Holidays

Feast day of St. Theodore of Sykeon, St. Opportuna, St. Agipatus I, pope, St. Leonides of Alexandria, and Saints Epipodius and Alexander.

Brazil: Discovery of Brazil Day.

Oklahoma Day.

United States: Earth Day.

Events

1500 - Portuguese explorer Pedro Cabral landed on the coast of Brazil and claimed it for Portugal.

1509 - Henry VIII ascended the throne of England following the death of his father, Henry VII.

1662 - King Charles II granted a charter to the Royal Society of London, which became an important scientific organization.

1838 - The first steamship to cross the Atlantic, the British ship Sirius, arrived at New York; it made the crossing in 18 days.

1864 - Congress authorized the use of the phrase “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins.

1889 - The Oklahoma Land Rush began at noon; thousands of homesteaders staked claims.

1898 - The first action of the Spanish-American War was the USS Nashville capturing a Spanish merchant ship off Key West, Florida.

1914 - Babe Ruth made his professional pitching debut, playing for the Baltimore Orioles.

1915 - In World War I, the Germans shocked the world with their use of lethal chlorine gas in combat against French troops in Belgium.

1954 - The televised Senate Army-McCarthy hearings began.

1970 - The first Earth Day was observed.

1976 - Barbara Walters became the first female nightly news anchor on network television.

1993 - The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated in Washington, D.C. to honor the victims of Nazi extermination.

1994 - Norwegian explorer Borge Ousland became the first person to make the trip to the North Pole alone.

1999 - NATO warplanes struck directly against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, destroying his luxurious mansion.

2000 - The Big Number Change takes place in the United Kingdom.

2005 - In a federal court, Zacarias Moussaoui pled guilty to conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers to kill Americans.

Births

1451 - Queen Isabella I, sponsor of Christopher Columbus’s journeys.

1707 - Henry Fielding, English novelist.

1724 - Immanuel Kant (photo), German philosopher.

1870 - Vladimir Ilich Lenin, Russian leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, first head of the Soviet State.

1899 - Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born American novelist and critic.

1904 - J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist, inventor of atomic bomb.

1925 - Aaron Spelling, American Emmy Award-winning executive producer.

1937 - Jack Nicholson (Rose), American Academy Award-winning actor.

1944 - Steve Fossett, American investment banker, aviator, and adventurer.

1950 - Peter Frampton, English musician.

1964 - Chris Makepeace, Canadian film and television actor.

Deaths

1908 - Henry Campbell-Bannerman, British statesman who served as Prime Minister.

1984 - Ansel Adams, American photographer.

1994 - Richard Nixon, the only American president to have resigned.

1996 - Erma Bombeck, American humorist.

Source: Reference.com