April in the History

• Gmail was launched by Google on this day in 2004. It was created by Paul Buchheit with a storage capacity of 1 GB per user.
• Today it has been enhanced to 15 GB. By 2019 1.5 billion people were using Gmail. Today it supports 105 languages.

• Apple Computer Inc. was founded on this day in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. Apple I, designed by Steve Wozniak, was its first computer introduced in 1976.
• Apple II which, the best seller, came into market in 1997.

• The Quaker colony of Pennsylvania in North America was proclaimed by England’s King Charles II on this day in 1681. It was granted to William Penn by the king.
• William Penn maintained fair dealings with the local native tribes and bought land from them. Until the American Revolution, this colony was in the hands of Penn family.
• After the Revolution, it became one of the original thirteen colonies

• Using a handset (popular as shoe phone) made of Motorola, the first handheld mobile call was demonstrated in 1973 in New York.
• John F. Mitchell, Chief Operating Officer of Motorola, and Martin Cooper, American Engineer, made this demonstration.
• The handset was almost as big as a shoebox weighing about 2 kg (4.4 lbs). Its talk time was 35 minutes and it used to take nearly 10 hours to recharge.

• Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen (childhood friends) on this day in 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.
• Microsoft is best known for Windows OS, MS Office, Xbox, Bing, and MS Azure, etc.
• In 2020 Fortune 500 rankings, Microsoft stood at 21st position.
• It is one of the world’s leading software company alongside Google, Amazon, Apple, and Meta.

• Charles Heston, American actor and political activist, died on this day at the age of 84 in 2008 in Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
• During 60 years of film career, he acted in almost 100 movies. He won Oscar for his performance in Ben-Hur released in 1959.
• He played crucial roles in many popular movies like The Ten Commandments (1956), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Planet of the Apes (1968), and so on. He strongly supported civil rights movements.
• He retired from films in 2002 due to Alzheimer’s disease.

• Robert Edwin Peary, American explorer and U.S. Navy officer successfully made the first expedition to the North Pole on this day in 1909.
• He went on expeditions several times to arctic pole during his life time. He retired from the U.S. Navy in 1911.
• All his adventures and expeditions were published and were widely popular as:

• The Great Ice : Published in 1898.

• The North Pole : Published in 1910.

• The Secrets of Polar Travel : Published in 1917.

• The robotic spacecraft “Mars Odyssey” was launched by NASA on this day in 2001 from Cape Carnival Air Force Station in Florida. It was made by Lockheed Martin Corporation, headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.
• It was successfully entered the Mars orbit on October 24, 2001. It is still in operation and after 20 successful years orbiting around the Mars.

• Margaret Thatcher, Europe’s first woman prime minister, died suffering a stroke, at the age of 87, on this day in 2013 in London, England.
• After Winston Churchill, she was the most popular British politician.
• She won three successive elections as PM from 1979 to 1990.
• With her uncompromising functioning style she earned a nickname as ‘The Iron Lady’.

• U.S.-led forces captured Baghdad ending 24-year Saddam’s rule on this day in 2003.
• The Iraq war started on March 20, 2003 and ran for over 8 years. It ended on December 15, 2011.
• In Operation Red Dawn, Saddam Hussein was captured by the United States Army’s 4th infantry Division on December 13, 2003 on a farm near Tikrit.

• On this day in 1912, RMS Titanic, a British passenger cruise ship made her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York, U.S. with passengers more than 2,000 and more than 800 crew aboard.
• It struck an iceberg on April 15, 1912 and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean. More than 1500 people died in the deadliest disaster.

• Bananas were displayed for sale for the first time in London by Thomas Johnson in his shop on this day in 1633 almost four centuries ago.
• Thomas Johnson was a botanist, herbalist, royalist and a merchant. He put bananas on display in his shop window called Holborn on Snow Hill in London. Snow Hill’s today’s name is Holborn. He is called “The father of British field botany”.
• He published Herball in 1633, a revised and edited version of John Gerard’s botanical encyclopedia.

• Idi Amin, the third president of Uganda and military dictator, was forced to flee from the country on this day in 1979 by Tanzanian-led forces.
• His rule of Uganda was remarked as total mismanagement of systems including abuse of human rights, extrajudicial killings, political repression, corruption, etc.
• There were killings of people between 100,000 to 500, 000 estimated in his rule.
• Idi Amin seized power on January 25, 1971 from Milton Obete, Uganda’s 2nd president in a military coup as the chief of the armed forces.
• Amin died on July 19, 2003 in exile in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

• Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut, travelled in Vostok I and became the first human entered into outer space on this day in 1961. After this space journey,
• Gagarin became a celebrity worldwide. He spent 108 minutes (1 hour and 48 minutes) time in space before returning to Earth in Kazakhstan.
• He served Soviet Air Force as a pilot with the rank of lieutenant before his selection to Soviet space program.

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), a home of renowned collections, was founded on this day in 1870 at Fifth Avenue in New York, U.S. by the grant of The New York State Legislature.
• The museum consists of collections of about 2 million classical antiquities from around the world including art, musical instruments, costumes, accessories, weapons and armour displayed in galleries. The Met started Digital Media Department in 2013.

• Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a play at Ford’s theatre in Washington DC by John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor, on this day in 1865 and died the next day at the age of 56.
• He was successful in uniting nation during the American Civil War and succeeded in modernizing the U.S. economy.
• Lincoln is honored as one of the greatest presidents of America. He outlawed slavery by promoting the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

• Leonardo da Vinci, Italian artist, Engineer, scientist and polymath, was born on this day in 1452 in Vinci, Italy. His full name was Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci.
• He was one of the greatest painters in history and regarded as the founder of the High Renaissance. He created many master pieces in Western paintings, the best is the Mona Lisa and credited often as world’s most famous painting.
• He died at the age of 67 on May 2, 1519 possibly of a stroke in Clos-Luce, France.

• Jules Hardouin-Mansart, famous French Architect, was born on this day in 1646 in Paris.
• His major works were Palace des Victories, Place Vendome, Les Invalides (the domed chapel), and the Grand Trianon of the great Palace of Versailles.
• His architectural style was famous as the Louis XIV style or French Baroque Architecture (French Classicism). He designed many of the interiors of Versailles collaborating with the interior designer Charles Le Brun.

• Benjamin Franklin, an American polymath, died on this day in 1790 at the age of 84 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
• He is often regarded as a writer, scientist, inventor, politician, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and philosopher and honored as one the Founding Fathers of the U.S.
• He created many (volunteer) civic organizations such as Philadelphia’s first fire department, the Library Company and the University of Pennsylvania.
• He campaigned for colonial unity of America and earned the title of ‘The First American’.

• Albert Einstein, German-American physicist and widely-known as one of the greatest physicists of all time, died on this day in 1955 at the age of 76 in Princeton, New Jersey.
• He was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany. His name usually attributes intellectual genius.
• His major inventions are relativity theory which involves the world’s most famous formula E = mc2 of mass-energy equation and discovery of photoelectric effect.
• He got Noble prize for his services to physics in 1921. His name virtually influences all modern physicists.

• On this day in 1975, Aryabhata, India’s first indigenously built satellite, was launched from Kapustin Yar (a rocket-launch station) in Astrakhan Oblast, Russia.
• The 360 kilograms (790 lbs.) weighed-satellite was built by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) with a power consumption of 46 watts and launched from Russian space station.
• Aryabhata, the name given to it, stands for a famous Indian Astronomer and mathematician, Aryabhata or Aryabhata I of Gupta era (roughly existed from about 400 CE to 600 CE – which is renowned as ‘The Classical Age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy). His famous works are ‘the Aryabhatiya and the Arya-Siddhanta’.

• Japan’s modern postal savings system has the largest share of personal savings in the world.
• Japan’s first postal service began on this day in 1871. It was operated by the government between Tokyo and Kyoto, and Kyoto and Osaka.
• It is the largest employment provider in Japan having about 400,000 employees and the network of more than 24,000 post offices throughout Japan.
• Japan government released special post cards commemorating 50th anniversary of Japan’s postal service in the year 1921 pictured with postmen on horseback.

• James Starley, an inventor and the father of the bicycle industry, was born on this day in 1830 in Albourne, Sussex, England.
• He was one of the successful builders of innovative bicycles and tricycles.
• His valuable inventions were differential gear system and an accurate chain drive for bicycles. He took patent for his invention – differential gear in 1877. His differential gear system is now a must-part in every car’s back axle.

• The Paris Agreement on climate change was signed by 175 parties (174 countries and the European Union) on this day in 2016.
• This Agreement is also known as Paris Accords or Paris Climate Accords. It was effective from November 4, 2016. The EU and 192 countries acceded to the agreement to control and spread of the concentrations of greenhouse gas globally.
• The United States and China where global emissions stand at 40% also confirmed to sign the agreement on April 1, 2016.

• The first YouTube video titled “Me at the Zoo” was uploaded to its site by its cofounder Jawed Karim on this day in 2005. He shot the video standing in front of elephants at San Diego Zoo in California, U.S.
• Till today with 90 million views it is the only video on Karim’s YouTube channel. It was shot by his friend Yakov Lapitsky using Karim’s camera. Media such as
• BuzzFeed News ranked this video among the 20 most important online videos of all time.

• U.S. President John Adams approved the Library of Congress (LC), a research library to serve the Congress, on this day in 1800. It is the de facto national library of the United States of America.
• It is now one of the largest libraries with 171 million items in the world with universal collections in more than 450 languages of the world.
• The primary function of the library is to research enquiries made by the Congress members. It is also open to the public for research.

• Lockheed Martin, Lockheed Missile and Space Company (LMSC), launched Hubble Space Telescope (HST), one of the NASA’s great and largest observatories, on this day in 1990 under the headship of NASA from Kennedy launch site.
• It is named after Edwin Powell Hubble, an American astronomer, famous for extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology. Its diameter is 2.4 m (7 feet 10 inch) having a focal length of 57.6 m (189 feet). It gave many breakthroughs in astrophysics helping in determining the rate of the universe.
• The mission HST is still ongoing and its duration is said to be 31 years, 11 months, 9 days.

• Chernobyl nuclear disaster took place on this day in 1986 in Ukraine (part of USSR in those days). Now it is known as Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine.
• The accident occurred during a safety test of a reactor’s steam turbine. It is still considered the worst nuclear accident taking into account the losses of life, casualties and assets.
• In addition to the deaths (estimated about 100) at the time its radiation effects have continued over subsequent decades.
• The USSR contained the spread of radioactive contamination by building the protective shelter named Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Sarcophagus by the end of 1986.

• The four-decked wood-made Sultana SS steamship exploded and sank on Mississippi River seven miles (11.27 km) away from Memphis, Tennessee on this day in 1865.
• It was launched on January 3, 1863.
• More than two boilers exploded thereby causing enormous explosion tearing through the crowded decks above and completely destroyed the pilot cabin.
• The ship was overcrowded of about 2000 plus people including the crew. About 1800 were killed in the disaster. Many of them were prisoners on parole from POW camp. Rescue teams saved many passengers.

• iTunes Store, a software music store from Apple, was launched on this day in 2003. It can be worked on both mac and Windows operating systems. At launch, 200,000 songs were available. More than one million songs bought in the first week.
• It has an iTunes Store comprising a media player, library, mobile device management utility and the app which facilitates users to purchase and download music from the internet.

• One of the powerful and deadliest tropical cyclones struck Bangladesh on this day with winds of around 250 km/h (155 mph) and killed around 139,000 people in 1991.
• It made about 10 million people homeless. The damage estimated in those days was about US$1.7 billion. It actually formed in Bay of Bengal on April 24 and strengthened on April 28.
• It was recorded as the fourth deadliest tropical cyclone. Affected areas by this super cyclone were Bangladesh, North-eastern India, Myanmar, and Yunnan in China.

• George Washington took his oath as the first president of United States of America on this day in 1789 standing on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York and assumed in office.
• After two months of the beginning of the first four-year term of George Washington as president, this inauguration (oath) was administered by Robert Livingston, Chancellor of New York, and the new government of U.S. officially established as per the 1787 constitution.
• John Adams was elected as the 1st Vice-President of America.
• The senate elected John Langdon as pro tem president on April 6, 1789, before counting the electoral votes under the supervision of the speaker Frederick Muhlenberg.

History

Health-Fitness

General Knowledge

Edu Topics

Facts-Factoids

Science

Practical English

Ancient & Epic World

Myths-Mysteries

Lore Tales

Go to