April 3
1860: The first Pony Express mail delivery rides began; one heading west from St. Joseph, Missouri, and one heading east from Sacramento, California.
1882: Outlaw Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert Ford, a member of James’ gang.
1936: Bruno Richard Hauptmann was electrocuted for the kidnap-murder of 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh Jr.
1948: President Harry S. Truman signed into law the Marshall Plan, designed to help European allies rebuild after World War II and resist communism.
1996: Theodore Kaczynski also known as the Unabomber, was arrested by FBI agents.
April 4
1841: President William Henry Harrison succumbed to pneumonia one month after his inauguration, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office.
1949:12 nations, including the United States, signed the North Atlantic Treaty, establishing NATO.
1968: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed while standing on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 39.
1975: Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft.
April 5
1614: Pocahontas, the daughter of Wahunsenacawh, also known as Chief Powhatan, married Englishman John Rolfe in the Virginia Colony.
1764: The British Parliament passed the American Revenue Act of 1764, also known as the Sugar Act.
1887: Teacher Anne Sullivan achieved a breakthrough as her 6-year-old deaf-blind pupil, Helen Keller, learned the meaning of the word “water” as spelled out in the Manual Alphabet.
1994: Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain died by suicide in his Seattle, Washington home at age 27.
April 6
1864: Louisiana opened a convention in New Orleans to draft a new state constitution, one that called for the abolition of slavery.
1896: The first modern Olympic games formally opened in Athens, Greece.
1909: American explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson and four Innuits became the first men to reach the North Pole.
1917: The United States entered World War I.
2017: Comedian Don Rickles, known for his biting insults, died at age 90.
April 7
1862: Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee.
1915: Jazz singer-songwriter Billie Holiday, also known as “Lady Day,” was born in Philadelphia.
1945: During World War II, American planes intercepted and effectively destroyed a Japanese fleet that was headed to Okinawa on a suicide mission.
April 8
1513: Explorer Juan Ponce de Leon and his expedition began exploring the Florida coastline.
1864: The United States Senate passed, 38-6, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery.
1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a freeze on wages and prices to combat inflation.
1974: Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit his 715th career home run breaking Babe Ruth’s record.
April 9
1413: The coronation of England’s King Henry V took place in Westminster Abbey.
1865: Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively ending the U.S. Civil War.
1959: Architect Frank Lloyd Wright died at age 91.
