Events

Up to 1900 
 428 - Nestorius becomes Patriarch of Constantinople.
 837 - Closest approach between Halley's Comet and Earth.
 879 - Louis III and Carloman II become joint Kings of the West Franks.
 1500 - Ludovico Sforza is captured by the Swiss troops at Novara.
 1606 - The Virginia Company of London is established by royal charter with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America.
 1710 - The Statute of Anne, the first law against copyright, enters  into force in Great Britain.
 1741 – Prussia defeats Austria in the Battle of Mollwitz.
 1809 - Napoleonic Wars: The War of the Fifth Coalition starts, when forces of the Austrian Empire invade Bavaria.
 1815 – Mount Tambora eruption covers several islands with ash in Indonesia.
 1816 – The U.S. government approved the creation of a Second Bank of the United States.
 1821 - Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople is hanged by the Ottoman Empire.
 1849 – Walter Hunt receives a patent for the safety pin.
 1864 - Maximilian of Habsburg is proclaimed Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, during the French intervention in Mexico.
 1865 – American Civil War: A day after his surrender to Union forces, Confederate General Robert E. Lee addresses his troops for the last time.
 1874 - The first Arbor Day is celebrated in Nebraska.
 1887 - Pope Leo XIII, on Easter Sunday, authorizes the creation of The Catholic University of America.
 1896 - Spyridon Louis wins the first marathon of the modern Olympic Games.

1901  2000 
 1906 – The Four Million, O. Henry's second short story collection, is published.
 1912 – The RMS Titanic leaves port in Southampton, England.
 1916 – The Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA) is created in New York City by 82 charter members.
 1919 – Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata is ambushed and shot dead by government forces in Morelos.
 1933 – New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps is created.
 1938 – Édouard Daladier becomes Prime Minister of France
 1939 – Dr. I.Q., the Mental Banker debuts.
 1940 - Katyn massacre: Mass execution of 40,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia is approved and signed by Joseph Stalin.
 1941 – World War II: The Axis Powers in Europe establish the Independent State of Croatia from occupied Yugoslavia with Ante Pavelić's Ustase fascist insurgents in power.
 1944 – Henry Ford II is named executive vice president of Ford Motor Company.
 1953 – The House of Wax opens at New York City's Paramount Theater (it was the first color feature in 3-D).
 1957 – The Suez Canal is reopened for all shipping after being closed for three months.
 1959 – Akihito, future Emperor of Japan, weds Michiko (née Michiko Shoda), a commoner.
 1963 – The submarine USS Thresher is lost at sea, with all hands (129 officers, crewmen and civilian technicians)
 1968 – Shipwreck of the Wahine outside Wellington harbour.
 1970 – Paul McCartney announces that The Beatles have broken up.
 1970 – Vietnam War: 48 percent of the Americans polled in a Gallup Poll approve of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon's Vietnam policy, while 41 percent disapprove.
 1971 – Cold War: In an attempt to thaw relations with the United States, the People's Republic of China host the U.S. table tennis team for a weeklong visit.
 1972 – 20 days after he was kidnapped in Buenos Aires, Oberdan Sallustro is executed by communist guerrillas.
 1972 – Vietnam War: For the first time since November 1967 American B-52 bombers reportedly begin bombing North Vietnam.
 1973 – A British Vanguard turboprop crashes during a snowstorm at Basel, Switzerland killing 104.
 1979 – On the day known to meteorologists as "terrible Tuesday", a tornado hits in Wichita Falls, Texas killing 42 people. (see Wichita Falls, Texas Tornado).
 1988 – The comic strip FoxTrot débuts.
 1991 - Italian ferry Moby Prince collides with an oil tanker in dense fog off Livorno, Tuscany, killing 140 people.
 1991 - A rare tropical storm develops in the South Atlantic Ocean near Angola.
 1992 – The Maraghar Massacre, killing of ethnic Armenian civil population of the village Maraghar by Azerbaijani troops during the Nagorno-Karabakh War.
 1998 – The Belfast Agreement is signed.

From 2001 
 2006 – In a close election, Romano Prodi is elected Prime Minister of Italy, succeeding Silvio Berlusconi, who later regains this position, in 2008.
 2009 - President of Fiji Josefa Iloilo announces he will suspend the constitution and assume all of the governance of the country.
 2010 – A plane crash in Smolensk, western Russia, kills 96 people. Many of them were very important in Poland, including President Lech Kaczynski. They were on their way to a memorial service to commemorate 70 years since the Katyn massacre.
 2015 - A bus and truck collide in southern Morocco, killing 33 people, including schoolchildren.
 2016 - The Kollam temple fire in Kerala, Southern India, kills over 100 people.
 2019 - Scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope Project announce the first-ever image of a black hole, at the centre of the M87 Galaxy.
 2019 - Fossil fragments found in the Callao Cave on the Philippines' island of Luzon reveal the existence of the Homo luzonensis species of human.

Births

Up to 1900 
 401 - Theodosius II, Roman Emperor (d. 450)
 1389 – Cosimo de' Medici, ruler of Florence (d. 1464)
 1512 – James V of Scotland (exact date uncertain) (d. 1542)
 1583 – Hugo Grotius, jurist (d. 1645)
 1651 - Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, German mathematician, physicist and historian (d. 1708)
 1707 - Michel Corrette, French organist, composer, writer (d. 1795)
 1713 - John Whitehurst, English clockmaker and scientist (d. 1788)
 1735 - Button Gwinnett, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence (d. 1777)
 1755 – Samuel Hahnemann, German physician, originator of homeopathy (d. 1843)
 1762 - Giovanni Aldini, Italian physicist (d. 1834)
 1766 - John Leslie, Scottish physicist (d. 1832)
 1778 – William Hazlitt, English writer (d. 1830)
 1783 – Hortense de Beauharnais, queen of Holland as wife of Louis Bonaparte (d. 1837)
 1794 – Matthew Perry, American commodore (d. 1858)
 1796 - James Bowie, American pioneer and soldier (d. 1836)
 1801 - Paul Devaux, Belgian politician (d. 1880)
 1817 - Konstantin Aksakov, Russian writer (d. 1860)
 1827 - Lew Wallace, American lawyer, general and politician (d. 1905)
 1829 – William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army (d. 1912)
 1847 – Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-American journalist and publisher (d. 1911)
 1864 - Eugen d'Albert, Scottish-born German composer (d. 1932)
 1865 - Jack Miner, Canadian conservationist (d. 1944)
 1867 – George William Russell, Irish nationalist (d. 1935)
 1868 – George Arliss, British actor (d. 1946)
 1870 (O.S.) - Vladimir Lenin, Premier of the Soviet Union (d. 1924)
 1873 – Kyösti Kallio, President of Finland (d. 1940)
 1877 - Alfred Kubin, American expressionist illustrator and writer (d. 1959)
 1877 - Princess Maria Cristina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (d. 1947)
 1879 - Bernhard Gregory, Baltic German chess player (d. 1939)
 1880 – Mohammed Nadir Shah, King of Afghanistan (d. 1933)
 1880 – Montague Summers, English writer (d. 1948)
 1882 – Frances Perkins, American politician (d. 1965)
 1887 – Bernardo Houssay, Argentinian doctor, won the 1947 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1971)
 1892 - Victor de Sabata, Italian conductor and composer (d. 1967)
 1894 – Shri Ghanshyam Das Birla, Indian industrialist, Gandhian, and educator (d. 1983)
 1897 - Prafulla Chandra Sen, Indian politician, Chief Minister of West Bengal (d. 1990)
 1899 – Vladimir Nabokov, Russian writer (d. 1977)

1901  2000 
 1901 - Alexander Ireland, Scottish boxer (d. 1966)
 1903 - Clare Turlay Newberry, American illustrator and author (d. 1970)
 1906 - Steve Anderson, American hurdler (d. 1988)
 1910 – Eddy Duchin, musician (d. 1951)
 1911 - Maurice Schumann, French journalist and politician (d. 1998)
 1912 - Boris Kidric, 1st Prime Minister of Slovenia (d. 1953)
 1913 – Stefan Heym, German writer (d. 2001)
 1915 – Harry Morgan, American actor (d. 2011)
 1915 - Leo Vroman, Dutch-American hematologist, poet and illustrator (d. 2014)
 1917 – Robert Burns Woodward, American chemist (d. 1979)
 1919 - John Houbolt, American aerospace engineer (d. 2014)
 1921 – Chuck Connors, American actor and baseball player (d. 1992)
 1921 - Jake Warren, Canadian soldier and diplomat (d. 2008)
 1921 – Sheb Wooley, American actor and singer (d. 2003)
 1924 – Kenneth Noland, American painter (d. 2010)
 1926 – Junior Samples, American country musician (d. 1983)
 1926 - Jacques Castérède, French composer and pianist (d. 2014)
 1927 – Marshall Warren Nirenberg, American biochemist, won the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2010)
 1929 – Max von Sydow, Swedish actor
 1930 – Claude Bolling, French jazz composer and pianist
 1930 - Spede Pasanen, Finnish comedian (d. 2001)
 1930 - Ray Blanton, Governor of Tennessee (d. 1996)
 1931 – Luis Cabral, 1st President of Guinea-Bissau (d. 2009)
 1931 - René Follet, Belgian comic artist
 1932 – Omar Sharif, Egyptian actor (d. 2015)
 1932 - Mae Faggs, American athlete (d. 2000)
 1934 – David Halberstam, American writer (d. 2007)
 1934 – Vladimir Posner, Soviet journalist
 1935 – Nicola Cabibbo, Italian physicist (d. 2010)
 1936 – John Madden, American football coach and broadcaster
 1937 – Bella Akhmadulina, Russian poet (d. 2010)
 1938 – Don Meredith, American football player and broadcaster (d. 2010)
 1938 - Frans van der Lugt, Dutch priest (d. 2014)
 1939 - Penny Vincenzi, English writer (d. 2018)
 1939 - Rocky Valance, Welsh singer
 1940 - Gloria Hunniford, Northern Irish television and radio presenter
 1941 – Paul Theroux, American writer
 1943 – Andrzej Badeński, Polish athlete
 1946 – David Angell, American television producer (d. 2001)
 1946 - Bob Watson, American baseball player and executive
 1947 – Bunny Wailer, Jamaican musician
 1950 – Ken Griffey, Sr., American Major League Baseball player
 1950 – Eddie Hazel, American guitarist (P-Funk and The Temptations) (d. 1992)

1951  1975 
 1952 - Narayan Rane, Indian politician, 16th Chief Minister of Maharashtra 
 1952 – Steven Seagal, American actor
 1954 – Peter MacNicol, American actor
 1954 - Paul Bearer, American professional wrestler and manager (d. 2013)
 1955 – Lesley Garrett, British soprano
 1957 - James D. Hudnall, American comic book writer (d. 2019)
 1958 – Yefim Bronfman, Russian pianist
 1958 – Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, music producer, musician, and movie producer
 1959 - Stanislaw Tillich, German politician, former Prime Minister of Saxony
 1960 – Brian Setzer, musician
 1960 – Katrina Leskanich, American singer (Katrina and the Waves)
 1960 – Afrika Bambaataa, American musician and activist
 1961 - Nicky Campbell, Scottish television and radio presenter
 1962 – Steve Tasker, American football player
 1963 – Doris Leuthard, Swiss politician
 1963 – Mark Oliver Everett, American musician
 1965 – Tim Alexander, American musician
 1966 - Steve Claridge, English footballer, manager and sportscaster
 1968 – Orlando Jones, American actor, comedian
 1970 – Kenny Lattimore, American singer
 1970 - Q-Tip, American rapper and producer
 1972 - Ed Byrne, Irish comedian
 1973 – Roberto Carlos, Brazilian footballer
 1973 - Aidan Moffat, British musician
 1974 - Eric Greitens, American politician, 56th Governor of Missouri

From 1976 
 1979 – Rachel Corrie, American activist, member of the International Solidarity Movement (d. 2003)
 1979 – Tsuyoshi Domoto, Japanese artist
 1979 – Sophie Ellis-Bextor, English singer
 1979 – Shemekia Copeland, American singer
 1980 – Charlie Hunnam, actor
 1981 – Liz McClarnon, English singer (Atomic Kitten)
 1981 - Gretchen Bleiler, American snowboarder
 1981 - Alexei Semenov, Russian ice hockey player
 1982 - Chyler Leigh, American actress, singer and model
 1983 – Ryan Merriman, American actor
 1983 - Hannes Sigurdsson, Icelandic footballer
 1984 - Gonzalo Javier Rodriguez, Argentine footballer
 1984 – Mandy Moore, American singer and actress
 1985 - Willo Flood, Irish footballer
 1986 – Vincent Kompany, Belgian footballer
 1986 - Tore Reginiussen, Norwegian footballer
 1987 – Hayley Westenra, New Zealand singer
 1987 - Shay Mitchell, Canadian actress
 1988 – Haley Joel Osment, American actor
 1989 - Jenny Alm, Swedish handball player
 1989 - Thomas Heurtel, French basketball player
 1990 – Alex Pettyfer, English actor
 1991 – Amanda Michalka, American actress and singer
 1991 - Royce White, American basketball player
 1992 - Sadio Mané, Senegalese footballer
 1992 - Daisy Ridley, English actress
 1994 - Nerlens Noel, American basketball player
 1996 - Emily Rose Everhard, American actress
 1996 - Loïc Nottet, Belgian singer
 2007 – Princess Ariane of the Netherlands

Deaths

Up to 1950 
 879 – Louis the Stammerer, king of the West Franks (b. 846)
 948 - Hugh of Italy
 1216 - Eric X of Sweden (b. 1180)
 1533 – Frederick I of Denmark (b. 1471)
 1585 – Pope Gregory XIII (b. 1502)
 1599 – Gabrielle d'Estrée, mistress of King Henry IV of France (b. 1571)
 1646 - Santino Solari, Swiss architect and sculptor (b. 1576)
 1756 - Giacomo Antonio Perti, Italian composer (b. 1661)
 1786 - John Byron, English admiral and politician (b. 1723)
 1813 – Joseph-Louis Lagrange, mathematician (b. 1736)
 1821 - Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople (b. 1746)
 1823 - Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Austrian philosopher (b. 1757)
 1862 – W.H.L. Wallace, Union brigadier general (b. 1821)
 1871 - Lucio Norberto Mansilla, Argentine general and politician (b. 1789)
 1882 – Dante Gabriel Rossetti, British poet, painter (b. 1828)
 1904 - Isabella II of Spain (b. 1830)
 1909 – Algernon Charles Swinburne, English poet (b. 1909)
 1919 – Emiliano Zapata, Mexican revolutionary (b. 1879)
 1920 - Moritz Cantor, German mathematician (b. 1829)
 1931 – Khalil Gibran, Lebanese poet and painter (b. 1883)
 1938 - Joe "King" Oliver, American jazz cornet player and bandleader (b. 1885)
 1939 – Alfredo Panzini, Italian writer (b. 1863)
 1945 – Charles Nordhoff, writer (b. 1887)

1951  2000 
 1954 – Auguste Lumière, French movie pioneer (b. 1862)
 1955 - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French priest and philosopher (b. 1881)
 1958 - Chuck Willis, American singer-songwriter (b. 1928)
 1960 - André Berthomieu, French director and screenwriter (b. 1903) 
 1962 – Michael Curtiz, director (b. 1886)
 1962 – Stuart Sutcliffe, British musician (The Beatles) (b. 1940)
 1965 – Linda Darnell, actress (b. 1923)
 1966 – Evelyn Waugh, English writer (b. 1903)
 1968 – Gustavs Celmins, Latvian politician (b. 1899)
 1969 – Harley J. Earl, American automobile designer
 1975 – Josephine Baker, American dancer (b. 1906)
 1975 – Marjorie Main, actress (b. 1890)
 1979 – Nino Rota, Italian composer (b. 1911)
 1980 – Kay Medford, American actress (b. 1914)
 1986 – Linda Creed, American songwriter (b. 1948)
 1991 – Kevin Peter Hall, American actor (b. 1955)
 1991 – Natalie Schafer, American actress (b. 1900)
 1992 – Sam Kinison, American comedian (b. 1953)
 1992 - Peter D. Mitchell, British biochemist (b. 1920)
 1993 – Chris Hani, South African activist (b. 1942)
 1994 – Sam B. Hall, American politician (b. 1924)
 1995 – Morarji Desai, Indian activist and politician, Prime Minister of India (b. 1896)
 1995 – Guenther Guillaume, German spy (b. 1927)
 1997 – Michael Dorris, American writer (b. 1945)
 1998 - Archbishop Seraphim of Athens (b. 1913)
 1999 – Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat, biochemist (b. 1910)
 2000 – Peter Jones, comedian and scriptwriter (b. 1920)
 2000 – Larry Linville, American actor (b. 1939)

2001  2010 
 2001 – Willie Stargell, American baseball player (b. 1940)
 2002 – Yuji Hyakutake, Japanese astronomer (b. 1950)
 2003 – Little Eva, American singer (b. 1943)
 2007 - Dakota Staton, American singer (b. 1930)
 2010 – Dixie Carter, American actress (b. 1939)
 2010 - Deaths in the 2010 Polish Tu-154 plane crash:
Ryszard Kaczorowski, Polish politician (b. 1919)
Lech Kaczynski, President of Poland (b. 1949)
Maria Kaczynska, First Lady of Poland (b. 1942)
Anna Walentynowicz, Polish activist (b. 1929)
Janusz Zakrzenski, Polish actor (b. 1936)
Jerzy Szmajdzinski, Polish politician (b. 1952)

From 2011 
 2012 - Raymond Aubrac, French resistance activist (b. 1914)
 2013 - Robert Edwards, British Nobel Prize-winning physiologist and IVF pioneer (b. 1925)
 2014 - Dominique Baudis, French journalist and politician (b. 1947)
 2014 - Jim Flaherty, Canadian politician (b. 1949)
 2014 - Sue Townsend, English writer (b. 1946)
 2014 - Joe Dini, American politician (b. 1929)
 2014 - Justin Marie Bomboko, Congolese politician (b. 1928)
 2014 - Anatoly Sukhorukov, Russian physicist (b. 1935)
 2015 - Richie Benaud, Australian cricketer and commentator (b. 1930)
 2015 - Peter Walsh, Australian politician (b. 1935)
 2015 - Ray Graves, American football player and coach (b. 1918)
 2015 - Jin Youzhi, Chinese royal (b. 1918)
 2015 - Judith Malina, German-American actress (b. 1926)
 2015 - Jim Mutscheller, American football player (b. 1930)
 2016 - Howard Marks, British drug smuggler and author (b. 1945)
 2016 - Louis Gladstone, American politician (b. 1927)
 2017 - Arnold Clark, Scottish businessman (b. 1927)
 2017 - J. Geils, American guitarist (b. 1946)
 2017 - Linda Hopkins, American actress and singer (b. 1924)
 2017 - Larry Sharpe, American professional wrestler (b. 1951)
 2017 - Bab Christensen, Norwegian actress (b. 1928)
 2017 - Dennis F. Kinlaw, American academic (b. 1922)
 2017 - Kirill Kovaldzhi, Russian author, poet and critic (b. 1929)
 2018 - F'Murr, French comic artist (b. 1946)
 2018 - John Lambie, Scottish footballer (b. 1941)
 2018 - Li Yaowen, Chinese general and politician (b. 1918) 
 2019 - Werner Bardenhewer, German priest and humanitarian (b. 1929)
 2019 - Earl Thomas Conley, American country singer-songwriter (b. 1941)
 2019 - Irwin L. Jacobs, American investor and businessman (b. 1941)
 2019 - Estrella Zeledón Lizano, First Lady of Costa Rica (b. 1929)

Days of the year