Category: Today

On April 26, 121, Marcus Aurelius was born in Rome. He would become emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 AD, and write “Meditations,” which remains revered as a literary monument to the Stoic philosophy.

On April 26, 1607, English colonists made landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.

On April 26, 1933, the Gestapo, the brutal secret police force of Nazi Germany, was established.

On April 26, 1937, during the market’s busiest hour in Guernica, Spain, the Nazi Luftwaffe began an unprovoked three-​hour attack aerial bombardment, which killed or wounded one-​third of the city’s 5,000 residents. The indiscriminate killing of civilians at Guernica became a symbol of fascist brutality.

On April 25, 1599, Oliver Cromwell, who would become Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, was born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.

On April 25, 1908, journalist Edward R. Murrow was born. Murrow became widely heard by listeners in the United States and Canada through his series of radio news broadcasts during World War II. Murrow produced a series of TV news reports that helped lead to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy, which was portrayed in the 2005 movie, “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

On April 25, 1961, Robert Noyce was granted a patent for an integrated circuit.

On April 24, 1916, an Easter Monday in Dublin, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret organization of nationalists led by Patrick Pearse, launched an armed uprising against British rule, known as the Easter Rebellion. Soon, the rebels controlled much of the city and proclaimed the independence of Ireland, which had been under the repressive thumb of the United Kingdom for centuries. However, British authorities launched a counteroffensive crushing the uprising in the next days. Nevertheless, the Easter Rebellion is considered a significant marker on the road to establishing an independent Irish republic. The British executed Pearse and 14 other nationalist leaders for their participation, though they were held up as martyrs by many in Ireland. 

On April 24, 1904, the Lithuanian press ban was lifted after almost 40 years in force. The ban was imposed in 1864 by administrative order after the failed January Uprising of 1863. The ban made it illegal to print, import, distribute, or possess any publications in the Latin alphabet within the Russian Empire. Tsarist authorities hoped to decrease Polish influence on Lithuanians and return them to their ancient historical ties with Russia.

On April 24, 1898, the U.S. Congress declared war on Spain, following the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor. The Spanish-​American War marked the first U.S. foreign intervention outside the Americas.

On April 23, 1954, Hank Aaron hit the first home run of his Major League Baseball career. Twenty years later, he would break Babe Ruth’s career home run mark of 714.

On April 23, 1968, students at New York City’s Columbia University held a demonstration to protest military research and the condemnation of part of the neighboring Morningside Heights section of Harlem to make way for a new student gymnasium. The protest escalated into a week-​long occupation of five campus buildings before police moved in. Some 712 students were arrested, and over 100 injured during the forcible eviction. After the university-​ordered police response, a student strike shut down the campus for the rest of the semester.

On April 22, 1898, U.S. Navy began a blockade of Cuban ports and the USS Nashville captured a Spanish merchant ship in the early days of the Spanish-​American War.

On April 22, 1889, at high noon, the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 began with roughly 50,000 people lined up for their piece of the available two million acres of land in what is today Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan, Oklahoma, and Payne counties in Oklahoma.

On April 22, 2004, Pat Tillman, the professional football star who left his lucrative career after 9 – 11 to join the U.S. Army Rangers, was killed in action in Afghanistan. The Pentagon would later determine that Tillman died from friendly fire.

On April 21, 1989, six days after the death of Hu Yaobang, the deposed reform-​minded leader of the Chinese Communist Party, some 100,000 Chinese students gathered at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to commemorate Hu and voice their discontent with China’s authoritative communist government. At an official memorial service for Hu Yaobang, held the next day in Tiananmen’s Great Hall of the People, student representatives carried a petition to the steps of the Great Hall, demanding to meet with Premier Li Peng. The Chinese government refused the meeting, leading to a general boycott of Chinese universities across the country and widespread calls for democratic reforms. Days later, on April 27, students from more than 40 universities marched to Tiananmen Square and were joined by workers, intellectuals, and civil servants. By mid-​May, more than a million people filled the square, the site of communist leader’s Mao Zedong’s proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.