April 3 - Events

Events

• 1043 – Edward the Confessor is crowned King of England.
• 1077 – The first Parliament of Friuli is created.
• 1559 – The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis treaty is signed, ending the Italian Wars.
• 1834 – The generals in the Greek War of Independence stand trial for treason.
• 1860 – The first successful United States Pony Express run from Saint Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California begins.
• 1865 – American Civil War: Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America.
• 1882 – American Old West: Jesse James is killed by Robert Ford.
• 1885 – Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for his engine design.
• 1888 – The first of eleven unsolved brutal murders of women committed in or near the impoverished Whitechapeldistrict in the East End of London, occurs.
• 1895 – Trial of the libel case instigated by Oscar Wilde begins, eventually resulting in his imprisonment on charges of homosexuality.
• 1917 – Vladimir Lenin arrives in Russia from exile, marking the beginning of Bolshevik leadership in the Russian Revolution.
• 1922 – Joseph Stalin becomes the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
• 1929 – RMS Queen Mary is ordered from John Brown & Company Shipbuilding and Engineering by Cunard Line.
• 1936 – Bruno Richard Hauptmann is executed for the kidnapping and death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh II, the baby son of pilotCharles Lindbergh.
• 1942 – World War II: Japanese forces begin an assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula.
• 1946 – Japanese Lt. General Masaharu Homma is executed in the Philippines for leading the Bataan Death March.
• 1948 – President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries.
• 1948 – In Jeju, South Korea, a civil-war-like period of violence and human rights abuses begins, known as the Jeju massacre.
• 1955 – The American Civil Liberties Union announces it will defend Allen Ginsberg's book Howl against obscenity charges.
• 1956 – Hudsonville-Standale Tornado: The western half of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan is struck by a deadly F5 tornado.
• 1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech.
• 1969 – Vietnam War: U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announces that the United States will start to "Vietnamize" the war effort.
• 1973 – The first portable cell phone call is made in New York City, United States.
• 1974 – The Super Outbreak occurs, the biggest tornado outbreak in recorded history. The death toll is 315, with nearly 5,500 injured.
• 1975 – Bobby Fischer refuses to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, giving Karpov the title of World Champion by default.
• 1982 – The United Kingdom sends a naval task force to the south Atlantic to reclaim the disputed Falkland Islands from Argentina.
• 1996 – Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski is arrested at his cabin in Montana, United States.
• 1996 – A United States Air Force airplane carrying United States Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown crashes in Croatia, killing all 35 on board.
• 1997 – The Thalit massacre begins in Algeria; all but 1 of the 53 inhabitants of Thalit are killed by guerrillas.
• 2000 – United States v. Microsoft: Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust laws by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors.
• 2004 – Islamic terrorists involved in the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks are trapped by the police in their apartment and kill themselves.
• 2007 – Conventional-Train World Speed Record: a French TGV train on the LGV Est high speed line sets an official new world speed record.
• 2008 – ATA Airlines, once one of the 10 largest U.S. passenger airlines and largest charter airline, files for bankruptcy for the second time in 5 years and ceases all operations.
• 2008 – SWAT teams members raid the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado, Texas after getting a call claiming underage marriages and child abuse were going on inside the ranch.