Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex.

Mae West, a bold and charismatic figure in American entertainment, faced legal challenges due to her 1926 play titled “Sex.” West wrote, directed, and starred in this play, which was performed on Broadway. The play’s content, considered risqué and overtly sexual for its time, led to public controversy and legal scrutiny.

The authorities deemed the play obscene, and in 1927, West was prosecuted. She was convicted of producing an obscene performance, which resulted in a sentence of ten days in jail. Interestingly, Mae West’s time in jail did not dampen her spirit or career; instead, it boosted her public persona and fame. West served eight days of her ten-day sentence, reportedly receiving preferential treatment and even dining with the warden and his wife.

This incident exemplified her fearless approach to social norms and censorship, playing a pivotal role in her becoming an iconic figure who continually pushed the boundaries of acceptability in entertainment. West’s career flourished after this event, with her transitioning into Hollywood, where she became a major film star known for her witty one-liners and sexual innuendos, further cementing her legacy as a trailblazer in challenging and reshaping societal norms about sexuality and censorship.

The Kishinev pogrom in Kishinev (Bessarabia) begins, forcing tens of thousands of Jews to later seek refuge in Palestine and the Western world.

The Kishinev pogrom was a violent attack against the Jewish community in the city of Kishinev (now Chi?in?u, Moldova) in April 1903. The attack was carried out by members of the local population, including peasants and Cossacks, and was reportedly incited by anti-Semitic propaganda disseminated by the Russian Imperial authorities.

During the two-day pogrom, which began on April 19, 1903, Jewish homes and businesses were looted and destroyed, and Jewish men, women, and children were beaten, raped, and murdered. The exact number of casualties is unknown, but it is estimated that at least 49 Jews were killed and over 500 were injured.

The Kishinev pogrom sparked outrage and protests in Jewish communities around the world, and it became a significant event in the history of the Jewish diaspora. The pogrom also played a role in the rise of Zionism as a political movement, as many Jews saw it as evidence of the need for a Jewish homeland where Jews could live in safety and security.

Launch of Salyut 1, the first space station.

The Simpsons first appear as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, first starting with Good Night.

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is killed in a shootout with police. His brother Dzhokhar is later captured hiding in a boat inside a backyard in the suburb of Watertown.

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Captain James Cook sights the eastern coast of what is now Australia.

On April 19, 1770, Captain James Cook spotted and claimed the East Coast of Australia

Cook was born in north-east England in 1728, and in his late teens, he worked on ships along the English coast and the Baltic Sea.

In 1755, he joined the navy, seeing action in Canada and surveying the St Lawrence River, which resulted in the British capture of Quebec.

On 26 August 1768, The HMB Endeavour set sail from England’s Plymouth Harbour, under the command of Captain Cook, an accomplished surveyor, astronomer and navigator.

The ship’s crew was instructed to make for Tahiti, where they would observe and record the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun.

Cook also carried additional instructions from the Admiralty ordering him to explore the Southern Ocean in search of Terra Australis incognita – the unknown southern land.

After the war, Cook’s skills were put on further display when he mapped the coast of the Canadian island of Newfoundland.

Under commission from the Royal Society, the Endeavour entered the South Pacific via Cape Horn, reaching Tahiti in April 1769 where the crew observed the transit of Venus on 3 June.

The first space station, Salyut 1 is launched.

Salyut 1 was the first space station of any kind, launched into low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1971. The Salyut program followed this with five more successful launches out of seven more stations. The final module of the program, Zvezda became the core of the Russian segment of the International Space Station and remains in orbit.

Background
Salyut 1 originated as a modification of the military Almaz space station program then in development. After the landing of Apollo 11 on the Moon in July 1969, the Soviets began shifting the primary emphasis of their manned space program to orbiting space stations, with a possible lunar landing later in the 1970s if the N-1 booster became flight-worthy. One other motivation for the space station program was a desire to one-up the US Skylab program then in development. The basic structure of Salyut 1 was adapted from the Almaz with a few modifications and would form the basis of all Soviet space stations through Mir.

Civilian Soviet space stations were internally referred to as “DOS”, although publicly, the Salyut name was used for the first six DOS stations. Several military experiments were nonetheless carried on Salyut 1, including the OD-4 optical visual ranger, the Orion ultraviolet instrument for characterizing rocket exhaust plumes, and the highly classified Svinets radiometer.

Construction and operational history
Construction of Salyut 1 began in early 1970, and after nearly a year it was shipped to the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Some remaining assembly work had yet to be done and this was completed at the launch center. The Salyut programme was managed by Kerim Kerimov, chairman of the state commission for Soyuz missions.

Launch was planned for April 12, 1971 to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight on Vostok 1, but technical problems delayed it until the 19th. The first crew launched later in the Soyuz 10 mission, but they ran into troubles while docking and were unable to enter the station; the Soyuz 10 mission was aborted and the crew returned safely to Earth. A replacement crew launched in Soyuz 11 and remained on board for 23 days. This was the first time in the history of spaceflight that a space station had been manned, and a new record time was set in space. This success was, however, short-lived when the crew was killed during re-entry, as a pressure-equalization valve in the Soyuz 11 re-entry capsule had opened prematurely, causing the crew to asphyxiate. After this accident, all missions were suspended while the Soyuz spacecraft was redesigned. The station was intentionally destroyed by de-orbiting after six months in orbit, because it ran out of fuel before a redesigned Soyuz spacecraft could be launched to it.

Structure
At launch, the announced purpose of Salyut was to test the elements of the systems of a space station and to conduct scientific research and experiments. The craft was described as being 20 m in length, 4 m in maximum diameter, and 99 m3 in interior space with an on-orbit dry mass of 18,425 kg. Of its several compartments, three were pressurized, and two could be entered by the crew.

Transfer compartment
The transfer compartment was equipped with the only docking port of Salyut 1, which allowed one Soyuz 7K-OKS spacecraft to dock. It was the first use of the Soviet “probe and drogue” type docking system that allowed internal crew transfer, a system that is in use today. The docking cone had a 2 m front diameter and a 3 m aft diameter.

Main compartment
The second, and main, compartment was about 4 m in diameter. Televised views showed enough space for eight big chairs, several control panels, and 20 portholes.

Auxiliary compartments
The third pressurized compartment contained the control and communications equipment, the power supply, the life support system, and other auxiliary equipment. The fourth, and final, unpressurized compartment was about 2 m in diameter and contained the engine installations and associated control equipment. Salyut had buffer chemical batteries, reserve supplies of oxygen and water, and regeneration systems. Externally mounted were two double sets of solar cell panels that extended like wings from the smaller compartments at each end, the heat regulation system’s radiators, and orientation and control devices.

Salyut 1 was modified from one of the Almaz airframes. The unpressurized service module was the modified service module of a Soyuz craft.

Orion 1 Space Observatory
The astrophysical Orion 1 Space Observatory designed by Grigor Gurzadyan of Byurakan Observatory in Armenia, was installed in Salyut 1. Ultraviolet spectrograms of stars were obtained with the help of a mirror telescope of the Mersenne system and a spectrograph of the Wadsworth system using film sensitive to the far ultraviolet. The dispersion of the spectrograph was 32 Å/mm, while the resolution of the spectrograms derived was about 5 Å at 2600 Å. Slitless spectrograms were obtained of the stars Vega and Beta Centauri between 2000 and 3800 Å. The telescope was operated by crew member Viktor Patsayev, who became the first man to operate a telescope outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI of France.

The Treaty of London creates Belgium as a kingdom.