April 7
Rwandan armed forces kill 10 Belgian peacekeeping officers in a successful effort to discourage international intervention in the genocide that had begun only hours earlier. In approximately three months, the Hutu extremists who controlled Rwanda brutally murdered an estimated 500,000 to one million innocent civilian Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the worst episode of ethnic genocide since World War II. – 1994.
April 8
Buddhists celebrate the commemoration of the birth of Gautama Buddha, 563 B.C. to 483 B.C., the founder of Buddhism. – 563 B.C..
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) is approved by the U.S. Congress. President Franklin Roosevelt proposed the WPA during the Great Depression of the 1930s when 25% of Americans were unemployed. It created low-paying federal jobs providing immediate relief and put 8.5 million jobless to work on projects ranging from construction of bridges, highways, and public buildings to arts programs such as Federal Writers’ Project. – 1935.
President Harry S Truman orders the U.S. Army to seize the Nation’s steel mills to avert a strike. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the act illegal three weeks later. – 1952.
In Major League Baseball, Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hits his 715th career home run and breaks Babe Ruth’s legendary record of 714 homers. However, because Aaron was an African American who had received death threats and racist hate mail during his pursuit of one of baseball’s most distinguished records, the achievement was bittersweet. – 1974.
April 9
At Appomattox, Va., Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War. Forced to abandon the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va., blocked from joining the surviving Confederate force in North Carolina, and harassed constantly by Union cavalry, Lee had no other option. – 1865.
April 10
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is founded in New York City by philanthropist and diplomat Henry Bergh. – 1866.
U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt establishes the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), an innovative federally-funded organization that put thousands of Americans to work during the Great Depression on projects with environmental benefits. – 1933.
The horror film “The House of Wax,” starring Vincent Price, opens at New York City’s Paramount Theater. It was the first movie from a major motion-picture studio to be shot using the three-dimensional, or stereoscopic, film process and one of the first horror films to be shot in color. – 1953.
The USS Thresher, an atomic submarine, sinks in the Atlantic Ocean and kills the entire crew. One hundred and twenty-nine sailors and civilians died when the sub unexpectedly plunged to the sea floor 300 miles off the coast of New England. – 1963.
April 11
Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and one of the greatest military leaders in history, abdicates the throne, and, in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba. – 1814.
U.S. president Jimmy Carter, along with first lady, Rosalynn Carter, were hosts to children at the traditional White House “Easter egg roll.” – 1977.
Approximately 25,000 marchers in Watsonville, Calif. show support for United Farm Workers organizing campaign among strawberry workers. – 1997.
April 12
The bloodiest four years in American history begin when Confederate shore batteries, under General P.G.T. Beauregard, open fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Bay. Two days later, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to quell the Southern insurrection. – 1861.
Aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, becomes the first human being to travel into space. – 1961.
The space shuttle Columbia is launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., to become the first reusable manned spacecraft to travel into space. – 1981.
April 13
Disaster strikes 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blows up on Apollo 13, the third manned lunar landing mission. Astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise had left Earth two days earlier for the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon, but were forced to turn their attention to simply making it home alive. – 1970.