Historical Events on April 15

Events 1 - 200 of 216

• 69 Battle at Bedriacum, North-Italy
• 1205 Battle at Adrianople: Bulgaria beats Emp Boudouin of Constantinople
• 1250 Kublai is acclaimed the Great Khan by a Mongol Great Council

• 1450 Battle of Formigny: French defeat the English decisively in the Hundred Years' War, paving the way for the capture of English strongholds in Normandy

• 1502 Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, new Governor of the Indies, lands in Hispaniola, replacing Columbus
• 1528 Pánfilo the Narváez, Spanish conquistador arrives in Florida with 350 men to a hostile reception from native indians

• 1594 Fleming Pieter Stevens appointed royal painter of Rudolf II (Prague)

• 1632 Battle of Rain; Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat Count Tilly of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.
• 1654 England & Netherlands sign peace treaty

• 1715 Pocotaligo Massacre triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina.
• 1716 Great Northern War: Prussian troops occupy Swedish controlled German port of Wismar

• 1776 Duchess of Kingston found guilty of bigamy
• 1783 American Revolution: the Continental Congress ratified preliminary articles of peace, ending the seven-year-long war with Great Britain.
• 1788 Britain, Netherlands & Prussia sign peace treaty
• 1793 Bank of England issues first £5 note

• 1817 1st American school for the deaf opens (Hartford, Connecticut)
• 1817 The American Asylum [now American School for the Deaf (ASD)], 1st permanent US school for deaf founded by Rev. Thomas Gallaudet, Dr. Mason Cogswell, and teacher Laurent Clercn (West Hartford, Connecticut,)
• 1850 City of San Francisco incorporated
• 1851 Earl G Andressy sentenced to death in Hungary
• 1853 Dutch Protestant church petition King Willem III against re-establishment of Roman Catholic bishops in the Netherlands, he does so anyway
• 1858 Battle of Azimghur, Mexicans defeat Spanish loyalists

• 1864 General Steeles' Union troops occupies Camden, Arkansas

• 1865 Mobile, Alabama is captured by Union forces after a siege led by General Canby

• 1870 Last day US silver coins allow to circulate in Canada

• 1874 NY legislature passes compulsory education law
• 1877 World's first home telephone is installed in Somerville, Massachusetts at the house of Charles Williams Jr. [1]
• 1878 Harley Procter introduces Ivory Soap

• 1895 Josephine Blatt (US) makes hip-and-harness lift of 3564 lb (record)
• 1896 1st modern Summer Olympic Games close in Athens, Greece; USA wins gold medal count, 11; Greece wins total medal count, 46; IOC has retroactively assigned gold, silver & bronze medals to 3 best placed athletes in each event
• 1900 An early 50 mile race is won by an electric car in over 2 hrs
• 1900 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) in Paris opens (till 12th Nov)
• 1901 1st British motorized burial

• 1902 Pope Leo XIII encyclical "On Church in US"
• 1902 Rioting and arson continue in Russia with peasants plundering estates to find food.
• 1902 Russian minister of interior and head of secret police, Sipyengin, is assassinated by the 'Terror Brigade' of the Socialist Revolutionaries
• 1906 The Armenian organization AGBU is established.

• 1911 Jack Lawrence Theater (Playhouse) opens at 137 W 48th St NYC

• 1915 Manuel de Falla's ballet "El Amor Brujo" premieres in Madrid

• 1920 New Canadian small cent coin is released
• 1920 Sacco & Vanzetti Trial: paymaster shot and killed along with his guard
• 1921 Black Friday in Britain: leaders of transport and rail unions announce a decision not to call for strike action in support of the miners; despite widespread feeling decision a breach of solidarity and a betrayal of the miners
• 1922 The legendary Poodle Dog Restaurant closes in San Francisco
• 1923 1st sound on film public performance shown at Rialto Theater (NYC)
• 1923 Insulin becomes generally available for diabetics
• 1924 Flemish-Walloon riots in Louvain, Belgium, 1 dead
• 1924 Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.
• 1924 WHO-AM in Des Moines Iowa begins radio transmissions
• 1925 NHL's NY Americans (formerly Hamilton Tigers) 1st game, lose 3-1
• 1926 Sesquicentennial Stadium opens in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; renamed Philadelphia Municipal Stadium, later renamed JFK Stadium (demolished 1992); played host to Tunney-Demspy fight (1926); 41 Army-Navy football games; professional football; and many concerts, including the US portion of Live-Aid (1985)
• 1927 Switzerland & USSR agree to diplomatic relations

• 1928 Alioto's on Fisherman's Wharf (San Francisco) forms
• 1931 1st backwards walk across American begins
• 1936 Irish government authorizes establishment of Aer Lingus (Aerloingeas) as the national airline of the Republic of Ireland
• 1937 Stanley Cup Final, Olympia Stadium, Detroit, MI: Detroit Red Wings beat New York Rangers, 3-0 for a 3-2 series win; back-to-back titles for Red Wings
• 1938 Anti-Jewish riots break out in in Dąbrowa Tarnowska, Poland
• 1939 Albert Lebrun elected president of France
• 1940 British troops land at Narvik, Norway
• 1941 1st helicopter flight of 1 hr duration, Stratford, Ct

• 1943 Metropolitan Life Insurances issues a $225 million check to Chase

• 1945 British Army liberates Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen

• 1947 Operations begin at Radio Netherlands World radio
• 1948 1st Jewish-Arab military battle, arabs defeated
• 1948 Indian territory of Himachal Pradesh created
• 1948 KCPX (now KTVX) TV channel 4 in Salt Lake City, UT (ABC) 1st broadcast
• 1949 Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Redemptoris nostri
• 1951 Michael Gorsira is 1st person in charge of Curacao
• 1952 Archaeologist Albert Ruz discovers the tomb of Pakal, the greatest ruler of the Maya city of Palenque
• 1952 Franklin National Bank issues 1st bank credit card
• 1952 Stanley Cup Final, Olympia Stadium, Detroit, MI: Detroit Red Wings beat Montreal Canadiens, 3-0 for a 4-0 series sweep
• 1952 The maiden flight of the US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress prototype, designed and built by Boeing
• 1952 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1953 Malans National Party wins South African elections
• 1953 WHP TV channel 21 in Harrisburg, PA (CBS) begins broadcasting
• 1954 KARK TV channel 4 in Little Rock, AR (NBC) begins broadcasting
• 1954 Orioles 1st game in Baltimore beat White Sox 3-1
• 1954 WHO TV channel 13 in Des Moines, IA (NBC) begins broadcasting
• 1954 Yankees dedicate a plaque to Edward Barrow

• 1955 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1957 KTVI TV channel 2 in Saint Louis, MO (ABC) begins broadcasting
• 1957 Saturday mail delivery restored in the US after Congress gives the Post Office $41 million

• 1958 1st baseball game in California, SF Giants beat LA Dodgers, 8-0

• 1960 Guy Carawan sings "We Shall Overcome" to a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh - popularising the song as a protest anthem
• 1960 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), organizes at Shaw U
• 1962 US national debt above $300,000,000,000
• 1964 Chesapeake Bay Bridge opens (world's longest)
• 1965 NFL changes penalty flag from white to bright gold
• 1966 KHET TV channel 11 in Honolulu, HI (PBS) begins broadcasting

• 1969 North Korea shoots at US airplane above Japanese sea
• 1970 Libyan leader Gadaffi launches "Green Revolution"
• 1970 WMGZ TV channel 16 in Mayaguez, PR ([M]) begins broadcasting
• 1970 WPSJ TV channel 14 in Ponce, PR ([P]) begins broadcasting

• 1972 A member of the British Army is shot dead by the Official IRA in the Divis area of Belfast.
• 1972 A member of the Official Irish Republican Army is shot dead by British soldiers at Joy Street in the Markets area of Belfast close to his home

• 1974 Military coup in Niger, president Diori Hamani deposed
• 1975 1st appearance of San Diego Chicken
• 1975 Gabon amends constitution
• 1976 Yankee stadium reopens, Yanks beat Twins after trailing 4-0
• 1977 1st baseball game at Montreal's Olympic Stadium
• 1978 43 die as 2 express trains collide head-on south of Bologna, Italy
• 1978 Great Britain performs nuclear test
• 1979 A disastrous earthquake (of M 7.1) on Montenegro coast.
• 1981 Janet Cooke says her Pulitzer award-winning story about an 8-year-old heroin addict is a lie, Washington Post relinquishes Pulitzer Prize on fabricated story
• 1982 Apollo Computer announces DN400, DN420, & landscape display
• 1983 Tokyo Disneyland opens
• 1984 Extremist Sikhs plunder 40 stations in Punjab India
• 1984 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
• 1985 Challenger moves to launch pad for 51-B missing
• 1986 The United States launches Operation El Dorado Canyon against Libya.
• 1986 US air raids Libya, responding to La Belle disco, Berlin bombing

• 1987 Alfred Uhry's "Driving Miss Daisy" premieres in NYC
• 1988 Meteorite explode above Indonesia

• 1989 Hillsborough disaster, 96 are crushed to death and 766 injured at the Hillsborough Football Stadium in Sheffield, England, during a FA semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest
• 1989 Students in Beijing pro-democracy protests
• 1989 Sue Marchiano wins 3rd World Cup female marathon (2:30:48)
• 1989 Then largest lottery in North America ($69M) drawn in Illinois
• 1990 Greenidge & Haynes make 298 opening stand (v England), combination best
• 1990 Sketch comedy TV series "In Living Color" premieres on FOX-TV
• 1991 Dutch checker Ton Sijbrands improves world record blind checker games (15 wins)
• 1991 East-Europe Bank forms in London
• 1991 Europe foreign ministers lift most remaining sanctions against South Africa
• 1991 Former child actor Adam Rich (Eight Is Enough) charged with burglary

• 1991 New York State raises maximum unemployment benefits to $280 per week
• 1991 Sacramento Kings set NBA record, losing 35th consecutive game on road
• 1992 Billionaire Leona Helmsley is sent to jail for tax evasion

• 1992 Lincoln Hospital in Bronx. New York loses its accreditation

• 1992 The National Assembly of Vietnam adopts the 1992 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

• 1994 Indians loses 1st game at Jacobs Field, KC wins 2-1

• 1994 WMMS-FM's Jeff & Flash, & entire station staff, are fired
• 1996 Boston Athletic Association officially recognizes Bobbi Gibb's three Boston Marathon wins (1966, 1967, and 1968) in era prior to women being sanctioned for the race
• 1997 America Online (AOL) begins service in Japan
• 1997 Baseball honors Jackie Robinson by retiring #42 for all teams

• 1997 Fire sweeps through a campsite of Muslims making the Hajj pilgrimage; the official death toll is 343.
• 1997 Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Charlotte NC on WXRC 95.7 FM

• 2000 NFL Draft: Penn State defensive end Courtney Brown first pick by Cleveland Browns
• 2001 The Tradition Senior Men's Golf, GC at Desert Mountain: Doug Tewell wins his second & final Champions Tour major by 9 strokes from Mike McCullough
• 2002 An Air China Boeing 767-200, flight CA129 crashes into a hillside during heavy rain and fog near Busan, South Korea, killing 128.
• 2009 Even though official government sources state that Argentina's GDP will actually grow this year, private consulting firms state that Argentine economy has actually been in recession since October 2008
• 2010 Volcanic ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland leads to the closure of airspace over most of Europe.
• 2011 "Black Friday" for online poker in the US: indictment United States v. Scheinberg shuts down sites, accusing companies of fraud and money laundering
• 2012 400 Islamist Militants escape from a Pakistan prison after an insurgent attack
• 2012 China loosens monetary policy and allows the Yuan to fluctuate up to 1% against the US dollar

• 2012 US Secret Service inappropriate conduct scandal begins with at least 11 people implicated
• 2013 33 people are killed and 163 are injured in a wave of bombings across Iraq

• 2017 Suicide car bomb targets buses carrying Syrian evacuees at Rashidin, 126 killed including 70 children
• 2018 126.2 cm (49.69") of rainfall in a day, Waipā Garden (Kauai). Hawaii (state record, breaking previous record of 1956)
• 2019 3 days after winning Hobey Baker Award as top college hockey player, Cale Makar becomes first defenseman to score in NHL debut during the playoffs in Colorado's 6-2 Game 3 win over Calgary

• 2019 Los Angeles Clippers overcome an NBA record 31-point deficit to score an improbable 135-131 Game 2 playoff victory over the Golden State Warriors in Oakland; shooting guard Lou Williams 36 points

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