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April 30 |
In
1975, the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon
fell to Communist forces.
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April 29 |
In 1992, deadly rioting
that claimed 54 lives and caused $1 billion in damage erupted in Los
Angeles after a jury in Simi Valley acquitted four Los Angeles police
officers of almost all state charges in the videotaped beating of Rodney
King.
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April 28 |
In
1947, a six-man expedition sailed from Peru
aboard a balsa wood raft named the Kon-Tiki on a
101-day journey across the Pacific Ocean to
Polynesia.
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April 27 |
In
1947, "Babe Ruth Day" at Yankee Stadium was held to
honor the ailing baseball star.
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April 26 |
In 1986, the
world's worst nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl
plant in the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire in the No.
4 reactor sent radioactivity into the atmosphere; at least
31 Soviets died immediately.
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April 25 |
In 1945,
during World War II, United States and Soviet forces
linked up on the Elbe River, in central Europe, a
meeting that dramatized the collapse of Nazi Germany.
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April 24 |
In 1898, Spain
declared war on the United States after rejecting America's
ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.
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April 23 |
In 1969, Sirhan
Sirhan was sentenced to death for assassinating New York
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. The sentence was later reduced to
life imprisonment.
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April 22 |
In 1889, the Oklahoma Land
Rush began at noon as thousands of homesteaders staked claims.
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April 21 |
In 1910, author
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, died
in Redding, Conn.
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April 20 |
In 1971, the
United States Supreme Court upheld the use of busing to
achieve racial desegregation in schools.
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April 19 |
In
1995, a truck bomb exploded outside the Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing
168 people, and injuring 500. Timothy McVeigh was
convicted of the bombing and sentenced to death.
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April 18 |
In 1906, a
devastating earthquake struck San Francisco, followed by
raging fires. About 700 people died.
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April 17 |
In 1961, about
1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay
of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow
the government of Fidel Castro.
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April 16 |
In 1947, America's
worst harbor explosion occurred in Texas City, Texas, when the
French ship Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer,
caught fire and blew up, devastating the town. Another ship, the
Highflyer, exploded the following day. The explosions and
resulting fires killed more than 500 people and left 200 others
missing.
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April 15 |
In 1912, the
British luxury liner Titanic sank in the North Atlantic off
Newfoundland, less than three hours after striking an
iceberg. About 1,500 people died.
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April 14 |
In 1865,
President Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John
Wilkes Booth while attending the comedy "Our American
Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. He died the
next day.
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April 13 |
In 1970, Apollo
13, four-fifths of the way to the moon, was crippled when a
tank containing liquid oxygen burst. (The astronauts managed
to return safely).
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April 12 |
In 1945, Franklin
D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, died of a
cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63. Vice
President Harry S. Truman became president.
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April 11 |
In 1951,
President Truman relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his
commands in the Far East.
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April 10 |
In 1947,
Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey announced he had
purchased the contract of Jackie Robinson from the Montreal
Royals.
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April 9 |
In 1865,
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
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April 8 |
In 1973,
artist Pablo Picasso died at his home near Mougins,
France, at age 91.
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April 7 |
In 1862, Union
forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at
the battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.
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April 6 |
In 1909,
explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson became the
first men to reach the North Pole. The claim, disputed by
skeptics, was upheld in 1989 by the Navigation Foundation.
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April 5 |
In 1951, Julius and
Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death for conspiring to commit
espionage for the Soviet Union.
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April 4 |
In 1968, civil
rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot to death in
Memphis, Tenn.
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April 3 |
In 1948,
President Truman signed the Marshall Plan, which
allocated more than $5 billion in aid for 16 European
countries.
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April 2 |
In 1917,
President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war
against Germany, saying, "The world must be made safe for
democracy."
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April 1 |
In 1945,
American forces invaded Okinawa during World War II.
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