502 – King Gundobad issues a new legal code (Lex Burgundionum) at Lyon that makes Gallo-Romans and Burgundians subject to the same laws.
845 – Siege of Paris: Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok. They withdrew after Charles the Bald paid a large ransom.
1430 – The Ottoman Empire under Murad II captures the Byzantine city of Thessalonica.
1461 – Wars of the Roses: Battle of Towton – Edward of York defeats Queen Margaret to become King Edward IV of England.
1500 – Cesare Borgia is given the title of Captain General and Gonfalonier by his father Rodrigo Borgia after returning from his conquests in the Romagna.
1549 – The city of Salvador da Bahia, the first capital of Brazil, is founded.
1632 – Treaty of Saint-Germain is signed returning Quebec to French control after the English had seized it in 1629.
1638 – Swedish colonists establish the first European settlement in Delaware, naming it New Sweden.
1683 – Yaoya Oshichi, 15-year-old Japanese girl, burnt at the stake for an act of arson committed due to unrequited love.
1776 – General George Washington appoints Major General Israel Putnam commander of the troops in New York. In his new capacity, Putnam was expected to execute plans for the defense of New York City and its waterways.
1792 – King Gustav III of Sweden dies after being shot in the back at a midnight masquerade ball at Stockholm's Royal Opera 13 days earlier. He is succeeded by Gustav IV Adolf.
1806 – Congress authorizes surveying to begin for the construction of the Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, becoming the first United States federal highway, which sped the way for thousands of Americans heading west.
1809 – King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden abdicates after a coup d'état. At the Diet of Porvoo, Finland's four Estates pledge allegiance to Alexander I of Russia, commencing the secession of the Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden.
1831 – Great Bosnian uprising: Bosniaks rebel against Turkey.
1847 – Mexican–American War: United States forces led by General Winfield Scott take Veracruz after a siege.
1848 – Due to an ice jam, Niagara Falls stops flowing for 30 hours.
1849 – The United Kingdom annexes the Punjab.
1857 – Sepoy Mangal Pandey of the 34th Regiment, Bengal Native Infantry mutinies against the East India Company's rule in India and inspires the protracted Indian Rebellion of 1857, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny.
1865 – American Civil War: The final campaign of the Civil War begins in Virginia when Union troops under General Ulysses S. Grant move against the Confederate trenches around Petersburg. General Robert E. Lee's outnumbered Rebels are soon forced to evacuate the city and begin a desperate race west. Federal forces under Major General Philip Sheridan move to flank Lee's Confederate forces as the Appomattox Campaign begins. History
1867 – Queen Victoria gives Royal Assent to the British North America Act which establishes the Dominion of Canada on July 1.
1871 – The Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria.
1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: Battle of Kambula: In northwest Zululand, a force of 2,000 British and Colonial troops under the command of British Colonel Henry Evelyn Wood defeated 20,000 Zulus under King Cetshwayo, turning the tide in the favor of the British in the Zulu War. History
1882 – The Knights of Columbus are established.
1886 – Dr. John Pemberton brews the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta.
1911 – The M1911 .45 ACP pistol becomes the official U.S. Army side arm.
1917: Prime Minister Hjalmar Hammarskjold of Sweden, father of the future United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, resigns after his policy of strict neutrality in World War I—including continued trading with Germany, in violation of the Allied blockade—leads to widespread hunger and political instability in Sweden. History
1929: President Herbert Hoover has a phone installed at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House. It took a while to get the line to Hoover's desk working correctly and the president complained to aides when his son was unable to get through on the Oval Office phone from an outside line. Previously, Hoover had used a phone located in the foyer just outside the office. Telephones and a telephone switchboard had been in use at the White House since 1878, when President Rutherford B. Hayes had the first one installed, but no phone had ever been installed at the president's desk until Hoover's administration. History
1930 – Heinrich Brüning is appointed German Reichskanzler.
1936 – In Germany, Adolf Hitler receives 99% of the votes in a referendum to ratify Germany's illegal reoccupation of the Rhineland, receiving 44.5 million votes out of 45.5 million registered voters.
1941 – The North American Radio Broadcasting Agreement goes into effect at 03:00 local time.
1941 – World War II: British Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy forces defeat those of the Italian Regia Marina off the Peloponnesian coast of Greece in the Battle of Cape Matapan.
1942 – World War II: The Bombing of Lübeck is the first major success for the RAF Bomber Command against Germany and a German city.
1945 – World War II: Last day of V-1 flying bomb attacks on England.
1945 – World War II: The German 4th Army is almost destroyed by the Soviet Red Army.
1945 – World War II: Gen. George S. Patton's 3rd Army captures Frankfurt, as "Old Blood and Guts" continued his march east.
1946 – Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, one of Mexico's leading universities, is founded.
1947 – Malagasy Uprising against French colonial rule in Madagascar.
1951: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for their role in passing atomic secrets to the Soviets during and after World War II. The husband and wife were later sentenced to death and were executed in 1953. History
1957 – The New York, Ontario and Western Railway makes its final run, the first major U.S. railroad to be abandoned in its entirety.
1961 – The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C., to vote in presidential elections.
1962 – Arturo Frondizi, the president of Argentina, is overthrown in a military coup by Argentina's armed forces, ending an 11½ day constitutional crisis.
1971 – My Lai Massacre: Lieutenant William L. Calley is convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison by a U.S. Army court-martial at Fort Benning, Georgia. On March 16, 1968, Lt. Calley, a platoon leader, had led his men in a massacre of Vietnamese civilians, including women and children, at My Lai 4, a cluster of hamlets in Quang Ngai Province. History
1971 – A Los Angeles jury recommends the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers.
1973 – Vietnam War: Under the provisions of the Paris Peace Accords signed on January 27, 1973, the last U.S. combat soldiers leave South Vietnam, ending nearly 10 years of U.S. military presence in that country. The U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam headquarters was disestablished. Only a Defense Attache Office and a few Marine guards at the Saigon American Embassy remained, although roughly 8,500 U.S. civilians stayed on as technical advisers to the South Vietnamese. As part of the Accords, Hanoi released the last 67 of its acknowledged American prisoners of war, bringing the total number released to 591. History History
1973 – Operation Barrel Roll, a covert US bombing campaign in Laos to stop communist infiltration of South Vietnam, ends.
1974: The unmanned U.S. space probe Mariner 10, launched by NASA in November 1973, becomes the first spacecraft to visit the planet Mercury, sending back close-up images of a celestial body usually obscured because of its proximity to the sun. History
1974 – Local farmers in Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi province, China, discover the Terracotta Army that was buried with Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, in the third century BCE.
1982 – The Canada Act 1982 receives the Royal Assent from Queen Elizabeth II, setting the stage for the Queen of Canada to proclaim the Constitution Act, 1982.
1982: The combination of an earthquake and a volcanic eruption at El Chichón in southern Mexico converts a hill into a crater, kills thousands of people and destroys acres of farmland. History
1984 – The Baltimore Colts load its possessions onto fifteen Mayflower moving trucks in the early morning hours and transfer its operations to Indianapolis.
1989 – The first private commercial rocket makes a suborbital test flight at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
1990 – The Czechoslovak parliament is unable to reach an agreement on what to call the country after the fall of Communism, sparking the so-called Hyphen War.
1993 – Catherine Callbeck becomes premier of Prince Edward Island and the first woman to be elected in a general election as premier of a Canadian province.
1999 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark (10,006.78) for the first time, during the height of the dot-com bubble.
1999 – A magnitude 6.8 earthquake strikes the Chamoli district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, killing 103.
2002 – In reaction to the Passover massacre two days prior, Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield against Palestinian militants, its largest military operation in the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War.
2004 – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia join NATO as full members.
2004 – The Republic of Ireland becomes the first country in the world to ban smoking in all work places, including bars and restaurants.
2009: G. Richard Wagoner Jr., the chairman and chief executive of troubled auto giant General Motors (GM), resigns at the request of the Obama administration. During Wagoner's more than 8 years in the top job at GM, the company lost billions of dollars and in 2008 was surpassed by Japan-based Toyota as the world's top-selling maker of cars and trucks, a title the American automaker had held since the early 1930s. History
2010 – Two female suicide bombers hit the Moscow Metro system at the peak of the morning rush hour, killing 40.
2013 – At least 36 people are killed when a 16-floor building collapses in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
2013 – A landslide kills 66 people in China's Tibet Autonomous Region near Lhasa.
2014 – The first same-sex marriages in England and Wales are performed.
Saints' Days and Holy Days
observed on the Sunday after Easter
Traditional Western
Contemporary Western
Berthold
Eustace of Luxeuil
Gwladys
Gwynllyw
Eustace of Luxeuil
Gwladys
Gwynllyw
Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran
Hans Nielsen Hauge (Lutheran)
Eastern Orthodox
Saints
Martyrs Jonas and Barachisius, and companions, in Persia, under Shapur II (330):
Abibus, Zanithas, Elias (Helias), Lazarus, Mares, Maruthas, Narses,
Sabbas, Simiathos.
Saint Mark the Confessor, Bishop of Arethusa (364)
Hieromartyr Cyril, Deacon, of Heliopolis, and others, who suffered
under Julian the Apostate (364)
Venerable John of Egypt, anchorite (4th c.)
Saint Diadochos of Photiki, Bishop of Photike in Old Epirus, whose works
are included in the Philokalia (ca. 486)
Venerable Hesychios the Sinaite, Abbot of Saint Catherine's Monastery
at Mount Sinai (7th c.)
Saint Eustathius the Confessor, Bishop of Kios in Bithynia (9th c.)
Abibus, Zanithas, Elias (Helias), Lazarus, Mares, Maruthas, Narses,
Sabbas, Simiathos.
Saint Mark the Confessor, Bishop of Arethusa (364)
Hieromartyr Cyril, Deacon, of Heliopolis, and others, who suffered
under Julian the Apostate (364)
Venerable John of Egypt, anchorite (4th c.)
Saint Diadochos of Photiki, Bishop of Photike in Old Epirus, whose works
are included in the Philokalia (ca. 486)
Venerable Hesychios the Sinaite, Abbot of Saint Catherine's Monastery
at Mount Sinai (7th c.)
Saint Eustathius the Confessor, Bishop of Kios in Bithynia (9th c.)
Pre-Schism Western Saints
Martyr Secundus of Asti, a noble from Asti in Piedmont in Italy and an officer
in the imperial army, beheaded in Asti under Hadrian (119)
Saints Armogastes and Companions (ca. 460)
Saints Gwynllyw (Gundleus) and Gwladys (Gladys), parents of St. Cadoc (5th c.)
Saint Firminus, Bishop of Viviers in France (6th c.)
Saint Lasar (Lassar, Lassera), a nun in Ireland and niece of St Forchera (6th c.)
Saint Eustasius of Luxeuil (Eustace), Abbot of Luxeuil (625)
in the imperial army, beheaded in Asti under Hadrian (119)
Saints Armogastes and Companions (ca. 460)
Saints Gwynllyw (Gundleus) and Gwladys (Gladys), parents of St. Cadoc (5th c.)
Saint Firminus, Bishop of Viviers in France (6th c.)
Saint Lasar (Lassar, Lassera), a nun in Ireland and niece of St Forchera (6th c.)
Saint Eustasius of Luxeuil (Eustace), Abbot of Luxeuil (625)
Post-Schism Orthodox Saints
Venerable Jonah (1480), Mark (15th c.), and Bassus of the Pskov-Caves Monastery
New Martyrs and Confessors
New Martyrs Priest Paul Voinarsky, and brothers Paul and Alexis Kiryan,
of the Crimea (1919)
New Hieromartyr Michael Victorov, Priest (1933)
of the Crimea (1919)
New Hieromartyr Michael Victorov, Priest (1933)
Other commemorations
Repose of Elder Nicetas of the Roslavl Forests (1793)
