This Week In History

USPA NEWS - Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated, Titanic’s maiden voyage, Twinkies are invented, and the Beatles split up. All this and so much more happened this week in history.

April 4 (1896) Announcement of gold discovery in Yukon. (1917) US Senate agrees (82-6) to participate in WWI. (1945) World War II: Soviet forces liberate Hungary from German occupation, establishing their own communist satellite state: This was celebrated as Liberation Day until 1989. (1945) The Holocaust: US forces liberate the Ohrdruf concentration camp in Germany, the first such camp to be liberated by the US Army. (1968) US civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. (1968) Riots break out in over 100 cities in the United States following the assassination of African-American civil activist Martin Luther King Jr. (1969) Haskell Karp received the first temporary artificial heart, implanted by surgeon Denton Cooley at Texas Heart Institute in Houston. (1972) First electric power plant fueled by garbage begins operating. (1975) 138 killed as a USAF plane evacuating Vietnamese orphans crashes on approach during an emergency landing at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam. (2017) Pink Star diamond sets world record price of $71 million for a gem at an auction in Hong Kong.

April 5 (1722) Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen is the first European to discover Easter Island/Rapa Nui in the southeastern Pacific. (1906) Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates towns in the Naples province, killing more than 100 people. (1923) Firestone Tire and Rubber Company starts producing inflatable tires. (1936) Tupelo, Mississippi virtually annihilated by a tornado, 216 die. (1944) World War II: 270 inhabitants of the Greek town of Kleisoura are executed by the Germans. (1964) First driver-less trains run on London Underground. (1971) Mount Etna erupts in Sicily. (1971) US Lt. William Calley sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai Massacre. (1992) Serbian troops begin besieging Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, which would become the longest siege in modern warfare. (1999) Two Libyans suspected of bringing down Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 are handed over for eventual trial in the Netherlands.

April 6 (1889) George Eastman begins selling his Kodak flexible rolled film for the first time. (1906) World’s first animated cartoon is released, “Humorous Phases of Funny Faces” by J. Stuart Blackton. (1924) Four planes leave Seattle on first successful around-the-world flight. (1930) Hostess Twinkies invented by bakery executive James Dewar. (1938) Teflon invented by Roy J. Plunkett. (1945) Battle of Okinawa: Giant Japanese battleship Yamato heads to Okinawa with orders to beach herself and be destroyed defending the island. (1965) Intelsat 1 (“Early Bird”) first commercial geosynchronous communications satellite launched. (1974) 200,000 attend rock concert “California Jam” at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California. Line up includes Earth, Wind and Fire, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. (1994) Plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira is shot down by surface-to-air missiles, abruptly ending peace negotiations and sparking the Rwandan Genocide. Those responsible have never been identified. (2009) A 6.3 magnitude earthquake strikes near L’Aquila, Italy, killing at least 253.

April 7 (30) Scholar’s estimate for Jesus’ crucifixion by Roman troops in Jerusalem. (1805) Lewis and Clark Expedition leaves Fort Mandan (on the Missouri River near what is now Washburn, North Dakota), beginning their journey to the Pacific Ocean. (1923) First brain tumor operation under local anesthetic performed at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City, by Dr. K. Winfield Ney. (1927) Using phone lines, television is sent from Washington, D.C. to New York City. (1945) Battle of Okinawa: Massive kamikaze attack of around 110 Japanese aircraft damages three US battleships off Okinawa island. (1983) Oldest human skeleton, aged 80,000 years, discovered in Egypt. (1994) Vatican commemorates The Holocaust for the first time with an orchestral concert in the Sala Nervi. (2003) US troops capture Baghdad. Saddam Hussein’s regime falls two days later. (2020) China ends its lock-down of Wuhan, the city at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic after 76 days as the country reports no new deaths for the first time. (2021) Record breaking price of $3.25 million for a comic book as Action Comics #1, that introduced Superman for the first time, sells at auction.

April 8 (1820) The famous ancient Greek statue, Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Milos. (1879) Milk sold in glass bottles for the first time. (1893) The Critic reports that ice cream soda is America’s national drink. (1943) US President Franklin Roosevelt, in an attempt to check inflation, freezes wages and prices, prohibits workers from changing jobs unless the war effort would be aided, and bars rate increases to common carriers and public utilities. (1968) Gangsters Henry Hill and Jimmy Burke commit the Air France robbery, stealing $420,000 from cargo terminal at New York City’s JFK International Airport. (1973) There were 32 terrorist bombings in Cyprus. (2000) Nineteen US Marines are killed when a V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft crashes near Marana, Arizona. (2006) Shedden Massacre: The bodies of eight men, all shot to death, are found in a field in Ontario, Canada. The murders are soon linked to the Bandidos motorcycle gang. (2013) 163 people are killed and 50,000 are displaced after tribal violence erupts in Darfur, Sudan. (2021) Egyptian archaeologists announce their most important find since Tutankhamen's tomb – discovery of a lost “golden city” the 3,000 years old ancient city of Aten near Luxor.

April 9 (1768) John Hancock refuses to allow British customs agents to go below deck of his ship, considered by some to be the first act of physical resistance to British authority in the colonies. (1865) Confederate General Robert E. Lee and 26,765 troops surrender at Appomattox Court House to US Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant ending the Civil War in North Virginia. (1940) German cruiser Blucher torpedoed and capsizes in Oslofjord, 1,000 die. (1963) Winston Churchill becomes first honorary US citizen. (1969) First flight of Concorde 002, from Filton to Bristol. (1975) Twenty four Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development members sign an agreement to establish a $25 billion lending facility to provide assistance to industrial nations hurt by high oil prices. (1976) US and Russia agreed on size of nuclear tests for peaceful use. (1981) US submarine George Washington rams Japanese freighter Nisso Maru. (2002) Funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother at Westminster Abbey UK. More than a million people line the streets. (2013) Thirty seven people are killed and 850 are injured after a magnitude 6.1 earthquake strikes Iran.

April 10 (1815) Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies experiences a cataclysmic eruption, one of the most powerful in history, killing around 71,000 people, causes global volcanic winter. (1845) More than 1,000 buildings damaged by fire in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (1912) RMS Titanic sets sail from Southampton for her maiden, and final voyage. (1938) New York makes syphilis test mandatory in order to get a marriage license. (1963) USS Thresher, a nuclear powered submarine, sinks 220 miles east of Boston, killing 129 men, including 17 civilians. (1970) Paul McCartney officially announces the split of The Beatles. (1995) New York City bans smoking in all restaurants that seat 35 or more. (1996) Fastest wind speed ever recorded (not a tornado) 408 km/h, during tropical cyclone Olivia on Barrow Island, Australia. (2012) Apple Inc. claims a value of $600 billion making it the largest company by market capitalization in the world. (2019) New species of human announced named Homo luzonesis, three feet tall, remains dated 50-60,000 years old, found in cave on island of Luzon, Philippines.

Thank you for reading my article. These are merely my thoughts and insights based on the facts. I use only verified sources. No fake news here. I write about a variety of subjects, mainly things I want to research and know more about. You can check out my website – Small Village Life at smallvillagelife.com, where I share useful articles and news.

Wendy writes for the United States Press Agency and is a former columnist with the Fulton County Expositor, Wauseon, Ohio.