May 2, 2012 1519 – Artist Leonardo da Vinci died 1536 – Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII of England, was imprisoned in the Tower of London 1945 – The Soviet Union announced the fall of Berlin and the Allies announced the surrender of Nazi troops in Italy and parts of Austria 1994 [...]

May 1, 2012 1786 – Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro premieres in Vienna 1926 – Ford Motor Company becomes one of the first companies in America to adopt a five-day, 40-hour week for workers in its automotive factories 1931 – Empire State Building dedicated by Herbert Hoover 1958 – Eisenhower proclaims Law Day 1963 – [...]

April 30, 2012 1789 – George Washington gives first presidential inaugural address 1803 – Louisiana Purchase concluded 1939 – New York World’s Fair opens 1945 – Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his underground bunker 1948 – Original Land Rover debuts at auto show 1997 – episode of the ABC sitcom Ellen, (played by Ellen DeGeneres) [...]

April 27, 2012 4977 B.C. – The universe was created, according to German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, but he was off by about 13.7 billion years 1296 – The Battle of Dunbar; England defeated Scotland 1682 – Peter the Great was declared Tsar of Russia 1995 – Actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed when he [...]

April 26, 2012 1478 – The Pazzi family’s plot to overthrow the Medici in Florence failed 1954 – Studio 54 opened in NYC 1954 – Polio vaccine trials began in the Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia 1986 – The world’s worst nuclear accident to date occurs at the Chernobyl nuclear plant near Kiev [...]

April 24, 2012 1800 – Library of Congress established 1863 – The Union army issues General Orders No. 100, which provided a code of conduct for Federal soldiers and officers when dealing with Confederate prisoners and civilians. 1922 – Forensic evidence is introduced in Australia, 1922 1953 – Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, the British leader [...]

April 23, 2012 1014 – Brian Boru, the high king of Ireland, is assassinated by a group of retreating Norsemen shortly after his Irish forces defeated them 1564 – William Shakespeare born 1778 – American Revolution: John Paul Jones burns Whitehaven, England 1967 – Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is killed when his parachute fails to [...]

April 19, 2012 1775 – The American Revolution begins 1861 – Baltimoreans attack Union troops 1897 – First Boston Marathon held 1902 – Earthquake rocks Guatemala 1964 – Mario Andretti competes in first Indy car event 1989 – Central Park jogger attack shocks New York City 2012 – Dick Clark died of a heart attack [...]

April 17, 2012 1790 – Benjamin Franklin dies 1850 – Tambora volcano eruption in Indonesia kills 80,000 1945 – U.S. commandeers over half a ton of uranium at Strassfut, Germany, in an effort to prevent the Russians from developing an A-bomb. 1964 – Ford Mustang debuts at World’s Fair 1970 – Apollo 13 returns to [...]

April 13, 2012 1360 – Hail kills English troops 1745 – Thomas Jefferson is born 1919 – The Amritsar Massacre 1945 – Hitler bluffs from bunker as Russians advance and atrocities continue 1970 – Apollo 13 oxygen tank explodes 1990 – Soviets admit to Katyn Massacre 1997 – Tiger Woods wins his first Masters 2012 [...]