April 10

On This Day In History
	1938: Anschluss approved in Austria In a controlled plebiscite in Austria this day in 1938, soon after Adolf Hitler's invasion of the country, 99.7 percent of Austrians approved the Anschluss (German: "Union")—the political unification of Austria and Germany.
SA troops guarding a Jewish-owned business in Vienna shortly after the Anschluss
Biography Of The Day
	Max von Sydow Swedish actor Max von Sydow, perhaps best known for his dour, brooding characterizations in films directed by Ingmar Bergman and whose film career spanned more than half a century, was born this day in 1929.
Max von Sydow and Pelle Hvenegaard in Pelle the Conqueror, which won the Oscar
More Events On This Day In History
2003	2003 Haiti officially recognized Vodou as a religion
2001	2001 The Netherlands passed a bill permitting euthanasia, the first such national law in the world.
	1988 After taking a decade to build, the Seto Great Bridge, spanning the Inland Sea in Japan, was opened to traffic.
	1973 Pakistan adopted its third constitution, shifting the role of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto from president to prime minister.
1972	1972 The development, production, and stockpiling of biological weapons were outlawed by the Biological Weapons Convention, signed by more than 150 countries.
	1925 The first government led by French premier Édouard Herriot, a Radical Party leader who had been put into office by the left-wing coalition Cartel des Gauches, fell.
	1583 Hugo Grotius, the Dutch jurist and scholar whose legal masterpiece, De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625; On the Law of War and Peace), was one of the first great contributions to modern international law, was born.

April 9

On This Day In History
	2003, by Ramzi Haidar2003: Fall of Baghdad Baghdad fell to U.S.-led forces on this day in 2003, several weeks after the start of the Iraq War, a conflict begun to oust Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein because of his supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction.
Explosions illuminating the skies of Baghdad during the U.S.-led air bombardment of the city, March
Biography Of The Day
	Jørn Utzon Born this day in 1918, Danish architect Jørn Utzon is best known for his dynamic, imaginative, but problematic design for Australia's most famous building, the Sydney Opera House, a combination of lightness and monumentality.
The Sydney Opera House, Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour)
More Events On This Day In History
2001	2001 American Airlines officially completed its acquisition of Trans World Airlines and became the world's largest airline.
	1965 The Astrodome, an indoor stadium, opened in Houston, Texas, hosting its first baseball game.
	1963 An act of Congress conferred honorary U.S. citizenship on Sir Winston Churchill.
	1939 African American contralto Marian Anderson sang to an Easter Sunday crowd of 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow her to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.
	1898 Paul Robeson, a celebrated American singer, actor, and political activist, was born.
	1865 General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia of the Confederate States of America, signed a treaty of surrender at Appomattox Court House, ending the American Civil War.
	1682 René-Robert Cavelier, sieur (lord) de La Salle, claimed the Mississippi River basin for France, naming it Louisiana.
1388	1388 The Battle of Näfels culminated in a major victory for the Swiss Confederation in the first century of its struggle for self-determination against Habsburg overlordship.

April 8

On This Day In History
	Celebration of the Buddha's birth On this day practitioners of the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism, especially those in Japan, celebrate the birth of the Buddha, who lived in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE and founded Buddhism
Buddha statue at Wat Phra Si Sanphet, Ayutthaya, Thailand
Biography Of The Day
	Kofi Annan Ghanaian international civil servant Kofi Annan, the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations (from 1997) and corecipient with the United Nations of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, was born this day in 1938.
Kofi Annan, 1996
More Events On This Day In History
2003	2003 It was reported that springtails (Collembola), long thought to be among the oldest ancestors of insects, did not evolve as insects but rather evolved from a separate group that was formed even before crustaceans and insects diverged.
	1974 American baseball player Hank Aaron hit his 715th career home run—breaking Babe Ruth's record, which had stood since 1935—and in 1976 completed his career with 755 home runs.
	1973 Pablo Picasso, perhaps the most influential artist of the 20th century, died in Mougins, France.
	1950 Jawaharlal Nehru of India concluded the Delhi Pact with Liaqat Ali Khan of Pakistan, providing for the safe passage of refugees displaced after the two countries severed relations in December 1949.
	1912 Sonja Henie, a Norwegian American figure skater who won the world amateur championship for women in 10 consecutive years (1927–36) and three gold medals in the Winter Olympic Games (1928, 1932, and 1936), was born.
	1859 German philosopher Edmund Husserl, founder of phenomenology, was born.
1838	1838 The Great Western, the earliest regular transatlantic steamer, embarked on its maiden voyage from Bristol, England, to New York City.

April 7

On This Day In History
	1963: Jack Nicklaus's first Masters victory American professional golfer Jack Nicklaus, a dominating figure in world golf from the 1960s to the '80s and the winner of 73 PGA tour events in his career, won the Masters Tournament at age 23 on this day in 1963.
Jack Nicklaus blasting out of a sand trap during the second round of his record
Biography Of The Day
	Ravi Shankar Indian musician Ravi Shankar—a sitar virtuoso and composer who founded the National Orchestra of India and who was influential in stimulating Western appreciation of classical Hindustani music—was born this day in 1920.
Ravi Shankar, 1971
More Events On This Day In History
2001	2001 NASA launched the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which reached Mars in October and transmitted photos and other data back to scientists on Earth.
1994	1994 Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, part of the Tutsi minority, was assassinated by Hutu soldiers, which—with the prior deaths of Juvénal Habyarimana, president of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, president of Burundi—sparked civil war in Rwanda.
1947	1947 American industrialist Henry Ford died in Dearborn, Michigan.
	1939 Italian dictator Benito Mussolini made Albania a protectorate of his country, installing Italy's Victor Emmanuel III as king, while Albanian King Zog I went into exile.
1927	1927 The first public demonstration of a one-way videophone occurred between Herbert Hoover, then U.S. secretary of commerce, in Washington, D.C., and officials of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) in New York City.
	1922 U.S. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall secretly leased federal oil reserves to the Mammoth Oil Company in return for cash gifts in the Teapot Dome Scandal.
	1915 Billie Holiday, one of the greatest American jazz singers from the 1930s to the '50s, was born.
1449	1449 Felix V, the last antipope, abdicated.

April 6

On This Day In History
	1896: Olympics revived Pierre, baron de Coubertin, a founder of the International Olympic Committee and its president from 1896 to 1925, realized his goal of reviving the Olympics when the first modern Games opened in Athens this day in 1896.
An official poster from the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens
Biography Of The Day
	Raphael Born this day in 1483 was Italian master painter and architect Raphael, whose work is admired for clarity of form and ease of composition and who is best known for his Madonnas and large figure compositions in the Vatican.
The Grand-Duke's Madonna, oil painting by Raphael, 1505; in the Pitti
More Events On This Day In History
	1909 American explorer Robert Edwin Peary led the first expedition to the North Pole.
1868	1868 The Japanese emperor Meiji issued the Charter Oath, which served to modernize the country during the Meiji Restoration.
1862	1862 Union troops clashed with Confederates in southwestern Tennessee at the Battle of Shiloh, the second great engagement of the American Civil War.
	1830 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formed by American prophet Joseph Smith at Fayette, New York.
1348	1348 The woman said to be Laura, the beloved muse of the Italian poet Petrarch, died.
	1199 Mortally wounded in battle, Richard I (the Lion-Heart) died at Châlus in the duchy of Aquitaine.

April 5

On This Day In History
	1818: Battle of Maipú Chile's independence movement, led by José de San Martín and Bernardo O'Higgins, won a decisive victory over Spain in the Battle of Maipú, which left 2,000 Spaniards and 1,000 Chilean patriots dead on this day in 1818.
1818: Battle of Maipú
Biography Of The Day
	U.S. Department of StateColin Powell U.S. general and statesman Colin Powell, born this day in 1937, served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–93) and secretary of state (2001–05), the first African American to hold either position.
Colin Powell, 2001
More Events On This Day In History
2000	2000 Mori Yoshiro of the Liberal-Democratic Party became prime minister of Japan, replacing Obuchi Keizo, who had suffered a stroke earlier in the month and subsequently died.
1994	1994 American grunge rocker Kurt Cobain, leader of the band Nirvana, committed suicide.
	1984 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar surpassed Wilt Chamberlain as the all-time leading scorer in the National Basketball Association.
	1856 American educator and reformer Booker T. Washington was born in Virginia.
	1621 The Mayflower departed for England after having deposited 102 Pilgrims at what became the American colony of Plymouth (Massachusetts).
	1614 Powhatan Indian Pocahontas married Virginia planter and colonial official John Rolfe.
	1588 English philosopher and political theorist Thomas Hobbes, best known for his publications on individual security and the social contract, was born.

April 4

On This Day In History
	1968: Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated On this day in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., a leader of the American civil rights movement who was in Memphis, Tennessee, to support a strike by the city's sanitation workers, was assassinated by James Earl Ray.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Biography Of The Day
	Marguerite Duras French writer and film director Marguerite Duras, internationally known for her screenplays for Hiroshima mon amour and India Song and winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt for her novel L'Amant, was born this day in 1914.
Marguerite Duras
More Events On This Day In History
2000	2000 The government of South Korea ordered some 85 percent of the country's livestock markets closed in an attempt to end an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that had struck Asian livestock.
	1959 In West Africa the Mali Federation, a short-lived union between the autonomous territories of the Sudanese Republic and Senegal, led by Léopold Senghor, came into being.
	1949 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed, the founding member nations of this military alliance being Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
	1915 Muddy Waters, an American blues guitarist and singer who played a major role in creating the modern rhythm-and-blues style, was born.
1862	1862 In the American Civil War, Union forces under George B. McClellan began the unsuccessful Peninsular Campaign to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.
	1850 With a population totaling about 1,600, Los Angeles was incorporated as an American city.
	1785 Bettina von Arnim, one of the outstanding women writers in modern German literature, was born in Frankfurt am Main.

April 3

On This Day In History
	1948: Implementation of the Marshall Plan On this day in 1948, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed into law George C. Marshall's post-World War II plan to revive the economies of western and southern European countries so as to foster democracy in the region.
Harry S. Truman, 1945
Biography Of The Day
	Fazlur R. Khan Born this day in 1929 in Dacca, India (now Dhaka, Bangladesh), Bangladeshi American civil engineer Fazlur R. Khan was known for his innovations in high-rise building construction, and among his works is Chicago's Sears Tower.
The Sears Tower (right) in Chicago, designed by Fazlur R. Khan
More Events On This Day In History
1996	1996 Federal agents in Montana apprehended Theodore J. Kaczynski, an American terrorist known as the “Unabomber,” who had killed 3 persons and injured more than 20 with explosives sent through the U.S. postal system.
1946	1946 The Japanese army general Homma Masaharu was executed for forcing the Bataan Death March.
	1930 Helmut Kohl, who served as chancellor of West Germany (1982–90) and of reunified Germany (1990–98), was born in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Ger.
	1924 American stage and motion-picture actor Marlon Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska.
	1924 American singer and actress Doris Day was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
1879	1879 Sofia, liberated from the Ottoman Empire by Russian troops, was named the capital of Bulgaria.
	1860 The Pony Express mail delivery system, which used continuous horse-and-rider relays along a 1,800-mile (2,900-km) route between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, was launched in the United States.