TODAY in HISTORY
Today is Monday, April 30, the 120th day of 2018. There are 245 days left in the year.
1315 Enguerrand de Marigny is hanged at the instigation of Charles, Count of Valois.
1492 Spain gives Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration. 1513 Edmund de la Pole, pretender to English throne, is executed on orders of Henry VIII. 1557 Mapuche leader Lautaro is killed by Spanish forces at the Battle of Mataquito in Chile.
1598 Henry IV of France issues the Edict of Nantes, allowing freedom of religion to the Huguenots. 1636 Eighty Years’ War: Dutch Republic forces recapture a strategically important fort from Spain after a nine- month siege. 1789 On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States, making it oldest democracy. 1803 Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $ 15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.
1863 A 65- man French Foreign Legion infantry patrol fights a force of nearly 2,000 Mexican soldiers to nearly the last man in Hacienda Camarón, Mexico. 1885 Governor of New York David B. Hill signs legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York’s first state park, ensuring that Niagara Falls will not be devoted solely to industrial and commercial use.
1897 J. J. Thomson of the Cavendish Laboratory announces his discovery of the electron as a subatomic particle, over 1,800 times smaller than a proton ( in the atomic nucleus), at a lecture at the Royal Institution in London.
1927 The Federal Industrial Institute for Women opens in Alderson, West Virginia, as the first women’s federal prison in the United States.
1937 The Commonwealth of the Philippines holds a plebiscite for Filipino women on whether they should be extended the right to suffrage; over 90% would vote in the affirmative.
1939 NBC inaugurates its regularly scheduled television service in New York City, broadcasting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s N. Y. World’s Fair opening day address. 2000 Canonisation of Faustina Kowalska in the presence of 200,000 people. 2009 Chrysler files for bankruptcy. 2013 Willem- Alexander is inaugurated as the King of the Netherlands following the abdication of Beatrix.