April 29 in History

April 29 spans 45 recorded events across recorded history, from 801 to 2015. Below is a curated digest of the most significant moments tied to this date.

Holidays and observances on April 29

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Theta Xi fraternity is founded at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the only fra

1864 — Theta Xi fraternity is founded at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the only fraternity to be founded during the American Civil War.

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Historical Events 45 events 801 – 2015

More major events on April 29

The featured story and these ranked highlights form a quick summary. Every recorded event remains available in the chronology below.

  1. 1916 World War I: The UK's 6th Indian Division surrenders to Ottoman Forces at the Siege of Kut in one of the largest surrenders of British forces up to that point. Source
  2. 1946 The International Military Tribunal for the Far East convenes and indicts former Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tojo and 28 former Japanese leaders for war crimes. Source

Did you know

In 1864, Theta Xi fraternity is founded at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the only fraternity to be founded during the American Civil War. This featured entry focuses on the immediate decision and its direct historical impact.

Did you know

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is a private research university in Troy, New York, United States. This helps explain why the event mattered beyond the initial announcement.

Did you know

It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and in the Western Hemisphere. This clarifies the institutional and public response around the event.

Did you know

Stephen Van Rensselaer and Amos Eaton established RPI in 1824 for the "application of science to the common purposes of life". This shows how the event shaped policy and public communication in the same period.

Did you know

In 1864, Theta Xi fraternity is founded at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the only fraternity to be founded during the American Civil War had consequences that extended beyond the first headline. The key context is the institutions involved, the policy shift, and how the public response evolved afterward.


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801 801 Apennine earthquake

An earthquake in the Central Apennines hits Rome and Spoleto, damaging the basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura.

An earthquake originating in the Central Apennines was felt in Rome and Spoleto on 29 April 801. It is reported in two independent contemporary sources, Einhard's Royal Frankish Annals and the Liber Pontificalis. The information provided by the written sources has been augmented by archaeology. Both the Annals and the Liber date the event to 30 April according to contemporary Roman practice, whereby the day began at sundown. The Annals specify that it happened at the second hour of the night, which corresponds to 20:00 (8:00 p.m.) on 29 April by modern reckoning. The Annals record the event from the perspective of the Frankish king Charlemagne, who had been crowned Roman emperor on 25 December 800 and had left Rome on 25 April for Spoleto, where he was staying when the earthquake struck. They do not record the damage at Spoleto. Charlemagne was unharmed, but perhaps spooked. The quake was severe, with an estimated magnitude at Rome of VII–VIII on the modified Mercalli intensity scale and 5.4 on the energy magnitude scale. The epicenter was probably somewhere between Spoleto and Perugia. The Annals refer to its effects throughout Italy, but without specifics. Both sources attest its damage to the roof of the basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura in Rome. The archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani concluded that the damage was even more severe than the sources let on and that Pope Leo III had to rebuild the basilica "from the introit to the presbytery, from the marble floor to the summit of the roof." The Liber mentions the earthquake mainly to introduce Leo III's works at San Paolo, but it leaves the impression that the collapse of the roof caused extensive damage to the interior furnishings (including the silverware stored beneath the altar) and the porticoes. The 5th-century mosaic on the triumphal arch appears to have suffered stylistically from repairs, probably associated with the earthquake of 801. The presbytery was completely rebuilt. Archaeology has revealed several buildings damaged or destroyed by earthquakes which may have been victims of that of 801. The church of Santa Petronilla on the Via Ardeatina seems to have collapsed entirely in an earthquake, probably that of 801. At that time, it was already abandoned. It had been the burial church of Saints Nereus and Achilleus, but their remains seem to have been transferred inside the city sometime before 801. The remains of Petronilla had been moved to a new shrine in the city in 757 in fulfillment of a promise to Charlemagne's father, Pippin the Short. The Basilica Ulpia also seems to have fallen in an earthquake in about the 9th century. In the case of both buildings, the evidence is also consistent with the earthquake of 847. The Annals shows that the earthquake caused landslides. It could not have caused a tsunami in the Adriatic, although it has been conflated in some sources with a possible tsunami-causing earthquake of 792 in the northern Adriatic.
1091 Battle of Levounion

Battle of Levounion: The Pechenegs are defeated by Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos.

The Battle of Levounion was the first decisive Byzantine victory of the Komnenian restoration. On 29 April 1091, an invading force of Pechenegs was crushed by the combined forces of the Byzantine Empire under Alexios I Komnenos and his Cuman allies.
1429 Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orléans.

Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d'Arc [ʒan daʁk] ; Middle French: Jehanne Darc [ʒəˈãnə ˈdark]; c. 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and securing the coronation of Charles VII of France during the Hundred Years' War. Claiming to be acting under divine guidance, she became a military leader who gained recognition as a savior of France. Joan was born to a propertied peasant family at Domrémy in northeast France. In 1428, she requested to be taken to Charles VII, later testifying that she was guided by visions from the archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine to help him save France from English domination. Convinced of her devotion and purity, Charles sent Joan, who was about seventeen years old, to Orléans as part of a relief army. She arrived at the city in April 1429, wielding her banner and bringing hope to the demoralized French army. Nine days after her arrival, the English abandoned the siege. Joan encouraged the French to aggressively pursue the English during the Loire Campaign, which culminated in another decisive victory at Patay, opening the way for the French army to advance on Reims unopposed, where Charles was crowned as the king of France with Joan at his side. These victories boosted French morale, paving the way for their final triumph in the Hundred Years' War several decades later. After Charles's coronation, Joan participated in the unsuccessful siege of Paris in September 1429 and the failed siege of La Charité in November. Her role in these defeats reduced the court's faith in her. In early 1430, Joan organized a company of volunteers to relieve Compiègne, which had been besieged by the Burgundians—French allies of the English. She was captured by Burgundian troops on 23 May. After trying unsuccessfully to escape, she was handed to the English in November. She was put on trial by Bishop Pierre Cauchon on accusations of heresy, which included blaspheming by wearing men's clothes, acting upon visions that were demonic, and refusing to submit her words and deeds to the judgment of the church. She was declared guilty and burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, aged about nineteen. In 1456, an inquisitorial court reinvestigated Joan's trial and overturned the verdict, declaring that it was tainted by deceit and procedural errors. Joan has been described as an obedient member of the Catholic Church, an early feminist, and a symbol of freedom and independence. She is popularly revered as a martyr. After the French Revolution, she became a national symbol of France. In 1920, Joan of Arc was canonized by Pope Benedict XV and, two years later, was declared one of the patron saints of France. She is portrayed in numerous cultural works, including literature, music, paintings, sculptures, theater, and film.
1483 Gran_Canaria

Gran Canaria, the main island of the Canary Islands, is conquered by the Kingdom of Castile.

Gran Canaria, also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa. As of 2023 the island had a population of 862,893 that constitutes approximately 40% of the population of the archipelago. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the capital of the island, is the largest city of the Canary Islands and the ninth-largest city of Spain.
1492

The Crown's decision to expel the Jews is announced in Zaragoza, Aragon, to the kingdom's procurators.

On 31 March 1492, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, issued the Alhambra Decree, ordering all unconverted Jews to leave their kingdoms and territories by the end of July that year, unless they converted to Christianity. Motivated by a desire for religious unity following the completion of the Reconquista and amid fears that unconverted Jews were influencing conversos (Jewish converts to Christianity) to revert to Judaism, the decree brought to an end more than a millennium of Jewish presence in the Iberian Peninsula. It is considered a consequential event in Spanish and Jewish history. In the decades before 1492, successive crises had already thinned Spain's Jewish population through violence, forced conversion, and legal discrimination. In the aftermath of the 1391 massacres, large numbers of Jews converted to Catholicism. Continued attacks produced about 50,000 additional conversions by 1415. Authorities suspected that some conversos continued to practice Judaism in secret; concerns over such "Judaizing" helped motivate the creation of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, which investigated cases of heresy and, in some instances, used torture and imposed penalties up to execution for the unrepentant. Growing limpieza de sangre ("purity-of-blood") statutes in the 15th century further stigmatized "New Christians" of Jewish descent. After the fall of Granada in January 1492, the Catholic Monarchs, urged on by Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada, moved from consolidating territorial unity to enforcing religious uniformity, culminating in the Alhambra Decree of March 31. Many of those who remained decided to convert to avoid expulsion; modern estimates generally place the number expelled between 40,000 and 200,000 out of a population of 300,000, although figures remain debated. An unknown number also returned to Spain in the following years. Following the expulsions many first crossed into Portugal (1492–96) before facing forced conversion in 1497; others moved to Navarre, which expelled its Jews in 1498. The Inquisition continued to prosecute suspected crypto-Jews for centuries in Spain and across its overseas tribunals, conducting autos-da-fé well into the 18th century. The mass expulsion created a large Sephardic Jewish diaspora throughout the Mediterranean world — in the Maghreb (notably in Tétouan, Fes, Oran, and Djerba), the Italian states, and the Ottoman Empire (notably in Istanbul, Salonika, İzmir, Sarajevo, Jerusalem, and Safed). Smaller communities reached southern France, and, during the 16th–17th centuries, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and London attracted merchant families. For centuries, many Sephardic communities preserved Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino). In 1924, the regime of Miguel Primo de Rivera granted Spanish citizenship to a part of the Sephardic Jewish diaspora. The edict was formally and symbolically revoked on December 16, 1968, following the Second Vatican Council, by the regime of Francisco Franco. This occurred a full century after Jews had openly begun to practice their religion in Spain and synagogues were once more legal places of worship under Spain's Laws of Religious Freedom. In 2015, the Cortes Generales of Spain passed a law whereby the descendants of Sephardic Jews could obtain Spanish nationality by naturalisation to "compensate for shameful events in the country's past." Jews who could prove that they are the descendants of those expelled from Spain due to the Alhambra Decree could "become Spaniards without leaving home or giving up their present nationality." The deadline to apply was October 1, 2019.
1521 Swedish War of Liberation

Swedish War of Liberation: Swedish troops defeat a Danish force in the Battle of Västerås.

The Swedish War of Liberation (1521–1523; Swedish: Befrielsekriget, lit. 'The Liberation War'), also known as Gustav Vasa's Rebellion and the Swedish War of Secession, was a significant historical event in Sweden. Gustav Vasa, a nobleman, led a rebellion and civil war against King Christian II. The war resulted in the deposition of King Christian II from the throne of Sweden, effectively ending the Kalmar Union that had united Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
1670 1669–1670_conclave

Emilio Altieri is elected pope after a four-month conclave and takes the name Clement X.

The 1669–70 papal conclave was convened on the death of Pope Clement IX and ended with the election of Cardinal Emilio Altieri as Pope Clement X. The election saw deference within the College of Cardinals to Louis XIV of France, and a freeing of the cardinals loyal to Spain to vote according to their conscience. Eventually the elderly Altieri was elected with support of the major factions within the College.
1760 Siege of Quebec (1760)

French forces commence the siege of Quebec which is held by the British.

The siege of Quebec, also known as the second siege of Quebec, was a 1760 French attempt to retake Quebec City, in New France, which had been captured by Britain the previous year. The siege lasted from 29 April to 15 May, when British ships arrived to relieve the city and compelled the French commander, François Gaston de Lévis, to break off the siege and to retreat. The British launched the Montreal campaign a few months later, which resulted in the city's capture. French resistance ceased, and the British conquest of New France was complete, as was confirmed in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris.
1770 James Cook

James Cook arrives in Australia at Botany Bay, which he names.

Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer who led three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans between 1768 and 1779. He completed the first recorded circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand, and led the first recorded visit by Europeans to the east coast of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands. Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager before enlisting in the Royal Navy in 1755. He first saw combat during the Seven Years' War, when he fought in the Siege of Louisbourg. Later in the war he surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the St. Lawrence River during the Siege of Quebec. In the 1760s he mapped the coastline of Newfoundland and made important astronomical observations which brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and the Royal Society. This acclaim came at a pivotal moment in British overseas exploration, and it led to his commission in 1768 as commander of HMS Endeavour for the first of his three voyages. During these voyages, Cook sailed tens of thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas, mapping coastlines, islands, and features across the globe in greater detail than previously charted – including Easter Island, Alaska and South Georgia Island. He made contact with numerous indigenous peoples and claimed several territories for the Kingdom of Great Britain. Renowned for exceptional seamanship and courage in times of danger, he was patient, persistent, sober, and competent, but sometimes hot-tempered. His contributions to the prevention of scurvy, a disease common among sailors, led the Royal Society to award him the Copley Gold Medal. In 1779, during his second visit to Hawaii, Cook was killed when a dispute with Native Hawaiians turned violent. His voyages left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge that influenced his successors well into the 20th century. Numerous memorials have been dedicated to him worldwide.
1781 American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War: British and French ships clash in the Battle of Fort Royal off the coast of Martinique.

The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence or simply the American Revolution, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and, commanded by George Washington, defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation. In 1763, after the British Empire gained dominance in North America following its victory over the French in the Seven Years' War, tensions and disputes began escalating between the British and the Thirteen Colonies, especially following passage of the Stamp and Townshend Acts. The British Army responded by seeking to occupy Boston militarily, leading to the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. In mid-1774, with tensions escalating even further between the British Army and the colonies, the British Parliament imposed the Intolerable Acts, an attempt to disarm Americans, leading to the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the first battles of the Revolutionary War. In June 1775, the Second Continental Congress voted to incorporate colonial-based Patriot militias into a central military, the Continental Army, and unanimously appointed Washington its commander-in-chief. Two months later, in August 1775, George III declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion. In July 1776, the Second Continental Congress formalized the war, passing the Lee Resolution on July 2, and, two days later, unanimously adopting the Declaration of Independence, on July 4. In March 1776, in an early win for the newly-formed Continental Army under Washington's command, following a successful siege of Boston, the Continental Army successfully drove the British Army out of Boston. British commander in chief William Howe responded by launching the New York and New Jersey campaign, which resulted in Howe's capture of New York City in November. Washington responded by clandestinely crossing the Delaware River and winning small but significant victories at Trenton and Princeton. In the summer of 1777, as Howe was poised to capture Philadelphia, the Continental Congress fled to Baltimore. In October 1777, a separate northern British force under the command of John Burgoyne was forced to surrender at Saratoga in an American victory that proved crucial in convincing France and Spain that an independent United States was a viable possibility. France signed a commercial agreement with the revolutionaries, followed by a Treaty of Alliance in February 1778. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition undertook a scorched earth campaign against British-allied factions of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also Iroquois). Native American raids on the American frontier, however, continued to be a problem. Also, in 1779, Spain allied with France against Great Britain in the Treaty of Aranjuez, though Spain did not formally ally with the Americans. Howe's replacement Henry Clinton intended to take the war against the Americans into the Southern Colonies. Despite some initial success, British General Cornwallis was besieged by a Franco-American army in Yorktown, Virginia, in September and October 1781. The French navy cut off Cornwallis's escape and he was forced to surrender in October. The British wars with France and Spain continued for another two years, but fighting largely ceased in North America. In the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, Great Britain acknowledged the sovereignty and independence of the United States, bringing the American Revolutionary War to an end. The Treaties of Versailles resolved Great Britain's conflicts with France and Spain, and forced Great Britain to cede Tobago, Senegal, and small territories in India to France, and Menorca, West Florida, and East Florida to Spain.
1826 Centaurus A

The galaxy Centaurus A or NGC 5128 is discovered by James Dunlop.

Centaurus A (also known as NGC 5128 or Caldwell 77) is a galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from his home in Parramatta, in New South Wales, Australia. There is considerable debate in the literature regarding the galaxy's fundamental properties such as its Hubble type (lenticular galaxy or a giant elliptical galaxy) and distance (11–13 million light-years). It is the closest radio galaxy to Earth, as well as the closest BL Lac object, so its active galactic nucleus has been extensively studied by professional astronomers. The galaxy is also the fifth-brightest in the sky, making it an ideal amateur astronomy target. It is only visible from the southern hemisphere and low northern latitudes. The center of the galaxy contains a supermassive black hole with a mass of 55 million solar masses, which ejects a relativistic jet that is responsible for emissions in the X-ray and radio wavelengths. By taking radio observations of the jet separated by a decade, astronomers have determined that the inner parts of the jet are moving at about half of the speed of light. X-rays are produced farther out as the jet collides with surrounding gases, resulting in the creation of highly energetic particles. The X-ray jets of Centaurus A are thousands of light-years long, while the radio jets are over a million light-years long. It is also one of the nearest large starburst galaxies, of which a galactic collision is suspected to be responsible for an intense burst of star formation. Models have suggested that Centaurus A was a large elliptical galaxy that collided with a smaller spiral galaxy, with which it will eventually merge. For that reason, the galaxy has been of particular interest to astronomers for years. While collisions of spiral galaxies are relatively common, the effects of a collision between an elliptical and a spiral galaxy are not fully understood.
1861 Maryland in the American Civil War

Maryland in the American Civil War: Maryland's House of Delegates votes not to secede from the Union.

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Maryland, a slave state, was one of the southern border states, meaning that it shared a border with a non slave-holding state of the North. Despite some popular support for the cause of the Confederate States of America, Maryland did not secede during the Civil War. Governor Thomas H. Hicks, despite his early sympathies for the South, helped prevent the state from seceding. Because the state bordered the District of Columbia and the opposing factions within the state strongly desired to sway public opinion towards their respective causes, Maryland played an important role in the war. The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865) suspended the constitutional right of habeas corpus from Washington to Philadelphia. Lincoln ignored the ruling of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in "Ex parte Merryman" decision in 1861 concerning freeing John Merryman, a prominent Southern sympathizer arrested by the military. The first fatalities of the war happened during the Baltimore riot of 1861 on April 18–19. The single bloodiest day of combat in American military history occurred during the first major Confederate invasion of the North in the Maryland Campaign, just north above the Potomac River near Sharpsburg in Washington County, at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862. The battle of Antietam, though tactically a draw, was strategically enough of a Union victory to give Lincoln the opportunity to issue, in September 1862, the Emancipation Proclamation. It did not affect Maryland. In July 1864 the Battle of Monocacy was fought near Frederick, Maryland as part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Monocacy was a tactical victory for the Confederate States Army but a strategic defeat, as the one-day delay inflicted on the attacking Confederates cost rebel General Jubal Early his chance to capture the Union capital of Washington, D.C. Across the state, some 50,000 citizens signed up for the military, with most joining the United States Army. Approximately a tenth as many enlisted were to "go South" and fight for the Confederacy. Abolition of slavery in Maryland came before the end of the war, with a new third constitution voted approval in 1864 by a small majority of Radical Republican Unionists then controlling the nominally Democratic state.
1862 American Civil War

American Civil War: The Capture of New Orleans by Union forces under David Farragut.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of continuing interest is the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.
1862 Siege of Corinth

American Civil War: The Siege of Corinth begins as Union forces under General Henry Halleck move to engage Confederate forces led by General P.

G. T. Beauregard.
The siege of Corinth, also known as the first battle of Corinth, was an American Civil War engagement lasting from April 29 to May 30, 1862, in Corinth, Mississippi. A collection of Union forces under the overall command of Major General Henry W. Halleck (in his only field command of the war) engaged in a month-long siege of the city, whose Confederate occupants were commanded by General P.G.T. Beauregard. The siege resulted in the capture of the town by Federal forces. The town was a strategic point at the junction of two vital railroad lines, the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Former Confederate Secretary of War LeRoy Pope Walker called this intersection "the vertebrae of the Confederacy." Halleck argued: "Richmond and Corinth are now the great strategic points of the war, and our success at these points should be insured at all hazards." Another reason for the town's importance was that, if captured by Union forces, it would threaten the security of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and render Southern control of the track west of that East Tennessee bastion meaningless. The siege ended when the outnumbered Confederates withdrew on May 29. This effectively cut off the prospect of further Confederate attempts to regain western Tennessee. The Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant took control and made it the base for Grant's operations to seize control of the Mississippi River Valley and especially the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Grant later recalled in his memoirs the importance Corinth held in the cause of a Union victory in the region: "Corinth was a valuable strategic point for the enemy to hold, and consequently a valuable one for us to possess ourselves of." General C. S. Hamilton later recounted that the importance of Corinth was summed up as such: "The Confederate armies had been driven from the Ohio River, almost out of the States of Tennessee and Kentucky a steadying back for a distance of 200 miles Federal occupation reaching the Gulf States where chivalrous foes had been sure Yankee would never set foot." Sherman too later wrote of the importance that Corinth held after the Second Battle of Corinth was concluded: "In Memphis I could see its effects upon the citizens, and they openly admitted that their cause had sustained a death-blow." With the siege of Corinth completed, Federal troops had the opportunity to strike towards Vicksburg or Chattanooga, but it was after the Second Battle of Corinth that October that Grant struck for Vicksburg. The siege of Corinth was described by Major General Sherman as a change in the tactics in West Tennessee: "The effect of the battle of Corinth was very great. It was, indeed, a decisive blow to the Confederate cause in our quarter, and changed the whole aspect of affairs in West Tennessee. From the timid defensive we were at once enabled to assume the bold offensive."
1903 Frank Slide

A landslide kills 70 people in Frank, in the District of Alberta, Canada.

The Frank Slide was a massive rockslide that buried part of the mining town of Frank in the District of Alberta of the North-West Territories, Canada, at 4:10 a.m. on April 29, 1903. Around 44 million cubic metres/110 million tonnes (120 million short tons) of limestone rock broke off from, and slid down, Turtle Mountain. Witnesses reported that within 100 seconds the rock reached up the opposing hills, obliterating the eastern edge of Frank, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) line and parts of the coal mine. It was one of the largest landslides in Canadian history and remains the deadliest, as between 70 and 90 died, most of whom remain buried in the rubble. The cause of the slide is unknown but multiple factors may have helped cause the slide: Turtle Mountain's structural formation was unstable and had been for some time; coal mining operations may have weakened the mountain's internal structure; a wet winter and cold snap on the night of the disaster may have contributed. The railway line was repaired within three weeks and the mine quickly reopened. The section of town closest to the mountain was relocated in 1911 amid fears of another slide. By 1906 the town's population nearly doubled its pre-slide population, but dwindled after the mine closed permanently in 1917. The community is now part of the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass in the Province of Alberta and has a population around 200. The site of the disaster, which remains nearly unchanged since the slide, is a popular tourist destination. A designated provincial historic site of Alberta, it is home to an interpretive centre that receives over 100,000 visitors annually.
1910 Parliament_of_the_United_Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the People's Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public.

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom. It meets at the Palace of Westminster in London. It is bicameral, consisting of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, with the sovereign forming a third constitutional element. Acting together to legislate, these constitute the King-in-Parliament. Legislative authority has been devolved to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Parliament, and Northern Ireland Assembly to differing degrees, while the UK Parliament retains authority to legislate in reserved matters and the power to legislate in devolved areas.
1911 Tsinghua University

Tsinghua University, one of mainland China's leading universities, is founded.

Tsinghua University (Chinese: 清华大学; pinyin: Qīnghuá Dàxué; THU) is a public research university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of the Double First-Class Construction, and was a part of its predecessor initiatives: Project 211 and Project 985. It is also a member of the C9 League. Tsinghua University's campus is in northwestern Beijing, on the site of the former imperial gardens of the Qing dynasty. The university has 21 schools and 59 departments, with faculties in science, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, history, philosophy, economics, management, education, and art. Since the university was established in 1911, it has produced notable alumni in science, engineering, politics, business, and academia. These include leaders Xi Jinping, Hu Jintao, and Zhu Rongji, and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate Yang Chen-Ning.
1916 World_War_I

World War I: The UK's 6th Indian Division surrenders to Ottoman Forces at the Siege of Kut in one of the largest surrenders of British forces up to that point.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, World War I resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million deaths, including those in war crimes and genocides. The war also helped spread the Spanish flu pandemic. The conflict saw important developments in weaponry, including the first large-scale use of machine guns, artillery, aircraft, chemical weapons, and tanks.
1916 Easter Rising

Easter Rising: After six days of fighting, Irish rebel leaders surrender to British forces in Dublin, bringing the Easter Rising to an end.

The Easter Rising (Irish: Éirí Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the aim of establishing an independent Irish Republic while the United Kingdom was fighting the First World War. It was the most significant uprising in Ireland since the rebellion of 1798 and the first armed conflict of the Irish revolutionary period. Sixteen of the Rising's leaders were executed starting in May 1916. The nature of the executions, and subsequent political developments, ultimately contributed to an increase in popular support for Irish independence. Organised by a seven-man Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Rising began on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916 and lasted for six days. Members of the Irish Volunteers, led by schoolmaster and Irish language activist Patrick Pearse, joined by the smaller Irish Citizen Army of James Connolly and 200 women of Cumann na mBan seized strategically important buildings in Dublin and proclaimed the Irish Republic. The British Army brought in thousands of reinforcements as well as artillery and a gunboat. There was street fighting on the routes into the city centre, where the rebels slowed the British advance and inflicted many casualties. Elsewhere in Dublin, the fighting mainly consisted of sniping and long-range gun battles. The main rebel positions were gradually surrounded and bombarded with artillery. There were isolated actions in other parts of Ireland; Volunteer leader Eoin MacNeill had issued a countermand in a bid to halt the Rising, which greatly reduced the extent of the rebel actions. With much greater numbers and heavier weapons, the British Army suppressed the Rising. Pearse agreed to an unconditional surrender on Saturday 29 April, although sporadic fighting continued briefly. After the surrender, the country remained under martial law. About 3,500 people were taken prisoner by the British and 1,800 of them were sent to internment camps or prisons in Britain. Most of the leaders of the Rising were executed following courts martial. The Rising brought physical force republicanism back to the forefront of Irish politics, which for nearly fifty years had been dominated by constitutional nationalism. Opposition to the British reaction to the Rising contributed to changes in public opinion and the move toward independence, as shown in the 1918 general election, in which Sinn Féin won 73 of the 105 Irish seats. Sinn Féin convened the First Dáil and declared independence. Of the 485 people killed, 260 were civilians, 143 were British military and police personnel, and 82 were Irish rebels, including 16 rebels executed for their roles in the Rising. More than 2,600 people were wounded. Many of the civilians were killed or wounded by British artillery fire or were mistaken for rebels. Others were caught in the crossfire during firefights between the British and the rebels. The shelling and resulting fires left parts of central Dublin in ruins.
1945 World_War_II

World War II: The Surrender of Caserta is signed by the commander of German forces in Italy.

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.
1945 Operations Manna, Chowhound, and Faust

World War II: Allied airdrops of food begin over German-occupied regions of the Netherlands.

Operations Manna, Chowhound and Faust provided food to relieve a famine in the 1944–1945 German-occupied Netherlands. By May 1945, about 20,000 people in the Netherlands had died of starvation and three million were surviving on an ever-diminishing supply of food. The main area impacted by the famine encompassed the large cities in the west. The operations were undertaken by Allied air and ground forces in the last ten days of World War II. A truce with the German occupiers permitted the relief operation to be carried out. Manna (29 April – 7 May 1945), air-dropped 7,000 tonnes of food into the Nazi-occupied western part of the Netherlands. The operation was carried out by British Royal Air Force (RAF) units and squadrons from the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) and Polish Air Force squadrons in the RAF. Chowhound (1–8 May 1945) dropped 4,000 tonnes of food and was accomplished by the United States Army Air Forces. Faust (2–9 May 1945) was a ground operation carried out by the Canadian army which delivered 7,000 tons of food. In total, 18,000 tonnes of food were air dropped or trucked into the occupied Netherlands over 11 days. The war ended in the Netherlands with the 8 May overall surrender of Nazi Germany. Operations Manna, Chowhound, and Faust staved off a more extensive famine in the Netherlands. With the end of the war, the Allies sent additional large quantities of food into the Netherlands to relieve food shortages.
1945 Adolf Hitler

World War II: Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designates Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor.

Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany in the Nazi era from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 under his leadership marked the outbreak of the Second World War. Throughout the ensuing conflict, Hitler was closely involved in the direction of German military operations and was central to the perpetration of the genocide of about six million Jews in the Holocaust as well as the deaths of millions of other victims. Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary and moved to Germany in 1913. He was decorated during his service in the German Army in the First World War, receiving the Iron Cross. In 1919, he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the Nazi Party, and in 1921, was appointed the leader of the Nazi Party. In 1923, he attempted to seize governmental power in a failed coup in Munich and was sentenced to five years in prison, serving just over a year. While there, he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf ('my struggle'). After his early release in 1924, he gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles as well as promoting pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. He frequently denounced communism as being part of an international Jewish conspiracy. Following elections to the Reichstag in November 1932, the Nazi Party held the most seats in the Reichstag ('parliament'), but not a majority. Subsequently, former chancellor Franz von Papen and other conservative politicians convinced Reichspräsident ('president') Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor on 30 January 1933. Shortly thereafter, on 23 March, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act of 1933, which ultimately began the Weimar Republic's transformation into Nazi Germany. Upon Hindenburg's death on 2 August 1934, Hitler replaced him as head of state and thereafter Germany became a totalitarian dictatorship. Domestically, Hitler began to implement numerous racist policies, which marginalised and scapegoated German Jews. His first six years in power resulted in rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the abrogation of restrictions imposed on Germany after the First World War, and the annexation of territories inhabited by millions of ethnic Germans, which won him significant popularity. One of Hitler's key goals was Lebensraum ('living space') for the German people in Eastern Europe. His aggressive, expansionist foreign policy is considered the primary cause of World War II in Europe. On 1 September 1939, Hitler oversaw the German invasion of Poland, thereby causing Britain and France to declare war on Germany. After ordering an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, he declared war on the United States in December of the same year. By the end of 1941, German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe and North Africa. These gains were gradually reversed after 1941 until the Allied forces defeated the German military in 1945. On 29 April 1945, Hitler married his longtime partner, Eva Braun, in the Führerbunker ('leader's bunker') in Berlin. They committed suicide the next day to avoid capture by the Soviet Red Army. The historian and biographer Ian Kershaw described Hitler as "the embodiment of modern political evil". Under Hitler's leadership and racist ideology, the Nazi regime was responsible for the genocide of an estimated six million Jews and millions of other victims, whom he and his followers deemed Untermenschen ('subhumans') or socially undesirable. Hitler and the Nazis were also responsible for the deliberate killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war. In addition, 28.7 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European theatre. In absolute terms, the number of civilians killed during World War II was unprecedented in warfare, and the casualties make it the deadliest conflict in history.
1945 Dachau_concentration_camp

Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops.

Dachau was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest-running one, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern the Nazi Party's political opponents, which consisted of communists, social democrats, and other dissidents. It was located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory northeast of the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km (10 mi) northwest of Munich in the Gau Munich-Upper Bavaria, in Southern Germany. After its opening by Heinrich Himmler, its purpose was enlarged to include forced labor, and eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, Romani, Germans, and Austrians that the Nazi Party regarded as criminals, and, finally, foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded. The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps, which were mostly work camps or Arbeitskommandos, and were located throughout southern Germany and Austria. The main camp was liberated by U.S. forces on 29 April 1945. Dachau was the third concentration camp to be liberated by British or American Allied forces.
1946 International Military Tribunal for the Far East

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East convenes and indicts former Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tojo and 28 former Japanese leaders for war crimes.

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trial and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was a military trial convened on April 29, 1946, to try leaders of the Empire of Japan for their crimes against peace, conventional war crimes, and crimes against humanity, leading up to and during World War II. The IMTFE was modeled after the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, Germany, which prosecuted the leaders of Nazi Germany for their war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. Following Japan's defeat and occupation by the Allies, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, United States General Douglas MacArthur, issued a special proclamation establishing the IMTFE. A charter was drafted to establish the court's composition, jurisdiction, and procedures; the crimes were defined based on the Nuremberg Charter. The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal was composed of judges, prosecutors, and staff from eleven countries that had fought against Japan: Australia, Canada, China, France, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States; the defense consisted of Japanese and American lawyers. The Tokyo Trial exercised broader temporal jurisdiction than its counterpart in Nuremberg, beginning from the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Twenty-eight high-ranking Japanese military and political leaders were tried by the court, including prime ministers, cabinet members, and military commanders. They were charged with 55 separate counts, including the waging wars of aggression, murder, and various war crimes and crimes against humanity (such as torture and forced labor) against prisoners-of-war, civilian internees, and the inhabitants of occupied territories of the Japanese colonial empire; ultimately, 45 of the counts, including all the murder charges, were ruled either redundant or not authorized under the IMTFE Charter. The Tokyo Trial lasted more than twice as long as the better-known Nuremberg trials, and its impact was similarly influential in the development of international law; international war crimes tribunals would not again be established until the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 1993 and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1994. By the time it adjourned on November 12, 1948, two defendants had died of natural causes and one, Shūmei Ōkawa, was ruled unfit to stand trial. All remaining defendants were found guilty of at least one count. Seven were sentenced to death: Kenji Doihara, Kōki Hirota, Seishirō Itagaki, Heitarō Kimura, Akira Mutō, Hideki Tojo, and Iwane Matsui. Another sixteen were sentenced to life imprisonment, during which three died and the remaining thirteen were paroled between 1952 and 1958. Another 42 suspects, including Nobusuke Kishi and Yoshisuke Aikawa, were imprisoned awaiting an unrealized second trial, and released in 1947 and 1948. Across Asia and the Pacific, domestic tribunals were held in Allied nations, with most concluding by 1949. These indicted a further 5,700 Japanese personnel, of whom 984 were sentenced to death. The trials were criticized on a range of issues. The U.S. occupation decided that Emperor Hirohito, and other members of the Imperial House, would not be prosecuted, called to testify, or incriminated by other evidence. Defendants were allowed to coordinate their stories to this end. Strategic bombing by Japan and crimes against its own citizens, including Koreans and Taiwanese, were not prosecuted. Some of the trial's judges and defense lawyers argued this was connected to the lack of prosecution of Allied strategic bombing in Asia, including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and of Western imperialism in Asia. Due to a U.S. cover-up, Japanese leaders and scientists involved in its biological warfare against China and forced human experimentation, including Unit 731, were given immunity in exchange for assisting the United States biological weapons program. Some of these leaders were convicted by the 1949 Soviet Khabarovsk war crimes trials.
1952 Pan Am Flight 202

Pan Am Flight 202 crashes into the Amazon basin near Carolina, Maranhão, Brazil, killing 50 people.

Pan American World Airways Flight 202 was a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser aircraft that crashed in the Amazon Basin about 281 nautical miles (320 mi; 520 km) southwest of Carolina, Brazil, on April 29, 1952. The accident happened en route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, during the third leg of a four-leg journey. All 50 people on board were killed in the deadliest-ever accident involving the Boeing 377. The investigation took place under exceptionally unfavorable conditions, and the exact cause of the crash was not established. However, it was theorized based on an examination of the wreckage that an engine had separated in flight after propeller blade failure.
1953 3D_television

The first U.S.

experimental 3D television broadcast shows an episode of Space Patrol on Los Angeles ABC affiliate KECA-TV.
3D television (3DTV) is a type of television that conveys depth perception to the viewer by employing techniques such as stereoscopic display, multi-view display, or any other form of 3D display. Most modern 3D television sets use an active shutter 3D system or a polarized 3D system, and some are autostereoscopic without the need of glasses. As of 2017, most 3D TV sets and services are no longer available from manufacturers.
1967 Muhammad_Ali

After refusing induction into the United States Army the previous day, Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title.

Muhammad Ali was an American professional boxer and activist. A global cultural icon, widely known by the nickname "the Greatest", he is often regarded as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. He held the Ring magazine heavyweight title from 1964 to 1970, was the undisputed champion from 1974 to 1978, and was the WBA and Ring heavyweight champion from 1978 to 1979. In 1999, he was named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated and the Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC.
1970 Vietnam War

Vietnam War: United States and South Vietnamese forces invade Cambodia to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail in an attempt to cut off supplies to the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army.

The Vietnam War (c. 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of 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 civil and colonial conflicts in Vietnam became internationalized in 1950. After the defeat of the French Union in the First Indochina War, Vietnam's independence was affirmed at the 1954 Geneva Conference, but the country was divided at the 17th parallel: the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, took control of North Vietnam, while Ngo Dinh Diem led South Vietnam, which the US assumed financial and military support for. The North Vietnamese supplied and eventually directed the Viet Cong (VC), a communist front in the south that intensified a guerrilla war from 1957. In 1958, North Vietnam invaded Laos, establishing the Ho Chi Minh trail to supply the VC insurgency. By 1961, North Vietnam was covertly sending soldiers of its People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) to assist the southern insurgents. President John F. Kennedy increased US involvement in the early 1960s, including military advisors and aid to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). In 1963, Diem was killed in a US-backed ARVN military coup, which added to South Vietnam's growing instability. Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, the US Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson authority to increase military presence without declaring war. Johnson launched a bombing campaign of the north and deployed combat troops, dramatically increasing deployment to 184,000 by 1966, and 536,000 by 1969. US forces relied on air supremacy and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations in rural areas. Communist forces relied on guerrilla tactics, using the countryside and jungle as concealed base areas. In 1968, the communists under Lê Duẩn launched the Tet Offensive, which was a tactical defeat but contributed to growing American opposition to the war. Johnson's successor, Richard Nixon, began "Vietnamization" from 1969, which saw the conflict fought by an expanded ARVN while US forces withdrew. The 1970 Cambodian coup d'état resulted in a PAVN invasion and US–ARVN counter-invasion, escalating its civil war. With its ranks degraded by widespread drug abuse and plummeting morale, US troops had mostly withdrawn from Vietnam by 1972. However, American forces provided crucial air support to ARVN against North Vietnam's massive Easter Offensive with the Linebacker Operations. Following the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the last American forces left. The accords were subsequently violated by North Vietnam, and bloody fighting continued until the 1975 Spring Offensive. Weakened by years of corruption and the economic troubles of South Vietnam's Thiệu regime, Saigon fell to the PAVN, marking the war's end. North and South Vietnam were officially reunified in 1976. The war exacted an enormous cost: estimates of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 970,000 to 3 million. Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians, 20,000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 US service members died. The war was also marked by brutal atrocities, including large-scale massacres (such as Huế and Mỹ Lai), terrorism, indiscriminate bombings, rape, torture, and persecution of ethnic minorities. 20% of South Vietnam's jungle was sprayed with toxic herbicides, which led to significant health problems. Political repression and flawed economic policies following the war would precipitate the Vietnamese boat people and the larger Indochina refugee crisis, which saw millions leave Indochina, of which about 250,000 perished at sea. The Khmer Rouge carried out the Cambodian genocide, and the Cambodian–Vietnamese War began in 1978. In response, China invaded Vietnam, with border conflicts lasting until 1991. Within the US, the war gave rise to Vietnam syndrome, an aversion to American overseas military involvement, which, with the Watergate scandal, contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected the United States throughout the 1970s.
1974 Watergate_scandal

Watergate scandal: United States President Richard Nixon announces the release of edited transcripts of White House tape recordings relating to the scandal.

The Watergate scandal, or simply Watergate, was a political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. On June 17, 1972, operatives associated with Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign were caught burglarizing and planting listening devices in the Democratic National Committee headquarters at Washington, D.C.'s Watergate complex. Nixon's efforts to conceal his administration's involvement led to an impeachment process and ultimately to his resignation in August 1974.
1975 Operation Frequent Wind

Vietnam War: Operation Frequent Wind: The U.S.

begins to evacuate U.S. citizens from Saigon before an expected North Vietnamese takeover. U.S. involvement in the war comes to an end. This happens after the Bombing of Tan Son Nhut Air Base.
Operation Frequent Wind was the final phase in the evacuation of American civilians and "at-risk" Vietnamese from Saigon, South Vietnam, before the takeover of the city by the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) in the Fall of Saigon. It was carried out on 29–30 April 1975, during the last days of the Vietnam War. More than 7,000 people were evacuated by helicopter from various points in Saigon. The airlift resulted in several enduring images. Evacuation plans already existed as a standard procedure for American embassies. At the beginning of March, fixed-wing aircraft began evacuating civilians from Tan Son Nhat Airport through neighboring countries. By mid-April, contingency plans were in place and preparations were underway for a possible helicopter evacuation. As the imminent collapse of Saigon became evident, the U.S. Navy assembled Task Force 76 off the coast near Vũng Tàu to support a helicopter evacuation and provide air support if required. In the event, air support was not needed as the North Vietnamese paused for a week at the outskirts of Saigon, possibly waiting for the South Vietnamese government to collapse and avoiding a confrontation with the U.S. by allowing the mostly-unopposed evacuation of Americans from Saigon. On 28 April, Tan Son Nhut Air Base (next to the airport) came under artillery fire and attack from Vietnamese People's Air Force aircraft. The fixed-wing evacuation was terminated and Operation Frequent Wind began. During the fixed-wing evacuation 50,493 people (including 2,678 Vietnamese orphans) were evacuated from Tan Son Nhut. The evacuation took place primarily from the Defense Attaché Office compound, beginning around 14:00 on 29 April, and ending that night with only limited small arms damage to the helicopters. The U.S. Embassy in Saigon was intended to be only a secondary evacuation point for embassy staff, but it was soon overwhelmed with evacuees and desperate South Vietnamese. The evacuation of the embassy was completed at 07:53 on 30 April, but some Americans chose to stay or were left behind and some 400 third-country nationals were left at the embassy. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese evacuated themselves by sea or air. With the collapse of South Vietnam, numerous boats and ships, Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) helicopters and some fixed-wing aircraft sailed or flew out to the evacuation fleet. Helicopters began to clog ship decks and eventually, some were pushed overboard to allow others to land. Pilots of other helicopters were told to drop off their passengers and then take off and ditch in the sea, from where they would be rescued. In Operation Frequent Wind a total of 1,373 Americans and 5,595 Vietnamese and third-country nationals were evacuated by helicopter. The total number of Vietnamese evacuated by Frequent Wind or self-evacuated and ending up in the custody of the United States for processing as refugees to enter the United States totalled 138,869.
1975 People's_Army_of_Vietnam

Vietnam War: The North Vietnamese Army completes its capture of all parts of South Vietnam-held Trường Sa Islands.

The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) is the national military force of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the armed wing of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). The PAVN is the backbone component of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces and includes: Ground Force, Navy, Air Defence - Air Force, Border Guard and Coast Guard. Vietnam does not have a separate and formally-structured ground force or army service. Instead, all ground troops, army corps, military districts and special forces are designated under the umbrella term combined arms and belong to the Ministry of National Defence, directly under the command of the CPV Central Military Commission, the Minister of National Defence, and the General Staff of the Vietnam People's Army.
1985 Space_Shuttle_Challenger

Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on STS-51-B.

Space Shuttle Challenger (OV-099) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the commanding ship of a nineteenth-century scientific expedition that traveled the world, Challenger was the second Space Shuttle orbiter to fly into space after Columbia, and launched on its maiden flight in April 1983. It was destroyed in January 1986 soon after launch in a disaster that killed all seven crewmembers aboard.
1986 Los_Angeles_Public_Library

A fire at the Central library of the Los Angeles Public Library damages or destroys 400,000 books and other items.

The Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) is a public library system in Los Angeles, California, operating separate from the Los Angeles County Public Library system. The system holds more than six million volumes, and with around 19 million residents in the Greater Los Angeles area, it serves the largest metropolitan population of any public library system in the United States. The system is overseen by a Board of Library Commissioners with five members appointed by the mayor of Los Angeles in staggered terms, and operates 72 library branches throughout the city. In 1997 a local historian described it as "one of the biggest and best-regarded library systems in the nation."
1986 Aircraft_carrier

The United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise becomes the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to transit the Suez Canal, navigating from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to relieve the USS Coral Sea.

An aircraft carrier is a warship designed to carry, launch, recover and support aircraft at sea, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities that allow it to serve as a mobile, seagoing airbase. Typically it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a naval force to project seaborne air power far from national territory without depending on local airfields for the staging of aircraft operations. Since their inception in the early 20th century, aircraft carriers have evolved from wooden vessels used to deploy individual tethered reconnaissance balloons, to nuclear-powered supercarriers that carry dozens of fighters, strike aircraft, military helicopters, AEW&Cs and other types of aircraft such as UCAVs. While heavier fixed-wing aircraft such as airlifters, gunships and bombers have been launched from aircraft carriers, these aircraft do not often land on a carrier due to flight deck limitations.
1986 Sikhs

An assembly of Sikhs, known as a Sarbat Khalsa, officially declare independence for a state of Khalistan.

Sikhs are followers of Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the teachings of Guru Nanak. The term Sikh has its origin in the Sanskrit word śiṣya, meaning 'seeker', 'disciple' or 'student'.
1991 1991_Bangladesh_cyclone

A cyclone strikes the Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh with winds of around 155 miles per hour (249 km/h), killing at least 138,000 people and leaving as many as ten million homeless.

The 1991 Bangladesh cyclone was a catastrophic tropical cyclone, being one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in recorded history, and one of the most powerful cyclones in the Indian Ocean. Forming out of a large area of convection over the Bay of Bengal on April 24, the tropical cyclone initially developed gradually while meandering over the southern Bay of Bengal. On April 28, the storm began to accelerate northeastwardly under the influence of the southwesterlies, and rapidly intensified to super cyclonic storm strength near the coast of Bangladesh on April 29. After making landfall in the Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh with winds of around 250 km/h (155 mph), the cyclone rapidly weakened as it moved through northeastern India, degenerating into a remnant low over the Yunnan province in western China.
1991

The 7.0 Mw Racha earthquake affects Georgia with a maximum MSK intensity of IX (Destructive), killing 270 people.

The 1991 Racha earthquake occurred in the province of Racha, Georgia, at 9:12 UTC on 29 April. Centered on the districts of Oni and Ambrolauri on the southern foothills of the Greater Caucasus mountains, it killed 270, left approximately 100,000 homeless and caused severe damage, including to several medieval monuments. It had a magnitude of 7.0 and was the most powerful earthquake recorded in the Caucasus.
1992 1992_Los_Angeles_riots

Riots in Los Angeles begin, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King.

Over the next three days 63 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed.
Los Angeles, California, experienced a series of riots and civil disturbances from April 29 to May 3, 1992. Civil unrest began in South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after a jury acquitted four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) charged with using excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King. The incident, which had been videotaped by George Holliday, who was a bystander to the incident, was heavily reported on by various news and media outlets, such as CNN.
1997 Chemical_Weapons_Convention

The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 enters into force, outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons by its signatories.

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), officially the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, is an arms control treaty administered by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), an intergovernmental organization based in The Hague, Netherlands. The treaty entered into force on 29 April 1997. It prohibits the use of chemical weapons, and the large-scale development, production, stockpiling, or transfer of chemical weapons or their precursors, except for very limited purposes. The main obligation of member states under the convention is to effect this prohibition, as well as the destruction of all current chemical weapons. All destruction activities must take place under OPCW verification.
2004 Oldsmobile

The final Oldsmobile is built in Lansing, Michigan, ending 107 years of vehicle production.

Oldsmobile was a brand of American automobiles, produced for most of its existence by General Motors. Originally established as "Olds Motor Vehicle Company" by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, it produced over 35 million vehicles, including at least 14 million built at its Lansing, Michigan, factory alone.
2011 Wedding_of_Prince_William_and_Catherine_Middleton

The wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton takes place at Westminster Abbey in London.

The wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton took place on Friday, 29 April 2011 at Westminster Abbey in London, England. William was second in the line of succession to the British throne at the time, later becoming heir apparent. The couple had been in a relationship since 2003.
2013 2013_Prague_explosion

A powerful explosion occurs in an office building in Prague, believed to have been caused by natural gas, and injures 43 people.

On April 29, 2013 at around 10:00am CEST, an explosion occurred in a building in the centre of Prague, Czech Republic. The incident occurred in a townhouse belonging to the Air Navigation Services of the Czech Republic on Divadelní street in Old Town, Prague 1, close to the Academy of Sciences and National Theatre. The blast could be heard across the whole city centre, as far away as Prague Castle, 1.4 km (1 mi) away from the incident. While there were no fatalities, 43 people were injured by the blast, one seriously. The resulting shock wave from the blast damaged windows in nearby buildings including the National Theatre, Café Slavia, the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
2013 National_Airlines_Flight_102

National Airlines Flight 102, a Boeing 747-400 freighter aircraft, crashes during takeoff from Bagram Airfield in Parwan Province, Afghanistan, killing all seven people on board.

National Airlines Flight 102 (N8102/NCR102) was a cargo flight operated by National Airlines between Camp Bastion near the city of Lashkargah in Afghanistan and Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai, with a refueling stop at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. On April 29, 2013, the Boeing 747-400 operating the flight crashed within the perimeter of the Bagram Airfield moments after taking off, killing all seven people on board.
2015 Baltimore_Orioles

A baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox sets the all-time low attendance mark for Major League Baseball.

Zero fans were in attendance for the game, as the stadium was officially closed to the public due to the 2015 Baltimore protests.
The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East Division. As one of the American League's eight charter teams in 1901, the franchise spent its first year as a major league club in Milwaukee as the Milwaukee Brewers before moving to St. Louis to become the St. Louis Browns in 1902. After 52 years in St. Louis, the franchise was purchased in 1953 by a syndicate of Baltimore business and civic interests, led by attorney and civic activist Clarence Miles and Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro Jr. The team's current owner is David Rubenstein. The Orioles' home ballpark is Oriole Park at Camden Yards, which opened in 1992 in downtown Baltimore. The oriole is the official state bird of Maryland; the name has been used by several baseball clubs in the city, including another AL charter member franchise which folded after the 1902 season and was replaced the next year by the New York Highlanders, later the Yankees. Nicknames for the team include the "O's" and the "Birds".

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