APRIL 17

1982: Canada Act proclaimed.

The Canada Act, also known as the Constitution Act, took effect on this day in 1982,
establishing certain individual rights, preserving parliamentary supremacy, and
making Canada a wholly independent, fully sovereign state.
More events on this day
2003:
Anneli Jtteenmki was sworn in as prime minister of Finland, which
thereby became the second country (after New Zealand) to install a woman as head
of both state and government.
1975:
Cambodia's ruling Lon Nol government collapsed, and the communist
forces of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, entered Phnom Penh and forcibly
dispersed its citizenry into rural areas.
1961:
Cuban leader Fidel Castro's forces repelled the Bay of Pigs
invasion, which was led by recent Cuban exiles and financed by the U.S.
government during the Cold War.
1956:
Cominform, the international Communist Information Bureau founded
in 1947, was disbanded as part of a Soviet program of reconciliation with
Yugoslavia.
1895:
The Treaty of Shimonoseki concluded the first Sino-Japanese War,
which ended in China's defeat.
1521:
Martin Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms to defend his
ideas on church reform.
1194:
Richard I (the Lion-Heart) was crowned king of England for the
second time, after earlier surrendering his kingdom to the Holy Roman emperor
Henry VI.
APRIL 18
1775: The midnight ride of Paul Revere.
Paul Revere, a renowned silversmith, is better remembered as a folk hero of the
American Revolution who this night in 1775 made a dramatic ride on horseback to
warn Boston-area residents of an imminent British attack.
More events on this day
2002:
After 29 years in exile, the former king of Afghanistan, Mohammad
Zahir Shah, returned to the capital city of Kabul in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion
of the country and toppling of the Taliban government.

1980:

Zimbabwe achieved its independence from the United Kingdom.

1945:
During the U.S. invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa in
World War II, American war correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed on nearby Ie Island
by Japanese gunfire.
1906:
San Francisco was rocked by an earthquake caused by slippage
along the San Andreas Fault.
1857:
American defense lawyer, public speaker, debater, and writer
Clarence Darrowamong whose high-profile court appearances was the Scopes
Trial, in which he defended a Tennessee high-school teacher who had broken a state
law by presenting the Darwinian theory of evolutionwas born.
1506:

Pope Julius II laid the first stone of the new St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

APRIL 19
1775: American Revolution begun.
Launched this day in 1775 with the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the American
Revolution was an effort by 13 British colonies in North America (with help from
France, Spain, and the Netherlands) to win their independence.
More events on this day
1995:
In what was the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history up to that
time, a truck bomb nearly destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168 and injuring more than 500 people.
1993:
After a 51-day standoff with U.S. federal agents, some 80 members of
the millennialist Branch Davidian religious group perished in a fire at their
compound near Waco, Texas.
1975:
Aryabhata, the first unmanned Earth satellite built by India, was
launched from the Soviet Union by a Russian-made rocket.
1956:
American actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco,
becoming Princess Grace.
1943:
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, an act of resistance by Polish Jews
under Nazi occupation, began this day and was quelled four weeks later, on May 16.
1772:
English economist David Ricardo, who gave systematized and
classical form to the rising social science of economics in the 19th century, is
believed to have been born on or about this day.
APRIL 20

1968: Trudeau sworn in as prime minister of Canada.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau of the Liberal Party, who became prime minister of Canada this
day in 1968, discouraged the French separatist movement, oversaw the formation
of a new constitution, and established relations with China.
More events on this day
1999:
Two disgruntled and heavily armed students entered Columbine High
School in Littleton, Colorado, and murdered 13 people before killing themselves.
1924:
Finalizing the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey's Grand
National Assembly voted to adopt a full republican constitution, with General
Mustafa Kemal, who had first proclaimed the Turkish republic about six months
earlier, becoming the first president of the republic.
1920:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens was born in Chicago.

1919:
In an ongoing dispute over the possession of Vilnius, Polish forces
drove out Russia's Red Armywhich had previously ousted the newly established
Lithuanian governmentand occupied the city.
1871:
Japan's first government-operated postal service opened between
Tokyo and saka.
1840:

French Symbolist painter Odilon Redon was born in Bordeaux.

1808:
Napoleon III, president of the Second Republic (185052) and
emperor of France (185270), was born in Paris.
1653:
England's Rump Parliament was dissolved by Oliver Cromwell
and later replaced by the nominated Barebones Parliament, which was dissolved in
the same year, leading to the declaration of the Protectorate.