April 28 in History

The Battle of Hormozdgan (also spelled Hormizdagan and Hormozgan) was the climactic battle between the Arsacid and the Sasanian dynasties that took place on 28 April 224. The Sasanian victory broke the power of the Parthian dynasty, effectively ending almost five centuries of Parthian rule in Iran, and marking the official start of the Sasanian era.

Constantius II was Roman emperor from 337 to 361. His reign saw constant warfare on the borders against the Sasanian Empire and Germanic peoples, while internally the Roman Empire went through repeated civil wars, court intrigues, and usurpations. His religious policies inflamed domestic conflicts that would continue after his death.

Conrad of Montferrat (c. 1146 – 28 April 1192) was an Italian nobleman, one of the major participants in the Third Crusade. He was the de facto King of Jerusalem (as Conrad I) by virtue of his marriage to Isabella I of Jerusalem from 24 November 1190, but officially elected only in 1192, days before his death. He was also the eighth Marquess of Montferrat from 1191. Conrad was the second son of William V of Montferrat and Judith of Babenberg. In his early career, he established himself as a skilled diplomat and general in the Byzantine Empire. After fighting on their behalf against Frederick Barbarossa, Conrad was awarded the title of Caesar by Isaac II Angelos. However, having previously sworn to take the cross, he left for the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187 shortly after the Battle of Hattin. Upon his arrival in Tyre, Conrad organized the city's defenses and successfully repelled Saladin's forces. When Guy of Lusignan, the king of Jerusalem by right of his wife Queen Sibylla, was released from captivity in 1189, Conrad refused to allow him to enter the city. He was convinced to join Guy at the Siege of Acre later that year. When Sibylla died of disease in 1190, Guy no longer had a claim to the throne, whose heiress was Sibylla's half-sister Isabella. The nobility consequently forced Isabella to annul her marriage to Humphrey IV of Toron so that she could marry Conrad instead. The succession of the kingdom would finally be settled in 1192, when Conrad was formally elected king. Just days later, however, Conrad would be killed by the Order of Assassins.

Nichiren (日蓮; Japanese pronunciation: [ɲi.tɕiꜜ.ɾeɴ, ɲiꜜ.tɕi.ɾeɴ], 16 February 1222 – 13 October 1282) was a Japanese Buddhist monk and philosopher of the Kamakura period. His teachings form the basis of Nichiren Buddhism, a unique branch of Japanese Mahayana Buddhism based on the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren declared that the Lotus Sutra alone contains the highest truth of Buddhism and that it is the only sutra suited for the Age of Dharma Decline. He insisted that the sovereign of Japan and its people should support only this form of Buddhism and eradicate all others, or they would face social collapse and environmental disasters. Nichiren advocated the faithful recitation of the title of the Lotus Sutra, Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō, as the only effective path to Buddhahood in this very life, a path which he saw as accessible to all people regardless of class, education or ability. Nichiren held that Shakyamuni and all other Buddhist deities were manifestations of the Original Eternal Buddha (本仏 Honbutsu) of the Lotus Sutra, which he equated with the Lotus Sutra itself and its title. He also declared that believers of the Lotus Sutra must propagate it even though this would lead to many difficulties and even persecution, which Nichiren understood as a way of "reading" the Lotus Sutra with one's very body. Nichiren believed that the spread of the Lotus Sutra teachings would lead to the creation of a Pure Land on earth. Nichiren was a prolific writer and his biography, temperament, and the evolution of his beliefs has been gleaned primarily from his writings. He claimed to be the reincarnation of bodhisattva Viśiṣṭacāritra (Jōgyō), and designated six senior disciples, which later led to much disagreement after his death. Nichiren's harsh critiques of the Buddhist establishment led to many persecutions against him and his followers. He was exiled twice and some of his followers were imprisoned or killed. After his death, Nichiren’s followers continued to grow, making it one of Japan's largest Buddhist traditions. He was posthumously bestowed the title Nichiren Dai-Bosatsu (日蓮大菩薩; Great Bodhisattva Nichiren) by the Emperor Go-Kōgon in 1358. The title Risshō Daishi (立正大師; Great Teacher of Correction) was also later conferred by the Emperor Taishō in 1922. Nichiren Buddhism today includes more than forty different officially registered organizations, some of which have significant international presence. These include traditional temple schools such as Nichiren-shū sects and Nichiren Shōshū, as well as modern lay movements such as Soka Gakkai, Risshō Kōsei Kai, Reiyūkai, Kenshōkai, Honmon Butsuryū-shū, Kempon Hokke, and Shōshinkai among many others. Each group has varying views of Nichiren's teachings, some being more exclusivist than the others. Some see Nichiren as being the Bodhisattva Viśiṣṭacāritra, while other sects claim that Nichiren was actually the Primordial or "True Buddha" (本仏, Honbutsu).

Öljeyitü Khan, born Temür, also known by his temple name as the Emperor Chengzong of Yuan, was the second emperor of the Yuan dynasty of China, ruling from 10 May 1294 to 10 February 1307. Apart from being the Emperor of China, he is considered as the sixth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, although it was only nominal due to the division of the empire. He was an able ruler of the Yuan dynasty, and his reign established the patterns of power for the next few decades.

The Battle of Cerignola was fought on 28 April 1503 between Spanish and French armies outside the town of Cerignola, Apulia, Kingdom of Naples (now in modern-day Italy), approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of Bari. The Spanish force under the command of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (El Gran Capitán) comprising around 9,000 men, including 2,000 Landsknecht pikemen, 1,000 arquebusiers and 20 cannons, defeated the French force of 9,000 men, mainly gendarme heavy cavalry and Swiss mercenary pikemen, with about 40 cannons, led by Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, who was killed during the battle. Cerignola was probably the first European battle to be won by small firearms, as the attacks by the French cavalry and Swiss pikemen were shattered by the fire of Spanish arquebusiers. It also demonstrated the renewed value of fortifications, with Córdoba employing a defensive ditch to maximize the effect of his battleplan. Military historian and British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery described it as the turning point where infantry finally displaced cavalry on the battlefield: "Gonzalo de Córdoba had raised the infantry soldier armed with a handgun to the status of the most important fighting man on the battlefield - a status he was to retain for over 400 years".

The University of Santo Tomas (UST; Filipino: Unibersidad ng Santo Tomás), officially the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines or colloquially as Ustê (pronounced [usˈtɛʔ]), is a private Catholic research university in Manila, Philippines. Founded on April 28, 1611, by Spanish friar Miguel de Benavides, third Archbishop of Manila, it has the oldest extant university charter in Asia and is one of the world's largest Catholic universities in terms of enrollment found on one campus. It is the main campus of the University of Santo Tomas System that is run by the Order of Preachers. UST was granted the title Royal by King Charles III of Spain in 1785. Pope Leo XIII made UST a pontifical university in 1902. Pope Pius XII bestowed the title of The Catholic University of the Philippines in 1947. The university houses the first and oldest engineering, law, medical, and pharmacy schools in the country. The main campus is the largest university in the city of Manila and is home to 22 degree-granting colleges, a parish church, and a teaching hospital. The National Museum of the Philippines declared four of the university's structures and the UST Baybayin Documents as National Cultural Treasures. The university offers programs in over 180 undergraduate and graduate specializations. It has 26 programs recognized by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) as Centers of Excellence and Centers of Development. It is awarded institutional accreditation by the CHED through the Federation of Accrediting Agencies of the Philippines (FAAP). The university has the highest number of Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities' Commission on Accreditation (PACUCOA)-accredited programs in the country, with 59. UST alumni and faculty include 30 Catholic saints, four presidents of the Philippines, 17 senators, nine chief justices, 22 national artists, a national scientist, and five billionaires. The athletic teams are the Growling Tigers, who are members of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines and have won the overall championships more than any other university.

The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It achieved a global scale, controlling vast portions of the Americas, Africa, various islands in Asia and Oceania, as well as territory in other parts of Europe. It was one of the most powerful empires of the early modern period, becoming known as "the empire on which the sun never sets". At its greatest extent in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the Spanish Empire covered 13.7 million square kilometres, making it one of the largest empires in history.

Pope Clement XII (Latin: Clemens XII; Italian: Clemente XII; 7 April 1652 – 6 February 1740), born Lorenzo Corsini, was head of the Catholic Church and leader of the Papal States from 12 July 1730 to his death in February 1740. Clement presided over the growth of a surplus in the papal finances. He thus became known for building the new façade of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, beginning construction of the Trevi Fountain, and the purchase of Cardinal Alessandro Albani's collection of antiquities for the papal gallery. In his 1738 bull In eminenti apostolatus, he provides the first public papal condemnation of Freemasonry.

The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent. For most of its existence, it comprised the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent Maratha states under the nominal leadership of the former and nominal loyalty to the Chhatrapatis who were successors of Shivaji.

Maryland is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States. It borders Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east, as well as with the Atlantic Ocean to its east, and the national capital and federal district of Washington, D.C. to the southwest. With a total area of 12,407 square miles (32,130 km2), Maryland is the ninth-smallest state by land area, and its population of 6.1 million ranks it the 19th-most populous state and the fifth-most densely populated. Maryland's capital city is Annapolis, and the state's most populous city is Baltimore.

The Mutiny on the Bounty occurred in the Pacific Ocean on 28 April 1789. Disaffected crewmen, led by acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, seized control of the Royal Navy merchant ship HMS Bounty from its captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, and set him and 18 loyalists adrift in the ship's open launch. The reasons behind the mutiny are still debated. Bounty had left England in 1787 on a mission to collect and transport breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies. A five-month layover in Tahiti, during which many of the men lived ashore and formed relationships with native Polynesians, led those men to be less amenable to naval discipline. Relations between Bligh and his crew deteriorated after he reportedly began handing out increasingly harsh punishments, criticism and abuse, with Christian being a particular target. After three weeks back at sea, Christian and others forced Bligh from the ship. Twenty-five men remained on board afterwards, including loyalists held against their will, and others for whom there was no room in the launch. Bligh and his adrift crew navigated more than 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km; 4,000 mi) in the launch to reach safety. After Bligh reached England in April 1790, the Admiralty despatched HMS Pandora to apprehend the mutineers. Fourteen were captured in Tahiti and imprisoned on board Pandora, which then searched without success for the contingent of Christian's party that had hidden on Pitcairn Island. After turning back towards England, Pandora ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, with the loss of 31 crew and four prisoners from Bounty. The ten surviving detainees reached England in June 1792 and were court-martialled; four were acquitted, three were pardoned and three were hanged. Christian's group remained undiscovered on Pitcairn until 1808, by which time only one mutineer, John Adams, remained alive. His fellow mutineers, including Christian, were dead, killed either by one another or by their Polynesian companions. No action was taken against Adams. Descendants of the mutineers and their accompanying Tahitians have lived on Pitcairn into the 21st century.

The Austrian Netherlands were the territory of the Burgundian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire between 1714 and 1797. The period began with the acquisition by the Austrian Habsburg monarchy of the former Spanish Netherlands under the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714. It lasted until Revolutionary France annexed the territory after the Battle of Sprimont in 1794 and the Peace of Basel in 1795. Austria relinquished its claim on the province in 1797 through the Treaty of Campo Formio.

Sardinians or Sards are a Romance ethnolinguistic group indigenous to Sardinia, an island in the western Mediterranean administered as an autonomous region of Italy. They number roughly 1.5 million on their native island, with another 2.25 million residing abroad, mostly on the Italian mainland.

The Treaty of Paris of 15 May 1796 was a treaty between the French Republic and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia during the War of the First Coalition. After four years of fighting, the French under Napoleon had finally beaten the Piedmontese army in the Battle of Montenotte, and on 21 April 1796 in the Battle of Mondovi. This forced King Victor Amadeus III to sign an armistice at Cherasco one week later, abandoning the First Coalition against the French Republic. In the treaty, King Victor Amadeus III recognized the French Republic, ceded the original Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice to France and gave the French Revolutionary Army free passage through his territory towards the rest of Italy. The King died a few months after signing the treaty. The French interest in Savoy had already been demonstrated in 1792 when the revolutionaries had annexed these lands as the 84th French Département under the name Mont-Blanc. This had provoked the war with Piedmont-Sardinia. Piedmont-Sardinia never accepted these losses and in the Treaty of Paris (1814) they retrieved part of Savoy, and one year later in the Treaty of Paris (1815), the rest of these territories. They would be regained by France under Napoleon III.

The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete most of the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in North America. Incorporated in 1861, CPRR ceased independent operations in 1885 when the railroad was leased to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Its assets were formally merged into Southern Pacific in 1959.

Henry McCarty (September 17 or November 23, 1859 – July 14, 1881), alias William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, was an American outlaw and gunfighter of the Old West who was linked to nine murders. He was solely responsible for four of them, and he may have played a role in five, alongside other men. He is also noted for his involvement in New Mexico's Lincoln County War. McCarty was orphaned at the age of 15. His first arrest was for stealing food at the age of 16 in 1875. Ten days later, he robbed a Chinese laundry and was arrested again, but escaped shortly afterwards. He fled from New Mexico Territory into neighboring Arizona Territory, making himself both an outlaw and a federal fugitive. In 1877, he began to call himself "William H. Bonney." After killing a blacksmith during an altercation in August 1877, Bonney became a wanted man in Arizona and returned to New Mexico, where he joined a group of cattle rustlers. He became well known in the region when he joined the Regulators and took part in the Lincoln County War of 1878. He and two other Regulators were later charged with killing three men, including Lincoln County Sheriff William J. Brady and one of his deputies. Bonney's notoriety grew in December 1880 when the Las Vegas Gazette, in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and The Sun, in New York City, carried stories about his crimes. Sheriff Pat Garrett captured Bonney later that month. In April 1881, Bonney was tried for and convicted of Brady's murder and was sentenced to hang in May of that year. He escaped from jail on April 28, killing two sheriff's deputies in the process, and evaded capture for more than two months. Garrett shot and killed Bonney, by then aged 21, in Fort Sumner on July 14, 1881. During his short career as an outlaw, Bonney was the subject of numerous U.S. newspaper articles, some as far away as New York. During the decades following his death, stories spread that Bonney had survived, and a number of men claimed to be him. The legend of Billy the Kid endures in American culture, and he remains one of the most notorious figures from the era, whose life and likeness have been frequently dramatized in the Western genre. More than 50 films and several broadcast programs have featured Billy the Kid.

Isidore Auguste Marie Louis Paulhan (French: [pɔlɑ̃]; 19 July 1883 – 10 February 1963), was a French aviator. He is known for winning the first Daily Mail aviation prize for the first flight between London and Manchester in 1910.

The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, (abbr. ASSR) also referred to as the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, Azerbaijan SSR, Azerbaijani SSR, AzSSR, Soviet Azerbaijan or simply Azerbaijan, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1991. Azerbaijan SSR was created on 28 April 1920 following the Red Army invasion of Azerbaijan. When the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic brought pro-Soviet figures to power in the region, the first two years of the Azerbaijani SSR were as an nominally independent country until incorporation into the Transcaucasian SFSR, along with the Armenian SSR and the Georgian SSR. In December 1922, the Transcaucasian SFSR became part of the newly established Soviet Union. The Constitution of Azerbaijan SSR was approved by the 9th Extraordinary All-Azerbaijani Congress of Soviets on 14 March 1937. On 5 February 1991, Azerbaijan SSR was renamed the Republic of Azerbaijan according to the Decision No.16-XII of the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan approving the Decree of the President of Azerbaijan SSR dated 29 November 1990, remained in the USSR for the period before the declaration of independence in October 1991.

The first Wembley Stadium (), originally known as the Empire Stadium, was a football stadium in Wembley, London, England. It opened in 1923 and was demolished in 2002 to make room for the new Wembley Stadium. Wembley hosted the FA Cup final annually, the first in 1923, which was the stadium's inaugural event, the League Cup final annually, five European Cup finals, the 1966 World Cup final, and the Euro 1996 final. Brazilian footballer Pelé once said of the stadium: "Wembley is the cathedral of football. It is the capital of football and it is the heart of football", in recognition of its status as the world's most famous football stadium. The stadium also hosted many other sports events, including the 1948 Summer Olympics, rugby league's Challenge Cup final, and the 1992 and 1995 Rugby League World Cup finals. It was also the venue for numerous music events, including the 1985 Live Aid charity concert, as well as SummerSlam 1992, the first major professional wrestling pay-per-view to take place outside of North America.

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. The country consists of nine provinces, and is bounded to the south by 2,798 kilometres of coastline that stretches along the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. South Africa also encloses Lesotho. Covering an area of 1,221,037 square kilometres, the country has a population of over 63 million people, making it the sixth-most populated country in Africa, and 24th-most in the world. Pretoria is the administrative capital, while Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament, is the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein is regarded as the judicial capital. The largest and most populous city is Johannesburg, followed by Cape Town and Durban.

The Ustaše was a Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945. It was formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement. From its inception and before the Second World War, the organization engaged in a series of terrorist activities against the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It collaborated with IMRO to assassinate King Alexander I of Yugoslavia in 1934. During World War II in Yugoslavia, the Ustaše went on to perpetrate the Holocaust and genocide against its Jewish, Serb and Roma populations, killing hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma, as well as Muslim and Croat political dissidents. The ideology of the movement combined aspects of Clerical fascism and Croatian ultranationalism.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was a fascist dictator who was the prime minister of Italy from 1922 until his deposition in 1943. Known as Il Duce during his rule, he established a totalitarian dictatorship led by the National Fascist Party (PNF) in the Kingdom of Italy. Born in Predappio, Mussolini originally worked as a journalist for the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) newspaper Avanti!. He was expelled from the party for advocating military intervention in World War I and called up for the Royal Italian Army in 1915, where he served until his discharge after being wounded in 1917. After the war, Mussolini turned to nationalism and denounced the PSI. He founded the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in 1919, which opposed egalitarianism and class conflict and instead promoted a form of revolutionary nationalism transcending class lines. The Combattimento are often considered the world's first fascist movement. The Combattimento were reorganised into the PNF in 1921. Fascist militants marched on Rome and Mussolini was appointed prime minister by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1922. He established the OVRA in 1927 to silence opposition, outlawed labour strikes, and consolidated power through the Acerbo Law among others, transforming Italy from a parliamentary democracy into a one-party state. He ordered the Pacification of Libya, characterised by some scholars as a genocide, and signed the Lateran Treaty to formally establish the Vatican City in 1929. Mussolini generally espoused autarkist and corporatist policies to grow the Italian economy, especially after the Great Depression. Mussolini's foreign policy shifted from cautious pragmatism to aggressive expansion and close alignment with Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s. Initially, he sought to expand Italy's influence without risking a major conflict with France or Britain, aligning with them during tensions over Austria. However, his invasion of Ethiopia resulted in condemnations from the League of Nations, which isolated Italy diplomatically. This pushed Mussolini toward Adolf Hitler, leading to a rapprochement and the formation of the Rome–Berlin Axis in 1936. Mussolini began militarily supporting Francisco Franco's forces during the Spanish Civil War. Although he acted as a mediator at the Munich Conference in 1938, his ambitions for territorial expansion and growing distrust of the Western powers led him to strengthen ties with Germany, resulting in the creation of the Pact of Steel in 1939. The wars of the 1930s cost Italy enormous resources, leaving it unprepared for the World War II; Mussolini initially declared Italy's non-belligerence. However, in June 1940, believing that German victory was imminent, he joined the war on Germany's side to share the spoils. Following defeats at the hands of the Allies and the landing in Sicily, the Grand Council of Fascism voted on the Grandi motion, which effectively ended Mussolini's leadership and restored powers to King Victor Emmanuel III who then immediately dismissed Mussolini as head of government and placed him in custody in July 1943. After the king agreed to an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, Mussolini was rescued by the Germans during the Gran Sasso raid. Hitler made Mussolini the figurehead of a puppet state in German-occupied north Italy, the Italian Social Republic, which served as a collaborationist regime of Germany. With Allied victory imminent, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci attempted to flee to Switzerland, but were captured by communist partisans and summarily executed on 28 April 1945.

The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, approximately two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were committed primarily through mass shootings across Eastern Europe and poison gas chambers in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno and Majdanek death camps in occupied Poland. Concurrent Nazi persecutions killed millions of other non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to include the murder and persecution of non-Jewish groups, such as the Romani and Soviet POWs. The Nazis developed their ideology based on racism and pursuit of "living space", and seized power in early 1933. Meant to force all German Jews to emigrate, regardless of means, the regime passed anti-Jewish laws, encouraged violence, and orchestrated a nationwide pogrom known as Kristallnacht in November 1938. After Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, occupation authorities began to establish ghettos to segregate Jews. Following the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, 1.5 to 2 million Jews were murdered by German forces and local collaborators. The Nazis first targeted Jewish Red Army POWs and male civilians, but quickly escalated to murdering Jewish women and children. By early 1942, following the Wannsee Conference presided by Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazis' Final Solution was implemented to murder all Jews in Europe. Some historians note that Adolf Hitler frequently communicated major policy decisions verbally to Heinrich Himmler rather than through written directives. Victims were deported to extermination camps where those who had survived the trip were gassed, while others were sent to forced labor camps where many died from starvation, abuse, exhaustion, or being used as test subjects in experiments. Property belonging to murdered Jews was redistributed to the German occupiers and other non-Jews. The murder rate was most intense during Operation Reinhard from March 1942 to November 1943. Although the majority of Holocaust victims died in 1942, the mass murders continued until the end of the war in 1945. Many Jewish survivors emigrated from Europe after the war. A minority of Holocaust perpetrators faced criminal trials. Billions of dollars in reparations have been paid, although falling short of the losses suffered by the European Jews. The Holocaust has also been commemorated in museums, memorials, and culture. It is considered to be the single deadliest genocide in human history, and has become central to Western historical consciousness as a symbol of the ultimate human evil.

Thor Heyerdahl KStJ (Norwegian pronunciation: [tuːr ˈhæ̀ɪəɖɑːɫ]; 6 October 1914 – 18 April 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in biology with specialization in zoology, botany and geography. Heyerdahl is notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he drifted 8,000 km (5,000 mi) across the Pacific Ocean in a primitive hand-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands. The expedition was supposed to demonstrate that the legendary sun-worshiping red-haired, bearded, and white-skinned "Tiki people" from South America drifted and colonized Polynesia first, before actual Polynesian peoples. His hyperdiffusionist ideas on ancient cultures had been widely rejected by the scientific community, even before the expedition. Heyerdahl made other voyages to demonstrate the possibility of contact between widely separated ancient peoples, notably the Ra II expedition of 1970, when he sailed from the west coast of Africa to Barbados in a papyrus reed boat. He was appointed a government scholar in 1984 by the Norwegian government. He died on 18 April 2002 in Colla Micheri, Italy, while visiting close family members. The Norwegian government gave him a state funeral in Oslo Cathedral on 26 April 2002. In May 2011, the Thor Heyerdahl Archives were added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. At the time, this list included 238 collections from all over the world. The Heyerdahl Archives span the years 1937 to 2002 and include his photographic collection, diaries, private letters, expedition plans, articles, newspaper clippings, and original book and article manuscripts. The Heyerdahl Archives are administered by the Kon-Tiki Museum and the National Library of Norway in Oslo.

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music. Born into a musical family in Saint Petersburg, Stravinsky grew up taking piano and music theory lessons. While studying law at the University of Saint Petersburg, he met Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and studied music under him until the latter's death in 1908. Soon after, Stravinsky met impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who commissioned him to write three ballets for the Ballets Russes's Paris seasons: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913), the last of which caused a near-riot at the premiere due to its avant-garde nature and later changed the way composers understood rhythmic structure. Stravinsky's compositional career is often divided into three main periods: his Russian period (1913–1920), his neoclassical period (1920–1951), and his serial period (1954–1968). During his Russian period, Stravinsky was heavily influenced by Russian styles and folklore. Works such as Renard (1916) and Les noces (1923) drew upon Russian folk poetry, while compositions like L'Histoire du soldat (1918) integrated these folk elements with popular musical forms, including the tango, waltz, ragtime, and chorale. His neoclassical period exhibited themes and techniques from the classical period, like the use of the sonata form in his Octet (1923) and use of Greek mythological themes in works including Apollon musagète (1927), Oedipus rex (1927), and Persephone (1935). In his serial period, Stravinsky turned towards compositional techniques from the Second Viennese School like Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique. In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954) was the first of his compositions to be fully based on the technique, and Canticum Sacrum (1956) was his first to be based on a tone row. Stravinsky's last major work was the Requiem Canticles (1966), which was performed at his funeral. While many supporters were confused by Stravinsky's constant stylistic changes, later writers recognized his versatile language as important in the development of modernist music. Stravinsky's revolutionary ideas influenced composers as diverse as Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Béla Bartók, and Pierre Boulez, who were all challenged to innovate music in areas beyond tonality, especially rhythm and musical form. In 1998, Time magazine listed Stravinsky as one of the 100 most influential people of the century. Stravinsky died of pulmonary edema on 6 April 1971 in New York City, having left six memoirs written with his friend and assistant, Robert Craft, as well as an earlier autobiography and a series of lectures.

The Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon, better known by the abbreviation Hukbalahap, was a Filipino communist guerrilla movement formed by the farmers of Central Luzon. They were originally formed to fight the Japanese, but extended their fight into a rebellion against the Philippine government, known as the Hukbalahap rebellion in 1946. It was eventually put down through a series of reforms and military victories by Defense Secretary, and later President, Ramon Magsaysay.

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. In his previous military career, he commanded the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War II, including in Operation Torch in North Africa and Operation Overlord on D-Day in Normandy. For his distinguished service in the U.S. Army, Eisenhower was honored with the five-star rank of General of the Army.

The Treaty of San Francisco, also called the Treaty of Peace with Japan, re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allies on behalf of the United Nations by ending the legal state of war, military occupation and providing for redress for hostile actions up to and including World War II. It was signed by 49 nations on September 8, 1951, in San Francisco, United States, at the War Memorial Opera House. Italy and China were not invited, the latter due to disagreements on whether the Republic of China or the People's Republic of China represented the Chinese people. Korea was also not invited due to a similar disagreement on whether South Korea or North Korea represented the Korean people.

The Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty, formally the Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan and commonly known as the Treaty of Taipei, was a peace treaty between Japan and the Republic of China (ROC) signed in Taipei, Taiwan on 28 April 1952, and took effect on August 5 the same year, marking the formal end of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).

The Dominican Civil War, also known as the April Revolution, took place between April 24 and September 3, 1965, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. It started when civilian and military supporters of the overthrown democratically elected president Juan Bosch ousted the militarily-installed president Donald Reid Cabral from office. The second coup prompted General Elías Wessin y Wessin to organize elements of the military loyal to the dictator Reid ("loyalists") and launch an armed campaign against the "constitutionalist" rebels.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces against Nazi Germany and its puppet state of Vichy France in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 to restore democracy in France. Following the 1958 Algiers putsch, he came out of retirement at the request of President René Coty, who appointed him Prime Minister. He commissioned a new 1958 French constitution which was approved by voters in a swift majority, during a referendum, establishing the French Fifth Republic. He was subsequently elected the President of France later that year, a position he held until his resignation in 1969.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

The Dark Side of the Moon is the eighth studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released on 1 March 1973 by Capitol Records in the United States, and on 16 March 1973 by Harvest Records in the United Kingdom. Developed during live performances, it was conceived as a concept album that would focus on the pressures faced by the band during their arduous lifestyle, and also deal with the mental health problems of former band member Syd Barrett. New material was recorded in two sessions in 1972 and 1973 at EMI Studios in London.

Cao Văn Viên was a four-star army general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He rose to the position of Chairman of the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff. Considered one of "the most gifted" of South Vietnam's military leaders, he was previously called an "absolute key figure" and one of "the most important Vietnamese military leaders" in the U.S.-led fighting during the Vietnam War. Along with Trần Thiện Khiêm he was one of only two four-star generals in the entire history of South Vietnam.

The Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang, was a West German far-left militant group founded in 1970, active until 1998, and formally designated a terrorist organisation by the West German government. The RAF described itself as a communist and anti-imperialist urban guerrilla group. It was engaged in armed resistance against what it considered a fascist state. Members of the RAF generally used the Marxist–Leninist term "faction" when they wrote in English. Early leadership included Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, and Horst Mahler.

The President of Afghanistan was constitutionally the head of state and head of government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan Armed Forces.

Stern is an illustrated, broadly left-liberal, weekly current affairs magazine published in Hamburg, Germany, by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. Under the editorship (1948–1980) of its founder Henri Nannen, it attained a circulation of between 1.5 and 1.8 million, the largest in Europe for a magazine of its kind.

On 26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union, exploded. The accident resulted in dozens of direct deaths and a major release of radioactive material into the environment, causing widespread health effects and requiring the establishment of the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The response involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles. It remains the most destructive nuclear disaster and the most expensive disaster in history, with an estimated cost of US$700 billion. It is one of only two nuclear accidents rated at the maximum severity on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.

Maui is the second-largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2). It is the 17th-largest in the United States. Maui is one of Maui County's four sizable islands, along with Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, and Kahoʻolawe.

Space Shuttle Discovery is a retired American Space Shuttle orbiter. The spaceplane was one of the orbiters from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5, 1984. Over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, aggregating more spaceflights than any other spacecraft as of December 2024. The Space Shuttle launch vehicle had three main components: the Space Shuttle orbiter, a single-use central fuel tank, and two reusable solid rocket boosters. Nearly 25,000 heat-resistant tiles cover the orbiter to protect it from high temperatures on re-entry.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and conducting covert operations. The agency is headquartered in the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, and is sometimes metonymously called "Langley". A major member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA has reported to the director of national intelligence since 2004, and is focused on providing intelligence for the president and the Cabinet, though it also provides intelligence for a variety of other entities including the United States Armed Forces and foreign allies.

The Whitewater controversy, Whitewater scandal, or simply Whitewater, was an American political controversy during the 1990s, surrounding the Whitewater Development Corporation, a real estate company owned by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton and their associates, Jim and Susan McDougal.

CBS News is the news division of the American television broadcaster CBS headquartered in New York City. Along with ABC News and NBC News, it has long been among the big three broadcast news networks in the United States.