April 3
0628 In Persia, Kavadh sues for peace with the Byzantines.
1366 Birth: Henry IV, King of England 1399-1413, is born at Bolingbroke Castle, Lincolnshire. Find the castle remains on this map.
1367 John of Gaunt and Edward the Black Prince win the Battle of Najara, in Spain.
1528 In Cologne, German reformer Adolf Clarenbach, 28, is arrested for teaching Protestant (some say Anabaptist or Waldensian) doctrines. The following year, Clarenbach will be burned at the stake.
1559 Philip II of Spain and Henry II of France sign the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in France, ending a long series of wars spanning almost 60 years, between the Hapsburg and Valois dynasties.
1679 Edmund Halley meets Johannes Hevelius in Danzig. Above: "Johannes Hevelius integrated Edmond Halley's southern hemisphere observations into his star atlas of 1690...A curious aspect of Hevelius' star atlas is that the stars are shown as if they had been projected onto a sphere and looked at from the outside (just like the Brazilian flag [more]). A kind of Aristotelian deity's point-of-view..."
1721 Sir Robert Walpole is appointed first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, effectively becoming Britain's first prime minister.
1776 US Revolutionary War: Harvard College confers the first honorary Doctor of Laws degree to George Washington.
1783 Birth: Washington Irving, American writer; The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle.
1783 Sweden and the US sign a treaty of Amity and Commerce.
1800 Martha Washington became the first US Presidents wife to be allowed to ‘frank’ mail (not pay the postage), a perk traditionally bestowed upon politicians at post office expense.
1822 Birth: Edward Everett Hale, American clergyman and author; Man without a Country.
1823 Birth: William Macy Tweed, better known as 'Boss Tweed,' corrupt New York City political powerhouse.
1829 James Carrington of Connecticut patents the coffee mill, even though coffee milling devices had been available for hundreds of years, dating back to the Greek and Roman Empires.
1837 Birth: John Burroughs, writer, nature enthusiast; will found what later will become the Burroughs Corporation, Burroughs Medal namesake.
1842 Birth: Hermann Karl Vogel, German astronomer.
1860 The first Pony Express mail simultaneously leaves St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, carried by Henry Wallace riding west and John Roff riding east. During the 1,800-mile journey, the riders change horses dozens of times, and on 13 April, the westbound packet will arrive in Sacramento, beating the eastbound packet's arrival in St. Joseph by two days. Operating on a semiweekly basis for nearly two years, the route will follow a pioneer trail across the present-day states of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada to California, carrying mail as well as some small freight for the young Wells Fargo Company. The Pony Express Company, a private enterprise, charges five dollars for every half-ounce of mail. Although short-lived and unprofitable, the Pony Express will captivate the American imagination and help win federal aid for a more economical overland mail service. The Pony Express will also contribute to the economy of the towns on its route, and serve the mail service needs of the American West in the days before the telegraph and an efficient transcontinental railroad. Pony Express mail service will be discontinued on 24 October 1861. (Bradley)
1865 US Civil War: Union forces occupy the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.
1866 Rudolph Eickemeyer and G. Osterheld, of Yonkers, New York, patents a blocking and shaping machine for hats.
1882 Jesse James, one of America's most notorious outlaws, is shot to death in St. Joseph, Missouri, by Robert Ford, a member of his gang who hoped to collect the bounty on Jesse's head. Jesse James, born in Clay County, Missouri, in 1847, joined a Confederate guerrilla band led by William Quantrill at the age of 15. Quantrill's guerrillas, which included several future members of the James Gang, terrorized Kansas and Missouri during the Civil War and in August 1863 massacred civilians during a brutal raid on Lawrence, Kansas, an abolitionist town. After the war's end in 1865, Jesse, his brother Frank, and brothers Cole, James, and Robert Younger decided to team up and use their military raiding skills for armed robbery. In February 1866, 18-year-old Jesse planned their first target - a bank in Liberty, Missouri. On February 13, Frank James led a group of about a dozen men, including Cole Younger and other former Confederate guerrillas, in the first recorded daylight bank robbery in the United States. They left the bank with $60,000 in gold and silver coins, paper money, and government securities. Jesse did not participate in the actual robbery, but he later became the leader of the James Gang, which was eventually reduced to the core unit of James, his brother, and the three Younger brothers. During the next 16 years, the James Gang became America's most notorious outlaws, robbing banks, trains, stagecoaches, stores, and individuals of a total of about $300,000. The beginning of their downfall came in 1876, when, after killing two people and failing to secure any money in an attempted bank robbery at Northfield, Minnesota, the Younger brothers and several other key members of their gang were captured. The James brothers escaped and did not rob another train until 1880, the same year that Missouri Governor Thomas Crittenden offered a reward for the capture of the James brothers, dead or alive. James Gang member Robert Ford chose the former, and on this day he shoots James in the back while he stands on a chair adjusting a picture. Frank James will subsequently surrender and in trials will be twice acquitted, eventually dying of old age on his farm near Excelsior Springs, Missouri. (Bradley)
1889 The Savings Bank of the Order of True Reformers opens in Richmond, Virginia.
1898 Birth: Henry R. Luce, magazine publisher, founder of Time, Fortune and Life, 1965 Fisher Award.
1913 Leading suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst is jailed for three years for inciting supporters to place explosives at the London home of David Lloyd George.
1918 WW1: The US House of Representatives accepts American Creed written by William Tyler.
1918 WW1: The Allied Supreme War Council, in a meeting at Beauvais, appoints Ferdinand Foch as supreme commander of Allied forces, including the Americans. Foch Immediately sends reserves to aid the British at the Somme.
1919 Weimar: Dietrich Eckart and Rudolf Gorsleben are arrested by the Communists. Only Eckart's quick-witted answers during interrogation prevent their execution along with the other Thule hostages. (Roots)
1922 Weimar: W.A. Harriman & Co. opens its European headquarters in Berlin with the aid of the Hamburg-based M.M. Warburg & Co. Government investigators later said it was during this time that Harriman first became acquainted with the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen. Harriman subsequently agreed to set up a bank for Thyssen (Union Banking Corporation) in New York City. The following year, Thyssen will become one of Hitler's largest financial backers.
1922 The new Central Committee of the Communist Party in Russia appoints Joseph Stalin as General Secretary of the Communist Party and de facto leader of the country.
1926 Birth: Virgil Gus Grissom, in Mitchell, Indiana, Lieutenant Colonel USAF, astronaut; Mercury 4, Gemini 3.
1926 Volkishness: Lanz von Liebenfels and ONT brothers Ladislaus and Wilhem traveled to Szent Balazs and construction on the new priory of Marienkamp starts shortly thereafter. (Roots)
1926 American rocket scientist Robert Goddard launches his second liquid-fueled rocket.
1930 Birth: Helmut Kohl, former German chancellor.
1930 Ras Tafari is proclaimed Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, formerly Abyssinia.
1933 Church and Reich: The Kreuz und Adler (Cross and Eagle) organization is founded by Catholic supporters of the new Nazi state. Formation of this group is initiated by Papen, who assumes the title of Protector.
1933 First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt informs newspaper reporters that beer will be served at the White House. This follows the March 22 legislation legalizing "3.2" beer.
1933 The first flight over the peak of Mount Everest in the Himalayas is made by four Britons in two Westland biplanes.
1934 Birth: Jane Goodall, in London, England, ethologist; will study African chimps.
1936 Bruno Hauptmann is executed by electrocution in Trenton, New Jersey, for the kidnap and murder of the Lindbergh baby.
1939 Press Reaction to Hitler's April 1 Speech: "Although Hitler's speech at Wilhelmshaven was overshadowed by the British pledge to Poland, it was clearly bitter and threatening, particularly against Britain's efforts to protect Eastern European States from Germany."--London Times
1939 More Press Reaction to Hitler's April 1 Speech: "It is evident from the speech which Hitler made yesterday at Wilhelmshaven that Britain's warning of her willingness to go to war if Poland is attacked at this juncture of affairs of Europe has been read with care in Germany. It was a truculent speech, in the usual Hitler manner, filled with derision for the democracies and boasts of Germany's willingness to measure her strength with that of any other nation in war as well as in peace. But it proposed no immediate action other than a possible denunciation of Germany's naval treaty with Britain - which would amount merely to an empty gesture - and it refrained significantly from any ultimatum to Poland."--New York Times
1939 Even More Press Reaction to Hitler's April 1 Speech: "The Wilhelmshaven speech was distinguished by a reaffirmation of German's desire for peace, and at the same time a thinly disguised threat to Poland.... Chancellor Hitler declared that Germany did not dream of attacking other nations, and he offered as proof his decision to call the next Congress of the National Socialist Party the Congress of Peace. He would do well to wait until that desire for peace is expressed clearly in the acts of the Berlin Government, before congratulating himself."--Le Temps
1939 Hitler issues a war directive marked "Most Secret" and has it delivered by hand to his senior war commanders. "Since the situation on Germany's eastern frontier has become intolerable and all political possibilities have been exhausted," it began, "I have decided upon a solution by force." Preparations for the attack on Poland, "Case White" (Operation White), "must be made so that the operation can be carried out any time from September 1, 1939." (Shirer I)
1940
1940 WW2: Churchill resigns as Minister for the Coordination of Defense and is appointed to chair the Ministerial Defense Committee, significantly increasing his responsibilities, even though he had not been success in his previous post. One of his first acts is to obtain consent for the mining of the Norwegian Leads. (WWIIDBD)
1940 Diary of Leon Gladun: We've spent Christmas and Easter here. From the 3rd of April the transports began departing. Note: Transports go to execution and burial sites in Katyn Forest--the Poles assume they are being released or exchanged.
1941 WW2: The British evacuate Benghazi in the face of the German advance.
1942 WW2: The Japanese begin their all-out assault on the US and Filipino troops at Bataan.
1942 Holocaust: 129 German Jews from Augsburg are deported to Izbica and Belzec. The once 1000-strong Jewish community ceases to exist. (Atlas)
1943 WW2: The German defenders continue to hold off attacks by Patton's troops around El Guettar.
1944 The US Supreme Court rules that black citizens are eligible to vote in all elections, including primaries.
1948 President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, which allocates more than $5 billion dollars ($5.33b) in aid for 16 European countries rebuilding efforts after WW2.
1949 Transjordan sign an armistice with the newly founded state of Israel.
1964 The US and Panama agree to resume diplomatic relations.
1968 Less than 24 hours before he will be assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivers a speech to a rally of striking sanitation workers.
1970 Miriam Hargrave of England passes her driving test on the 40th try.
1972 Charlie Chaplin returns to the United States after a twenty-year self-imposed exile.
1974 Gold hits a record $197 an ounce in Paris.
1977 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and President Jimmy Carter meet for the first time.
1982 The UN Security Council votes 10-1 in favor of Resolution 502 demanding withdrawal of Argentine forces from the Falkland Islands.
1990 A delegation from the rebellious republic of Lithuania meets with an adviser to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
1991 The UN Security Council approves a Gulf cease-fire resolution stripping Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, impounding part of its oil revenues to pay reparations and paving the way for the withdrawal of US occupation troops.
1994 Minority Croats in Sarajevo celebrate the Bosnian capital's first Easter at peace since 1991, cramming into the main Roman Catholic cathedral to pray for the new calm to last.
1996 Death: US Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, when his plane crashes in Croatia, killing all 29 passengers and six crew members aboard.
1996 Theodore Kaczynski is arrested, accused of being the Unabomber.
1999 NATO missiles strike downtown Belgrade, destroying the headquarters of security forces accused of waging a campaign against Kosovo Albanians.
2001
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2003
2003 US Secretary of State Colin Powell promises a UN role in the reconstruction of postwar Iraq.
2004
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