Today in History April 4

1460 – University of Basle in Swizerland forms

1660 – English king Charles II sends Declaration of Breda (freedom of religion)

1686 – English king James II publishes Declaration of Indulgence

1687 – King James II orders his declaration of indulgence read in English churches

1814 – Napoleon abdicates for the first time in favour of his son.

1850 – City of Los Angeles incorporated

1866 – Alexander II of Russia narrowly escapes an assassination attempt in the city of Kiev.

1887 – Susanna Medora Salter elected first US woman mayor of Argonia, Kansas

1896 – Announcement of Gold in Yukon

1918 – Battle of Somme ends

The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme Offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the River Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies and was the largest battle of the First World War on the Western Front. More than three million men fought in this battle and one million men were wounded or killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history.

1918 – Food riot in Amsterdam

1932 – George Bernard Shaw’s “Too True to be Good” premieres in NYC

1932 – Vitamin C is isolated by CC King at the University of Pittsburgh

1933 – US Dirigible Akron crashes off coast of NJ, 73 die

1958 – First march against nuclear weapons (Aldermaston, England)

1960 – Senegal declares independence from France

	Martin Luther King Jr.

1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee

1969 – Denton Cooley gets first temporary artificial heart

1974 – Hank Aaron ties Babe Ruth‘s home-run record by hitting his 714th

1975 – Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

1984 – Winston Smith in Orwell’s “1984” begins his secret diary

1990 – Security law violator Ivan Boesky is released from federal custody

2012 – German Nobel Laureat, Gunter Grass, publishes controversial poem that claims Israel is plotting to wipe out Iran

2013 – Poecilotheria rajaei, a giant tarantula with a 20cm ( almost 8 inches) leg span, is discovered in Sri Lanka

1821 – Linus Yale, US, portrait painter/inventor (Yale cylinder lock)

1823 – Karl Wilhelm Siemens, inventor (laid undersea cables)

1895 – Arthur Murray, NYC, dancer (Arthur Murray Dance Party)

1913 – Muddy Waters, [McKinley Morganfield], American blues guitarist (Hoochie Coochie Man)

1406 – Robert III, King of Scots (1390-1406), dies

1883 – Peter Cooper, American industrialist, inventor and philanthropist (b. 1791)

1968 – Martin Luther King Jr, assassinated at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis Tennessee at 39

1972 – Adam Clayton Powell Jr, (Rep-D-NY), dies at 63

1979 – Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistani president, hanged in Pakistan at 51