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This Day in World History
In 1259, the great Mongol Empire — which stretched from parts of China west to Russia — was shaken for the second time by the death of its leader, or khan, when Mongke, a grandson of the founder Genghis Khan, died. One of his brothers, Kublai, left his army in China, came back to Mongolia, and had himself declared the Great Khan.
: This Day in World History
In the middle of the night, 2 May 2011, a brief message was radioed from Pakistan to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia: “EKIA.” “EKIA” is military shorthand for “enemy killed in action.” The enemy was Osama bin Laden. After a manhunt of nearly ten years, the United States had found and killed the al Qaeda leader who had ordered the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.
This Day in World History
April 26, 1994 marked the beginning of the end of a period of monumental change in South Africa. On that day, for the first time in the nation’s history, more than 17 million black South Africans began casting their votes for government officials. When the election ended four days later, the vote made Nelson Mandela South Africa’s first black president.
This Day in World History
The April 25, 1953 edition of the journal Nature included a scientific paper that opened new doors in scientific understanding. The paper, written by James Watson and Francis Crick, described the structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), the substance that determines the hereditary traits of a living organism.
The date 23 April 1616 marked the end of two eras in world literature; for on that day, two giants of Renaissance letters died. Poet and playwright William Shakespeare died in his home at Stratford-upon-Avon. Farther south, Spanish poet, playwright, and novelist Miguel de Cervantes also passed away.
This Day in World History
“What we have as yet seen of this land appears rather low, and not very hilly, the face of the Country green and Woody, but the Sea shore is all a white Sand.” Thus James Cook concluded his log entry for April 19, 1770 — the day Europeans first sighted the continent of Australia.
This Day in World History
Shortly after 5:12 A.M. on April 18, 1906, and for as long as a minute, the earth shook violently along nearly 300 miles of the San Andreas Fault in California. The violent earthquake, estimated around 8 on the Richter scale, caused severe damage from Salinas, south of San Francisco, to Santa Rosa, north of the city. People as far away as southern Oregon, Los Angeles, and central Nevada felt its tremors.
This Day in World History
Painter, sketch artist, sculptor, architect, civil and military engineer, cartographer, anatomist, physical scientist, botanist, geologist, mathematician, and more — Leonardo da Vinci defined the phrase “Renaissance man.” Born on April 15, 1452, and dying at 67, he produced a body of work that remains unrivaled. Giorgio Vasari, biographer of the great Italian artists of the Renaissance, aptly called Leonardo “truly marvelous and celestial.”
This Day in World History
On April 12, 1204, French and Italian Crusaders breached the walls of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire and one of the richest cities in the world. Their capture of this rich prize launched one of the most destructive sacks of a city in history. But why did Crusaders who set off to win control of the Holy Land from Muslims attach the chief city of the Eastern Orthodox Church?
This Day in World History
On April 10, 1516, the government of Venice officially confined the city’s Jews to one small area of the city—the first Jewish ghetto. This area remained the required home to the city’s Jews until Napoleon took the city in 1797 and abolished it. Nevertheless, the old ghetto remains the center of Venetian Jewry.
This Day in World History
On April 8, 1953, Jomo Kenyatta and five associates were sentenced by a British judge to seven years hard labor for allegedly directing the Mau Mau rebellion, a bloody, ongoing violent protest against European domination of what is now Kenya.
This Day in World History
An estimated 60,000 spectators witnessed the opening ceremonies of the first modern Olympic Games, held in Athens, Greece, on April 6, 1896. The ceremonies took place in the Panathinaiko Stadium, originally built in 330 B.C. and rebuilt in gleaming marble for the occasion.
On 4th April 1968, as he stood on a balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel of Memphis, Martin Luther King, Jr., was struck in the neck by a sniper’s bullet. The bullet severed his spinal cord, killing him instantly. King’s death was followed by rioting in several of the nation’s cities.
This Day in World History
Poet T.S. Eliot might still be right—the world might end with a whimper. But on April 1, 1948, physicists George Gamow and Ralph Alpher first proposed the now prevailing idea of how the universe began—with a big bang.
This Day in World History
On January 2, 1492, Ferdinand II, King of Aragon, and Isabella, Queen of Castile, completed La Reconquista (the Reconquest) — the Christian victory over Muslims in Spain — by forcing the surrender of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold. Less than two months later, they signed a decree that signaled the end of the toleration of another religious group within their lands. On March 30, they ordered that all of Spain’s Jews had to either convert to Christianity or leave the country. And those Jews had just four months to make their choices.
This Day in World History
In the wake of France’s defeat by Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War, workers and students of Paris joined together to form a revolutionary government called the Paris Commune. Elected on March 26, the Commune was in direct opposition to the conservative national government. Some historians call the period of the Commune’s rule the first working-class revolt. Though historic, the rebellion failed.