TODAY IN HISTORY
1914
Mexican Revolution: One of the world’s first naval/air skirmishes takes place off the coast of western Mexico.
1937
The Kamikaze arrives at Croydon Airport in London. It is the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly to Europe.
1942
World War II: The Battle of Bataan/Bataan Death March: US forces surrender on the Bataan Peninsula. The Japanese Navy launches an air raid on Trincomalee in Ceylon (Sri Lanka); Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and Royal Australian Navy Destroyer HMAS Vampire are sunk off the island's east coast.
1945
Execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, anti-Nazi dissident and spy, by the Nazi regime.
1945
The US Atomic Energy Commission is formed.
1948
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán's assassination provokes a violent riot in Bogotá (the Bogotazo), and a further ten years of violence in Colombia.
1952
Hugo Ballivián's government is overthrown by the Bolivian National Revolution, starting a period of agrarian reform, universal suffrage and the nationalisation of tin mines
1957
The Suez Canal in Egypt is cleared and opens to shipping.
1959
Project Mercury: NASA announces the selection of the US’s first seven astronauts, whom the news media quickly dub the ‘Mercury Seven’.
1960
Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa and architect of Apartheid, narrowly survives an assassination attempt by a white farmer, David Pratt in Johannesburg.
1961
The Pacific Electric Railway in Los Angeles, once the largest electric railway in the world, ends operations.
1965
Astrodome opens. First indoor baseball game is played.
1967
The first Boeing 737 (a 100 series) makes its maiden flight.
1980
The Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein kills philosopher Muhammad Baqir al Sadr and his sister Bint al Huda after three days of torture.
1981
The US Navy nuclear submarine USS George Washing
ton accidentally collides with the Nissho Maru, a Japanese cargo ship, sinking it.
1989
Tbilisi massacre: An anti-Soviet peaceful demonstration and hunger strike in Tbilisi, demanding restoration of Georgian independence, is dispersed by the Soviet Army, resulting in 20 deaths and hundreds of injuries.
1991
Georgia declares independence from the Soviet Union
1999
The Battle of Košare begins.
2003
Baghdad falls to US. Iraqis turn on symbols of Saddam Hussein, pulling down a grand statue of him and tearing it to pieces.
2013
At least 13 people are killed and another three injured after a man goes on a spree shooting in the Serbian vilIvanča. lage of Velika
2014
A student stabs 20 people at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville, Pennsylvania.
2017
Palm Sunday church bombings at Coptic Churches in Tanta and Alexandria take place.