1767 – Ayutthaya kingdom falls to Burmese invaders
1886 – William Ewart Gladstone introduces the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons.
1898 – Battle of Atbara River, Anglo-Egyptian forces crush 6,000 Sudanese
1913 – Opening of China’s 1st parliament takes place in Peking (now Beijing)
1933 – Manchester Guardian warns of unknown Nazi terror
1940 – German battle cruisers sink British aircraft carrier Glorious
1943 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, in an attempt to check inflation, freezes wages and prices, prohibits workers from changing jobs unless the war effort would be aided thereby, and bars rate increases to common carriers and public utilities.
1953 – Jomo Kenyatta convicted of involvement with the Mau Mau rebellion and sentenced to 7 years jail in Kenya
1962 – Accords of Evian (Algeria) accepted by referendum in France
1965 – India & Pakistan forces engage in a border fight
1968 – New socialist constitution of East Germany takes effect
1973 – Thirty-two terrorist bombings in Cyprus
1977 – Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin resigns
1986 – Clint Eastwood elected mayor of Carmel, California. Makes his day.
1994 – Smoking banned in Pentagon & all US military bases
1997 – Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 4 Beta
2004 – U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice testifies before the 9/11 Commission
2004 – Darfur conflict: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups
2008 – The construction of the world’s first building to integrate wind turbines completes, in Bahrain.
2012 – Pope Benedict XVI calls for an end to Syrian blood shed in papal Easter message
2017 – Fifth day of protests by thousands in Caracas, Venezuela against the government
2019 – 600 million birds die each year in the US after striking tall buildings with Chicago the worst city, according to Cornell Lab of Ornithology
2019 – 14 tons of black market Pangolin scales from 36,000 animals discovered in Singapore, one of largest ever found worldwide
2019 – Actress Allison Mack pleads guilty to sex-trafficking charges for her involvement in suspected sex cult Nxivm
2019 – Protests in Sudan against the government of Omar al-Bashir continue with seven killed and 2,500 arrested in Khartoum
2020 – Bernie Sanders drops out of the Democratic race for US president
2020 – Saudi-backed coalition fighting Houthi fighters in Yemen calls for a ceasefire after five years to stop the spread of COVID-19
Film & TV:
1990 – “Twin Peaks” created by David Lynch and starring Kyle MacLachlan premieres on ABC-TV
Music
1876 – Amiliare Ponchielli’s opera “La Gioconda” premieres in Milan
Sport:
1974 – Hammerin’ Hank Aaron hits 715th HR, off of L.A. Dodger Al Downing, breaking Babe Ruth’s record in Atlanta
Via Britannica / On This Day
