attack against the forces of Mexican General Santa Anna along the San Jacinto River.

1830: James Starley, an inventor and the father of the bicycle industry, was born in Albourne, Sussex, England.

1816: Charlotte Bronte, the only one of three novelist Bronte sisters to live past age 31, is born.

1800: French forces under General Jean-Baptiste Kléber recaptured Cairo and initiated the brief French occupation of Egypt.

1782: Friedrich Froebel, German educational reformer and the founder of kindergarten, was born in Oberweissbach, Thuringia.

1777: British troops under the command of General William Tryon attack the town of Danbury, Connecticut, and begin destroying everything in sight.

The yellow ribbon— has long been a symbol of support for absent or missing loved ones.

1526: Bābur, the ruler of Kabul, led Mughal forces in victory against Sultan Ibrāhīm Lodī, establishing the Mughal dynasty in India.

Today in History: April 20

1999: Two students enter Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and open fire with multiple firearms, killing 13 students and teachers, wounding 25 and eventually shooting themselves.

1968: Pierre Elliott Trudeau of the Liberal Party, who became prime minister of Canada this day in 1968, discouraged the French separatist movement, oversaw the formation of a new constitution, and established relations with China.

1967: U.S. planes bomb Haiphong for first time during the Vietnam War.

1962: The New Orleans Citizens Committee gives free one-way ride to blacks to move North.

1953: Operation Little Switch begins in Korea, the exchange of sick and wounded prisoners of war.

1951: General MacArthur addresses a joint session of Congress after being relieved by President Truman.

1945: Soviet troops begin their attack on Berlin.

1942: Pierre Laval, the premier of Vichy France, in a radio broadcast, establishes a policy of "true reconciliation with Germany."

1940: The first electron microscope is demonstrated.

1924: Finalizing the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey's Grand National Assembly voted to adopt a full republican constitution, with General Mustafa Kemal, who had first proclaimed the Turkish republic about six months earlier, becoming the first president of the republic.

1920: U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens was born in Chicago.

1919: In an ongoing dispute over the possession of Vilnius, Polish forces drove out Russia's Red Army—which had previously ousted the newly established Lithuanian government—and occupied the city.

1916: Wrigley Field opens in Chicago.

1879: The first mobile home (horse-drawn) is used in a journey from London to Cyprus.

1871: Japan's first government-operated postal service opened between Tokyo and Ōsaka.

1861: Robert E. Lee resigns from the U.S. Army.

1841: Edgar Allen Poe's first detective story is published.

1840: French Symbolist painter Odilon Redon was born in Bordeaux.

1836: The Territory of Wisconsin is created.

1809: Napoleon defeats Austria at Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria.

1792: France declares war on Austria, Prussia, and Sardinia.

1775: British troops begin the siege of Boston.

1770: Captain Cook discovers Australia.

1769: Ottawa Chief Pontiac is murdered by an Indian in Cahokia.

1657: English Admiral Robert Blake fights his last battle when he destroys the Spanish fleet in Santa Cruz Bay.

1653: England's Rump Parliament was dissolved by Oliver Cromwell and later replaced by the nominated Barebones Parliament, which was dissolved in the same year, leading to the declaration of the Protectorate.

1139: The Second Lateran Council opens in Rome.

1808: Napoleon III, president of the Second Republic (1850–52) and emperor of France (1852–70), was born in Paris.

Today in History: April 19

1995: In what was the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history up to that time, a truck bomb nearly destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168 and injuring more than 500 people.

1993: After a 51-day standoff with U.S. federal agents, some 80 members of the millennialist Branch Davidian religious group perished in a fire at their compound near Waco, Texas.

1989: The battleship USS Iowa's number 2 turret explodes, killing sailors.

1982: NASA names Sally Ride to be the first woman astronaut.

1977: Alex Haley receives a special Pulitzer Prize for his book Roots.

1975: Aryabhata, the first unmanned Earth satellite built by India, was launched from the Soviet Union by a Russian-made rocket.

1971: Russia launches its first Salyut space station.

1960: Baseball uniforms begin displaying player's names on their backs.

1956: American actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco, becoming Princess Grace.

1943: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, an act of resistance by Polish Jews under Nazi occupation, began this day and was quelled four weeks later, on May 16.

1939: Connecticut finally approves the Bill of Rights.

1938: General Francisco Franco declares victory in the Spanish Civil War.

1934: Shirley Temple appears in her first movie.

1927: In China, Hankow communists declare war on Chiang Kai-shek.

1880: The Times war correspondent telephones a report of the Battle of Ahmed Khel, the first time news is sent from a field of battle in this manner.

1861: The Baltimore riots result in four Union soldiers and nine civilians killed.

1861: President Lincoln orders a blockade of Confederate ports.

1824: English poet Lord Byron dies of malaria at age 36 while aiding Greek independence.

1802: The Spanish reopen New Orleans port to American merchants.

1794: Tadeusz Kosciuszko forces the Russians out of Warsaw.

1782: The Netherlands recognizes the United States.

1775: Launched this day in 1775 with the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the American Revolution was an effort by 13 British colonies in North America (with help from France, Spain, and the Netherlands) to win their independence.

1772: English economist David Ricardo, who gave systematized and classical form to the rising social science of economics in the 19th century, is believed to have been born on or about this day.

1764: The English Parliament bans the American colonies from printing paper money.

1689: Residents of Boston oust their governor, Edmond Andros.

1539: Emperor Charles V reaches a truce with German Protestants at Frankfurt, Germany.

Today in History: April 18

2002: After 29 years in exile, the former king of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah, returned to the capital city of Kabul in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of the country and toppling of the Taliban government.

1983: A suicide bomber kills U.S. Marines at the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon.

1980: Zimbabwe's (Rhodesia) formal independence from Britain is proclaimed.

1978: The U.S. Senate approves the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama.

1954: Colonel Nasser seizes power in Egypt.

1950: The first transatlantic jet passenger trip is completed.

1949: The Republic of Ireland withdraws from British Commonwealth.

1946: The League of Nations dissolves.

1945: During the U.S. invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa in World War II, American war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed on nearby Ie Island by Japanese gunfire.

1943: Traveling in a bomber, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor, is shot down by American P-38 fighters.

1942: James H. Doolittle bombs Tokyo and other Japanese cities.

1937: Leon Trotsky calls for the overthrow of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

1923: Yankee Stadium opens with Babe Ruth hitting a three-run homer as the Yankees beat the Red Sox 4-1.

1906: San Francisco was rocked by an earthquake measuring 8.25 on the Ritcher scale caused by slippage along the San Andreas Fault.

1885: The Sino-Japanese war ends.

1861: Colonel Robert E. Lee turns down an offer to command the Union armies.

1857: American defense lawyer, public speaker, debater, and writer Clarence Darrow—among whose high-profile court appearances was the Scopes Trial, in which he defended a Tennessee high-school teacher who had broken a state law by presenting the Darwinian theory of evolution—was born.

1853: The first train in Asia begins running from Bombay to Tanna.

1847: U.S. forces defeat Mexicans at Cerro Gordo in one of the bloodiest battle of the war.

1838: The Wilkes' expedition to the South Pole sets sail.

1834: William Lamb becomes prime minister of England.

1818: A regiment of Indians and blacks is defeated at the Battle of Suwanna, in Florida, ending the first Seminole War.

1791: National Guardsmen prevent Louis XVI and his family from leaving Paris.

1775: Paul Revere, a renowned silversmith, is better remembered as a folk hero of the American Revolution who this night in 1775 made a dramatic ride on horseback to warn Boston-area residents of an imminent British attack.

1775: American revolutionaries Paul Revere and William Dawes ride though the towns of Massachusetts warning that "the British are coming."

1676: Sudbury, Massachusetts is attacked by Indians.

1521: Martin Luther confronts the emperor Charles V, refusing to retract the views which led to his excommunication.

1506: Pope Julius II laid the first stone of the new St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

310: St. Eusebius begins his reign as Catholic Pope.

Today in History: April 17

2003: Anneli Jäätteenmäki was sworn in as prime minister of Finland, which thereby became the second country (after New Zealand) to install a woman as head of both state and government.

1982: The Canada Act, also known as the Constitution Act, took effect on this day in 1982, establishing certain individual rights, preserving parliamentary supremacy, and making Canada a wholly independent, fully sovereign state.

1975: Cambodia's ruling Lon Nol government collapsed, and the communist forces of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, entered Phnom Penh and forcibly dispersed its citizenry into rural areas.

1970: Apollo 13–originaly scheduled to land on the moon–lands back safely on Earth after an accident.

1969: Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

1964: Jerrie Mock becomes first woman to fly solo around the world.

1961: Cuban leader Fidel Castro's forces repelled the Bay of Pigs invasion, which was led by recent 1,400 Cuban exiles and financed by the U.S. government during the Cold War.

1956: Cominform, the international Communist Information Bureau founded in 1947, was disbanded as part of a Soviet program of reconciliation with Yugoslavia.

1947: Jackie Robinson bunts for his first major league hit.

1946: The last French troops leave Syria.

1929: Baseball player Babe Ruth and Claire Hodgeson, a former member of the Ziegfield Follies, get married.

1895: The Treaty of Shimonoseki concluded the first Sino-Japanese War, which ended in China's defeat.

1895: China and Japan sign peace treaty of Shimonoseki.

1875: The game "snooker" is invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain.

1865: Mary Surratt is arrested as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.

1864: General Grant bans the trading of prisoners.

1861: Virginia become eighth state to secede from the Union.

1824: Russia abandons all North American claims south of 54' 40'.

1808: Bayonne Decree by Napoleon I of France orders seizure of U.S. ships.

1758: Frances Williams, the first African-American to graduate for a college in the western hemisphere, publishes a collection of Latin poems.

1535: Antonio Mendoza is appointed first viceroy of New Spain.

1524: Present-day New York Harbor is discovered by Giovanni Verrazano.

1521: Martin Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms to defend his ideas on church reform.

1492: Christopher Columbus signs a contract with Spain to find a western route to the Indies.

1194: Richard I (the Lion-Heart) was crowned king of England for the second time, after earlier surrendering his kingdom to the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI.

858: Benedict III ends his reign as Catholic Pope.

Today in History: April 16

2003: At age 40, Michael Jordan, widely regarded as the best player in the history of basketball, played his last game in the National Basketball Association.

1977: The ban on women attending West Point is lifted.

1972: Two giants pandas arrive in the U.S. from China.

1968: The Pentagon announces the "Vietnamization" of the war.

1948: In order to restore the economy of Europe after World War II, 16 European countries formed the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (later the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

1947: A lens which provides zoom effects is demonstrated in New York City.

1945: American troops enter Nuremberg, Germany.

1944: The destroyer USS Laffey survives horrific damage from attacks by 22 Japanese aircraft off Okinawa.

1942: The Island of Malta is awarded the George Cross in recognition for heroism under constant German air attack. It was the first such award given to any part of the British Commonwealth.

1922: Annie Oakley shoots 100 clay targets in a row, setting a woman's record.

1922: British author Sir Kingsley Amis, who created in his first novel, Lucky Jim(1954), a comic figure that became a household word in Great Britain in the 1950s, was born.

1917: Vladimir Ilich Lenin ended his 17-year exile and returned to Russia to form a provisional government.

1912: On this day in 1912, American aviator Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel, guiding her French Blériot monoplane through heavy overcast from Dover, England, to Hardelot, France.

1862: Confederate President Jefferson Davis approves a conscription act for white males between 18 and 35.

1862: Slavery is abolished in the District of Columbia.

1854: San Salvador is destroyed by an earthquake.

1838: French forces occupied the Mexican city of Veracruz during the Pastry War.

1818: The U.S. Senate ratifies the Rush-Bagot amendment to form an unarmed U.S.-Canada border.

1755: Painter Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, known for her portraits of Queen Marie-Antoinette, was born in Paris.

1746: An English army defeated a Scottish force under Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) at the Battle of Culloden, ending the Jacobite effort to restore the Stuarts to England's throne.

1705: Queen Anne of England knights Isaac Newton.

1646: Architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who redesigned and expanded the Palace of Versailles, was born in Paris.

1065: The Norman Robert Guiscard takes Bari, ending five centuries of Byzantine rule in southern Italy.

556: Pelagius I begins his reign as Catholic Pope.

69: Defeated by Vitellius' troops at Bedriacum, Otho commits suicide.

Today in History: April 15

2003: U.S. President George W. Bush declared that the government of Ṣaddām Hussein in Iraq had fallen as a result of the Iraq War and the following day asked the United Nations to lift sanctions against Iraq.

2000: U.S. President Bill Clinton established the Giant Sequoia National Monument, a preserve near Sequoia National Park covering more than 500 square miles (1,300 square km) of Sequoia National Forest in the Sierra Nevada of California.

1986: U.S. warplanes attack Libya.

1971: North Vietnamese troops ambush a company of Delta Raiders from the 101st Airborne Division near Fire Support Base Bastogne in Vietnam. The American troops were on a rescue mission.

1960: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizes at Shaw University.

1959: Cuban leader Fidel Castro begins a U.S. goodwill tour.

1955: On this day in 1955, American fast-food pioneer Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, launching an enterprise that would eventually become the world's largest fast-food chain.

1952: President Harry Truman signs the official Japanese peace treaty.

1948: Arab forces are defeated in battle with Israeli forces.

1947: Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball's racial barrier, played in his first major league game for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.

1945: President Franklin D. Roosevelt is buried on the grounds of his Hyde Park home.

1940: French and British troops land at Narvik, Norway.

1926: Robertson Aircraft, one of the companies that later developed into American Airlines, flew its first mail route, between Chicago and St. Louis, Missouri, with Charles A. Lindbergh as the pilot.

1923: The first sound films shown to a paying audience are exhibited at the Rialto Theater in New York City.

1920: Two men were murdered in South Braintree, Massachusetts, leading to the Sacco-Vanzetti case and the still-controversial conviction of the two Italian immigrants.

1919: British troops kill 400 Indians at Amritsar, India.

1917: British forces defeat the Germans at the battle of Arras.

1912: With her band playing on the deck, the ocean liner Titanic sinks at 2:27 a.m. in the North Atlantic.

1871: 'Wild Bill' Hickok becomes the marshal of Abilene, Kansas.

1865: Abraham Lincoln dies from John Wilkes Booth's assassination bullet.

1861: President Lincoln mobilizes Federal army.

1858: At the Battle of Azimghur, the Mexicans defeat Spanish loyalists.

1813: U.S. troops under James Wilkinson siege the Spanish-held city of Mobile in future state of Alabama.

1784: The first balloon is flown in Ireland.

1755: English lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson publishes his Dictionary of the English Language.