This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1916 German parliament approves unrestricted submarine warfare.

1917 US declares war on Germany, enters World War I

1920 To force German evacuation of the Ruhr area, the French occupy Frankfurt, Darmstadt, and Hanau.

1945 Battle of Okinawa: Giant Japanese battleship Yamato heads to Okinawa with orders to beach herself and be destroyed defending the island.

1945 The Holocaust: Nazis begin evacuating prisoners from Buchenwald concentration camp.

[Jimbuna]

1945 Battle of Okinawa: Massive kamikaze attack of around 110 Japanese aircraft damages three US battleships off Okinawa island.

1945 Battle of Okinawa: US planes intercept Japanese fleet heading for Okinawa on a suicide mission, super battleship Yamato and four destroyers are sunk.

1948 World Health Organization formed by the United Nations.

1972 Three members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) die in a premature bomb explosion in Belfast.

1999 The World Trade Organization rules in favor of the United States in its long-running trade dispute with the European Union over bananas.

[Jimbuna]

1916 The Libau sets sail from Germany with a cargo of 20,000 rifles to assist Irish republicans; Captain Karl Spindler changes the name of the vessel to the Aud to avoid British detection.

1940 German cruiser Blucher torpedoed and capsizes in Oslofjord, 1,000 die.

1940 Nazi Germany invades Denmark and Norway, and Denmark surrenders after a six-hour battle.

1945 Battleship Admiral Scheer sunk by RAF bombing in Kiel.

1963 Winston Churchill becomes 1st honorary US citizen.

2002 Funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother at Westminster Abbey UK. More than a million people line the streets.

2018 Fleetwood Mac announce new members Neil Finn and Mike Campbell after firing long-standing member Lindsey Buckingham.

[Aktungbby]

2010: Polish President Lech Kaczynski, 60, was killed in an air disaster while landing in at Smolensk in foggy conditions. His wife, members of parliment, military and church officials, (94) died as well. Conspiracy theories, including assassination still abound...

[Jimbuna]

1887 US President Abraham Lincoln's re-buried with his wife in Springfield, Illinois.

1912 RMS Titanic sets sail from Southampton for her maiden (and final) voyage.

1923 Adolf Hitler demands "hatred & more hatred" in Berlin, Germany.

1932 Paul von Hindenburg is re-elected President of Germany in a runoff election against Adolf Hitler.

1955 Ruth Ellis shoots jilting lover David Blakely (last woman to be executed in the UK)

1963 USS Thresher, a nuclear powered submarine, sinks 220 miles east of Boston killing 129 men, including 17 civilians.

1972 Two British soldiers are killed in a bomb attack in Derry.

1998 The Good Friday Agreement [Belfast Agreement] for Northern Ireland is signed by the British and Irish governments.

[Jimbuna]

1612 Last public burning at the stake in England - Edward Wrightman for heresy in Lichfield.

1814 Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates unconditionally and he is exiled to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.

1900 The first modern submarine designed and built by John Philip Holland is purchased by the U.S. Navy.

1912 RMS Titanic leaves Queenstown, Ireland, for NY

1945 Four soldiers in the Sixth Armored Division of the US Third Army liberate the Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald.

1951 US President Harry Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur of command in Korea.

1961 Trial of Adolf Eichmann for war crimes in World War II begins in Jerusalem, Israel.

1992 Irish Republican Army bombs London financial district, killing 3

[Jimbuna]

1916 Irish nationalist activist and poet Roger Casement boards submarine U-19 at Wilmshaven, Germany, bound for a rendezvous with the Aud at Tralee.

1941 Vichy-France's head of government Admiral François Darlan consults with Adolf Hitler.

1945 Canadian troops liberate Nazi concentration camp Westerbork, Netherlands.

1945 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office and Vice President Harry Truman is sworn in as 33rd US President.

1959 France Observator reports torture practice by French army in Algeria.

1961 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into space and orbit Earth, aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft.

1999 US President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving "intentionally false statements" in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit.

2009 U.S. Navy rescues captain Richard Phillips, killing three pirates and capturing a fourth.

[Jimbuna]

1940 Second battle of Narvik; 3 German destroyers and one U-boat sunk by the Royal Navy, 5 more German destroyers scuttled.

1944 Transport #71 departs Drancy (France) internment camp, taking 1,500 French Jews to Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi German occupied Poland; an estimated 91 survived.

1945 Canadian soldier Léo Major single-handedly liberates Dutch town of Zwolle by fooling Germans into thinking a raid had begun.

1965 The Beatles record their single "Help!"

1970 Apollo 13 announces "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here", as Beech-built oxygen tank explodes en route to Moon.

1980 US and its allies boycott the Summer Olympics in Moscow in protest against Russia's invasion of Afghanistan.

[Jimbuna]

1865 US President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington; he dies a day later.

1912 RMS Titanic, the world's largest ocean liner, hits an iceberg at 11.40pm off Newfoundland, sinks in the early hours of 15 April.

1918 Douglas Campbell is 1st US ace pilot (shooting down 5th German plane)

1942 Destroyer Roper sinks German U-85 of US east coast.

1943 A JN-25 decrypt by American intelligence detailing a forthcoming visit by Marshal Admiral Yamamoto to Balalae Island results in his plane shot down 4 days later.

1944 General Eisenhower becomes the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force.

1945 American planes bomb Tokyo & damage the Imperial Palace.

1958 Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 with space dog Laika aboard burns up during reentry into Earth's atmosphere.

1960 1st underwater launching of Polaris missile.

1972 The Provisional Irish Republican Army explodes twenty-four bombs in towns and cities across Northern Ireland.

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1939 The Soviet Union proposes an alliance with Britain and France to counter Nazi Germany; the Soviets would later sign a secret agreement with the Nazis.

1945 Battle of Berlin: Red Army begins its attack on the capital of Nazi Germany.

1945 American troops liberate Colditz Castle, the high-security prisoner of war camp in Saxony, Germany.

1945 Dutch town of Arnhem, site of failed Operation Market Garden, is freed by British and Canadian forces.

1948 Organization for European Economic Cooperation (EEC) forms in Paris.

1951 British submarine Affray sank in English Channel, killing 75

1953 British royal yacht Britannia launched by Queen Elizabeth II

1972 Two British soldiers are shot dead by the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) in separate incidents in Derry.

2004 The super liner Queen Mary 2 embarks on her first Transatlantic crossing, linking the golden age of ocean travel to the modern age of ocean travel.

[Jimbuna]

1941 Egyptian steamer SS Zamzam attacked and later scuttled by German cruiser Atlantis (all on board rescued)

1943 Marshal Admiral Yamamoto flies from Truk to Rabaul.

1961 1,400 Cuban exiles land in Bay of Pigs in a doomed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro.

1964 Jerrie Mock becomes 1st woman to fly solo around the world.

1979 Four Royal Ulster Constabulary officers are killed by a Provisional Irish Republican Army van bomb in Bessbrook, County Armagh; the bomb is believed to be the largest PIRA bomb used up to that point.

[Jimbuna]

1783 American Revolution: George Washington issues General Order announcing the end of hostilities with Britain, giving thanks to the Almighty, and offering congratulations and authorizing an extra ration of alcohol to the troops to celebrate.

1915 French pilot Roland Garros is shot down and glides to a landing on the German side of the lines during World War I

1916 US Secretary of State Warns Germany that the USA may break diplomatic relations unless torpedo attacks on unarmed ships stop.

1934 Adolf Hitler names Joachim von Ribbentrop ambassador for disarmament.

1942 James Doolittle bombs Tokyo & other Japanese cities.

1943 Operation Vengeance: US Army Air Force P-38G fighter aircraft from Kukum Field on Guadalcanal ambush and shoot down the transport bomber aircraft of Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy and mastermind behind the Pearl Harbor attack.

1975 John Lennon gives what becomes his final public performance at a gala salute to British media mogul Lew Grade at the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton Hotel, NYC; he performed 3 songs - Little Richard’s “Slippin’ and Slidin’”, Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”, and closed with his own “Imagine”

[Jimbuna]

1770 British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia. Writes in his log book that “what we have as yet seen of this land appears rather low, and not very hilly, the face of the Country green and Woody, but the Sea shore is all a white Sand.”

1775 American Revolution begins in Lexington, Massachusetts. The "Shot Heard Round the World" takes place later that day in Concord.

1932 Bonnie Parker is captured in a failed hardware store burglary, and subsequently jailed. A grand jury fails to indict her, however, and she is released a few months later.

1943 Jews refuse to surrender the Warsaw Ghetto to SS officer Jürgen Stroop, who then orders its destruction, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

1945 US aircraft carrier Franklin heavily damaged in Japanese air raid.

1951 General Douglas MacArthur ends his military career.

1989 Gun turret explodes on USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors.

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1899 David Beatty is appointed executive officer of the HMS Barfleur, a small battleship and flagship of the China Station.

1918 Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims marking his final victories before his death the following day.

1934 Heinrich Himmler appointed chief of all German police including the Prussian secret state police.

1968 British politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech.

1968 British rock band billed as "Roundabout" debuts in Kastrup, Denmark; after a brief tour of Scandinavia, they change their name to "Deep Purple"

1974 'The Troubles', the Northern Ireland conflict between republican and loyalist paramilitaries, British security forces, and civil rights groups, claims its 1000th victim.

1979 US President Jimmy Carter is attacked by a swamp rabbit which swam up to his fishing boat in Plains, Georgia.

1999 Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School, Colorado.

[Jimbuna]

1916 The Aud, carrying a cargo of 20,000 rifles to assist Irish republicans in staging what would become the 1916 Rising, is captured by the British Navy and forced to sail towards Cork Harbour.

1916 Ulster Protestant and Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement lands at Tralee Bay, Ireland from a German submarine; discovered at McKenna's Fort and arrested by the Royal Irish Constabulary.

1918 World War I: German fighter ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen "The Red Baron", shot down and killed over Vaux sur Somme in France, Canadian pilot Arthur Roy Brown credited with the kill.

1989 Thousands of Chinese crowd into Beijing's Tiananmen Square cheering students demanding greater political freedom.