In England until the 17th Century, this day,
Lady Day or the feast of the
Annunciation, is accounted the first day of the
year and hence New Year's Day. The usage still lingers in the
dating of the financial year of the government and other bodies to
April 6th – March 25th as modified by the change from the Julian to
the Gregorian Calendar.
Events
- 1199 – Richard I is wounded by a crossbow bolt while
fighting France
, leading to
his death on April 6.
- 1306 – Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scotland.
- 1409 – The Council of Pisa opens.
- 1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to
colonize Virginia
.
- 1634 – The first settlers
arrive in Maryland
.
- 1655 – Saturn's
largest moon, Titan, is discovered by
Christian Huygens.
- 1802 – The Treaty of Amiens is signed as a "Definitive
Treaty of Peace" between France and the Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland
.
- 1807 – The Slave
Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.
- 1807 – The Swansea and
Mumbles Railway, then known as the Oystermouth Railway, becomes
the first passenger carrying railway in the world.
- 1811 – Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from
the University of
Oxford
for his publication of the pamphlet The Necessity of
Atheism.
- 1821 – (Julian Calendar) Greeks
revolt
against the Ottoman Empire, beginning
the Greek War of
Independence.
- 1865 – American Civil War: In Virginia
, Confederate forces temporarily
capture Fort
Stedman
from the Union in a bloody
battle.
- 1894 – Coxey's Army, the first significant American
protest march, departs Massillon, Ohio
for Washington D.C.
- 1903 – Racing Club de
Avellaneda
, one of the big five of Argentina
, is founded.
- 1908 – Clube
Atletico Mineiro
is founded in Belo Horizonte
, Brazil
.
- 1911 – In New York City
, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
fire kills 146 garment workers.
- 1917 – The Georgian Orthodox Church restores
its autocephaly abolished by Imperial
Russia
in 1811.
- 1918 – The Belarusian People's Republic is
established.
- 1924 – On the anniversary of Greek Independence, Alexandros Papanastasiou proclaims
the Second Hellenic
Republic.
- 1931 – The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama
and charged with rape.
- 1939 – Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli becomes Pope Pius XII.
- 1941 – The Kingdom of
Yugoslavia
joins the Axis powers
with the signing of the Tripartite
Pact.
- 1947 – An explosion in a
coal mine in Centralia,
Illinois
kills 111.
- 1948 – The first
successful tornado forecast predicts that a tornado will strike
Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma
.
- 1949 – The extensive
deportation campaign known as March
deportation is conducted in Estonia
, Latvia
and Lithuania
to force collectivisation by way of terror. The Soviet
authorities
deported more than 92,000 people from Baltics to remote areas of the Soviet Union
.
- 1955 – United States Customs seizes copies of
Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" as obscene.
- 1957 – The European Economic Community is
established (West
Germany
, France, Italy
, Belgium
, Netherlands
, Luxembourg
).
- 1958 – Canada
's Avro Arrow makes its first flight.
- 1965 – Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr. successfully
complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma
to the
capitol in Montgomery, Alabama
.
- 1969 – During their honeymoon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono
hold their first Bed-In for Peace at the
Amsterdam Hilton Hotel (until March 31).
- 1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War:
Beginning of Operation
Searchlight of Pakistan
Army against East Pakistani
civilians.
- 1975 – Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot and
killed by a mentally ill nephew.
- 1979 – The first fully
functional space shuttle orbiter,
Columbia, is
delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center
to be prepared for its first launch.
- 1988 – The Candle demonstration in
Bratislava
is the first mass demonstration of the 1980s
against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia
.
- 1992 – Cosmonaut
Sergei Krikalev returns to Earth after a 10-month stay aboard the Mir space station.
- 1995 – The world's
first wiki, a part of the Portland Pattern Repository, is
made public by Ward Cunningham.
- 1996 – An 81-day-long
standoff between the anti-government group Montana Freemen and law enforcement near
Jordan,
Montana
, begins.
- 1996
– The European Union's Veterinarian
Committee bans the export of British
beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow
disease (Bovine
spongiform encephalopathy).
- 2006 – Capitol Hill
massacre
: A gunman kills six people before taking his own
life at a party in Seattle's Capitol
Hill
neighborhood.
- 2006
– Protesters demanding a new election in Belarus
following the rigged Belarusian presidential
election, 2006 clash with riot police. Opposition leader
Aleksander Kozulin is among
several protesters arrested.
Births
- 1252 – Conradin,
Duke of Swabia (d. 1268)
- 1259 – Andronikos II Palaiologos,
Byzantine emperor (d. 1332)
- 1297 – Andronicus III Palaeologus,
Byzantine emperor (d. 1341)
- 1297 – Arnost of Pardubice,
Archbishop of Prague (d. 1364)
- 1345 – Blanche of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt (d. 1369)
- 1347 – Catherine of Siena, Italian saint (d.
1380)
- 1404 (baptism) – John Beaufort, 1st Duke of
Somerset, English military leader (d. 1444)
- 1479 – Vasili
III, Grand Prince of Moscow (d. 1533)
- 1539 – Christopher Clavius, German
mathematician (d. 1612)
- 1541 – Francesco I de'
Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1587)
- 1593 – Jean
de Brébeuf, French Jesuit missionary (d. 1649)
- 1643 – Louis
Moréri, French encylopedist (d. 1680)
- 1661 – Paul de
Rapin, French historian (d. 1725)
- 1699 – Johann Adolph Hasse, German composer (d.
1783)
- 1767 – Joachim
Murat, King of Naples (d. 1815)
- 1782 – Caroline Bonaparte, Queen of Naples (d.
1839)
- 1800 – Heinrich von Dechsen, German geologist
(d. 1889)
- 1824 – Clinton L. Merriam, American politician (d.
1900)
- 1840 – Myles
Keogh, U.S. Soldier in U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment & Irish
Soldier of Fortune (d. 1876)
- 1863 – Simon
Flexner, American pathologist (d. 1946)
- 1867 – Arturo
Toscanini, Italian conductor, (d. 1957)
- 1868 – William
Lockwood, English cricketer (d. 1932)
- 1873 – Rudolf
Rocker, German anarchist (d. 1958)
- 1877 – Walter
Little, Canadian politician (d. 1961)
- 1881 – Béla Bartók, Hungarian composer (d.
1945)
- 1881 – Mary Gladys Webb,
English writer (d. 1927)
- 1884 – Georges
Imbert, Alsatian chemist (d. 1950)
- 1886 – Athenagoras, Patriarch of Constantinople (d.
1972)
- 1892 – Andy
Clyde, American actor (d. 1967)
- 1895 – Siegfried Handloser, German physician
(d. 1954)
- 1897 – John
Laurie, Scottish actor (d. 1980)
- 1899 – Burt
Munro, New Zealand motorcycle racer (d. 1978)
- 1901 – Ed Begley,
American actor (d. 1970)
- 1903 – Nahum Norbert Glatzer, Jewish-American
scholar (d. 1990)
- 1903 – Frankie Carle, American
pianist and bandleader (d. 2001)
- 1906 – A.J.P.
Taylor, British historian (d.
1990)
- 1906 – Jean Sablon, French singer
(d. 1994)
- 1908 – Helmut
Käutner, German actor and director (d. 1980)
- 1908 – David Lean, English film
director (d. 1991)
- 1910 – Magda
Olivero, Italian soprano
- 1911 – Jack Ruby,
killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (d.
1967)
- 1912 – Jean
Vilar, French stage and film actor (d. 1971)
- 1913 – Sir Reo
Stakis, Anglo-Cypriot hotel magnate (d. 2001)
- 1914 – Norman
Borlaug, American agriculturalist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 2009)
- 1918 – Howard
Cosell, American sports reporter (d. 1995)
- 1920 – Patrick
Troughton, English actor (d. 1987)
- 1920 – Arthur Wint, Jamaican runner
(d. 1992)
- 1921 – Nancy
Kelly, American actress (d. 1995)
- 1921 – Simone Signoret, French
actress (d. 1985)
- 1921 – Alexandra of
Greece and Denmark, Queen of Yugoslavia (d. 1993)
- 1922 – Eileen
Ford, American model agency executive
- 1923 – Bonnie
Guitar, American singer
- 1923 – Wim van
Est, Dutch cyclist (d. 2003)
- 1924 – Machiko
Kyô, Japanese actress
- 1925 – Flannery O'Connor, American author (d.
1964)
- 1926 – László Papp, Hungarian boxer (d.
2003)
- 1926 – Jaime Sabines, Mexican poet
(d. 1999)
- 1928 – Jim
Lovell, American astronaut
- 1931 – Paul
Motian, American jazz drummer and composer
- 1932 – Gene
Shalit, American film critic
- 1934 – Johnny
Burnette, American singer (d. 1964)
- 1934 – Gloria Steinem, American
feminist and publisher
- 1935 – Flash
Elorde, Filipino boxer
- 1937 – Tom
Monaghan, founder of Dominos pizza
- 1938 – Hoyt
Axton, American country music singer-songwriter (d. 1999)
- 1938 – Fritz d'Orey, Brazilian
racing driver
- 1939 – Toni
Cade Bambara, American author (d. 1995)
- 1940 – Anita
Bryant, American singer
- 1941 – Gudmund
Hernes, Norwegian politician
- 1942 – Aretha
Franklin, American singer
- 1942 – Richard O'Brien, English
actor and writer
- 1942 – Kim Woodburn, English
television personality
- 1943 – Paul
Michael Glaser, American actor
- 1946 – Cliff
Balsam, English footballer
- 1946 – Stephen Hunter, American
author
- 1946 – Maurice Krafft, French
vulcanologist (d. 1991)
- 1946 – Gerard John
Schaefer, American serial killer
(d. 1995)
- 1947 – Elton
John, English singer and songwriter
- 1948 – Bonnie
Bedelia, American actress
- 1948 – Lynn Faulds Wood,
Scottish television presenter
- 1950 – Chuck
Greenberg, American musician (Shadowfax) (d. 1995)
- 1951 – Jumbo
Tsuruta, Japanese professional wrestler (d. 2000)
- 1952 – Antanas
Mockus, Colombian mathematician
- 1954 – Elli Stai,
Greek journalist and TV presenter
- 1954 – Thom Loverro, American
sportswriter
- 1955 – Daniel
Boulud, French chef and restaurateur
- 1955 – Lee Mazzilli, American
baseball player
- 1956 – Matthew
Garber, English actor (d. 1977)
- 1957 – Jim Uhls,
American screenwriter
- 1958 – Sisy Chen,
Taiwanese politician and television commentator
- 1958 – James McDaniel, American
actor
- 1958 – Ray Tanner, American college
baseball coach
- 1958 – John Ensign, American
politician
- 1958 – Åsa Torstensson,
Swedish politician
- 1960 – Idy Chan
Yuk-Lin, Hong Kong actress
- 1960 – Steve Norman, British
saxophonist (Spandau Ballet)
- 1960 – Peter O'Brien, Australian
actor
- 1960 – Haywood Nelson, American
actor
- 1960 – Brenda Strong, American
actress
- 1961 – Fred Goss,
American actor, comedian, and writer
- 1962 – Marcia
Cross, American actress
- 1964 – Lisa
Gay Hamilton, American actress
- 1964 – Kate DiCamillo, American
children's author
- 1964 – Alex Solis, Panamanian
jockey
- 1964 – Ken Wregget, Canadian ice
hockey player
- 1965 – Sarah Jessica Parker, American
actress
- 1965 – Avery Johnson, American
basketball player and coach
- 1965 – Stefka Kostadinova,
Bulgarian high jumper
- 1966 – Tom
Glavine, American baseball player
- 1966 – Jeff Healey, Canadian
guitarist (d. 2008)
- 1966 – Tatjana Patitz, German
supermodel
- 1966 – Anton Rogan, Irish
footballer
- 1967 – Matthew
Barney, American media artist
- 1967 – Debi Thomas, American figure
skater
- 1967 – Doug Stanhope, American
comedian
- 1969 – Dale Davis, American basketball
player
- 1969 – Cathy Dennis, English
singer, songwriter, and actress
- 1969 – Jeffrey Walker, British
Musician (Carcass)
- 1970 – Kari
Matchett, Canadian actress,
- 1970 – Teri Moïse, American
singer
- 1971 – Cammi
Granato, American ice hockey player
- 1971 – Sheryl Swoopes, American
basketball player
- 1971 – Stacy Dragila, American
pole vaulter
- 1972 – Giniel
de Villiers, South African racing
driver
- 1973 – Anthony
Barness, English footballer
- 1973 – Anders Fridén, Swedish
singer (In Flames)
- 1973 – Bob Sura, American basketball
player
- 1974 – Lark
Voorhies, American actress
- 1975 – Ladislav Benýšek, Czech ice
hockey player
- 1975 – Melanie Blatt, British
singer (All Saints)
- 1976 – Baek Ji
Young, South Korean singer
- 1976 – Francis Bellew, Irish
Gaelic footballer
- 1976 – Cha Tae-hyun, South Korean
actor
- 1976 – Juvenile, American
rapper
- 1976 – Wladimir Klitschko,
Ukrainian boxer
- 1976 – Gigi Leung, Hong Kong
singer/actress
- 1978 – Teanna
Kai, American porn star
- 1979 – Lee Pace,
American actor
- 1979 – Natasha Yi, American
model
- 1980 – Carrie
Lam, Hong Kong actress
- 1982 – Danica
Patrick, American race car driver
- 1982 – Sean Faris, American actor and
model
- 1982 – Álvaro Saborío,
Costa Rican footballer
- 1984 – Katharine McPhee, American singer and
actress
- 1986 – Marco
Belinelli, Italian basketball player
- 1986 – Megan Gibson, American
softball player
- 1986 – Kyle Lowry, American
basketball player
- 1987 – Jacob
Bagersted, Danish handballer
- 1987 – Jason Castro,
American singer
- 1987 – Nobunari Oda, Japanese
figure skater
- 1987 – Victor Obinna, Nigerian
footballer
- 1988 – Erik
Knudsen, Canadian actor
- 1989 – Alyson
Michalka, American actress and singer
- 1989 – Scott Sinclair, English
footballer
Deaths
- 752 – Pope-elect Stephen, Italian priest and
elected successor to Pope Zachary
- 1223 – Afonso II of Portugal (b. 1185)
- 1345 – Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster,
English politician (b. 1281)
- 1458 – Íñigo López de
Mendoza, Marqués de
Santillana, Spanish poet (b. 1398)
- 1558 – Marcos de
Niza, French Franciscan explorer
- 1561 – Conrad
Lycosthenes, French-born German philosopher and encyclopedist
(b. 1518)
- 1603 – Ikoma
Chikamasa, Japanese warlord (b. 1526)
- 1609 – Olaus
Martini, Swedish Archbishop of Uppsala (b. 1557)
- 1620 – Johannes
Nucius, German composer
- 1625 – Giambattista Marini, Italian poet (b.
1569)
- 1712 – Nehemiah
Grew, English naturalist (b. 1641)
- 1736 – Nicholas Hawksmoor, British
architect
- 1738 – Turlough O'Carolan, Irish harper and
composer (b. 1670)
- 1751 – Frederick I of Sweden (b. 1676)
- 1801 – Novalis,
German poet (b. 1772)
- 1818 – Caspar
Wessel, Danish mathematician (b. 1745)
- 1860 – James Braid, Scottish surgeon (b.
1795)
- 1873 – Wilhelm
Marstrand, Danish painter (b. 1810)
- 1908 – Durham
Stevens, American diplomat (b. 1851)
- 1914 – Frédéric Mistral, French poet,
Nobel Prize laureate (b.
1830)
- 1917 – Elizabeth Storrs Mead, American
educator (b. 1832)
- 1917 – Spyridon Samaras, Greek
composer (b. 1861)
- 1918 – Claude
Debussy, French composer (b. 1862)
- 1918 – Peter Martin,
Australian rules footballer
- 1931 – Ida Wells,
American civil rights activist (b. 1862)
- 1951 – Eddie
Collins, American baseball player (b. 1887)
- 1957 – Max
Ophüls, German director and writer (b. 1902)
- 1958 – Tom Brown, American musician (b.
1888)
- 1967 – Renato
Cellini, Italian conductor (b.c.1913)
- 1969 – Max
Eastman, American writer (b. 1883)
- 1969 – Billy Cotton, British
bandleader & entertainer (b. 1889)
- 1975 – King Faisal of Saudi Arabia (b. 1906)
- 1975 – Juan Gaudino, Argentine
racing driver (b. 1893)
- 1980 – Roland
Barthes, French literary critic and writer (b. 1915)
- 1980 – Milton H. Erickson, American psychiatrist (b.
1901)
- 1980 – Walter Susskind, Czech
conductor (b. 1913)
- 1980 – James Wright,
American poet (b. 1927)
- 1983 – Bob
Waterfield, American football player (b. 1920)
- 1988 – Robert
Joffrey, American dancer and choreographer (b. 1930)
- 1991 – Marcel
Lefebvre, French Catholic prelate (b. 1905)
- 1992 – Nancy
Walker, American actress (b. 1922)
- 1994 – Max
Petitpierre, Swiss politician and jurist (b. 1899)
- 1995 – James Coleman, American
sociologist (b. 1926)
- 1995 – Krešimir
Ćosić, Croatian basketball player (b. 1948)
- 1995 – John Hugenholtz, Dutch
race track designer (b. 1914)
- 1996 – John
Snagge, British radio personality (b. 1904)
- 1998 – Max Green,
Australian lawyer (b. 1952)
- 1998 – Steve Schiff, United States
Congressman (b. 1947)
- 1999 – Cal
Ripken, Sr., American baseball manager (b. 1936)
- 2000 – Helen
Martin, American actress (b. 1909)
- 2001 – Brian
Trubshaw, British Concorde test pilot (b. 1924)
- 2002 – Kenneth Wolstenholme, English football
commentator (b. 1920)
- 2005 – Paul
Henning, American TV/film producer and writer (b. 1911)
- 2006 – Rocío Dúrcal, Spanish singer and
actress (b. 1944)
- 2006 – Richard Fleischer,
American film director (b. 1916)
- 2006 – Buck Owens, American singer
and television personality (b. 1929)
- 2007 – Andranik Margaryan, Armenian politician
(b. 1951)
- 2008 – Rafael
Azcona, Spanish screenwriter (b. 1926)
- 2008 – Ben Carnevale, American
basketball coach (b. 1915)
- 2008 – Thierry Gilardi, French
football and rugby commentator
(b. 1958)
- 2008 – Gene Puerling, American
vocalist and arranger (b. 1929)
- 2009 – Johnny
Blanchard, American baseball player (b. 1933)
- 2009 – Gábor Ocskay, Hungarian
hockey player (b. 1975)
- 2009 – Giovanni Parisi, Italian
boxer (b. 1967)
- 2009 – Kosuke Koyama, Japanese
theologian (b. 1929)
Holidays and observances
External links