Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of Cuban exiles financed and trained by the CIA lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the…
16 April 1972
Apollo program: The launch of Apollo 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Apollo 16 mission was the fifth manned mission to land on the moon…
15 April 1896
Closing ceremony of the Games of the I Olympiad in Athens, Greece The 1896 Summer Olympics, also known as the Games of the I Olympiad,…
14 April 1986
The heaviest hailstones ever recorded, each weighing 1 kilogram (2.2 lb), fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92. Hail stones are formed when…
13 April 1941
A pact of neutrality between the USSR and Japan is signed. The Pact of Neutrality between the Soviet Union and Japan was a bilateral agreement…
12 April 1955
The polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective. Jonas Salk was an American medical researcher and virologist who is best…
11 April 2002
The Ghriba synagogue bombing by al-Qaeda kills 21 in Tunisia. The Ghriba synagogue bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on April 11, 2002, at…
10 April 837
Halley’s Comet makes its closest approach to Earth at a distance equal to 0.0342 AU (5.1 million kilometres/3.2 million miles) Halley’s Comet is one of…
9 April 1957
The Suez Canal in Egypt is cleared and opens to shipping following the Suez Crisis. The Suez Canal is an artificial waterway that connects the…
8 April 1911
Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovers superconductivity. Superconductivity is a phenomenon that occurs when certain materials are cooled to extremely low temperatures, usually near absolute…