1478 – The Pazzi family attack Lorenzo de’ Medici and kill his brother Giuliano during High Mass in Florence Cathedral.
1564 – Playwright William Shakespeare is baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England (date of actual birth is unknown).
1607 – English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.
1721 – A massive earthquake devastates the Iranian city of Tabriz.
1777 – Sybil Ludington, aged 16, rides 40 miles to alert American colonial forces to the approach of the British regular forces
1803 – Thousands of meteor fragments fall from the skies of L’Aigle, France; the event convinces European scientists that meteors exist.
1865 – Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Lincoln, in Virginia.
1933 – The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain, is bombed by German Luftwaffe.
1942 – Benxihu Colliery accident in Manchukuo leaves 1549 Chinese miners dead.
1956 – SS Ideal X, the world’s first successful container ship, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas.
1986 – A nuclear reactor accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union (now Ukraine), creating the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
Births
121 – Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (d. 180)
1575 – Marie de’ Medici, Italian wife of Henry IV of France (d. 1642)
1822 – Frederick Law Olmsted, American journalist and designer, co-designed Central Park (d. 1903)
1914 – James Rouse, American real estate developer (d. 1996)
1917 – I. M. Pei, Chinese-American architect, designed the National Gallery of Art and Bank of China Tower 100 years old today!
1970 – Melania Trump, Slovene-American model; wife of Donald Trump
Deaths
1865 – John Wilkes Booth, actor, assassin of Abraham Lincoln (b. 1838)
1970 – Gypsy Rose Lee, actress, striptease dancer, and writer (b. 1911)
Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com Wikipedia and other internet searches