ON THIS DAY

APRIL 19

1775: In Lexington, the opening shot was fired – by a British general – in the American War of Independence. This was the shot “heard around the world”.

1927: Mae West was found guilty of indecent behaviour in her Broadway productionofSex.Shewassentencedto10days in prison and fined 500 dollars.

1956: Prince Rainier III of Monaco married actress Grace Kelly.

1958: Footballer Bobby Charlton made the first of 106 appearances for England. 2011: Fidel Castro resigned from the Cuban Communist Party and stepped down as party leader after 45 years of holding the title.

APRIL 20

1653: Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament which had governed during the Civil War.

1770: Captain James Cook discovered New South Wales, Australia.

1889: Adolf Hitler was born in Austria, the son of a customs official who changed his name from Schickelgruber. 1945: Soviet troops entered Berlin.

1972: Apollo 16 landed on the moon. 1989: Scientists said that the Earth narrowly missed being struck by a passing asteroid weighing 400 million tons. APRIL 21

753BC: Romulus founded Rome.

1816: Charlotte Bronte, eldest of the three Bronte Sisters and author of Jane Eyre, was born in Thornton, Yorkshire. 1960: Brasilia became the new capital of Brazil, transferred from the old capital of Rio de Janeiro.

1983: One pound coins went into circulation in Britain, replacing paper notes in England and Wales but not in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

APRIL 22

1500: Navigator Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovered Brazil and claimed it on behalf of Portugal.

1838: The British packet steamer Sirius became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic to New York from England. 1870: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), Russian revolutionary leader, was born in Simbirsk.

1915: Germany first used poison gas at Ypres as a chemical weapon.

1943: The printing of British £1,000 notes was discontinued.

APRIL 23

1564: William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. He died on the same date in 1616.

1927: Cardiff City beat Arsenal 1-0 in the FA Cup Final to become the first club to take the cup out of England. 1968:Thefirstdecimalcoins-the5pand 10p pieces - appeared in Britain.

1983: Cliff Thorburn scored the first televised maximum break of 147 in the World Snooker championships, at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield.

1984: The United States announced the discovery of the Aids virus.

2005: The first video was uploaded to YouTube.com.