April 71712 - A slave revolt broke out in New York City. 1798 - The territory of Mississippi was organized. 1862 - Union General Ulysses S. Grant defeated Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh, TN. 1864 - The first camel race in America was held in Sacramento, California. 1888 - P.F. Collier published a weekly periodical for the first time under the name "Collier’s." 1922 - U.S. Secretary of Interior leased Teapot Dome naval oil reserves in Wyoming. 1927 - The first long-distance TV transmission was sent from Washington, DC, to New York City. The audience saw an image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover. 1930 - The first steel columns were set for the Empire State Building. 1933 - Prohibition ended in the United States. 1940 - Booker T. Washington became the first black to be pictured on a U.S. postage stamp. 1943 - British and American armies linked up between Wadi Akarit and El Guettar in North Africa to form a solid line against the German army. 1945 - The Japanese battleship Yamato, the world’s largest battleship, was sunk during the battle for Okinawa. The fleet was headed for a suicide mission. 1948 - The musical "South Pacific" by Rogers and Hammerstein debuted on Broadway. 1948 - The United Nations' World Health Organization began operations. 1953 - The Big Four met for the first time in 2 years to seek an end to their air conflicts. 1953 - IBM unveiled the IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine. It was IBM's first commercially available scientific computer. 1957 - The last of New York City's electric trolleys completed its final run from Queens to Manhattan. 1963 - At the age of 23, Jack Nicklaus became the youngest golfer to win the Green Jacket at the Masters Tournament. 1963 - Yugoslavia proclaimed itself a Socialist republic. 1963 - Josip Broz Tito was proclaimed to be the leader of Yugoslavia for life. 1966 - The U.S. recovered a hydrogen bomb it had lost off the coast of Spain. 1967 - Israel reported that they had shot down six Syrian MIGs. 1969 - The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down laws prohibiting private possession of obscene material. 1970 - John Wayne won his first and only Oscar for his role in "True Grit." He had been in over 200 films. 1971 - U.S. President Nixon pledged to withdraw 100,000 more men from Vietnam by December. 1980 - The U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Iran and imposed economic sanctions in response to the taking of hostages on November 4, 1979. 1983 - Specialist Story Musgrave and Don Peterson made the first Space Shuttle spacewalk. 1983 - The Chinese government canceled all remaining sports and cultural exchanges with the U.S. for 1983. 1985 - In Goteborg, Sweden, China swept all of the world table tennis titles except for men's doubles. 1985 - In Sudan, Gen. Swar el-Dahab took over the Presidency while President Gaafar el-Nimeiry was visiting the U.S. and Egypt. 1985 - The Soviet Union announced a unilateral freeze on medium-range nuclear missiles. 1987 - In Oklahoma a 16-month-old baby was killed by a pit bull. On the same day a 67-year-old man was killed by another pit bull in Dayton, OH. 1988 - Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to final terms of a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Soviet troops began leaving on May 16, 1988. 1988 - In Fort Smith, AR, 13 white supremacists were acquitted on charges for plotting to overthrow the U.S. federal government. 1989 - A Soviet submarine carrying nuclear weapons sank in the Norwegian Sea. 1990 - In the U.S., John Poindexter was found guilty of five counts at his Iran-Contra trial. The convictions were later reversed on appeal. 1990 - At Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center a display of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs went on display. On the same day the center and its director were indicted on obscenity charges. The charges resulted in acquittal. 1994 - Civil war erupted in Rwanda between the Patriotic Front rebel group and government soldiers. Hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in the months that followed. 1998 - Mary Bono, the widow of Sonny Bono, won a special election to serve out the remainder of her husband's congressional term. 1999 - Yugoslav authorities sealed off Kosovo's main border crossings to prevent ethnic Albanians from leaving. 2000 - U.S. President Clinton signed the Senior Citizens Freedom to Work Act of 2000. The bill reversed a Depression-era law and allows senior citizens to earn money without losing Social Security retirement benefits. 2002 - The Roman Catholic archdiocese announced that six priests from the Archdiocese of New York were suspended over allegations of sexual misconduct. 2006 - The Boeing X-37 conducted its first flight as a test drop at Edwards Air Force Base, CA. 2009 - Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering killings and kidnappings by security forces. |