On this day

1818

1853

1912

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1945

1945

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2013

– The United States Senate ratifies the Rush-Bagot Treaty, establishing the border with Canada.

– The first passenger rail opens in India, from Bori Bunder, Bombay to Thane.

– Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel.

– Mohandas Gandhi organizes a day of “prayer and fasting” in response to the killing of Indian protesters in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by the British colonial troops three days earlier.

– The Treaty of Rapallo, pursuant to which Germany and the Soviet Union re-establish diplomatic relations, is signed.

– World War II: The Italian convoy Duisburg, directed to Tunisia, is attacked and destroyed by British ships.

– Allied forces start bombing Belgrade, killing about 1,100 people. This bombing fell on the Orthodox Christian Easter.

– The United States Army liberates Nazi Sonderlager prisoner-of-war camp Oflag IV-C (better known as Colditz).

– More than 7,000 die when the German refugee ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine torpedo.

– Bernard Baruch coins the term “Cold War” to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

– Queen Elizabeth II launches the Royal Yacht HMY Britannia.

– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pens his Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting against segregation.

– Apollo program: The launch of Apollo 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

– The “Doctor of Death”, Jack Kevorkian, participates in his first assisted suicide.

– The Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens admitting 10 new member states to the European Union.

– Virginia Tech massacre: Seung-Hui Cho kills 32 and injures 23 before committing suicide.

– The Pulitzer Prize winners were announced, it was the first time since 1977 that no book won the Fiction Prize.

– A 7.8-magnitude earthquake strikes Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran, the strongest in the country in 40 years, killing at least 35 people.

Source: www.wikipedia.org