On this day in History - Apr. 15

• 1450 - Battle of Formigny; Toward the end of the Hundred Years' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English forces, ending English domination in northern France.
• 1452 - Leonardo da Vinci [Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci] was born (d. 2 May 1519). Florentine painter and inventor ( Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, The Virgin of the Rocks, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne).
• 1521 - Morte de D. Carlos (filho de D. Manuel I e infanta D. Leonor de Castela).
• 1565 - Diogo Jacome dies. Portuguese religious.
• 1621 - John Carver dies. First governor of Plymouth Colony
• 1622 - Leandro Bassano da Ponte dies (b. 10 Jun 1557). Venetian Mannerist painter born on 10 June 1557, on of the four sons of Jacopo Bassano [1510 – 13 Feb 1592] .
• 1632 - Battle of Rain; Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.
• 1642 - Sultan Suleiman II was born (d. 1691). Ottoman Empire.
• 1682 - Jan van Huysum was born (d. 07 Feb 1749). Dutch painter who was with Rachel Ruysch [1664 – 12 Aug 1750], the most distinguished flower painter of his day.
• 1684 - Catherine I of Russia was born (d. 1727) .
• 1688 - Johann Friedrich Fasch was born (d. 1758). Composer.
• 1700 - Giovanni Maria Viani dies (b. 11 Sep 1636). Bolognese artist.
• 1707 - Leonhard Euler was born (d. 18 Sep 1783). Swiss mathematician and physicist, one of the founders of pure mathematics.
• 1712 - Jan Antoon Garemijn was born (d. 23 Jun 1799). Bruges Flemish painter and draftsman.
• 1718 - Ignacije Szentmartony dies (b. 1793). Croatian geographer.
• 1738 - Premiere in London of Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel.
• 1741 - Charles Willson Peale was born (d. 22 Feb 1827). US painter, naturalist and museum visionary.
• 1755 - Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language published in London.
• 1757 - Rosalba Carriera dies (b. 07 Oct 1675). Venetian pastelist and painter. Along with her long-time friend, Antoine Watteau, whom she portrayed in pastels, she was considered one of the leading portrait artists of the Rococo era.
• 1764 - Madame de Pompadour dies (b. 1721). Mistress of King Louis XIV of France
• 1765 - Mikhail Lomonosov dies (b. 1711). Russian scientist and writer.
• 1783 - Preliminary articles of peace ending Revolutionary War ratified.
• 1788 - Giuseppe Bonno dies (b. 1711). Austrian composer
• 1793 - Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve was born (d. 1864). Astronomer.
• 1793 - Ignacije Szentmartony dies (b. 1718). Croatian Jesuit missionary and geographer.
• 1800 - James Clark Ross was born (d. 1862). Explorer.
• 1802 - William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy come across a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring the former to pen I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.
• 1804 - Charles Pichegru dies strangles in prison (b. 1761). French general.
• 1808 - Hubert Robert dies (b. 22 May 1733). French landscape painter.
• 1812 - Pierre Etienne-Théodore Rousseau, was born in Paris (d. 22 Dec 1867). French painter, specialized in landscapes. He was considered the leader of the Romantic-Naturalist artists of the Barbizon School, but he also had the unhappy distinction of being known as ‘le grand refusé’, because of his systematic exclusion from the Paris Salon between 1836 and 1841 and his abstention between 1842 and 1849.
• 1815 - Mary Ann Day Brown, was born (d. 1884). Wife of John Brown.
• 1828 - Francisco de Goya dies. Spanish painter.
• 1832 - Wilhelm Busch was born (d. 09 Jan 1908). German draftsman, painter and poet.
• 1843 - Henry James was born (d. 1916). Author.
• 1843 - Noah Webster dies (b. 1758). American lexicographer .
• 1850 - The city of San Francisco was incorporated.
• 1854 - Arthur Aikin dies. (b. 1773). English chemist, mineralogist and scientific writer .
• 1858 - Émile Durkheim was born (d. 1917). Sociologist.
• 1859 - Abbott Fuller Graves was born (d. 1936). US Impressionist painter
• 1860 - Edward Arthur Walton was born (d. 18 Mar 1922). British painter.
• 1861 - USA: three days after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln declared a state of insurrection and called out Union troops.
• 1861 - Bliss Carman was born (d. 1929). Poet.
• 1865 - Olga Boznanska was born (d. 26 Oct 1940). Polish painter.
• 1865 - Abraham Lincoln dies (b. 1809). President of the United States a few hours after he has been shot in "Ford’s Theater”.
• 1865 - Andrew Johnson is inaugurated as the 17th President of the United States.
• 1868 - Francisco Braga was born. Brazilian composer.
• 1874 - Nascia Johannes Stark (m. 21 Jun 1957). Físico alemão, Prémio Nobel da Física em 1919.
• 1876 - Theude Grönland dies (b. 31 Aug 1817). German artist born.
• 1878 - Robert Walser was born (d. 1956). Lyricist and narrator.
• 1879 - Melville Henry Cane was born (d. 1980). U.S. lawyer and poet.
• 1883 - Stanley Bruce was born (d. 1967). Eighth Prime Minister of Australia.
• 1886 - Amédée Ozenfant was born (d. 04 May 1966). French painter, writer, and teacher.
• 1888 - Matthew Arnold dies (b. 1822). English poet.
• 1888 - Father Damien dies (b. 1840). Belgian missionary priest in Hawaii
• 1889 - Thomas Hart Benton was born (d. 19 Jan 1975). US Regionalist painter, illustrator, and lithographer.
• 1889 - A. Philip Randolph was born. Labor leader.
• 1891 - Criação por Leopoldo II da Bélgica da Companhia do Catanga.
• 1894 - Bessie Smith was born (d. 26 Sep 1937). "Empress of the Blues": blues singer ( sang with Louis Armstrong in 1925: early version of St. Louis Blues, My Man’s Blues, Dixie Flyer Blues, I Ain’t Got Nobody, A Good Man is Hard to Find, Poor Man’s Blues).
• 1895 - Clark McConachy was born (d. 1980). Billiards and snooker player.
• 1896 - Nikolay Nikolayevich Semyonov was born (d. 25 Sep 1986). Soviet physical chemist who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Sir Cyril Hinshelwood for research in chemical kinetics. He was the second Soviet citizen (after the émigré writer Ivan Bunin) to receive a Nobel Prize.
• 1898 - Kepa Te Rangihiwinui dies. Maori military leader .
• 1901 - Juan Manuel Blanes dies (b. 08 Jun 1830). Uruguayan painter and draftsman.
• 1901 - Joe Davis was born (d. 1978). English snooker player.
• 1902 - Fernando Pessa was born (d. 2002). Portuguese journalist. "E esta hem?!".
• 1904 - Vosdanig Manoog Adoian “Arshile Gorky”,was born. Armenian-born US painter, forerunner of Abstract Expressionism, who commited suicide on 21 July 1948. Implicit in Gorky unquestioninly accepted art as developing in history. To Gorky, progress of art itself was not the erratic course of unrelated inspirations, but an evolution.
• 1907 - Nikolaas Tinbergen was born (d. 21 Dec 1988). Dutch-born English ethologist, a zoologist who studied the behavior of animals in their natural habitats, who shared (with Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch) the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1973 "for their discoveries concerning "organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns."
• 1911 - Antoine Lumière dies. Photographer, industrialist, father of Auguste and Louis Lumière .
• 1912 - John Jacob Astor IV dies (b. 1864). Businessman.
• 1912 - Benjamin Guggenheim dies (b. 1865). Businessman.
• 1912 - The passenger liner RMS Titanic sinks at about 2:20 am after hitting an iceberg almost three hours earlier. 1,517 lives were lost at sea
• 1912 - Francis Davis Millet dies (b. 03 Nov 1846). US painter mostly of genre scenes, decorative artist, and writer, drowns as the Titanic sinks, after he helped women and children into the too few lifeboats and gave his life jacket to another passenger.
• 1912 - Kim Il Sung was born (d. 1994). Dictator of North Korea.
• 1913 - Raul Rêgo was born in Morais, Macedo de Cavaleiros (d. 1 Fev 2002). Portuguese politician and journalist.
• 1915 - The Armenian Genocide began when the Ottoman Empire undertook the systematic annihilation of Armenian intellectuals and entrepreneurs within the city of Constantinople and later the entire Armenian population of the Empire.
• 1916 - Helene Hanff was born (d. 1997). Author.
• 1917 - Hans Conried was born (d. 05 Jan 1982). Actor (My Friend Irma, Bus Stop, Oh! God: Book 2, Tut & Tuttle, The Monster that Challenged the World; host: Fractured Flickers TV Series).
• 1919 - O Comité Olímpico Internacional decide que os Jogos Olímpicos de 1920 seriam na Antuérpia.
• 1919 - Nace Alberto Breccia, historietista argentino de origen uruguayo.
• 1919 - Fernando Namora was born (d. 31 Jan 1989). Portuguese writer / Nasce em Condeixa Fernando Namora (d. 31 Jan 1989) . Escritor português.
• 1920 - Richard von Weizäcker was born. President of Germany 1984-1994 .
• 1920 - Jim Timmens was born. Grammy Award-winning composer [ Aren’t You Glad You’re You (1977: Best Recording For Children, w/Christopher Cerf); jazz musician, musical director of New York’s Radio City Music Hall ].
• 1920 - Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti allegedly murder two security guards while robbing a shoe store.
• 1920 - España: fundación del Partido Comunista Español, que al año siguiente se uniría al Partido Comunista Obrero Español para fundar el Partido Comunista de España.
• 1921 - Georgi Beregovoi was born (d. 1995). Cosmonaut.
• 1922 - Michael Ansara was born. Actor
• 1923 - Insulin first became generally available for use by diabetics.
• 1924 - Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.
• 1924 - Sir Neville Marriner was born. English conductor and violinist .
• 1925 - John Singer Sargent dies (b. 12 Jan 1856). US painter specialized in portraits.
• 1925 - Execução do 'serial killer' alemão Fritz Haarmann, o 'Açougueiro de Hanover' (27 assassinatos).
• 1926 - Robertson Aircraft, one of the companies that later developed into American Airlines, flew its first mail route, between Chicago and St. Louis, Missouri, with Charles A. Lindbergh as the pilot.
• 1927 - Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Norma and Constance Talmadge become the first celebrities to leave their footprints in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
• 1928 - Vida Alves was born. Brazilian actress.
• 1930 - Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was born. Former President of Iceland .
• 1930 - Herb Pomero was born. Musician: trumpet: teacher at Berklee in Boston, bandleader; directed radio Malaysia Orchestra.
• 1931 - Raymond McNally was born (d. 2002). Author.
• 1933 - Roy Clark was born. Country musician: guitar, banjo; CMA Entertainer of the Year [1973], Comedian of the Year [1970, 1971, 1972], co-host: Hee Haw; country singer: Tips of My Fingers, Through the Eyes of a Fool, Yesterday, When I Was Young, Come and Live with Me, Somewhere Between Love and Tomorrow, Thank God and Greyhound [You’re Gone].
• 1933 - Mel Kenyon was born. Auto racer; legendary NAMARS champ.
• 1933 - Elizabeth Montgomery was born (d. 18 May 1995). Actress ( Bewitched, Robert Montgomery Presents ).
• 1933 - Boris Strugatsky was born. Author .
• 1937 - Bob Luman was born in Blackjack, east Texas (d. 27 Dec 1978). Singer (Let’s Think About Living, Every Day I Have to Cry Some, The Pay Phone, Proud of You Baby).
• 1938 - Claudia Cardinale was born. Actress (The Pink Panther, Once Upon a Time in The West, Jesus of Nazareth, Henry thr IV, A man in Love).
• 1939 - Jaime Paz Zamora was born. President of Bolivia (1989-1993).
• 1940 - The Allies start their attack on the Norwegian town of Narvik which was occupied by Nazi Germany.
• 1940 - Jeffrey Archer was born. British author, Member of Parliament .
• 1940 - Willie (William Henry) Davis was born. Baseball player : LA Dodgers [World Series: 1963, 1965, 1966/all-star: 1971, 1973], Montreal Expos, SL Cardinals, Texas Rangers, SD Padres, California Angels.
• 1940 - Woody (Woodrow Thompson) Fryman was born. Baseball: pitcher: Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Phillies [all-star: 1968], Detroit Tigers, Montreal Expos [all-star: 1976], Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs.
• 1940 - Cristóbal Toral Ruiz was born. Spanish painter .
• 1942 - Julie Sommars was born. Actress ( Sex and the Single Parent, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo).
• 1942 - Robert Musil dies (b. 1880). Novelist (The Man Without Qualities).
• 1942 - Walt Hazzard was born basketball star: 1964 Olympic Gold Medalist: U.S. team; LA Lakers, Seattle Supersonics, Atlanta Hawks, Buffalo Braves, Golden State Warriors; UCLA coach.
• 1943 - Mota Amaral was born in Ponta Delgada, Azores. Portuguese politician.
• 1944 - Dave Edmunds was born. Rock-singer and guitarist.
• 1945 - During World War II, British and Canadian troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen / Libertação do campo de concentração de Bergen-Belsen por tropas britânicas e canadianas
• 1945 - Ted Sizemore was born. Baseball: St. Louis Cardinals; National League Rookie of the Year: LA Dodgers 2B [1969].
• 1947 - Lois Chiles was born. Actress.
• 1947 - Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, breaking that sport's color line.
• 1949 - Wallace Beery dies (b. 1885). Actor.
• 1950 - Dick (Richard Louis) Sharon was born. Baseball: Detroit Tigers, SD Padres.
• 1950 - Amy Wright was born in Chicago, Illinois. American actress (The Scarlet Letter, Final Verdict, Crossing Delancey, The Accidental Tourist, Wise Blood, Breaking Away, The Amityville Horror, The Deer Hunter).
• 1950 - Amy Wright was born. Actress .
• 1951 - Heloise (Ponce Kiah Marchelle Heloise Cruse Evans) was born. Newspaper columnist, writer: Hints from Heloise; she took over the Heloise empire after her mother, the original Heloise, died in 1977.
• 1954 - Seke was born. Pornographic film actress .
• 1955 - Dodi Fayed was born (d. 1997). Businessman.
• 1955 - Ray Kroc opens the first McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois.
• 1956 - General Motors announced that the first, free piston automobile had been developed.
• 1956 - Emil Hansen “Nolde”, diesin Seebüll, West Germany (b. 07 Aug 1867). German Expressionist painter, watercolorist, and printmaker known for his violent religious works and his foreboding landscapes.
• 1957 - Evelyn Ashford was born. Track athlete: 4-time Olympic gold medalist, a shared record for most gold medals won by a woman: 100 meters [1984], 4 x 100m relay [1984, 1988, 1992] .
• 1959 - Emma Thompson was born. Academy Award-winning actress: Howard’s End [1992], Sense and Sensibility, The Remains of the Day, In the Name of the Father, Look Back in Anger, Henry V; screenwriter: Sense and Sensibility; daughter of producer Eric Thompson.
• 1959 - Thomas F. Wilson was born. Actor .
• 1960 - Tony Jones was born. English snooker player .
• 1960 - Pedro Delgado was born. Spanish cyclist.
• 1961 - Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, is awarded the Order of Lenin.
• 1962 - Nawal El Moutawakel was born. Hurdler .
• 1964 - O general Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco assume a Presidência do Brasil.
• 1964 - Chesapeake Bay Bridge opens, the longest in the world at 17 1/2 miles.
• 1964 - Rachel Carson dies (b. 1907). American biologist and author.
• 1965 - Linda Perry was born. Musician .
• 1966 - Samantha Fox was born. Singer Naughty Girls [Need Love Too] .
• 1966 - Graem Clark was born. Musician: bass: group: Wet Wet Wet: With a Little Help From My Friends, Goodnight Girl, Love is All Around.
• 1966 - Milton Obote assume a presidência de Uganda.
• 1967 - Dara Torres was born. Swimmer .
• 1967 - Alt was born. Brazilian cartoonist.
• 1968 - Stacey Williams was born. Supermodel .
• 1968 - Ed O'Brien was born. Musician (Radiohead).
• 1969 - Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena Maria Christina of Battenberg, dies. Queen consort of Spain .
• 1970 - Flex Alexander was vorn. Actor.
• 1971 - George C. Scott refused the Oscar for his Best Actor performance in Patton at the 43rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony at LA’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Glenda Jackson, won Best Actress award (Women in Love); Helen Hayes, Best Supporting Actress (Airport); John Mills, Best Supporting Actor (Ryan’s Daughter); Fred Karlin (music), Robb Royer and James Griffin (lyrics), Best Music/Song, For All We Know from Lovers and Other Strangers; and Franklin J. Schaffner, Best Director (Patton) ... Patton (Frank McCarthy, producer) also received the Best Picture honors.
• 1972 - Arturo Gatti was born. World champion boxer.
• 1974 - Danny Pino was born. Actor.
• 1974 - Gabriela Duarte was born. Brazilian actress.
• 1974 - Giovanni D'Anzi dies. Italian songwriter .
• 1980 - Jean-Paul Sartre dies (b. 1905). Philosopher and writer .
• 1982 - Arthur Lowe dies (b. 1915). British actor.
• 1982 - The Muslims who murdered President Anwar-al-Sadat of Egypt on 06 Oct 1981 are executed .
• 1983 - Tokyo Disneyland opens.
• 1983 - Ilya Kovalchuk was born. Russian NHL player .
• 1984 - Tommy Cooper dies (b. 1921). Comedy magician.
• 1985 - Marvin Hagler defeats Thomas Hearns by a knockout in round three to retain boxing's worl Middleweight championship at The War.
• 1986 - the United States launched an air raid against Libya in response to the bombing of a discotheque in Berlin on April 5; Libya says 37 people, mostly civilians, were killed /Caças de guerra norte-americanos bombardeiam o quartel-general do ditador da Líbia Muamar Kadafi. O ataque foi em represália ao atentado em uma discoteca de Berlim Ocidental.
• 1986 - Jean Genet dies (b. 19 Dec 1910). Author.
• 1988 - Kenneth Williams dies (b. 1926). Actor and comedian.
• 1989 - Hu Yaobang dies (b. 1915). Leader of China.
• 1989 - The Hillsborough disaster, in Sheffield, one of the biggest tragedies of European football, occurs as Liverpool F.C. fans get involved in a crowd stampede that kills 96 people.
• 1989 - Upon Hu Yaobang's death, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 begin in the People's Republic of China.
• 1990 - Emma Watson was born. Actress.
• 1990 - Greta Garbo dies (b. 1905). Swedish actress.
• 1993 - Leslie Charteris dies (b. 1907). Author.
• 1993 - John Tuzo Wilson dies (b. 1908). Canadian geologist.
• 1994 - Representatives of 124 countries and the European Communities sign the Marrakesh Agreements revising the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and setting up the World Trade Organization (effective January 1, 1995).
• 1996 - Portugal: Eduardo Lourenço receives the Pessoa Prize /O escritor português Eduardo Lourenço recebe o Prémio Pessoa.
• 1996 - Beatriz Costa dies (b. 14 Dec 1907). Portuguese actress.
• 1997 - Fire sweeps through a campsite of Muslims making the Hajj pilgrimage; the official death toll is 343.
• 1998 - Pol Pot dies (b. 1925). Cambodian dictator the notorious leader of the Khmer Rouge .
• 1999 - Paavo Lipponen assume (pela 2ª vez) o cargo de primeiro-ministro da Finlândia.
• 2000- U. S. President Bill Clinton established the Giant Sequoia National Monument, a preserve near Sequoia National Park covering more than 500 square miles (1,300 square km) of Sequoia National Forest in the Sierra Nevada of California.
• 2000 - Edward Gorey dies (b. 1925). Illustrator.
• 2000 - Henrique Santos dies. Portuguese actor.
• 2000 - 15.000 manifestantes protestam contra a globalização (Washington - Estados Unidos) .
• 2001 - Joey Ramone dies (b. 1951). Lead singer for The Ramones .
• 2001 - Easter day (not again until 2063).
• 2002 - Damon Knight dies (b. 1922). Science fiction author.
• 2002 - Byron White dies. US athlete and Supreme Court justice.
• 2002 - An Air China Boeing 767-200 crashes into hillside during heavy rain and fog near Pusan, South Korea killing 128.
• 2003 - U.S. President George W. Bush declared that the government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq had fallen as a result of the Second Persian Gulf War and the following day asked the United Nations to lift sanctions against Iraq.
• 2003 - A actriz Nicole Kidman é eleita a mulher mais elegante de Hollywood.
• 2003 - Renúncia do primeiro-ministro do Líbano, Rafik Hariri.
• 2003 - Erin Fleming dies (b. 1941). Canadian actress.
• 2004 - 18ª Bienal do Livro de São Paulo, Brasil.
• 2004 - Comissão de Direitos Humanos da ONU exorta Israel a destruir muro em territórios ocupados.
• 2004 - Miguel de Guzmán Ozámiz dies. Spanish mathematicien.
• 2005 - Inauguração Oficial da Casa da Música na cidade do Porto, pelo Presidente da República, Dr. Jorge Sampaio.